Down Among the Dead Men (7 page)

Graham added, ‘She got really worked up, too.’

Clive nodded. ‘Took me forty minutes to calm her down and get rid of her, but she didn’t leave it there. A week later, Dick got a letter. It wasn’t in green ink, but it could
have been. She insisted that, as head of department, he was the one who had substituted an actor for her husband, and she demanded to know what he had done with him.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He put the letter in his desk drawer and tried to forget about it.’

Graham laughed again. ‘He did the same with the next one . . . and the next.’

Clive joined in with the laughter. ‘He was still getting them ten years later when he retired.’

TWELVE

I had been working at the mortuary for a couple of months when I arrived in good time one Monday morning, feeling like an old hand now and thinking I knew what to expect; it
had already become evident to me that Clive had a stable morning routine that rarely altered. I rang the doorbell and he greeted me with a smile. I could hear the usual Radio 2 blasting out in the
background from the PM room and walked into the office just as the kettle had clicked off. Clive had all the cups ready for the hot drinks, but I couldn’t help noticing that the smell was
definitely not the usual disinfectant smell. This was different. This was
rotten
; it reminded me vaguely of how Mr Patterson had smelt by the time he left us, only much worse. Clive
didn’t mention it, so neither did I, but I did begin to question if he could actually smell it; I wondered whether, after so many years in the business, he had become used to stenches like
that, or even lost the ability to detect them altogether.

Graham arrived and instantly said with a grimace, ‘How long has that been hanging around?’

So, I wasn’t going nuts, and there really was a foul smell in the air. Clive said that he didn’t know because he had not yet had the pleasure of opening the fridge. Graham turned
around and went straight to the body store mumbling something about getting it over and done with and out the way. I followed him.

Four trays on the left-hand end of the twenty-eight-fridge bay were larger than the rest. These were for obese patients, which back then were very few and far between, so they were also used as
an isolation bay for decomposed bodies. Because most of the time they were empty, we didn’t have to open the door very often, so that the smell wasn’t able to leak out and contaminate
the whole department.

When Graham opened the fridge, the smell hit me like a ton of bricks, and then proceeded to do over and above its duty by further smacking into the back of my throat with an almost physical
punch, and that was while the body was still concealed inside three body bags. I waited in dread-filled expectation for these to be opened, wondering just how it could get any more offensive.
Graham approached the tray which the body lay on without thinking twice, and for the first time since I had started, I saw him wearing gloves.

If you can picture the goriest horror film you have ever seen and double it, then you’re just beginning to have some idea of what he exposed when the final body bag was unzipped. When he
did this, although the stench – by now even more potent and eye-watering – would normally have wiped everything else from my awareness, what lay in front of me vied for attention and
won; it was a slimy, green, moving body. Layers of skin falling away, huge blisters waiting to spill their watery contents, lips and eyelids eaten away so that the teeth and eyeballs were exposed
in the most horrific manner. The reason it was moving was that it was infested with maggots that were having a huge feast on human flesh and were writhing like a Mexican wave at a Premiership
football match. Clive informed me airily that the human body was a perfect environment for maggots. Since I had not really had any idea of what was going to be revealed, I was slightly annoyed that
I had been subjected to such a sight and smell without prior warning, while Clive and Graham obviously knew what lay ahead of us.

But I realized then that this was how it was going to be. No deliberate surprises, just things as nature intended them to be – its own way of disposing of a body if the person was unlucky
enough to die on their own and not be found. This did not put me off the job, but did make my skin crawl and the smell catching the back of my throat made me retch. Since I did not want to run from
the mortuary screaming, I dealt with it and told myself again and again that it would get easier with experience.

Clive asked if I was OK and began to tell me how he had seen six-foot males brought to the floor by such sights. He did not elaborate on this, but I was beginning to learn that Clive liked to
drip feed you only little bits of information at a time. So we left it at that and I stood back as Graham wheeled the trolley past me to take the body through to the post-mortem room. The body was
transferred over to the PM table, left in its bags, door closed behind it and we all returned to the office for the coffee that we were going to have originally, while we waited for the pathologist
to arrive. After a while, though, the smell of the rotting body seemed to be getting worse, so I asked Clive if it was all right to go out for some fresh air. Graham came with me and after ten
minutes it was time to face it again. When we returned Dr Burberry was having a coffee with Clive in the office and merrily regaling him with the news that the stench of the decomposed body was
wafting through the whole lab above us, and the staff were complaining once again. It was far, far worse than Mr Patterson and, at the time, I truly believed I would never have to experience
worse.

How wrong I was, though.

Having identified the body from the labels attached, Ed told Graham he could get on with the evisceration, and he went back upstairs to continue reporting surgical pathology specimens from
living patients. Graham and I put on our scrubs, after which I stood in the background watching. From what Neville at the Coroner’s office had said, it turned out that this person was female
and had, in the prime of her life, been a GP. As she got older, the GP side came racing back to the surface and, thinking she knew better than other doctors and could self-diagnose, she refused any
help from her own family doctor. Because she had no next of kin, and because she was a private woman with no friends, this had led to isolation and she had subsequently died a lonely death without
being discovered for – as I was eventually to learn – a couple of weeks. Graham then went on to tell me how we were lucky it was late winter – if it had been summer, he said with
a wink, she would have been a lot worse. My initial reaction was to wonder just
how
she could possibly get a lot worse.

As Graham rolled the lady out of the bag, it was evident that she was fully dressed and her legs were wrapped in a blanket. This blanket had stuck to her body due to decomposition and it, too,
was gently moving. As Graham pulled it back, another writhing ocean of maggots was exposed, more than I could ever have imagined in one place. I was not able to stomach any more at that point and
was excused from the room. I ventured back into the office, where Clive was sitting at the computer on his desk. ‘Too much for you?’ he asked with that half-smile I was starting to know
so well. I guess the fact that I was ashen and holding my breath at intervals to stop myself heaving gave the game away.

I was embarrassed, and thought this would be the end of my career as a Medical Technical Officer, but when, after ten minutes, I returned to the dissection room feeling slightly more in control
of my breakfast, I was received by Graham and Dr Burberry with great compassion. This was not a job for the faint-hearted, and they both knew that. This was a job that, given a small amount of
bravery and acceptance, becomes a day-to-day occurrence that you
can
get used to.

I went home that evening, collapsed on the sofa after our evening dog walk, and drifted off to sleep. I was woken suddenly by a dream of the decomposed body getting up off the table and coming
out of the PM room to get me, maggots and all. I spent an hour that night after I woke thinking about whether I was going to return to the morgue the next day, as this did freak me out. But, me
being me, curiosity got the better of my misgivings and I was back there at seven forty the next morning ready for the kettle clicking to tell me that it had boiled.

THIRTEEN

The smell had not died down the following day, but as I was let in I had a pleasant surprise: Clive presented me with a bunch of keys. After nine weeks or so I had earned the
right to my very own set. Clive sat me down with a coffee and explained the importance of owning a set of keys to the hospital mortuary. This was big business to him, a sort of ceremony, and I
finally felt part of the team. I also felt extremely chuffed that I had been given this responsibility so early into my new role, but scared at the same time. What, precisely, did this mean? I was
about to be told.

I was aware that the mortuary had an on-call procedure, but that was all I did know; this state of ignorance was about to change, though, as I was going to be informed about everything you need
to know to do on-call and be asked to participate. I had been led to believe that it was usual practice for a technician to be given a three-month trial period to see if they and the managers were
happy with their progress; only then, if everyone was satisfied, were they expected to join the on-call rota. In my case, two months or so down the line and I was already being given my own set of
keys to the department (only three sets existed in total) and being asked to come on to the rota. I had obviously made progress without realizing it.

Clive went on tell me how he was impressed by my attitude: the fact that I had returned after the retired GP episode apparently proved that I had what it takes. I could not say at the time that
I agreed with this, but it meant a chance to prove myself so I was not about to argue. Clive went on to explain what my responsibilities would be when I was on call. After the mortuary was closed
in the evening at four thirty, the switchboard would have my mobile number, and they would call me if I was needed. This would involve viewings of the deceased out of working hours if families
requested it which, at that time, could be any time of the night. The policy has since changed (thank goodness) to a couple of hours added on to the end of the working day.

He went on to say, and at the time it was news to me but I soon became fully aware of it, that the public perception of a mortuary is that it is manned 24/7. This is understandable as the main
hospital is staffed twenty-four hours a day and you would not expect a ward to be left unstaffed. He went on to tell me about how he had often been called out at ‘stupid o’clock’
in the morning for the family of a deceased relative who arrived drunk and then decided that they had changed their minds when they arrived. When we meet a family, we take them into the
relatives’ waiting area, and when we are ready, they are invited into the viewing room to spend some time with the deceased. It is all done very smoothly (assuming that the family allow
this), but there is a lot to do beforehand. It means getting into the mortuary in plenty of time before the family, making sure we are dressed in suitable clothing to present ourselves to the
family, then getting the deceased out of the fridge. It is essential that you ensure that you have the right person for the right family (understandably, they can get very angry if you show them a
dead stranger) and then you have the task of making the deceased presentable. Death sometimes has a horrible way of leaving a person looking unpeaceful, as I remembered from my first week with the
old gentleman whose mouth was gaping and eyes were staring.

I asked Clive about this, and he decided that there was no time like the present, so he took me through to the body store and got a random body out of the fridge. It just so happened that this
person had died with their eyes and mouth open. Clive went on to complain about this becoming more regular when a person died on the ward. There was and is in place the Trust’s ‘Last
Offices’ policy that requires the ward to present the body to the mortuary in a suitable manner; this involves packing of cavities and, where possible, closing eyes. If this is done just
after death then the eyelids will stay down but, if not, it becomes a problem. At least in this case, the fact that they hadn’t followed the policy had done me a favour, as Clive would be
able to show me exactly what to do, but I could tell he was upset that the body had been sent to the mortuary from the ward in this way. He had high standards when it came to how the deceased
should be treated. He didn’t seem to deal with the living too kindly, but at least he had great pride in his job.

He started to show me how to make things better. He got a pillow and placed it under the deceased’s head; he then got a head block and placed that under the pillow; raising the head this
way caused the mouth to close. Next he got a tiny piece of cotton wool and some forceps; he placed the smallest amount of cotton wool on the eye and lifted the eyelid over it. This simple act
caused the eye to stay closed. Clive preferred this to gluing the eyelids together with superglue – which some morticians do – and, I have to admit, I was immediately sold, so that it
is a practice I still follow today. He told me about how his predecessor preferred to put an invisible stitch in the mouth, but that he considered such practices very invasive and preferred to see
if he could solve the problems through other means. By the time Clive had finished, the deceased looked peaceful, as if he were sound asleep. To help with this, Clive had worked out the worry lines
in the forehead by gently massaging them and straightened the mouth to a relaxed look. He made everything look so easy, and was rightly proud of his achievement.

It took Clive all of ten minutes to do this but what worried me was that, at least to begin with, I knew it would take me longer.

The switchboard was given my number and, as of the following week, I would be officially on call for the hospital. This went for the Coroner too, as I would also be working for him in a
roundabout way; in turn, Clive added, that meant the possibility of having to do forensic post-mortems.