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thread of ribbon leading up to a sagging helium balloon; he heard a radio tuned to some Lite FM station. At last she walked them into what seemed to be a hospital ward. The odour of disinfectant was high.
    ‘All righty, let's put these on.’ She handed them both green surgical gowns and hats, pulled back a green curtain and there it was. A slab on a gurney, under a rough sheet.
    She moved a pair of spectacles from her head and settled them on her nose. ‘Here's where I got to before I was so rudely interrupted,’ she said, pulling back the sheet.
    The body was on its side, a vast hulk of pale white flesh like the underside of a fish, though now tinged with green. Was that the light reflecting off the curtains? Tom couldn't tell. Strangely, his eye found the unbroken flesh first. The wound, the torn opening in the back, ringed by frayed threads of red, he only saw later, and when he saw it he could not look away. It was the depth of it that appalled him, the deep, red depth of it.
    ‘… consistent with severe trauma to the trunk, shattered shoulder blade, ruptured lung and exploded right ventricle…’
    Tom was not listening. His eye was still gazing into the crimson gash, now congealed. It had the broken, rough edges of a hole in a plaster wall, as if a fist had punched right through it.
    ‘Let me turn him over for you.’
    The two men had been standing opposite the pathologist, with the body between them and her. Now, they moved around so that they were alongside her. There was no smell yet, but the sight was powerful enough. Tom felt a hint of nausea.
    ‘You can see the exit hole here. Which means you'll have to be looking for a bullet.’
    Tom focused on the dead man's face. The passport photograph must have been recent; the same full, roundness of head was still visible, hard as abilliard ball. He moved his hand forward, contemplating a touch.
    ‘Don't!’
    He looked up at the pathologist, who was holding two latexed hands up in the air. ‘You don't have gloves.’
    Tom gestured his retreat and took the opportunity to ask a question. ‘Can I see his eyes?’
    She stepped closer and, with no hesitation, pulled back one eyelid, then another, as roughly as if she were checking on a roasting chicken.
    For that brief second, the inert lump of dead flesh, a butcher's product, was transformed back into a man. The eyes seemed to look directly at Tom's own. If they were saying something, Tom had missed it. The moment was too short.
    ‘I'm sorry, can I see his eyes again?’
    ‘Pretty striking, huh?’
    Tom hadn't noticed it the first time but now, as she pulled back both lids, pinning them with her latex thumbs and holding the position, he saw immediately what she meant. They were a bright, piercing blue.
    ‘He was strong, wasn't he?’ Tom pointed at the thickness of the dead man's upper arms. When his father had hit his seventies his arms had thinned, the skin eventually flapping loosely. But this corpse still had biceps.
    ‘You bet. Look at this.’ She pulled back the rest of the sheet revealing a flaccid penis, its foreskin drooping limply, before prodding the man's thickthighs: the butcher's shop again. ‘That's some serious muscle.’
    ‘And that's unusual for a man this age?’
    ‘Highly. Must have been some kind of fitness freak.’
    ‘What about that?’ It was Sherrill, anxious not to be forgotten – and to remind Tom who was in charge here. He was gesturing at a patch of metal bandaged to the dead man's left leg like a footballer's shin pad.
    ‘That appears to be some kind of support. It's unusual. When plates are used in reconstructive surgery, they're inserted under the skin. This is obviously temporary. Maybe it was used as a splint after a muscle strain. Odd to use metal though. It will probably become clearer once we see the deceased's medical records.’
    ‘What about that?’ Sherrill asked pointing at the lifeless left foot. There was a big toe, another one next to it and then a space