'Then would you mind explaining,' asked Clive, 'why she just exploded and did G.o.d knows how much damage to the crematorium?'

The point is that when our patients come into the mortuary, they are liable to have had all sorts of things done to them, and all sorts of things put into them, and some of these have consequences even after they have pa.s.sed away. On the whole, fillings, artificial hips and knees, and most of the ironmongery that surgeons put in are fine and the fire of the crematorium doesn't touch them; they're left among the ashes to be retrieved by the crematorium staff. Pacemakers, though, are different. Pacemakers, when heated to the temperature of the fires at the crematorium, explode, and it's not a m.u.f.fled little affair, either. They go BANG and will easily damage the walls of the furnace. Not only that, but can you imagine the distress of the deceased's nearest and dearest when, just as they are filing out of the chapel saying their thank-yous to the vicar, there is a loud explosion, the ground rocks and things fall off the walls of the vestry? Not surprisingly they are perturbed and, when they discover that Uncle Alf hasn't so much been cremated as splattered all over the shop, they are upset.

So it's important that pacemakers are taken out before they go to the fires. The cremation papers specifically ask if there is a pacemaker (and, if so, has it been removed) but it is usually down to us to do the actual business of making the incision and winkling the thing out. In the case of Mrs Dellaway Maddie had forgotten to do this, and so she had gone out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Actually pacemakers cause us a lot of trouble in the mortuary in other ways. In the old days, all pacemakers were just harmless little things about the size of a box of matches; they're usually put in just under the skin in front of the left shoulder, with a lead going from there into the heart, and they're accordingly easy to take out. All these ones do is send a regular, small electric shock to the heart to make sure it keeps beating. Nowadays, more and more of them are sophisticated and actually sense what the heart is doing; if it stops, they will deliver a large electric shock to restart it. From our point of view this presents a serious problem: in order to get the pacemaker out, we have to cut the leads to the heart, and the b.l.o.o.d.y thing interprets this as the heart stopping, so we get the shock. Some mortuary staff have been severely injured. The cardiac technicians have to come over and wave a special wand over them to switch them off, and if this is not picked up on and the leads are cut, you may need an ambulance on stand-by.

Telling which are the ordinary ones and which are the lethal ones is becoming harder and harder, so every time we take out a pacemaker, we tend to utter a silent prayer to St Dismas, the patron saint of mortuary technicians.

THIRTY-EIGHT.

Christmas in the Williams household has always been a big deal. When Michael and I were children, it was a strict rule that no matter what time we woke up in the morning, be it five or eight thirty, we were not allowed downstairs until our parents woke and took the lead. Right up until our early teens, before we both discovered alcohol and Christmas Eve on the town with our friends, Michael and I would always abandon one of our bedrooms and share the same room on the night before, and wait and watch for Father Christmas. This process usually involved one of us dragging the mattress across the landing to whoever was occupying the bigger room, and it was the only night of the year we would be granted Mum's approval for this act.

Dad would always go first down the stairs when my parents woke on Christmas morning. He would open the door to the lounge and, guaranteed every year, would turn to us both and say, 'Sorry, kids, he's not been,' his face looking disappointed. And, again, up until our early teens Michael and I fell for it every time. As our faces dropped while we sat on the bottom of the stairs, Dad would open the lounge door slowly to reveal the whole room overflowing with presents. An armchair each piled high, with plenty surrounding the floor around them.

Michael and I might now be grown up, with our own homes and lives, but it's as if it has been ingrained into us unconsciously that Christmas Day needs to be spent with each other as a family. Around about November each year, Mum asks us what we have in mind for the big day, if anything, and tells us earnestly that she doesn't mind if we have plans to spend Christmas Day elsewhere. 'Dad and I don't mind at all,' she always says. 'We can see you before or after, it's not a problem. We know you're grown up now.' I wouldn't have things any other way, though, and even Michael will spend the day away from Sarah his girlfriend, while she is with her parents (although his mobile, guaranteed, will be going non-stop during the day, and she will always happily join us for the evening). Luke and I share our families; his being larger than mine, we are able to spend Boxing Day with them without feeling we have left anyone on their own.

When Mum had initially mentioned Christmas in early November, my first thought was to wonder, Am I going to be on call? As much as I cared about the mortuary and its patients, this was the last thing I wanted. Being on call meant no partic.i.p.ation in the champagne breakfast, staying on soft drinks in the local pub for the customary two hours it would open in the morning, one gla.s.s of wine with Christmas dinner to toast the day, and being the sober hostess for the evening while all the family and friends arrived and tucked into the spirits cabinet. I fully admit, I cringed at this thought. In my old job, if I had to work and as I organized the rotas, I had an advantage I would make sure that I was on the night duty Christmas Eve, which no one wanted to work anyway, with a finish at seven in the morning Christmas Day, so the whole day was free; or, if not that, then the early shift with a two-thirty finish Christmas Day, ready to catch up with the festivities in the afternoon.

Clive was not overly impressed when I had asked him about the on-call over Christmas, and I fully understood that he must have had an absolute gutful of doing it over the years. He started to tell me about how he had been called in for a forensic post-mortem at 6 p.m. one Christmas day, and that he had brought his pudding with him, along with a paper hat, cheese and biscuits, and a cigar, and had enthusiastically partaken of these in the office while he was waiting for the police to arrive. My spine ran cold at the thought of this happening to me, but I also felt I could not let him down, and that he half expected me (all right, three-quarters expected me) to take the stand this Christmas. With Graham no longer around as a working body, and Maddie fairly new on the scene, I knew I was trapped and the responsibility was going to lie with me.

Maddie had yet to arrive for work, because she had an appointment that morning and was not going to be in till a couple of hours after our normal 8 a.m. start. With no PMs that morning, Clive and I sat in the office, me with a face that could sink a battleship at the thought of working Christmas Day, and Clive reminiscing about Christmases past, almost like a modern-day Scrooge. Always pleased to see Maddie, I cannot explain the feeling of relief when she walked into the mortuary late that morning. Clive continued with his Scrooge impression and Maddie gave me that 'What is he on about?' look as she sat down. Clive must have seen this, as he started to repeat his stories to Maddie about covering the mortuary over Christmas. I could see that Maddie could read the pain on my face and she interrupted Clive confidently. 'So who is supposed to be covering this year?' she asked brightly. The room went silent; I was not about to offer my time, and neither was Clive.

'I haven't yet done the rota,' Clive replied. 'As Graham's no longer with us, I need to think about things carefully.'

What came next out of Maddie's mouth was music to my ears. 'I'll do it. I hate Christmas. As long as somebody is willing to cover New Year's Eve and Day, I'm happy to do the Christmas period cover.'

I wanted to jump out of my seat and hug her. Clive's response was not as swift though, until I reminded him that I, too, had only been with them a short time when I took on the responsibility of the out-of-hours service. And the fact that I then said I would support Maddie in any major problems over the festive season probably clinched the deal with Clive and he agreed since this took him out of the equation completely. Total and utter relief on my behalf. I knew Maddie would not be in contact with me on a work basis unless it went completely Pete Tong, and this doesn't happen often as the dead, despite rumour to the contrary, do not go anywhere.

So, Christmas Day arrived, and Maddie did ring early, but only to wish us Merry Christmas. I invited her to join us at my parents', but she had her mind set on staying in and wasting the day. Maddie was a huge learning curve for me: I think it seemed so odd that not everyone celebrates Christmas. We don't exactly do it in a religious way, for the reason that the Christian churches believe it should be celebrated, but I was not about to argue with the public holiday and the sense of family love it gives us.

Luke and I, again dressed in our Sunday best as has always been the norm when it comes to the Williamses on Christmas Day, walked to my parents' with the dogs after our short morning together enjoying each other's presents and breakfast at home. We settled Harvey and Oscar on the sofas once we arrived, then waited (as usual) on Michael arriving while the dogs were teased by Dad for the 'doggie antlers' they were wearing. We then all attended the local pub on my parents' estate. Just as we started to get into the Christmas spirit the pub called time and we returned to the dogs, who had taken up residence in the kitchen at Mum and Dad's house thanks to the smell of the turkey and beef coming out of the oven. Then, as on every other Christmas Day, we amused ourselves with games, these days DVD interactive ones which have taken over from the old board games. But, as ever, the playing cards and dominoes came out at some point. Dad won every one, as per tradition, but not without strong compet.i.tion from Michael and Luke. We were then interrupted by the one and only Mrs Williams presenting a fantastic traditional Christmas dinner.

This devoured, the table was cleared, then there were more DVD games for a while, before moving on to music at about six o'clock as other family and friends began to arrive. It usually turns out that at least fifteen people pa.s.s through my parents' door on Christmas Day alone. Mum always makes sure that she has enough food for a cold buffet to feed everyone. It was going just as it should do and, I suppose, going too well.

My mobile rang. When I looked at the screen, I saw that it was Maddie and I knew at once that here was trouble. 'Yes, Maddie?'

She sounded devastated. 'I am so sorry to be bothering you, Mich.e.l.le . . .'

My heart, hovering somewhere about the level of my knees, dropped to the soles of my shoes. 'What is it, Maddie?'

'There's a forensic. A young lad's been knifed in Whaddon and he's high risk.'

THIRTY-NINE.

I had to get a taxi to take me to the hospital because Luke was a little too far gone to drive and I couldn't blame him; I have to admit to being slightly frayed at the edges myself as I sat in the back of the taxi and cursed my luck. It was costing megabucks, but I hoped that Ed would swing it for the Trust to pay. I felt mighty low, what with being dragged away from the celebrations and sitting in the back of a smelly taxi, probably on a dried sick stain; the driver was none too chatty either; seemed to think he was doing me a favour. I thought, Should have turned my phone off, but I knew that I would never have done that to Maddie.

She was in a right state when I arrived. The forensic pathologist, Nick Jones from Cardiff, had already arrived and wanted to get going double quick, and poor Maddie had gone into a bit of a meltdown. She had only done two forensics before but never a high risk one (for which two people are needed anyway). I took charge at once, finding it surprisingly natural. I put on scrubs and told her that I would act as the technician while she would be the runner. She didn't argue and immediately looked relieved.

When I entered the dissection room, I began to understand why she had been so nervous, because for this particular forensic the whole shebang was there enough police officers to control a riot, SOCOs, two Coroner's officers and, I was astonished to discover, the Coroner himself. That was unheard of and I began to suspect that this was no ordinary deceased person.

Nor was it, because it was the grandson of General Armitage, who had had a long and distinguished war record. Bill explained to me in a whisper that the grandson, suffering from schizophrenia, had gone off the rails big time and fallen among drug-dealers, living in a squat and no longer taking his medicine. He had contracted hepat.i.tis from dirty needles and been in very poor health for some time. He had apparently got into a knife fight with one of the other members of the squat and been stabbed several times in the abdomen.

There wasn't much conversation and certainly not much Christmas cheer about the place. Bill's face when he muttered, 'Merry Christmas,' could hardly be described as enthusiastic. As I looked around the room, I could see, too, that I was not the only one who had been called away from the party spirit.

As it happened, it turned out to be a typical forensic post-mortem. The wounds had penetrated his liver and small intestine, causing him to bleed to death in fairly short order. Unfortunately for me, Nick found several potential injection sites which he enthusiastically cut down on, as well as several bruises large and small on his arms and legs from which he stripped the skin with gay abandon. By the time he had finished, the corpse looked as if it had been through a flaying machine.

Three hours later and he was done, so that the mortuary emptied with quite astonishing speed; by three o'clock Maddie and I were alone, tired and depressed as we looked at the work that was still to be done to clear up. We set to with energy that came from an overwhelming desire to be up and out of there, and managed to get things fairly clean and tidy in forty-five minutes.

I got out of the taxi outside my parents' house at five thirty on Boxing Day morning ready to drop and not get back up again. I tried not to make too much noise as I let myself in, then crept up to the spare room where Luke was snoring to himself. I climbed in beside him without waking him up.

FORTY.

Clive summed it up. 'Whose stupid idea was it to have two bank holidays in a row?'

Both Maddie and I could only agree. Because I'd been the one on call over the New Year, I'd had to go into the mortuary after a busy social weekend and, accordingly, had been feeling like a corpse myself; it was unseasonably warm and that somehow made it worse. This year was proving a nightmare because the bank holiday period was even longer than usual and bodies were piling up after several days of only the porters having access to the mortuary. Because all the porters are able to do is take them from the place in the hospital where they died, or give access to undertakers bringing in Coroner's bodies, then put them in a fridge and shut the door, it means that eventually we run out of s.p.a.ce, and then they ring one of us, at any given time of the day or night, to say that there's only one fridge s.p.a.ce left. So what are we supposed to do? Take the dead home with us? Do I prop them up on my dining-room chairs till the holidays are over? So, at three-thirty in the afternoon on the Tuesday after New Year, I had to make my way into work.

Over my first few months in the slightly tatty mortuary, I had learnt to enjoy coming into work. Despite what we have to do in there, despite the terrible things we see, and the sadness and tragedy that inevitably accompany death, the people that I work with the sense of teamwork and comradeship and the knowledge that we are doing an important job mean it isn't always a bad place to be.

Coming in alone on a winter bank holiday, though, was different. Then the mortuary was empty and cold and forbidding; it was made worse by the fact that I had a huge hangover something that I would normally never allow myself to do and that I only had a dyslexic undertaker for company; he dotes on me and had willingly volunteered to give me a lift in. What I had to do was to figure out which bodies needed to be moved to our sister hospital (which has more fridge s.p.a.ce). The only ones that would be able to be transferred would be those that had had a post-mortem where a natural cause of death had been found, and therefore the paperwork accompanying the body would be complete.

I finally got to return to my parents' an hour or so after the New Year's meal my mother had been looking forward to cooking since Christmas Day was over. On my return, Dad asked brightly, 'Many in, love?' as he had taken to doing. I replied with an exhausted grunt and collapsed on the sofa in my usual fashion.

I spent the rest of the evening worrying about the stress that the next day was going to bring for all three of us technicians and about how co-operative the pathologist was going to be feeling. I had a suspicion that I was not going to get much sleep that night.

Most of the hospital tends to wind down over Christmas, with the operating theatres shut and as many of the patients as are well enough to go sent home. As Maddie explained, this means that the laboratory becomes fairly quiet. Far from it, down here with the dead men. Over Christmas, people keep dying as they always do and, because the funeral parlours close until the New Year and the crematorium may not open, all the bodies pile up with us. Moreover, come the first working day after the holidays, the Coroner's office will start sending through request after request for post-mortem examinations; Clive told us that sometimes he'd had to do double shifts with Ed, morning and afternoon, just to keep up.

From my trip in the day before, I knew that we'd be up against it, and wasn't surprised when, by ten o'clock on the Wednesday, the Coroner's office had already faxed through five E60s, with a promise of more on the way. Clive sighed. 'I hope you girls have had three Weetabix this morning.'

It was Peter Gillard who was to be our pathologist. When he popped down to see what was going on, he had a worried look on his face, and his mood took a nosedive when he was told the bad news. 'Oh . . .'

'How many are you going to do, doc?'

'Well . . .' Normally, Peter Gillard didn't do more than three and even that meant he had to go and lie down in a darkened office afterwards.

Clive was remorseless, though. 'Got five in already, and they haven't finished yet.'

'I've got quite a lot to do upstairs . . .'

Clive had done a fair amount of poaching in his life, and was an expert stalker. 'The Coroner's quite keen we should do as many as possible, doc . . .'

And Peter Gillard, bless him, ended up doing six.

FORTY-ONE.

We knew nothing about the arrival of Dr Zaitoun until Ed walked into the mortuary with him one Monday morning in late January. Clive, Maddie and I were having coffee waiting for Peter Gillard to make his customary mumbling wander around the mortuary prior to commencing post-mortems we had a hanger and two sudden deaths (or 'drop-dead Freds', as Clive called them) for him when Dr Zaitoun made his first appearance, and I have to admit it took me aback (he probably noticed the astounded look on my face). He was short and slight, with a thin moustache and small eyes; his hands and feet were tiny, so that he seemed almost to be dancing as he walked. He was charming, though. He rushed to shake us all by the hand, showing a false respect to Clive and a broad smile to both Maddie and me. 'Delighted to meet you,' he said as he pumped our hands.

Ed explained, 'Dr Zaitoun's our new loc.u.m. He'll be working with us for the next few months.'

Clive asked him, 'Do PMs, do you?' Clive always asked this, as more and more pathologists were choosing not to work in the post-mortem room.

Dr Zaitoun smiled and I could see at least two gold teeth. 'Oh, yes. I have done forensic work back in Iraq.'

Clive nodded but looked less than impressed and Ed said, 'He'll be on the rota from next Monday.'

He then went on to show Dr Zaitoun around the mortuary with Clive in attendance. Afterwards, when we were alone again in the office, Maddie and I said, 'Well? What do you think, Clive? Is he going to give us a hard time?'

Clive was all supreme confidence. 'The guy's a t.w.a.t, girls; we won't have any problems with him, I'll see to that.'

The following Monday there was just one PM and it fell to me to be the first to see Dr Abdul Zaitoun at work. Clive had mandatory training being taught about fire extinguishers and then told never to use them, and how to sit upright by a woman who looked like a sack of potatoes but he told me before he left to keep a close eye on Dr Zaitoun because, as he said, 'I've got a nose for people like him, Mich.e.l.le. He'll give you the run-around if you let him. Mark my words.'

I have to admit that the initial signs were not good. When he appeared at about half past nine, his first question when he saw the still-clothed body was, 'Haven't you started?'

'You haven't identified the body,' I said.

He shrugged. 'You have, haven't you?'

'Yes, but . . .'

'Well then. I trust you. You get on and take out the organs, and I'll be back in twenty minutes.' With which he disappeared out of the mortuary, and I was left with a problem. What was I supposed to do? I knew that a few years ago most pathologists had been quite happy to trust the technician to ensure that the right body was being PMed, but now things were different. Clive would have kittens he would have given the pathologist a large piece of his mind in my situation, but there was no way I could do that. I didn't have the confidence and I was far too junior. In many respects, I had become a.s.sured in my abilities to do the job over the past few months, but not in this. I would be disobeying the direct order of a consultant. Reluctantly I set to, but only after carefully checking the ident.i.ty of the deceased again and getting Maddie to check a third time with me.

In fact, it was nearly forty-five minutes before Dr Zaitoun returned. He made his way without apology first into the female changing room then, when I had put him right, into the one he was supposed to use. When he emerged five minutes later, I was hard pressed not to burst out laughing. The scrubs he had put on were not well tailored to his small size and he had not thought to ask for a small set, so the waist of his trousers was tied just beneath his armpits and the hole in the top for his head was almost large enough to admit his shoulders. By the time he got the disposable gown on, he looked like a small boy in his father's PJs. I tried to direct him to where the masks and caps and gloves were, but he said only, 'I don't need things like that.'

When I told him, 'The information on the case is on the side in the alcove,' he said airily, 'Oh, I don't look at that until the end. It influences me, I find.' I thought that this was the whole point, but made sure it remained as just a thought and kept my mouth shut, for fearing of cracking into laughter more than any other reason.

I had put the organs in a large bowl on the side and he set to dissecting them while I began to reconstruct the body. I had read the information that the Coroner's office had supplied and had learned enough to reckon that it was probably going to be a cardiac death chest pains and shortness of breath so I fully expected Dr Zaitoun to find the coronary arteries to be furred up. What I didn't expect was that ten minutes after he'd started, he'd say suddenly, 'Pneumonia,' with which he went to the sink and washed his gloved hands. Then he was off to the alcove.

I called out to him, 'You've forgotten the brain, Dr Zaitoun.' He had left this in a separate bowl on the scales.

He looked surprised. 'Why did you take that out?'

'We always do, as the Coroner requests a full post-mortem.'

He frowned, paused, thought about things, and then said, 'You look at it. It's not really relevant to this case.'

'I can't do that.'

He looked surprised. 'No? Well, just put it back in the body.'

Before I could say any more, he had picked up the paperwork and was closing the door to the changing room, leaving me gobsmacked. What could I do except what I was told? But that wasn't the end of it, because when I was putting the organs back in the body cavity I couldn't help noticing that his investigation had been a bit superficial: one slice through the liver, spleen and lungs, only one kidney cut and the heart barely looked at.

When I told Clive at lunchtime, he shook his head. 'What did I tell you? A complete and utter t.w.a.t.'

FORTY-TWO.

I was pleased it was the weekend again. Although I was amazed at how quickly the weeks went by at the mortuary, I was still very glad when Friday evening approached and I knew I could lie in on a Sat.u.r.day morning. If anyone had ever told me that working with the deceased would be so physically demanding, I would have laughed, but I had quickly noticed that my thighs and upper arms were always aching by the end of the week. At least I wouldn't need the gym (thank G.o.d).

I was also relieved that Luke and I had nothing planned for the weekend, and I could look forward to collapsing Friday night, with maybe an hour at the local pub, then back home to a huge sofa, food and a decent bottle of red wine. I was also looking forward to spending some much-deserved time with Harvey and Oscar. My previous job had been shift work, so it could be early or late shift or night duty, but it seemed that I had more time on my hands then, even though I probably worked more hours. I felt as though I had been neglecting the boys a bit of late. Luke took a lot of responsibility for them, which helped of course, but I did miss them and there were certain things that only the three of us did, like double cuddles and playing 'hide the soft toy', stupid things that only hardened dog lovers would understand and accept as normal behaviour.

That Friday evening went perfectly, completely chilled.

Sat.u.r.day came without a hangover and we decided it would be a good idea to pile up to my parents' house to annoy the h.e.l.l out of them for a few hours. Luckily the rain stayed away, so the dogs didn't bomb into Mum and Dad's smelling like a bouquet of old red wine, but something was different about this Sat.u.r.day, the atmosphere in the Williams household was not as perky as it usually was.

So, this was when it all came to light. My grandfather, Gramp, who I adored and always had done, was unwell. Seriously unwell. When Nan, who I also cherished, had pa.s.sed away eighteen months earlier, Gramp had been hit hard. They had been together since they were very young, and I can't recall them ever talking about a night spent away from each other. They had raised three boys and Nan was very, very proud of them. But, typical of that generation, Nan had done everything for the four men in her life. They wanted for nothing. Dad has told me stories of how, when things were a bit tight, she wouldn't eat because she felt it was her duty to make sure her family had a decent meal of an evening, and sometimes there wasn't enough food to go round. She wouldn't make a fuss about this, and wouldn't allow one to be made by anyone else. It was what she did.

Nan also had a very big dislike of alcohol. A sherry at Christmas or a special occasion and that would be it. She would also frown upon Gramp drinking so, out of respect for her, he only drank if they were out on social occasions. I think, deep down, he would have quietly enjoyed a whisky late of an evening before bed, but because of his love for his wife, he stuck to tea most evenings. When she pa.s.sed away, Gramp had had to fend for himself. We were always in and out as a family spending time with him, and Mum popped in every morning on her way to work to make sure he was up and about, and to put his laundry on and things that he would expect a female to do for him. Dad would take him shopping once a week in the car, and he would spend a couple of mornings a week in the social club with his old friends. I would make sure to find time to see them all once a month and they were some of the funniest people I have came across, reminiscing about their younger days around a table full of pints of bitter, each one with a whisky chaser.

Dad had noticed recently that Gramp had been consuming a little more whisky than usual. As a family, we accepted this. He was without his life partner; he spent time with us and his friends, but I didn't think he would ever be the same person as the one that had been our Gramp for so long. Maybe the whisky helped with the lonely evenings. Or maybe there was another reason.

It turned out that Gramp was in pain. He had not wanted to be a burden, so numbed the pain with the whisky. Dad had forced it out of him the evening before that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Aggressive lung cancer. Gramp did not want a fuss, seemed almost relieved to be dying and with a small hope he would be reunited with Nan. He never said this openly, but as a family we knew. He had refused any treatment, saying it was only going to prolong the inevitable. A man who had worked hard most of his life, a proud man, his wishes had to be obeyed and respected. My last living grandparent, and soon I was going to lose him.

Dad had taken this news well, considering all things. I say, 'taken it well', but these are the wrong words more like he accepted it. My view was complete and utter panic. The moments in your life when you feel completely useless, I think, are the worst, and this was how I felt when I was told. That feeling of being out of control is vile.

'What are we going to do?' was my first question to Dad.

He shrugged and asked tiredly, 'Mich.e.l.le, what can we do? Gramp doesn't want any fuss, and we have to respect that. We'll just have to support him.'

What could I say to that? Dad also had a right to be respected.