“The deceased was a young woman, partially clothed, embedded in ice at the edge of a frozen lake beside a railway line. Heavy snowfall had hidden the body and only her right hand was protruding from the ice.
“Photographs were taken under my direction. She was lying on her side with her head resting on her left shoulder and left upper arm. Her right arm, flexed at the elbow, was wrapped around her chest. Her legs were retracted so that she lay in a fetal position.
“Her clothing consisted of a heavy woolen jumper and dark cotton leggings. She had no underwear. Her feet were bare.
“Ice cutting machinery was necessary to recover the deceased, whose body was transferred to John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, on the evening of December 19. The body was received in a white, signature-sealed body bag and wrapped in a black plastic sheet.”
Dr. Leece pauses and glances at the students. “This sort of post-mortem presents a variety of challenges. A frozen body thaws out at different rates—the limbs first, then the head and the torso. Cells can only maintain water if they’re unfrozen and undamaged. They are rupturing as they hit room temperature, which is why I have to work quickly.”
He begins describing what he’s seeing.
“The deceased is of slim build, approximately a hundred and fifty-five centimeters tall, of malnourished appearance, weighing only forty-two kilos. She has blonde wavy shoulder-length hair, cut roughly. Her pubic hair is denuded. Her ears pierced. Her fingernails bitten.”
Dr. Leece pulls open her eyelids.
“At ten degrees Fahrenheit her body would have changed color fully to a pale shade of white with maybe a tint of blue. Her corneas became glazed and the pupils have turned a grayish shade.
“She has two inoculation scars on her forearm and an old curving scar around the outer aspect of the right elbow. She has grazes on the outer skin of her thighs at the widest point of her hips.”
His voice washes over me. Raising my head, I glimpse my face reflected in the glass and try to focus on something other than the post-mortem. I feel foolish, almost cowardly. My worst memories of medical school were cutting up corpses, blunting my scalpel on preserved flesh that had the consistency of frozen butter. Surgery 203—Anatomy—how to dissect a human cadaver.
We were never told the patients’ names, only the cause of death, but that didn’t stop me imagining their lives, their families, their voices, their laughs, their careers. That was my problem, I was told, I imagined too much.
Dr. Leece is still talking. “The arms and legs are symmetrical and there is no visible evidence of acute injuries. No injection marks. Skin somewhat shiny…”
His gloved fingers slide down to her ankles, turning them. “Both ankles show evidence of bruising and old scarring. The skin has been broken and healed.”
He moves higher, stopping. “The large bruise on her left thigh indicates an impact injury. Blunt force. Approximately thirty centimeters long.” Glancing up at the window, Dr. Leece addresses me. “This could be evidence of a vehicle impact. It’s the right height.”
He carries on, until I hear a sudden intake of breath. Without warning, he steps backwards, raising his arms. He’s stumbled against a metal trolley, upending a tray. Instruments clatter to the floor.
From the body, he looks up at the viewing window, like an actor stranded in the middle of a stage, lines forgotten.
Then he finds his voice.
“Get out of here! All of you!”
The students are staring at each other—nobody reacting.
He yells this time. “I said get out! The lesson is over.”
He turns to his assistant. “Get me DCI Drury.”
Leece closes his eyes for a second, but opens them, swaying slightly, as though he’s trapped on an out-of-control merry-go-round and the world is lurching past him. His hands are resting on the cool edge of the stainless steel bench as he stares at the cadaver. This should have been a routine job. Now it scares him.
When I was a kid
we had this board game called Operation. It’s the one where you pretend to be a surgeon and use tweezers to take things out of a patient, stuff like funny bones and broken hearts and butterflies in the stomach.
Right now I feel as though someone has taken something out of me and left a Tash-sized hole behind. I imagine I can feel the outline with my fingers.
I stand on the bench and look through the crack at the bottom of the window. It’s daytime. The snow has gone, leaving mud and flattened grass. The trees are like ogres with outstretched arms.
I need a plan. What if George isn’t coming back? What if he just leaves me here? What if Tash didn’t make it? What if she can’t find her way back?