Down Among the Dead Men: A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician

by Michelle Williams

  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 space). 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 locum. 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 twat, 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, Michelle. 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 assured 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 identity 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 twat.’

  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 Saturday 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 God).

  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.

  Saturday came without a hangover and we decided it would be a good idea to pile up to my parents’ house to annoy the hell 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 Saturday, 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 passed 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 passed 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, ‘Michelle, 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.

  So the rest of that weekend was a bit flat. I stayed away from Gramp, not because I am horrible but because I didn’t feel brave enough to face him. Instead, like a coward, I rang him for a chat. Dealing with bereaved families all week long was a doddle compared with this; I was suddenly finding it was different when it was your own. On the phone Gramp never mentioned the illness, but for the first time I noticed his breathing; I heard now that it was laboured and noisy; he was having a bit of a struggle with his lungs.

  After the phone call, I promised myself that I would not treat him any differently apart from the fact that I would be spending more time with him now.

  FORTY-THREE

  Monday morning came again, but I definitely had a little grey cloud following me around. Clive picked up on this as soon as I arrived. I used to try not to bother him with my personal life, but he had this way of coaxing information out of you. Not in a nasty, intrusive way, but so that you knew he was genuinely concerned for you. To him, we were almost like a work family. My problems were his problems, and if there was any way he could sort it, he would.

  Clive put the kettle on and shut his office door. He got me to sit at Graham’s old desk while he sat at his, and I am pretty sure this was his way of trying to give me a bit of confidence to talk to him; I was the same height as him and now there was the desk between us, making me feel less exposed.

  I began to tell Clive about what had happened to my family over the weekend. He listened actively and nodded in the right places. I felt my chin start to wobble and was fighting back the tears with a vengeance, which luckily worked and I didn’t embarrass myself by breaking down. Clive began to ask me questions about things I hadn’t even considered. ‘Which consultant has he been under?’ ‘How long has he been given?’ ‘Is there any secondary cancer?’ – at that point I wanted to collapse. I didn’t know any of the answers to any of these questions, and even if I wanted to know, I didn’t have the faintest idea who I was going to ask. I thanked Clive for his time and reassured him that I was OK, but did ask him if I could take my break at once, which he had no problems with. I needed some fresh air.

  I left the hospital grounds and ended up walking for ten minutes in the direction away from the hospital; by the time I realized this, I panicked, as it was going to take
me ten minutes to walk back, going over the allocated time for my break. So my head started to run away with itself; Clive would think I was pushing my luck due to my bad news, and I would be letting the team down as Maddie was probably working her socks off in the PM room. I hurried back and apologized to Clive, who hadn’t even noticed.

  ‘I think I’d like you to stay clean today, Michelle.’ This was Clive’s subtle way of telling me he thought it inappropriate that I was around the dead today.

  FORTY-FOUR

  ‘In the old days the Coroner’s officers would attend the scene and none of this would have happened.’ Clive was talking sternly and Maddie nodded in solemn agreement.

  I happened to be walking into the body store, just after arriving on the afternoon of the following day, and of course I wondered what was going on. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked. I had spent the morning with my mother, just chatting and reminiscing about Gramp because she had rung the night before and was clearly down in the dumps.

  ‘Look at this, Michelle.’ Clive was still talking as though he was seriously peeved, and was gesturing towards the body that lay on the trolley in front of him. He continued, repeating himself. ‘Because the Coroner’s officers used to attend the scenes, they got their information directly about how people died. Nowadays, all they do is make telephone calls. Half the time, the information they get is second or third hand and it’s all Chinese whispers.’

  Maddie and I nodded and made the right noises, like we dared say anything else.