His belt began to appear and my mom, she found mother's little helpers and that's all she wrote.

I think of cute Darren sometimes, the look in his eyes, those moments before the close. I learned then, a plea is a piece of s.h.i.t.

Wished he could have seen the Rolex though.

Shop Street, the main pedestrian gig in Galway, they have a camping store. Got me a fine blade, hand-tooled and the guy asked "You backpacking?"

I'm wearing a f.u.c.king Rolex, was he blind? I said "Packing alright."

If Seamas had any other alternative, I'd gut him like a Galway salmon.

Learnt the finer points in Brixton, have a scar on my abdomen to prove it.

Hit real low, rip up, fast, steady and then buddy, pull way the f.u.c.k back. Those entrails are going to splash And Aine, who knew?

This were a novel, the critics would say . . . the female character is only a cipher . . . are they kidding, aren't all women? What's to describe? They nag, end of story.

I could ball her, have me some Irish but it wasn't a priority. She got lippy, well, I'd use my hands, watch the Rolex catch the light as I squeezed.

As you can see, I was primed.

They picked me up off Shop Street, in a van that needed a major overhaul, not to mention a decent wash, f.u.c.king nowhere people.

Seamas, in the driver's seat, and I squeezed in beside Aine, got a little hip action grinding, she was hot Aine said "Looks like rain."

The Micks and the forecasts.

Seamas said "We'll drive out a ways, no need for prying eyes."

We pulled up on the outskirts of the city, Galway Bay spread before us. Seamas produced a flask, said "'Tis poteen, we call it Uisce beatha, Holy Water and it's a miraculous bevy all right."

He offered me the flask and seeing my hesitation, Aine whined "You won't drink with us?"

What the h.e.l.l, I grabbed it, took a healthy wallop and it kicked. I gasped, asked "That's what, like Irish moonshine?"

Aine gave me a glorious smile, said "More like goodnight."

Came to with my head on fire, throbbing like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and then the cold, my whole body frozen.

My naked body I sat up and pebbles were embedded in my a.s.s. I was on a beach, not a shred of clothing and checked my wrist No Rolex.

Dawn was breaking, the light creeping over the bay. I began to get slowly to my feet, dizziness and nausea hitting in waves, saw the note, wedged under a stone. I grabbed it, read Teddy, mate, guv We saw you coming. We're Irish but Not green . . .

And that knife . . .

Not nice We confiscated it, lest you hurt yerself. Now, that would be no way to treat a Brit, would it?

You better get your a.r.s.e in gear, rain is forecast.

I crumpled it and said aloud "Always with the b.l.o.o.d.y weather talk."

VIVISECTION.

Bernie Crosthwaite.

THEY SHUFFLE INTO the room, half a dozen of them. They reek of cheap deodorant and alcohol . . . and s.e.x. White coats flap open to reveal their scruffy clothes. My gaze fixes on a boy with spiky blonde hair, laughing with a girl in a short skirt and flip-f ops whose knees are already turning blue. Serves her right.

I'm just about to make a start when another one lurches in, chewing gum, talking on his mobile phone, and wearing I can hardly believe my eyes a hat.

The ripple of chatter swells into a wave. Such appalling manners.

"Pay attention. I'm about to begin."

A serious-looking young lady in gla.s.ses turns to me expectantly, but the rest take no notice whatsoever. A surge of bile rises in my throat. I pointedly walk to the door, left gaping open by the latecomer, and shut it firmly. My action serves two purposes: the temperature in the room drops once more, and there is silence. At last.

I return to my position behind the metal table. I know that deep down, despite the rudeness, they are in awe of my powers.

"I trust you have switched off your mobile phones?" I take care not to look directly at the gentleman with the knitted headgear. "Last time, someone forgot. The ring tone was so loud my knife slipped and . . ." I hold up my bandaged finger so they can see the damage, then carefully pull on a pair of disposable gloves.

In fact, it didn't happen quite like that I don't even remember how I got the cut, only that there was a lot of blood but it gets their attention and I'm gratified to see them all check their phones, reluctantly cutting themselves off from their lifelines. Young people seem to think that their electronic devices are a kind of umbilical cord and that without them they will die.

When the flutter of activity has settled down I peer over my half-moon gla.s.ses, looking straight at the boy this time. "You the one with the woolly hat take it off."

"But it's cold in here," he whines.

"What do you expect? This is a mortuary, not an overheated seminar room. Can you imagine the smell if we had full central heating?"

"Whatever." He pulls the hat off with a flourish, revealing his premature baldness. "Happy now?"

I note the telltale nodules of fat around his eyes. High cholesterol. He'll be dead of a heart attack before he's fifty. "Ecstatic."

t.i.tters of laughter flare up, die away. They won't be laughing soon.

The time has come.

"Like you, I have never seen this specimen before. Normally I read the notes first." I indicate a manila folder lying on the bench behind me. "But I'm under great pressure at the moment so much to deal with." I grind my teeth, a habit I've got into lately. "So together, our job will be to find the cause of death."

There is complete hush as I peel back the sheet. The cadaver lies supine, quiet and obedient. That's something I admire about the dead, their beautiful quiescence. Most of the corpses I use for demonstrations, after several days in a chilled drawer, have a musty metallic smell, like thawing meat. But this one is fresh and has an odour of the sea ozone and tissue salts in their last frantic throes of activity. Its recent demise suggests this might be an urgent police matter. Perhaps I should have read the notes after all . . .

I detect movement to my left, something twitching or flickering just out of vision. I jerk my head round but there's nothing. It must be that d.a.m.n tic in my left eyelid that has plagued me for a couple of weeks now. Tiredness, that's all it is. I haven't been sleeping well.

"Right. What do we have here?" I cast a professional glance over the specimen. "Female. Late thirties, I'd say. Any initial observations?"

No one answers. I'm an expert at silences. Some are thick with embarra.s.sment from sheer lack of knowledge. Others are syrupy and lazy, the speciality of the can't be bothered merchants. This one tw.a.n.gs with hostility, a reaction no doubt to my firm handling of Mr Woolly Hat. I suspect they have the answers, but they are going to make me extract them by force, like pulling teeth.

"Come on. Come on. That's the easiest question you'll get all afternoon. If you can't answer that, it's going to be a very long session indeed."

I can hear the drip from a tap, the distant buzz of a fly. I note that the bare feet of the girl in the mini skirt have turned a mottled mauve that perfectly matches the lividity of the skin six hours after death. She sees me staring, which must be what prompts her to speak up.

"She dyed her hair?"

I wait until the m.u.f.fled laughter has run its course.

"She dyed her hair . . ." I glance down. I really should have cleaned my spectacles they are smeared with dust and fingerprints. Squinting, I see that the woman's hair, now dulled by death, had once been a theatrical shade of red. A long strand of it has caught across her neck like a wound. I look away. Julia was a redhead too. Did she dye her hair? That's a question I cannot answer. "This is the School of Forensic Medicine," I say sharply. "You'll find Beauty Therapy at the Further Education College down the road."

The corners of the girl's mouth turn down like those of a petulant five-year-old. She mutters something I don't catch. There are low mutters, shuffling of feet.

"Can we see any external signs of the cause of death? Is there evidence of disease? Any open wounds, operation scars, swellings, needle marks?"

They stare at me open-mouthed. I can see I'm rolling a ball uphill with this lot. Perhaps their silence is the ignorant kind after all. I've credited them with far too much intelligence. I won't make that mistake again.

"No external signs, then."

Woolly Hat raises his hand. "But what about the-?"

"Please don't interrupt." I'm beginning to find him as irritating as that fly buzzing somewhere in the room. "So how do we proceed?"

No response. Quelle surprise.

"I intend to start at the top." I move to the end of the table and stand behind the head.

My instruments are laid out neatly on a trolley beside me. With an electric shaver I remove a circular area of the woman's hair, like a monk's tonsure. "Now I'm going to use a saw in order to trepan the skull. Some pathologists use an electric one with oscillating safety blades, but I prefer the old-fashioned manual kind." I pick up the fine-toothed instrument and begin to score through the skull cap. Once I've cut all the way round, I use a cranium chisel to lift off the bowl-shaped section of bone.

"Now watch how I sever the nerves and the blood vessels so that I can remove the brain."

I enjoy the mesmerized looks on their faces as I lift the organ out. No shuffling of feet now, no laughter, barely any breathing.

"Look at it. Just a wrinkled pile of jelly. Yet hidden within is the most sophisticated circuitry in the universe." I strike a pose. I always relish this bit. "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come let me clutch thee: I have thee not, and yet I see thee still . . . Art thou a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"

I have been known to get a round of applause at this point, but there is dead silence.

"No doubt you all recognize the quote?"

It seems not.

"It's from Macbeth. By William Shakespeare," I add drily.

"Personally I prefer Rumble in the Bronx," mumbles Woolly Hat.

"What's that? Speak up."

"You know, the Jackie Chan film?"

"Jackie Chan? I've never heard of her."

The boy with the blonde spikes covers his mouth. Is he going to be sick?

"You." I glower at him, holding out the brain. "Take it."

"What for?"

I nod towards the scales that hang above the dissecting table. "We weigh every organ and record the weight. Put some gloves on and get on with it."

Grimacing, he tips the ma.s.s of jelly into the steel pan while I address the other members of the group. "A woman's brain is slightly smaller than a man's. No less effective, of course. In fact, in many ways, more devious and cunning. Take Lady Macbeth."

I retrieve the brain from the cream-faced poltroon, and selecting a knife with a twelve-inch blade, dissect the organ in half.

"Any abnormalities?"

They stare dumbly.

"I'll tell you then. The answer is no."

Woolly Hat is craving attention again, his hand flapping like a flag in the wind. "But there are tiny-"

"Be quiet! I was rather hoping for a tumour, perhaps an astro-cytoma grade four. A swift and silent killer that may have explained this specimen's untimely end. But no such luck. So what do we do next?"

A spotty youth raises a tentative hand. "Cut her open?"

"I a.s.sume you mean make an incision?"

The boy's skin flares up as if his whole face is covered with acne rosacea. "I suppose so."

"Splendid. But what kind of incision?"

He shrugs his puny shoulders. Bad diet. Too much refined carbohydrate. A candidate for diabetes if ever I saw one.

"We have three choices. We can use a T-shaped or a Y-shaped cut. These give easy access to the body cavity. But who wants to take the easy way? I favour the single straight cut, right down the middle. Like so . . ."

The knife slices through the chilly flesh, which in a refrigerated specimen has the consistency of soft leather. But a fresh corpse retains its springy muscle tone, and because the bones are not yet dry and brittle, they can be surprisingly resistant.

"Unseamed him from the nave to the chaps. That's how Shakespeare describes Macbeth's favourite method of despatch. We go in the other direction, starting at the neck, taking a brief detour round the tough tissue of the navel and ending up at the pubis . . . There we are. Done." I wave the knife two-handedly like a claymore. "With his brandished steel that smoked with b.l.o.o.d.y execution."

I contemplate them over my spectacles, but I have failed to make a dent in the lumpen demeanour of the group. Surely some of them must have studied the Scottish play at school? Or even radical thought seen it performed in the theatre?

Apparently not.

"Of course, Macbeth was a violent man, a killer. I'm a mere pathologist. Generally speaking, I only unseam those who are already dead."

Someone I can't see who mutters, "That's a matter of opinion."

I ignore the impertinence and plough on. "It's an interesting fact that the real Macbeth, a tenth-century Scottish king, was an exemplary ruler, not a tyrant at all." Despite the cold, my face feels clammy. "Another interesting fact: I met my wife at a performance of the Scottish play. We got talking during the interval. I was enthusiastic about the production. Julia wasn't so sure too violent, she said. In the final scene she had to cover her eyes when they brandished Macbeth's severed head, dripping with blood. Excellent stuff." I wipe my sleeve across my damp brow. Maybe I've caught something, probably from one of the students. Walking germ carriers, most of them.