Peter Everett - Corrupt Bodies: Death and Dirty Dealing in a London Morgue

7 June 1982

I was awoken by the phones sharp ring. Barely conscious, reaching for the receiver, I knocked my pipe off the bedside table and swore, waking Wendy.

Yes? I demanded, rubbing my eyes. The luminous hands of the bedside clock read 5.50am.

It was a coroners officer. A body had been found in Streatham. A police car was on its way to pick me up.

Right, thanks, was all I could manage as I forced myself into a sitting position, regretting my late night curry with Dr Iain West and Detective Inspector (DI) Douglas Dougie Campbell, along with a couple more detectives from the murder squad. Iain, an inveterate chain smoker, had a warm, compassionate nature and a strong sense of joie de vivre. He was popular with detectives because he could outdrink every last one of them apart, it seemed, from Dougie. He was also an incredible pathologist. In 1984 Dr West would carry out the post-mortem (PM) of PC Yvonne Fletcher, shot outside the Libyan embassy, proving that the bullet had come from an embassy window.

I was, comparatively, a lightweight and rarely overindulged, but last night I had definitely had one too many. Five minutes later, I opened the front door to my apartment complex and was slapped full in the face by a gust of wind and several sheets of rain, simultaneously extinguishing both my freshly-lit pipe and my hangover. In my right hand was my murder bag (a doctors bag containing chalk, string, rulers, compass, magnifying glass, camera, sketchbook and latex gloves).

Ever since Id accepted the post of Southwark Mortuarys Superintendent, my time was no longer my own. If the on-call pathologist needed help at a murder scene, I was expected to attend. Most murders, it seemed, took place between 10pm and 6am, especially during gales, blizzards and storms. Id only been in the job a few weeks but Id attended so many murders I was already on first-name terms with most of the murder squad and felt like one of the team.

Wed been in the middle of an insufferable June heatwave, which seemed to have been broken, temporarily at least, by a thunderstorm that had struck sometime in the small hours. The police car dropped me off in a cul-de-sac of terraced houses beside a busy railway intersection. The local woodentops (police constables) had sensibly created a narrow corridor to the scene in an effort to try to prevent contamination. Many police officers and even some detectives were still largely unaware of forensic procedure (or simply didnt believe in it), so this was an unexpected bonus. Holding up my ID card, I grunted hello and stepped through the inner cordon and onto the verge, tracing my way along a narrow path between some unruly brambles.

Emerging beside the railway tracks I was pleased to notice that it had stopped raining and the clouds were already starting to break. Even better, Professor Keith Mant, the head of Guys Hospitals pathology department, was already there. A tall, distinguished man with a neatly clipped moustache, Professor Mant was always happy to share the secrets of his phenomenal pathology skills. He came from an establishment family but had refused to join his fathers legal practice (the first son in seven generations to do so), opting for medicine instead. During the Second World War, as an army brigadier, he worked for the War Crimes Commission, exhuming Holocaust victims and questioning SS officers, publicly exposing the unbelievably cruel medical experiments the Nazis had performed on their doomed prisoners in the concentration camps. Hed also worked in America for a few years as Virginias chief medical examiner, and still travelled there to give lectures, something he particularly enjoyed because, he claimed, he was allowed to do so while puffing on one of his large cigars. It was while working in Virginia that Professor Mant would meet and provide advice to a struggling wannabe-crime author by the name of Patricia Cornwell. Nearing retirement, Professor Mant was looking forward to spending more time with his orchids as well as fly fishing, but for now, he wasnt quite ready to give up his first love, pathology, despite suffering from back pain that had become excruciating in recent years. For this reason, Professor Mant tended to require more assistance than most pathologists.

A train guard spotted the body, he said as we shook hands. A group of railway workers checked it out and dialled 999 a couple of hours ago.

A pair of constables had managed to requisition a huge tarpaulin from a nearby industrial estate, and were busy rigging it to the trees closest to the body so at least the victim was now out of view of any passing trains.

I opened my murder bag, put on my gloves, removed my camera and took a closer look at the body.

It was a little boy.

About eight years old, Id estimate, Professor Mant said.

He was lying on his back, eyes closed. A large quantity of blood had frothed from his mouth and nostrils, breathed out through punctured lungs. He had several stab wounds to his torso. Two concrete blocks, each about half the size of a football, lay close to his head. Both were marked with bloodstains, and had hair stuck to them. One of the boys shoes was missing and his trouser flies were undone.

I finished taking photos just as DI Jon Canning joined us. He was in his mid-thirties which was young for a DI in those days, the result of his being selected for the Metropolitan Polices new fast-track graduate programme. He was tall, broad, and his light brown hair was always cropped remarkably short. A lit cigarette was constantly held between the fingers of his left hand, leaving his right hand free for detective work.