The Lately Deceased Read Online Free PDF

‘business’ hours. Not only that, but the delivery was quite unauthorized, and Edgar, a stickler for properly filled-in forms, was half inclined to tell the undertakers to take it back. Eventually, with the help of an extra tip, they managed to overcome his outraged feelings, especially as he knew full well that he would have to accept it later on in the morning, even if he turned it back now.
    After sliding the body, still fully clothed, into its tray in the huge refrigerator and slipping the label ‘Margaret Walker’ into the appropriate clip on the door, he went back upstairs to his flat and made Lizzie a cup of tea.
    Now, just after nine o’clock, and after a sustaining breakfast, he went out to get the day’s collection of bodies ready for post-mortem examination.
    The routine was for a forensic pathologist from one of the big London medical schools to come sometime during the day and carry out examinations on whatever had been brought in during the previous twenty-four hours. On this cold Friday morning, Edgar had four corpses to lay out on the white porcelain tables: one was a coal gas suicide; two were sudden collapses in the street; and the last was Margaret Walker, who, according to one of the undertaker’s men, was a ‘sudden’ at a party. His actual words were ‘Too much gin on a dicky heart, I shouldn’t wonder.’
    Edgar, adhering to the ‘first come, first served’ principle, rolled the bodies out one by one and undressed them, which needed some experience to do easily on the half-frozen limbs stiff with rigor mortis. The first three were laid out in a neat, bare row before he went back to deal with the last woman.
    He rolled the galvanised tray right out on to the wheeled trolley that had a screw-jack adjustment to reach the different shelves and pushed it across to a wall where, on a broad shelf, each person’s clothing was tied in a neat, labelled bundle.
    Taking a fresh label, he dug in his pocket for the stub of a pencil and, after much licking and laborious writing, he copied the particulars from the identifying label attached to the wrist, which would later be tied to the big toe.
    He then prepared to strip the body. Moving slowly and deliberately, he raised the left arm to pull the top layer of clothing off the shoulders. This was a short jacket of a dark red material which matched the dress beneath. When just about to pull the sleeve, Edgar stopped, stared and then slowly lowered the arm again.
    Moving around to the side of the trolley, he bent close to the body and then touched the chest with a finger. Looking at the tip thoughtfully for a moment, he began to whistle tonelessly, then gently undid the top button of the dress and peered down as deeply as he could. He did up the cloth-covered button again, straightened his old back and left the mortuary building. Crossing the yard to his dark little office, he picked up the phone and began to dial.

Chapter Five
    Wally Morris, the coroner’s officer for the borough, parked his Ford in the police station yard and climbed the stairs to his bare room on the first floor.
    Slightly out of breath – he had put a lot of flesh onto his six-foot frame since leaving the beat ten years before – he fell into his chair and looked through the mail. Finding the usual collection of queries from the Registrar-General, a few post-mortem reports from the Forensic Medicine department and a solicitor’s request for information, he turned to his ancient typewriter and began hammering out statements for the next week’s inquests.
    In spite of his smart grey suit, he looked every inch a policeman. A big body, heavy features and calm eyes were more the stamp of the older police officer than the traditional big feet. Morris, now forty-two, had spent years on general duties in this division, much of it at the same station.
    He had given up the prospect of promotion to become a coroner’s officer, a