My first PM

The incident I’m going to tell you about here doesn’t appear in any of the books because it didn’t involve a difficult police case or explain how people got hitched or anything dramatic like that. But it was important for me because it marked a big step in my path towards my ambition of becoming a forensic pathologist, so I’m going to tell you about it anyway. I hope you find it interesting – it was to me!

It all began a few summers ago when I was eleven. It was just before Peter, my stepdad, retired from the police – which is important because I don’t suppose I’d have got away with things if he hadn’t been there to back me up.

Martin and I were out in his canal boat. We hadn’t got very far from his moorings, down behind Worcester College, when we came across a body floating in the canal. It was floating face-down, caught in some weeds and branches under an overhanging tree. Martin went a bit green-about-the-gills when he saw what it was and he wasn’t at all keen on me turning it over with the boat hook to check that it really was a body.

I think, if I hadn’t been there, Martin might have gone off and left it for someone else to find and report. He hates getting involved in anything official and didn’t like the idea of having to attend an inquest. But of course, we had to notify the police – which we did by ringing Peter, who came over right away and sorted everything out. Luckily, Mike, our favourite pathologist, was on duty and he came over right away too, to have a look at the body.

It was dead interesting seeing him examining it. (Martin was all for us going off and leaving them to it, but I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like that!) Mike showed me the sorts of things he was looking for and how they told him things like: how long the body had been in the water and whether the man was dead when he went in. when he said that he’d be able to tell w whole lot more when he did the post mortem, I immediately asked if I could watch.

He hummed and harred a bit about that, but in the end he said I could, provided Mam agreed and provided Peter was there to look after me. Mam called it a “wonderful educational opportunity” and said she’d like to be there too, but that it would be too many people, so she’d leave me in Peter’s capable hands. I could see Martin thought I was mad wanting to go and Peter was worried that he’d be in trouble with his boss if he found out – but at least he was retiring in a week or two, so he couldn’t do much to him.

Anyway, I went along and it was great! Mike showed me everything. It turned out the corpse was a rough-sleeper who had drunk too much and fallen in the canal during the night – at least, that’s how everyone decided it must have been. Mike showed me his liver – which he said was “pickled in alcohol” – and his lungs – which were all black with soot. After seeing those, I decided I’m never going to drink or smoke! He also showed me how he could estimate how long it was since the man’s last meal, by looking at the stomach contents.

I was dead chuffed afterwards when Mike said that he wished all his students were as attentive as I was and that he’d like to have me as his assistant again. Of course, he was really just being nice – but I didn’t realise that at the time.