It had been one of the first things Oliver had learned as a forensic pathologist: to take time and use his eyes. To make observations. He had often compared his work to that of an archaeologist, where technology, science and professional skills combined to uncover a complete history. But first, like an archaeologist viewing a landscape and identifying a likely dig site, you had to know where to look.

‘Deceased is male, early twenties, light build. There are multiple wounds indicating sharp-force trauma …’ As he looked at the corpse, Oliver voiced his thoughts into the Dictaphone. ‘Incised wounds and lacerations suggest the deceased was in motion for much of the attack and are primarily anterior but with several posterior.’ Oliver nodded to the technician and the other attending pathologist and between them they used a tape to take the body’s measurements. He took his time, examining every mark, every bruise, and noting it out loud into the Dictaphone. The man on the table had been hacked to death but Oliver saw no horror, no pain, only injuries and traumas to be methodically and individually enumerated, location on the body noted, and their length and depth measured. For Oliver in his work, death had become nothing more than a point in time: a moment that divided every injury, every mark, into ante-mortem, perimortem or post-mortem. Within seconds of death occurring, a whole new chronology began: cells started to break down; blood that had been pumped on an endless cycle for a lifetime sank to the lowest points of the body and empurpled the skin with post-mortem lividity; the chemistry of the muscles became altered causing rigor mortis; bacteria in the blood and organs began to produce gases that inflated cavities and soft tissues.

Oliver started at the head and worked his way to the feet, talking his way across the topography of the body. Observing, remarking, measuring. He marked on a body map each of the incised wounds, where the cut had been clean and sharp-edged, and lacerations, where the weapon had sliced through the flesh but had caused tearing to the wound edge. To a forensic pathologist, there was always a distinction. When he had finished he nodded to the technician who lifted the corpse’s head and eased a body block under the neck.