“The organs from the bucket get put back into the chest cavity . . . as you see. The breastplate is then reapproximated, and the assistants will sew up my incision with some coarse waxed twine. The skullcap gets replaced, the scalp pulled back into place and sewn closed as well. Then the body will be scrubbed, hosed off, blotted dry and put in a body-bag for return to the refrigerator. I don’t know about here, but in the States a mortician would collect the body, pump it full of preservative, dress it up and apply facial make-up so that it can be displayed in the coffin for family and friends at the funeral.”

“In this case,” Professor Xie intervened, “the body will be returned to the family in Shanghai and there will be a straightforward cremation. Most people in China could not afford the services of a mortician.”

Margaret turned to the students. “It’s a great pity you weren’t here yesterday for the autopsy we carried out on a burn victim. It was an extremely interesting case. Professor Xie employed a useful piece of technology called a cryostat to enable us to speed up our findings. Anyone know what a cryostat is?” No one did. “Basically it’s a refrigerator that allows us to freeze tissue samples for sectioning and microscopic examination almost immediately. It is more commonly used during surgical operations to allow surgeons to have on-the-spot diagnoses made before continuing with the operation.” She turned and indicated the samples she had cut from various organs. “These samples will take six hours or more to prepare for microscopic examination, using the more traditional method of setting them in paraffin or wax. That allows them to be cut into ultra-thin, but permanent, sections. Using the cryostat the sections melt almost immediately and are corrupted by the process.”

She looked beyond the students and acknowledged Li for the first time. “Ah. I see we’ve been joined by Deputy Section Chief Li. Nicely timed, Detective Li.” She turned to her students and told them, as if in confidence, “He’s a little squeamish about these things.”

There were a couple of giggles and a few smirks and Li, to his intense annoyance, felt his face reddening. She turned back to him. “I took the opportunity of asking the professor if he would mind my class sitting in on this morning’s second autopsy. Of course, he was entirely agreeable. I think it’s very important that they gain this kind of experience during training, don’t you?”

“Of course,” he said stiffly. “And while demonstrating your skills to your students, did you happen to notice what the victim died of?”

There were some more stifled laughs among the students, and a collective intake of breath. Despite the fact that English was their second language, they had been aware immediately of the atmosphere between the pathologist and the policeman.