HAD BEEN SENTENCED TO DEATH BUT THEN REPRIEVED
DR BREARLEY WITHDREW THE RECTAL THERMOMETER from the little girl, shook it, and read off the bodily temperature, making a record of the time, body temperature, and weather temperature in his notebook. His job as a police surgeon was to confirm death and to undertake various procedures to try to determine the time of death. The cause of death and any related aspects such as rape or sodomy would be the province of the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem. Slowly, painfully, he got to his feet; he still suffered from the effects of wounds to his legs during the Singapore campaign and subsequent brutal treatment during captivity by the Japanese. Kneeling at the side of the little girl’s body whilst he did his job had been agony.
Mostly, his job as a police surgeon consisted of patching up drunks in the police cells after they had been arrested for disorderly behaviour, determining if a driver had drunk too much to be capable of driving safely, occasionally being called to a house or nursing home where an elderly man or woman had passed away of natural causes.
Before relocating to West Garside following the purchase of a local GP practice, he had been a doctor in Birtley in the NE of the country where, as a deputy police surgeon, he had dealt with the victims of murder, a few, very few, mostly because in a fight. Five years or so ago, in one such case, Martin Jesticoe had strangled his wife during an argument when she told him she had been having an affair and wanted to leave him. He had been sentenced to death but then reprieved and was now serving a life sentence in HM Prison Durham.
But there had never been anything like this. And he fervently hoped there would never be again. Not for the first time, he thought of retiring. He was forty-six years old but felt much older that day. He stretched and eased his back; a forensic pathologist would take over now to determine the cause of death and conduct the post-mortem.
There would be a preliminary inquest; which the coroner would swiftly open and close, then await the results of the autopsy and the police investigation into the cause of death before opening the inquest again and declaring it a case of murder by person or persons unknown.
It was standard procedure that a ‘listed’ Home Office pathologist would carry out the post-mortem after first attending the scene of a death, but Garside was too small a town to warrant a full-time forensic pathologist, and an urgent message had been sent to Sheffield for a listed pathologist to attend to poor Emily. Her body would not be moved to the Mortuary at Garside hospital until after an initial investigation by the pathologist at the site.