He nodded to the technicians who handed him a small electric saw and switched on. Lawlor began to cut round the top of the skull very carefully.
“They call it a de Soutter,” Miller whispered again. Works on a vibratory principle. A circular saw would cut too quickly.”
There was very little smell, everything being drawn up by extractor fans in the ceiling above the table. Lawlor switched off the saw and handed it to the technician. He lifted off the neat skullcap of bone and placed it on the table, then carefully removed the brain and put it in a rather commonplace red, plastic basin which one of the technicians held ready.
The technician carried it across to the sink and Lawlor weighed it carefully. He said to Miller, Til leave my examina-tion of this until I’ve finished going through the motions on the rest of him. AH right?”
Tine,” Miller said.
Lawlor returned to the corpse, picked up a large scalpel and opened the entire body from throat to belly. There was virtually no blood, only a deep layer of yellow fat, red meat underneath. He opened the body up like an old overcoat, working fast and efficiently, never stopping for a moment.
Father da Costa said, “Is this necessary? The wound was in the head. We know that.”
The Coroner will demand a report that is complete in every detail,” Miller told him. “That’s what the law says he’s entitled to and that’s what he expects. It’s not as cruel as you think. We had a case the other year. An old man found dead at his home. Apparent heart failure. When Lawlor opened him up he was able to confirm that, and if he’d stopped at the heart that would have been the end of the matter.”
“There was more?”
Fractured vertebrae somewhere in the neck area. I forget the details, but it meant that the old boy had been roughly handled by someone, which led us to a character who’d been making a nuisance of himself preying on old people. The sort who knocks on the door, insists he was told to clean the drains and demands ten quid.”
“What happened to him?”
“The court accepted a plea of manslaughter. Gave him five years so he’s due out soon. A crazy world, Father.”
“And what would you have done with him?”
Td have hung him,” Miller said simply. “You see, for me, it’s a state of war now. A question of survival. Liberal prin-ciples are all very fine as long as they leave you with something to have principles about.”
Which made sense in its own way and it was hard to argue. Father da Costa moved to one side as the technicians carried the various organs across to the sink in more plastic basins.
Each item was weighed, then passed to Lawlor who sliced it quickly into sections on a wooden block with a large knife. Heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines – they all received the same treatment with astonishing speed and the camera on the trolley recorded everything at his side.
Finally he was finished and put down his knife. “That’s it,” he said to Miller. “Nothing worth mentioning. I’ll go to town on the brain after I’ve had a cigarette.” He smiled at da Costa,
“Well, what did you think?”
“An extraordinary experience,” Father da Costa said. “Dis-quieting more than anything else.”
“To find that man is just so much raw meat?” Professor Lawlor said.
“Is that what you think?”
“See for yourself.”
Lawlor crossed to the operating table, and Father da Costa went with him. The body was open to the view and quite empty. Gutted. Nothing but space from inside the rib cage and down into the penis.
“Remember that poem of Eliot’s The Hollow Men? Well, this is what he was getting at or so it’s always seemed to me.”
“And you think that’s all there is?”
“Don’t you?” Lawlor demanded.
One of the technicians replaced the skullcap of bone and pulled the scalp back into place. Ama2ing how easily the face settled into position again. Quite remarkable.
Father da Costa said, “A superb piece of engineering, the human body. Infinitely functional. There seems to be no task that a man cannot cope with if he so desires. Wouldn’t you agree, Professor?”