Even without his lab coat on, Ethan would’ve known that the man by the gurney was a pathologist. He’d seen enough of them in his time to recognise that look in the eyes; half-haunted, half-dead. It was a look acquired only by spending too much time with those who were no longer living.
‘This here’s the consultant pathologist,’ Sheehan said. ‘Doctor, this young man’s here to see the body.’
The man in the white coat rose from his chair. Now blocking Ethan’s view of the table, he extended a hand.
‘Dr Raymond Connors.’
Ethan shook the pathologist’s hand. It was cold and powdery, and he half-expected it to leave a talcum residue on his palm.
‘Ethan Cole.’
‘I assume Sergeant Sheehan has explained the procedure?’
‘I know the routine.’
This time there was no antagonism in his voice, just the plain fact.
‘If you’ll follow me,’ Connors said.
Ethan trailed him across the room. He could hear his own footsteps on the vinyl flooring, echoing and unnaturally loud against the deafening silence of death.
Ahead of him lay the table and on it lay the deceased body, veiled by a white sheet. Connors stretched a fresh pair of rubber gloves into shape before rolling them over his hands. The sterility. In death, no-one can touch you. Not even the freshly-lathered hands of the last man to dress you.
Ethan stood by the table, just above the corpse’s mid-section, while Connors walked to the other side of the gurney. Standing above the corpse’s shoulders, he reached for the overhead light, then looked over to Sheehan.
‘Would you be so kind, Max?’
Dr Connors motioned in the direction of the still-open door. Sheehan swung it closed, the bang just loud enough to make the pathologist frown. They were alone now, all three hermetically sealed within this room where the dead girl was due to be unmasked.
‘If you’re ready?’ Connors asked.
‘I’m ready.’
Connors pulled the sheet back, peeling it away like the curtain coming down on this act of Ethan’s life. Inwardly, Ethan steeled himself to take his final bow.
He barely saw the girl’s face when he looked down. All he could think of were the times he’d shared with Sophia, his memories as vivid and unreachable as hallucinations projected from a worn movie reel.
Those simple moments, recollections of things he never thought he would remember. The two of them eating ice cream on a sunny day and sharing stupid jokes no-one else would understand. It had all seemed so trivial while it was taking place. He’d had no way of knowing then that there would come a time when these things could no longer be shared.
And then their argument. That final argument. And then nothing. Sophia was gone. He’d woken up this morning with the knowledge that this could be the day the last five years had been counting down to. And now-
Sheehan’s voice broke rudely through his thoughts.
‘Anyone you recognise, son?’