Page 67 of Guilty Mothers
‘So, Penn, care to explain why you found it necessary to add to my already considerable workload?’
‘Trust,’ Penn answered.
‘In the pathologist or the process?’ Keats asked as Jimmy wheeled in the gurney.
‘Don’t really want to answer that.’
‘Wrong answer. It’s the process you should distrust the most.’
‘Doesn’t digital autopsy have many benefits?’ Penn asked, hoping to put his recent research to good use.
‘Name them.’
Not sure if he was being led into a trap or if Keats was actually inviting healthy debate, he decided to proceed with caution.
‘It’s impossible to preserve the body after dissection. This method lets you gather the findings with non-destructive and contamination-free procedures.’
‘Spoken by a man who crammed on the subject last night. I don’t disagree, so please continue.’
‘It makes it easier to see some areas of the body.’
‘Agreed. Data acquisition from some areas is problematic. Continue.’
Penn now knew for sure that he was being led somewhere.
‘Keats, you’re scaring me now.’
‘Have you made all your points?’
‘I think so.’
‘You forgot to mention that it can speed up data acquisition in disasters, but I’ll forgive you that one. It’s true that bodies can be examined digitally multiple times. However.’
Penn groaned. Here it came.
‘However, a very obvious difference is the real colour of internal body organs and their changes in the deceased, in comparison to what is simulated in the visualisation software. Even vague colour changes in organs can offer clues on the cause of death. Plus this novel technology hasn’t been given enough time in action to be sure of its findings. In addition?—’
‘Okay, Keats, you got me,’ Penn said, holding up his hands in defeat.
‘Oh no, young Penn, a little information is a dangerous thing. You wanted to learn, but you failed to realise the most important fact.’
‘Which is?’ he asked resignedly.
‘That there aren’t many justice systems around the world who accept digital autopsies in court, so to put it in a nutshell, without dissection, you have no case.’ He sighed heavily. ‘And unfortunately that may be the situation we find ourselves in with this poor fellow too.’
Penn waited but sensed it was not going to be good news.
‘I’m happy to carry out a full post-mortem, but on first inspection, there is nothing obvious to tell us how this man ended up in the water.’
‘But the marks…’
‘Could very easily have been made by the body moving around in the water after death. I’m sorry, Penn, but—Oh, hang on one little minute.’ He peered down at the man’s right hand. ‘Hmm…out you go for a second,’ he said, ushering them towards the door.
They stood in the anteroom silently and watched as Keats wheeled over the portable X-Ray machine. He positioned it over the right hand.
Both he and Tiff watched as Keats pressed a few buttons on the machine and then beckoned them back in.
The screen on the wall sparked into life and a skeletal hand appeared. Before Penn had a chance to try and make sense of it, Keats was already pointing.