The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne by Andrew Nicoll Read Free Book Online Page A

waiting at the gates of the burial ground and there was another with them who was not introduced to me, but I recognised him for Professor Sutherland from the Medical School, who is quite a figure in the town and, as it turned out, not so much of a scientist and a seeker after truth as Broughty Ferry’s own Dr Sturrock.
    I must have made an awful sight, like something from a penny dreadful, as I stood under the yellow gaslight, struggling with the padlock on a graveyard under a waning moon, but eventually the chains rattled free and the iron gates opened. I waited for Coullie’s cart and locked the gate behind it, and by the time I had caught up, walking alone through the lines of graves, Professor Sutherland had opened the doors of the mortuary. It was dark in the burial ground and yet not unaccountably so. We had a half-moon that rolled out from behind the ragged clouds, dim street lamps along the cemetery edge that showed the shadowed railings or the glint of polished marble, weeping angels, broken pillars, half-draped urns carved in stone all of the most fashionable design, but the open door of that squat little brick building held a different kind of darkness. Professor Sutherland stepped into that open doorway and it consumed him utterly until, a second or two later, there came the scratch and flare of a match and the hiss of the gas lamps lighting.
    Coullie stood at the back of the cart. At the front, Suttie bent over double and heaved and scraped the coffin towards him until there was enough of it protruding to let us drag it off the cart and into the building. We laid it on the brick floor beside a contraption that was halfway between a bed and a bath, made of enamel-glazed stoneware and raised on a pedestal to bring it to the height of a table, but with a deep lip on it, so it might be hosed down if need be.
    The professor and Dr Templeman hung up their hats and coats on pegs at the back wall and took down long rubber aprons and red rubber gloves that came up past their elbows, and the rest of us hung back at a respectful distance, including Dr Sturrock, who carried no authority while the body lay in Dundee. Even Coullie was not any longer wanted since Dr Templeman had sent for an attendant of his own from the Royal Infirmary.
    For my part, I was more than content to leave them to deal with the business of lifting the body and I stayed well back, close to the door. If it had been permitted, I would have remained in the graveyard or begun the long tramp back to the Ferry, where the air at least was clean. I cannot describe what it was like in that mortuary, with the light of the flaring gas lamps shining back from the white tiled walls and those men, though they worked in silence, grunting and gasping as they heaved that poor woman’s body around. The stench was beyond belief. From the moment they lifted the lid on the coffin, the stink of death began to creep out into the room and, once they had her lifted on the table, Dr Templeman turned to the Procurator Fiscal and said: “Gentlemen, normally it would not be permissible, but, in the circumstances, you may smoke.”
    Mr Mackintosh the Fiscal had his pipe going in no time and Mr Sempill wasn’t far behind. Suttie and Coullie both sparked up, but, I don’t know, I hadn’t the stomach for it. It felt disrespectful. I simply stood there through it all, watching, saying nothing but breathing deep of the scented smoke.
    They took off her clothes, but they were not gentle. They were cold towards her. They kept their faces turned from her. They took deep, gasping gulps of air and breathed through their mouths. Every item, as it was removed, was listed and described and dropped in a hamper.
    “The body of this lady is tied at the ankles by green curtain cord, which I remove by cutting, taking care not disturb the knot. I remove a pair of shoes.
    “A new cloak, bloodstained.
    “A linen blouse with lace attached, ditto.
    “A camisole or slip body.”
    They pulled