Kwei Quartey - Children of the Street

Baidoo parked under the flowering flame tree that lent a welcome patch of color to all that dreariness. Reception was to Dawson’s left as he went in. Straight ahead against the far wall were two old coffins piled one on top of the other. They had been there for years, part of the furniture now. He turned left to reception, where there was a sign on the wall that read JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR YOUR SINS. On seeing Dawson, the young lance corporal at the desk behind the counter sprang to his feet.

“Morning, massa,” he said, using the alternative word to “sir.” Maybe it was a legacy of the British colonial police service, when black officers referred to the white officers as their “masters,” but now massa was comfortably used by the junior ranks to address their superiors.

“Morning, Brempong,” Dawson said. “How are you?”

“Fine, massa.”

“Is Dr. Biney in?”

“Yes, massa. He’s inside.”

“Thank you.”

“Yessah.”

Dawson went through the double-door entry labeled STRICTLY OUT OF BOUNDS. With no forewarning, the autopsy room was directly behind that, which had caught Dawson off guard the first time he had come to PHM. There were only two autopsy tables for a backlog of corpses possibly a hundred times that. Four mortuary attendants were in constant motion, like traffic at a busy intersection. Dr. Biney was at the right-hand table. He was masked, but when he looked up and saw Dawson, his eyes crinkled at the corners with his smile.

“Inspector Dawson! Welcome.”

“Thank you, Dr. Biney, it’s good to see you.”

“I’m just finishing up with this case, and we’ll do yours next. Would you like to suit up while we get your case ready?”

Dawson branched left to the changing room, where he gladly put on the most important item, his mask. The gown went on second. He took a breath before returning to the autopsy room proper. The odor in the room was subtler and less assaulting than that of, say, Korle Lagoon, but it was oddly more penetrating, as if it got under one’s skin.

Between Dr. Biney and his attendants, it was a frenetic but coordinated dance. On finishing their case on the left-hand table, two attendants dumped the organs back into the body and transferred it to a gurney. As they wheeled it out, a new case was being wheeled in. Simultaneously, on the second table, one attendant was readying the next case for Dr. Biney with a vertical incision from neck to pelvis. No matter how many times Dawson had been here, he had never grown completely accustomed to the matter-of-factness with which the team worked, and he still flinched inwardly at the harsh bang of bodies on the gurney metal. Relax, he kept telling himself. They don’t feel anything .

As they waited for his case, Dawson chatted with Dr. Biney-not empty pleasantries: the two men were always genuinely glad to see each other.

“Here we go,” Biney said, as Dawson’s case was wheeled in. “Ready?”

The body had been washed in the adjoining room, so it looked a trifle better than it had the day before, but the amount of decay was just as severe and the smell was no less sickening. The top layer of skin was blistering and sloughing off, revealing a curiously white layer underneath. The abdomen was extremely distended, rounded like a cathedral dome.

“The putrefaction hasn’t stopped completely,” Biney said, catching Dawson’s look. “Biology will do what it wants, refrigeration be damned.”

Dawson grimaced, trying not to gag. “This one is hard to take.”

“Yes, it is. Has your investigation turned up anything so far?”

“Nothing. We have no idea who he is.”

Dr. Biney turned to George, a wizened veteran of PHM and the most experienced of the mortuary attendants. “Did you see anything of interest while washing the body?”

“Please, yes, Doctor,” George said deferentially. “First thing we noticed was this.”

He held up the corpse’s right hand.

“Curious,” Dr. Biney said, stepping in to examine it. “The thumb and all fingers except the index are hacked off.”

“Fresh wounds?” Dawson asked.

“Very likely. At or around the time of death.”

Dr. Biney looked at Dawson, who turned the corners of his mouth down. “I have no idea what it means.”

“Neither do I,” Dr. Biney said. “Anything else, George?”

“Yes, Doctor,” he said, lifting the corpse’s bloated top lip.

“Missing upper right cuspid,” Dr. Biney said. He peered closer. “Looks like the whole tooth is out, not just broken off. I can’t tell how long it’s been missing, though. I’ll make a note of it on my report. Was that all, George?”

“Please, yes, Doctor.”

“Carry on, then.”

As George began the incision, Dr. Biney turned to the counter next to the sink. “We have his clothing over here, Inspector. By the way, get ready for the release of gases from the body. It won’t be pleasant.”

The clothes were dry now-a worn T-shirt and long shorts with a safety pin at the waist where buttons should have been.

“Look at this,” Biney said, carefully spreading the T-shirt out with the back facing up. “Here on the right side, a hole, slightly rectangular, and some staining around it-presumably blood.”

“Stab wound?” Dawson said.

“Ah, you’re always sharp, Inspector,” Biney said. “Stab wound is exactly what I’m surmising.”

Dawson coughed and choked as Biney’s warning about the abdominal gases materialized. Even the hardened George muttered an exclamation.

“Not for the faint of heart,” Biney said, returning to the autopsy table. Dawson followed after a moment’s hesitation.

“So what I can tell you at this point,” Biney said, as George began removing the chest plate, “is that he was fifteen to seventeen years old.”

“Fifteen to seventeen?” Dawson echoed, shocked. “Oh, that changes the whole picture. He’s a boy, really. I thought he was much older.”

“The decomposition lends that impression, but on the bone survey with our brand-new, secondhand X-ray machine, courtesy of the government of Denmark, I see nice young bones, and the epiphyses still open, so he probably had another couple of inches at least to grow.”

“Doctor,” George said, peering into the boy’s chest cavity. “Look at this.”

Biney joined him. “Goodness. Massive hemothorax. The right lung is practically swimming in blood. Suction it out, would you, George? Inspector, you’ll want to see this.”

Dawson watched as Biney removed the right lung.

“There’s a laceration on the posterior surface associated with severe disruption of the lung tissue,” he said. As Biney explored, the other attendants gathered to look on with interest.

After a minute or so, Biney said, “It’s a deep laceration, far into the tissue of the lung. Let’s examine the right posterior chest cavity. George, would you wash it out, please?”

After a couple of rinses, Biney could get a better look.

“The muscles of the fifth intercostal space are disrupted, and here you can see splintering of the sixth rib, where the weapon struck it with considerable force on the way in. Turn the body on its left side, please?”

The attendants did so, holding the corpse steady as Dr. Biney examined the back.

“Because of swelling and decay, it’s hard to spot it at first, but here is the external wound corresponding to the internal injury. See that, Inspector?”

“I do.”

“In turn, the external wound matches the tear in the victim’s shirt where the knife struck. I estimate that the blade was six to eight inches long.”

“Vicious,” Dawson murmured.

“Yes, indeed. Stab wound to the back resulting in perforation of the right lung, massive hemothorax, and death.”