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A detective inspector once told me that the key thing to remember at a crime scene was to keep your hands in your pockets.

The temptation to reach out and touch a murder victim or a potential murder weapon could be overwhelming.

He had little faith in forensic pathologists. I was at a scene where a dead manly slumped

over a desk, he told me. There was a narrow entry wound on the back of his head and a hole in

the victim's forehead. A bakelight phone on the desk was shattered into pieces.

He had obviously been shot.

The pathologist arrived.

Hmm, he said.

Looks like we're searching for a stiletto, or maybe a knife.

He had retired early

and asked whether having dealt with so many murders

had made him pessimistic about life.

Not pessimistic, he said, but more philosophical. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Recently, on the phone with a pathologist about a post-mortem report she had prepared on one of my

patients, I realized how rarely I had caused to speak with her or her colleagues.

So much of my practice is guesswork, I said to her, trying to figure out what's going on beneath

my patient's skin. I envy you being able to take a look inside and figure out what's happening

once and for all. That's a misconception. She replied, we don't have all the answers either. And she invited me to come and see for all. That's a misconception, she replied, we don't have all the answers either. And she

invited me to come and see for myself. The city mortuary in Edinburgh is a dull concrete building,

squat and grey with a waistband of windows. It sits on a shadowy street in a district that has long

been one of the city's poorest.

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