22The next day Vince pushed open the door of the post mortem room and observed the slight body of Monsignor O’Shannassey lying on the slab. ‘G’day, Ilsa.’
Sarah Bell, the pathologist, was an old medical school classmate and they’d had a brief dope- and poetry-fuelled relationship way back in fifth year. He and Sarah had re-met when he started his sentence in Warrnambool. They’d been fans of Casablanca back in the day and often defaulted to their old pet names from that movie.
Vince looked around the room. He felt uncomfortable in the clinical, austere surroundings of Sarah’s professional domain. ‘You’re welcome to this stuff,’ he said. ‘I prefer my patients to have a pulse.’
‘Hi, Ricky,’ she responded. ‘Each to her own.’
Sarah had finished the autopsy and was tidying up. She was tall a
