Blog by Hazel McHaffie
A few of my own novels introduce
elements of crime, but I'm way out of my depth on such matters. I've been
hugely indebted to the police for inside information as to procedure and techniques
used in the unravelling of what happened, and the detection and apprehension of
the perpetrators of these acts. So I was particularly keen to attend a session with
a true expert in forensic anthropology in discussion with an award-winning internationally
acclaimed crime writer. Promised to be a winning combination.
Forensic science may be a regular
part of our popular culture, thanks to novels, television and films, but developments
in the world of pathology and understanding of DNA and related technology proceed
apace. Experience in the field leads the scientists on; computerisation speeds
the processes up. Weaving today's possibilities into a novel can make it out of
date tomorrow. Criminals catch up and learn how to avoid incriminating
behaviours too. So how do authors keep up?
Not by following programmes like CSI, we were told,
which have given the public an erroneous idea of the ease and speed with which
these processes work. Authority for this statement came from the Director of
the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University, Professor Sue Black,
who comes with a wealth of experience in the identification of bodies in
places like war-torn Kosovo, in Sierra Leone, following the tsunami in
Thailand. She's keen to debunk the myths about forensic investigation, to show
people the reality of what happens in a crime/accident scene, demonstrating the
meticulous process of pulling together the various clues to what actually
happened. And she has a remarkable facility for reducing complex science to
understandable and graphic images and language.
Couple her with her great friend and
sparring partner, Val McDermid, well known for her 'tartan noir' novels, with their graphic depictions of
violence and torture, and you have a recipe for an hour of hilarity as well as
wisdom and illumination of the topic of forensic medicine. Both are colourful
characters with a huge sense of fun.
We learned so many astonishing
facts. Did you know that an embalmed pubic scalp looks like 'tinned tuna with hairs on it'? Or that
a body retrieved from a bog after 200 years looks like a 'leather bag with a face on it'? Or that the back of one's hand is
as unique as a fingerprint? Or that it is possible to tell from bones and teeth
where in the world your mother was when she was pregnant with you? Or that when
someone gets a tattoo, some of the dye is deposited in the lymph nodes so that
even if the limb is cut off, it is possible to say unequivocally this person had
a tattoo which was X, Y and Z colours?
McDermid visibly latches onto these
facts and her brain conjures stories … So if a tattoo is inscribed post-mortem,
there'd be no dye in the lymph nodes … Black instantly comes back: she had such
a case in reality.
How does Sue Black cope with all the
macabre things she sees? By professionally distancing herself. Her job is to
see, to analyse, to present evidence to a court. In order to do so, she must 'be in a clinical box', not identifying
with the subjects of her scrutiny. She comes across as a consummate
professional, totally at ease with what she does. Though she's anything but
complacent. She's conscious of the dangers if society gets to a place where it
doesn't doubt the science of her field. It's perfectly possible now to
deliberately plant the DNA of an innocent person at a crime scene. She
demonstrated that by wiping her hand on the chairman's shirt, by making him
leave his fingerprints on a glass. She also reminded the audience that pretty
much everyone has their DNA recorded somewhere. The Guthrie test, for example, carried out for all babies at
birth since the 1960s, was used to identify many victims of the Thailand
tsunami. And familial connections using the DNA of relatives are used to
convict in some cases. All these realities raise serious questions about the
balance between civil liberties and crime resolution.
Novelist and anthropologist have a
healthy respect for each other's work. McDermid takes her responsibility to 'give the dead what they are owed'
seriously. She knows her books would be facile without a deep interest in why
her characters do what they do; talking to a forensic expert gives her access
to the reality of crime, investigation and conviction, and ideas for unusual
elements based in reality. For her part, Black admires the level of detail
authors go to to authenticate their work, and the respect this demonstrates for
readers. She wants the science to be correct, and sees educating people as part
of her role. But together they have cleared restaurants with their intense,
graphic (and we suspect merry) discussions of what scenario would give as much
blood as possible? What would a body look like if it had been immersed in a
cask of whisky since 1948?
But recently McDermid has been given
an opportunity to give something back for all the help the forensic scientists
have given to crime writers. Dundee University, where Black is based, needs a
new state of the art morgue where bodies can be embalmed using modern
techniques to keep them flexible. She was promised a million pounds if she
could raise a second million. She turned to her crime-writing friend for help.
McDermid's approach is robust: we shall almost all require surgery at some
stage in or lives; we want the surgeon to be as nifty with the knife as
possible; let's give him excellent corpses to learn on, not something that 'resembles a three-day-old turkey'.
Together they are campaigning to raise that sum - details at www.millionforamorgue.com. For £1 anyone can
vote for the new institution to be named after their favourite crime writer
(anyone but Lee Child 'because you can't
have a Child's Morgue'!). There's also a Killer's Cookbook due out in October.
Altogether a fascinating and
instructive hour, well spent at the Book Festival.
(Session funded by The Wellcome Trust)
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