“She had a pink face. How many times have I looked at my own daughter sleeping at home? But this girl did not sleep”

As the author writes: “This book is about death, but in it I will take readers on a journey through life”. In 24 intriguing, enlightening, and never-before-told cases, Dr. Shepherd shares autopsies that span seven centuries of human existence, which taught him as much about the wonders of life as about the inevitable stage of death. The book “Seven centuries of death” was published in November 2021 by the Insignis Publishing House. Patrycja Zarawska is responsible for the translation into Polish. Below we present an excerpt from one of the stories presented by Shepherd.

Richard Shepherd, “Seven Ages of Death”, trans. Patrycja Zarawska – fragment

It was summer but my vacation was over and I was back in the dark world of sudden and unexplained deaths. I was going to de-stress with my morning flight. This is my private escape route. I have always been fascinated by the thought of freeing myself from gravity and the bonds of everyday life. I wanted to fly high in the skies, but I never thought that one day I would be able to fly a plane by myself. And then – to my surprise – thanks to the metropolitan police aero club it turned out that yes.

For many people, a clear sky and a light breeze can evoke dreams of beaches, vast moors or hills. On that Sunday, I only dreamed of sitting at the controls of the light aircraft and flying into the blue. Unfortunately, the weather did not want to cooperate. The dull and rainy weather forced me to cancel the flight I wanted, so when the police contacted me asking me to come to a campsite near some distant tourist attraction, I took the chance for a little respite on a lonely trip and left immediately.

It was August, but as I watched the raging storm come in from the Atlantic like a sign of winter, I remembered the old aviation adage: it’s better to look at the sky and want to be there than to look at the ground and want the same. On wide highways, rain and wind bombarded the car, and when I turned to side provincial roads, I had to get out twice to remove broken branches heavy with wet leaves from the road.

The campsite turned out to be a sheltered piece of field on a farm without much infrastructure. Apparently, the hosts did not allow more than a few tents to be put up, because there were only so many of them – far apart, each in a different corner. Although there could have been more tents here before the weather broke and police cars, tracking dogs, criminals, journalists, and now a forensic physician appeared on the site, which rather eliminated the chances of a carefree vacation.

All attention was focused on the little blue tent surrounded by a band that twisted and flapped in the wind. The police created a narrow passage to prevent people from treading the tracks around the tent.

Some policewoman tried to drive the police car through the gate, but the field was so damaged by other cars that several colleagues had to push the car. The wheels were spinning in the mud, the engine was off. Everyone around seemed cold and wet. I parked a little further away where the ground looked relatively firm.

I know that driving an old Volvo station wagon I might be mistaken for a junk dealer and a suspect at that, but how many cars can you open the back and sit down to put on a protective suit? While I was doing this, a criminal police inspector approached me and introduced himself. He was all dressed from head to toe in white coveralls, and he wore special police shoe covers.

“I have to be content with this,” I said, reaching for my galoshes. He looked at them with envy.

Judging from the cases I have selected for this book, one would get the impression that crime scenes are always muddy. It’s not true. Most murders are committed in built-up areas where white boots with the “Police” imprint on the sole are fine enough. That day was different. The inspector’s protectors were doing poorly with the campsite surface.

– The girl is in. We’re looking for her boyfriend, he said, leading me towards the tent.

He paused as a police helicopter flew low over our heads, just below the clouds, with a deafening roar. I envied the pilot that he could fly today, although I guessed he was throwing him hard. The aerial photographer was certainly not having a lot of fun.

Finally the detective tried to shout over the noise:

“They were last seen outside the tent on a Friday night, so it may be a long way off!”

– When was she found? – I asked.

– This afternoon. It was dry on Friday night. They were seen sitting outside the tent, eating and talking. On Saturday, nothing happened, but no one paid any special attention to them either. Only today someone surprised that the tent is still closed and the bikes strapped to that gate …

– They came by bikes? I asked surprised.

I associated cycling holidays in tents rather with the youth of my parents, who in the late 1930s tandemed the whole of northern France, so much in love that they did not notice much except themselves: in their travel diary, they do not mention a word about the inevitably impending war.

“They live nearby,” the detective explained. – They go to the local school.

– Do you know their names?

– Yes. We also found phones. She was sixteen, he is seventeen and we think he killed her.

Teenage boys rarely kill their peers. As I walked across the field in my galoshes and watched the policeman’s boots shine through the cop’s useless boots and his pants soaked more and more water, I thought about how a homicide and a camping vacation were at odds. The detective, however, seemed convinced, and my work so far had taught me that crimes, although sometimes depressingly predictable, can also be surprising.

Upon arrival, I put on my mask and gloves. One of the tent flaps was open and hooked, but despite the fresh air supply, it was stuffy and sour.

The girl’s face was pink, her skin was smooth, and her cheeks were rounded like a child’s. Her dark hair fell on the ground. How many times have I looked downstairs at my own daughter, sleeping safely at home? But this girl was awake.

[…]

In the morgue, I changed into my doctor’s uniform, wondering where the inspector had lost his way when the cell phone rang.

He didn’t even say hello.

– We found the boyfriend.

– Great. Where is?

– Down in the quarry.

– What does he say?

There was a moment of silence.

– Dead.

I wished I had changed so quickly.

“You haven’t started work on the girl yet, have you?” The inspector asked.

– No, I was waiting for you.

“Could you come over now and have a look at him?”

– How far is this quarry?

– Right behind the campsite, in the woods. Looks like the boy killed her and then took his own life.

I changed back. Of course, I had to explain the delay to the mortuary staff who were already working overtime anyway, so they were happy to go out for tea, chocolate chip cookies and an afternoon soap opera while I headed back to the campground.

I was driving there with some trepidation. The policemen bent over backwards to turn into a crime what appeared to be a tragic accident.

The road was like a mud bath. I drove as slow as I could and got as far as I could, then stopped gracefully, put on my galoshes, and shuffled into the CSI van. The inspector was waiting for me there. We walked through the campsite, past the tent where the girl was found, and exited through the gate. A narrow path led through a dense, dark forest. I was concerned that the inspector’s new leg guards wouldn’t last very long.

We stopped about three hundred yards away. The inspector pointed to something to his right, on an overgrown path flanked by police markers.

“We think he was this way, so let’s do the same.”

We made our way through the thicket to the edge of the sandstone rock. To the left of us, the path turned down. To the right was a small picnic field surrounded by a blue tape that flapped in the raging wind.

The local forests are a local attraction because they are full of such rocks, and some of them have caves in which people lived until the beginning of the 20th century. Now the only “inhabitants” were criminals searching the area on all fours. They invited us inside with gestures. Judging by their expressions, they weren’t particularly happy.

The area around the picnic area is planned as a viewing point. There was a wooden table with attached benches, only separated from the edge of the cliff by a long beam. Protecting us from rain today, the treetops had to protect us from the sun’s rays on most August days, and I imagined that looking into the distance, you had a beautiful view of the vast countryside.

Today, unfortunately, gray clouds were piled up directly over our heads. Birds huddled at eye level among the branches of the trees below. Bad day for flying. And just as angry at standing on a cliff.

“Forensics say he spent some time here and smoked a few cigarettes,” said the detective.

The photographer was still taking photos of trampled grass and a small pile of cigarette butts.

– And all indications are that then he jumped. Here you can see where he fell from.

Indeed, there were traces at the edge of the bluff, and at the very tip there was a freshly exposed rock.

– If you are not afraid of heights, please look down.

Considering that I wanted to look down nine hundred meters that day, I definitely had no such fear. I walked closer to the cliff. The rock felt solid, and it certainly was, or it would have been secured with more than a beam. About fifteen meters below us, behind the bushes, white ghosts were moving: another forensics team.

Richard Shepherd – Seven Centuries of Death mat. ferry. (Insignis publisher)