3. Algor Mortis
Algor mortis refers to the temperature of a body. After death, the body starts to cool until it reaches equilibrium with the ambient temperature （wherever the body is discovered）。[9] Typically, the body will lose about 0.8 degrees per hour, until it reaches the environmental temperature.[10] At the crime scene – in addition to making observations about the rate of rigor and lividity – a medical examiner will also likely take the body’s internal temperature and that of the environment, in order to calculate approximately when the victim was killed.[11]
Although these processes cannot tell us the exact minute a person died, they are the main factors a pathologist uses when estimating a range for the time of death.
Death stared back at her. Real death, not the clean idealized version of it; the purpling pockmarked skin of a corpse, and the eerie forever-whitened imprint of a too-tight belt they must have worn as they died. It was almost funny, in a way, Pip thought as she scrolled down the page on her laptop. Funny in the way that if you thought about it too long, you’d go mad. We all end up like this eventually, like these postmortem images on a badly formatted web page about body decomposition and time of death.
Her arm was resting on her notebook, steadily filling up with her scribbles. Underlines here and highlighted parts there. And now she added another sentence below, glancing up at the screen as she wrote: If the body feels warm and stiff, death occurred three to eight hours prior.
‘Are those dead bodies?!’
The voice pierced through the cushion of her noisecancelling headphones; she hadn’t heard anyone come in. Pip flinched, her heart jumping to her throat. She dropped her headphones to her neck and sound came rushing back in, a familiar sigh behind her. These headphones blocked almost everything out, that’s why Josh kept stealing them to play FIFA, so he could ‘noisecancel Mum’。 Pip lurched forward to switch to another tab. But, actually, none of them were any better.
‘Pip?’ Her mum’s voice hardened.
Pip spun her desk chair, over-stretching her eyes to cover their guilt. Her mum was standing right behind her, one wrist cocked against her hip. Her blonde hair was manic, sections folded up into foil like a metal Medusa. It was highlighting day. They happened more frequently now that her roots were starting to show grey. She still had on her clear latex gloves, smudges of hair dye on the fingers.
‘Well?’ she prompted.
‘Yes, these are dead bodies,’ Pip said.
‘And why, darling daughter, are you looking at dead bodies at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning?’
Was it really only eight o’clock? Pip had been up since five.
‘You told me to get a hobby,’ she shrugged.
‘Pip,’ she said sternly, although the turn of her mouth had a hint of amusement in it.
‘It’s for my new case,’ Pip conceded, turning back to the screen. ‘You know that Jane Doe case I told you about. The one who was found just outside of Cambridge nine years ago. I’m going to investigate it for the podcast while I’m at uni. Try to find out who she was, and who killed her. I’ve already been lining up interviews over the next few months. This is relevant research, I swear,’ she said, hands up in surrender.
‘Another season of the podcast?’ Pip’s mum raised a concerned eyebrow. How could one eyebrow communicate so much? She’d somehow managed to fit around four months’ worth of worry and unease into that one small line of hair.
‘Well, I’ve somehow got to fund the lifestyle to which I have grown accustomed. You know, expensive future libel trials, lawyer fees…’ Pip said. And illegal, unprescribed benzodiazepines, she thought secretly. But those weren’t the real reasons; not even close.
‘Very funny.’ Her mum’s eyebrow relaxed. ‘Just… be careful with yourself. Take a break if you need it, and I’m always here to talk if…’ She reached out for Pip’s shoulder, forgetting about the hair-dye covered gloves until the very last second. She stalled, lingering an inch above, and maybe Pip imagined it but she could somehow feel the warmth from her mum’s hovering hand. It felt nice, like a small shield against her skin.
‘Yeah,’ was all Pip could think of to say.
‘And let’s keep the graphic dead bodies to a minimum, yes?’ She nodded at the screen. ‘We have a ten-year-old in the house.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Pip said, ‘I forgot about Josh’s new ability to see through walls, my bad.’
‘Honestly, he’s everywhere at the moment,’ her mum said, lowering her voice to a whisper, checking behind her. ‘Don’t know how he does it. He overheard me saying fuck yesterday, but I could’ve sworn he was on the other side of the house. Why is it purple?’