Tidelands: II-Three (24)

Falstaffian.

Percy is now just past the point where his stomach betrays him, but not by a generous margin, and the anticipation of the smell of disinfectant generally puts paid to breakfast. The local forensic pathologist, on the other hand, a full-bearded man of Falstaffian temperament and proportions, is far chirpier than his duties license him to be. Percy finds him at his desk, jovially munching down a bacon sandwich, a cream-filled pastry next in line, and taking periodic, noisy slurps from a colossal mug of steaming black coffee, all the while humming along to some Sturm und Drang classical piece – Wagner? Beethoven? – piped through the autopsy suite’s tinny little speakers and rebounding flatly off its tiled walls and wipe-down surfaces.