Chapter Twenty-Two

In another scene lifted straight from the pages of Ransome's journal, I was taken to what Hewitt called the lecture hall, an imposing auditorium with a sizeable mock surgical theatre as its centrepiece. On a raised platform bathed in bright spotlights, stood an imperious-looking Zaragoza, next to him a cadaver on a bed, covered with a white sheet. On all sides I was surrounded by what I presumed were medical students, junior doctors, and a few of Zaragoza's colleagues.