You’re a detective you say? Sadly, as someone in my line of work I’ve encountered the after-effects of gluttony first-hand. Take this chap on the table here; autopsy has hardly ended and the problems I’ve had…. Do you know how hard it is to separate the breastbone when you’ve got to cut through two inches of subcutaneous fat first?

No, I didn’t think so.

To get his clothes off we had to cut them then roll him. It took five of us. Do you know what I found in his pocket?

Don’t answer that it’s a rhetorical question and it makes you sound stupid because of course you don’t know.

The twelve steps of overeaters anonymous, that’s what I found.

Half of it was just religious claptrap but there was this whole bit – steps five and six I think – you have to make a list then make amends with anyone harmed through your overeating. Too late for that, I said, poor Frankie put his back out turning the fat bastard over. You can’t make lists if you’ve eaten yourself to death.

And he has. This is not just fat. This is perfect gluttony.

I suppose you want to know how he died? Easy that one – anastomotic leak. How can I put this so you can understand? His stomach literally burst. It just gets so full that a blockage occurs, gas builds up, the abdomen swells and distends until the blood flow is interrupted and parts of the bowel start to die. That’s when it gets really nasty because fluids and bacteria leak into the abdominal area and just... go wild.

I mean, just take last night; five pounds of hot dogs, three boxes of biscuits, god knows how much lager, I mean some of it was digested but the rest? Poorly masticated, undigested and suspended in a green liquid I have yet to identify.

Symptoms? Allsorts; abdominal pain, shoulder pain, back pain, changes in toilet patterns but nothing that someone this guy’s size would have paid much attention to. He was getting those even before it happened.

How do I know? I’ll get to that.

Once I’d got through the sternum I moved further down and had to slice through three inches of fat. That was when I discovered the leak. Glad I was wearing waterproof scrubs is all I can say.

It was just like I was saying to his daughter; it really is possible to eat yourself to death. There was this Frenchman in the 1800’s who had filled several stomachs, each of which he’d carefully extricated from its lamented owner, until they burst. If my memory serves me well I recall that one gallon was the quantity required for rupture although it seemed my cadaverous companion’s capacity for consumption was far greater. Certainly that’s what she had told me.

He had been forced out of his job as a clerk in a bank due to his enormity and for two and a half years had pursued a career as a piece of lounge furniture. In fact, it was rare this frame was ever extricated from that of the chair in which he held almost permanent residence. Unless, that is, he was hungry.

Everything in the way of movement was a trouble to him and as if this wasn’t enough he had become more than a burden to his daughter who had somehow managed to become charged with the task of supporting him.

Financially rather than physically, you understand?

Speaking of physically I must tell you about his kidneys… The kidneys I had some difficulty with as they were embedded in a thick mass of fat nearly two and a half inches in thickness and their consistency was reminiscent of some oily fish because of the fatty degeneration that had taken place.

And have you ever heard the expression ‘a heart as big as a lion’? Well in this case it was literally true.

I can honestly say that he will go to hell for what he did to his daughter and that makes me laugh cause I hear the punishment for his gluttony is to be force-fed rats, toads and snakes for all eternity. That must be the thirteenth step.

I had a prior knowledge of this sort of thing, it’s been almost an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember and the opportunity to put all the theory into practice was too much to resist. Did you know there was a man in 1986 whose death was attributed to ‘Terminal aspiration of beets’. Inhaled the food.

Co-incidentally this was how I had met his daughter, Sally, originally. Cursed as she was with this father she had been at the hospital pharmacy as I passed by. Our eyes met across a sterile lobby and the rest, as they say was…

Murder?

Not really. I love her more than he loved food.

Does it worry me that I’m going to be arrested?

Again, not really. You are what is probably best termed a flatfoot. Have you ever heard of something called digitalis?

No? Mmmm… it’s a particularly nasty poison.

No, no. I didn’t use it on him.

How’s your coffee?