and stalked towards the unimposing entrance of the abattoir.
Almost everyone they saw looked hostile. The only people who offered smiles were the officiating vets from the Meat Hygiene Service. They were there, Trish learned, to check the living animals for signs of disease, enforce the legislation that protected their welfare at slaughter, and inspect and health-mark the carcasses as fit for human consumption.
It seemed impossible that with so much supervision any contaminated meat could ever leave an abattoir of this kind to get into the sausages she and Caro had eaten. She stopped to ask one of the vets what would happen to the pig’s carcass he’d just refused to stamp.
‘It’s easier here than in many places,’ he said. ‘The managers almost never challenge our decisions, so we don’t have to go to the magistrates for a destruction order. This one will go into the condemned meat chiller until it can be destroyed by the abattoir staff under our supervision. Sometimes they go for pet food.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
He looked curiously at her, but turned back to his work without any of the dislike apparent in every gesture and every glance from the plant’s own staff. Mr Flyte, the manager who had eventually agreed to show them round, didn’t look as aggressive as the rest, but even he seemed twitchy.
Will had told Trish about the secrecy of every part of the meat trade, but she hadn’t expected this. They moved on through the abattoir to a completely different section, which dealt not with
the pigs she’d already seen, but bullocks. They were first stunned, then killed, skinned and eviscerated.
Trish wasn’t usually squeamish or sentimental about animals, but there were processes here she couldn’t force herself to watch. She knew the smells were going to remain with her for ever. It wasn’t just the blood, but also the half-digested food – and worse – that made the air almost impossible to breathe. She could see now how bacteria might be transferred from an animal’s digestive system to the muscle tissue that would provide food for humans, but she was still surprised at the idea that any of the watching vets could miss that sort of contamination.
In a strange way, the skinning was the worst of all, more terrible even than the killing. The sight of the hides being ripped down the bodies made her own skin prickle and sweat. And the tearing sound hurt. She knew she would never be able to describe what she’d seen and heard to anyone else.
‘And this,’ Mr Flyte said, pushing open a door for them, ‘is the boning room.’
Headless, skinned and gutted carcasses hung on hooks along one wall, while men dressed in blood-spattered white overalls and short white gumboots stripped out the spinal cords. Relieved the heads were off, Trish followed Mr Flyte to watch the easier sight of other men removing usable chunks of meat from the carcasses before the remnants were whisked off to a different area. Two long rows of steel tables held the smaller pieces, as skilled boners reduced them to the kind of joints familiar from high-street shops.
Trish would never forget the sound of knives hitting first bone then steel. There wasn’t as much blood here as there’d been in the room where the pork carcasses had been gutted. There, oceans of it had been washed away by hissing hoses as the edible offal had been separated from the rest, to be flung into deep once-white plastic tubs. Jess’s vegetarianism seemed the most rational life choice in the world.
‘Mind your backs,’ said a stentorian voice from behind them. Will moved too fast and knocked into a stocky man who was in the process of separating chunks of meat from a bullock’s foreleg.
The man whirled round, his wickedly sharp knife barely missing the left arm of his neighbour at the boning table and pointing straight at Will’s stomach. Trish gasped. If he’d been six inches closer, the knife would have gone in. She’d seen how easily it
Almost everyone they saw looked hostile. The only people who offered smiles were the officiating vets from the Meat Hygiene Service. They were there, Trish learned, to check the living animals for signs of disease, enforce the legislation that protected their welfare at slaughter, and inspect and health-mark the carcasses as fit for human consumption.
It seemed impossible that with so much supervision any contaminated meat could ever leave an abattoir of this kind to get into the sausages she and Caro had eaten. She stopped to ask one of the vets what would happen to the pig’s carcass he’d just refused to stamp.
‘It’s easier here than in many places,’ he said. ‘The managers almost never challenge our decisions, so we don’t have to go to the magistrates for a destruction order. This one will go into the condemned meat chiller until it can be destroyed by the abattoir staff under our supervision. Sometimes they go for pet food.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
He looked curiously at her, but turned back to his work without any of the dislike apparent in every gesture and every glance from the plant’s own staff. Mr Flyte, the manager who had eventually agreed to show them round, didn’t look as aggressive as the rest, but even he seemed twitchy.
Will had told Trish about the secrecy of every part of the meat trade, but she hadn’t expected this. They moved on through the abattoir to a completely different section, which dealt not with
the pigs she’d already seen, but bullocks. They were first stunned, then killed, skinned and eviscerated.
Trish wasn’t usually squeamish or sentimental about animals, but there were processes here she couldn’t force herself to watch. She knew the smells were going to remain with her for ever. It wasn’t just the blood, but also the half-digested food – and worse – that made the air almost impossible to breathe. She could see now how bacteria might be transferred from an animal’s digestive system to the muscle tissue that would provide food for humans, but she was still surprised at the idea that any of the watching vets could miss that sort of contamination.
In a strange way, the skinning was the worst of all, more terrible even than the killing. The sight of the hides being ripped down the bodies made her own skin prickle and sweat. And the tearing sound hurt. She knew she would never be able to describe what she’d seen and heard to anyone else.
‘And this,’ Mr Flyte said, pushing open a door for them, ‘is the boning room.’
Headless, skinned and gutted carcasses hung on hooks along one wall, while men dressed in blood-spattered white overalls and short white gumboots stripped out the spinal cords. Relieved the heads were off, Trish followed Mr Flyte to watch the easier sight of other men removing usable chunks of meat from the carcasses before the remnants were whisked off to a different area. Two long rows of steel tables held the smaller pieces, as skilled boners reduced them to the kind of joints familiar from high-street shops.
Trish would never forget the sound of knives hitting first bone then steel. There wasn’t as much blood here as there’d been in the room where the pork carcasses had been gutted. There, oceans of it had been washed away by hissing hoses as the edible offal had been separated from the rest, to be flung into deep once-white plastic tubs. Jess’s vegetarianism seemed the most rational life choice in the world.
‘Mind your backs,’ said a stentorian voice from behind them. Will moved too fast and knocked into a stocky man who was in the process of separating chunks of meat from a bullock’s foreleg.
The man whirled round, his wickedly sharp knife barely missing the left arm of his neighbour at the boning table and pointing straight at Will’s stomach. Trish gasped. If he’d been six inches closer, the knife would have gone in. She’d seen how easily it
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