John Banville

In the Pathology department it was always night This was one of the things Quirke liked about his job - the only thing, in fact, he often thought Not that he had a particular taste for the nocturnal - I'm no more morbid than the next pathologist, he would insist in the pub, to raise a groaning laugh - but it was restful, cosy, one might almost say, down in these depths nearly two floors beneath the city's busy pavement. There was, too, a sense here of being part of the continuance of ancient practices, secret skills, of work too dark to be carried on up in the light.