Morgues don't usually inspire affection, but Dr Hau Kong-lung, the Department of Health's top forensic pathologist, is visibly proud of one of the more recent additions to the government's medical arsenal. And he has reason to be - the bright, airy and spotlessly clean Kwai Chung Public Mortuary is about the most pleasant temporary home a corpse could hope for.
A whirlwind tour of the facility takes in a cosy, well-stocked library, fully equipped offices and a state-of-the-art operating theatre that allows spectators to watch a corpse being examined from comfortable chairs above. Hau sees the complex, nearly a decade in the making, as a major advance in the struggle of local forensic officers to better understand the causes and patterns of death in Hong Kong.
'We're quite happy with this new mortuary because we've improved a lot on the hardware,' he says. 'Anyone who's had the opportunity to visit the old ones can probably appreciate the difference.'
It might seem odd for the government to lavish time and money on a building that is, after all, primarily a pit stop for dead bodies. But the mortuary, which opened in September 2005, also houses some of the city's most formidable forensic resources - and for a relatively safe and healthy place, Hong Kong has no shortage of mysterious, sometimes gruesome fatalities requiring in-depth investigation. In the past few months alone, a dismembered torso surfaced off the Central Star Ferry pier, two visiting American businessmen perished of apparent drug overdoses in a five-star hotel room and a young Indonesian worker was stabbed and left to die at dog kennels in Fanling.
When unsettling cases like these arise, the public eye is inevitably fixed on the victims, police or suspected killers, but it is often the city's forensic pathologists who come up with the evidence needed to convict the guilty. The Department of Health has a team of 16 experts, who kick into action every time someone passes away under questionable circumstances or in official custody. They pore over places of death, inspecting bodies for telltale injuries, and report their findings to the police or courts. It is a grim but essential calling that, in the words of Hau, allows the dead to speak - to help the living.
For an idea of the impact of forensic work, one only has to delve into the casebook of Dr Philip Beh Swan-lip, a former government pathologist who is now an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Pathology and one of the city's foremost experts in the field. By his own estimate, Beh has conducted more than 12,000 autopsies, a count that seems to have taken little toll on the smiling, affable academic. He says his occupation has given him 'a very philosophical view of death'.
'I've seen enough cases to know that there's no way you can predict when it's going to come,' he says, laughing.