rigor mortis

Natsuo Kirinoの "OUT" を読んでいます。

深夜の弁当工場で働く仲間のYoshieが夫を殺し、その死体を処分することをMasakoが約束します。

Next she used her knife to cut around the hip joints. Watching the blade slip through the layers of yellow fat, she heard Yoshie mutter that it looked "exactly like a broiler." When she reached bone, she braced her foot on top of Kenji's leg and began sawing the femur just the same way as one would cut through a log. Though it took a bit of time, in the end the legs came a way easily as well. The shoulders, however, were more difficult, and she had trouble deciding where to make the incisions. The fact that rigor mortis had set in didn't make things any easier in this case. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, and Yosie was beginning to grow impatient.

ラテン語らしい "rigor mortis" は多分死後硬直を示していると思いますが、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: the process by which the body becomes stiff after death: Rigor mortis had already set in.
・Collins Dictionary: In a dead body, when rigor mortis sets in, the joints and muscles become very stiff.: There was also early rigor mortis.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the stiffness of the joints (= places where two bones are connected) and muscles of a dead body: Rigor mortis usually sets in between two and four hours after death.

ちょっと信じがたい話です。