Human Remains

smell coming from the pasty shop on the corner, ‘that someone would notice? I mean the younger ones in particular. They’d have families, work colleagues, friends. Even if they weren’t working, surely they’d be signing on or something like that? It’s got to be pretty hard to just disappear.’
    ‘I guess so. I think if I didn’t appear on Facebook for a couple of days there’d be some kind of inquiry.’
    We sat on the wall waiting for the Park and Ride buses. That was, Kate sat on the wall and smoked; I leaned against the wall upwind of her.
    ‘Although there wouldn’t be really, not if you’d withdrawn from it gradually,’ she said a few minutes later.
    ‘Withdrawn from what?’ I asked.
    ‘From Facebook. I mean, if you were intentionally withdrawing from society, then you’d gradually stop posting on Facebook, wouldn’t you? And after a while nobody would even notice you’d gone. Or they might, and they could leave you a message, send you an email, but if you didn’t reply… I mean, most of them aren’t real friends, are they? Close friends, I mean. And the ones that are – well, what if you told them you were moving abroad? Or that your computer was broken, or something? How many months would it be before anyone seriously wondered where you were?’
    ‘I’m not on Facebook,’ I said.
    She wasn’t listening. ‘I still think there’s no point pursuing it, though. Twenty-four bodies or fifty-four, you’re still talking about people who have just – died. People die every single day, hundreds of them. None of your decomposed ones were murdered, according to the logs, were they?’
    I shook my head. ‘There was one I saw where the coroner had failed to determine a cause of death, but most of them seem to be seen as natural causes.’
    ‘Anything obvious linking them all?’
    ‘Other than that they’ve all been left to decompose, and they all lived in Briarstone… not that I’ve seen so far.’
    ‘Well, then. Unfortunately we’re crime analysts. We’re not here to look at social issues, that’s what they’re going to tell you. And what’s worse,’ she said, jumping off the wall and stubbing her cigarette out on the rubbish bin, ‘if they think you’re busying yourself looking into something like that, they’ll find some other work for you to do.’
    ‘Great,’ I said.
    Just for a change, my bus came round the corner bang on time. Kate, who parked in the other car park on the Baysbury side of town, was going to have to wait here a little longer.
    When I got home there were no parking spaces anywhere near my house. I had to leave the car on the main road where all the chavs and druggies lived and walk back, double-and triple-checking that I’d locked the car and not left anything interesting or valuable in view. My car was a ten-year-old Peugeot, not new or worth nicking, but unfortunately the basic spec also made it rather easy to steal. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if it got nicked, just bloody inconvenient.
    Lucy met me at the top of the road, jumping down from a low garden wall and trying to trip me up all the way back to the front door, acting as though she’d not been fed for three weeks. I tried to find the keyhole in the darkness – must get that light fixed – and when I finally pushed the door open the phone was ringing.
    ‘Hello?’ It was my mother. ‘Yes, Mum, I’ve just got in. Can I ring you back?’
    ‘Well, I did wait all day, since I thought you’d be too busy to speak to me at work, but if you can’t talk to me now…’
    ‘Sorry, Mum. I’m just tired.’
    ‘I’ll only be a moment, anyway. Have you got a pen?’
    I sat on the sofa with my coat on and a notepad balanced on my knee making a list of shopping she needed tomorrow, while the cat wound herself round my ankles, clawing at my skirt and my tights, and I swiped her away over and over again until I gave up, tucked the phone under my ear and went to the kitchen to find some cat food.
    I cooked myself an omelette for tea, watched a programme about Africa on the telly and then went and had a bath. I sat there in the hot foamy water and listened to the silence in the house, the echoing silence.
    I tried to imagine what could have happened in the months since the time I’d seen Shelley Burton. Maybe she’d been so unhappy after her partner had moved out that she’d given up on gardening, given up on life. Maybe he’d had an affair with someone, and she’d been