Human Remains

said. ‘Annabel.’ In case she’d forgotten who I was.
    ‘Are you OK? How’s your mum?’
    ‘She’s still unconscious.’
    ‘Do you need me to talk to Bill?’
    ‘No, I need to get on with stuff. They said they’d ring me if – you know, if there was any change.’
    ‘Frosty was looking for you earlier.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Wouldn’t tell me what it was about. Said could you go and see him as soon as you get in. Want me to tell him you won’t be in for a while?’
    ‘No, I should be in… um… soon. I’ll let you know.’ I didn’t want her to think I was slacking. I didn’t want to give her any cause to complain about my work ethic, or for that matter to start taking over any of my responsibilities.
    ‘Something’s definitely going on with your rotting corpses, you know. There’s been people coming in and out all day looking for you.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘They don’t tell me anything.’
    I had a sudden memory of the reporter – Sam – telling me about a phone call he’d received, and I was about to blurt it out to Kate when I realised I wasn’t supposed to have been talking to a reporter, never mind giving him a lift home. What was it he’d said? Some woman had phoned him… ‘Have they found another body?’
    ‘Well, there’s one on the Chief’s Summary this morning. Shall I get Frosty to ring you?’
    I gave in. ‘Sure. I’ve got the phone charged up.’
    ‘I’ll let him know.’
    ‘Thanks, Kate. Bye for now.’
    I sat staring at the cold living room for a moment after ringing off, my eyes failing to focus on anything. My mum’s going to die, I thought. She won’t be here for much longer. Surely there were things I was supposed to say to her, things I should be doing?
     
     
    Frosty didn’t call, and after half an hour of fidgeting I couldn’t stand the wait. I drove in to work and because it was late afternoon I risked parking on the station. There were plenty of spaces, thankfully. I left my permit on the dashboard together with a laminated card I’d made up with my force number and mobile phone number on it, just in case someone wanted me to move.
    When I got to the office, Kate was still hard at work, hammering away on her keyboard. ‘Did Frosty get hold of you, then?’ she asked, not looking up.
    ‘No. Why are you still here?’
    ‘Why d’you think?’ she said, an edge to her voice. ‘Tactical won’t write itself, you know.’
    ‘Sorry,’ I said.
My mum is dying
, I nearly said. The only reason I didn’t say it was because I couldn’t have dealt with her embarrassment, and the things I knew Kate wouldn’t say that I so badly needed to hear. ‘Did I miss much?’
    ‘You missed Trigger making the tea,’ she said. This was a standing joke. Trigger only ever made the tea when one or other of us was out of the office. In other words, he didn’t.
    ‘How’s your mum?’ Trigger said, ignoring Kate’s barbed comment.
    ‘She’s the same,’ I said. ‘Thanks for asking. I’ll go back to the hospital after this; I just thought I’d come in and see Frosty.’
    Kate didn’t speak. I thought about logging on to the workstation but I didn’t have the energy to deal with it. I went to the DI’s office, but the door was open and he wasn’t there.
    I went next door to the main Intel office. Ellen Traynor was the only one in.
    ‘Do you know where the DI is?’ I asked.
    ‘Probably in the MIR,’ she said. ‘He’s been in and out of there all day.’
    The Major Incident Room? What was going on? I took the lift up to the next floor even though it was only one flight. I was still tired despite the extra sleep, my limbs aching. I was going to knock on the door of the MIR but it was open, a man in a suit propping it with his foot while he shouted across to someone at one of the desks and spoke into the phone he was holding up to his ear.
    I squeezed past him, having already caught sight of Frosty, perched on a chair pulled up to a desk just to the left of the door. He looked ridiculously relieved to see me.
    ‘What’s going on, sir?’
    He didn’t even notice the ‘sir’ this time, just beckoned me over. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Annabel. Come and have a look at this.’
    I stood behind him and peered over his shoulder at the computer screen. ‘What is it?’
    ‘It’s the statement made by our mutual friend. The reporter.’
    ‘A statement? What’s he made a statement for?’
    He looked at me in surprise, then obviously realised that he was going