Human Remains

ring Bill, find out what they wanted me to do. After all, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have stuff to do at work. They were finally starting the investigation I’d been pushing for – how much time was I was supposed to take off?
    A few minutes later I was heading back down the corridor to the main entrance, thinking of my list of what I had to do and mentally ticking some things, rearranging others and adding more tasks to it.
    ‘Annabel!’
    I looked across the crowded reception area and to my dismay it was him again. Sam Everett. I continued walking towards the door, hoping he was here for some other reason and not because he was stalking me.
    ‘Hey! Annabel!’
    He touched my sleeve and then I supposed I could no longer ignore him.
    ‘Sam. Hello again.’
    He looked at me closely. ‘Are you alright?’
    I realised I must be behaving oddly. ‘My mother died,’ I said. ‘I just came to collect her things.’
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. He looked as if he meant it, and as if he had been expecting something like that. ‘Come and have a drink with me.’
    ‘No, thank you, I have lots of things I need to do.’
    ‘Just a quick coffee. Over there,’ he said, indicating the WRVS cafe which was still full of people. ‘Come on.’
    It was easier to give in. I followed him, still clutching the carrier bag they’d given me with my mum’s possessions inside, and stood dumbly behind him while he moved a tray in a painfully slow progress towards the automatic drinks dispenser and thereafter the till.
    ‘Coffee?’ he asked, when he finally got to the till. ‘Cappuccino OK?’ All the other buttons on the machine were taped up with ‘not working’ written on the tape in a wavering handwriting.
    ‘Sure.’
    While he paid I went and sat down, and a few moments later a woman came and cleared up the two trays overladen with dirty crockery and half-eaten bits of food that were taking up most of the space on the table. ‘It’s a self-clear area,’ she said to me, pointing at the sign. ‘You’d think people could read in this day and age, wouldn’t you?’
    I looked up at her and she didn’t speak to me again. Did I have some mark on my face, I wondered? Some sign that said ‘Recently Bereaved, Handle with Care’? I even smiled at her, but still she left me to it, taking the dirty trays with her.
    Sam sat down in front of me and slid a mug of beige-coloured foam across the table in my direction, followed by a handful of sugar sachets and a KitKat.
    ‘I don’t really take sugar,’ I said.
    ‘Have you eaten anything? When did you last have something to drink? I think you could do with some sugar.’
    ‘Are you my personal dietician now or something?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Put sugar in it and I might leave you in peace for a while.’
    He made me smile, but I did as I was told. When I started eating the chocolate I realised I was hungry. My stomach growled and churned at the food. I sipped at the drink, expecting it to be boiling hot, but it was barely lukewarm.
    ‘I think their machine’s had it,’ I said. The coffee tasted of UHT milk.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about the case?’
    ‘Interesting as that conversation might be, that’s not what I’m here for.’
    ‘Oh? What are you here for?’
    He leaned forwards slightly. ‘I rang your office again. Then I rang DI Frost. He told me you’d suffered an unexpected bereavement and that you wouldn’t be in for a while.’
    ‘So you came here…?’
    ‘To find you.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘To see if you were alright. Do you have anyone? Brothers, sisters? Other family?’
    ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Anyway, as I said to you before, I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of things, I always have. I just have to work my way through a list…’
    I gulped at the coffee, thinking that the sooner I drank it, the sooner I could get out of here and get home. Something was building up inside me, a feeling of unease, as if I was going to be sick or was coming down with something. I didn’t want to be here any more. I wanted to be outside, in the fresh air, and then I wanted to go home and lock the door and not open it again.
    ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I lost my mum last year. I know a bit about what it’s like. I just thought I might be able to give you a bit of support.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Why did she die? Was she ill?’
    ‘She had cancer.’
    I nodded, although I had no