Human Remains Read Online Free PDF Page B

thirsty enough for it not to matter. She was making some sort of an effort, after all.
    ‘Thanks, Kate. Looks smashing, just how I like it.’
    The summary normally contained about five or six items of note: crimes and incidents that had taken place on the previous day. Anything classed as a critical incident was included – armed robberies, sudden and suspicious deaths, suicides. Rapes and murders were the ones that were of particular interest to me, in case any of the offenders I was supposed to monitor had crossed the line. Although I could search through the overnight crimes on the system, the summary was a handy shortcut, since the most serious offences would always be included.
    And there it was.
    Suspicious Death
     
At approximately 2032hrs on Friday patrols attended an address in Newmarket Street, Briarstone. The neighbour had noticed a strong smell coming from the address and had entered the property and discovered the decomposed remains of a female in the living room. The deceased is believed to be a 43-year-old who lived at the address. Next of kin have been informed. Major Crime Department attended the scene and, although investigations are ongoing, the opinion was that there are no suspicious circumstances.
     
    That was all. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting – some sort of fanfare maybe – but it was bland description, deliberately designed to inform those who needed to know and to obscure things from those who didn’t.
     
     
    The house next door had been full of people for much of Saturday. The forensics van parked outside my house, and, although I’d spoken to the first patrol that turned up, I waited around all day to be interviewed properly.
    My emotional state had been fragile, spinning from nausea and shock at what I’d seen and done, to annoyance that they were taking so long about it all, and guilt that I hadn’t rung them straight away, instead of breaking in like some lumbering real-life Jessica Fletcher.
    After I’d found the body, I’d gone back home and shut the door. Then I’d opened the door again and thrown the cat out and shut the door behind her. In putting my hand under her belly I had felt, instead of soft fur, cold, wet, slimy muck all over her.
    The smell of it, on my hands, on my tights, my skirt. Black and green and brown, the colours you get when you mix together all the colours in the paintbox, combined with the odour of putrefaction. I took my clothes off, right there in the kitchen, and put them in the washing machine. I turned the temperature up to sixty degrees and was about to turn it on when I suddenly realised that I shouldn’t. Maybe it was evidence.
    Of what?
    I washed my hands with antibacterial handwash that had a strong perfume, but even when I rinsed it off my hands still smelt bad. I got some kitchen roll and dampened it, then squirted some of the blue soap on it and rubbed at my legs, in case the substance had come through my tights on to my skin.
    And all the time, I was struggling not to vomit. Every so often I’d catch the smell at the back of my throat and cough, and gag.
    When I finally felt clean, I called the police.
    ‘Kent Police, how can I help?’
    ‘I just found a body in the house next door. It’s badly decomposed.’
    ‘Right,’ said the female voice on the other end. I could hear her rattling away at her keyboard already, entering the opening code 240B for ‘suspected body’. ‘Can I take your name?’
    ‘Annabel Hayer.’
    I went through all the responses – address, phone number, all the details of what I’d seen (the light on) and heard (nothing) and smelt (putrescence) and seen (a body in the armchair) – until I’d convinced myself in my head that I’d imagined the whole thing.
    ‘We’re very busy tonight,’ she said, ‘but a patrol will come out to you as soon as one is free.’
    I went upstairs, had a shower and washed my hair, and dressed in clean clothes, yet I could still smell it, fainter now but