Human Remains

picture their faces, rapt, over their platefuls of bacon sandwich, toast and cheese scones. For once, they would listen and not interrupt. For once, my news would trump anything they could offer.
    But they didn’t ask, and so I kept it to myself.
    I’d forgotten to ask Kate to get a pint of milk in the canteen, and there was no way she would think of it herself, so after ten minutes of enjoying the peace in the office I got up, found my purse in my bag, and took the lift up to the top floor.
    They were all gathered around a table near the till, heads together. I could hear snatches of the conversation as I found a pint of semi-skimmed in the fridge and checked the sell-by date.
    ‘You see, I told you, didn’t I?’
    ‘He’s only just moved out, Kate, he’s not even taken all of his stuff with him yet…’
    So, Carol had chucked poor old Rick out of the flat, then. I waited behind two PCs in their full patrol kit: stab vests, Airwave radios bleeping. Behind the counter Lynn was adding a generous glug of vinegar from an industrial-sized plastic bottle to the poached-egg pan. It already had an ugly brownish scum of vinegar and egg-white froth floating on the surface. I looked away.
    ‘You started talking to the walls yet, then?’ Sarah was asking Carol.
    ‘Don’t laugh. It is horribly quiet without Sky Sports on every bleeding second of the day though.’
    ‘You’ll be getting a cat next…’
    ‘Hey, don’t knock it,’ Kate said. ‘It’s only her cat that stops Annabel from going completely batty, you know.’
    ‘Don’t be mean,’ Amy said. ‘She’s not batty.’
    ‘She’s heading that way, if you ask me.’
    I stared at them, wondering if they really hadn’t noticed I was standing right there or if they were being deliberately rude.
    ‘Is that all you want, Annabel?’ asked Lynn. She’d plopped eggs into the pan and was spooning brown water over them to hurry the cooking process along. I turned towards the till, opening my purse.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. My cheeks were burning.
    ‘Oh, shit,’ I heard someone say from the table behind me.
    They were all silent, then. I handed over a pound coin and took the milk and hurried away, not looking at the table, not looking at Lynn even though I heard her say, ‘Wait – your change!’
     
     
    The Chief’s Summary arrived by email at half-past nine, just as Kate came back into the office. In the twenty minutes or so since the scene upstairs in the canteen, I’d had a few private tears, washed my face in the Ladies’ and decided to put it behind me. I knew they talked about me, after all. They talked about whoever wasn’t currently in the room, so I couldn’t consider myself special.
    Kate put the kettle on behind me and cleared her throat. ‘You want a tea?’
    ‘Yes, please. I’d love one.’
    She’d obviously been hoping I’d say no, but it gave me a perverse pleasure to take her up on the offer. When it was plonked on to the desk, it was very milky. I was 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