many he attended it was always the same; it was something he could never get used to. Didn’t want to get used to if he was honest. Accidents and murders, even terminal illness were all tragic and devasting, but these people didn’t die by their own hands. They didn’t willingly wake up and decide that today they’d swallow fifty paracetamol and put a plastic bag over their head because they could no longer take the pain inside that being alive caused them.
In the kitchen, he opened the freezer and pulled out the bottle of vodka he kept in there. He took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with ice and neat vodka. Sitting at the kitchen table, he stared at Cindy’s fluffy dressing gown on the back of the chair opposite him. It no longer smelt like her; instead it smelt of bacon grease and dust. He knew he should eat something. He hadn’t had anything since a bacon buttie that morning. Downing the vodka, he got up and opened the fridge door. Two eggs, some crusty cheese that looked as if it was growing its own penicillin and half a tin of chopped tomatoes greeted him. He grabbed the tomatoes, looked inside the tin and gagged. They were green and furry. It would have to be eggs again, and he didn’t want eggs. Opening the cupboard, he found a packet of chocolate digestives that would have to do. Refilling his vodka glass, he took that and the biscuits upstairs with him to the bathroom. He would have a shower, finish his drink and eat as many biscuits as he could before sleep overtook him.
As he stood under the spray of steaming hot water, he cast his mind to Olivia Potter, wondering if section had located her husband and what it meant if they hadn’t. Was Morgan right to raise concerns, or was she being overzealous because it was the first sudden death she’d attended on her own? When he’d towel dried himself and was dressed in clean boxers and a long-sleeved T-shirt he felt better. Walking past the master bedroom, he stared through the open door at the super king-size bed. He hadn’t slept in that either since Cindy had gone. It reminded him of how lonely he was. Instead, he’d taken to sleeping in one of the spare rooms which doubled up as a home office. The single bed was comfortable, a bit of a squeeze but he managed.
Finishing his drink, he tossed the packet of biscuits on the small chest of drawers next to the bed and threw himself onto the mattress. Days like this wore him out; mentally, emotionally, physically, coming home to this empty house which was like a shrine to his dead wife exhausted him. Memories he didn’t want to surface always did after a suicide, and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop them. He sat on the bed and opened the biscuits, slowly making his way through half a packet as he looked down at the paunch which protruded over the top of his boxers. He needed to sort his life out. Once upon a time he’d have cooked a healthy meal, been up for a run before work, maybe even gone for one at the end of his shift. He wouldn’t be living off crap and vodka. What would Cindy do if it had been him who had died? He smiled; she definitely wouldn’t be living like some weird hermit, that was for sure. His stuff would have been boxed up and donated to a charity shop the day after his funeral.
So, what are you holding on to, Ben? This stuff is just stuff; your memories are inside your mind and in your heart. He lay down and stared up at the ceiling; there was a large crack running from the light across to the wall above his head. If he didn’t get a builder in to look at it the whole ceiling could come down. He closed his eyes, and like he did every night, determined that tomorrow he would find a builder and tomorrow he would get some boxes to pack away Cindy’s stuff.
Seven
Morgan’s eyes opened wide; the room was dark, but she didn’t need to look at her phone to see the time was 04.25 because that was the exact time she woke every single morning. It didn’t matter how tired she was, how late she went to bed, if she’d been drinking, if she