awkward position. I’m sure I can find out her name from one of my other contacts. It’s just that you’re the first person who really gets what I’m trying to do with this story. I don’t want you to give anything away, I just think we could help each other out. There’s nobody else I can discuss this with who really cares about it. Could I meet up with you later, perhaps?’
‘I need to go back to the hospital,’ I said.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
I realised I was being inexcusably mean towards him for no good reason other than that I felt he was putting undue pressure on me to give him information.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Look, if I find anything out that I think might be useful, I’ll give you a call. Alright?’
‘Oh, yes!’ he said, his enthusiasm reappearing. ‘That would be great. Thank you, Annabel. I really appreciate it.’
When I’d put the phone down a moment later I gathered up all the paperwork again and headed upstairs to the MIR.
The hospital rang me on my mobile at a quarter to seven. I’d been so busy, my head a tangle of thoughts and proposals and considerations and recommendations, ideas to try and unravel the tangle of people and their lives, that when the phone rang and the woman on the end said the word ‘hospital’ I realised I hadn’t thought of it since the call with Sam Everett earlier.
‘Hello,’ I said, expecting them to be giving me a list of things mother needed – a nightie? Pants, socks?
‘Is that Annabel Hayer?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Miss Hayer, I’m so sorry to be contacting you with some bad news. Your mother passed away about ten minutes ago. I’m so very sorry.’
‘Oh, God.’ I sat still on the chair, mouth open and gaping with shock. I hadn’t been there. I should have been there. ‘Thank you,’ I said, at last, as though she’d phoned up to offer me a voucher for some double glazing. ‘Do I need to do anything?’
‘You should come in, when you can,’ the woman said. Was she a nurse? Had she told me? I couldn’t remember how the conversation had started. Had she rung me, or had I called her? ‘You might want to bring someone with you, so you’re not on your own.’
That almost made me laugh. Who could I bring? There was nobody at all.
‘I’ll come in a while,’ I said. ‘Thank you again.’
‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you later. Take care.’
I replaced the phone and looked around the office. I was sitting in the MIR at one of the spare desks, and all around me conversations were going on, people were on the phone. Some man standing in the doorway was laughing about something with another person standing on the other side, out of my line of sight. None of them had the faintest idea what had happened. None of them knew.
I stood up and sat down again as my legs felt as though they might not hold me up.
‘Are you OK?’ said the DC who was sitting at the desk next to mine. Was his name Gary, or had I just made that up?
‘My mum died,’ I said.
I think he thought I was joking, at first, or maybe he thought he’d misheard, because he smiled at me. Then he must have seen from my face that I wasn’t joking at all, and he said, quietly, ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Was that your dad on the phone?’
‘No, the hospital.’
I tried to stand up and this time my legs felt better, so I mumbled something about getting my coat and said a curt, ‘Excuse me,’ to the two men standing in the doorway sharing jokes with each other. That was just not appropriate on a murder enquiry, and anyone would have been irritated even without the added distress of having just heard about the death of your parent – the end of your family.
The hospital had a bag with all my mum’s things in it, which didn’t amount to much because I hadn’t had a chance to take anything in for her.
One of the uniformed women on the ward – possibly a nurse, maybe some kind of healthcare assistant or whatever they are – took me down to the Chapel of Rest. Everyone I saw spoke to me in hushed, gentle tones. I suppose that was their training, their way of avoiding me spiralling into hysteria. But, despite the tumultuous rush of events that