in slime-like tendrils to her neck and the side of her face.
‘Is it her?’ the doctor asks gently.
I stare at the photograph, trying to find something in it that will prove me wrong. Rob squeezes my hand so hard the bones crunch but I don’t feel it. I shake my head, trying to blot the hideous image of death away but knowing too that I will see it for the rest of my life every time I close my eyes.
‘Orla? Do you recognise this woman?’ Reza asks.
I force myself to look away from the photograph. The sob erupts out of me as I sink to the ground. ‘Yes. That’s her. That’s Kate.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
There are voices but it’s as if they’re on the other side of a metal door – echoey and indistinct, and there are hands, pulling and prodding at me, though I barely notice them. I’ve retreated into some small, terrifying dark cave inside my head, but even in here the knowledge that Kate is dead roars around me like a hurricane.
That photograph. I will never be able to unsee it. Her face – bloodless as stone, swollen to almost splitting. My brain tries furiously to black it out, erase it from my mind, but it’s going nowhere. It has staked a claim. I try to picture her alive instead, cheeks flushed, eyes sparking, a witty retort flying off her tongue, but no matter how hard I try I can’t see it. The image of her dead is now superimposed over every memory I have of her.
There’s an alarm going off – an odd keening sound, and I wonder for a split second if it’s a fire alarm until I realise the sound is coming from me. I clamp my fist to my mouth, trying to block it, but there’s no way of stopping it. It’s a gut-wrenching, agonising pain that’s being dredged from the deepest part of my being. A howl like an animal caught in a gin trap, serrated teeth gnawing through bone. I’m only vaguely aware of Rob pulling me to my feet and wrapping his arms around me.
‘It’s OK,’ he whispers into my ear, his voice filled with shock. ‘I’ve got you.’
I cling to him like he’s a life raft. I bury my head against his chest and my howl burrows into him. He absorbs it and when my shoulders start to shake with sobs he pulls me closer, rocking me.
After a few minutes the shock of it starts to ebb. Rob pulls away slightly, pale and still reeling from the shock, and I draw my hands across my face, pressing my palms hard against my eyes. That image of Kate is burned into my retinas. Not even pressing until I see stars makes it vanish.
‘Orla, if you could please sign here.’
I turn my head to find the pathologist is there, waiting, still holding the clipboard. I shrink backwards, afraid he’s about to show me the photograph again, but when he hands me the clipboard I see he’s removed the photo and it’s just a form. He offers me a pen. ‘It confirms that it’s Kate,’ he says, indicating where I should sign.
I scrawl my name on the dotted line.
‘What happens now?’ Rob asks him, and I see that he too has been crying.
‘We’ll carry out the autopsy and confirm how she died,’ the pathologist says. His English is excellent but his accent is so thick it takes me a while to understand. What does he mean that they need to confirm how she died?
‘I thought she drowned,’ I say.
‘Yes, but the body shows signs of trauma to the skull.’
‘What?’ I ask confused. ‘Someone hit her?’
‘Or she banged her head as she fell. It’s difficult to say. We’ll know more after the autopsy. Because of the nature of her death we’ll be prioritising it. We should have the results fairly quickly.’
I look at Rob who is frowning too. Like me, when we heard Kate had drowned, he must have assumed it was an accident.
‘You’re saying that maybe it wasn’t an accident?’ Rob presses.
Reza interrupts. ‘We don’t know. Let’s not make any assumptions.’
‘Maybe she kill herself. She could have jumped, then hit her head on something when she was in the water.’
I spin around to see Nunes is speaking. Reza glares a warning at him to shut his mouth.
‘It wasn’t suicide,’ I tell him, outraged at the suggestion. How dare he? I turn back to the doctor. ‘She didn’t kill herself,’ I insist.