Where There's Smoke

The denial was wrung from her. “I’d have known! I’ve been seeing him for — for months! He gave me his home telephone number! He wouldn’t have done that if he was married!”

“What number did he give you?”

Kate struggled to clear her thoughts enough to remember. The sergeant wrote it down as she stammered it out. He leafed through his notes, then looked at the Inspector. “Different number, sir. That isn’t his home phone.”

He avoided Kate’s eyes. She turned back to the Inspector. There was something that might have been pity in his eyes now. “Did you ever go to his home?” he asked.

“No.”

It was a whisper. “He — he said he was living in a studio flat until he found somewhere to buy. He told me it was a dump, and he’d be embarrassed at me seeing it.”

She remembered his reluctance, how he had always insisted on dropping her off first when they shared a taxi. It was a physical pain in her chest.

The scratching of the sergeant’s pen had stopped. There was an uneasy silence.

“I’m sorry,” the Inspector said. “I know this must all have come as a shock.”

Kate didn’t respond. She stared down at the surface of her desk. There was a scratch on it she had never noticed before.

The policeman coughed. “I don’t suppose Dr Turner made any mention to you about who he was seeing last night?” he asked.

It was an effort to shake her head. “He doesn’t talk much about his work.” Or anything else.

“So there was nothing out of the ordinary at all?”

She gave another shake of her head.

The Inspector took out a crumpled handkerchief and blew his nose. The handkerchief was returned to his pocket. “Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against him?” he asked. “Dr Turner, I mean?”

“I thought you were looking for one of his patients?”

“We certainly want to question whoever he saw last night, but we’re not ruling out any other possibility either.”

Kate began to say no, then stopped.

“Yes?” the Inspector prompted.

“I had... well, a run-in with an old boyfriend in a restaurant. He hit Alex. But I don’t think...”

“When was this?”

“About... about three, four weeks ago.” It seemed an age now.

“What’s his name, please?”

“Paul Sutherland. Look, I don’t want to cause any trouble for him,” she added, seeing the sergeant write down the name.

“Don’t worry, we’ll just check it out. Can you tell us anything more about him?”

Kate told him about the court case. The detachment had returned, sealing her off as she spoke. When she had finished there was a pause. The Inspector rubbed his nose.

“There’s one more thing,” he said, slowly. “The body hasn’t been formally identified yet. His wife isn’t really in any fit state to do it, so I wonder if you would?”

The sergeant glanced up from his book. He looked unhappy. “We could ask someone else, though, couldn’t we, sir?”

Collins stared him down. “We could, but now we’re here I’d like Miss Powell to do it.” He turned back to Kate. “If you don’t mind.”

She answered from within a core of unnatural calm. “All right.”

The mortuary was part of a 1970s concrete and glass building. Kate walked between the two policemen down tiled steps into the basement. The smell was similar to — yet subtly different from — a hospital’s. They came to a row of plastic chairs in a corridor. Kate stayed there with the sergeant while the Inspector disappeared through a nearby door.

She tried to remember the sergeant’s name, but couldn’t. She could tell he was uncomfortable, and felt distantly sorry for him. But other than that nothing penetrated the numbness that surrounded her.

Only once had the actuality of Alex’s death seemed real. During the car journey she had been sitting in the back, staring out of the window, when the knowledge had come to her like a scream. Alex is dead. There was an instant of terrible loss, like falling, but then the feeling of unreality gripped her again, putting an anaesthetising screen between her and her feelings. She almost welcomed it.

Collins came back out. He spoke in a subdued voice.

“Are you ready?”

Kate rose to her feet. She moved towards the door he was holding open for her. She could see through into the room beyond. Facing her was a large window, looking into yet another room.

And suddenly it hit her. Where she was. What she was doing.

She didn’t know she had stepped backwards until she bumped into the sergeant.

“Come on, love.” He spoke softly and took her arm. Her legs were weak as she let him lead her towards the window. She kept her head down as she took the last few steps up to it. Her feet seemed a great distance away.

“All right.”

She wasn’t sure who had spoken, but she looked up. On the other side of the glass was a steel table. A body lay on it, covered by a sheet.

That’s Alex, Kate thought. That’s him, that’s Alex. She closed her throat on a moan.

The sheet covering the body was perfectly still, unruffled by breath. A woman in a white coat, whom Kate hadn’t noticed till now, took hold of it at the top and pulled it back.