Page 6 of The Girls in the Lake
Eight
When Beth walked into the mortuary she was surprised to find Abe wasn’t there. She stared at the bank of fridges against the back wall. Her stomach churning, she wondered which one contained Robert. Telling herself it didn’t matter, and that it was none of her business, was all very well, but it didn’t stop her from striding across the room, her white rubber boots squeaking against the tiled ceramic floor as if announcing her intention to the entire hospital. Casting her eyes over the fridges, she looked for the one with his name written on the door plate but couldn’t see it. No time to waste, she began frantically sliding open each drawer to read the tag on the body bag inside. The door slammed behind her and she knew Abe was there, watching but too respectful to ask her if she’d gone crazy.
There were three separate sliding shelves for bodies within each compartment. Sliding out the first, she read ‘Alan Warner’ on the label and pushed him back inside. Next she pulled out the one beneath and hit the jackpot. The body bag looked so small, but it was long enough. Robert had been tall, but so thin now he must have been a shell of his former self by the time he died. She read his name on the yellow tag which sealed the zip on the bag.
‘Beth, I don’t think…’
She turned to face him. ‘I’m not. I wouldn’t. I just had to see for myself, to check it was the right name, to see it was his name.’
He crossed the room towards her, and she stepped away so he could push the drawer shut. ‘It’s over.’
She nodded. ‘I suppose it is. I need to see his post-mortem to really believe it though.’
‘No, you don’t. Why would you want to put yourself through that?’
‘Yes, I do. I don’t expect you to understand, it’s just something I need to do. When’s it scheduled?’
‘Later this week. They requested Doctor Wilson to do it.’
Beth had only been on shift to work this morning; she had booked the afternoon off weeks ago. Had some sixth sense kicked in or was it all a convenient coincidence?
The loud buzz of the doorbell on the back door where the bodies were brought in broke the silence. Abe went to open up and the spell was broken; Robert was pushed to the back of her mind as the young woman who had been pulled from the lake was brought in. She saw Abe glance at her, as if he was checking she was back in the room and had stopped freaking out. Smiling at him, she gave a gentle nod and mouthed, ‘I’m good.’
His shoulders dropped and she felt bad she’d caused him to worry. She would make it up to him; he was a blessing and she didn’t like that she’d made him uncomfortable. She directed the undertakers to the table where the body was transferred to, and the accompanying police officer spoke.
‘We’ve managed to get someone to ID her. Her supervisor from the hotel she is working at is on her way down here. The victim is possibly a Leah Burton from Devon. According to her supervisor, she has family still living there. They’re trying to get the contact details for her next of kin, though they won’t speak to them until it’s confirmed it’s her.’
‘That was fast.’
‘Yeah, sometimes these things are straightforward. Other times they’re a complete disaster.’
Beth couldn’t disagree, but at least that meant as soon as the identification had been completed, she could begin the post-mortem. She hoped for the sake of her family that the results would show the death as accidental, but the fact that the girl was naked still bothered Beth. Who in their right mind would strip naked and jump in the lake at this time of year? It seemed crazy, but she’d seen a lot more crazy than this in her many years of experience.
Normally once a body was brought into the mortuary any jewellery, personal belongings and even the clothes they were wearing were bagged up by the accompanying officer and booked into the property store at the police station until it could be returned to grieving relatives. She had checked at the marina; the girl hadn’t been wearing any jewellery when she’d been pulled out of the lake. Everything had been left on the deck of the boat, which kind of suggested to Beth that if the girl had taken the time to remove her earrings and the chunky necklace before going into the water then she’d thought about it and hadn’t been that drunk. Then again, alcohol was a great aid for freeing up your inhibitions. She knew that from personal experience. Wasn’t that the reason she’d relied so heavily on a large glass of wine every night to help her sleep for the last seven years? A few gulps would relax her enough to keep her anxiety at bay. She drank quite a lot, but not once had she decided to get naked and run into the lake at the bottom of her garden. She shuddered at the thought; after being thrown in and almost drowning not that long ago she didn’t foresee herself ever setting foot into the icy depths of Lake Windermere ever again.
Nine
Josh passed the statement over to Ethan to read and sign. He pointed to the different places on the form for signature and watched as Ethan scribbled his name next to them. Passing it back to Josh, Ethan looked up at him.
‘What now?’
‘Now, my friend, we get you home. Paton will drop you off; you need a hot bath and some sleep. You did a good thing, thank you.’
Ethan began to blink rapidly, and Josh could tell he was trying not to cry. ‘Yeah, thanks. It would have been even better if I’d managed to save her. I really liked her. She was fun.’
Josh leant across and shook his hand. ‘You did the next best thing, that takes some courage. None of this is your fault; like you said it’s not as if anyone even saw her jump in. The only person to blame is the victim and her poor judgement.’
Paton held the door open for Ethan, and Josh watched as they walked out. How would he feel if the roles were reversed, if he had found the girl? He knew he’d feel awful; humans were very good at blaming themselves when things went wrong, even when it was out of their control. Hopefully after a few hours’ sleep Ethan would realise he’d done what he could, but it had already been too late. Even an experienced swimmer in a wetsuit and no alcohol in their system would have struggled to stay alive. What chance did a naked slip of a girl like that have? He shuddered; it didn’t bear thinking about. He would be there for her family when they arrived from Devon, to try and answer the many questions they would have, and the post-mortem. He needed to go to the hospital and speak to Beth; he wondered how she was and if the arrival of Hartshorn’s body in the mortuary had sent her into a spin, or if she had taken it in her stride.
Walking back to the office, he retrieved his phone, which was charging on his desk, to find he had no missed calls from Beth, and decided it was more than likely a good thing. He did have a missed call from his ex, Jodie, though, which wasn’t. He sighed; could he face speaking to her now? He’d had very little contact with his wife since the day he’d caught her in bed with another man and had walked out of their home with his most treasured belongings in a cabin-sized suitcase. Deciding to ring her back later, he pushed the phone into his pocket; whatever Jodie wanted could wait a few more hours. Leah Burton was his main priority now, closely followed by Beth.
At a desk nearby, Detective Constable Sam Thomas was on the phone, her voice low but the look on her face told him she was mid-argument with a petulant teenager. He smiled at her as she jabbed her finger against the screen, ending the call.
‘Do you want to come out, get a bit of fresh air? Maybe grab a coffee?’
He smiled as her eyes narrowed, showing she was trying to decide if a coffee was worth the guaranteed work that went with it.
‘Does this fresh air involve a car ride with you to Barrow?’
