You Are Dead

75

Thursday 18 December

No one ever gave you training for delivering a death message. You just learned as you went along. As a rookie cop you picked it up from your seniors. Some took a gentle approach but others came straight out with it.

It was the part of the job that, almost without exception, every police officer hated.

The sergeant Roy Grace had learned from told him always to say, straight out and bluntly, that the person was dead. That way it presented no possible ambiguity.

PC Linda Buckley had delivered the sad news earlier and was staying to support the family as the Family Liaison Officer while they came to terms with it. Emma Johnson’s mother still refused to believe it. Even though Emma’s sister had identified her body in the mortuary. She was drunk, angry and bitter. It had been one hell of a twenty minutes in the house and he was relieved to be outside and back in his car.

He was in the process of programming the address of Ashleigh Stanford’s parents into his satnav when the call came through, from Panicking Anakin at Brighton police station.

A woman had been attacked in her home near Hove Park.

She had fought off her assailant, helped by a dog. Two officers were with her now.

‘Where are they, Andy?’

‘In the back of a police car outside her house. She was naked.’

‘Don’t let them go back inside.’

‘I haven’t, Roy. I’ve got a scene guard outside the front of the house.’

Grace reached forward, switched on his blue lights and said, ‘I’m on my way.’