A hefty dose of Polish vodka had got Cassie off to sleep, but the following morning she had surfaced still half entangled in a vivid nightmare. She was at Lily Peck’s funeral, which, in the weird logic of dreams, was taking place in the fruit and veg aisle of Sainsbury’s. As Cassie approached the open coffin to pay her respects, she recognised Mrs P’s slender form but when she got closer she reeled back. The face belonged to a young man with acne-sprinkled cheeks. He opened his golden-green eyes and shook his head sadly, as if reproaching her.
She was woken properly from the dream by her phone ringing. Scrabbled for it, half hoping it might be Archie; half hoping it wasn’t.
It was Doug. The hospital’s psych department had called to say they’d had a cancellation and he’d pencilled her in for an appointment with a shrink that afternoon.
‘So soon?’ she asked weakly.
He ignored that, instead saying, ‘There’s no PM list today so you can take the day off, take it easy.’
Cassie didn’t argue, staying in bed until gone ten, thinking idly about what she might do when she left the mortuary. She felt hollow, not quite present, like she was already in transit to somewhere else, whatever shape that might take. Maybe just bar work for a while. She’d done the odd casual shift during her squatting days and right now it felt like the least demanding and most attractive option. Not seeing Archie routinely would also help her get over him quicker.
Later that day, she got a call from Phyllida Flyte.
‘I might have a lead on Green-Eyes’ identity,’ she said – her clipped tones not quite disguising an undertow of excitement.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘I’m just checking he’s still with you?’
‘He hadn’t gone anywhere last time I looked,’ said Cassie. ‘So, what’s the story?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I just wanted to say, call me if there’s any move to freeze him or anything,’ said Flyte.
‘Sure.’
Then another pause before Flyte asked in a softer voice, ‘How are you doing?’
‘Fine, why?’
‘I don’t know, you’ve seemed different, lately.’ She spoke with the warmth that Cassie had occasionally seen break through her default chilliness.
Suddenly unable to trust her voice, Cassie made a non-committal sound.
Flyte went on, ‘If ever you wanted to talk about anything, I’m here, OK? I won’t ever forget how you helped me understand the medical report into Poppy’s death.’
*
‘I’m Pauline Martinez. I’m the lead psychologist on the programme for NHS workers who might face distressing situations in the course of their work. The idea is to see what we can offer that might help, whether that’s short term or long term.’
Cassie nodded, trying to look engaged. They were sitting opposite each other in a therapy room on the third floor of the hospital. An effort had been made to make the room welcoming, soothing, or whatever, but the pastel paintwork, sub-Cath Kidston floral curtains, and the kitsch artwork – a poster of the sun setting over the sea for Chrissake – just got on her nerves.
‘Would you like to take your jacket off?’ asked the shrink.
Cassie shook her head, folded her arms. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
Pauline glanced down at her notepad. ‘Your boss doesn’t think you’re fine. Why do you think that is?’
Having decided it would make sense to play along, Cassie trotted out her story: being brought up as an ‘orphan’, the discovery of her mum’s murder, her dad turning up, two of her close friends dying in the last year, yada, yada.
Pauline just put her head on one side, nodding, her kind eyes resting on Cassie. As the silence grew in the room she said nothing.
Finally, Cassie said, ‘I used to live with a trainee shrink – sorry, psychotherapist. She said I was suffering from “unresolved grief ”,’ giving the phrase a mocking edge.
‘And what do you think?’
Cassie shifted irritably in her seat. ‘Isn’t that your job? To find out what’s wrong with me?’
Pauline pulled a rueful smile. ‘I’m here to help you discover what might underlie any difficulties you’re experiencing.’
The silence yawned between them. ‘I think I managed fine growing up,’ said Cassie. ‘I had my grandmother and I didn’t really think about my parents. Now my dad has turned up . . .’
Pauline tipped her head.
‘It’s just, sometimes, he talks like he’s got all these parental rights. I’m twenty-six for Christ’s sake. I don’t need a daddy.’
The whine of a drill somewhere in the building split the silence.
‘You’ve had a very challenging time recently,’ said Pauline. ‘But what is it that’s troubling you at the moment?’
A long pause before she replied. ‘This probably sounds nuts, but hey, at least I’m in the right place. I used to talk to the dead people I look after – as if they were still alive.’
Pauline did the head tipping thing again.
‘And sometimes I felt as if . . . they spoke back to me? I mean their lips didn’t move, or anything, but I could sense things from them, about what happened to them? But now’ – she looked up at the ceiling – ‘that feeling has gone.’
‘That must feel like a loss.’
‘It makes my job meaningless. I mean if they’re just dead meat I might as well be working in an abattoir.’
Pauline appeared unfazed.
‘Look, I don’t believe in ghosts, and I get that I probably just . . . notice stuff? But it used to feel so real . . . So there’s this dead guy who got fished out of the canal – it was me who found him actually. And normally I’d be pulling out all the stops to find out who he is, so we can let his family know. But he’s just not giving me anything.’ Her eye fell on the twee sunset poster. ‘Anyway, we’re all going to die, aren’t we? Maybe the how and the why really isn’t that important.’
Pauline looked at the notes she’d taken earlier. ‘This young man who drowned in the canal . . . you mentioned that one of the close friends you lost died in exactly the same way quite recently. I imagine that must make this case especially difficult for you?’
Cassie shrugged again. She had no desire to rake over the terrible events of last winter.
All the same, forty minutes later it dawned on Cassie how much Pauline had dragged out of her by doing little more than tilting her head and looking kind. Which pretty much summed up her own strategy when she sensed that a bereaved relative needed to talk.
Pauline glanced at the clock. ‘We’re out of time, but I would like to offer you further sessions if you feel it might help?’
Cassie jiggled her crossed leg. ‘How long would it be for?’
‘That’s up to you. Until you are feeling better, but if we decide together that you might benefit from longer-term therapy, I would refer you to another colleague. In the meantime I’d suggest you think about taking antidepressants to help you through this difficult period?’
Cassie made a scoffing sound. ‘I’m not taking any drugs!’
‘No?’ The amused set of Pauline’s lips reminded Cassie that she’d admitted during the Q and A at the start of the session that she smoked weed, drank a litre of vodka a week, and took the occasional pill.
‘I’ll arrange a prescription for Sertraline,’ Pauline went on. ‘It’s an SSRI, which—’
‘A selective serotonin re-uptake receptor inhibitor. Yeah, I know.’
The theory was that SSRIs stopped the feel-good hormone getting hoovered out of the brain too quickly.
‘If you decide to take them, be aware it can take a week or two before you feel the effects.’
*
Heading down the towpath to the boat, Cassie tried to gauge her mood.
Worse and better, she decided. Her darkest thoughts seemed to have retreated to a more manageable distance. But she also felt flayed – as if the session had peeled back her epidermis to expose nerves, tendons and muscles – like a pathologist would sometimes do during a forensic post-mortem to find any damage hidden beneath the skin.
Then she spotted it on the side of the towpath, amid the scabby grass and discarded takeaway containers, bottles and cans. A dead magpie, one of its wings bent upwards and fluttering in the breeze as if beckoning her.
Engulfed by a wave of sadness so strong it made her sway, she dropped to a crouch and stroked its plumage – smooth but not soft, an iridescent blue-black. Not yet fully grown, but otherwise almost identical to that first dead bird she’d brought home as a kid. One keen little eye, not yet clouded, looked up at the sky. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get as much life as you deserved,’ she murmured to it, vaguely registering rain falling on the back of her hand. Warm rain? Touching her face, she found it wet with tears.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.
Rooting in her bag, she found a pack of tissues. She opened two of them out on the grass, gently picked up the bird and placed it on top.
‘There,’ she told it, enfolding it in its makeshift shroud. ‘You’re safe now.’