Back at the station, I shared a lift with Juliet up to the seventh floor. The main open-plan space was empty of other detectives and officers, which confirmed why forensics were taking their time. Another case must have come in.
I dropped my coat off in the side office I shared with Juliet and retraced my steps across the main space. Our assistant, Maddy, didn’t look up as I passed. Her hands flew across her keyboard, her wavy brown hair falling in curtains on either side of her face. I walked through to the stairs and descended to the third floor, then hurried down a corridor, skirting past closed doors and keeping my head lowered near open ones. I swung my hands at my sides, maintaining the illusion that I was taking a casual stroll through the station.
I turned a corner and pushed through a heavy door. I pulled the bolt across to lock it, then pushed through a second door. I let it swing shut while I fell to my knees and vomited into the toilet bowl.
This had been an acceptable reaction the first time I’d encountered a dead body. Paul Willis, the other DI who worked on our floor, had rubbed my back as I’d emptied my stomach. He told me the kind lie then, that I’d get used to it. I’d worked extra hard on that case to prove my abilities weren’t affected by my initial involuntary reaction.
This shouldn’t have been happening anymore. With more cases than I could count on two hands solved and filed away, I should be as unaffected as Juliet or Paul when I encountered a dead body. It was always going to be unpleasant, harrowing sometimes, but I should have gotten past reacting so viscerally.
I held out hope that I’d get over this someday. For now, I came here to do what had to be done. This was the only toilet in the station that was not only a single cubicle but had two doors to deaden the sound of my retching. No one needed to know about this. I was weak enough already in too many of their eyes.
That was the hazard of my history being on public record and working with professionally nosy individuals. My colleagues had to have looked me up, but at least no one had tried to talk to me about it.
I pulled a few sheets of toilet roll from the holder and wiped my mouth. It was only in this first moment that my past intruded, that my body forgot it was thirty-one and reverted to the reactions I’d had when I was seven. For the rest of the case, every time I saw Melanie’s lifeless body or shredded face, I would feel nothing more than a twinge of sadness or distaste.
It was particularly galling that nothing other than the feeling at this moment was similar to what happened when I was a child. The blind panic, the rising nausea, the desperate fight to find a safe place. I didn’t know why dead bodies triggered it. I hadn’t seen one back then.
My arms were shaking, but I felt steady enough as I pushed onto my heels and stood. I braced one hand against the wall and pressed the button to flush. Reaching around the cistern, I pulled out the air freshener I’d stashed there and filled the cubicle with the chemically sweet spray.
I escaped the pungent combination of flowers and vomit in the outer room, a space big enough for a sink and bin. Swilling water around my mouth, I stared into the mirror bolted above the basin. My sallow skin shone with sweat. I cupped water into my hands and splashed it over my face, running my fingers though my cropped hair. A few passes with my blunt nails and it looked the same as when I’d walked into the station this morning, the dark brown strands swept back from my forehead.
There was a knock at the door as I gargled and spat.
‘One minute,’ I called.
I took another gulp of water. My brown eyes were bloodshot, but not too badly. I’d washed the sweat off and the cold water had returned some of the colour to my cheeks, even if it was in blotchy patches rather than a healthy glow. I blew my nose and popped an extra strong mint on my tongue.
I unlocked the outer door with a prepared smile on my face for whoever was waiting. It dropped when I spotted Juliet leaning on the far wall. I couldn’t tell if the stench of vomit and fake flowers had followed me.
‘We’ve got an address for the next of kin.’ She passed over my coat then started walking along the corridor.
I tugged on my coat as I followed her. If she was happy to ignore me using a toilet so far from our office, then I was happy not to ask how she knew to find me here. Despite her prickly outer shell, Juliet was one of the people least likely to pity me, but I wasn’t going to share details if I didn’t have to.
Her spotless heels clacked on the floor as we walked towards the lifts. Her hair was immaculate despite the mist in the forest. She was totally unaffected by what we’d seen at the Dunlow Estate.
I sucked hard on the mint dissolving on my tongue. I couldn’t force my body out of this reaction, but I could do the other parts of my job just as well as everyone else. Better, if some of Juliet’s success rubbed off on me. This hang-up from my childhood wasn’t going to ruin the only job I’d ever wanted.