He knows. It will be in her notes. This is not about what she says, it is about how she says it. Or maybe, about what she doesn’t say.
‘I work for the British Antarctic Survey,’ she says. ‘I’m a glaciologist.’
‘You study glaciers?’
Felicity opens her mouth to give the stock response about how glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that involves geology, physical geography, geophysics, climatology, meteorology, hydro—
‘I study ice,’ she says. ‘It’s mainly about ice. And its decline.’
He nods, vaguely, already losing interest. ‘The polar bears,’ he says politely. ‘Very worrying.’
He is humouring her, as so many do, and for a moment she forgets herself.
‘Ice isn’t just about polar bears.’ She leans forward, closing the distance between them. ‘The bears are dying because their entire food chain, just about every living thing in the Arctic region, is under threat.’
He smiles and looks down at his notes, already seeking a retreat, but she is only getting started.
‘Ice is an insulator, a cushion,’ she tells him. ‘As ice melts, heat from the ocean escapes into the atmosphere, warming the planet even more and creating a vicious circle. Without ice reflecting back sunlight, the oceans get warmer still. Cold seas produce a huge amount of methane; ice keeps it under the surface. You know that methane is a greenhouse gas, don’t you?’
He nods, a little nervously. ‘I knew that.’
‘Ice stops water evaporating. More water in the atmosphere means more of the big catastrophic storms we’ve been seeing, with the resulting loss of life and economic devastation. And don’t get me started on nearly two hundred Arctic communities that are struggling to maintain their way of life as the ice shrinks.’
‘I won’t,’ he says.
‘Ice is everything. Without ice, the planet’s finished. We all die.’
Silence. Joe picks up his pen and writes.
‘You’re writing crazy person, aren’t you?’ she says.
He laughs. ‘I’m writing knowledgeable, caring and passionate,’ he says. ‘And thank you. I won’t make that mistake again.’
He closes her notes with a decisive snap. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘You’re twenty-eight, in good physical health, with no recorded history of mental illness. Your parents died when you were very young, and you were raised by a maternal grandmother and then in local authority care when she passed away. You’re single, with no other nuclear family. You’ve worked for the BAS in Cambridge for a little over five years and even though you’re still quite young, you’re considered one of Europe’s leading experts in your field. Have I missed anything?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Just trying to save us some time. Normally, the background can take the entire first session.’ He smiles again. ‘Tell me what you’re feeling right now, Felicity. How do you feel about being here?’
She weighs her words carefully, knowing he will be listening for what she leaves out. ‘I’m angry,’ she says. ‘Because someone I’ve never met before has what I believe to be an unreasonable power over me. I can’t get on with my life without your permission.’
He makes a thinking face and waits for her to continue. She doesn’t.
‘I’d say that’s an extreme interpretation of the situation but I commend your honesty,’ he says after a second or two. ‘Anything else?’
‘I’m scared you’ll say no. That I’m not fit to go back to work.’
‘Do you think you’re ready to go back?’
‘I’m fine. It’s been over a week.’
He doesn’t respond.
‘I can’t afford to be ill,’ she says. ‘Who employs a mad woman?’
For the first time, he looks surprised. ‘Why on Earth would you describe yourself as “mad”?’
She holds his gaze for a second, and then can’t. Her eyes fall to her lap. Silence. She hears rather than sees him get up from his armchair. A second later a box of tissues – white, Man-size – is pushed into her line of vision. She ignores it and blinks away the tears.
‘It says in your notes that the doctors at the hospital found evidence of previous injuries,’ Joe says. ‘You broke your wrist at one time, there’s evidence of several cracked ribs, and you have a number of scars on your body.’
Felicity feels a sudden stabbing pain between her shoulder blades and sits up, away from the chair back. ‘I explained all that,’ she says. ‘I spend a lot of time outdoors. I run, I climb, I ski. Glaciers are extreme environments. I have to be fit. Sometimes, I get injured.’
The shrill tune of a mobile phone sounds. Joe picks a phone up from his desk and checks the screen before getting to his feet.
‘My ex-wife,’ he says. ‘It could be about the kids, will you excuse me a sec?’
She nods her permission and he leaves the room. From the hall outside she can hear the low murmur of his voice. She too stands and walks towards the window. A copy of the local newspaper is on his desk, open at page two. The headline reads: Rough Sleeper Murder – Police Clueless.
There is a photograph of a department-store doorway in which a couple of indistinct figures lie in sleeping bags. She thinks it must be a stock picture, the scene has a wintry look about it. Next to the photograph is an artist’s drawing of a young woman with long fair hair, captioned: Bella Barnes. Further down, halfway through the copy, is a small portrait picture of a man.
She looks up to see Joe in the doorway. ‘Sorry about that,’ he says, before he sees what she is looking at and his expression darkens.
‘You’re in the paper.’ She feels guilty, as though she’s been caught snooping, even though a newspaper is the opposite of a confidential document.
‘I knew the woman who was killed,’ he says.
‘A friend?’ Felicity says. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘No, nothing like that.’ He strides across the room and takes the newspaper out of her line of sight. ‘I barely knew her, on a personal level I mean.’
He seems on edge, and she wonders if the phone call was bringing bad news. Or that he is cross with her for looking at something on his desk.
‘I do some work with the homeless and she was someone I saw regularly,’ he says. ‘The press came after me for a comment. I told them nothing, so they made it up.’
Uncomfortable, for reasons she can’t name, Felicity goes back to her seat. Joe rolls up the newspaper and drops it into a waste bin. His face is still closed, defensive.
‘Her name was Bella,’ he says, after a moment. ‘She was a nice girl who had a lot of bad luck.’
There is a moment of silence, as Felicity waits for Joe to resume his questions. His mood has changed, with the phone call, with finding her snooping.
She wasn’t snooping, it was a newspaper for heaven’s sake.
‘Being homeless is always down to bad luck,’ she says in the end. ‘Bad luck, leading to bad choices, then a downward spiral.’
‘You sound as though you know what you’re talking about?’
She lowers her eyes. ‘I had a friend,’ she says. ‘When I was in my late teens. She spent time on the streets.’