The police didn’t believe him. Fine. He would show them. It wasn’t Izzy lying cold and still in some damn morgue. She was alive. She had only just turned five. And he had seen her. In that rusty wreck of a car. Honk if you’re horny. Two blonde pigtails. Real men love Jesus. One tooth missing in the front.
“Fine. But you’re wrong. I saw my daughter being taken. She’s alive.”
DI Maddock had nodded, something Gabe couldn’t quite decipher flitting across her face. “Once you’ve seen the bodies, I’m sure we’ll have more questions for you.”
* * *
—
THE IDENTIFICATION WAS scheduled for the following afternoon. Gabe felt frustrated by the lack of urgency. But he also felt too shell-shocked and exhausted to argue.
The house, which a couple of days ago had hosted Izzy’s fifth birthday party, was now a crime scene. Gabe couldn’t stay there. In the absence of any friends who could put him up, he booked a room at a nearby Premier Inn. A stout woman in a white shirt and black trouser suit arrived and introduced herself as: “Anne Gleaves, your family liaison officer.” She drove him to the hotel and, uninvited, accompanied him to his room. She sat with him for a while and talked. Lumpen words that had no meaning. He stared at her kind, sensible face and wished she would jump out of the window. When she asked if there was anyone he would like her to contact, he thought of Izzy’s parents and, reluctantly, refused. He should do it. After she had gone, he called Harry and Evelyn, destroyed their world with a single sentence, and then sat up, staring at old photos of Izzy and Jenny on his phone, crying himself hoarse.
When dawn edged around the thin curtains, he showered, shaved and pulled on the same clothes from the day before—a black shirt and jeans. He took a crumpled tie from his pocket and knotted it around his neck, pulling it a little tighter than necessary. He regarded himself in the mirror. Aside from the pallid color of his skin and blood-streaked eyes, he looked almost presentable. Formal identification, he thought again, grimly.
Then he sat back down and waited.
All a mistake. A terrible mistake.
Harry and Evelyn called him back just before midday. Evelyn sounded surprisingly calm. No trace of the hysterical woman from the night before. They wanted to come with him, she said. For support. Gabe didn’t want them to. He told them it was unnecessary. But Evelyn insisted: “You can’t do this on your own. Harry will drive. In case it’s too much for you.”
Back then, before the accusations and suspicions had broken down their tenuous relationship completely, he supposed they were still playing the role of supportive in-laws, the three of them united briefly in their loss.
“Have you eaten?” Evelyn asked when they arrived. “You need to eat. You need strength.” As though food would somehow fill the aching hole in his heart.
They took him to the pub next to the hotel. The lights felt too harsh, the decor too bright. Gabe had no idea what they were doing there. The scrape of cutlery on plates set his teeth on edge. Evelyn chattered resolutely about nothing, her voice a little too brittle and high. He could see her eyes were sore and red-looking. Once or twice she took out some eye drops and squeezed them in. Harry made intermittent grunts and funneled a cheese sandwich into his mouth. Gabe managed one bite of stale bread and ham and two cups of black coffee. It was cold and bitter. An apt metaphor. Life had lost its taste.
It was a twenty-minute journey to the hospital, which was on the outskirts of town, near the beltway. The same hospital where Jenny gave birth to Izzy. He thought his heart had wrung itself dry with grief, but now he felt it twist again. Bitter drops that burned his soul and made his gut convulse with nausea. He clutched his stomach.
“Are you all right?” Evelyn clasped his hand.
He nodded. “Fine, I’m fine.”
She reached into her purse, took out a small vial of pills and shook two out into her hand. She offered them to him.
“What are they?”
“To help, with your nerves.”
That explained some of the odd, manic chatter. He looked at the small pink tablets and started to shake his head. Then he felt his stomach clench again. He changed his mind. He took the tablets and swallowed them dry. Bitter, he thought again.
They parked in the visitors’ car park, adding to Gabe’s sense of unreality, but then they were hardly going to have spaces marked “Morgue Only,” perhaps with a white outline of a coffin, were they? Wouldn’t want to remind people that the hospital isn’t always a place where their loved ones get better.
Anne Gleaves met them in the reception. She held out a hand. He took it, but it felt like shaking Plasticine. Maybe the tablets were kicking in. Every part of him felt numb.
“If you’ll just come this way.”
A cliché to say the rest was a blur. But there it was. He felt like he was walking through a world made of fuzzy felt, all the sharp edges rubbed off. They padded down soft-blue corridors. Muffled voices settled like sludge in his ears. The only thing that felt sharp and clear to him was the smell. Chemical. Medicinal. Embalming fluid, he thought. To stop the bodies rotting. His stomach rolled again.
They reached a small waiting room. He supposed it was meant to look homely. More pastel hues. Grey sofas. White flowers in a vase. Fake—their fabric petals faded and dusty. Leaflets were spread out on the table. Dealing with Bereavement. Counselling Services. Explaining Sudden Death to a Child. A picture of a wide-eyed toddler stared up at him. He looked away.
Anne Gleaves sat down. Explained about “the process.” It was nothing like you saw on TV. There would be no hideous, dramatic pulling back of a sheet. Jenny and Izzy would be lying on tables, just their faces visible. Gabe could spend as long with them as he wished, but he mustn’t touch the bodies. When he was ready to leave, he would be required to sign a form confirming that the deceased were his wife and daughter. Did he need a drink of water before he went in? Did he want someone to accompany him?
He shook his head. He stood. He made it to the door.
Everything swam. His vision was distorted by wavy lines. He tried to breathe deeply, but all he could smell was that damn chemical stench.
“Mr. Forman? Do you need a moment?”
He opened his mouth to reply. His stomach knotted and vomit spewed from his throat. He couldn’t stop. He threw up again and again, all over the soft-blue carpet tiles.
“Oh God.” He heard Evelyn’s voice. “We should never have let him come.”
He wanted to tell her he had to come. He had to do this. But his head was a grey, fuzzy cloud. His ears buzzed. His knees buckled. He collapsed to the floor.
Distantly, he heard Anne Gleaves say: “I’ll get a nurse. We can do this another day.”