The Lost by Claire McGowan Page B

her father. She shrugged. ‘Sometimes I think I’ve no tears left.’ As she went out, she knew the younger woman was staring after her with narrowed eyes, but she didn’t care. She was sick of trying to explain how it was. How she’d learned there were worse things than finding a body.
    Not finding one, for a start.
    Finally, around midnight, Guy came back to the station, walking stiffly as if his back hurt. He went to Avril, Paula, and Fiacra, who were huddling together on one end of a desk, hardly daring to make eye-contact with the regular station officers.
    ‘Let’s call it a day, everyone,’ he said. ‘The autopsy will tell us more. There’s nothing we can do tonight.’
    Gratefully, Avril went, sniffling as she shut down her computer. Gerard hovered, still holding a magic marker, shirtsleeves rolled up. ‘They’ll get onto those checks first thing?’
    ‘I’ll makesure of it.’ Guy spoke to him gently. ‘You go home too, Gerard.’ Bob said he’d better get home to the wife – he looked exhausted – and Fiacra said goodnight pleasantly, though more quietly than usual. Their first murder had left no one untouched.
    Paula packed up her shoulder bag more slowly, allowing the others to get to their cars, and then she and Guy walked down the carpeted corridor to the reception. Outside, the cool air hit them with a kiss of rain, and she risked looking at him. ‘How was it? With the identification?’
    He just shook his head. ‘Hardest part of the job by far. God, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. That poor kid. I went back to the house after – to pay my respects, you know. The brothers and sisters were all sobbing, though I don’t think the little ones really understood why.’
    ‘And the parents?’
    ‘The mother’s in some kind of shock, I think. The father’s functioning, making tea and so on. Like we saw. But people’s grief is different. He seemed to feel it very keenly that we can’t release her body for the funeral.’
    ‘Yes. More than two days is a lot, here. I suppose we need the rituals.’
    He said nothing for a moment, clutching his keys in the dark of the car park, the security lights glowing orange on his face. ‘I phoned Katie to tell her,’ he said. ‘She was upset. Said all the girls at the sleepover were in tears. It’s made the news already.’
    Paula recalled girls at school crying over what had happened to her, even though they hadn’t really known her, or her mother. ‘Are you picking her up?’
    ‘She’s in her pyjamas. May as well let her spend the night, I won’t be much use to her.’ Guy looked Paula full in the face. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m cut out for this job any more. That poor kid. Same age as Katie. Christ.’
    She nodded, brushingstray hairs from her face. There was nothing to say.
    ‘I’m sorry about our drink,’ he said.
    ‘Not your fault.’
    ‘I can offer you a gin and tonic of my own making, instead?’
    ‘You mean – at your house?’
    ‘Unless you need to get back.’
    She looked at her boots. ‘Well – no. I’m a bit too wired to sleep.’
    ‘All right.’ He held the car door open, his manner casual – nothing wrong with colleagues sharing a drink after a hard night. But the more he acted this way, the more nervous she got.
    Guy’s house was close to the Carrs’; a large spacious home on the hill – doctors, lawyers for his neighbours. ‘I’m renting it from a solicitor,’ he said, opening the front door. ‘People are defaulting all over the place in the recession. Luckily for us, crime doesn’t go away.’
    ‘No, but the budget does.’ She laid her coat over an armchair, upholstered in deep purple. This room didn’t seem a man’s taste at all; all floral prints and bowls of pot-pourri.
    Guy winced at her last remark. ‘You’re right. Christ, and we’ve lost one already. The papers’ll have a field day.’
    ‘She was already dead.’ Paula shook her head. ‘We couldn’t have helped Cathy. She was