So I picked up the phone and started dialling all the obvious three-digit combinations beginning with a one that I could think of. There really weren’t that many, but it took four attempts, nevertheless: 111 was an automated NHS helpline, 100 put me through to the phone company, and 123 turned out to be the talking clock – which I realized I knew, after the fact. By the time I got to 101, I noticed that my fingers were drumming the wall impatiently, telling me that I should have taken the time to light another cigarette before embarking on this trial and error lunacy. Then the speaker clicked and the police operator came on the line.
‘I need to report a dead body,’ I told her. A dead body: I’d decided this was the most concise way of explaining myself, since the relevant context was already implicit. Or so I thought.
‘A body?’ the operator repeated.
‘A dead body,’ I confirmed. ‘My neighbour’s.’
‘Okay. Can I take your name, please? Then you can talk me through what’s happened.’
‘My name’s Abby. Abigail Williams.’
‘Abby or Abigail?’
This seemed a strange question.
‘Does it matter? Either; both. Abigail on my birth certificate, Abby if you want to save yourself a diphthong.’
Silence.
‘Okay, Abby. Tell me what happened.’
‘There’s not a great deal to tell. I came over to his flat and he’s dead. He’s cold and stiff.’
‘You’re absolutely certain he’s dead?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You’ve checked for a pulse? I can talk you through it if you need me to.’
I looked across at Simon’s taut neck, his slack wrist. They looked equally unappealing. ‘He’s cold and stiff,’ I repeated. ‘He’s obviously been dead for a while.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Yes, of course!’ The woman was an imbecile. ‘He’s dead. He hasn’t had a pulse for many hours.’
‘Okay. I can appreciate this must be distressing. But you’re doing really well, Abby. I just need a few more details before I send someone over. You say the deceased is your neighbour?’
‘Yes. He’s my neighbour – was my neighbour. He lived across the hall. I came over to borrow a tin of tomatoes. My boyfriend is making pasta sauce. But when I got here he was dead, deceased, as we’ve established.’
‘Abby, you’re talking very quickly’ – this was all relative, of course – ‘I need you to slow down a second. What’s your neighbour’s name?’
‘Simon . . .’ I fumbled for a few seconds, trying to picture his post. ‘Simon . . .’ The image wouldn’t come. ‘I can’t remember his full name,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t really know him that well.’
‘Do you know his age?’
‘Forty-something. Early forties, I’d say.’
I heard keys clacking down the line. ‘And can you confirm your address, please?’
‘129 Askew Road, W12.’
‘Okay. I’m sending a police car over now. It should be there within ten minutes.’
‘Great. There’s an intercom. If they buzz flat 12 I’ll let them in.’
‘Thank you, Abby.’
‘No problem.’
‘It’s imp—’
I realized there was more in the same instant I jabbed the hang-up button, so I didn’t get to hear what it was. Important? Imperative? I smoked half of another cigarette, waiting to see if the phone would ring.
It did not.
When I got back to our flat, Beck was still sweating a lonely onion, which had reduced down to a caramel mulch at the bottom of the pan. I set the tomatoes down next to the hob.
‘Simon’s dead,’ I told him. There wasn’t any better way of saying it.
‘Dead.’ He looked at me as if waiting for the punchline. ‘What, he wouldn’t give up the tomatoes without a fight and it all got out of hand? I guess that explains why it took you so long.’
I pouted a little. ‘No joke. He was dead when I got there. In his armchair.’
‘Dead?’
‘Dead.’
‘Like . . . actually dead?’
‘Jesus! As opposed to what? Virtually dead? He’s dead! Just dead. Cold and stiff.’ Why did no one trust my judgement on this?
‘Wow, that’s . . .’ A long pause, then he glanced left and frowned. ‘Huh.’
‘What?’
‘You still got the tomatoes?’
I shrugged. ‘What’s the difference? We still need to eat. You can’t make pasta sauce without tomatoes.’
‘Right . . . That makes sense, I suppose.’ Another pause, heavily pregnant. ‘Are you all right?’
This question irritated me for some reason. ‘Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be all right?’
‘Well, you know.’ He gestured vaguely at the kitchen wall – or, rather, through the wall, to Simon’s flat, separated from ours by maybe eight inches of brick and bad tiling. It was funny to think of him being so close, still sitting in his chair.
‘I’m fine,’ I repeated.
Beck nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. The expression he was wearing – too purposefully neutral – told me he was already rehearsing his next sentence.
‘Listen, Abby. Maybe you should just sit down for a second. You seem—’
‘What’s the non-emergency police number?’ I asked.
‘101,’ he replied, no hesitation.
‘Right.’
‘I can call them if you prefer?’
‘Already done – they should be here any minute.’
‘Oh. So why did—’
‘I just wanted to know if you knew. I thought you probably would. I think the onion’s catching.’
Like most men, Beck had no ability to multitask. He turned to attend to the frying pan, and I took the opportunity to slip back out into the hallway. A minute or so later, the intercom buzzed.
I pressed my nose against the glass so I could see what was happening in the street below. My reflection dissolved. Blue light, flashing like a strobe. A police car and an ambulance. I wondered why an ambulance and not . . . something else – a van, cold storage. Maybe my diagnosis was still in doubt? You’d think there’d be some sort of competency test for police phone operators. Or maybe there was: if you passed, you got to answer 999 calls; if not, it was straight to 101.
It was another ten minutes before they took his body away, on a trolley, in a bag. Shortly after that, the police were knocking on our door. By then, it was almost dark outside, and I’d poured myself a glass of red wine. Beck made tea for everyone else – for himself and the two policemen – which made me the odd one out. One girl, one glass of wine. The irony, of course, is that it’s completely fucking crazy to be drinking strong, sugary tea at nine forty-five on a Wednesday evening; I was the only one with an appropriate drink.
One of the policemen told us their names, but I forgot them instantly. PC Something and PC Somethingelse. I was distracted before the introductions were even half complete, thinking about the fundamental imbalance of power implicit in any interaction with the police, starting, specifically, with the exchange of names. They had our first names, we had their ranks and surnames. I remembered having a conversation with Dr Barbara about the moment in the early noughties when GPs seemed to decide collectively that surnames should be jettisoned in favour of Christian names, though Dr Barbara maintained she’d been bucking the trend for the best part of two decades (in part because she wasn’t a GP). She realized early in her career that patients appreciated the fact that she was a human being, as well as a doctor, and they were more likely to engage with Dr Barbara than Dr Middlebrook. But, then, I supposed an equivalent rebranding was out of the question with the police. You couldn’t have PC Peter or Inspector Timothy – the very idea caused an involuntary giggle to spasm in my stomach. It emerged a few seconds later, cloaked in a hiccup, but neither of the PCs seemed to notice.