It was never going to end well, I was suspicious as soon as I’d hung up the phone in the station.
“Hallo mate, got a call round the corner from you, apparently a home help can’t get into her customer’s house, though she can see his feet sticking out from the bed. Can you go and check it out?”
Max and I popped round, pulled up. There were two worried looking women standing at the door, rattling the letter box, hammering on the window.
“We can see him, his feet are sticking out, they’re just visible under the curtains, but he won’t answer the door.”
I pounded on the front door, nothing. Standing at the adjoining fence was an older woman, she must have been in her sixties, she was doing an excellent job of dragging out the sweeping of her front step as she watched us with interest.
“Can I get to the back down here?”
“Oh yes, son, on you go.”
The door led through a communal stair into a back green, bound by low brick walls which I was able to clamber over to gain access to the back garden of the patient’s property.
He’d obviously spent some money, thickly double glazed doors and windows faced onto his back lawn, which had had somewhat less attention lavished on it; I picked my way through the broken slates and split bin bags, ducked under the blue nylon washing rope that threatened to garrote me and peered through the window.
Sure enough, there was a pair of feet visible under the drawn curtains.
They looked mighty still to me.
I rattled the door. It held.
I shoved the windows. They held.
Damn. This guy’s invested.
Over another wall I found a cheap, brown door that looked for all the world like it might open into his kitchen. Single glazed window, cheap pine panelling, I tried the knob. It didn’t turn, but I could feel the deadbolt jiggling against it’s housing. An easy access, a well placed boot on the doorhandle there and it would pop right open. Ooooh. Maybe Max would let me put the door in. I’ve not done that yet, it looks fun.
I scampered back over the walls, up the communal stair and found step sweeping woman.
“That brown door round the back?”
“The one that opens into the next stair along?”
“Oh. Does it? I thought it might open into his flat?”
“No, son, sorry.”
Bugger. Better call the police.
They were there in minutes. A tall sergeant and a young PC with incredible brown eyes, who we’ll call Sarge and PC Phwoar respectively.
They did all the same things that we’d done, shook doors, banged at windows, looked at each other with an “I’ll bet this bloke’s dead…” expression and eventually the four of us found ourselves standing at his back door, looking at his feet through the glass.
We’d offered Sarge a number of options, PC Phwoar had a windscreen hammer in his bag, I’d dug the crowbar from the toolkit in the vehicle (which caused Phwoar some concern - “What the hell is that for?”
“Moments like this.”
“Oh, right, I thought it was protection or something.”
“Nah mate, that’s what the oxygen cylinders and Maglites are for…*cough* Officer.”)
Sarge had made his decision. “Phwoar! Find a brick, preferably a big one.”
“But, Sarge, I’ve got…”
“A brick, please.”
A brick was quickly located and subsequently heaved at the back window.
It bounced off and landed in the mud, saying “Schwub” as it did so.
On it’s second flight it again bounced off the glass, but this time the casing failed, the window falling in at sufficient angle for Phwoar to squeeze an arm through and unlock the back door.
Inside the TV was blaring, there was food on the table, fresh milk in the fridge and a corpse on the bed. We checked for a pulse, confirmed the presence of rigor mortis and then undertook the peculiar dance we have to when people die. It’s a dance that goes “Mr Policeman, this is a body, we must confirm he is dead and try and acquire his identity and any medical documentation that is available. This will make our job easier.” while the police go “Mr Ambulanceman, this is potentially a crime scene, I have no interest in this man’s medical history, but I will get increasingly shirty with you if I find you moving stuff about.”
We quadrilled briefly, Sarge confirmed that nothing looked untoward, both doors were locked, the man had apparently suffered no injury, his clothes were intact and the house was reasonably tidy. I had a scout around, looking for any NHS letter-headed paper. The house was…strange. It was an old man’s house, there was no doubt about it, but there was a Playstation in one room, a packet of nappies in another, thing is, it wasn’t the sort of place you’d leave your kids, even if he WAS their Grandpa.
Max stepped outside to complete the relevant paperwork, leaving Sarge and I in the flat. Two further cops arrived shortly after, one bristling with grey stubble, the other wide eyed, pushing his chest out into his shiny stab vest.
“This is PC NewBoy.” said PC Stubble “He’s just new, never done a body before.”
The young cop stepped in, his Adam’s Apple jigged in his throat.
“What d’you see, NewBoy?” Sarge asked.
“Dead male on the bed.”
“Notice anything about the body?”
He peered closer, blinked, spoke quietly.
“No.”
It was blurted out, the accusatory, sullen “No” of a kid who’s asked “Are you feeling sad?”, because to answer in the affirmative might unleash the emotions you’re sitting on.
“Touch him.”
He stretched out a hand, brushed it against the corpse’s, snatched it back as though he’d been burned by the unnatural chill of dead flesh.
“He’s cold!”
Suddenly I felt so old, so long in the tooth; in photo flashes I saw the scene though this guy’s eyes, remembering my first body with Stu so many years ago. I saw the patient’s staring eyes, his slack jaw, the hyper-extension of his neck that pointed his chin to the ceiling. I felt experienced.
There’s all those jokes about “You’re getting old when the cops look young”, but there’s an extra facet there, you’re getting old when you see another’s horror, hear their visceral gasp and realise that your experience has dulled you to it.
I excused myself, walked back up the stair where Step-Sweeper remained, chatting to a friend over the fence. She must have suspected something was wrong when Max returned to the ambulance without me, when we didn’t load the patient into the vehicle and take him away.
“Is he alright, son?”
A deep breath. Patient confidentiality’s one thing, but she’ll find out soon enough from someone and I’d rather it was from a professional.
“No, no my love, he’s not. The gentleman’s passed away I’m afraid.”
She gripped my arms, took me in a hug.
“Oh son, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
I was bemused, why was she so sorry for me? Deep down, I didn’t really care about the dead man inside, he wasn’t my family, this wasn’t my tragedy. I understood what Node meant when he’d told me on my first shift on the road “Care about your patient’s outcomes, but don’t care ABOUT them. You’ll go crazy.”
This was just my job, I get paid to deal with this shit, to roll up, deal with bodies in a grim faced professional manner and then zoom off somewhere else to deal with the next tragedy. I silently laughed her off, patted her arm and climbed into the vehicle. Silly old woman, how naívé.
Discussing the job later with OneHalfOfTheParents, I could hear her smiling patiently down the phone at me.
“Was this woman older?”
“Yeah, sixties at least.”
“So old enough to have kids your age?”
“Oh comfortably.”
“And you don’t think she was thinking “Jesus, this kid’s so young, what a terrible thing for him to have to deal with”? You don’t think she was seeing her own boys in your position and being thankful that they weren’t wearing your shoes?”
“Ah.”
There is no “Grown-up”, no Nirvana moment, no point at which we scale some golden ladder and find ourselves there, in the land of the adults. We plod upwards, always upwards and with each experience the rungs get closer together. PC NewBoy took a big step that day, I took one a few months ago.
We keep climbing.
