Sometimes it’s the horrific incidents that stay with you after the uniform is put away and the radio goes back in your locker. The images of carnage and destruction form an involuntary slide show behind your eyelids whenever you close them for sleep or in thought. It is something that many can relate to as most of us have seen something unpleasant in our lives. We build up our own personal defences and coping mechanisms to put emotional barriers between us and the pain of reality.
Most of us have dealt with grief too. On one level or another it comes to us all throughout our lives. From the loss of the first pet we were old enough to form a bond with, to the loss of grandparents and eventually parents to the relentless march of time and old age. These events are very personal to us, but are usually not entirely unexpected. The boundaries of human and animal existence are well-defined and so there is a degree of forward planning that can be done.
Sometimes though, this is not the case. Sometimes death throws its shadow over those who had not been expecting it, and had not had the opportunity to prepare. It’s those occasions when the usual emotional armor is completely inadequate.
It was about three in the morning when me and my crew-mate (a lovely girl with about four years of service) were called back to the station by the Sergeant. He told us that we were going to do a Notification of Death and joked that we should draw straws on the way back to choose who got the job of saying the words. A coin was duly tossed and I lost the bet.
I had already done an NoD this set (also after losing out to the toss of a coin) and to my surprise Jo (my crew-mate) said she would do it anyway. This offer was conditional though – I had to write up the job we had just been to where three families had decided to have a Facebook war and threaten each other with everything from silence to death-by-machete. It was never going to just go away and she knew it so (although I thought I might be getting a bad deal) I agreed. She had only done one NoD in the past, so it was agreed that it would be good experience anyway.
Both of us arrived at the station and wandered up to the second floor to pick up the fax that had been sent to us from a neighbouring force. We expected it to be the usual “Mrs So-and-So has passed away in hospital / nursing home aged 94 after a short illness and we would like you to let her brother / sister / relatives know so that they can make arrangements”. What we read made both our stomachs turn and removed any remnant of ease with what we were being expected to do.
“Please can you attend the home address of Mr and Mrs So-and-So. Notification is required in respect of the death of their 20-year-old daughter who was found deceased in her hotel room during a University trip to Holland. It appears that the cause of death was an overdose and there are not considered to be any suspicious circumstances. Regards, Detective Inspector …….”
We both read the single sheet of A4 again as if we doubted the words on the page. I know I was hoping that they wouldn’t be the same the second time around….but they were.
There was a short discussion about whether Jo was feeling capable of dealing with this, and whether we needed to speak to the originating force before attending the home of the family. A short call was made to a lovely DC in the office dealing with the University side of things and it was confirmed that there wasn’t much if anything more that was known at the moment. Jo decided to bite the bullet and do the talking after all. She understood that it would be hard, but that its something that would be of benefit to her, purely in terms of experience.
The lights came on upstairs as we knocked for the third time. A squinting face peered out through the window before disappearing for a minute or so. Just as we were starting to think the occupant had gone back to bed, the lights in the first floor hall went on and we saw feet on the stairs.
Had it not been quarter to four in the morning, the senses of the person who opened the door to us and blindly obeyed our request to come in for a minute might have been a little sharper and begun to consider why two Police officers with very serious faces were standing in his hall. We asked if there were any other adults in the house and the man’s wife was also summoned without question. They were clearly still not concerned about why we were there – their faces were full of confusion rather than fear.
We all sat in the living room on the two huge sofas that faced each other across a massive coffee table that was strewn with wrapping paper, name tags and tape. There was no delaying this any longer…
“We have been asked to come here by ……shire Police. Its about your daughter.”
They both stopped breathing instantly. One word came from the man sitting opposite us as he grabbed his wife’s hand.
“No!” He said, in disbelief about what we were implying.
“I am so sorry” said Jo. Not needing to do or say anything else to confirm the start of their nightmare shattering their lives beyond all recognition.
The pair descended into uncontrollable screaming and wailing. Begging us to tell them it wasn’t true. Shouting “NO, NO, NO” over and over again as if they could reverse the terrible reality of what was happening if they fought against it for long enough. There was nothing that Jo and I could do but sit there and wait for the intermittent breaks in the hysteria which were short, but served to allow one of the girls parents to ask us a question or two about what had happened before emotion boiled back over again.
Grief, anger, disbelief, resentment, and confusion were swirling through their heads as they tried to take in the catastrophic news we had just given them. They didn’t know what to do or say and neither did we. We remained quiet, eyes lowered until there was a need for us to speak. I desperately wanted to do or say something that could give comfort to them, but knew that no such thing existed. They stood, sat, walked out and walked back into the room and the female parent even resorted to throwing herself onto the floor and pummeling the flag stones with her fists and feet like a child. This was complete raw emotion.
After five or six minutes there was a further face at the door. It was a boy, in his mid-teens, who had been woken by the screaming and come downstairs to find his parents in bits and two Police Officers in his house. I don’t know what went through his head in the few seconds before his dad walked him out of the room, but seconds later he came running back through the door and straight at me and Jo.
He knew why we were here now and he hated us for it.
We were the people who had, indirectly, taken his sister from him and he wanted to take his pain out on us. I stepped in front of Jo and caught his wrists as he ran at us, his dad trying to grab him from behind, and after a few seconds the anger turned back to sorrow and he collapsed on the floor at my feet, sobbing.
After what seemed like an eternity we managed to pass on the contact information that the family would need to make contact with the University and the local Police who were dealing with the Dutch Police on their behalf. Through the tears and the despair the parents thanked us, and apologised for how they had acted in front of us. This was the most sincere, but unnecessary, apology I have had in over 10 years of Policing. We shook their hands and made a respectful retreat, leaving them to start making the series of phone calls that would, no doubt, drain every remaining ounce of emotional strength from them.
I am not going to pretend I wasn’t glad to be sat back in the familiar surroundings of our marked Mondeo, but as soon as the pressure was off, the reality of what we had just done began to dawn. Jo was quite upset by what we had just gone through, she really felt for the family as she lost an older sister a number of years ago. Because of that it was a highly personal experience for her – the Jo I knew so well was, for a moment, replaced by someone who was vulnerable and reflective. Then she was back again….”I make that dinner time” she said, punching me in the arm from the passenger seat. “I’ve got a chicken curry in the fridge with my name on it and the only thing missing is a pint to wash it down with”.
Sadly, we she never got to have that curry. Two minutes from the station we got a call to a house that had just had a brick thrown through their front window. Facebook wars had started up again .
NB: All the relevant support provisions were put in place after this incident. Jo was well looked after and offered all the necessary assistance to allow her to deal with this incident and any issues it caused her. Me?…I was fine. This time, anyway.
