Читать книгу The Confessions Series - Ash Cameron - Страница 13

One of the most difficult and heart-rending jobs of a police officer is to tell someone a loved one has died. Like most jobs nobody wanted, the task of delivering a death message was given to the women or the rookies and for a time I was both. I was given them all. I hated it and often had to fight back tears as I gave the terrible news. I would rather have dealt with the actual death than have to inform the relatives. I’m the sort of person who cries at a stranger’s funeral.

As soon as I came on duty one night, PC Jim McBean and I were sent to a house to pass on some bad news. We stood outside the door and I knocked twice. There was no answer but someone was at home because the television was flickering through the net curtains.

Jim rapped on the window.

A blonde woman pulled back the curtain. She was holding a crying baby and looked frazzled. She waved at us, indicating she would come to the door.

When she clicked off the latch and pulled the door open, my radio burst alive. ‘Ash, have you told that woman her husband’s dead?’

Not the way to deliver a death message.