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Back in her old bedroom all these years later, Jennie stares at the photo. In that moment everything felt possible. But just a couple of months later Hannah was gone and nothing felt possible any more.
Putting down the picture, Jennie picks up a photo she took of the darkroom crew sitting on the old burgundy sofa in the basement. Hannah’s in the middle, Simon is on her left with his arm around her, Lottie is on her right, her head resting on Hannah’s shoulder. Rob is next to Lottie; he’s sitting on the arm of the sofa, with his feet on the seat and his long, grey, Kiefer Sutherland-style coat hanging over the side. Elliott, safety glasses still on because he’d been developing photos when Jennie had insisted they let her take one ‘formal’ photo of them as a group, is beside Simon. They’re all smiling at the camera, at Jennie.
The darkroom used to be her sanctuary, a warm, low-lit space that felt as cosy and welcoming as a hug. She loved the sexiness of the red lamps, the smell of the chemicals, and the ritual of the developing process as the true image was gradually revealed on paper. In that place, with her friends, Jennie had the feeling she could be anything, do anything. She loved it there. But after Hannah was gone the memory of the place was forever tarnished. Without Hannah nothing felt the same, including Jennie.
Putting the stack of photos onto the ‘keep’ pile, Jennie picks up her old SLR again. Holding it to her eye, she looks through the viewfinder and focuses the camera on the poster of Madonna behind the bed. Adjusting it until she’s sure it’s perfect, Jennie presses the button as if taking a shot. Click. The camera whirrs into life, making her jump as it automatically forwards the film to the next exposure.
What the …? There’s still film in it?
She looks at the picture counter. It’s on number 14.
Jennie roots through some of the other boxes looking for her photo developing kit, but can’t find it in any of them. Frustrated, she puts the camera on the pile of things she wants to keep. She’ll order some developing supplies when she’s finished sorting through the boxes.
After another half an hour, and having sorted through several boxes, she moves across to the wardrobe. Flicking through the rail of her old clothes, she sorts them onto the ‘donate’ and ‘bin’ piles. Pulling out a purple velvet blazer dress, she pauses. This is the dress she wore the day she took the group shot of the darkroom crew. Walking across to the full-length mirror, she holds it up to herself, covering her navy pyjamas. She washed up in the kitchen of the Cross Keys every evening for a month to be able to afford this dress.
For a moment, Jennie sees her teenage self staring back from the mirror: the unruly hair, the sun-kissed freckles over her nose, the slightly too big mouth and the eyes full of hope for the future. Then she shakes her head.
That girl was snuffed out a long time ago.
Day Three
Chapter 10
Post-mortems are never easy, but this one is the worst. She’s been here for the whole thing, but still Jennie can hardly bear to look at Hannah’s remains lying on the steel mortuary table. She’s tried to keep her feelings hidden but she’s not sure she’s doing a good job of it. Hassan Ayad, the forensic pathologist, hasn’t seemed to notice; his focus is on examining the remains, dictating his notes into the old-fashioned dictaphone he always uses. But Zuri keeps glancing over with a concerned expression on her face.
Jennie looks away, avoiding Zuri’s gaze. Instead of watching Hassan as he completes the last of the examination, she stares at the stainless-steel cabinets behind him and the white tiled wall beyond. Hannah was always so vivid and full of life, her being here seems so wrong; the only thing this clinical, impersonal place is full of is death.
The memory of the last photoshoot she did with Hannah fills Jennie’s mind. It was early June and they’d gone back to their favourite spot in the woods by the white chalk cross. The weather was hotter than usual for the time of year and Hannah was channelling festival chic in a white bikini, undone cotton shirt, straw cowboy hat and calf-length Doc Marten boots. She’d never looked more beautiful. Jennie kept shooting film as Hannah twirled in the small wooded clearing. She blushed as Hannah removed her bikini and posed topless against a tree, mimicking Kate Moss in her iconic Calvin Klein campaign. Then felt fear as Hannah climbed high into one of the oaks, walking along one of the branches and throwing back her head, laughing at Jennie’s protests that she might fall.
The sound of Hassan loudly clearing his throat pulls Jennie back into the present. Both Hassan and Zuri are staring at her.
‘You okay?’ asks Zuri. ‘Do you need some air? You look a bit out of sorts.’
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ says Jennie, waving away her DS’s concern. She looks at Hassan. ‘So what are you thinking?’
‘As I was saying,’ continues Hassan. ‘While we don’t have the usual material to work with here, her skeleton can tell us a lot. There are a number of signs of trauma here, inflicted both ante-mortem and peri-mortem.’
‘What trauma did she experience when she was alive?’ asks Jennie, her tone sharper than intended.
‘Join me and I’ll show you,’ says Hassan, gesturing for Jennie and Zuri to come closer. He points a gloved finger towards a hairline fissure on Hannah’s left wrist. ‘Now, if you look here, you’ll see a fracture callus that took place ante-mortem. You’ll see the signs of healing, but the callus has not entirely remodelled.’
‘Does that suggest the injury happened not long before she died?’ asks Zuri, making a note on her scratchpad.
‘It’s hard to give an exact timeline, but I’d say within the last year of her life.’
Jennie nods. Hannah broke her wrist during the winter of 1993; she’d slipped over on the ice outside her house and ended up with a plaster cast for weeks. Jennie can’t tell Hassan and Zuri, though.
‘The potentially more interesting trauma is here.’ Hassan points to three of Hannah’s ribs. ‘You can clearly see the line of the fractures, but the more distinct characteristic is how they’ve healed in a slightly angulated manner, with the lowest rib being misaligned.’
‘What does that mean?’ asks Zuri, leaning over the table to study the ribs more closely.
‘Well, it occurs naturally during the healing process, but in this day and age it’s more often than not a by-product of when medical attention isn’t sought, or indeed followed, after an injury is incurred: the bones being allowed to heal without the correct alignment or support.’
Jennie frowns. ‘But doctors don’t do anything if you break your ribs anyway, do they?’
‘True, the practice now is often to leave ribs to heal unaided.’ Hassan indicates the lower of the three ribs. ‘But this case is rather more complex. You’ll see here that there’s a fine web-like pattern of multiple fractures in this bone. This, combined with the concern that lower rib fractures can cause damage to the liver and spleen if not managed correctly, makes me think that if a medical practitioner had reviewed this on an X-ray, they would have made a surgical intervention.’
‘Any idea on the timeline?’ asks Zuri.
