Day 13

The hospital staff and the police had been expecting Pat to be the next of kin. They expected to go down to the viewing room in the mortuary. The body had been made presentable. The ID sheet for viewing had been prepared. They had expected her to formally identify the deceased and hand over a medical certificate with the cause of death. Talk over arrangements. Sorry for your loss. Move on.

Slowly but surely it was sinking in – this was not the spouse. The body might be identified formally but not by the next of kin. The next of kin, according to the ‘not spouse’ was the mum and dad of the deceased but no one had informed them. Indeed no one had made any effort to contact them. No one was looking for them since they had found the next of kin as far as they knew. ‘Awks’.

“So, do you know where we might find Mr and Mrs Jones, the mum and dad?” the policeman asked.

Pat thought for a minute, “They used to live up between Bawtry and Doncaster. She flipped through the address book on her phone. “Here,” she showed the policemen on her phone the last address she had for the parents of the deceased. He wrote down the address in his notebook and nodded ‘thanks’.

“Lunch?” asked Julie.

Pat nodded, “And then – Brambles Bungalow.”