A Victim's Diary

13

Alistair couldn't help but feel sick after those news. He had known that something awful had been going on with Ruby's father, but this... this just made it so real. And it was absolutely disgusting. Alistair felt filthy just hearing about it and now it was in his head and kept coming back like some sort of tinnitus that he couldn't just ignore because it was such a distraction for him. He felt nauseous.

He wondered how long this whole thing had been going on, but he knew that he'd find out soon enough, if he only kept reading the diary. At the same time he knew that he would read things he wouldn't like. He wondered whether he should just give up on the diary. He wasn't sure anymore whether he wanted to know the whole truth. Maybe he'd be able to solve this murder without knowing everything about the last few months in this girl's life. Maybe it would be better for him not to know.

He wasn't sure about it. He wanted to know what had happened, he felt like Ruby deserved someone to know her entire story, no matter if it was relevant to the investigation or not, but he was also afraid of what he was going to find. He was afraid to find more terrible things like this, he was afraid to get too close to her through this diary, afraid that he'd get carried away by this and do something stupid.

The thing was, even though they knew without a doubt that her father had slept with Ruby, there was nothing they'd be able to do about it. They'd need someone to make a report about it and the one person that could have done this was Ruby and she was dead. Even if he had raped her, there unfortunately wasn't much that could be done about it. Maybe it would be better if he didn't read more.

But maybe this was just the shock of this new information. Alistair wasn't even sure why he was so shocked. This wasn't the first time he was dealing with a case of child abuse or incest. After all, there was an incredibly high number of these kinds of crimes. Much higher than anyone would like to think. It was one of the parts of this job he absolutely hated – he had to see so much suffering and devastation, just because someone thought they had the right to destroy another person's life and for what?

Usually for some sick sort of power, some sort of satisfaction they got from hurting others. Sometimes it involved money, too. Either way, it was one of the more horrific aspects of his job, but nonetheless an essential one. Someone had to deal with all the filth that no one else wanted to look at, after all.

Still, every time a case like this happened, he tended to be much more detached than right now. It was something that was necessary in his job. He had to be detached or he would never have lasted as long as he did. Things like murders and child abuse, rape and sexual abuse – they got to a person more than they'd like to admit. They got to him much more than he liked to admit. People really were capable of an incredible amount of cruelty and it always gave him shivers when he thought of it.

Alistair realised that he hadn't seen his therapist in quite a while. There was a requirement to see a therapist regularly, especially when dealing with high profile cases like he was, but usually there was no time to do any of this. And most of the time his supervisors simply signed off on the therapy requirement, so few people really actually stuck to it. Alistair didn't know anyone that had been a detective or a police officer for more than three years who was still seeing their therapist regularly. There was just no time.

Alistair made a mental note to call them and make an appointment (he would probably forget about it soon, but just making that note to himself made him feel a little better). He almost drove through a red light because he was so entrenched in his thoughts about why this one case got much closer to him than any other case. He couldn't wait to get back home, just so he could relax for a little bit and think of something else, if his mind was even able to do that. He found it hard to stop thinking about work.