A Victim's Diary

18

Alistair had no idea what Frances might have for him. And he had no idea why she thought it was just a minor thing. Sometimes he wondered whether Frances called him over to the morgue so she could socialise with someone. He could imagine that working at the morgue would get lonely eventually, and he could also imagine that Frances would find it difficult to socialise in the real world.

After all, the things she could talk about were pretty limited. He wasn't sure whether she had any hobbies, but when it came to her work, most people didn't exactly enjoy talking about corpses. They enjoyed talking about the grim details of murders and crimes, sure, but in most cases Frances had to keep confidentiality, so that wasn't really a great thing for parties. Alistair knew she liked to read, but the books she was reading were mainly to do with her job or with more murders and even the biggest true crime fan would eventually get tired of constantly hearing about death and killing all the time.

She had her collection of teas, but Alistair doubted that it was a great conversation starter. Most people he knew didn't have the patience to fully appreciate teas. At least not the way that Frances did. What else did he know about her? As far as he was aware, she didn't have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, for that matter. Hell, he didn't even know whether she was very interested in relationships at all. He knew that she didn't drive a car, even though she had a license – she was either using public transport or she was biking everywhere. Alistair was starting to realise that he didn't know much about Frances at all. Maybe there wasn't much more to her? He really doubted that.

He was sure that there was a whole lot more to Frances than anyone suspected. He wondered whether there was a whole different side to her in private. She seemed like the type of person that would have no problem keeping some excessive private life a secret and act as if everything was completely normal in front of everyone else. She just gave off those vibes to Alistair and now that he was thinking about it, he couldn't help but be intrigued by whatever imaginary secret life Frances was leading.

It would have been difficult not to be intrigued. This was a young woman who still lived with a roommate in college even though she made a whole lot of money in her current job. A young woman who spent more time in the morgue with dead bodies, making up names and stories for some of them whenever she was feeling bored or sad. She was brilliant, one of the best in her class at university. And yet, there wasn't much anyone knew about her personally. All Alistair knew about her was that she was good at holding her liquor – better than he was, at least. Or maybe she just knew when to stop.

Either way, he found it almost difficult not to become obsessed with Frances. He knew some officers he had worked with before and they had completely lost their minds around her. Some of them absolutely hated her, others were pursuing her to the point of stalking her. It was complete insanity – and Frances wasn't even aware of the sway she had over most people. Even Alistair found it hard to get her out of his head. But then again, she was probably the closest thing he had to a best friend, after all.

He wondered how Johnson would react to Frances. He almost seemed a little scared when he was talking about her and Alistair wasn't sure whether they had ever met. He had definitely heard of her, though. Maybe if he had a way to get Alistair into his department... Maybe he could introduce them to each other. He wasn't even sure why he wanted to introduce them – this was only for his own amusement, really. It would be funny to see two people that seemed to be so different interact with each other.

Either way, for that he'd have to convince the chief how much of a help Johnson had been in this case (easy enough, since he had been really helpful) and he had to convince Johnson that he wanted to work in the same department (not sure how easy that would be). Plus, he'd have to put up with Johnson way more and Alistair wasn't quite sure whether that was a price he was willing to pay just for some short-lived amusement. If it was even that amusing. Maybe they'd just cancel out each other's weirdness and would be completely normal with each other. But even that would be fascinating.