Chapter 10 – Holding On

By 11pm the Imperial Hotel was empty and it was a good thing too, because the mood had soured considerably for the publican and her favourite bunch of coppers. As Chris exited her office she kicked at the table leg angrily and walked away as the small cd player clattered to the floor and ceased playing its merry Christmas carols. She walked out into the bar area and then into the public domain where she met sombre faces that only mirrored her own.

The chairs had been stacked on the tables half an hour earlier and all but one table had been left uncleaned. It was this table that Chris had been wiping when Tom had wondered in, wanting some company and upon hearing voices upstairs had disappeared to see if they were his former colleagues. Moments later he had come back down, a blank look in his eyes, and told Chris the unimaginable news. She had locked herself in her office for more than 10 minutes with her head in her hands, leaving Tom to sit numbly in one of only the few chairs left sitting upright in the public bar. He sat forward slightly, and with his hands on his knees, tried to control his emotions. How could he have lost another one?

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more.

As Chris approached her life old friend, the others plodded slowly down the stair case, back into the blinding light of a world without their friend. They sat around the table silently and tried to draw strength from each other, but there was none left. A death so sudden had shattered their festive occasion and not one person had a word to say or a look to give to another. So they simply sat and felt the death of their colleague engulf them as the fairy lights from the tiny Christmas tree on the end of the bar sparkled on their drawn faces. They always seemed to gather there when one of their own passed away – it was like a death meeting point, and they dreaded every time it happened.

Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

By the early hours of Christmas morning they began to drift away slowly, cop by cop. Kelly hugged each of them desperately as she left, unable to remain any longer. As she hugged her old Senior Sargeant he cupped her face in his hands like a father would his daughter and told her silently that he understood her pain while she cried into his hands and then into his shoulder. She had cried the entire time, from the moment Alex finally pushed open the door to Evan's room to see what had happened to the moment she walked out of the Imperial Hotel and into the 2am darkness on Christmas Day. Tom followed her out, an arm around her shoulders, and offered to drive her home. She could barely walk to the car.

Still inside, Amy and Alex sat still in their chairs, facing Chris, who propped her head up with her hands. The tears trickled through her fingers and her mascara ran jaggedly down her face in tiny thin black tendrils. Her pale skin had long been blotchy from her heartache and with distraught eyes, she looked up and over and the two cops that remained in front of her. They still had no words to say to even begin to describe how they felt. Chris had always had wails and reasons to cry out when someone close to her had died, and she had always toasted them with a good hit of something strong. But not tonight.

An hour later Amy finally gave up. She couldn't close her eyes, but she could no longer sit at that table. She pushed out her chair and stood up, surprising Chris and Alex, and wanted to shrug her shoulders at them, or hug them, or cry a little more. But nothing came out. So she simply walked out of the bar and into the foyer. She stopped for a moment and looked towards the exit, and then she looked in the direction of the staircase. She knew which route she was to take and placed her hand on the banister, guiding her way up the stairs and back to the hallway. She unlocked her door and plodded inside before quickly gathering a blanket and a few pillows from off the bed and headed back out into the hallway. Should her friend need her, she would be there anytime he chose to come out.