died unexpectedly before Christmas and the loss hit her hard. There was also a spate of deaths among people associated with the organization where she had worked with Dave. An acquaintance called Graham had killed himself, and a female colleague, Kerry, had died of a heart attack. Karen dropped into the organization and was talking with her colleagues about the people who had died, when another colleague, Jo, said: “Oh, and Dave Jones has killed himself.”
Karen did not place the name at first, partly because she was not sure of Dave’s surname, but also she was not sure how Jo could have known Dave, because they had not worked on the same projects. But then Jo mentioned how “Dave Jones” was always on his bike and interested in sea-kayaking. Karen remembered there had been two men named “Dave” on the community project, but she was suddenly extremely worried about her friend.
The next week she took along a photograph of Dave. As Karen herself related:
Jo said: “No, that’s not him,” but I discovered later she thought I was pointing at someone else in the picture. Even so, it continued to worry me, so I double-checked with Jo and then she realized her mistake and said: “Oh, it might be him.” Susan—another worker—was there and she knew Dave well. She looked at the picture and said: “I think it might be.” She suggested I talk to Beth, someone who worked closely with Dave. So I went to Judy, who’s a manager, and asked if it was possible to get in touch with Beth. The next week I took my photograph to Beth. She said: “That’s definitely him.”
Karen was suddenly confronted by the brutal fact that another of her friends had died. Everyone who had heard about Dave’s death had mentioned, so far, that he’d killed himself by an overdose. But how could she be absolutely sure he had died?
“Beth had access to Dave’s records,” explained Karen. “She couldn’t tell me any details but she mentioned that he died in January 2006. ‘That can’t be right,’ I said, because I saw him in October 2006.”
Karen and Beth decided that the “01” of January in the date of Dave’s death on his record must have been a mistake for “10” October.
However, Karen’s investigation did not end here. Although she and Dave had not been very close, Karen was distressed to discover he had ended his own life. Part of her felt guilty that she’d not been a better friend. It was unlikely, but she could not help wondering that if she’d made more effort perhaps he would have opened up and talked about whatever was on his mind. In any case, she wanted to find out if there was a memorial where she could visit to pay her respects.
Confidentiality rules kept getting in the way. First, she went to the remaining administrators of the community project. Officially, they declined to tell her anything, but unofficially they confirmed that a “Dave Jones” had worked on the project at the same time she had and that he had died. She also wrote a letter to the only remaining manager of the project at the time she and Dave worked there, but received no reply.
Karen rang Beth again and discovered that in the meantime Beth had made contact with Dave’s doctor. Once more, the strange piece of information resurfaced that Dave had died in January 2006, nine months before Karen had met him on that Sunday evening. Again, she wondered whether he’d really died at all.
Karen was having sessions with a psychotherapist at this time, for issues related to post-traumatic stress. She explained the situation to her therapist, who advised her to visit the register office at Brighton town hall. By now it was March 2007. Karen visited the register office towards the end of the month and when she came away there was no escaping that something strange had happened.
Dave’s date of death was officially registered as 28th January, 2006. When Karen explained to the receptionist that she had seen and spoken with Dave in October of that same year, the receptionist looked doubtful and explained that the date of death is verified by two people: firstly by a doctor, who writes out the death certificate; and secondly by another witness, who formally registers the death. Because of the circumstances surrounding Dave’s death, the second witness was the city coroner. If the date were wrong then two professionals had both made a very unusual mistake.
“The same day, I talked again with my therapist,” said Karen. “We went over the conversation I’d had with Dave. My therapist commented on how it had no fantastic content. There were no fantasy themes in it. It was simply a conversation; not the kind you’d make up as a memory to someone who had died, and it was consistent with events at the time I remembered it to have taken place.
“My therapist told me that she had done some research and had uncovered other cases in which people had seen people who had died, with no pathological indications.”
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