by TL Dyer
‘Forgot about this one,’ I say now, as the present snags Jake’s attention and he drops the spoon into the bowl, wipes a fist over his chin.
Kneeling on the chair, he reaches over to drag the bag towards him, peering in first before sticking his arm in, the bottom of his pyjama top hovering over the cereal milk. I pull the bowl away as he lifts the present out and falls back onto his backside on the seat, legs folded under him.
‘Don’t you want the card?’ I ask, taking it from the bag.
‘Woah!’ he exclaims, tearing off wrapping paper that flutters to the floor the moment it leaves his fingers.
‘What is it?’ I ask, reaching for the paper. He tilts the box my way. ‘Lego. Cool.’
‘What’s it say?’
‘Hold still, then. It says, Audi Sport Quatro. And it’s for seven-year-olds. You’ll have to get Grampy or Uncle Shaun to help you.’
‘Someone say my name?’ A rush of cold air comes in through the back door with my brother and I shiver. ‘Woah, mate. Who gave you that?’ He takes the Lego box for a closer look while Jake looks at me for the answer to the question.
‘A friend of mine,’ I fumble, snatching up the Spiderman gift bag while Shaun’s distracted, and folding it to stuff into the kitchen drawer out of sight. When I turn, Shaun’s helping himself to a bowl and spoon from the cupboard. He sits next to Jake at the table and pours himself a generous amount of Choco Hoops, followed up with milk.
‘Anything else we can get you?’ I raise my eyebrows. Jake chuckles to himself and pulls his own bowl towards him, unfolding his legs to sit properly.
‘Coffee would be nice. Anyway, what friend? Not that nice copper one we met yesterday. Didn’t he buy the great big…’
‘Remote control dune buggy. Yes, he did. And he’s a CSO.’
‘Is he now?’ Shaun peers sideways at Jake as he thinks about that. ‘A… Chuffing… Silly Officer.’
While Jake tips his head back in an exaggerated laugh, I explain to the other child in the room that CSO means Community Support Officer. ‘And he’s a very good one too.’
I fill the kettle at the sink, ignoring Jake’s sniggers behind me that can only mean his uncle’s pulled a face. After that the only sounds are the boiling water and the clatter of spoons in cereal bowls.
‘Ready!’ Jake announces, dropping his spoon in the dish and jumping down from the chair.
‘For what?’ I ask, putting the coffee mug on the table in front of Shaun. With his mouth full, he holds up a finger for me to wait. But Jake gets in first.
‘To set up my phone,’ he calls out as he runs down the hallway, bare feet slapping on the wood floor.
He disappears into the living room, and I stare at my brother who’s pushing his empty bowl away and picking up the mug of coffee like he hasn’t already had breakfast at his own house.
‘Yeah, about that phone, Shaun…’
‘Told you he’d love it.’
‘He’s six years old.’
‘Yep.’
‘And mobile phones, or any other kind of devices, were not what I had in mind for him at this age.’
‘Ah, come on, sis. All the kids have them these fucking days.’
I lean over the table and half-whisper, ‘That’s the sodding problem, Shaun.’
The smile falls from his face when he clocks that I’m serious. ‘I just thought he’d like it. He does seem to like it.’
‘Of course he likes it, he bloody loves it, but that’s not the point.’
‘It’s not?’
I slouch in the seat, my hand reaching for my forehead and eyes dropping closed. Despite the lagers last night, I barely slept, thoughts of the conversation I would need to have with Jake spinning in my head, along with how it will feel to have Darren Isaacs in our lives from now on.
‘Sorry,’ Shaun says, and when I peel my eyes open he’s looking at me in the same way his nephew does when he’s just been told off. ‘I should probably have checked with you or something. I thought it would be a nice surprise. I didn’t mean to fuck up.’
He drops his gaze to the coffee, pinning his lips together and sighing through his nose. It’s an expression he picked up while he was inside; not one he ever did before, but one we soon got used to seeing once he was out. It’s a look I don’t like, because it means he’s annoyed with himself. And I dislike it more now as I curse myself for taking out my tension and my sleepless night on him of all people. It’ll be my anger as much as my words that upset him.
‘You didn’t fuck up, Shaun. You’re right, I need to get with the times.’ I reach over to nudge his forearm with my fist. ‘Did you see the look on his face when he opened it in front of all his friends?’
Light hazel eyes peer up at me. ‘He was chuffed, wasn’t he?’
‘Ecstatic, more like. Put my gift to shame, anyway.’
‘No way, that microscope’s great. And that whole… little… setup… thing.’
‘Laboratory.’
‘Yeah, laboratory. He’ll have a lot of fun with that. Really. What are you looking at me like that for? It really is good.’
‘It’s something a copper would buy her son, that’s what it is.’
‘Look, I’ll make sure the phone’s secure and age-restricted, okay? So you don’t have to worry, sis. No porn sites or anything like that.’
‘What’s pornsites?’ Jake asks, coming back into the room, the phone in his palm and gaze on its screen, a posture that looks terrifyingly familiar. I cover my eyes with my hand yet again as Shaun backtracks.
‘Nothing, mate. Right, why don’t you show me how this dune buggy works while I set up some of the boring stuff.’
When they’re gone, I’m left with the kitchen’s silence and the Lego Quatro, Darren’s first gift to his son. It couldn’t have been cheap. And he’s chosen well, considering how little he knows about him. Anything with wheels and an engine pleases Jake. Maybe Craig had been the same once, though I can’t recall any interest in cars as he got older. Music was more his thing. Self-taught at the guitar, he could carry a tune on the rare occasions he’d let me listen to him. I may have been the only person he’d let listen to him. Unlike his sister, there was a painful shyness about Craig that held him back. He could have made something of himself. Could have done a lot of things.
Getting up from the table, I retrieve a cigarette and lighter from my stash on the top shelf of the corner cupboard and go outside to sit on the patio. There’s a light drizzle in the air and the chair beneath me is damp, but some needs are greater than others.
The cigarette’s propped between my lips, and I’m about to spark the lighter when my phone vibrates in my front pocket. With a sigh, I lift my backside enough that I can release it.
The text is from Jared. Thanks for a great party. And guess what, no hangover!
I grumble through the unlit cigarette and tap out a reply. Wish I could say the same. Took advantage of the after-party parent privilege.
With the phone balanced on my thigh, I flick the lighter. By the time I’m exhaling the first glorious lungful, Jared’s sent a second text.
Well if I’d known that…
He ends it with a smiley emoji that I imagine he dithered over. Smiley with wink, plain smiley, smiley with blush, crying-laughing; there’s no end to the problems these things throw up. And now that I think about it, what might have happened anyway if Jared had stayed after the party; if he’d been the one to share the lagers with me instead of Shaun? Would anything have happened? Is that what he’d hoped for, and I’d just strung him along, waving him off along with all the other kids when the party was done?
‘Who the hell knows anymore?’ I mumble under my breath as I reply. Thanks again for coming and for being such a help. Owe you one. Catch you in the field, soldier.
If he is pissed off with me for using him to make up the numbers, though, there’s no indication of that in his response. Copy that, lieutenant. Take it easy. J.
‘If only, Jarhead. If sodding only
.’
*
Getting the DNA from Jake isn’t straight forward. A strand of hair from his brush or his pillow, I could have managed, but the kit requires a swab from the inside of his cheek, which means I have to lie to him. I tell him it’s something I’m doing for a course in work, and neither he nor his uncle see anything unusual in that. He giggles over it a fair bit as I root about in his mouth, but we get there in the end. When I have it sealed and secured along with Darren’s swab in the envelope, I stick my head back round the door to the living room to tell them I’m calling to the post box and won’t be a minute. Jake kneels on the sofa, his mouth open as he gawks at whatever game Shaun is playing on the phone. No one answers.
I close the front door with a soft click and throw up the hood on my jacket against the rain that’s grown heavier within the last hour. And as I walk the few streets it takes to get to the post box, the clouds above dark and shifting on a quick breeze, I can’t shake the feeling that Dad and Shirley’s move to Scotland is just a pebble in the ocean compared to the boulder I’m about to let drop.
Chapter 15
Over the week that follows, work goes crazy. We’re down three officers, which means I get pulled in to cover shifts night and day. One of those officers is Smithy, taking his two weeks’ annual leave, but the other pair – Fuller and Edwards – have hung up their radios for good. Don Edwards, known as Peghead, I can comprehend. He took a nasty injury from the wrong end of a knife, and that’s enough to make anyone reconsider their life and career options. Steve Fuller, though, I can’t get my head around. He still has plenty of years left in him and a passion for the job that hadn’t waned. There are rumours that his home life’s taken a knock, but I hope that’s all they are, just rumours. Or if not, that he finds what he wants and comes out the other side in a better place. I have a lot of time for Steve. He’s one of the good ones, and there aren’t always too many of those.
By the time the weekend comes and goes and I’m back on day shifts after only twenty-four hours to recover from a five-night rotation, I’m no closer to speaking with Jake about his dad than I was just over a week ago. The plan was to talk with him last Monday evening after Shaun left, but that was before the inspector called and pulled me in to work a shift that wasn’t part of my rota. Now I’m at the point where, if I have anything more than a couple of hours at home with him, I’m barely fit enough for negotiating what he’ll have for his tea, let alone springing a father on him and massively disrupting his life. The least I can do is be clear-headed for that.
Which is more than I can say for the young lad I’ve just stopped at the side of the road after his Nova flagged an alert on my unit’s ANPR camera for no insurance. I’m guessing by the way his eyes are jumping all over the place that he’s lacking a lot more than insurance, like co-ordination, reaction speed, and good sense. But it’s not just his eyes that are jumpy, his whole body seems incapable of stilling itself, and what few brain cells he’s operating with are putting in the overtime. He’s got a lot to say, but none of it’s all that coherent.
‘Third time. This is the third time you lot have stopped me,’ he repeats, the same thing he’s been saying since I asked him to get out of the car. He argued from the driver’s seat for a while, but now we’ve progressed to the pavement. Except now that he’s bobbing back and forth on well-worn trainers, towering at least a good foot and a half over me, I’m hoping the back-up I requested while he was still in the car isn’t too long in coming. I’m trying not to provoke him, but there’s a strong sense he could go either way.
‘Listen, mate, I hear what you’re saying. But when my car’s Automatic Number Plate Recognition system pings at me, I’m obliged to pull you over. You said the vehicle belongs to you, but the registered owner is coming up as a different name, a female.’
‘I’m not doing this again. I’m telling you, I’m not doing it. Three fucking times in a week you’ve stopped me. For nothing. Some bullshit I don’t even know.’
‘Just tell me who’s vehicle this is, ‘cause it’s not yours, is it?’
‘Stop with this shit. Stop screwing with my head. I told all this to the other officer. I am not doing it again.’
‘Okay, so when was that? When did you speak to the other officer?’
‘Three times. Three fucking times. End of. I’m done. So can I go?’
‘I’m afraid not. This vehicle doesn’t have any insurance.’
‘Fuck you. Yes, it does.’
My suspect, thinking that a nasty attitude is all it will take to outwit a copper, and maybe more specifically a female one, throws out his arm as if to shove me aside and return to the driver’s seat to be on his merry way. But it’s the perfect entry for me. I grab hold of the swaying arm and twist it behind his back, hook my right foot around his ankle and face plant him onto the bonnet of his uninsured car.
I’m aided by his disorientation to begin with. His eyes blink in double time and he puffs out short quick breaths as he tries to comprehend how the world just tilted on its axis. When he makes the connections, though – right around the time I’m about to slip the second cuff over his wrist – his reaction is uncoordinated but visceral. He jerks back with such brute force that the back of his head connects hard with my mouth. I’m momentarily disorientated myself, but not enough to let go of the little shit. His one arm’s still free and he’s tugging hard at the one I’m holding onto, like he’ll do anything to free it. Punch, kick, hit, anything. I brace for it, my eyes on that free hand, but what he does instead is launch a mouthful of spit that splatters across my eye and cheek, and rolls down to my lips. He peels back a manic grin and laughs, maybe at the look on my face, but that’s another mistake he’s made today.
With his stinking saliva running down to my chin, I pull hard on the cuffs snapped to his wrist. He winces and stumbles forward with enough momentum that I kick out a second time to get him down to the pavement. Though he’s taller than me, there’s not much else to him, and the chemicals rushing in his blood may have made him wired but they’ve also messed with his equilibrium. He barely knows which way is up, and lands without too much effort on the ground. I’ve hurt him in the process, and he’s yelling his fury and body-popping to get me off him. Whatever is in his system is now mixing with adrenaline and a whole lot of anger which, together, is a lethal combination. I try not to think about what he might do and only focus on keeping him there until the cavalry comes.
Sirens pre-empt their arrival, and tyres squeal as they’re brought to a sharp stop, first one unit and then a second. Doors slam and boots thunder across tarmac until I’m no longer alone. More arms come down beside me to restrain him. PC John Russell is one of my helpers, from our Newport Central Ward. PC Sarah Wakeman from the Pill Ward is the other.
With all of us restraining the writhing suspect, the second cuff goes on. Though this still doesn’t deter him from trying to wriggle out from under the hands of three officers, two looking far more in control than he is, and the third – me – slightly punch-drunk and out of breath. He needn’t bother. He’s got as much chance of escaping us as driving away from here in his unroadworthy Nova.
‘That’s right, mate,’ Russell says. ‘You just burn all that off. Give my pals in the custody suite a quiet afternoon.’
Over the strangled shouts from the man on the floor, I tell him he’s arrested for driving a vehicle whilst uninsured and for assaulting an emergency worker, and brief him of his rights. Then I key the radio to inform Control, repeating myself when the operator can’t understand me the first time. My chin and lower jaw are turning from throbbing to numb, and any second now the drooling will start.
‘Alright?’ Russell mouths, so as not to give our idiot new friend the satisfaction of knowing he’s done some damage.
I nod and wipe the sleeve of my jacket over the boy’s saliva on my face, feeling sick at the sight and the thought of it. I scrub at my mouth. Twice. Three times. With different parts of my sleeve. But I still can’t shake th
e feeling of his vile spit clinging there.
When the wagon turns up, Russell insists on driving me to the custody suite to complete the booking in and requests another officer to collect his unit. And much to my irritation, once the spaced-out spitter’s been processed and shut in a cell, I find my colleague still loitering outside.
‘It’s nothing. I’m good to carry on,’ I say, pre-empting what’s coming.
Russell’s already got his back to me. ‘Shut up and get in the car.’
I huff and sigh, but do as I’m told. ‘Did you just issue an order?’ I say, tugging on the seat belt. ‘Only I don’t believe you’re my superior.’
‘Yet,’ he says, with a sideways glance. ‘Good practice for when I make sarge. Doesn’t hurt for you to familiarise yourself with what that’ll feel like.’
Laughing at my colleague quickly becomes something I regret. A shooting pain pierces through my gums and I wince, though hide it from Russell who’s negotiating the exit from the station car park at a busy time of the afternoon.
‘You should do something about that,’ I say, as we pull out into traffic and head for the City Royal hospital.
‘About what?’ he says, his eyes flicking from the road to me, hand running over his thinly trimmed beard. A hipster beard, I suppose they’d call it. Russell might be a few years older than me, but he never got the memo about how aging works. He’s like a big kid in an adult’s body.
‘About that crippling self-doubt of yours,’ I say, and Russell chuckles and hits the blues to get us the half a mile down the road to City Royal. It’s not an emergency, I tell him, but he disagrees, saying I need to be available for call-outs asap. When I scowl, he chuckles some more.