Next of Kin

by TL Dyer

  ‘This isn’t good, Sarge, is it?’ Smithy asks, standing in the centre of his living room after we’ve dropped in unexpectedly on his day off. I have to look away as panic crosses his eyes.

  ‘You should sit down,’ the sarge says, in the same measured tone he used at the briefing earlier. Going through the motions.

  Smithy’s hand goes to his head, his dark eyes almost black, his breath quickening. ‘Is it Mum?’

  ‘No, no, Neil. Nothing like that. But please, sit down.’

  The sarge has instructed I leave the talking to him, which is just as well, I wouldn’t know what to say. Or what to think. For now I’m trying not to think of anything other than getting this over with.

  Dalston and I sit on Smithy’s sofa. But we’re not the only ones in the house. The creak of the floorboards and the soft thud of footsteps above our heads tell us there’s at least one other person here. The discarded sandals by the coffee table suggest it’s only the one. A female. Though, when the sarge warns Smithy that what we’re here for is sensitive and he may not want anyone else to hear it, he snaps his response, fear getting the better of him, tension demanding Dalston get to the point. So he does.

  ‘A young woman alleges that on the night of the twenty-sixth of April this year you caused her grievous bodily harm, and sexually assaulted her.’

  Twenty-sixth of April. Over two months ago. That’s a long time to be carrying guilt around with you. And yet if I had to go on instinct, I’d say the sergeant’s words don’t appear to have provoked the shock and outrage I would have expected from an innocent man. Smithy looks from his superior to me. Not knowing how to react, this bit not having been in the training, I drop my gaze to the floor. Sadness, pity, disappointment, disgust – my turning away could be interpreted in any of those ways depending on his perspective. I don’t know which one it is myself.

  ‘What’s her name?’ Smithy asks, his words mumbled as he grips his head with his hand, the first hint at distress. ‘What did she say her name was?’

  ‘Her name’s Sally Warrington.’

  Tell him as little as possible, Dalston had said. So when he answers without hesitating, I have to fight not to turn my head to look at him. Instead I peer at Smith’s reaction, his black eyes hardening as he glares at the floor in front of his feet.

  ‘What does she look like?’ His voice is harsh and raw, and this time the sarge does hesitate.

  ‘Listen, Neil, we’re going to need to do this—’

  ‘Brunette? Blonde? Redhead? Tall, short, fat, thin?’ he reels off, then snaps his head up so fast I flinch. ‘What does she look like, Fred?’

  In the tense air that follows his words, I expect Dalston to refuse to answer, to do what we came here to do and get him to the station. But he must see in his officer’s face the same thing I’m seeing. The frayed look of a man close to tipping over the edge, though in what direction, rage or despair, it’s hard to say. Not just any man, but one of us, one of our family. Which means Smithy’s either committed the worst betrayal of his profession he possibly could, or he needs us to make sure we put this right for him and do everything we can to protect him. How are we supposed to know which one of these is the right one?

  ‘Short,’ the sergeant says after a moment, his voice quiet, his discomfort palpable. ‘Slim. Long blonde hair. But listen, Neil, you know this will have to be done at the station. I’d rather you came voluntarily.’

  ‘Then let’s do it now,’ Smithy answers, with a slow nod, something like cool resignation settling over him. ‘Let’s sort this out.’

  While the sarge and I wait at the door for our colleague to put on socks and trainers, his visitor appears at the top of the stairs and takes each step tentatively, pausing when she’s halfway down.

  I recognise her. She’s a paramedic from City Royal, though she looks different out of her thick green overalls and in a simple summer dress, her sleek, damp hair tucked behind her ears, feet bare. She seems fragile and pale as she looks from us to the man it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume she’s just spent the night with. Smithy never said he was seeing anyone, and certainly not someone we both knew, so I wonder, as she clutches the banister while he gives her instructions on calling his mother to take care of his dog, whether this relationship has only now begun, or if it’s not a relationship at all, just one night and a good time. Smithy has a self-enforced reputation for that. If that’s the case, then the way she stares at him as he comes down the hallway towards us, as if she’s willing him to look at her, would suggest that they might have gone into this with different agendas. Whatever’s going on between them, it doesn’t mean nothing to her.

  Dalston sits in the back of the unmarked unit with Smithy while I drive us to the station. It’s silent in the car, no one says a word. There aren’t any words to say. But the further we get from his home and the closer to the interview room, the more the knot in my stomach twists. I’m not sure what’s getting to me more. Whether the allegations against my colleague and friend are true or not, or the hurt on the paramedic’s face, the soft flush that crept up her neck when Smithy refused to look her way. I wonder what she may have heard of our conversation in the living room, and how that made her feel having just spent the night with him. Or perhaps the weight in my gut, the lump rising in my throat as I try to hold onto tears that have no place in this car, is because for the first time in three years I don’t want any of this. I don’t want the uniform, I don’t want the protocol, and I don’t want the long shift that stretches out ahead of me that I don’t have the strength for.

  I want to be home, with the doors locked and curtains closed. My son and I, in our pyjamas, under a duvet on the sofa, watching simple cartoons about simple problems in simple lives. Just him and me. The two of us. No one else.

  Chapter 23

  It’s almost nine by the time I get home. Jake’s in his own bed upstairs, and Dad’s returned to his workshop to finish the last of his commissioned projects before the big move. In his place is Shaun, stretched out along my sofa, his feet propped on the armrest and one hand behind his head while with the other he reads something on his phone.

  ‘Look at the fucking state of you,’ he says, bringing his phone hand down to his lap with a thump.

  I peer down at the cargoes I was too tired to change out of before I booked off. They’re caked in thick, green-black mud from the knees all the way down to the ankles on both legs.

  ‘Pursuit through the Wetlands. Some tosser took off with a couple of hundred out of the cafe’s cash register.’

  ‘Did you get him?’

  ‘Course.’ I drop onto the edge of the armchair, calf muscles screaming at the memory.

  ‘Uh-uh, no you don’t.’ Shaun holds up a hand and sits upright, bare feet slapping against the wood floor. ‘You’re not staying like that. You fucking stink.’

  ‘Shaun, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but this is my house.’

  He shakes his head and points a thumb at the door. ‘I’m serious, that smell is rank.’

  ‘Then go home.’

  Sensitive to smells at the best of times, he props his hand under his nose and mumbles, ‘Can’t. Need to talk to you.’

  ‘Sodding hell, Shaun.’ My body yearns to fall back in the seat, eyes ache to close. ‘Can’t it wait? I really don’t have the—’

  ‘Fucking get upstairs now and I’ll do you something to eat.’

  I open my mouth to protest again, then think that through. I can’t remember when I ate last. It depends if a Galaxy Caramel counts as eating. Agreeing to his compromise, I stop at the bottom of the stairs to pull off my boots, then drag myself up to Jake’s room first, peering in from the doorway so as not to let the stench from my trousers wake him from his peaceful slumber. He holds Suzu in a loose grip. What will Darren think of that? Will he say six is too old for a boy to still be needing comfort from a piece of knitted blanket? An image forms in my mind of Darren taking it from him, and an edge of panic slides across my chest.

>   I turn from the room before my thoughts can consume me, take some fresh clothes from the airing cupboard, then spend a good few minutes crying in the bathroom on the closed toilet seat with the shower running behind me, steam rolling over me like a cloud I wish I could disappear under.

  The atmosphere at the station after we’d brought Smithy in had been unbearable. Awkward silences barren of the usual banter, snippets of conversation that were careful not to speculate, no one really knowing what was going on other than he was being questioned. Carry on as normal, was the message. But it was far from that. How could it be when someone who may have been capable of such a brutal crime had been walking among us and we had no idea? What cartoon coppers we were, all loud voices and truncheons and little else.

  Ten minutes later, once I’ve pulled myself together and showered, I return downstairs to the smell of chilli con carne, which Shaun brings into the living room on a tray with a glass of water.

  ‘I see you’ve put a lot of of time and effort into this,’ I say, over the first mouthful. The only chilli and rice in the kitchen was the type that comes pre-cooked and frozen in plastic compartments.

  ‘It was either that or Jake’s chicken dinos. Which, I’ll be honest, looked tempting.’

  ‘You made the right choice. Thank you.’

  While I wolf the food down quicker than my digestive system can cope with, Shaun doesn’t mention what he wants to talk about and I don’t ask. But the fact he’s still here suggests he hasn’t forgotten. I can’t help thinking that whatever it is, I won’t like it.

  ‘Is this about Scotland again?’ I dare to ask when I’m done, pushing the tray with the empty plate onto the coffee table.

  He sighs and drops the phone beside him. And when he leans forward to give me the kind of blunt stare with pursed lips that usually mean I’ve done something wrong, I wish I’d never asked.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on, Sach?’

  The momentary reprieve the shower might have offered immediately passes. Every ache, sore spot, and reminder I need to sleep return with a vengeance. ‘I don’t know, Shaun. You tell me. What is going on?’

  Under the lamplight in the room, the eyes that evaluate me are dark, the carefully managed stubble around his mouth and jaw even darker. His broad shoulders and thick biceps beneath the close-fitting navy t-shirt he wears are all enough to make him an intimidating sight if you didn’t already know that he couldn’t be less threatening if he tried.

  ‘Isaacs,’ he says, the blurted name eliciting an involuntary wince from me that a good detective would have spotted. ‘What was he doing here again?’

  I furrow my brow and look confused. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘He was here. Again. On the weekend. And don’t lie, because he was seen coming into the house.’

  ‘He was seen? Bloody hell, what is this, I’m being spied on now?’

  ‘This is Cwmcarn. Take a shit and someone three streets away knows about it. But that’s not the point. What was he doing here?’

  ‘What do you think? He told me he’d got back in touch with Lauren and wanted to give me her number.’

  ‘He came inside to do that?’

  ‘Yeah, my phone was in the kitchen, so it was easier for him to come in. I could really do without an interrogation, Shaun.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘For god’s sake, don’t be a dickhead.’

  ‘No, show me the phone. Show me her number.’ He waits all of a few seconds before he draws his conclusion. ‘I hate it when you lie.’

  Of all the times this had to come up, the secret I’ve kept from everyone, not just Jake… Of all the times, this is not the one I’d have chosen. But when I delay answering, Shaun leaps up from the chair and marches to the door, his lips drawn thin, his gaze fixed dead ahead.

  ‘Shaun, wait.’

  He stops with one hand on the door handle. He doesn’t look at me, but breathes hard through his nose, with who knows what going through his mind, maybe even finding a way to blame himself for what I’m not telling him. As little as I have left in me, I can’t let him leave like this. I can’t send him to stew alone in his room over a problem that’s mine to bear, not his.

  ‘I’ve lied to a lot of people, okay, not just you. I’ll explain. I was going to soon, anyway, I was just waiting for the right time. But I’ll need you to listen.’

  Eyes shrouded with anger peer over at me. I ask him to sit. And when he returns to the armchair, with none of the forethought I wanted to put into this, I tell him what Darren Isaacs is to us. To Jake, to me, to our entire family now that it will soon be out in the open. I keep my voice calm, my words quiet, as though Jake might hear through the floorboards in his bedroom and understand what I’m saying. But also because I fear my brother’s reaction, and the way it might change the way he sees me.

  Perched on the end of the cushion, he listens in silence. His eyes roam over the floor like he’s winding back the years and seeking a point of reference to validate or invalidate what I’m saying, but he won’t find it. He didn’t concern himself with my friends then, just as I never concerned myself with his. And by the time Jake was conceived, Shaun was too lost to his own troubles to see anything else. Troubles that now probably appear in his memory only as a blank spot or a black hole, a place he dare not linger in for long.

  ‘Darren fucking Isaacs,’ he says, slow and drawn out.

  ‘I’m not proud of it.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Sach.’

  ‘I know. But it is what it is, and now I have to make this work.’

  ‘Why’d you tell him?’

  ‘Because he’s Jake’s father.’

  ‘Yeah, but why now? You kept it from him all this time, why tell him at all? I mean… Darren fucking Isaacs? What did you even…’ He stops himself. Not because he decides he doesn’t want to know the details, but because something else has occurred to him. ‘Did he do something? Like, fucking groom you or something?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘You were just a kid.’

  ‘I was twenty, Shaun. An adult. Old enough to think for myself. No matter how much you dislike him, don’t think for one second this was all him, because it wasn’t.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Course I’m bloody sure, I was there. I was the one who… Well, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ he mutters under his breath, restlessness pushing him to his feet so he paces in front of the fireplace. He glances at the picture of Mam and Jake in its frame on the wall. ‘Did she know?’ he asks, and I shake my head. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Nobody knows except Darren, and now you. I’ll tell Dad when I’m ready, but not yet, Shaun, please. He has enough on his plate.’

  ‘Shitting hell though,’ he says, with an ironic huff of laughter. ‘Dad’s gonna kill the fucker.’

  ‘No one’s killing anyone. If we’re throwing around blame, then it lands with me.’

  ‘He’s twice your age. So, what, you fancied him or something?’

  Everyone fancied him. I was the only one who didn’t. Or at least the only one who was too close to the family to go there. Too embroiled in the wonderful bubble that I perceived their life to be to ever consider being the one to burst it.

  ‘No wonder they all disowned him.’ Shaun sits on the arm of the chair as his brain makes connections reality can’t keep up with.

  ‘The family breaking up was nothing to do with this. They didn’t know about what happened. He had no good reason to tell them. And I certainly didn’t. Until now.’

  Shaun raises an eyebrow as if he’s questioning my theory, though about which part I’m not sure. Why would Darren have told the wife he adored about an indiscretion with their children’s friend, a one-time mistake that he never intended to make again? Craig had left home at that point, was already getting lost to a life none of us knew anything about, and Lauren would be the last person on earth he’d tell and risk losing to a fit of rage.

  �
�So say again why you’ve told him now, sis? We did alright without him for six years, now we’ll be seeing the bastard all the sodding time.’

  ‘Will you please stop calling him names? We have to get along. For Jake’s sake.’

  ‘For Jake? He fucked up his other kids, Sach, what are you hoping he’ll do for Jake?’

  ‘Will you keep your voice down?’ I whisper-shout, getting to my feet. ‘He didn’t fuck up his kids, Shaun, they fucked themselves up. I’m not saying he was perfect, nobody is, but Craig had issues he couldn’t deal with and Lauren was the world’s biggest pain in the arse. So don’t paint him with this negativity when you haven’t given him a chance. He’s Jake’s father. I told him because I’d lied to him for long enough…’

  ‘It’s not a lie if you say nothing at all.’

  ‘But more than that, I told him because Jake needs a father. Needs his father.’

  ‘He has us.’

  ‘And soon Dad will be gone, and what then? You said it yourself, it’s not fair for me to put the responsibility on others, and I need support, Shaun. I need help with all that stuff. So why not him, why not his real dad?’

  He folds his arms over his chest, waiting out my rant. ‘Because he’s an arsehole?’

  ‘No!’ I drop my hands against my sides, frustration and this conversation wearing me down.

  ‘Alright, Chuckles, keep your knickers on. Or… No. Maybe a bit late—’

  ‘Inappropriate, Shaun. Wildly inappropriate.’

  He holds up his palms in apology, but I can’t meet his humour with my own, not this time. It’s buried too deep beneath the nightmare of a day I’ve had, and the thought that things are about to get harder before they get easier. Dropping to the sofa, I rest back against the cushion and close my eyes.

  ‘I should knock his fucking head off,’ comes the mumbling from the other side of the room.