The Family Lie

by P L Kane

  ‘We have to work with the resources at our disposal, PC … Prescott, isn’t it?’ The man with the salt-and-pepper hair knew exactly who he was; Mitch’s reputation for questioning those in charge was the stuff of legend around these parts. But rumour had it the only reason Staton had risen in the ranks was the company he kept; the kind who held ceremonies behind closed doors and had funny handshakes. Certainly hadn’t served his time on the front ranks, like Mitch and co. Like some of the officers Mitch could think of who had been passed over for the promotion. ‘Besides, all the forecasts suggest this is due to be a peaceful protest.’ Forecasts, like a bloody weather report; it never rains … ‘We have absolutely no reason to believe otherwise. There are even going to be children on the march. No way these people would risk the lives of youngsters.’

  Some wouldn’t, but Mitch knew plenty of other folk who definitely would. He’d seen how certain elements could take over a ‘peaceful’ football match and turn it into a battleground, regardless of whether there were any ‘youngsters’ around or not. People who treated it like – as Frankie used to sing – two tribes going to war, irrespective of the ‘collateral damage’. If you weren’t preparing for a worst-case scenario, you had no business being in the force, let alone at the rank of inspector.

  The orders had come down from a higher authority, so they were told. Not that any of that would help them if it all hit the fan. Perhaps Mitch was just borrowing trouble, already rattled because of the phone message. No, it wasn’t just that. He had an uncanny knack of sensing when something bad was going to happen: a copper’s instinct some called it, honed over time, while others jokingly referred to it as his ‘spider-sense’. Or maybe, in this instance, it was just common sense given the size of the crowd they’d ended up with.

  So many people walking in unison to protest the latest crazy scheme the powers that be had implemented. It didn’t seem to matter who was in charge of their country these days, they appeared to be determined to cock things up. Hospitals, schools (he only had to listen to Lucy’s rants about this to understand the extent of the rot), the welfare system. Welfare? That was a joke! Mitch knew families on his patch who couldn’t even get benefits, were having to feed their own children using food banks. And the number crunchers wondered why robberies were on the increase.

  Nevertheless, this march – this protest – as futile as it seemed to Mitch, had certainly begun peacefully enough. Roads had been cordoned off in preparation, diversions put in place for traffic – directing them around Downstone city rather than through it. Placards, with general statements like ‘JUSTICE FOR ALL’ and ‘DEMOCRACY IS DEAD’ painted on them, had been raised at 2 p.m., and the sea of bodies had initially followed the police’s lead. A wall of officers facing the crowd and walking backwards slowly, keeping an eye on what was happening.

  In case, just in case. Because you never knew when things were going to turn, always a chance they could. Even with a march like this one, moving at a snail’s pace, harmless on the face of it. Might not even be the intention, could just be hijacked by those who liked nothing better than to cause trouble.

  People like the ones Mitch finally spotted, masking up by pulling scarves over their mouths and noses, tugging hoodies over their heads. Reaching inside unseasonable coats for makeshift weapons they’d brought with them, like baseball bats or rocks.

  The sudden and unprovoked explosion of sheer mayhem was incredible, the noise insane. Panic from some, running in different directions – those whose only intention had been to demonstrate – anger from others at this interruption, which saw some of the ordinary members of the public turn on the ones causing the disruption. Sheer violent anarchy from the rest, including launching bottles with lit rags in them.

  Mitch watched as one arced through the air, and his eyes dropped to where it would land. Not far away from one of those kids his superior felt sure wouldn’t be in harm’s way. He rushed forwards, ignoring the cries from Vihaan behind him to hold the line, and snatched up the boy – who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight – just as the glass exploded on the concrete, splashing flames everywhere.

  Ignoring the heat at his back, Mitch half ran, half stumbled away from the fire and to the side of the road. He glanced down at the lad in his arms, bawling his eyes out, but in spite of everything he seemed unharmed. There was a tap on his shoulder and Mitch almost turned and punched whoever was standing behind him. But at the last moment, he saw a skinny, bearded man in faded jeans and a T-shirt, looking terrified.

  ‘He’s … That’s my son, officer,’ he declared.

  For a second Mitch wondered if he was telling the truth, but then the boy reached out for his father. He passed him over quickly, shouting, ‘Get him the hell out of here! Look after him!’

  The man nodded, thanking Mitch profusely for what he’d done. Then he was gone, running with his boy up a side street off to their left, keeping him away from danger. Mitch looked about him, spotted more of the troublemakers pushing forwards, shoving aside the other protesters. One had a claw hammer and was raising it, ready to strike whoever was around him – he didn’t seem to care if it was friend or foe.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Mitch, snarling, pulling out his baton and racing towards him. He swung and struck the guy on the wrist, forcing him to drop his weapon and cradle his arm like a baby; broken, for all Mitch knew, or cared. Reasonable force. Justifiable force. Or taking things out on him?

  Then something hit him, too quickly to dodge, ricocheting off his shoulder and forcing him sideways to roll with it – but at the same time causing him to drop the baton. Mitch saw the half-brick tumble away to the ground, where it was kicked swiftly and accidentally into the tangle of legs.

  He tested his shoulder; it hurt, but he could still move it, so it wasn’t dislocated thankfully. Mitch was aware of someone off to his right, his senses alerting him. They were holding something else aloft. It wasn’t a hammer this time, but rather a length of metal pipe. He dodged the blow just in time, but stumbled and dropped to the floor.

  The figure, wearing a comedy mask, a caricature of some politician Mitch vaguely recognized, towered over him now, still holding the pipe. About to raise it and bring it down a second time.

  Then he stopped, letting the improvised weapon fall from his grasp where it clattered uselessly to the asphalt, and he began to jerk around as if doing a kind of dance. It was only when the man sank to his knees with a crunch that Mitch saw the darts attached to his back, saw the wires running from that to Vihaan’s Taser.

  Mitch nodded a thanks to his mate. Then he scrambled to his feet, cuffing the masked attacker. This was one bastard who wasn’t going to get away with his actions today. They dragged him towards the sound of sirens, of police vans that were arriving on the scene. Another Molotov exploded not far away and Vihaan raised his arm to protect his face.

  ‘Bollocks!’ he growled.

  ‘You can say that a—’ Mitch stopped in his tracks, sensing something else up ahead of him. Yes, there! A crowd gathered around a body, beating it with sticks. Kicking it. All that could be seen were the feet sticking out: standard police issue. Yet somehow Mitch knew who it was. He handed off pipe man, and charged at the group – laying into them and dragging them away. Mitch was aware of something hitting his temple, but didn’t care – couldn’t stop. Then the mini-crowd dispersed, went off in search of more ‘fun’ elsewhere. Revealing who it was on the ground.

  Tammy, as he’d thought. Lying there, prone, unmoving. Helmet kicked off. Face a bloody mess; no sign of those freckles now.

  ‘Dammit,’ whispered Mitch. He kneeled down and felt for a pulse at her neck. It was there, but faint. He shouted for help, but his words were drowned out by the rabble’s feral cries.

  Then suddenly Vihaan was beside him; Mitch didn’t ask what his friend had done with pipe man, that didn’t matter now. Just pointed instead to Tammy’s arms, indicated that they needed to get her to a clear area. Needed to get her some urgent medica
l attention.

  Coppers wearing actual riot gear were moving in now, somewhat too late. Too late for Tammy anyway. But they were holding back some of the most vicious ‘protesters’. And there were more officers with Mitch and Vihaan, more people to assist with the moving of Tammy – to get her to one of the nearby squad cars.

  And all the time Mitch was thinking to himself, how quickly things had turned. Had gone to shit.

  How there was always scope for it to get even worse.

  ***

  He leaned against the door to the hospital room.

  A private room where Tammy was hooked up to all kinds of monitors that beeped and pinged. She’d been brought here after they’d operated on her, to stop the internal bleeding the blows and kicks had caused. Now she lay there in a coma, because of a head injury – he’d overheard the word ‘swelling’. But nobody seemed to be able to tell him anything about when she’d wake up, if indeed she ever would.

  Nurses flitted about around the bed, while her fiancé Zach – who’d been called in urgently – sat beside it holding her hand. Tammy’s face had been cleaned up, but was still swollen – stretching those freckles now – her left eye puffed up so much it was practically a slit.

  Mitch shook his head again, thinking about the last time they’d spoken. About how it might actually be the last time.

  ‘Seriously, what’s got into you?’

  He wished he’d just told her. If only he’d got to her sooner, hadn’t been preoccupied, or … No, this should never have happened in the first place! None of this should have happened; they should have had more troops on the ground. If Staton had just listened … He’d had a bad feeling about this one, and Mitch tended to trust those feelings. His gut instinct very rarely steered him wrong.

  Watching Zach sitting there, worried expression on his face, reminded Mitch of the conversation he’d had after he’d got cleaned up himself; after the docs had stitched the cut on his forehead and checked out his shoulder, which had just been badly bruised as he suspected. The conversation he’d had with Lucy outside the entrance to A&E via video messaging on his phone.

  ‘God, I was so worried,’ she told him, her cherubic face filling the screen: those hazel eyes of hers, straight blonde locks. ‘You could have let me know how you were before now.’

  ‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you …’

  And the inference was there again, a look on Lucy’s face saying she’d been an afterthought. She wasn’t, hadn’t been. Of course she hadn’t! ‘This is the first chance I’ve had,’ he replied. ‘But honestly, I’m fine. No need to worry. A few cuts and grazes, I’ve had worse.’ Could’ve been worse. Could have ended up like Tammy.

  ‘You don’t look fine. Are those stitches?’

  He lifted the phone, angling the camera so they couldn’t be seen. ‘It’s okay, really.’

  ‘And you don’t sound okay. Is everything all right?’

  He opened his mouth to say more, about what had happened out there, about what had happened before it, about that message …

  ‘Mr Prescott, I’m afraid it’s bad news.’

  … but instead he kept quiet.

  Lucy sighed. ‘It’s all over the networks, you know. Every channel. The rioting’s still going on.’ Mitch knew, he’d seen it on the TVs in the waiting area. The guys in masks and hoodies jumping up and down on cars, setting those alight too. The escalation, the ‘getting worse’. It had gone on into the evening and probably would do all night, frankly. They still hadn’t managed to contain the situation, even though water cannons had been called in. Looting was happening now, shop fronts smashed in and people walking away with electrical goods like it was some kind of Black Friday sale. A black Saturday, for sure. Very black indeed. ‘How did this happen?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Sheer bloody stupidity, that’s how!’ he told her, unable and unwilling to hide the bitterness from his tone. ‘We weren’t anywhere near prepared. I knew something wasn’t right, that …’ It was Mitch’s turn to sigh. ‘It’s just a mess.’

  ‘Well, just get yourself home when you can.’

  ‘I’ll … I’ll do my best, Lucy.’

  ‘I love you, you know.’

  ‘I know. I love you too …’

  Mitch returned to the present and wandered back into the visitor area, where Vihaan was also waiting. He rose from his seat hopefully, but Mitch just shook his head and told his friend there was nothing to report yet about Tammy. They’d seen dozens of officers brought in while they’d been here, the hospital struggling to cope with the influx because of the kind of budget cuts those protesters had been bemoaning. Everything going to the hot place in a handbasket. What would be left for kids like that one he’d saved back there on the street? Mitch had to wonder. The kid he’d handed over to his dad …

  ‘Mitch? Earth to Mitch?’ Vihaan was waving a hand in front of his face, trying to get his attention. ‘You okay? You were miles away.’

  Mitch nodded slowly, suggesting they go and get another coffee.

  Then, the final insult. As they’d wandered through to the machine, Mitch had spotted Staton. In full dress uniform, talking to the press that were gathered. He was making a big show of being here to visit his wounded officers. Those ‘resources’ he’d spoken about at the briefing. Not men or women, but chess pieces to be shoved around a board in some huge cosmic game.

  Mitch caught the tail end of one of the questions: ‘… do you account for the way this march suddenly went sour?’

  ‘Groups of anarchists, of fanatics, gatecrashed what had, up until then, been a peaceful demonstration,’ answered the man with salt-and-pepper hair. ‘It was a total spur of the moment thing, we’ve since discovered from our intelligence.’ That was a joke: intelligence! ‘Impossible to predict. Nobody knew what was going to happen. I doubt even they did till the very last moment.’

  But I suspected, Mitch thought to himself. I knew it … was at least a possibility. And those troublemakers had definitely planned this.

  ‘I want to praise our brave men and women who have shown courage in the face of such adversity. Now we’re doing our best, with the resources we have …’ There was that buzzword again. ‘… to restore peace to the area. And we will. In time. Those responsible will be punished, you mark my words. We will not tolerate this kind of mindless behaviour! There’ll be a full press conference tomorrow afternoon at Downstone central station. But until then, thank you. Thanks everyone.’

  Flanked by a few burly officers, the inspector began walking away from the gathered journalists. He blanked questions like, ‘Is it true the army has had to be called in?’ and, ‘How can the public have any confidence in you now to maintain order?’ Bailing before he could get tangled up in a tricky situation.

  Mitch set off to follow him up the corridor, ignoring Vihaan’s advice to leave it. The more you told him not to do something, the more likely it was that Mitch would race towards it. But he was stopped in his tracks anyway by one of those huge coppers assigned to protect the senior officer on his ‘tour’. ‘I want to talk to Staton,’ he said, but the man – whom he didn’t recognize – said nothing. So Mitch began shouting after his boss. ‘Staton! Hey, Staton!’

  The inspector stopped and turned. Then he nodded for the man to let Mitch by, probably so the journos wouldn’t catch wind of it.

  ‘What is it, PC … PC Prescott, isn’t it?’ Once again, Mitch knew that Staton had remembered his name – he was just being a dick.

  ‘What happened back there, at the march. It could have been prevented,’ Mitch told him.

  ‘Didn’t you just hear what I said? There was no way of knowing.’

  ‘But I tried to—’

  Staton raised a hand to cut him off. ‘There was no way of knowing, Prescott. We can only go by the information we have to hand, and all of it pointed to a peaceful demonstration. The measures put in place should have been enough.’

  ‘They weren’t though, were they?’

  ‘We only have
so many resources to—’

  ‘One of your resources is at this hospital in a coma, Staton!’ he shouted.

  ‘Would you keep your voice down, Officer. And kindly address me as Inspector Staton. Or, failing that, sir.’

  Mitch looked him up and down, his lip curling. Sir? This silly sod, who’d put so many people’s lives at risk … he wanted Mitch to call him sir?

  ‘Listen, Officer …’ He thought for a moment, searching his memory.

  ‘Fitzpatrick,’ Mitch stated, reminding him of Tammy’s surname – which it looked like he had genuinely forgotten. That was how much he cared.

  ‘Officer Fitzpatrick and her family will be well compensated. Trust me.’ Trust him? Mitch would rather trust a snake. ‘I understand your frustration about all this, really I do. But as I said before, those orders came from a higher authority,’ Staton told him. ‘Your participation in this matter is appreciated. As is your discretion.’

  So that was it. Keep your mouth shut, play ball. Forget that! ‘I’ll talk about it to whoever I want,’ said Mitch. ‘Something needs to be done.’

  Staton’s left eye was a slit, though unlike Tammy’s this was on purpose. ‘Now that, Prescott, would be a very grave mistake.’ He prodded Mitch in the chest as he said the words, and that was it. Mitch lunged at him, would have slammed him against the wall if he hadn’t felt much stronger hands on him, pulling him away. Holding him back. ‘Atrocious! Behaviour unbecoming a police officer, Prescott,’ griped Staton, straightening his tie but clearly shaken. ‘Nobody will believe a word you say, I’ll make sure of that. You’re finished in the police force, Prescott. You hear me? Finished!’

  ‘I’ll save you the trouble,’ spat Mitch. ‘I quit.’

  ‘Kellerman,’ Staton said to the hulking man holding Mitch, ‘would you please escort Mr Prescott out the back way?’ He emphasised the lack of rank, now Mitch was suddenly a member of the public again.

  Just as suddenly, Mitch was being manhandled towards the back of the hospital, to the nearest fire exit. There he was deposited unceremoniously outside. If anything was atrocious, it was how – after risking his life on the streets – he’d been shoved from the building, like some bouncer tossing him out of a nightclub. Not only that, but the promise of being discredited as well by Staton … and his friends.