by M K Farrar
Fish jabbed an elbow into his side. “Don’t just stand there. This way.”
He jerked his head, telling Nicholas to follow him over to one of the tables. A few prisoners were already there, shovelling their meals into their mouths. A couple of them glanced up with vague interest at Nicholas as Fish plonked his tray down into one of the empty spaces and then motioned for Nicholas to sit next to him.
The biggest of the men narrowed his eyes at Nicholas. “Who the fuck is this?”
“Hey, Rocko,” Fish started, his voice heightened by nerves or excitement, “this is Nicholas Bailey, the bloke who pushed that detective’s husband in front of a Tube train. Remember him?”
Rocko was a thick mass of muscle, topped by a shaved head. He was probably twice Nicholas’s bodyweight. He eyed Nicholas suspiciously for a moment and then lifted his chin. “Yeah, I remember. Shame it wasn’t the detective instead, though, am I right?”
“They caught me before I managed it,” he muttered.
“Yeah? How did it feel, though, pushing that man in front of a train? Tell us everything.”
A ball of pride swelled in Nicholas’s chest. These men were showing him interest and respect. For once in his life, he wasn’t being mocked or ignored. Could it be that they were more like him than he’d first thought, that maybe he’d finally found people who would understand him? His whole life, he’d been on the outskirts of everything, overlooked by everyone. He’d never known how to properly interact with other people and had watched others do with such ease that he seemed to find impossible. His brother had been the only one he’d ever really known how to talk to. He had never made Nicholas feel stupid or awkward or dumb. Maybe these people would be like his brother had been to him.
It was wrong to have hope in a place like this, but Nicholas couldn’t help himself. As more of the prisoners gathered around, he talked, recounting all the terrible things he’d done, elaborating when they asked for more detail, giving them what they wanted. One of the officers came near, and he dropped his voice, and one of the other men started talking about something completely different. The officer walked away again, and Nicholas received a nudge in the ribs to tell him to keep going.
“You’re all right, Bailey,” Rocko said, nodding, his lower lip jutted out. “You know that? You’ll fit right in.”
Nicholas’s heart expanded with happiness.
Chapter Four
Erica’s shoes squeaked on the hospital flooring, the stink of cleaning products and illness assaulting her nostrils. As much as she loved her job, if there was one thing she could change, it would be the amount of time she ended up spending in hospitals.
She’d got a call from PC Dailey, the uniformed officer who’d gone in the ambulance with the victim, to say Brandon Skehan was out of surgery. Erica had done a background check on the victim, but he didn’t have a record, and hadn’t been the victim of any crimes in the past—at least none that he’d reported. She wanted to speak to Skehan as soon as possible to get his version of events. It was almost three a.m., and she’d been tempted to grab a few hours’ sleep and see him in the morning, but this couldn’t wait. They were on the hunt for a man who had attacked someone with a knife, and for all they knew, this might not be an isolated incident. If the victim had any information which could help them catch who did this before they hurt someone else, Erica didn’t have time to sleep.
The uniformed officer sat outside the hospital room door. He was a young man, in his twenties, and he spotted Erica and jumped to his feet.
“DI Swift,” she introduced herself. “How’s the patient?”
“He’s conscious, since they didn’t need to put him under fully. I believe they just gave him a local anaesthetic rather than a general one. But he’s been given some strong painkillers, and he’s been sleeping. The doctors said the surgery went well. He was very lucky he didn’t lose his eye, but he’s going to have some impressive scarring. I believe they’re going to have a plastic surgeon speak to him about further surgeries that will improve its appearance later down the line.”
“Has he spoken at all?”
PC Dailey shook his head. “Nothing of any significance. He asked for some water, that’s about it.”
“What about in the ambulance? Did he say anything then?”
“Only that someone attacked him, and he was pretty convinced it was a man, but he didn’t know who it was. He kept asking why someone would do this to him, so I assume he doesn’t know the reason behind it either. He was very afraid that he’d lose his sight and at that point the paramedics were unable to get a good look at his injuries because there was so much blood.”
Erica blew out a breath. “Jesus, poor bloke. It must have been terrifying.”
“I managed to get some photographs of his injuries before he was taken for surgery. I’ve uploaded them for you to access.”
“Great, thanks. I’ll go and see if I can have a word with him. Feel free to go and grab yourself a coffee, if you want to.”
Dailey offered her a smile. “Thanks, I will, though the coffee here is nothing to write home about. At least it’s got caffeine.”
She waited until Dailey had walked off down the corridor, and then she knocked lightly on the hospital room door and opened it. A figure lay in the bed under some low lighting. A machine pumped fluids into the drips that ran into the veins on his arm.
The man in the bed had half his face wrapped in white bandages. The other eye was closed, his dark lashes—the same jet black as the thick crop of hair on his head—resting on his cheek. He had a strong build, though his lower half was covered with the hospital sheet and his upper with the less-than-attractive hospital nightgown.
“Mr Skehan,” she said softly as she walked in. “Are you awake? I’m DI Swift, and I need to ask you a few questions about what happened to you.”
The man moaned softly and twisted his head against the pillow. She felt bad that she was trying to wake him up when he clearly needed to rest and heal, but it was important that she at least try to speak to him. If he had any idea who’d done this to him, she needed to know. Right now, there was a dangerous man still at large in the community.
She crossed the room and stopped at his bedside. “Mr Skehan.” She spoke louder this time. “I really need to talk to you.”
His remaining good eye fluttered open, revealing a dark-blue iris. He stared up at her, confused for a moment, and then tried to sit up.
“It’s okay, Mr Skehan. You don’t have to sit up. Stay right where you are.”
He groaned and turned his face away. “I’m sleeping.” His speech was slurred, and he was hard to understand.
“I know you’re tired, but I really need to ask you some questions about what happened tonight. Do you think you could do that for me?”
He muttered something unintelligible, and his eye slipped shut again.
Erica clenched her hands into fists. “Mr Skehan? Please, could you wake up for a moment so I can speak to you?”
She had the feeling this wasn’t going to go anywhere and bit down on her frustration. He’d told the uniformed officer that he hadn’t known the person who’d attacked him, and she doubted he’d tell her any differently now. He might have been able to give her a description though, which could have narrowed things down. At the moment, they didn’t have a whole lot to go on. She just hoped whoever had done this had been stupid enough to leave prints on the handle of the knife, and that they’d be able to match them to some they had on record.
Movement came at the door, and she turned, half expecting to see the police officer back with his coffee, but instead a different man, this one in a white coat, entered the room.
“Your colleague said you were in here,” the man said. “I’m Doctor Burkhart, I’m taking care of Mr Skehan.”
“Right.” She took a step back from the bed. “I’m DI Swift. How’s he getting on?”
“I’m sorry, Detective, but he’s really not in any fit state to answer any questions right
now. While we didn’t give him a general anaesthetic when we stitched him up, he was given a light sedative before we gave him the local injections. It’s highly unlikely you’ll get any sense out of him, and he most likely won’t remember any of this in the morning.”
“I understand, but I had to try. It’s an important part of my job to get a statement from the victim.”
The doctor came farther into the room and offered her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And it’s an important part of mine to make sure a patient gets enough rest so he can heal properly.”
“Understood. Is it all right if I come back in the morning?”
“Make it mid-morning. The sedatives will have worn off by then, and you’ll be far more likely to get a proper statement from him.”
“No problem. I suppose I’ll just have to hope whoever did this to him doesn’t decide to attack another innocent person in the meantime.”
He didn’t even flinch at her jibe. “I’m sure you have other ways of catching the bad guy, Detective.”
“Absolutely.” She turned for the door but was still annoyed that she hadn’t managed to speak to the victim herself. Then she stopped. “Before I go, can I just ask how well you’ll think he’ll heal?”
“Physically, he’ll heal well enough. He’s going to have most problems with the eyelid that was slashed. We’ve stitched it back together, but when it heals it’s going to feel tight, and he’ll probably feel as though he won’t be able to close it properly, and he may well deal with some dry eye issues. Mentally, he’ll most likely take a little longer to get over what’s happened to him. He was lucky not to have lost that eye.”
“So I hear. Thank you for your time, Doctor.”
She left the room. The officer had made it back and was nursing a cup of something hot and steaming. “Let me know if there are any changes,” she said.
He nodded. “Will do.”
Erica checked her watch. It was approaching four a.m. which meant she was only going to get a few hours’ sleep now, but if she was going to get even that, she needed to go home and get her head down.
She’d come back in the morning.
Chapter Five
Erica suppressed a yawn behind the back of her hand and blinked tired, gritty eyes. She’d managed to grab a couple of hours of sleep between leaving the hospital and coming back into work again, but it hadn’t been anywhere near enough. She was already on to her second cup of coffee and thought she was going to need even more if she was going to stay focused.
She’d placed a quick call to the hospital to check how Brandon Skehan had got on overnight, and been told that he was stable. She pulled up the photographs the uniformed officer had uploaded to the evidence file and grimaced. He’d also uploaded the video from his body-worn video camera, but it wasn’t as clear as the photographs he’d taken on his work mobile. The video did, however, show the distress the victim had been in when they’d arrived. He was kneeling on the pavement with both hands over his face and blood pouring between his fingers. The attending officers on-scene attempted to calm him and let them look at his wounds, but he just kept shouting about the man in the flat. Erica assumed he was talking about his attacker. Only moments after, the ambulance arrived and paramedics took over. The uniformed officer had the good sense to take a couple of photos on his mobile before the paramedics covered the wound with compressions to try to stem the bleeding.
The photographs did not make for pleasant viewing. The cut ran horizontally across the right side of his face, starting at the inside of his nose and drawing it over his eyelid, towards his right ear. It appeared to have been done in one slash, rather than a series of stabbing or hacking movements. The amount of blood the wound had caused made it difficult to see too much detail, but a part of the eyelid appeared to be hanging down in a flap.
Who would do such a thing to another person completely unprovoked?
She’d covered cases where people had done far worse to total strangers. There was no limit to how awful the human race could be to one another at times.
“I see Acting DS Rudd isn’t in yet,” DC Howard said, pushing a cup of coffee across Erica’s desk towards her. “Shouldn’t we be starting a briefing soon? Surely the Acting DS should be present?”
“Thank you for your concern, Howard, but neither of us got back home much before four a.m., and considering it’s only just gone nine now, I think we can give her a few more minutes.”
“You got to bed at the same time she did, but you managed to get into work on time.”
She put down her pen and gave him a tight smile. “I’m the boss. I need to be here. I’d rather Rudd got a few more minutes’ shuteye and was on her best form this morning than if she came back into work exhausted.” Like I am, she thought but didn’t say. She hadn’t even managed to see Poppy that morning. Since she’d been out all night, Poppy had slept over at Natasha’s house. Erica would have liked to take her to school, but that would have meant losing even more sleep, and Natasha had told her not to be silly, she was more than happy to take Poppy in with her cousins. The other parents at school—and probably a few of the teachers, too—must think that Natasha was Poppy’s mother. There were times when Erica picked Poppy up or dropped her off where she was sure people were looking at her, wondering who she was. She was never going to be one of those mothers who home baked cakes for a bake sale or handmade costumes for World Book Day. The best she could manage was throwing some money at the school every now and then. She hoped Poppy wouldn’t resent her for it in years to come. She also wished she could be one of those people who didn’t care what other people thought of her, but it seemed that button was broken.
“If there’s anything you need me to do to fill in while she’s still getting her beauty sleep,” Howard continued, “just let me know.”
“I’m sure you’ve got plenty of your own work to get on with,” she replied curtly.
He pursed his lips but nodded and went back to his own desk.
Erica understood full well what DC Howard was doing. He hadn’t been happy that she hadn’t picked him to be Acting DS while Shawn was on annual leave. Shawn would be back tomorrow, thank God. DC Howard moping around the office like a sulky child had been irritating. She didn’t know why he did it. All it did was ensure she was even less likely to choose him when the time came again.
She’d heard rumours about how it had been some kind of reverse sexism, and she’d only chosen Hannah Rudd because she was another woman, and if it had been down to DCI Gibbs to do the picking, he was sure to have chosen Howard. Erica knew this wasn’t the case. It was Howard’s slightly cocky behaviour that meant he hadn’t been chosen, and she knew Gibbs had noticed it as well. Hannah Rudd did the work; she didn’t make a show and dance over it.
As though Erica’s thoughts had conjured her, Rudd rushed in, her cheeks flushed.
“Sorry I’m late, boss. I got a call that one of the houses a couple down from the one with the dog has security cameras. They had a break-in twelve months ago and have been paranoid about it since. I swung by on my way here to pick up the footage. I figured it might be important.”
Erica did her best not to throw a challenging look in DC Howard’s direction, wondering what he would have to say about that.
“That’s excellent,” Erica said, giving her Acting DS a smile. “Assuming the assailant went that way, we should catch him on camera.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, too. I managed to speak to some of the other neighbours while you were at the hospital as well, but so far none of them saw anything other than the aftermath of the attack, when the shouting started, and we showed up.”
“Whoever did this was slippery enough. Considering the houses are all backing onto each other on that street, you’d have thought someone would have noticed a strange man nipping through their back garden in the middle of the night.”
She shrugged. “It was late, and people were asleep.”
“This is London. People are always aw
ake, and we need something to go on.”
“Hopefully, the victim will be able to tell us something about his attacker. Maybe he even knows who it was but is covering for them.”
“Perhaps,” Erica arched a brow, “though if someone had done that to my face, I don’t think I’d cover for them. We need to find out a little more about Brandon Skehan, though. What sort of things is he into? Who are his family and friends? What does his boss and colleagues think of him? Do any of them know of anyone who might want to hurt him?”
“I can look into that,” she offered.
Erica shook her head. “No, you’re busy with the neighbours. Delegate that job to DC Howard.”
“Will do.”
Howard wasn’t going to like Rudd telling him what to do, and she expected Rudd was going to feel awkward doing the telling. But part of climbing the ranks meant being able to delegate work—as much as Erica wanted to do everything all the time, it simply wasn’t possible, and that was what teamwork was all about. It was good for Howard to learn a bit of humility and for Rudd to be more assertive.
With everyone in, she called a briefing to bring them up to speed with what had happened overnight. Gibbs sat in on the meeting, but other than saying good morning, he remained at the back and let Erica take the lead.
DCI Gibbs had returned to work a few months earlier, and Erica had been happy to hand both the reins and the job title back to him. She’d come to the conclusion that she didn’t need the extra responsibility right now, or the extra paperwork, of being a DCI, Acting or otherwise. Gibbs had mostly recovered from the stroke, but when it got late in the day, he grew weaker down one side of his body, and she noted how that same side of his face seemed to droop. He clearly had some ongoing issues, but they hadn’t been enough to prevent him from returning to work, something both he, and his wife, had clearly been happy about. “If I had to spend another day watching crappy daytime television, I would have given myself another stroke,” he’d told her not long after he’d got back into the office. “Longest month of my life.”