Driving Dead

by Stephen G Collier

  ‘This is typical!’ she had screamed down the phone at him, ‘typical of the bloody job interfering with our lives.’

  He stood looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, her words echoing in his head. The mirror was the only possession left in the room, apart from a thin, faded old towel, draped over the bath. The mirror was screwed to the wall which he really couldn’t be arsed to remove.

  Over the last few months he had noticed that silver flecks in his hair were making a break for all to see. A sure sign of advancing years, stress or, more likely, both.

  His house was empty. He felt empty. Everything that he had strived for over the past twenty years he’d been in the job was virtually gone: the wife; the nice house; the car – yes she’d had that as well. There were good times with Rosie that he preferred to think about, not the last twelve months. Those he would prefer to forget.

  ‘How did it come to this?’ he whispered, to his mirror image, as he washed his hands and threw some water on his face. Drying off with the old towel, he sighed deeply, took one last look at himself in the mirror, noticing, and not for the first time, the dark rings which were in permanent residence under his eyes and went downstairs to join Rosie in the kitchen.

  ‘There are many good memories here.’ He smiled an unconvincing smile to the estate agent. The agent had come to ensure that everything was in order, before handing the keys over to the new owners.

  He saw Rosie standing and staring out of the kitchen window with her arms folded in front of her, a stern look on her face. She was wearing the dark blue skirt suit, which he still remembered her buying. He also noticed that she appeared to have put on a bit of weight. She turned to him.

  ‘Memories or not, can we go now?’ Her voice was cold and unemotional.

  ‘Did you ever like living here?’ Jake questioned.

  ‘Now is not a good time to ask that, Jake.’

  ‘I just wondered, that’s all. I just can’t understand how we got here.’

  ‘Really? Do you want me to spell it out for you?’

  ‘We’ve never exactly talked about it, have we?’

  ‘And you want to do it now?’ she snapped.

  ‘I thought that you might have something to say?’

  ‘There’s nothing to say – nothing I want to say.’

  A disagreeable silence hung in the air.

  Eventually, irritated by it, Rosie continued. ‘I’ll tell you, shall I? I’ll tell you why. It’s because of your bloody job, that’s why. It’s the damned police force that’s done this to us: the callouts; the late finishes; the early starts; I never saw you!’

  ‘I think that’s a little unfair.’ Jake tried to quell his anger at Rosie’s attitude, ‘You knew what you were letting yourself in for when you married me, so don’t try to convince yourself that you didn’t understand what might happen. Don’t keep banging on about my job being the cause of all this. If you hadn’t have been shagging your sister’s husband, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?’

  ‘Don’t be so crude.’

  Silence.

  ‘Would we?’ Jake demanded.

  ‘Don’t you dare raise your voice to me, Jacob. If you hadn’t been away from home all hours of the day and night, I wouldn’t have needed to find comfort elsewhere.’

  ‘Comfort – comfort! You are a sanctimonious bitch. I refuse to accept that we couldn’t have worked this out, if you hadn’t have gone off with him!’

  ‘That’s just your opinion,’ Rosie seethed.

  Jake noticed that the estate agent had moved towards the front door, out of earshot.

  ‘Why, Rosie, why?’ Jake asked, quieter now. ‘Didn’t you want to save our marriage? And is HE so much better than what we had?’

  Rosie just shrugged and remained staring out of the window, biting her top lip. Jake thought he saw a flash of emotion, but her eyes were still cold.

  ‘Well?’ he asked again softly.

  Rosie turned and looked at him, giving him a hard stare. Shrugging again, she turned and walked out of the kitchen, without saying another word.

  ‘Cold-hearted bitch,’ he mumbled, as she walked out into the hallway.

  Rosie slapped her set of keys into the hands of the estate agent.

  The rawness of the situation had got to Jake. It was like somebody opening a file about their life and ripping out the pages one by one. Slowly destroying that which had gone before – destroying both their lives – and for what?

  Jake stood and watched Rosie walk away from him, and he moved towards the front door. The estate agent came and stood next to him, both watching Rosie as she walked down the drive. He took a breath to speak.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Jake, ‘don’t say a word and just do your job.’

  ‘I wouldn’t presume to comment, sir, I was simply going to ask you for your keys.’

  ‘Hmm, sorry.’ Jake took his keys out of his pocket and removed them from the ring they were on.

  ‘That’s OK, sir. Both of us, in one way or another get to see the bad side of life.’

  ‘I doubt that you do.’ Jake eyed the estate agent and gave him his keys. He watched Rosie get into the passenger side of Gaffney’s Range Rover. The agent closed the door and Jake made his way to his car. Taking one last glance towards the house, he noticed that the next-door neighbour was looking out of the window. He waved at Jake and gave him the “Do you want a cuppa?” sign, but he declined. The last thing he wanted was to make small talk, today of all days.

  14

  The following day, Jake was sitting in his patrol car on an observation point, watching the world go by. Large spots of rain had begun to hammer slowly, on the windscreen as the sky darkened. Sitting where he was on the A43 near to Blisworth Hill was a catalyst for an errant driver to brake heavily, on seeing the patrol car, loose control on the wet road and cause all sorts of mayhem. He moved off of his observation point and began a patrol towards Towcester.

  He was mulling over the conversation he’d had with his collision investigator, Andy Thomas. He’d sent the blood samples from the four fatals for more testing and was hoping that the results would be “inconclusive”.

  To him it was only a tenuous connection. He didn’t really have the manpower to go to the Superintendent and start a major investigation into four fatal accidents. It would probably mean an incident room there at the new complex, not that there wasn’t enough room, he thought, but if Major Crimes didn’t take it on?

  He realised, of course, that the best person he knew to speak to was Kirsty, but he didn’t like to intrude or burden her with his work problems. He felt that she was still mentally delicate and needed to be approached at the right time and in the right place. But this couldn’t be put off. If there was a problem, it needed to be identified and resolved quickly. He decided to leave it until Andy had the results. The car phone rang, he pressed the answer button on the steering wheel and listened to the caller.

  ‘Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll come over.’

  He cancelled the call and wondered what the Major Crimes Team could possibly want with him. He currently had nothing outstanding on the road death board in his office. Nevertheless, he made his way to Major Crimes at Force HQ.

  Arriving at Headquarters, he took a detour through the restaurant and grabbed a soft drink from the machine before going up to the Major Crimes suite. He saw that the DCI’s door stood open and he was talking to the new detective inspector. Freeman, the American Police Captain, in the UK that made him a Chief Inspector, saw him and waved him into the office.

  ‘Jake, have you met Detective Inspector Fletcher Randall?’

  Jake took Randall’s outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake. ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’

  ‘Jake, I know that you were involved in an incident last year with Tyler,’ Freeman said.

  Jake nodded. Where was t
his going?

  Freeman continued. ‘DI Randall here has been allocated the task of resolving the identity of the unknown female found in Fulborough Wood and which we believe was one of Tyler’s victims.’

  ‘I understand, sir, but what has that to do with me? I didn’t really get involved with that enquiry.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but you are the FLO of D.I. Kingsfield’s wife, am I right?’

  ‘Yes, correct.’

  ‘I also understand that you are still in contact with her?’

  ‘I am still her FLO. Yes.’

  ‘I want you to introduce Randall to Dr Kingsfield, so he can look at the remains to try to identify who they belong to.’

  ‘I don’t think that we need to be disturbing Dr Kingsfield with this. It’s likely to bring back memories that she would prefer to forget, or at least keep suppressed. It may well undo all the work we’ve done to facilitate her recovery.’

  ‘I understand that, which is why I’ve asked you to be seconded to this investigation with Randall, until we sort it out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I have a full workload and a series of fatal collisions that need to be investigated.’

  ‘I know, but that can be handed onto someone else for the time being.’

  Jake, more irritated, continued. ‘No, sir. With respect, I’m happy to introduce the DI to the current pathologist, but I don’t think that Kirsty, sorry, Dr Kingsfield, is in a fit state mentally and should not get involved!’

  ‘You don’t really have a choice in the matter. The decision has already been made.’

  Freeman looked away from Jake and saw Kirsty Kingsfield standing in the doorway of his office.

  Jake’s heart pounded, not only because of the stress caused by the conversation, but because that was what happened every time he saw her. No one knew how long she had been standing there or what she had overheard.

  As Jake looked across to Kirsty, he received a radio message informing him that his motorway crew, Prentice and Johnson, had been deployed to a jack-knifed goods vehicle on the M45 at the M1 junction 17. He turned back to Freeman and Randall, who’d also heard the call.

  ‘Do you have to deploy as well?’ Freeman asked.

  ‘I’ll need to go up soon,’ Jake replied.

  ‘Very well,’ responded Randall. ‘Call me when you’ve finished and we’ll have a chat.’

  Jake nodded and went to leave.

  Kirsty whispered as he got to her, ‘Come over tonight and we’ll talk,’ then smiled.

  Jake nodded again, leaving Kirsty with Randall and Freeman which was not what he wanted to do at all.

  Jake drove up to the motorway incident thinking about what Kirsty was doing with Randall and Freeman. He was sure that they must have heard the rumours about them. And they were only rumours, but in the intervening months since Jim’s death, Kirsty had become a good friend. He was apprehensive about taking things with her further. He continued to deny any views his colleagues might have about them. Yet deep inside he knew. He knew that it would only be a matter of time, before it turned to more than just a friendship.

  Was that what he wanted? Was she just convenient because of his own situation? On the rebound. He couldn’t answer either of those questions with any great certainty. He was conflicted, he knew that by his duty to her as her FLO, by his growing closeness and not wanting to take advantage of both their vulnerabilities.

  He didn’t know what Kirsty thought, because he hadn’t asked her or even came anywhere near the subject. There were the affectionate touches, nothing sexual of course; walking arm-in-arm while they were talking, or a comforting holding of hands, but when he was with her he felt like an adolescent schoolboy, flushed with hormones. Inner stirrings he hadn’t felt for many years. Perhaps Rosie was right. Perhaps their marriage was over longer than he believed, so there was nothing to save.

  15

  The invitation Kirsty had given to Jake, as he’d left Freeman’s office, turned into dinner the following evening, at Kirsty’s apartment and before Jake’s nightshift.

  Kirsty told him that she was having some unhappy thoughts about Jim again, and about the remains found in Fulborough Wood, since her meeting with Freeman. She wanted someone to talk to and Jake knew that she would always turn to him.

  Jake was happy to oblige, and although he was in semi-uniform when he arrived, Kirsty was wearing what she called her pink “Sloppy Joes”. She’d cooked chicken fricassee on brown rice. Kirsty invited Jake to sit at the table in the kitchen, which he took after removing his coat, hanging it on the back of the chair. Jake watched in silence as Kirsty put out the food. She wandered over to the table with two plates in her hand and put one in front of Jake.

  ‘Smells and looks good,’ Jake commented. Then, as Kirsty sat down he said, ‘We went to a nasty bump yesterday up at the junction seventeen split?’

  ‘Anyone injured?’

  ‘No, just the lorry driver’s pride,’ Jake joked.

  ‘Funny thing was, Chris Prentice thought he saw a doctor who had also turned up at another collision a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Coincidence perhaps?’

  Jake took a mouthful of food. ‘I don’t know – Prentice didn’t think so.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I was with Prentice at the end of the taper of cones, guiding the traffic onto the hard shoulder. Chris was waving his arms about trying to get the traffic to increase speed past the scene. It wasn’t any use, but at least he was trying.’ Jake smiled. ‘Anyway, as we were watching the traffic, we saw a car pull into the coned-off area and drive towards the rear of the ambulance. The car had a magnetic blue light on the roof. Chris was questioning himself as to where he had seen the woman before and why she was so familiar to him. Then he asked Reg who the woman in the car was. Told us it was a doctor who stopped to see if she could help. Reg thought she was one of these ambulance chasers – hero wannabes.

  ‘Chris was adamant that he’d seen her at a collision before, then remembered it was the road death we had on the A5. Reg thought it was just a coincidence, particularly if the doctor worked nearby.’

  ‘Did you not speak to her?’

  ‘We were about to but she drove off with the ambulance, so I never got a good look at her. Chris was pretty sure about her though.’

  They finished the rest of the meal in relative silence, other than the odd word or two.

  Jake’s mind was all over the place. He knew that there was the possibility of rejection, if he was to ask Kirsty out on a real date. He also knew that if she was waiting to be asked – and that thought had crossed his mind on a number of occasions – then the relationship they had would change but she wouldn’t wait for him forever. He had noticed the way that the new DI had spoken to her in Freeman’s office and felt that he might have some competition for Kirsty’s affections, so he had to act quickly. Not only that, but he knew the job wouldn’t like it either.

  He deliberately sat in the chair, instead of next to her on the sofa. He casually watched her as she drunk her coffee. Be a man and say something, a voice in his head was saying. But he didn’t.

  The briefing room for the traffic nightshift used to be a hive of activity at shift changeover. With the new building though, most officers could brief themselves at whatever post they were at, with no real need to come to the hub. Jake surveyed the scene before him as he entered the new briefing room. Long, with chairs in the centre, the room was laid out like a classroom, but most of the officers were sitting either facing a wall or the window at a computer workstation, tapping away on the keyboard or scrolling through information screens. Grey and green metal pull-out trays, stacked eight high, filled the left-hand side of the wall. These trays carried all the officers’ workload. Most were stuffed to bursting point, others had stickers on the front – some of which Jake noted were highly inappropriate.

  His
full complement of nightshift officers consisted of a double-manned traffic car, an armed response car, and a collision investigator. He hoped that nothing major occurred during the night, because he just didn’t have the staff to cope with it.

  This was the norm, no longer putting two or three area traffic cars out during the night with two or three covering the motorway – not since Highways England took over responsibility. They hadn’t any enforcement powers of course, but those upstairs didn’t seem to care. It was one less road to worry about. They took away the jobs that officers, they thought, didn’t want to do. Not caring that the crews, who actually worked there, wanted to be there and enjoyed the work they did. The result was deteriorating performance records.

  He sat down at an empty desk and acknowledged the assembled team, then briefed the shift: a couple of stolen vehicles to look out for; a missing person from the local psychiatric ward; two villains wanted by the Met for Robbery. These were the main items of the day. He was about to allocate areas, when the telephone rang in Jake’s office. The officer nearest the door got up to answer his phone for him. He could hear him mumbling something then return.

  ‘Call for you, Sarge.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Don’t know. Just asked for you. Sounded long distance.’

  Jake looked curiously at his officer, stood and went into his office. He picked the phone up.

  ‘Hello. Sergeant Jordan speaking.’

  ‘Hello… Jake?’

  ‘Yes. Who is this?’

  ‘Jake, it’s me. Steph. Stephanie Parker.’

  Jake sat down astonished. ‘Oh, where are you? You sound as if you’re in a dustbin.’

  ‘I’m at Hong Kong International Airport.’

  ‘What are you doing in Hong Kong?’