Poetic Justice

by R. C. Bridgestock

  ‘Will it need stitches?’ she whispered.

  The nurse nodded her head. ‘I imagine so.’

  Kay made her way to Dylan’s side and bent down in front of him. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘What happened?’ she said. Jack looked disorientated and in pain. She grabbed his hand. His fingers did not curl around hers, but remained limp. His eyes beseeched her.

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I was out jogging. I lost track of the time. I’m so sorry, it would never have happened if I’d got your voicemail earlier … My phone …’

  Dylan gave her a tight smile. ‘It was turned off.’ His eyes looked over her head at the nurse who had silently crept up behind his wife. Kay looked up.

  ‘He’s given me his personal details,’ the nurse said.

  Kay turned back to Dylan. ‘Did you see who did this to you?’

  Dylan shook his head jerkily, then slowly and briefly closed his eyes.

  ‘The doctor has prescribed something for the pain, Mr Dylan,’ said the nurse. ‘Once that’s kicked in we’ll clean you up and put some sutures in the wound.’

  Dylan put his hand to his forehead and gave a low, deep groan. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘The doctor has asked for a CT scan: we need to make sure there is nothing else going on in there.’

  Dylan looked up and attempted to stand, but by the way the nurse said, ‘Sit!’ Kay knew she would be obeyed.

  ‘We don’t want you collapsing again, do we?’ she said in a softer tone. She turned to Kay. ‘He’ll be staying with us tonight for observation, just routine – better to be safe than sorry.’

  When Dylan didn’t object Kay knew that he must be feeling bad.

  Since Dylan had fallen asleep from the injections they’d given him, the doctor suggested that Kay return home and come back the next morning. Kay kissed Jack’s forehead as he slept.

  Driving home, she suddenly felt exhausted. Her nerves were jittery and a sense of foreboding engulfed her as she recalled Kenny’s last words. A cold chill ran down her spine.

  ‘Remember this: I love you and I will do whatever it takes to have you to myself.’

  She drove on, telling herself that her lover’s talk had just been bravado. Kenny Fisher was known for not getting his hands dirty. Anyway, it was impossible for him to have reached the train station before her … Would he have gone to the lengths of arranging for someone else to do his dirty work for him, risking prison as a result? She shook her head emphatically. No, he wasn’t stupid.

  Arriving home, Kay rang Isla and told her what had happened. Isla’s voice sounded strange and she was breathing heavily. She said that she had been at the library, doing research for her degree, and had just run up the stairs.

  ‘Should I come home?’ she asked, her voice full of concern.

  ‘No, especially not with your exams being so close,’ replied her mother.

  Isla’s silence took Kay aback. Had she detected a sigh of relief to hear that she wasn’t required?

  That night Kay turned and tossed in her bed. In her spiralling state of mind, doubt, worry, misgivings and fear all circled round her head, haunting her dreams again and again. She’d always had dreams and, as time had gone by, she’d come to believe they held signficance. Usually, things didn’t happen in the real world in the way they did in her subconscious, but occasionally they did. She hated the bad dreams. As she fell into a deep sleep she became engulfed by an ominous darkness closing in on her. She reached upwards for the full moon, flapping her arms helplessly towards the night sky. She could see the light of the moon shining over a grassy vale from the depths of blackness, yet she could not reach the summit. A feeling of necessity overcame her, but nothing was discernible. It was then that it became obvious to her that her attempts were failing. She flapped her arms faster, but to no avail. Quickly, breathlessly, she turned and screamed.

  Her sudden movement and the loudness of her voice woke her and she sat up in bed, gasping for air.

  Lying back on damp pillows, her eyes filled with tears. What did it mean? Was the darkness her sin, or the payment sought by the universe?

  Chapter Five

  The rundown taxi office was on a corner plot, the main door slightly ajar and hidden at an angle to the road. Two teenage girls stood giggling on the doorstep of the takeaway opposite, Rosie grasping the £50 note Tariq, the nephew of the taxi office owner, had given her from the battered old cashbox.

  Slouched in the heavily soiled, threadbare armchair, Tariq tugged at the grimy net curtain that was draped limply at the window, whose dark green paint was peeling from the frame. Seeing the girls look his way, he waved a couple of vague fingers to them. They watched his head fall back as he took a drag of his spliff and, when he passed it to his younger companion, Wayne, the lad swapped it for a flowery mug that contained vodka. Wayne pressed his nose against the glass, clouding the window pane. Tariq ran his hand over the clouded window, clearing the glass, keeping his beady eye on the pair, on the off-chance they fled with the cash.

  Entering the office half an hour later, after taking a fare, pot-bellied Mohammed Farooq’s bloodshot eyes immediately fixed on the empty boxes strewn across the office and his lips set tight, in the way mouths do when they are angry. Rosie Clarke and Tanya King had returned with their food but were too much under the influence to care. Tariq had suffered the wrath of his displeasure previously. He was wary of his foul mood.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Mohammed, his false, fixed smile displayed across his lumpy face, showing them his front teeth were missing. ‘Who will be taking these young ladies home now that you’ve been drinking?’

  ‘I’ve only had a couple,’ Tariq said, with a challenging look. He put the mug to his lips and drained it. When he tried to stand his chair toppled from under him.

  Mr Farooq pushed him back into the chair with ease, using the palm of his hand. He bent down, his nose to Tariq’s. ‘That’s as may be, but just the one – as you well know my boy – is one too many.’ His voice filled with authority as he stood. ‘What are you trying to do, lose me my licence? You stay here and look after the office. And you,’ he said, pointing to Wayne, ‘clean up this mess.’ He turned, glaring at Tariq. ‘I’ll speak to you later.’ He looked at the girls and pointed to the door. ‘Right, ladies, your taxi awaits. I think it’s time for home, don’t you?’

  The girls had to be pushed out of the door by Tariq. ‘Go, go, go!’ he scolded in a half-hearted way.

  Rosie took the lead and, once they were both safely through the door, Mohammed turned, a bunch of keys dangling from a raised finger. ‘I’ll be back shortly, Tariq. Don’t you dare go anywhere, do you hear?’

  Mr Farooq turned the ignition in his taxi and the strains of a fast, twanging sitar, along with a high-pitched voice singing along in a language that the girls were unfamiliar with, filled the car.

  Tanya bobbed her head along with the rhythm. ‘Nice tunes, mister,’ she said.

  Mr Farooq’s elbow rested on the door’s arm-rest. Nodding his head to the music, smiling, singing and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, he drove out of the small town and along the gentle curving road before the precipitous incline, which featured several hairpin bends, snaked upwards. He appeared too wrapped up in the music to have heard Tanya.

  A sign for Field Colt Children’s Home popped into view with the suddenness of the hare that had run in front of the cab earlier. Mr Farooq slammed on the brakes, uttered a few choice expletives in his native tongue and pulled off the road, through big, rusty gates onto a long driveway. The headlights picked out deep potholes to avoid. The taxi lurched from side to side as the wheels bounced in and out of the ruts. Finally, he steered the vehicle gracefully around the circular pond – which had once been full of water lilies, goldfish and koi and was now filled in, no doubt for health and safety reasons – pulling to a stop in front of the large Georgian house that was the girls’ home. Looking into the back of the cab he saw that Rosie was fast asleep on Tanya’s
shoulder. Tanya was still somewhat the worse for wear, the expression on her pale face blank.

  ‘Do they treat you nicely here?’ Mr Farooq asked.

  ‘No. It’s shit,’ she answered. Her eyes were vacant.

  ‘Where do you go to school? Harrowfield High?’

  Tanya scoffed. ‘Supposed to, but once we’ve done registration we don’t hang about.’

  Mohammed Farooq pondered a moment and pulled a face in the rear-view mirror. He nodded slowly. ‘Guess what?’ he said, in an upbeat way. ‘I’ve just been given the contract to ferry students from here to Harrowfield. I’ll be sure to make certain you get there and stay there!’

  He watched Tanya help Rosie stagger up the three wide stone steps. She rested her against a pillar, one of two that stood either side of the front door. The house looked as sad and uncared for as the girls. When he saw the door shut behind them, Farooq drove away thinking how much others could learn from his culture’s family values.

  On Saturday morning Kay was at the hospital early, hopeful that she would be able to take Jack home. Under her arm she carried a plastic bag containing Jack’s clothes.

  Less than twenty-four hours since he’d been immobilised by a whack on the head from someone unknown, Dylan was examining the damage in the bathroom mirror. Half of his face was a red and blue mess. He had eight stitches in his head, he’d been told, and had suffered a haemorrhage in his right eye, but he was pleased to see the swelling to his ear had subsided dramatically. His knees and wrists and the palms of his hands were chafed and his shoulder bruised from the fall.

  ‘You’re lucky your teeth are still intact,’ said the doctor, when Kay arrived, looking at Dylan over the top of his half-rimmed glasses. ‘And the good news is that the CT scan shows no evidence of a fracture.’

  ‘Can I take him home, please?’ asked Kay eagerly.

  The two men’s eyes met. Dylan didn’t want to clash with his doctor’s authority, but if he had to, he would. There was no way he was going to spend another night listening to old men who were gasping their final breaths; it did nothing for his confidence.

  The doctor gave Dylan a half smile before he turned to Kay. ‘In all honesty Mrs Dylan, I do think your husband will recover a lot better in his home environment.’

  Kay beamed at Dylan, but her heart sank like a lead weight when she saw him look away the minute she’d handed him his clothes. He’d asked the nurse to help him to get dressed.

  They were waiting in silence for the nurse to bring Dylan a prescription for painkillers and his medical notes for his GP, when Dawn and Larry walked in. Dylan’s face lit up immediately.

  ‘Ouch! Who the hell have you upset, boss?’ asked Detective Sergeant Dawn Farren.

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ he said. ‘I’ll feel a darn sight better when we find out who did this to me – and, more importantly, why.’

  Dawn walked towards the window, opened the brown paper bag she was carrying and plucked some juicy red grapes from their stalks.

  ‘Those for me, by any chance?’ Dylan asked.

  Dawn looked from the bag to Dylan and back again. She grinned.

  Kay turned to Larry, looking for support. ‘Tell him, will you, how lucky he’s been? Next time you might not be so fortunate,’ she said, turning to Dylan. ‘You could have ended up with life-changing injuries or, God forbid, dead.’ Her voice rose hysterically. ‘I could be planning your funeral right now!’

  Dawn raised her eyebrows at Dylan. ‘Yeah, but I know you hate grapes, so I might as well eat them. You know me, waste not, want not.’

  Dylan smiled, then grimaced at his DS.

  There was a look of bewilderment on Kay’s face. ‘I don’t know how on earth you two can laugh. Haven’t you learned anything from yesterday, Jack? How many more times are you going to put yourself in danger because of the damn job? You could have been killed!’

  ‘And I could have been knocked down crossing the road,’ said Dylan flatly. His gaze turned from Dawn towards his wife. ‘I hate to burst your bubble, Kay. It’s called life.’

  Larry turned to Kay. ‘Who’s to say it’s anything to do with the job?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t worry, the life insurance policy is up to date,’ Dylan said.

  Kay practically spat at her husband. ‘Don’t even joke about it. I’m serious.’

  ‘And so am I. Deadly serious.’

  Kay shook Dylan gently. It was already the next morning and, as he woke, the conversation they’d had on their way home from the hospital about her lateness began whirring round Dylan’s head again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kay had said.

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘Sorry for what’s happened,’ she’d said.

  The ice was broken.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, have you? It wasn’t your fault that someone decided to take a swing at me.’

  ‘But if I’d been at the station, waiting for you, this would never have happened.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Dylan had ventured, ‘is why would you go out jogging, and have your mobile turned off, when you were expecting the call? You knew I was coming home.’

  ‘I’ve already told you. I’m sorry. I did have my mobile with me. It just wasn’t fully charged when I set off and I somehow lost track of time. I didn’t check it till I got home.’ There had been tears in her eyes when he’d glanced across at her from where he sat in the passenger seat, but he couldn’t bring himself to forgive her, not yet.

  Kay had sighed. ‘Anyway, how was the course? You haven’t even mentioned it. That’s unusual for you.’

  ‘It was challenging. Every scenario was filmed and critiqued by observers, experienced negotiators. Courses are usually nine-to-five, not this one. The end of the day didn’t mean the end of our shift; we worked through the night with different instructors.’

  Kay’s voice rose an octave. ‘You passed though, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, but not everyone did. It wasn’t that sort of course.’

  Dylan was sitting at the kitchen table. The heating was on, but he felt a cold chill deep within. His hands were wrapped tightly around a mug of coffee, warming them. Rain splattered on the kitchen window and the sky suddenly turned dark and menacing. The whole scene reflected Dylan’s mood. He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled slowly, then exhaled just as slowly.

  ‘So,’ he began, in a tone that made Kay flinch. She raised her eyes from the newspaper she had been quietly reading. He’d found a way to hide his anxiety and paint cheerfulness on his face, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Tell me, what have you been up to while I’ve been away?’

  ‘Me?’ she looked surprised. ‘Well …’ she started, pondering the question for a minute. ‘Er, well … I … gosh,’ Kay raised her hand and put her fingers to her mouth, as her thoughts floated through her mind. He saw her lip quiver as her face reddened. ‘I can’t remember everything.’

  Dylan lifted his chin slightly and laughed out loud. Then his face turned serious as he placed his mug down on the table in front of him. ‘What do you mean, you can’t remember everything?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Beads of sweat appeared on the top of her lip. Her eyes left his face and went to look directly up at the ceiling, her hands dropping into her lap where she squeezed them tightly. ‘Oh, let me think now.’ When her eyes finally met his she’d apparently remembered, reciting, ‘Housework, cleaning, ironing, shopping, work. Just the usual boring stuff.’

  The puzzled look on his face deepened as he saw her trembling, the beginning of tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Surely there can’t have been that much housework, what with both me and Isla being away?’

  Kay took the opportunity to try to change the subject. She slid his empty mug towards her and took it to the sink. As she ran the water she spoke to Dylan over her shoulder. ‘Talking of Isla, I rang her to let her know you were in hospital.’

  Dylan’s head was still so full of questions for her that he thought it w
ould explode, but they remained unspoken. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered telling her. I don’t want her to be worried about anything; she’s got enough on her plate with her exams.’

  ‘She would have been annoyed if I hadn’t told her. Mind you, by the sound of it now you’re going to be doing this negotiating lark, I could be on the phone to her constantly if I have to call her every time someone takes a swipe at you. At least this time I was able to tell her you were okay.’ Dylan saw a flash of the old Kay when she stopped talking and turned away from the pots she’d been drying. ‘It was lovely to hear her voice. She sounded tired, but she’s okay,’ she said.

  The pot washing seemed to take much longer than usual. Then Kay moved on to start wiping the kitchen worktops. Dylan remained silent, but Kay was more than aware that his eyes were still fixed on her.

  ‘Any post come for me while I’ve been away?’ he said at last.

  ‘Just a couple of letters: one letting us know the car insurance is due for renewal and a statement for the mortgage. Other than that, just junk mail. They’re on the coffee table in the lounge.’

  Dylan put the palms of his hands on the table and, pushing down, rose carefully from his chair. He moaned from the exertion. ‘That reminds me, I’ve not seen any bills for your mobile phone for a couple of months,’ he said.

  ‘Have you not?’ she replied, as she reached up to clean a cupboard door. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. They’re probably sending them via email, to save on paper. Lots of bigger companies are doing that now.’