by Deborah Bee
But not like Gareth’s.
‘Did someone pour the paraffin on your bathrobe?’ she says.
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
She doesn’t say anything.
She just waits.
Like she likes waiting.
Big, empty pauses.
‘It dripped down, you see,’ I say.
‘Was someone intending to injure you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say.
A corner of skin on the side of my thumb is beginning to peel off.
It’s bleeding.
My index fingernail is too broken to pick it.
I try to chew it off.
‘I remember it went in my hair and dripped down.’
It’s always bleeding.
This thumb and the other one.
It tastes of bleach.
And paraffin.
‘How did it get in your hair?’ she asks.
Coco.
‘Did someone pour it over your head?’ she asks.
Coco.
Answer me.
Stop pretending.
‘Did your partner pour it on you?’ she asks.
Coco.
Wake up.
‘Was it intentional?’ she asks.
Coco.
Stop pretending.
I’m hungry.
‘How did you escape further injury?’ she asks.
Coco.
Get up!
She lets out a long sigh and stops asking.
‘He ran out of matches,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’ she says.
‘You asked how I escaped further injury,’ I whisper.
She nods.
‘Well, he ran out of matches,’ I say.
She looks at me, confused.
‘Matches?’
‘He was flicking the matches at me and then they ran out.’
She looks at me hard.
Staring.
Not blinking.
Then she stares at the floor.
‘I think we should say yes to that then,’ says Susan. ‘To the question, I mean. Yes, it was intentional.’
She scribbles something else down.
‘I hid the other box,’ I say. ‘I think I did. Don’t remember where, though.’
DS Clarke breathes out sharply.
‘You hid the other box,’ she says. ‘Look, I’m sorry I have to ask you this stuff.’
I nod.
‘I’m here to help you,’ she says.
And she pauses for a second, then looks down.
‘Question number two. Are you frightened? Yes, no or don’t know.’
‘Don’t know,’ I say.
‘What are you afraid of,’ she says, ‘violence or injury?’
Violence or injury?
‘Aren’t they the same thing?’ I say.
Well aren’t they?
Violence always ends in injury, doesn’t it?
Does for me.
‘Is it usual, Coco . . .’
‘Clare,’ I say. ‘Can you call me Clare?’
I told you.
Your name is Coco.
Because I said so, that’s why.
‘I thought . . .’ she says.
‘Clare,’ I say. ‘He says Coco. But I’m Clare. My name is Clare.’
‘Clare Chambers,’ she says, retyping the name at the top of the screen.
She stares at me for just a second too long.
And I think I can see a tear welling up in her eye.
I wonder what the hell she’s crying for.
‘Is it usual, Clare, for, um, violence to end in injury.’
‘Yes, that’s how it happens,’ I say. ‘His moods . . . I make him cross . . . I get so tired. And clumsy.’
‘Sometimes it feels like I’m watching a film. Like it’s not really me. That I’ve remembered it all wrong. It is actually all my fault. I try to be the right person for . . .’
How do you always manage to do everything wrong, bitch?
‘It’s not your fault,’ she says.
Smiling.
Nodding.
This floor is NOT CLEAN.
You’ve not done it properly.
It doesn’t meet my standards.
YOU TOTALLY ASKED FOR THIS.
‘It’s not,’ she’s saying.
Smiling.
Shaking her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘I’ll do better next time.’
The tea.
The heat.
The questions.
Him screaming in my head.
‘Who are you talking to?’ Sue says.
There’s a noise in reception.
The door handle moves.
The sky has gone dark.
He’s out there, I can feel it.
The tree has got closer.
The branches are brushing against the window.
My feet.
The sweat.
The stench of paraffin.
The sick rises up again, silently but violently, and suddenly I vomit over my dressing gown and jeans.
A splat sound as it hits the floor.
And I slide off the chair.
Coco, my darling.
You do know I love you.
DON’T YOU?
Babe.
Wake up.
Eleven
Sally
Out of nowhere, Sue yanks open the door and starts yelling her head off like the world is about to end.
‘Get an ambulance,’ she screams. ‘Joanna!’
The boys and me, we’ve got no bloody idea what’s going on, but police appear through every door, and it feels like it’s an episode of Prime Suspect or something and I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if Dame Helen Mirren didn’t skip through the door at any second, it’s that mad. And the lads are all panicking, backs pressed against their chairs, cos they think they’ve got done for something, and for once they haven’t.
‘Get the ambulance on the phone. Ring ahead to the hospital. Tell them we’ve got suspected ingestion of chemicals,’ she shouts to Joanna. ‘Young woman. Early twenties. Unconscious. Breathing. And someone get me water and tissue. Quickly!’
In the toilet, I yank a thick pile of paper towels out of the dispenser and Ryan has found his senses and filled up a couple of cups with water. The girl is lying on the floor and Sue is washing the sick off her face, gently dousing her in water.
Next to her head, there’s a spreading pool of blue sick, yeah blue sick, mixed with brown tea and bubbles.
Then the paramedics arrive, a couple of nice-looking lads in green uniforms and they have her sorted in no time. Done her vitals, put a drip in, and next thing, they stretcher her out; she’s coming round but we can’t see her face cos it’s covered in these gauze bandages and, as the stretcher comes right by us, I can see her fingers moving, picking at the skin on the side of her thumb. They’ve put a silver foil sheet around her and a blanket on top of that to warm her up.
Sue follows, nodding quickly at me as she goes. We understand each other. Ingestion of chemicals, no wonder she was shaking.
Once they’ve all gone it’s weirdly quiet.
Calm after the storm.
And, now everything’s properly late and I’m still sitting here and Sue has disappeared into that side room with what looks like a DV caseworker – you know the type, all tea and tampons.
And guess what, the lads still haven’t gone in yet either. They’re in for one of them assessment sessions with the CJIT. That’s the Criminal Justice Integrated Team in case you didn’t know. Fancy-shmancy.
This is how it’s supposed to work. They get pulled in for something like, I don’t know, shoplifting, breaking and entering, you know – something they’ve done to buy their heroin, and now, instead of charging them, they get put on these Drug Intervention Programmes. They have to go to these assessment sessions and if they don’t turn up, or turn up late, or have the wrong attitude or som
ething, then they get charged for the crime, but if they do as they’re told, go the pharmacist, stick on the methadone programme, and attend the ‘information and education session on drugs and drug related issues’ with the CJIT worker, then they don’t get charged. In theory, it gets them off the heroin and keeps them out of prison.
This is how it really works. They get the meth from the pharmacist, and instead of swallowing it they store it in the side of their cheek or under their tongue, then soon as they get out, they spit it into a pot and sell it on . . . to buy more heroin with. Seriously. And in case you want to know, that’s called ’spit meth’. It’s a bit cheaper than meth – but not by much. And it comes with extra phlegm.
Sue says the Drug Intervention Programme makes the police look better because it lowers the arrest statistics. She said that, not me. Instead of getting charged for theft and possession or whatever, they get a conditional caution and ‘an individual care plan’. It’s very popular. You can see by the queues.
‘What’d you say to her?’ I whispered to Barney, as I nod towards Joanna. He’s half asleep next to me.
I know Barney, right? Barnaby Pickard, he’s called. He’s all right, for an R.P. boy. He was a bouncer, back in the day – ran the security at Camden Palace. Used to see him, on my way back from the shops and the like. Always said hello, always had a smile. Nice enough bloke he was then, right up until they did him for GBH and he lost his job. Not his fault, if you ask me. I mean, if you’re a bouncer you gotta expect to have to bounce some people, every now and again, right? Anyhow, seems like he’d ejected some lairy, drunk teenager who was the son of someone-or-other who’s posh or something, and the next thing he’s fired and his wife’s kicked him out. So then he doesn’t have a job, doesn’t see his wife, doesn’t see his kids, nowhere to live. There but for the grace of God, that’s what I think.
‘When?’ he mumbles.
‘Before,’ I say. ‘What’d you say to her before?’
‘You heard,’ he says.
‘Not that, the other thing, the thing you mouthed at her, I saw you do it.’
‘Mind yer own,’ he says, without even opening his eyes.
‘Go on,’ I say, nudging his arm.
‘I told her I know where she lives.’
‘Did ya?’
I laugh out loud.
‘Yeah.’
‘Really?’ I say, still laughing.
‘Yeah.’
‘Do ya?’ I say, cos you know what, he’s a nice sort of bloke underneath all that shit.
‘Nah,’ he says.
We go quiet.
‘What d’ya say it for then?’ I ask, dabbing at my eyes with a bit of hanky.
‘Cos she’s a hard-nosed bitch and you can always find out where someone lives, can’t you. That poor kid. She don’t deserve to be treated like that.’
Shite, it’s gone eleven! I’ve been here over two hours and I just got to wait, cos what on earth else am I s’posed to do? Said she’d always try to see me right away, Sue did, cos she doesn’t want me hanging around her waiting room, where there are loads of crims all the time.
‘Last thing we want is for someone to identify you to one of Terry’s lot,’ she said.
I don’t know why everybody’s getting paranoid all of a sudden. I mean, he’s not even out yet, not till sometime next month, Sue says.
‘It all depends on what she is given to swallow,’ I say to Barney, who was still upset about the girl and the sick and everything.
‘How’d you know she didn’t swallow it herself?’ he goes.
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘This is a DV, for sure.’ And then I say, ‘I s’pose she might have drunk it herself,’ thinking back to how many times over the years, stuck on my own in London, I’d considered the same thing, on account of Terry and everything.
‘They’ll pump her out,’ I say, ‘then they’ll phone around for her, find where there’s a space for her to stay. Not round here, mind; somewhere really far away so he won’t be able to find her. That’s what they usually do. They put me in one round here, and I was from Liverpool.’
‘No shit. Would never’ve known.’
‘All the best people are Scousers. Aigburth Road, that’s the posh bit, best place in the world, no word of a lie.’
‘You like it so much, what you still doing here?’
I don’t answer, cos I like him and all, and I’ve known him for years, and he’s never even asked, and I respect someone for that, you know. And anyway, what am I going say to him? Seriously? That I married a murdering psychopath and I’ve been hiding most of my life since? So I pretend to look for something in my handbag.
He doesn’t notice, though. Well, I don’t think he does, cos his nose is still buried in his coat collar.
‘They’re not bad these refuges,’ I say more to myself than anyone, cos Barney’s well away. ‘Straightaway, they’ll put her in a refuge,’ I say.
He still doesn’t reply.
‘You get your own room, you get use of a kitchen, there’s television rooms. There’s a new one up Regent’s Park way, very modern and everything, with CCTV and you get therapy things there now you know, like talking therapies – they’re good, talking therapies. Not that I need them, but the CCTV wouldn’t go amiss, that’s for sure. If I can get a place.’
Not listening.
It’s bloody boiling in here, I’m not surprised everyone’s asleep. I’m dog tired myself, after last night, when I didn’t sleep a wink the entire bloomin’ night.
‘How’d you know?’ Barney goes. ‘It might not be DV. She could’ve got beaten up by a stranger.’ He shuts up then, while I’m thinking how I know it’s got to be a domestic. And just when I’m about to give him an answer I hear his breathing go slow and deeper.
The girl behind the counter, Joanna, is still filing her nails. She’s staring at the clock as it ticks by and Ryan is snoring.
‘I thought she’d done something with paraffin,’ Barney goes.
‘Did you?’
‘I could smell it on her. Just putting it out there,’ he says. ‘Felt it in my bones.’
‘Who’re you then, Sherlock Holmes?’ I say.
His head bobs back down, meaning all the jungle juice lads are now fully fast asleep.
A police officer pushes through the double doors; he’s only young, tall and lanky, you know, like a string bean, face-full of spots and not the full shilling, if you ask me. He’s clinging on to a clipboard like it’s a swimming float.
‘Mr Pickard,’ he says in the quietest voice known to mankind, no word of a lie.
The line of grey overcoats barely moves, just a tiny up, down, up, down in time with the breathing.
‘Mr Pickard. Barney Pickard,’ he says a fraction more loudly, and Ryan, down at the end, starts snoring hard like an old hog.
‘C’mere to me,’ I say to him and he edges my way as though he thinks I’m going to take a bite out of him. ‘This is Mr Pickard,’ I say and I jab my thumb into Barney’s chest.
Barney jumps up, jolted awake.
‘Is it my turn already? I’ve only been here what, two days? Be time for my next assessment by the time I get outta here,’ he says, pushing his hands on his knees to lever himself up. ‘Will I be seeing you around, Sally-Ann?’ he says to me.
‘Call me Sal,’ I mumble. ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ I say a little louder.
He’s nice. I know what you’re thinking, but for a meth addict, he’s nice. He deserves a break.
‘Excuse me, Joanna?’ I say, going up to the counter where Little Miss Misery Guts still looks like she’s sucking on a wasp. ‘Can I just go into the Community Room while I wait for Sue?’
‘You think it’s a private club an’ all?’ says Joanna, without missing a beat, same bored expression she used for the DV girl.
‘Anyone needs it, I’ll get out the way,’ I say.
*
Shit, it smells bad in the Community Room, what with the petrol or whatever it is, and the sick; not a nice com
bination, I can tell you. And it’s so unbelievably hot, I’ll need to take off my anorak.
‘God, Sal. I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about you,’ says Sue, rushing through the door, slamming it behind her, enough to give me a heart attack. ‘Christ, the smell in here! Sorry to have kept you.’
‘Don’t worry yourself, Sue, I’ve been fine. That girl get to the hospital, did she?’ I say.
‘She’s out of danger. Well, stable, they said. Bit of a wait-and-see while that stuff goes through her system.’
‘Petrol or paraffin or something, is it?’
‘Well, it’s not confirmed but yes, looks like it.’
‘Poor little kid,’ I say.
‘If they call,’ she says, picking up her mobile, ‘you won’t mind?’
‘No! No, love. Course not.’
‘So, you all ready for next month? You want some tea?’ she goes, then, ‘Joanna,’ she shouts, opening the door a crack, ‘do us a couple of teas again? Just knock me when they’re ready.’ She closes the door.
‘Christ, it really stinks in here,’ she says.
‘It’s not in my job description to make everyone tea,’ shouts Joanna, through the door.
‘Remind me to add it in,’ Sue shouts back.
She reaches for her laptop and starts tapping on the keyboard.
‘So, the latest update. Where’s your file . . . There you are.’ Click. ‘Parton. Sally-Ann Parton.’ Click. ‘You’ve decided not to change your name, right? You’ve always stuck with your maiden name? Click. ‘Terry Mansfield.’ Click.
‘The methadone lads said I’ve got a lot in common with Dolly Parton,’ I say, smirking a bit. ‘Still got it, right!’
‘If we ever had it,’ says Sue, putting down the laptop as Joanna yells that the tea’s outside.
‘Speak for yourself, Sue. They’d be queueing up, if there were any good men left in the world,’ I say.
‘You looked thick as thieves with Barney when I walked through this morning,’ she goes, suddenly serious like. ‘You should be careful there.’
‘Do me a favour!’ I say.
‘I am doing you a favour telling you to be careful,’ she goes. ‘He’s an addict, Sal. However nice addicts seem, they will always shop you for a hit.’