by Deborah Bee
‘Don’t be feckin’ ridiculous, there’s nothing going on with Barney. Known him for years and he’s a good bloke, s’all. Deserves a break. I thought you were the one that was always going on about giving them the benefit of the doubt? That’s what you said, your exact words!’
‘Benefit of the doubt is not necking with him.’
‘Oh, shut up, Sue, get off the stage, will ya? You’re just trying to wind me up.’
Her phone buzzes and she looks at me and I nod and stare into my tea so it looks like I’m not listening, though obviously I can’t help but bloomin’ listen.
‘Well, tell them to wait until she wakes up,’ she goes and then she pauses, ‘when she next wakes up then.’ She sighs. ‘Has anyone been round to the house?’ She listens. ‘Yes, we’ve got the address. Just see if he’s at home. Make him nervous.’ She listens again. ‘Just go and have a look at him. See if there’s anything unusual.’ She puts the handset down on the table and looks at it for a bit, like she’s concentrating, then she remembers that I’m there and she looks back at the laptop.
‘Still not properly confirmed,’ she says. ‘Sometime this month though. I don’t think you should come here next week – he could have people out looking for you, for all we know.’
‘There’s this new refuge near Regent’s Park’ I say, knowing that she’ll think I should go out of the area, but I may as well give it a try, since it’s new.
‘I saw it last week,’ she says. ‘It’s nice. You’ll like it. All self-contained flats. And the security is beyond ridiculous. State-of-the-art. Apparently. CCTV everywhere. Internal locking system like Fort Knox. They even have a direct line to the station.’
‘Like Batman?’
‘Like Batman!’
‘So, you’re not worried I should leave the area?’
‘Of course, you should. But if it were me . . . Right by the zoo? Apparently, you can hear the wolves howling at night.’
‘Great.’
‘Have you told work?’
‘Yeah, they were fine about it, no difference to them, where I am. External examiners all work from home anyway. It’s just all the boring AQA meetings that you have to go in for, and I’m not sorry to be missing them, I can tell you. It’s not busy right now, either. I’ve told the head and they’ll email stuff to me.’
‘You should avoid Camden Town altogether, though, if you do go out, just till we see where he goes. We’ll have him tagged the first couple of weeks, anyway. I bet he’ll just go home. Old stomping ground. See his mother. She’s still alive, right? That’s the address he’s given.’
‘What do you mean, tagged?’ I say.
‘Police monitoring ankle bracelet. To keep an eye on where he is.’
‘That’s not normal, is it? I thought they just did that with young kids.’
‘On violent offenders, sometimes.’
‘You mean ones that aren’t sorry? Do they work?’
‘Tags? Of course, they bloody work! We wouldn’t have them if they didn’t work, would we?’
Her phone buzzes again. She lifts the headset to her ear. ‘Hang on a minute, Mark,’ she goes. ‘Listen, I’ll call you,’ she whispers to me. ‘I’ll get in touch with them and find out the exact day he’s being released and call you. Don’t come here next week, though, Sal. Let me visit you in your new flat, if you’re in it by then.’
She’s already packing up her stuff, with her phone pressed against her ear.
‘Catch you later,’ she mouths at me. ‘Yes, try Yorkshire!’ she says into the phone. ‘Of course it’s cold. It’s cold anywhere north of Watford.’
I go for a pee. It’s even hotter in the ladies loo than it is in the waiting room. My scalp is sweating and my hair’s gone flat.
‘Excuse me, Sally-Ann,’ says Joanna, the bitch PC with the miserable face shouts through the toilet door. ‘D S Clarke just asked you to come back in. The release date you were talking about has been brought forward, apparently.’
Twelve
DS Clarke
DS Clarke takes one of the standard unmarked police vehicles from the underground car park in Lyme Street, to drive to the Royal Free Hospital. The queues on Kentish Town Road are mental as usual, so against her better judgement (and Met rules), she blue lights it down the bus lane. Just as she pulls into Camden Street, Livvy from the office puts through the second call she’d had that morning from the governor of Liverpool nick.
She can and does recite Terry Mansfield’s prison number off by heart, again, for Governor Morris, who seems confused by his own long-term prisoner release protocol. Yes, of course he’s tagged. Yes, of course he will be required to visit his local station or release officer once per week. Yes, he has had the requisite psychological assessment.
‘So, he is already released, Governor Morris?’
‘I believe so.’
‘You believe so, or you know so?’
‘I know so.’
‘And you’re sure?’
‘You are beginning to try my patience, sergeant.’
‘Governor Morris. It has greatly tested my patience that you have released a prisoner without following any kind of protocol. Anyone convicted of a violent offence, serving a sentence—’
‘Are you trying to tell me my job, DS Clarke?’
‘It sounds as though I need to, Governor Morris. I would have thought—’
‘Langlands is your boss, is that correct? I’m sure—’
‘Governor Morris, may I ask if you have followed procedure for Home Detention Curfew or—’
‘Sergeant! Enough!’
‘Has he shown any remorse at all, Governor Morris?’
There’s a silence.
‘Sorry, DS Clarke?’
‘Does he regret what he did?’ DS Clarke says, with a sigh.
‘I’m not at liberty, DS Clarke, to give you that information.’
‘Then would you kindly put me through to someone that is,’ she says.
‘DS Clarke – would you kindly—’
‘Stop messing with me, Mr Morris. Is he a danger to his ex-wife? That’s all I want to know.’
Governor Morris ends the conversation by slamming the phone down.
Sal’s was one of a few cases that has stuck with DS Clarke over the years, probably because, as a young PC, she’d not been so close to such a violent killing before, nor experienced the tangible fear of young women all over the UK who, overnight, became afraid of such an apparently motiveless crime. Even in London.
Only it wasn’t.
TERRY MANSFIELD.
Prisoner number 127963
Committed to life imprisonment in HMP Liverpool.
Mandatory tariff of 20 years for the murder of Hayley Thomas and the serious assault of Mrs Sally-Ann Mansfield.
DS Clarke remarks to herself that twenty years have flown by and wonders how Sal, who is similarly committed to a life unencumbered by full-time male partners, has managed to pull herself together, on her own. She was only twenty-one at the time. Not so different to our new girl. Clare. Coco. Whatever she calls herself.
DS Clarke rates Clare’s chances, as she tended to do with all her cases, in order to prioritise. She gives her fifty-fifty. She hadn’t got enough of a picture of the damage done by the paraffin, or the extent of her psychological state. So PTSD at best.
She calls Livvy back from the car phone. She wants to know if anyone has reported Clare missing.
No one has.
She locks the car and walks up from the car park next to A & E.
Images of the girl keep appearing in her head. Her almost transparent skin, fine and dry as paper; the blue veins rippling over the thin bones in her hands, making her look older, more broken.
How come no one has reported her missing? There must have been someone missing her. There must be other members of the family. Friends. Colleagues. Someone.
Not missed this morning.
Not missed for two years.
She goes over the details ag
ain.
CLARE CHAMBERS (also known as Coco James).
DOB 26/3/1996
ADDRESS: 289, Oval Road, Camden. NW1 4BS
Reported: grievous bodily harm by partner Mr Gareth James. With intent to cause serious injury.
Incident report: collapsed at the station. Believed to have ingested toxic chemicals.
INJURIES: chemical and thermal burns.
She needs more from the hospital.
As she arrives at the doors of A & E, she opens a text from PC Halsall who has submitted a report on the Oval Road Property: RKNR.
Repeated. Knocking. No. Reply.
She tuts to herself.
What do they expect, she thinks – some kind of sodding welcoming committee?
Thirteen
Clare
Babe. Let me help you up.
Babe.
Come on.
Give me your hand.
Come on.
You can trust me.
Oh shoot!
I’ve got real butterfingers today.
Now look what you’ve made me do.
I’ve accidentally gone and kicked you in the fucking head.
Jee-sus.
Be more careful where you’re putting your head next time.
Breathe.
I’m not sure where I am.
Slowly.
I’m on a bed.
There’s a thin nylon curtain with pink and purple flowers decorating it.
Daisies, I think.
Calm.
There’s a plastic mask over my nose and mouth, attached by little bits of elastic.
The elastic is digging into my cheeks.
Pressing my ears.
A bag of clear liquid is strapped up to a metal stand next to me.
A tube runs into my hand.
Dripping.
The end is hidden under a plaster.
I have a gown on.
Through the curtain I can see the shadow of a person.
A man.
Coco. Open your eyes.
Wake up, babe.
No, you don’t need to go to the hospital.
Stop making a fuss.
I sit up, too quickly.
My head starts to swim.
I edge myself back down.
‘We just need her to take things very slowly,’ a man’s voice says. ‘She’s had a rough time.’
‘We need a statement,’ says another voice.
A woman.
Impatient.
I feel my heart start to race.
I hear the words ‘ingestion of chemicals,’ but the blood is rushing around my head so fast, I can’t think straight.
The curtain is pulled back.
The metal hooks scrape on the rail.
I shut my eyes quick.
A shadow leans over me.
‘Can’t you give her something?’ says the woman.
‘We have. That’s why you can’t talk to her.’
‘I meant so we can talk to her!’
‘I know what you meant,’ says the man.
The doctor.
‘All you detectives are the same. Just leave her alone for a while. A few hours. You stay in the corridor outside.’
There’s the sound of footsteps.
‘And who are you?’ says the doctor, sighing.
‘I’m Celia Barrett,’ says another voice, ‘DV caseworker from Camden.’
‘Oh good. From the station? She knows you, right?’
‘No, I haven’t met her yet. She collapsed before I got there. Sorry I’m late. Traffic was bad. How is she?’
‘Well, she’s stable.’
I hear a pen scratching on paper.
Clean on the inside.
‘It doesn’t actually look like it’s as serious as we had first thought. She has significant thermal burns on her shoulders, upper thighs, stomach, labia.’
Scratching pen.
‘She has some skin irritation and chemical burning on her upper arms and upper legs. Paraffin, by the smell of it. She has pigment lightening and permanent tissue damage on her hands.’
He stops writing.
‘If I had to guess, I’d say her hands have been over-exposed to bleach. Seen something similar before in Queensland.’
He continues writing.
‘She has bruising. There’s swelling on the back of her head and an abrasion that’s also been irritated by paraffin. The abrasion is probably a month old.’
He stabs the paper with a full stop and there’s the sound of metal meeting metal and I watch between half-closed eyes as he clips the board to the end of the bed.
‘Would have been nasty at the time. Doesn’t look like it was properly treated.’
He lowers his voice to nearly a whisper.
Professional discretion.
‘I believe there are several signs of long-term abuse and she’s significantly malnourished. She could do with gaining weight. At least ten kilos. You’ll need to get the nutritionist down to see her.’
Between my eyelashes I can see his outline against the curtain.
His hands are on his hips.
‘She’s been catheterised and had gastric suction. Whatever she ejected at the station is being tested. We won’t know what damage has been done until she wakes up. Everything else, so far normal, we’re waiting until we get her bloods back.’
‘Has she been washed? The sergeant at the station mentioned the paraffin.’
‘Yes, it’s been noted. She still needs to be examined by the police doctor. We need to record all her injuries.’
‘What time will that be?’
‘They’re setting it up now. She seems to have been lucky.’
‘Lucky!’ says the woman, letting out a cry.
He sighs.
A heavy sigh, like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.
‘I don’t mean that. You know what I mean!’
He sounds tired.
Exhausted.
‘The burns on her body aren’t so bad. They’ll blister over the next forty-eight hours. And she may not be able to taste much, depending on what it was she actually drank. If she has oesophageal burning it will hurt like hell for a while. But probably, hopefully nothing long-term. Someone gave her some tea at the station, apparently. The milk might have helped. Reduces the acid.’
There’s the sound of tidying, bin lid flipping open and shut.
‘People can get addicted to paraffin, you know. Saw a girl last year who’d been drinking it for years – you can develop a tolerance over time. We only found out because she collapsed and we investigated why her stomach was so distended.’
‘What! You don’t actually think this girl drank the paraffin intentionally?’ says the woman, sounding affronted. Like she’s about to jump on her feminist soapbox.
‘I didn’t say it was definitively paraffin, did I?’ he hisses. ‘No. I didn’t. And I’m a doctor not a psychic.’
He’s annoyed with her, tight-lipped suddenly.
‘I’ll be back later. Keep an eye on her and let me know if there’s anything. You know. If she gets agitated . . .’
‘She could be in shock, could she?’
‘You don’t wake up every day, in hospital covered in burns, with an infected head wound and suspected oesophageal scarring. She’s still too sick to talk. She shouldn’t talk. Do you get that? So don’t let that PC in, no matter how much she insists. Not yet.’
‘Yes, OK,’ the woman says.
‘And don’t you go trying to get statements out of her either.’
The door clicks open and shut.
I don’t want to hear your voice, right!
Shut the fuck up.
Later, I open my eyes and the woman is sitting in the chair next to me, wearing a home-made cardigan, holding a leaflet.
It’s an armchair with a high back, made of grey plastic. Wipeable.
I can’t read what it says on the leaflet.
She’s tapping her right forefinger on the
wooden arm.
‘Hello, Coco,’ she says, noticing I’m looking at her.
Smiling, nodding.
Is smiling and nodding at the same time part of the training?
‘I mean Clare.’ She blushes. ‘Sorry, some confusion on the top of your form.’
I blink. I’ve got bandages around my neck and mouth.
‘I’m Celia,’ she says. ‘I’m your caseworker. I’m here to help you through this period of distress.’
In a home-made cardigan like my nan used to wear.
‘I’m part of a support team that helps women like you get their lives back on track. Victims of domestic violence. Do you understand. Just blink if you do. Don’t try to talk.’
She puts her hand on my shoulder, in a caring way.
I wish she wouldn’t.
Why shouldn’t I touch you?
You’re my wife now.
I’ll touch you whenever I like.
‘Clare, you’re in hospital,’ she says. ‘Blink if you understand.’
I blink.
‘You collapsed in the police station. Do you remember?’
I blink again.
‘You’re in good hands, here. The doctor says you’re doing very well, but you mustn’t try to talk.’
Smiling, nodding.
I feel a tear trickle past my temple and into my hair.
‘It’s OK, dear. We’re going to get you all sorted.’
She mops the side of my head with a tissue, looks at the leaflet.
‘I’m going to tell you what we can help happen next. If there’s anything you don’t understand, it’s OK, I can go through it all again later, if you want me to. Is that OK for you?’
I’m sure she means well.
‘Everything we are about to talk about is in this leaflet,’ she says, showing me the leaflet she’d been holding earlier.
It says on the front ‘Information for victims of crime’.
It’s just a form in black and white.
No smiley pictures.
No jokey cartoons.
No sugar-coating.
‘I’m going to leave it here for you so you can read it at any time,’ she says.
Nodding again and smiling.
Smiling and nodding.