Cut Adrift

by Chris Simms

  Jon sat forward, looking suspiciously at Rick’s phone. ‘So they’re on a raft and someone’s written a note, put it in a plastic duck and chucked it into the sea?’

  ‘Exactly. Message-in-a-bottle style. And remember, the letter said it was number three. So there are two earlier ones somewhere.’

  ‘And maybe more to follow,’ Jon murmured. ‘You reckon it’s for real?’

  Rick shrugged. ‘Who knows? They’re just scribbled on scraps of paper.’

  ‘How many of these ducks are being washed up?’

  ‘Hundreds, apparently.’

  ‘The things could have been floating for days – weeks – before making the coast.’

  ‘Yeah – the report says the ducks look like they’ve been in the water for some time. That’s what the editorial is asking. If the note is real, what’s happened to the poor bastards on the raft?’

  Jon sat back. ‘Someone’s having a laugh.’ He crossed his arms and directed his eyes towards the doors opposite them. ‘Been round to Alice’s recently?’

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Rick look at him.

  ‘Don’t start this again, mate. Please.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jon kept his gaze straight ahead. ‘I’m only asking. Holly’s staying over tonight, I’m just wondering how things are at home for her.’

  ‘They’re fine. I dropped by the other day. Everything seems fine.’

  Jon tried to keep the sourness from his voice, but he heard it creeping in. ‘Nice to hear.’

  Rick and Alice had become good friends over the years. In some ways, Jon reflected, Rick was closer to Alice than he’d ever been. Since Jon had been forced to move out of the family home last year, his work partner was now his main source of news about his wife and daughter. A reluctant go-between, who’d finally rejected that role when the messages he was asked to relay became more and more acrimonious.

  ‘What were they up to when you called round?’

  ‘You know, usual stuff. Getting Holly ready for bed. Trying to drag her off the Nintendo.’

  ‘She’s got a Nintendo?’ Jon knew his voice held an accusatory note. Alice and he had agreed to try and keep their daughter away from computer games until she was at least eight. ‘Braithwaite bought it for her, did he?’

  Rick looked away. ‘Not my business.’

  Jon felt his teeth pressing together. It would have been him. The prick. ‘Trying to buy her, that’s what he’s doing.’

  Rick sighed. ‘Jon, the bloke is trying to do the right thing. He’s not steaming in there looking to take over. He knows it’s a sensitive area.’

  Jon turned to his partner. ‘What? Trying to replace me as Holly’s father? Yeah, I suppose that is a sensitive area. It’s what the arse hole’s trying to do, bit by bit. The worm.’

  ‘I’m not getting into this, Jon. Not if you’re just going to wind yourself up.’

  ‘I’m not wound up.’ He realised that, beneath his folded arms, his hands were bunched into fists. He flexed his fingers. ‘I don’t like the bloke. There’s something wrong about him.’

  ‘He’s a psychiatrist,’ Rick murmured.

  ‘So what?’ Jon hissed. ‘That automatically gives him saint status? Rubbish – and you know it.’

  ‘I’m not getting into this. The bloke’s genuine.’

  Yeah? Jon thought, looking down at his feet as his mind went back to the Sunday night from a few weeks before. He’d nipped out from Carmel’s to pick up a curry from her favourite place near Ardwick Green. The short drive took him down to Piccadilly station and then along Fairfield Street, a dimly lit road that was well known as a spot where prostitutes plied their trade.

  Waiting for the lights to change at the junction behind the train station, he was surprised to see Braithwaite, in his distinctive maroon-coloured Saab convertible, cut across the junction from the opposite side. He’s come from the direction of Heaton, Jon had thought. Where Alice lives. What’s he doing in town at this time of night?

  The lights went green and Jon took the turn on to Fairfield Street, quickly spotting Braithwaite’s vehicle as its brake lights glowed red. It slid into a narrow side road. Jon turned in as well, passing the Saab as it began to execute a three-point turn. He’s gone wrong, Jon had concluded. He pulled over, watching in his rear-view mirror as the man who was now regularly sleeping in the same house as his wife and daughter didn’t rejoin the main road and retrace his route back to the brightly lit junction behind the city’s main station.

  Instead, Braithwaite parked at the top of the road and turned the Saab’s engine and lights off. Jon felt his eyes narrow, gaze fixed on the barely visible shape of Braithwaite’s head as he sat in his darkened vehicle, staring at the girls out on the main road.

  Blondes, brunettes, black-haired girls. Most somewhere in their twenties, some far younger. Gathered in twos and threes, they’d break off from their conversations with every change of the lights and turn their gaze to the procession of passing cars, hands on hips, breasts pushed out.

  Drivers would come to a stop, prices would be agreed, girls would climb into passenger seats. After almost twenty minutes, Braithwaite’s car came to life. He pulled out, indicated right and headed slowly back towards the station.

  A second incident had taken place less than a fortnight later. It was after ten on a Tuesday night when Jon had finally closed his computer down and called it a day. Mind dulled by fatigue, he’d driven on autopilot, only realising he’d returned to where he used to live once he was halfway along his old road. Bollocks, he’d cursed, calculating that it would now be best to drive past Alice’s house and take the A34 back into the centre of town to where Carmel’s apartment was located.

  As he’d neared his old home, Braithwaite’s Saab had set off in front of him. Slowing, Jon glanced at his dashboard clock. Ten twenty. The decision had obviously been made that he wasn’t staying over tonight. Eyes sweeping across the red-bricked terrace he’d lived in for so many years, Jon saw Alice’s bedroom light go off.

  But when their cars reached the A34 , Braithwaite didn’t indicate left to join the southbound lane which would lead him away from the city’s outskirts towards his big house in Hale. Instead, he indicated right, joining the northbound traffic heading for the city centre.

  Pulse beating slightly faster, Jon trailed him straight back to Fairfield Street. Once again, Braithwaite parked in the side road, turned his lights and engine off and watched the girls going about their business. From his vantage point further down the dark street, Jon waited. Please, he’d thought. Please make a move on one. What a result nicking you would be. But after half an hour the man restarted his engine and drove away alone.

  From outside the courts came the muted screech of a tram as it passed on its way to Piccadilly station. Through the vertical rows of windows in the double doors before them, he saw several figures quickly approaching. Were they talking or was that sobbing he could hear? He narrowed his eyes, recognising Sarah, the eighteen-year-old rape victim who was meant to be in court testifying.

  The doors burst open and she stumbled out, eyes wild and face blotched with red. The woman from witness services managed to get an arm round her, directing her off down the corridor. Jon began to stand, eyes on the pair of them. The woman from witness services held a hand out, palm down, waving it back and forth. Oh no, Jon thought. It’s game over: our victim’s gone bandit on us.

  The barrister and CPS lawyer emerged through the doors and Jon waited for the victim to disappear into the witness suite before speaking. ‘What happened in there?’

  The CPS lawyer, a lady in her mid-twenties, looked to the barrister without speaking. He brushed a hand down his black gown and shrugged. ‘She went to pieces on the stand. I don’t think we should ever have let her testify in open court.’

  Jon cursed. It was always a fine call whether to use the special measures granted in the 2003 Sexual Offences Act to allow your victim to testify from behind a screen or via video link. But nothing
could beat the impact on a judge like Terence Atkins of seeing a young, fragile woman coming face to face with the person accused of her rape.

  ‘She started coming apart straight away,’ the barrister continued, sounding more like a Shakespearean actor. ‘You do realise she alluded to a previous psychiatric episode? Not letting something like this push her into another breakdown, or words to that effect?’

  ‘You what?’ Jon looked at the CPS lawyer. ‘She never said anything about mental-health problems when we asked her.’

  The CPS lawyer sighed. ‘The defence were on it in a flash. Atkins has adjourned for psychiatric reports.’

  Jon sat down. That’s tomorrow’s workload right there, he thought, knowing the file preparation he’d been doing over the last few months now hung in the balance: the victim’s statements, the evidence collected by the Nightingale Officer – the specially trained policewoman who’d first seen Sarah – the forensic evidence gleaned from Sarah’s person, the head of her hairbrush covered in the accused’s fingerprints, the witness statements, the CCTV footage showing the accused following the victim off the night bus, the soiled clothing recovered from his flat. Jon thought about the hours he’d spent interviewing the bloke. The tape transcripts he’d prepared to pinpoint the man’s repeated shifts in story.

  When they’d presented the case to the CPS’s RAFA unit, it had all seemed so tight. Now an earlier, unrelated, episode of mental instability in the victim’s life could bring the entire thing crashing down.

  The barrister had wandered solemnly away, leaving them in shocked silence. After a couple of seconds, the young CPS lawyer looked around then leaned down. ‘He spooked her,’ she whispered.

  Jon looked up. ‘How?’

  ‘I saw it – just. Before she even got in the witness box. He licked his lips at her. Really quick, but he did it.’

  Jon wanted to slam a hand down on the empty seat next to him. A key piece of forensic evidence had been a sample of saliva from the accused which had been swabbed from Sarah’s inner ear. He had, according to her statement, repeatedly licked it during the assault. True, no semen had been recovered from the scene. But it wasn’t unusual for sexual offenders to be incapable of ejaculating while actually with their victim.

  So that was it, then. The accused back on remand and an eight-week delay, minimum. During which time the defence would, no doubt, work up a new angle calling into question the reliability of the victim’s entire account. Suddenly the fact Sarah had been in town drinking before the attack took place would become an issue. He could see this one going completely pear-shaped. ‘Tell Sarah to hang in there,’ he announced, glancing towards the witness suite. ‘We’ll work round this, OK?’

  The CPS lawyer nodded, looking unconvinced as she hurried away.

  Jon and Rick set off down the stairs leading to the entrance hall. ‘Well,’ said Jon, trying to push the prospect of defeat from his mind. ‘On the plus side, we get out of this place early.’

  ‘True,’ Rick replied, transferring the folder with all their notes to under his other arm.

  As they cleared the bottom steps, Jon paused, mind weighing up the chances of a successful prosecution. Face it, he thought, it’s not looking good. The bastard had licked his lips. There was no way, Jon decided, I’m letting that one go. He made his way over to the head of security, a squat bulldog of a man he used to play rugby with at Cheadle Ironsides.

  ‘Finished for the day?’ the man asked, white short-sleeved shirt gleaming, faded naval tattoos visible on both forearms.

  Jon gave a resigned look. ‘Victim couldn’t testify. Just a young lass. The sight of the bloke was too much.’

  ‘Nasty one, was it?’

  Jon nodded, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Very. He couldn’t actually get it up – so he used the handle of her hairbrush on her. Ripped her insides to shreds.’

  The man’s lips had curled in disgust. ‘Sick bastard. Which court was that in?’

  Jon stepped towards the exit. ‘Seven,’ he answered, knowing that information would now trickle down to the guards in the cells below the courts. When carried back to Strangeways, it would ensure the accused suffered a very unpleasant next couple of months.

  As they stepped out onto the stone steps leading down to Minshull Street, Jon could sense Rick looking at him.

  ‘That was naughty,’ his partner said under his breath.

  Jon shrugged, thinking about the courts behind him. The sheer flood of people passing through. Trials for burglary, robbery, assault, affray, rape and threats to kill. His gaze swept across the tram-tracks to the derelict Department of Employment building opposite. The boarded-up windows on the ground floor were plastered with fly-posters, the window frames on the floors above dark and empty. At the top of the building a bedraggled flag lay collapsed at the base of its pole, red cross barely visible on its grime-covered folds.

  Somewhere, Jon reflected, there’s an irony in that.

  Five

  As he walked up to the front door of the house he used to live in, Jon scanned the modest garden for anything different. The patch of grass had been mown and a potted shrub placed to the side of the front door. He leaned down to examine the tag still attached to the lowermost branch. Camellia. He looked at the shiny green leaves. A gift from Braithwaite, no doubt.

  He knocked at the door then stepped back onto the path, wondering who would open up. The lock clicked and the door swung in to reveal Amanda, Alice’s mum.

  Great, Jon thought. The viper’s come to visit. ‘Hi, Amanda, how are you?’

  Looking down at him, her thin lips stayed together as she gave a tight smile. ‘Fine.’

  He waited for her to ask after his health, but no question came. Glancing over her shoulder, she called into the house.

  ‘Holly, time for you to go!’

  Jon looked at her carefully arranged hair, dyed light brown and shot through with streaks of ash. ‘Is Alice here?’

  She turned back and raised her plucked eyebrows. ‘Phillip’s taken her away for the night. A gastro pub, somewhere out in the Yorkshire Dales.’ Pleasure suffused her voice. ‘It’s got a Michelin star, Phillip says.’

  Does he? Well, thought Jon, let’s hope he doesn’t choke on his foie gras. Holly appeared behind her grandmother’s knees, peeping cautiously round them. Alice had decided to have their daughter’s hair cut in a bob and the style emphasised her delicate, elfin features. Seeing her lack of confidence made something shift deep inside him. She never used to be like this, he thought sadly. ‘Hello, princess!’ he beamed, crouching down with his arms held out.

  She smiled, stepping forward so he could sweep her up. Turning away from Amanda’s disapproving gaze, he planted a huge kiss on Holly’s cheek. Then he leaned back, drinking in the sight of her. ‘How are you?’

  She smiled uncertainly. ‘OK.’

  OK, he thought, aware of a slight tension in her torso. ‘Ready for some fun?’

  ‘Yes,’ she giggled.

  ‘Good.’ He swivelled back to face the house aware that, having spent the day trying to prevent the rape case from going down in flames, he hadn’t found the time to buy toys or anything else to keep Holly entertained. ‘Now, have you got a bag?’

  Amanda reached to the side and slid a small pink suitcase onto the top step. A glossy image of a Disney princess was emblazoned across its front. ‘She’s got a change of clothes in there. Plus an absorbent bed sheet, in case of accidents. And there’s some Junior Calpol in her washbag.’

  ‘Great, thanks,’ Jon replied, reaching for the plastic handle, eager to be away as fast as possible.

  ‘Oh!’ Amanda exclaimed. ‘Don’t forget your Nintendo, Holly. I’ll get it.’

  ‘No,’ Jon cut in. ‘We’ve got plenty of stuff.’

  ‘Have you?’ Amanda’s eyes were on Holly. ‘Are you sure you don’t want it?’

  Jon stepped away, keeping his voice bright. ‘We’ll cope somehow, don’t worry!’

  ‘Well,’ Amanda said, ‘I�
��m looking after the house while Alice and Phillip are away. Just call when you set off to bring her back. Lunchtime tomorrow, yes?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He tried to walk away.

  ‘Kiss for Na-na, my darling!’

  Bollocks, Jon thought, reluctantly moving back to the front door and holding Holly up so Amanda could lean down. As she placed a kiss on Holly’s cheek, the scent of her perfume clogged his nostrils.

  She kept a hand cupped on Holly’s cheek. ‘Fish fingers for lunch, tomorrow! With my special mash!’

  Just shut it, Jon wanted to say as he set off down the path, resenting how the woman was jumping ahead, laying out future treats to undermine the time he had with his daughter.

  They got to his car and he opened its rear door, dumping the suitcase on the floor before strapping Holly into her car seat.

  ‘Bed by seven o’clock, Holly!’ Amanda called out. ‘You know mummy’s rules.’

  But you don’t know mine, Jon thought, shutting the door and scooting round the vehicle to jump in the driver’s seat. He slammed the door with a sigh of relief. ‘Right, sweetie. You want to watch a film tonight?’ he asked as the engine came to life.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He glanced at the house and saw Amanda still on the top step. ‘How about Snow White? With the evil hook-nosed old crone?’

  ‘Jungle Book!’

  The injection of enthusiasm in her voice caused him to grin.

  ‘Oh, I’m the king of the swingers,’ he began to croon. ‘A jungle do-bee-dee . . .’

  ‘Daddy! You can’t sing!’

  ‘Can’t sing? Can’t sing? Oh yes I can.’ He started up again. ‘I’ve reached the top and had—’

  ‘You can’t!’

  They found a space outside Carmel’s flat twenty minutes later and Jon led Holly up to the entrance. The sound of arguing could be heard coming from round the corner of the NCP car park opposite.

  ‘A fucking taxi, Ron!’

  ‘Bus,’ came the slurred reply.