If I Should Die (Joseph Stark)

by Matthew Frank

  ‘Family Liaison called round yesterday to see how she was doing and got no answer,’ said Fran. ‘Today they had a peep through the net curtains. Looks like she choked on her own vomit.’

  ‘A logical conclusion.’ Marcus nodded. ‘Doors and windows locked, no indications of a struggle, no pills in the vomitus. Dead at least twenty-four hours, probably longer. We’ll check for physical evidence, of course, and I’ll confirm cause of death, but at this stage I’d hazard accidental death at best, suicide at worst.’

  Groombridge said nothing. Stark could imagine what he was thinking. Another death to chalk up, pointless and, above all, preventable. Tragedy squared. It hardly mattered whether Karen had drowned in bilious despair or died merely because her carer, her long-suffering daughter, wasn’t there to roll her into the recovery position before going to bed; accident or suicide, this was little short of double murder. Whoever killed Stacey had as good as killed her mother too.

  Stark turned away and went to look in Stacey’s room. If anything, it was worse. Peeling, mould-stained wallpaper in some hideous seventies pattern, a faded child’s princess duvet cover and pillow on the bed. There were no boy-band posters, no teen magazines, no make-up or hair products. Just a child-sized wardrobe with a limited array of clothes, begged, borrowed or stolen, a solitary My Little Pony toy and a heavy-duty slide-bolt screwed to the inside of the door to keep her mother out or, worse, her mother’s gentlemen friends.

  ‘Not much to show for a life,’ commented Groombridge at his shoulder.

  Stark had seen too much poverty to be shocked but that didn’t make it any less depressing.

  Karen’s death photo joined her daughter’s on the board next to Alfred Ladd’s. There was no office banter that afternoon. Three deaths in as many days were no laughing matter. The team retreated into their own thoughts, unwilling or unable to look each other in the eye. Stark could have used that pint. His anticipation about seeing Kelly again now seemed flip. Just as he was pulling on his jacket to leave, his phone rang. He had to overcome temptation not to leave it. ‘Stark.’

  ‘Constable, this is Sergeant Ptolemy. I’ve got someone in the car I thought you should talk to, just out front. Can you come?’

  Intrigued, Stark wandered down. A girl in her late teens or early twenties, with dyed purple hair, multiple facial piercings and a glorious black eye, puffy and fresh, was sitting in the back of the car. She was holding a half-finished burger and a milkshake and appeared torn between these riches and her present company.

  ‘This is Rachael. She got into a row with a shopkeeper in the covered market. He didn’t like her begging outside and she’s got a bit of a gob on her. Probably what got her the shiner. But it wasn’t the shopkeeper that gave it to her. She doesn’t want to make a statement about who did but we “negotiated terms” by which she will now repeat to you what she told us.’

  ‘Go ahead, Rachael. He doesn’t bite. That I know of.’ Peters winked at Stark.

  Rachael looked at Stark, clearly reluctant. But she’d taken the food. ‘It was that lot that’ve been beating us up,’ she began defensively. ‘You lot won’t stop them.’ Ptolemy coughed meaningfully and she altered her tone. ‘Those arseholes from the Ferrier. That wanker and his slag and the rest.’

  ‘Kyle Gibbs and Nikki Cockcroft?’ Stark couldn’t quite believe his ears. Surely they weren’t so stupid as to carry on their antics while the police were looking at them so hard.

  Rachael shrugged. ‘Don’t know names.’

  ‘The description she gave us sounded all too familiar,’ said Ptolemy.

  ‘When was this?’ asked Stark.

  ‘Saturday night,’ said Rachael. ‘Shit night for begging. I was just having a quiet one out of the way, but they wouldn’t leave off. Why won’t they leave us alone? You lot should stop them,’ she spat, ‘but you don’t give a shit!’

  Stark clenched his jaw against a harsh rebuke. On deployment he’d been confronted with angry, often grief-stricken nationals on more than one occasion, people overcome with bitterness and fury, people with genuine cause or pain, who had to be placated or faced down. This clueless chit, with her belly full of fast-food and her thoughtless accusation, should never have got to him, but after today … He crouched to her eye level, speaking with all the quiet calm he could muster. ‘I do give a shit. If I had concrete evidence, those vicious little fuckers would be locked in our cells right now and half the building would be dancing and pouring drinks. But I don’t have the evidence. Yet. Perhaps you could help me with that instead of venting blind assumptions while you devour the payment you extorted for doing your civic duty.’

  Despite his effort to conceal his anger she shrank back as he spoke, hardly able to meet his cold gaze. Both officers were looking at him askance. ‘Tell him what they wanted,’ prompted Ptolemy.

  Rachael glanced nervously between them. ‘They were looking for someone. A girl, with pink hair.’

  ‘A homeless girl?’ asked Stark. Rachael nodded. ‘Do you know who? Or why?’

  She shook her head. ‘Can I go now? Please.’

  Stark couldn’t shake off the sheer lunacy of Kyle and Nikki. Were they so sure of themselves, so sure of police impotence, so shameless? It beggared belief. The cab journey to the Carter Orthopaedic Hospital slipped past unnoticed and, arriving with time to spare, he settled into a comfortable reception armchair and shrugged off unwanted thoughts the best way he knew, with a book: one of a series of twenty naval tales set in the Napoleonic wars that a navy lad had once recommended to him. The first had started so innocuously that it was only halfway through you realized you were hooked. The story was at a particularly gripping juncture, deep in the heart of an engagement, and Stark was soon engrossed, tea cooling on the small table beside him, a biscuit poised halfway to his mouth. It was only the sense of someone standing next to him that startled him into the present.

  ‘That biscuit hasn’t moved in minutes.’ Kelly slid into the opposite seat. ‘We called your name, you know.’

  A glance at the chuckling receptionist said it all. ‘Sorry, miles away,’ he said, flushing a little.

  ‘Somewhere sunny, I hope?’

  He showed her the cover. ‘Bay of Biscay, winter of 1802, at night.’

  ‘I’m sure it had its delights. How are you? Any new acts of recklessness to report?’

  ‘Fictional only.’

  She looked at the blurb. ‘Boys and their toy soldiers. I thought you’d have had your fill.’

  ‘Actually it’s about a friendship.’

  ‘In war.’ She shook her head. ‘Are you looking for validation or thrills?’

  ‘Perhaps just distraction.’ The part of his nature that too often revelled in the funny side of confrontation was keeping quiet. He was knackered, and the last person in the world he wanted to argue with was her. That thought was new and disconcerting.

  She studied him for a moment. ‘You OK?’

  Stark frowned. ‘OK?’

  ‘You’ve the weight of the world on your shoulders.’

  Uncomfortable, he half nodded, half shrugged, and wholly avoided.

  Kelly smiled. ‘I’d like Lucy to sit in on this session. I’d value her opinion. But I’ll understand if you’d prefer her not to.’

  Prefer not to parade your disfigurement in front of yet another stranger, she meant. ‘I’ve been nursed by enough motherly types to abandon dignity long ago.’

  ‘Poor you.’

  It was a surprising riposte, said with warm sarcasm and a twinkle in those pale-blue eyes. It threw him slightly and made him regret his touchiness. The care he’d received had indeed left few refuges for dignity, but often enough it was the indifference with which it was administered that eroded dignity rather than the physical imposition. He retained an unflattering opinion of nursing that might or might not have been fair.

  The military wards at Selly Oak hadn’t been too bad. The patients were young soldiers, fit, aside from injury, and most still had that early-stage determ
ination. But once you’d made it to the general wards with the elderly and infirm, poor sods who needed more, far more, it exposed a lack of empathy in some nursing staff that at times bordered on shocking. The doctors were OK generally but it was easier for them: competent or otherwise, they could breeze in on rounds, be cheerful and reassuring, then breeze off to the next bag of bones. But the nurses … There were gems, of course, a handful who remained amused and engaging as they went about their work. Perhaps their warm light cast shadow on the rest. Nights were the worst.

  It was the one topic you could never broach with a medical professional and perhaps it was an understandable reaction to their daily grind of suffering and tedium, how they had to be just to cope. They had a hard bloody job, that much was obvious. Who would want their hours, their duties? Who but a service-person. Nurses too often displayed a ‘poor me’ attitude, which infuriated the soldier in Stark. God help an army of whining soldiers. That was the whole purpose of rule one: no fucking sympathy. It wasn’t that you didn’t feel sorry for yourself, you just didn’t seek affirmation from your fellow sufferers. What would be the point? They knew just how shit it was; they already empathized to their core. It was a given.

  ‘Quite right,’ he agreed. Besides, it wasn’t the motherly types who unsettled you, it was the beautiful, clever girls who saw straight through you. And a girl prepared not to hide it was positively terrifying. He tried to summon something clever, something flirtatious, but was relieved when nothing came.

  ‘Come on.’ She led him to Hydro, walking just far enough in front to afford him an absorbing view. To his – mild – shame he used his limp to advantage.

  ‘Evening, dear,’ Lucy greeted him cheerily. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m just here as a second opinion.’

  ‘We’ll run through your homework routine first for Lucy,’ said Kelly. ‘Not those tracky bottoms again, though, if you don’t mind, and those big swimming shorts cover too much as well. We want to assess the musculature. Try these.’ She held out a pair of hospital-branded swimming shorts, much briefer than his own. He stared at them. ‘Just be thankful we replaced the old Speedos.’ She grinned. ‘No top either. Off you go.’

  Stark suspected he was being played with, but what could he do? He could hear their muffled voices deep in some conspiratorial conversation. He emerged from the cubicle with his gown on, looking at Lucy.

  ‘Don’t be shy, dear. I’ve seen my share of car-crash rehab.’ He slipped off the robe and she didn’t flinch. ‘Give us a twirl,’ she said. Their eyes remained coolly professional. ‘OK, let’s see what you can’t do,’ said Lucy.

  It had been a long week. He was impatient to get better and felt he must be improving, but tonight it seemed he was getting worse, although he tried fiercely to prevent it showing. It was all the more excruciating in the skimpy shorts. Aside from the scars, he wasn’t the specimen he’d once been. He’d always been lean, but pain and rehab-focused exercise had robbed him of some of the natural muscle he’d always enjoyed.

  ‘Hm,’ said Lucy. ‘OK, shower that sweat off and we’ll see how you are in the pool.’

  Kelly ran him through the routine she’d begun teaching him the previous week. It hurt, and the sight of her in her swimsuit, which had allowed him to ignore this before, failed this time. If anything, it hurt more, and his earlier thought of flirtation seemed all the more foolish. As foolish as the expectation that swapping uniform patrol for CID would involve less time on his feet.

  His torturers spent an age closely inspecting and manually articulating parts of him while discussing him in cold medical jargon, much of which he understood all too well. Back on the poolside they put on their gowns but had Stark stand on the spot doing about-faces on command in his wet shorts, humiliated and rather depressed.

  ‘I concur,’ said Lucy to Kelly. ‘He should move up to two sessions a week.’ Addressing him directly she added, ‘I have to agree with Kelly’s initial assessment. You really are a bit of a mess.’

  Kelly covered her mouth to hide her amusement, while Stark prayed for the earth to open up beneath him.

  ‘Cheer up, though.’ Lucy grinned. ‘She was right about you having a great arse too!’

  Kelly’s laughter gave way to a crimson blush.

  Six in the morning and still Stark presents himself with disgustingly impeccable dress and grooming, thought Fran, only a faint redness around his eyes giving him any semblance of humanity. Were it not too precious she might’ve spilt coffee on him as she drove. Groombridge had drowned his sorrows with a pint and gone home to his wife. Fran had continued her self-saturation at home, alone. There were days when her tiny flat seemed cavernous. ‘Physio going OK?’ she asked, for something to say.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  Another brush-off, though she caught an odd expression on his face when she glanced over. He said nothing more until they were in the office, with the team muttering over their caffeine of choice. They had a long day ahead, collating and cross-referencing statements, looking for slip-ups and incongruities. The usual summons from Scotland Yard meant Cox wanted all his ducks in a row before he faced the brass.

  ‘Anything else?’ asked Groombridge, after the summing-up.

  Fran held up her phone. ‘Text from my contact in Pathology, Guv. Karen Appleton died of asphyxiation, almost certainly accidental.’

  Stark raised his hand. ‘I had a strange conversation as I left work yesterday, Guv.’ His news that Kyle and Nikki’s escapades against the homeless were still ongoing caused visible consternation among the team. ‘I don’t really know what to make of it.’

  Fran did. ‘Little shits! They’ve got some front! They know if we had any real evidence we’d have arrested them.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll get cocky and give us something we can really use,’ said Williams.

  ‘It’s odd, though, don’t you think?’ said Stark.

  Dixon nodded. ‘Yeah – all their previous victims were old.’

  ‘Careful with that word “old”,’ chided Groombridge, closest in age to the victim profile.

  ‘Sorry, Guv.’

  ‘More importantly, who are they looking for and why?’ said Stark.

  Groombridge looked at Fran. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a word with the local authority and charities when the rest of the world wakes up, see if anyone knows about a girl with pink hair.’

  She was still vaguely blaming Stark for this addition to her workload when they sat down to a canteen breakfast a couple of hours later. She gazed at Stark’s traditional English plateful. The boy had hollow legs. It was hard not to think of him as a boy – twenty-five seemed a lifetime ago. Yet at the same time he came across as so serious. He’d seen things, she supposed. Sometimes you glimpsed it in his eyes, like the moment they’d pulled the tarp from Stacey’s corpse.

  She was pondering this, taking her time over her coffee and Danish, when Maggie hurried in. The control-room matriarch rarely left her fiefdom for less than hot scandal or breaking news. Spotting them, she pulled up a chair. ‘Am I right in assuming you’ll be wanting another chat with Kyle Gibbs at some point soon?’ she asked, pinching a sausage from Stark’s plate and taking a semi-suggestive bite.

  ‘Why do I think I’m not going to like this?’ wondered Fran.

  ‘Because you’re a classic glass-half-empty personality. Rather than being relieved that our streets might be rid of one nasty little oik, you’re more inclined to be peeved at the death of your prime suspect.’

  10

  Fran put down her half-empty coffee mug. ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘As the proverbial doornail,’ confirmed Maggie, with unseemly pleasure. ‘Assuming Sergeant Clark knows a stiff when he sees one. Manager at the Pavilion teahouse spotted the body behind the bandstand about twenty minutes ago. Clark recognized him, of course. SOCO are already on the way. DCI Groombridge took the news stoically but I thought you’d like to know before he comes in here with that dark look of his. Nice sausage, sweetie.’ She winked at Sta
rk and sashayed off.

  Groombridge’s look was indeed dark. They took the stairs rather than wait for the lift, and the speed of his gait and the way he thrust the doors aside gave further evidence of his frustration. As they crossed the lobby a heated exchange was taking place between the desk officer and a dishevelled drunk with a thick, greying beard, old army boots and a burgundy bobble hat. It seemed to revolve around whether or not he should be allowed to bring the shopping trolley containing his worldly possessions into the lobby or leave it outside.

  ‘There’s no need for bad language, sir. I’ll be happy to listen to you, but we can’t have that in –’ The desk officer was trying to guide the man out without touching him.

  ‘Do you wanna ’ear about this or not?’ slurred the man, angrily.

  ‘Sir, your belongings will be perfectly safe outside.’

  The tramp saw Stark staring. ‘Oi! You a blue top? I wanna report a crime.’

  ‘Sir!’ persisted the desk officer.

  ‘I’m a wanted man. I’m ’ere to turn m’self in!’ He held out his hands, wrists together to be cuffed. ‘Oi, come back!’

  St Mary’s Gate was just a few hundred metres away so they left on foot, Stark struggling to keep up and silently cursing. For some reason he looked back in time to see the tramp being ejected into the street. The man sighed visibly, shoulders slumped. Maybe it was the lack of ranting and gesticulation, the resignation, that caught Stark’s eye or perhaps it was something else: the man just didn’t behave quite like your average street drunk.

  ‘Keep up, Constable,’ called Fran.

  ‘Can I catch you up, Sarge? I just want to see what this is about.’ There was something familiar.

  ‘Take your time,’ meaning ‘Don’t’.

  Stark stared towards the station as the man pushed his trolley back down the ramp. An articulated lorry trundled thunderously past and a nearby car tooted its horn. A knot of kids shrieked and yelled. The sun broke through the clouds and reflected dazzlingly off a half-open window. Something about these overlapping sensory inputs narrowed Stark’s focus. Not a flashback, more a merging of worlds. He could smell the sharp tang of age-old desiccation. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.