They pulled up next to a uniform van. A sergeant and five constables stood ready to assist. This squat, they explained, was notorious for drug use and dealing, but recent rumour suggested prostitution and possibly even trafficking. The sergeant eyed up his guests and clearly found both wanting, politely suggesting they take the rabbit hole with one of the constables. Fran gave him the benefit of the doubt and put this down to Stark’s appearance rather than hers. They were stationed by the moonlit plywood back door when they heard the loud banging from round the front and the sergeant calling, ‘Police, open up!’
There was a few moments’ silence, and then the back door burst open as two men rushed out. The constable was ready and wrestled the first, struggling viciously, to the ground. The second shouldered Fran flying. As she went down she saw the man bounce off Stark with a curse. Light glinted off a blade. The man bellowed and charged again.
The next moments were a blur as Fran lay winded on the ground, watching helplessly. Only later, replaying it in her mind as she’d been trained, was she able partially to separate out what had happened. One thing was for sure: it was nothing like unarmed combat training; no telegraphed single thrust to block and disarm, more a series of vicious little stabs, snake-strike fast, barely blocked or dodged, Stark giving ground, twice having to arch his back to keep his guts from the blade, landing counter-attacking blows to little effect. Then, suddenly, he stepped towards one thrust and drove his fist sickeningly hard into his opponent’s face. The man staggered back, blood gushing from a twisted nose, screamed and charged again. This time Stark sidestepped, blocking, then used his shoulder and the attacker’s own momentum to slam him against the adjacent brick wall. In one movement Stark grasped the wrist of the knife hand with both of his own, turned so the whole arm was tucked under his armpit and sat down with his whole weight, slamming the man face first into the ground, breaking his jaw and dislocating his shoulder. In a flash Stark was kneeling with one leg over the dislocated arm and the other knee pressing down between the man’s shoulder blades on the back of his neck, holding the long double-edged knife dagger-like, raised ready to stab.
Fran looked into Stark’s face and recoiled. It was a terrifying mask of focused, burning hatred. For a horrible moment she thought he meant to kill the prostrate man, but instead he pressed even more weight on to the man’s neck, eliciting a scream of submission. The hatred in Stark’s face tightened into anger, contained, quivering, utterly immovable.
The sergeant and another constable appeared and stepped in to take over, and suddenly the tension was gone. Stark crouched quickly beside Fran, placing the knife on the ground and checking her over with eyes and hands. ‘Are you cut?’ he demanded.
‘Get off!’ She slapped away his hands, touched by his concern but alarmed by the impertinent thoroughness of his search, and not a little humiliated at being so easily brushed aside.
‘Are you cut?’ he demanded again.
‘No! Now get your bloody hands off me before I slap your ugly face!’
He complied, still checking her out visually to be sure. Then he stood and pulled her up, as if she weighed no more than a feather. He was barely short of breath.
‘Thanks!’
‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, either missing the sarcasm or ignoring it. His voice now sounded mechanical, distant. He glanced at his left hand, tugged off his tie and wound it round his palm, like a bandage.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
He nodded.
An ambulance was summoned. Stark received several sideways looks from the uniforms as they tended the injured suspect. Whatever had happened there, it hadn’t been standard police self-defence technique. Questions were bound to arise about reasonable force. They were probably thanking their lucky stars they could honestly say they’d seen nothing. Fran looked for the constable who had been there but couldn’t pick him out. Stark watched impassively as his groaning assailant awaited medical attention.
She pulled out an evidence bag and carefully bagged the knife. Blinking, as if he’d never seen it before, Stark watched her zip the bag and hand it to the nearest officer.
‘You’d better take a look.’ The sergeant led the way inside, shining his torch ahead of their feet as they stepped over the rubbish, and worse, littering the filthy old carpet. Half of the doors in the rambling old house were padlocked. A constable stood ready at one with a crowbar. Fran nodded. Some were empty but in one room they found a girl sitting on a grubby mattress, terrified, and in another room a second woman, who was drugged out of her wits. The sergeant called for reinforcements.
Two more doors were forced. One stood empty. In the other they found a girl with pink hair.
Fran waved everyone back as she and Stark entered. The girl was cowering in a corner, curled up in a foetal position, cradling her knees, one wide eye visible. Beside her Fran heard Stark gasp. His face was pale, shocked, almost frightened. Looking quickly around she saw no cause so waved at him to stay where he was and approached the girl cautiously. As she reached out a hand the girl snarled at her, sending her reeling backwards.
‘Get a blanket, Sarge,’ said Stark, suddenly, and before she could stop him he was sliding his back down the wall to sit a foot away from the girl. Her hand shot out in a claw. He caught it but not before it had raked his face. The other shot out but he caught that in time with his other hand. She struggled futilely against his grip. Stark was murmuring to her, reassurances, calm, firm. Fran snatched up a thin quilt from the mattress, cautiously placed it around the girl’s shoulders and backed away again. The struggle gradually ceased. Stark kept up the reassurances and slowly shifted from gripping her wrists to holding both hands. He was still like that when a WPC and some paramedics arrived and slowly coaxed the poor girl away. It was Pinky, no mistake. Her face was marked with yellowed bruises and healed abrasions; her lip had a tight scab where it had been split. Most of the marks looked old, but not all.
‘Which hospital will they go to?’ asked Stark.
Fran looked for some recognition of events but he seemed strangely calm. ‘Princess Royal mostly, but I asked that Pinky go to the QE. Is your face okay?’ It was bleeding from four diagonal scrapes. Stark felt them and looked at the blood as if he had no idea where it had come from. ‘Let’s have someone clean that up.’
He let her lead him out. It wasn’t that he was elsewhere: he seemed right there in the present, but he let himself be led, like a child unthinkingly holding an adult hand.
The scrapes weren’t deep. A paramedic cleaned them and taped a small dressing over Stark’s cheek. He didn’t flinch. He’d have to be tested for HIV and hepatitis now, of course, a matter of routine, but the paramedic was reassuring him that the risk was negligible. Everyday infection was far more likely. He asked Stark if his anti-tetanus protection was up to date. Stark gave the barest of laughs and nodded.
The bloody tie was unwound to reveal a cut down the fleshy muscle of his palm beneath the little finger. Stark looked at it. ‘You’re gonna get cut,’ he muttered, under his breath.
‘Quoting Maggs again?’ asked Fran.
Stark shook his head. ‘Training. So was he. Barehanded against a knife you’re gonna get cut. It’s just a question of how badly.’
‘They teach us to run away.’
He nodded. ‘And when you can’t, you’re –’
‘Gonna get cut.’ She shook her head. Who’d join the army?
‘Take your jacket off and roll up your sleeve,’ the paramedic ordered.
Stark had completed only the first half of the order when Fran gasped.
‘Don’t move,’ commanded the paramedic.
Stark’s white shirt, from a little under his left armpit to his waist, was sodden with blood. He stared at it dumbly, barely registering surprise, then held up his jacket to the light. In the front left panel there was a small slash. He tutted and let it drop.
‘Keep still,’ hissed the paramedic. Using the larger slash in the shirt, he tore it open to re
veal a two-inch horizontal cut, bleeding steadily, halfway up Stark’s left ribs.
Stark stared down at it. ‘Just a question of how badly,’ he said.
‘Looks superficial,’ said the paramedic. ‘Rib stopped it. You were lucky. Hold still while I clean it. This’ll need a stitch or three.’
It needed nineteen. The hand needed four. They were straight cuts, the paramedic commented, as he worked: the knife had been sharp. They’d heal quickly, neat as you like. Soon to be lost among all the others, he didn’t add.
Stark never winced. Fran was growing more certain by the minute that this wasn’t bravado. Adrenalin could leave you unaware of injury, but so could shock. It seemed obvious now to her that Stark was barely present, after all. She called to a nearby uniform, who scuttled off and returned with two large evidence bags. ‘I’ll need that jacket and shirt.’
With a soft sigh Stark stood and removed the ruined shirt.
‘Jesus!’ The paramedic’s eyes widened.
In all her curiosity Fran had never imagined such scarring. Almost as shocking, though, was how painfully lean he was. She’d noticed he was a little gaunt in the face, but his torso was all muscle and sinew … She realized her mouth was ajar and pulled herself together. ‘That’s the end of your demob suit then.’ She forced a smile, holding open the bags for him, but it was a crap joke and didn’t even register with him. Atop his left arm she noticed a tiger tattoo, monochrome and stylized, really quite beautiful once, now marred by a diagonal scar. The irony was not lost. She would never have taken him for the tattoo type. Then again most people wouldn’t have guessed at hers.
She relieved the uniform of his over-jacket and handed it to Stark to put on as the paramedic finished checking him out. They left him perched in the rear door of the ambulance as the paramedic led her aside to talk quietly. ‘He’s still in shock. We could take him in, but he should be fine in an hour or less.’
‘I’ll drive him home.’
‘Keep him warm. If he feels faint, get his feet higher than his head – you know the drill.’
‘Will do.’
‘There’s more going on there …’ The paramedic didn’t quite pose it as a question but it was.
‘Maybe,’ said Fran.
The man waited but she said no more. ‘All right. Well, see he’s tucked up in bed as soon as possible.’
She put Stark into the car and drove him home in silence. By the time they arrived he did seem more aware, alert, certainly more himself as he firmly resisted her offer to see him in. She waited outside instead, and was starting to worry when his light eventually came on. Then she took out her phone. It was nearly two in the morning but Groombridge would be expecting an update.
29
You slam against the wall, gasping for breath. Check the safety is off for the tenth time. A nod. Collins kicks the door and you pile in, weapon raised, Collins behind you. Movement in the corner. Collins shouts! Swing the gun! The girl with pink hair, cradling her knees in the corner, looks up at you, terrified, defiant, angry as a snarling cat. He comes at you, knife flashing. You feel it drive into your back, a wild pain, a numbing wrongness. You twist and block and slip his arm out of its socket, mercilessly efficient. You have his weapon now and your knee on his neck; he squeals, pleads. One stab down and it’s over. You want to do it. You want to do it. But you’re dying, you can feel life leaching out of you, trousers slick with blood as you kneel in the dust, rifle aimed; relax, breathe, aim, hold, fire. Relax, breathe, aim, hold … Feel it draining from you. Must stay conscious as long as possible. Sleep is death. Relax, breathe, aim, hold …
‘Still see their faces?’
Stark blinked awake, Maggs’s voice so present in his ears that he looked round for him in the dark. His hand drifted to his back for a wound that had never existed. He groaned. Three pills, with three full fingers of whisky, and still this. Even his improper regimes were unravelling.
He’d neglected to close the curtains and the sky, from where he lay, hovered between blues. Somewhere below the horizon the sun lurked, bugle ready.
Stark let out his breath with a shuddering sigh, levered himself out of bed, limped awkwardly into the kitchenette and, after a minute’s fruitless rummaging, cursed his empty fridge and cupboards. If Kelly had accepted his invitation they’d have been looking at takeaway menus. He slammed the cupboard door so hard it hung off one hinge.
Leaving it, he went and showered, ignoring any thought of exercise. Afterwards, dripping, he wiped his hand across the steamy mirror. A stranger stared back at him. Grim, gaunt, rings beneath sunken eyes. He peeled the damp dressing off his face and looked at the scratches. They were tender to the touch. There was no point in trying to shave round them so he left them to the air. Steam gradually re-obscured the stranger’s face. A great urge to smash his fist into it nearly overwhelmed him. Instead he dried, dutifully changed the dressings on his hand and ribs, dressed and limped out into the morning sun.
The bakery owner unlocked the door from inside, eyeing Stark warily. Stark waited in silence as the man put out the first of his stock. Armed with a cinnamon whirl and a double espresso, he took a stool by one of the tall tables wedged into the tiny space and ate. The owner continued to watch him, too unsure to make conversation.
Stark left a pocketful of small change as tip and departed with a nod. The pain felt distant as he walked, the painkillers doing their work. It was only when he neared the station that he remembered he hadn’t taken any.
The few uniforms he saw as he entered the station via the tradesmen’s door gave him odd looks. The office was all but empty. The clock read 07:31.
‘Wake up.’ Someone was shaking Stark’s shoulder gently. ‘Wake up! The sarge’ll be here any minute!’ Dixon’s voice.
Stark looked up. There was a crick in his neck: he’d been asleep with his head on the desk. Pain flared in his hip and he groaned.
Dixon recoiled. ‘Christ, are you okay?’
‘Hanging on my chinstrap,’ admitted Stark.
‘I looked that up,’ Dixon told him.
Stark checked the clock. ‘Just enough time for coffee.’ He stood but his hip sang out and he nearly sat again. Kelly had been right: this might be more tear than wear.
‘Jesus, what happened? Should you be here? Sit down, for God’s sake, before you fall. Wait here, I’ll get you coffee.’
The office was busier. Stark couldn’t help notice people craning their necks over desk partitions to peer at him. Dixon reappeared and brought water, too, which Stark gratefully used to swallow three pills.
‘What happened? I heard you found her. It’s all over the station.’
Before Stark could explain Fran walked in and did a double-take. ‘What the … Have you not one ounce of sense in you? What the hell are you doing here? Jesus, you look even worse than when I left you!’
‘I’m all right, Sarge,’ lied Stark. At least, I will be once these pills and the coffee get to me, he thought, taking a scalding swig.
‘Dixon, get this idiot out of here before the guv’nor sees him.’
‘Before the guv’nor sees who?’ said Groombridge, from the doorway.
Fran made a face at Stark and turned. ‘I was just suggesting to Constable Stark that he appears unwell and should go home to bed, Guv, and he agreed that would be best.’
Groombridge looked past her. ‘That right, Stark?’
‘Only the first part, Guv,’ replied Stark. Fran glared at him.
‘You look like crap. Maybe DS Millhaven has a point.’
‘I’ll be all right, Guv.’
‘Constable, you have two knife wounds and a face out of a werewolf film.’
Stark was in no mood to remind them he’d had worse. ‘If you’re interviewing Pinky today I’d like to be there.’
Groombridge considered him for a moment. ‘That’ll depend on her doctors. If she’s not ready, you go home.’ There was no invitation to argument in his tone.
‘Guv.’
For a while it looked as if that might be how it would go. The doctors were hesitant. But it gave Social Services time to come up with an appropriate adult. Until otherwise proved, anyone who looked like they could be under seventeen was assumed to be. You had to be eighteen to get a tattoo legally, of course, but they’d be foolish to rely on that as an indicator. Stark felt oddly isolated while they waited, as if people were moving around him, consciously avoiding him. Fran was in Groombridge’s office and he thought he heard them arguing, though they might just have been talking. When the door opened neither appeared ruffled.
‘It’s on. You sure you’re fit, Stark?’
‘If you’ll have me, Guv.’
‘I suppose you’ll have to do. Come on, let’s see if we can finish this.’
For the first time Groombridge slowed his walk right down. Stark railed inside but there was no point in denying the necessity.
A doctor was waiting for them. ‘She’s traumatized, Chief Inspector, and was clearly beaten badly a while back. There’s no sign of recent sexual activity, which, given where she was found, is a blessing, but judging from the cuts and scrapes we found below, she was either raped, or very nearly so, a while back.’
‘When?’ asked Fran.
‘Two or three weeks? But so far she’s only spoken to the psychotherapist.’
‘Do you have a name?’ asked Groombridge.
‘Paula Stevens. Nineteen. That’s all.’
‘No fixed abode,’ said Groombridge, softly.
‘As you say. She’ll be here in a minute. The psychotherapist will sit in and it’s over the second she says so. Understood?’
‘Understood. Thank you, Doctor.’
The social worker was dismissed. Stark saw who the shrink was and shook his head. Of course, he thought, chalking it up to karma, or a universe with a spiteful sense of humour.
If I Should Die (Joseph Stark) Page 30