by Gavin Smith
Turning left, she let the car roll to a gentle stop well before the next set of lights turned red, earning another thirty seconds of her own company and a flurry of exasperation from the supermarket delivery driver attempting to park in her boot. Eyes fixed on the dim red glare above the sun visor, she felt her pulse fluttering at her throat as images of what might have happened looped through her mind with the kind of cloying earnestness she’d deplored in the firm’s own personal injury ads. The van might have shunted the Mini. The Mini might have been badly damaged. She might have been injured in a second of histrionic, stop-motion anguish. Wrangling with insurers would precede protracted litigation with harassment, bailiffs and unrecovered costs thrown in.
She might have escaped injury, only to have been involved in a roadside fracas with some misogynistic psycho who’d managed to conceal his record from his employers. Her scalp tingled as she imagined her hair being bunched in a calloused fist and her head being pounded into her own windscreen. Knowing what to expect, she might have the presence of mind to spray anti-freeze into the rascal’s eyes and kick him in the nuts in the manner she’d been taught at the gym – drive the shin bone through the scrotum and all the way up to the sternum.
Something had changed. A horn blared and red had become green. Leaving her imaginary assailant doubled-up and spluttering in the gutter, she moved off, making brief eye contact with the van driver in the rear-view mirror. An impression of acne and spindly arms left her in no doubt that a lot of insight, a little imagination and more nervous tension than she knew what to do with were turning her into a morbid fantasist.
With this in mind, she wasn’t in the least concerned when the van followed her onto Carholme Road, shrugged when the van scraped through on amber to follow her into the Mead Bank estate, and permitted herself a frown when it followed her into Glebe Mews and waited patiently for her to reverse onto her driveway. With an ugly grinding that screamed incompetence to everyone in earshot, the Mini refused to accept reverse gear until she’d obeyed the manual to the letter and waited a full second for the driveshaft to cease spinning. A glimpse of a smirk and a shaken head over folded arms in the van sent hot blood to her face.
Halfway up the driveway, she caught sight of the front of her house and stalled the car with a jolt. Both door and windows were wide open and the curtains were missing. Raising a hand to mute the sun’s glare, she could make out the metronomic flickering of the warning light in the alarm box below the bedroom window.
She killed the engine, jammed on the handbrake and raised both hands to her face as if to steady her thoughts. Her parents must be in the house, but her mother’s car was nowhere to be seen and she hadn’t said exactly when she’d get back from hospital. It could be a burglary. If it was, the thieves would probably have finished and gone. She should just go inside and find out. But what if she disturbed a burglar? Shouldn’t she call the police? Better to be wrong and embarrassed than maimed by a potential client.
Thoughts still reeling but driven by instinct, she exited the car having armed herself with the can of anti-freeze that should have been left in the garage months ago. With her left hand, she flipped open her phone and left her thumb hovering over the number ‘9’. An orange shape loomed over her right shoulder. She span, nearly snapping a ludicrous heel, brandished the aerosol, found she’d pointed it at herself and yelped in confusion.
“Back, get back,” she shouted, regaining her balance and rotating the can so that at least she wouldn’t blind herself.
“Sorry,” said the gangling, teenage supermarket van driver, flinching. “You Marjorie Jennings? Shopping. On t’internet. Order for you, duck.”
“I’m Marjorie,” said Sharon’s mother from the front door. “Bring it straight in.”
As the driver retreated to his van with a diffident shrug, Sharon briefly considered beating the youth to death as a good use for the adrenaline surging through her limbs. She’d already rehearsed the take-down in her mind. Balls to being lady-like, she heard the instructor yelling, kick him hard in the balls.
“There you are, dear. Hope we’re not putting you out too much. I’ve just ordered a few things to keep us going.”
Sharon counted slowly to ten, replacing the aerosol in the glove box and swallowing her exasperation. The driver had stacked half a dozen boxes on the kerb and she could dimly hear a washing machine spinning. Her mother had made herself at home.
“I’ve made you a sandwich, dear. Given your curtains a good wash, too.”
One thousand, two hundred and ninety seven. One thousand, two hundred and ninety eight. A volley of punches to the face and a couple of kicks to the ribs and happy sack from a demented screw couldn’t stop him counting. One thousand, two hundred and ninety nine. Mum, a screaming cinder stalking his dreams, couldn’t stop him counting. One thousand, three hundred and counting. Psycho cops and leg-smashing, hurtling cars couldn’t stop him counting. One thousand, three hundred and one. Counting things pinned them in place, kept away the chaos for seconds, minutes, hours and days that would always belong to him.
“Fuckin’ get me seen now, ya saggy old bitch.”
But how could he count with that racket going on? It was worse than being run over. The fluorescent tube seemed to bulge, he blinked and the stipples in the ceiling tiles jumbled themselves again. Now they’d formed the face of Jesus to distract him. Jesus shouldn’t pout and blow kisses like that. Didn’t the stipples want to be counted? How would the place endure if nobody knew how many stipples there were? The man outside must have shared his outrage but really wasn’t helping.
Nobody liked to wait, but some people couldn’t handle it. The nice doctor had made it easier for him though. Somebody very like him had spumed pain and rage on the tarmac, in an ambulance, on a trolley under pigeon-shit and strip lighting and blank faces. Eyes flaring open with every jolt, all senses amplified, drinking in the sweat-sodden weight of the policemen pinning his chest, the powder-blue gloves and emerald collars of paramedics too wise to make eye contact, and the outrageous voltage of pain arcing from his leg.
Then a sharp pen had jabbed a full stop onto the page. A white coat. A bright light in his eyes. A hand too cool and dry for the weather and his rage. A hot pinch to the bunched muscle of his shoulder. A bulge in his stomach. A metallic tickling at the back of his throat. Eyelids fluttered and fell shut. Then numbness, bliss, a tailor-made dementia he’d pay top dollar for if it wasn’t being given away for free.
“Fuckin’ stupid old bitch. Fuckin’ find a doctor meself.”
Something hit the floor outside. Metal clanged against metal, plastic rolled and bounced on linoleum. A chatter of squawking consternation rose up, as if a hawk had broken into a rookery. The balding, paunchy copper in the fluorescent flak jacket glanced towards the racket, breathed in deeply then sighed it all out again, a gesture that seemed incomplete without a cigarette to match his yellowed fingertips.
The walls of the cubicle bowed in and out with the rise and fall of his chest. If a thought bubble had appeared above his head, Firth could have filled it in: how many piece-of-shit scrotes can I deal with in one day and can I think of a good reason not to graze my knuckles on this next one? Then there’s always the fucking paperwork. Cops always brought a signature whinge about paperwork into any situation.
The copper’s skinnier and younger colleague shifted his weight from foot to foot as he hitched the curtains aside and peered out. Firth closed his eyes and the young cop became a spaniel, whimpering and fussing for the chance of new sport.
“This one will need gripping too,” said the spaniel, looking over his shoulder at the fat old collie his colleague had become.
Another sigh from the collie, a flash of canines as he bit his lip. “We’d better sort it. I’ll stay here. Can’t leave a murder suspect unattended, even if he is ripped to the tits. You know what to do but don’t get yourself snotted.”
Yipping and with one paw on the baton clipped to his belt, the spaniel bounded away. Fi
rth tried and failed to prop himself on one elbow and settled for peering over the rail to which he was handcuffed. You had to relish the highs because they never lasted. He couldn’t miss the floorshow they’d ever so kindly laid on for him.
“Go get him, Fido,” he drawled. “Burn that mother down.”
“What did you say, fuck-nuts?” said the collie, glancing at his watch.
Through the parted curtains, Firth watched the soap opera unfold, everybody knowing their parts and playing them to perfection. Centre-stage with Burberry cap and leisurewear, the somehow familiar figure bouncing on his toes, throwing arms out wide and shoulders forwards, pointing with both hands at the patina of crusted blood and bruising on his face. As supporting actress, a matronly woman in powder-blue scrubs hovered on the edge of punching range, steepled hands alternating between reasoning and warding. Joining from stage left was the young copper, with the measured gait and squared shoulders of a gunslinger.
The familiar figure flicked a glance towards the skinnier cop and made eye contact with Firth. When the lovely drug wore off, Firth knew he would recognise him. Maybe he wouldn’t have to wait that long. He had an inkling that this was not a nice person to know.
“There you fuckin’ are,” shouted the angry man, forgetting the nurse and launching himself towards the cubicle. Perhaps he wanted to help count the stipples on the ceiling.
The skinnier cop raised his hands and said something Firth couldn’t hear. The angry man had plenty of inertia, barely taking his eyes of Firth as he swatted the cop’s hands away and raked a hand across his stunned face in one continuous lunge.
With speed and grace he must have been saving for a special occasion, the paunchy cop glided into the angry man’s path, used his left palm to neatly bat aside another swinging swipe from the right, and shoved the heel of his right hand into the angry man’s nose with a noise like damp, splintering wood.
Now a puppet whose strings had been cut, the angry man dropped to the floor in a jumble of limbs, bellowing outrage. The paunchy cop stood squarely, shaking his hand and peering indignantly at the scuffs on his palm. He seemed about to complain and then thought better of it as the skinnier cop dropped to the floor to wrestle the angry man onto his belly. An arm had been levered into a lock before he gathered his wits and resumed the fight. By this point, he was face down on the floor, smearing blood and snot across the linoleum and spluttering ‘fucks’.
The paunchy cop reluctantly dropped to one knee, jabbed a knuckle into the pit beneath the angry man’s ear, hard enough to squeeze the nose against the floor, and whispered something. In a heartbeat, the rage evaporated and the skinny cop ratcheted the cuffs onto pliant wrists.
“There’s a good lad, Kevin,” said the paunchy cop, “nice and calm now. No more fucking me about.”
“You’re under arrest for affray,” began the skinnier cop, sucking back blood from a split lip with one hand and fumbling his pocket-book out of a pocket with the other. “You do not have to say anything…..”
“Amen to that,” said the paunchy cop, interrupting. “But he will have to say very sorry with sugar on top to one or two people if he wants some medical attention.”
“….but it may harm your defence…”
“Listen, son. Balls to all that. Just get it written up right and get that lip looked at. I think you and me are here for a while with these clowns. That means a bit of OT and you’ll want some compo from this wanker too.
“‘Scuse me, Sister,” he continued, examining his right palm. “You got a plaster for this?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“And you’re sure about the address, Rob?”
“No. But that’s where the Probation Service have him lodged, according to LIO.”
“And he’s been properly nicked for a relevant, arrestable offence?”
“By me at 1223 hours, not at the premises I’m after searching.”
“Couldn’t you just hit him with your stick? Why did you have to use a car?”
“Not ideal, but it did stop him running. Silly bastard made me break a sweat but nobody cries about that. Don’t get me started on my bunions. It’s just not fair.”
“So how long will he be out of the game?”
“Christ knows. Bed rest with free drugs has got to appeal more than a concrete bunk and sweaty cops shouting at you.”
“Balls.”
“Indeed.”
“Right, well, give the hospital some stick. Find somebody who’s pro and get him discharged pronto. Little prick’s messed up my wall chart.”
“Tossing his flat’s a good way to fill some time.”
“Mmm. Yes. Your warrant. And you’re looking for?” D.I. Ray Newbould held his fountain pen poised millimetres above the signature space on the search form and flexed his eyebrows.
Just read the bloody thing, thought Harkness. I’ve typed it all out in black and white. Oh, hang on – you already have. You just need to make me go through the motions to show your mettle and cover yourself. Here I am, freshly suited and booted, having detained the prime suspect, briefed the SIO and typed up a Section 18 application in record time, and you’re brushing up on your management skills.
“Well boss, I have reasonable grounds for suspecting there are, on the aforementioned premises, items relating to the murders for which Mr Firth was arrested, or relating to some other similar or connected arrestable offence. I’m thinking clothing, footware, petrol, cigarette lighters and the like, but I’ll apply my informed discretion as the situation demands. Within the confines of the legislation, naturally.”
The office seemed to shrink as the mercury climbed. Dingy as the room was, the lights and VDU had been turned off to minimise heat. Harkness’s latest change of clothes was already clinging to him and Newbould’s palms had blotted the search form.
“Right. Good.” Newbould signed the application emphatically enough to tear a gouge in the carbon paper. “Here you go. OSU is waiting for you outside the flat. Found ‘em tossing it off, playing cards in the canteen. They’re on double bubble so make sure you give them something to do.”
“Good grief. You do leave the office now and again.”
“Keep me posted. Oh, and while I think on, you’ve forgotten something.”
“A peck on the cheek or something a little more committed?”
“This arrest. Bit weak, isn’t it?”
“That’s a bit harsh. I’ll grant you it’s circumstantial. For now.”
“I’m worried it might stay that way. And you’ve got history with this chap.”
“I know him well. That can only be good.”
“Or it might blinker you. And play badly at court.”
Harkness sat down again and crossed his arms. He sighed and looked for inspiration at Newbould’s wall-chart, where errant lives had been ironed into linear form, intersecting lines in definite, primary colours, chaos made to look like causation. He admired and distrusted its neatness.
“Yes,” he said, surprising himself. “It might do both. But look at it this way; Firth will do for now.”
“Come on, Rob. Try a bit harder. Pretend I’m a custody sergeant who doesn’t like you. Come to think of it, none of them do.”
“I’ll lead with the weak stuff, then. He’s a convicted arsonist stooging around the scene of an arson attack. He runs when challenged.”
“I’d run from you. You’ve got form for locking him away, and you’ve got a face like a baboon’s arse right now.”
“It gets better. Next, the attack may well have been aimed at Dale Murphy. As you’ll know if you’ve had a go at that big pile of paper I left you, he’s the prison officer once interviewed by this very department for knocking the inmates about. One of them was Firth.”
“That it?”
“Someone had a scrap with Murphy in the local last night. Murphy hasn’t been seen since. Not long afterwards, the house goes up. That someone might be Firth. We can’t be sure ‘cause someone broke into the pub and had the CCTV footage away.
Someone also gave Slowey a thumping when he went there to follow up.”
“We should get a grip of this ‘someone’. He’s a menace. In the meantime, I suppose your version of ‘someone’ will do.”
“Is that a vote of confidence?”
“You know how it is, Rob. Sometimes you get to the polling station and can’t find a candidate you actually like. So you just have to pick the one who looks the most harmless.”
“You should be a motivational speaker.”
“Enough of this banter, then. You crack on with Firth. Do it by the book and don’t embarrass me. Try to think of your next promotion board as well as your next court appearance.”
“That all?”
“I’m not entirely convinced he’s our man so this enquiry will be proactively horizon-scanning,” said Newbould, seeming pleased that he’d finally managed to cram that phrase into a sentence. “Keep the enquiry up to date and that means grow up and talk to Biddle.”
“Any press interest yet?”
“Why else would I still have my tie on? It’s like bloody Tenko in here.”
“Do me a favour then. Get Firth’s and Murphy’s faces on the news channels. Any and all sightings. Still need to prove they were both scrapping in that pub and where they got to afterwards.”
“Already done, Rob. I do read your stuff, eventually. Oh, and I nearly forgot something else. Well, two quick things actually.”
Harkness paused, half-standing.
“You still look like shit. Do something with your face.”
“And?”
“Biddle’s got Slowey’s services when he’s free. With my blessing. He’s less likely to get hurt that way. If you want him back, talk to Biddle.”
Harkness smiled beatifically and backed out of the office. He contemplated showing his face in the enquiry office, being civil to Biddle and asking nicely for one of the road-legal, fully functional cars that had doubtless been allocated to the team by now. Then he cast his mind forward to his destination and decided that the moribund Mondeo was far more in keeping, besides which nobody would want to steal it and anyone vandalising it would struggle to make matters worse. In any case, he didn’t have the time to log it back in and explain why he’d turned the back end into half an accordion.