Inside Straight

by Ray Banks

  "I got hit in the head."

  "Do you remember who did it?"

  "I don't remember his face."

  "I see."

  "No, he was wearing a ski mask. He threatened me and then—"

  "Can you repeat the months of the year to me in reverse order, please?"

  I blinked. "What's that?"

  "December ..."

  "I know it, I was just—" I cleared my throat. "December, November, October, September, August, July, June, March, February, January," I opened my hands. "Good?"

  He held up a finger in front of me. "I want you to touch my finger, then touch the tip of your nose for me."

  I touched his finger. I touched the side of my nose. The constipated expression became tighter. "Is that bad?"

  He moved away from me. "Have you been sick at all?"

  "I was sick, yes. I don't know how many times. I didn't feel well."

  "Okay."

  "What's going on?"

  "Think we better keep you in, have some tests."

  "I can't do tests." I shook my head. "That's not fair. I'm not well."

  He nodded at me. "A CT scan. X-rays? Just to make sure you haven't hurt yourself too badly, okay?"

  "I didn't hurt myself, someone else did it to me."

  "Okay, good."

  And I found myself ushered to my feet and out of the cubicle, hustled past cold white lights down squeaky floors. I didn't remember much after that. It was cold again, and then it was warmer, and when I opened my eyes I found myself in a darkened room that smelled clean like a fridge. My throat hurt, but I couldn't focus. I blinked a few times and fought a rising panic that said I'd gone blind somehow. When I saw something move in the corner of my eye, the panic stopped. I couldn't get scared now, not while there was someone watching.

  "How are you feeling?" Jacqui's voice, quiet but still the loudest thing in the room.

  I turned my head. She smiled at me. She was sitting by the bed. She was still wearing the clothes she'd been wearing at work, so I guessed it was the same night. My head hurt, but I wasn't going to tell her that. "I think they think I've got a concussion."

  "They'll be keeping you in, then."

  "Overnight, yes. I think so. They scanned my head in this machine thing."

  Her smile grew wider. She blinked. It looked slower than it probably was. I wondered if I was wearing clothes under the blanket. I hoped I was wearing underpants at least.

  "Thanks for stepping in, Graham."

  I made a move to wave my left hand, then waved my right instead. I didn't need her seeing the skin. "Hey, no problem. Don't worry about it."

  She laughed. "I don't know what happened."

  "How are you?"

  "I'm alright." She nodded at her leg. "I got hit."

  I didn't look. Not because I didn't want to look at her leg, but because I didn't trust myself to handle the sight of blood. "Shot?"

  She nodded. "A mere flesh wound."

  I nodded, too. My head felt heavy. "That's good. I'm glad you're okay. I was worried."

  "Were you?"

  I half-closed my eyes. I was getting sleepy, but I didn't want to go to sleep just yet. Someone told me once that if you get hit on the head and you go to sleep afterwards, you die. But then, someone else told me that you shouldn't swallow chewing gum or else it sticks up your insides and you can't go to the toilet anymore. I didn't know if either were true, but I wasn't stupid enough to tempt fate. I opened my eyes, tried to focus on the ceiling. I felt drunk, or how I imagined drunk to feel, since I hadn't actually been that way in about fifteen years. All I remembered about being drunk was being unable to walk or think or speak, and then leaning over a toilet bowl with an open mouth, while I felt as if I was being swallowed up by a world of shadows and stench.

  "It's okay." Her voice was soothing. "You can go to sleep if you want. I'll get out of your hair—"

  "I didn't think you'd do it." My voice was thick as I addressed the ceiling.

  "Do it?"

  "I'm sorry." I breathed in through my nose. My sinuses felt swollen. "I didn't think you'd fight back." I smiled. "I suppose you're a better woman than I thought you were. That's nice."

  There was quiet in the room. For a second, I thought she'd gone, and then I wondered if she'd ever been there in the first place. The doctor had been right and my head wasn't. There was definitely something knocked loose in there that I couldn't quite put my finger on because it was in my head and in order to do that I'd have to drill a hole or else bust an eardrum or maybe go in through the nose ...

  "What was that, Graham?" Jacqui's voice again.

  "You're still there." I turned and saw her. She wasn't smiling anymore.

  "Yeah, I'm still here. What did you say?"

  "When?"

  "Before."

  "I don't remember."

  "About not thinking that I would fight back."

  I didn't remember. I told her that. Exactly. "I don't remember. It's my head. The doctor said I was concussed. So did the lady paramedic. So I suppose that's a second opinion. Do you know that if you go to sleep when you're concussed, you die? You don't wake up."

  She was shaking her head. "I don't know, Graham ..."

  "Do you think that's true? I heard it, but I'm not sure. You hear so many things about stuff like that, it's difficult to know what to believe sometimes."

  "I think if the doctor put you in a bed, you should probably try to get some sleep." She moved from the chair, got to her feet. I saw her leg then. Just above the knee, the white bandages almost glowed in the dark. I stared at them. My stomach felt watery. She approached the bed. "Thank you, Graham. For what you did. You didn't have to do it, but I'm glad you did."

  I smiled. "You're very welcome."

  She patted my hand. "Try to get some rest, alright?"

  "Yes."

  "Make sure you do everything the doctor tells you."

  I closed my eyes. Still smiling. Feeling warm. "Yes, Mum."

  She laughed. It was a soft sound. Not like a woman's laughter at all, which I'd always known to be shrieked and grating. This was a lady's laughter. A woman who'd been raised correctly, not dragged up like most of them I had to work with. Someone with a sound education, decorum and manners. A bit of class.

  I heard the quiet click of her heels as she walked to the door and imagined her closing it behind her, careful not to disturb me. In my mind, I saw her smile. I saw her white teeth, a tiny light in each eye, and I even saw her blow me a kiss goodbye before the final chink of outside light slimmed into nothing.

  She was a good woman. A strong woman. An attractive woman. And I'd saved her life.

  Not bad, Graham. Not bad at all.

  16

  The next morning, my head was clear, but splitting. A chubby nurse brought me a couple of horse pill painkillers which I tried to wash down my throat with a plastic cup of water. She also brought me some breakfast, which amounted to little more than soggy, pre-cooked toast, a child's bowl of Lidl-brand cornflakes and a cup of juice that might've been introduced to an orange once, but didn't really remember much about it.

  Later, a doctor swanned into the room, clearly in a hurry and unable to stay long. He moved my breakfast tray out of the way and, when he thought I wasn't looking, stole a bit of toast. He was young, smelled of aftershave and ink, and proceeded to examine me with all the care and attention expected from a man who routinely handled other people's body parts. By the end of it, I felt violated and raw.

  "When can I go home?"

  He scribbled something down on a piece of paper, didn't look at me as he spoke. "Probably best if we keep you in one more night, just to be on the safe side. You still look a little scrambled. Don't want you wandering off and dying somewhere."

  "So tomorrow, then?"

  He looked at me, apparently surprised that anyone would want to leave. "Yes, tomorrow. If you have anyone you'd like to pick you up—"

  "I don't."

  "-- feel free to tell the nurse."
He smiled and took another crust of toast on the way out. He stopped at the door as two men appeared. He nodded to both of them, then squeezed past the larger of the two.

  The smaller, a gym rat in a good suit, brown from the beds and sporting a careful head of hair, stepped forward with a grin. "Morning, Mr Ellis. And how are we feeling today?"

  One of those Scouse accents that went through me like a drill. I couldn't help myself; I bristled at the sound. "Do I know you?"

  The Scouser showed me his identification. "Detective Inspector Colin Kennedy." He gestured to the beige, bearded mound behind him. "Detective Sergeant Brian Hammond. Mind if we ask you a few questions about last night?"

  "I don't know. I don't feel—"

  "It's okay. Nothing too difficult. Oh, hey ..." He snapped his fingers at Hammond, who reached into his coat pocket and brought out a bottle of Sprite. Kennedy took it from him and handed it to me. "They didn't have any Lucozade, but I reckon Sprite's better for when you're feeling a bit sick, anyway."

  I took the bottle, put it to one side. "Thank you."

  "Sometimes you just need a little prompting, you know?" Kennedy tapped his chest and pulled a face like he was about to belch. "To bring up the wind. Makes you feel better. Tell you, you look better, doesn't he, Brian?"

  The sergeant nodded.

  "Have we met already?"

  "Last night."

  "I don't remember."

  He waved it off. "That's okay. You were in quite a state."

  "Really?" I shifted in bed, sat a little more upright. "I don't remember anything about it. Hope I didn't say anything too stupid."

  "Say anything?"

  "I was concussed."

  "Yes." Kennedy nodded. "That's what the doctor told us. So you're feeling better then?"

  "Yes."

  "No lingering headaches, nausea, nothing like that?"

  "Not at all."

  "That's great to hear. You feel sick, feel free to pop that Sprite."

  "You wanted to ask me some questions?"

  "Eager." Kennedy smiled. "I like that. It's a nice change."

  The sergeant raised his eyebrows. "Unusual."

  "Very unusual. People don't like talking to us normally."

  "Well, I'm sure most of the people you talk to have something to hide, don't they?"

  "That's right enough." Kennedy tapped his notebook. "Alright, well, how about you just tells us in your own words what happened last night."

  "Okay."

  "As you remember it."

  I nodded and told them exactly that. I told them that I arrived for the night shift, early as usual, and I went through the highlights of the shift right up to the count. Then I told Kennedy that I'd been having trouble with the count door all week.

  "How do you mean?"

  "It wasn't locking properly. Which was the case again last night, unfortunately."

  "Something wrong with the mechanism?"

  I smiled, shook my head. "Something wrong with me, most likely. Nobody else seemed to have a problem with it." I gave him a laugh that I hoped sounded suitably self-depreciating.

  He matched my smile, but I didn't think it was genuine. "Maybe it's one of those things."

  "I can't blow bubblegum bubbles, either."

  "Neither can I. That's been holding me back all these years." He looked at his notes. "So you're in the count room, you've just had trouble with the door. What then?"

  "Then we did the count. As per usual."

  "Nothing different about it that you can remember?"

  "Not at all."

  "You're sure?"

  I frowned. "No, there are procedures we follow. There's a process. If there was any deviation from that, we'd notice immediately."

  "Okay, so nobody was acting weird or anything?"

  "Weird? Yes. But that's just the way our staff are."

  "I meant different."

  "Suspicious, I know. And no, nobody was acting suspicious. Not until the robbers came in."

  "How did they come in? Do you remember?"

  I opened my mouth. Hemmed and hawed. "I'm not sure."

  "Well, did they use an implement on the door, did they kick it open—"

  "No, they just came right in."

  Kennedy nodded, wrote something down. "So it wasn't a forced entry?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Okay." More writing.

  The sound of pen against paper made me itchy. "He could've kicked it open. I remember getting a fright, so it must have been sudden."

  "Right, but would you say that your fright came from the intrusion or the gun?"

  "The gun? I don't know. I don't think I can separate the two."

  "That's fine." More notes.

  "I'm sorry, I thought I had this."

  "Sometimes these things just need a little time to ferment." He smiled. It was one of his winning ones, most likely, guaranteed to put the other person at ease. It almost worked. "So the guy comes in. Then what happened?"

  I wet my lips and carried on. I told him that we were hurried out of the count room and forced out into the pit, where we were then held under armed guard.

  "How many of them were there?"

  "Out in the pit?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm not sure. I mean, I saw one mostly. Then there were two in the cash desk, and another one who turned up later when they needed to get out. He had a sledgehammer."

  "Anyone else?"

  I shrugged. "I assume there were a couple of drivers."

  "A couple?"

  "A getaway driver. There was a car outside."

  Kennedy watched me, waiting for me to explain the presence of a second driver, but I didn't because, technically, there was no way I could know about the second driver unless I'd tried to run out the back way. "So there were four inside that you know of."

  "Yes. And we were sat there for a while. I told Jacqui and Tintin—"

  "Tintin?"

  "Sorry, Douglas. He's our head cashier. You've probably already spoken to him." I smiled. "I just see him and I think of Tintin."

  He nodded. He could see the resemblance. "So what did you tell them?"

  "I said that we should keep quiet and look after ourselves. The company policy is to protect staff first. We didn't want any heroes getting themselves hurt."

  "I see." Kennedy made a note.

  "And then Jacqui went and got herself hurt. She had a spray or something in her hand – a pepper spray?"

  Kennedy nodded.

  "And she went for one of the robbers as they were leaving."

  "They were leaving by this time?"

  "Yes. Sorry. The two who'd done the cash desk came out, and then the one with the sledge hammer put through the glass, and then as soon as the one who'd been watching us – the one with the gun – as soon as he turned to leave, that was when Jacqui went for him. And me, idiot that I am, I tried to stop her. And that's where it gets a bit hazy, I'm afraid."

  Kennedy leafed back a few pages in his notes. "The gun went off, didn't it?"

  "That's right. It went off in the struggle, I think. Jacqui was hurt."

  "You saw her get hurt?"

  I shook my head. "She came in to see me last night."

  "And did the gun go off again after that?"

  "I don't know. I suppose so. It must have."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because I'm still alive. And if it hadn't, he would've shot me, I know it."

  "How do you know?"

  I stared at him. I wasn't smiling anymore. I was someone who'd been through a traumatic experience the likes of which Kennedy would never understand. "You just know."

  "Okay." Kennedy shrugged, appeared to accept it. "Any distinguishing marks?"

  I thought of Jez's DADDY tattoo. I stuck out my bottom lip and pretended to think. "All wearing ski masks and Man City tops as far as I could tell. Is that right?"

  "That's the consensus."

  "Is it a clue? I mean, do you think it's an M.O.?"

&n
bsp; "An M.O.?" Another capped smile from Kennedy while Hammond chuckled in the corner of the room. The sergeant sounded like a slow-draining sink.

  I maintained my dumb innocence. "Like, have there been other robberies with the same get-up?"

  Kennedy smiled, shook his head. "A football strip's just a cheap and disposable uniform, Mr Ellis. Probably don't even support City."

  "Ah, okay." I glared at the sergeant, who was still laughing to himself. "It was just a thought."

  "No, that's good." Kennedy frowned at Hammond, whose face became straight once again. "You keep thinking. Anything you think might help, doesn't matter how trivial you think it might be, let us know. You never know what's important at this stage. How are you doing otherwise?"

  "Not bad. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

  "That's good. No lasting damage, then?"

  "Just a knock on the head."

  "Good to hear it." Kennedy put his notebook away and glanced across at Hammond, who made a move for the door. "We'll let you get on and convalesce then, eh?" He plucked a business card from a holder and handed it to me. "I know we always say this, but really, anything you remember, just give us a ring. Like I said, doesn't matter how trivial."

  I looked at his card. It was minimal, tasteful. "You having trouble?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Finding them. The people who did it. You sound as if they didn't leave you much to go on."

  His smile looked fixed and sore. "Well, they were professionals, let's put it that way. They didn't leave us much, but sometimes it doesn't take much, know what I mean?" He nodded at the card. "Like I said, anything you remember. We'll find 'em anyway, but it's the little details that secure the conviction."

  I nodded. I bet it was.

  17

  Against my better judgement, and because I didn't have enough money on me for a cab, I called Clive that afternoon and asked him to pick me up the next morning.

  Clive was my only real friend. We'd both started around the same time, grown up on the tables with each other, but while Clive had jumped to the ships the first chance he got, I'd stayed where I was and ground away at promotion. Clive was always the less career-conscious of us. In fact, I always secretly considered Clive to be my shadow self. I knuckled down and did the hard work of learning my craft; he gallivanted off around the world. I eschewed the party life for one of quiet geekery and careful saving; he drank and whored and gambled his money away seconds after the cheque cleared. People thought me humourless, a bit of a stick-in-the-mud; there weren't many people who didn't like Clive, and those that didn't were normally management so they didn't count. When I thought about it, having Clive as my confidant was about the saddest thing in the world, and there was a part of me that was positive he took the mickey out of me behind my back. As a result, I didn't think about it very much, and I never told him anything too personal.