by Alex Pitt
“Yes,” I nodded. “He would have killed Superman if they didn’t have mothers with the same damn name. Trust Zack Snyder to come up with that one.”
“Who?” Vince asked quizzically, but we were interrupted by a large group of kids jostling past us.
“Maybe we should move,” Daisy suggested and we set off, throwing dirty looks at the ten college kids who had tried to squeeze through the tight gap between us and the college sign.
That was the moment I heard it. There was a noise that pierced right to the centre of my heart and distilled fear into my bones: a siren. An ambulance siren to be exact and, a few moments after hearing it, it came screeching around the corner, blinding blue lights searing into my eyeballs, and I could see the panicked look on the faces of the driver and the woman sitting next to him.
“Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, did you see the speed they were going?” Vince exclaimed. “That can’t be legal, even for an ambulance.”
Vince was right, and I knew something was up then. I bloody knew it, but it would be a while before I put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The speed they were travelling, the screeching of the tires, the look on their faces. They were rushing to something more serious than a regular ambulance job, that much I knew. Even if it was life or death, I’ve never seen an ambulance travel at such speed or with such urgency. And their faces. I just couldn’t get their faces out of my mind.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Daisy said, coming up to me and stroking my arm. I was still staring at the road, thinking it through in my head. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I’m fine.” Then, deciding I wasn’t going to be a shut-in like Daisy, I added, “There was something wrong with that ambulance.”
“Well, no shit,” Tom rolled his eyes at me. “Someone probably had an accident and they were going to help. It’s what they do.”
Daisy took this a lot more seriously than Tom, and she asked me, “What do you mean? Did you see something?”
“It might just be my mind acting up, slotting together pieces that aren’t even there.” I was still staring at the road. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. “But the speed, the way it screeched around the corner, their faces, they looked like they’d seen something that they couldn’t understand. Something they’d never seen before.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Daisy said comfortingly. “But maybe you’re not. Chances are it was just a normal job, OK?” Her voice was soft. It was enough to break my trance and I locked eyes with her.
I nodded and smiled and we started walked away again. As we did, I noticed a few kids staring at us and they looked away quickly, sharing glances with one another. I could almost hear the muttering, discussing why I was acting so weird and, to be honest, I didn’t blame them. I was acting weird, but it was my gut that had told me something was wrong and I couldn’t ignore that. It was too powerful to ignore.
“So, how was your day?” Daisy asked the group, forgetting that Vince has asked moments before, but trying to break the uncomfortable silence between us all.
“Fine,” I muttered, and the rest nodded in agreement.
Besides English, I was studying Digital Media and Chemistry. Quite a diverse group of subjects but, to be honest, I chose what I enjoyed. I didn’t know if any of them would lead to anything after college but, if I chose subjects I didn’t enjoy, college would be a miserable place for the two years I was destined to spend there. The first year had been quite good overall. I’d made friends, had some laughs, gone to a few house parties, and the subjects were interesting enough, but I was glad the summer was almost here.
I could just imagine the four of us, five now that Daisy was part of the group, hanging out and going to the park and cracking open a few beers and having a good time. Of course, we aren’t old enough to buy alcohol ourselves, being the ripe young age of seventeen, but we had our ways. Vince’s older brother usually sorts us out on that front.
Speaking of ages, it was Daisy’s birthday two weeks before I met her. She looked old for her age, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. She just dressed older, and made sure her make-up was on point each day. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the bartenders were foolish enough to serve her, especially if she wore a low-cut top and flashed them a load of skin.
That thought made me smile and Daisy caught it. I was so glad she was lacking the ability to rifle through my brain and see what images I had in my mind of her, but she gladly returned the smile. Her smile was big, and she did a flutter of the eyelashes, something which always made my tummy swirl. I could almost feel the sausage roll I’d had for lunch easing its way up my throat. God, she looked so beautiful.
The five of us hung out many times in the weeks leading up to summer, but this wasn’t to be one of them. Maybe Daisy was busy, or Scooter was busy, or Tom had to hurry home, or Vince couldn’t stay out, or maybe a combination of several of those, I can’t remember now. All I can remember is that, when we came to Queensway Fish Saloon, she wrapped her arms around me and I could smell her scent and feel her heart racing. It made me happy. Happier than I think I’d ever been before I met her. She completed me and I almost opened my mouth to tell her that, but the lads were still around and I thought I’d save that for when we were alone.
As I watched her skip into the afternoon sun, I could feel something. Another instinct perhaps, but one even stronger than before. I could feel someone watching us, a shadow, two piercing eyes following the girl as she waltzed along in front of me. There was someone behind where I was standing, I was sure of it. But, as I turned around to look, the shadowy figure slinked behind the chip shop and blended in with the crowd.
Chapter Five
Richard
The day started out OK. When I say that, what I really mean is that I wasn’t woken by next door’s dog barking outside my house and scaring the living shit out of me, like it had done every other day that week. I’d told myself that if it happened again, I’d go around there and say something. The only problem with that is that my neighbours aren’t the most reasonable people I’ve ever met. In fact, they are bloody horrible.
Instead, the day started out with the much more peaceful beeping of my alarm. I groaned when I heard it, wondering why I’d even bothered to set the alarm when I had nothing to be up for, and sat up in bed, lazily rubbing sleep from my eye. I watched it crumble and fall to my belly, then quickly noted the time: half 7. Even at this time, sunlight was shining through the blinds to my bungalow, shedding light on the empty beer cans around me.
“Oh shit,” I whispered to myself, a sudden realisation that I’d been out the night before, but couldn’t for the life of me remember what had happened. The last thing in my memory was watching The Jeremy Kyle Show yesterday afternoon. From that point on, I remembered nothing.
I was even more disturbed when another groan radiated from under the covers beside me. I froze, stock-still, wondering if I’d imagined it. Wondering if I should run and grab the knife, and then realising that I’m sure a burglar wouldn’t have decided to catch some shut-eye under the covers with me before robbing the joint.
Slowly, delicately, I pulled back the sheets.
There was a girl lying there. And she was so naked.
“Oh, Jesus Christ…” I muttered. “Jesus bloody Christ.”
It wasn’t that seeing a naked girl in my bed was a strange sight, but there were two thoughts that had struck me the moment I’d noted her presence: the first, how the hell had she got there? I presumed I must have invited her myself, but I had no memory of doing so. Given the piles of beer cans and the general whiff of booze in the air, I wasn’t surprised at all. The other thing that concerned me was that she looked about half my age.
I had just celebrated my thirty-third birthday, although I think celebrated is the wrong word in this case. I’d started the night by going to the pub with a few friends, and it ended with us falling through my front door at three in the morning. That has been last Saturday,
and the drinking didn’t seem to have stopped all week.
The girl lying next to me was clearly much younger than myself. Nineteen or twenty at the most. Probably younger. I watched her breasts rise and fall for a second, bright blonde hair covering most of her face. I rose from the bed, stepping over the empty cans.
Stumbling around, I reached for my boxers and wrenched them on. I always slept naked, so that was no big deal, but it was just more proof that me and this girl had been doing the dirty last night, if the sight of her naked body wasn’t confirmation of that already.
My phone rang. It was a horrible tune and I hated myself a little bit each time it rang for not taking the trouble to go into the phone settings and change it, but I promised myself that one day I would.
“Shit,” I mumbled, reaching between cans and hitting the answer button. “Hello?” I called out.
No response. Not immediately. Then, “Detective?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Officer Cooper. God, are you alright?”
“Yep,” I said, rubbing my left eye and yawning. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because we’ve spoken on the phone many, many times, and I thought you’d be able to recognise my voice by now. And you sound absolutely shattered.”
“Crikey, Cooper. I do know your voice. I just wasn’t thinking. It’s half seven in the fucking morning. What do you want?” This was firm but I spoke it in a quiet voice, not wanting to wake the girl up. The girl who I still had no idea how she’d ended up in my bed.
“We need you down at the station now, Detective. And, if I were you, I’d change your tone pretty quickly before you get here. The boss won’t stand for that shit, OK?”
I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out at the phone. Then, I perked up and laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. There was a naked girl in my bed, looking like she’d just been dragged in off the streets, and now I was sticking my tongue out at a police officer over the phone. Why did these things only ever happen to me?
The truth was, I didn’t work for Cooper, or anyone else at the station. Not even ‘the boss’, as she’d put it. Well, technically I do work for them, but the way I saw it, I was doing them a favour. They paid me good money for it but, every time they called me up, it meant that they’d failed. They’d been given a case and they couldn’t put the pieces together, so they needed me. I didn’t work for them in the sense that they could boss me around or fire me at any given moment. They’d needed me on no less than fourteen cases so far, and I had given them results each and every time.
“Alright, Cooper,” I sighed. “I’ll be there. Just give me…” I glanced at the bedside clock again, slotting together a timescale in my head. “I’ll be there at 9, OK?”
“Detective,” Cooper said, and I could hear the solemn undertones in her voice. “Is there any way you could be here sooner. We really need you on this one. A case came in last night, and I’ve been stressing out trying to fit it all together. I can’t. It’s impossible.”
“Yes, yes, I hear what you’re saying, Officer. I’ll be there, I promise, but I have to sort something out first.”
“Can’t it wait, Rich? This is life and death we’re talking about here.”
This stunned me and, for a second, I didn’t quite know what to say. I was used to her calling me at ridiculous hours, but I don’t think I’d ever once heard her use my real name. It shook me to the core, showing me the seriousness of the situation. It had sure-as-shit worked.
“Nine o’clock. No later. I promise.”
“What’s happened?”
I squeezed my eyes shut when she asked me this. I needed her to get off the phone. I had so much to sort in the hour and a half before I was due at the station, and it all started with the girl on my bed. I decided I had to tell Cooper. She’d understand, right?
“There’s a girl in my bed. She’s naked.”
“OK, big deal. I’ve had plenty in my bed too, men and women. What’s the problem?”
“I have no idea how she got here, or even who she is. I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me, Detective. Sort that shit out, OK? We need you here. I know I can’t force you to come, but the boss is gonna pay double for this job. We need you, OK? So, put some clothes on the girl and throw her out of the house, yeah?” So many questions, I thought. How the hell can I keep up with them all? And then she asked me another. “Were you seriously getting pissed on a Wednesday? A fucking Wednesday?”
“Well, I didn’t have a job when I went out last night. I just do this when you, or anybody else, rings me up, and the money keeps me going until the next time I get your call. Which means that, until I get these jobs, every night is a weekend.”
“Listen, Detective,” Becky Cooper said, and I could tell she wanted the final word. “Sort something out with the girl, and I’ll see you at the station in an hour, yeah? No later,” and then she hung up the phone without waiting for an answer.
I didn’t have to take this job and, after the conversation with Becky, I was half inclined not to. But, the truth was, it had been two months since the last case, and money was getting pretty thin. Sure, I’d have more if I stopped spending it on nights out, but I didn’t like to think about that. And besides, if I ever refused a job, they might start looking for someone else to take my place. There weren’t enough private clients needing help to justify not working for the cops. I needed them, almost as much as they needed me.
“Who was that?” a voice next to me said, and I dropped the phone in fright. It wasn’t until then that I realised I’d been clenching it so hard, turning my knuckles white.
“No one,” I muttered, suddenly aware that the girl had her full body on show, equally aware that she didn’t seem bothered by that.
I was also just wearing my boxers, and I scrambled around the floor, collecting my jeans, a stale pair of socks, and a stained t-shirt. I would dress up more before I went to the station, but the girl waking up now hadn’t allowed me the chance to put my clothes on properly. I felt awkward sitting there in my boxers, her eyes tracing up and down my hairy body, despite the fact that she probably saw a hell of a lot more than that last night.
Once I was dressed, I finally asked the question.
“What’s your name?”
She laughed at that. A loud, high pitched, girlish giggle. She only stopped laughing when she saw my face, and realised that I was being completely serious.
“Jesus, baby, how much did you have to drink?” she asked, sitting up in bed and propping a pillow behind her back.
Despite the shock of the whole situation, it was hard to deny how stunningly beautiful she was. She was also covered in scars on her arms, and a few on her legs. I looked at them for a moment, then decided it was probably too personal to ask for the story behind them, so I scurried over to the kitchen and switched on the kettle.
“Tiny place you’ve got here,” she noted. “But cosy all the same. I like it.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, not sure what else to say. I was still waiting for her name. Finally, she gave it.
“I’m April. You’re Rich, yeah? We were both pretty pissed last night, but at least I remember that much.”
“Listen, April,” I said, staring at her through the hole in the kitchen, above the worktop, that gave me a lovely view of the bed. “I’ve got to run to work this morning, so I’m gonna drop you home first. Make sure you’re safe. I’m sure last night was fun, and I wish I could remember it, but I think it’s best if we both went our separate ways.”
She laughed again at that, and I could see the memory of the previous night reflected in her eyes. In it, I was ripping off her clothes and she was removing mine, tracing her fingers over my skin, feeling the muscles, kissing my neck, and dragging me to the bed.
“Baby, you have no idea how good it was. I haven’t had a night like that in a long, long time. I’m used to guys throwing me around and doing whatever they want to
me, but it was different with you. I had a good time, instead of being there to make the guy have a good time.”
“You’re not going to be pregnant are you?” I whispered, concern flashing through my mind.
“No. I’ve got the implant. That didn’t seem to bother you last night though.”
I was barely listening to that last answer because I’d watched her lips when she spoke about the previous men, and a shadow passed over my face. I was used to interrogating people as part of my job, asking them questions and reading there face to see if they were telling the truth or not. A thought had reached the corner of my mind, a thought conjured by the way she spoke about her experience with guys, the way they treated her. I simply had to ask. I had to know.
“Are you a prostitute?”
She didn’t answer straight away, but turned her face towards the wall. That was it, I thought. There was my answer. I’d hooked up with a fucking prostitute. I was sure Becky Cooper would love it when I told her that.
April rolled out of bed and on to her feet, walking over to me and placing her bum on the counter. She clearly wasn’t fazed by her nakedness, and it was hard to resist getting an eyeful of her body. She wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me close to her, moving her lips over my face and down to my neck.
I pushed her away gently and she smiled. It was a sad smile though, and I wondered if she had ever known happiness at all. I hadn’t known what it felt like to be happy in almost six years, when my wife had filed for a divorce. I’d known it was coming for weeks, ever since she’d caught me with my pants down and her sister’s naked body pressed against mine. I’d regretted that night ever since, and the series of one-night stands I’d taken part in had done nothing to ease my conscience.
“No, I’m not a prostitute,” she said at last, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The risk of having a disease had just gone down significantly, but I’d probably still get checked out anyway. Better to be safe than sorry, as they say.
It was plain and simple: my wife was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and there had been a massive hole in my life ever since she left. I didn’t blame her for leaving. I did something stupid, unforgivable, but my heart ached every day we were apart.