by TL Dyer
‘My name’s Steve. I’m a police officer. Got yourself in a bind here, but you’ll be alright now.’
‘Steve,’ a voice behind me says. I turn. Sacha shakes her head; there are no other casualties. She peers around me to the driver, as surprised as I am that she’s still alive.
‘Paramedic,’ I say, urging her with my eyes.
She looks at the traffic backing up. ‘I’ll go see where they are.’
Her footsteps retreat quickly as I search the interior for anything that might give me a clue who this girl is. But likely if she has a bag, it’s either be out on the road somewhere or in the passenger footwell, the one buried under the front end of the car.
‘Hey, can you hear me?’ I try again, drawing my other knee onto the seat to get closer. I touch my hand to her forehead and watch her eyelids twitch. ‘Come on now. How about a name at least, so I know who I’m talking to.’
Give her a chance. Please god, just give her a chance until the paramedics get here.
The eyelids part and a glimmer peeks from beneath them.
‘Well, hello. That’s better. Good of you to join me.’
I keep my voice calm, imagining what she sees, how all this must look.
‘It’s alright. You’re okay. I’m PC Fuller. Steve. You’re safe.’
Her breath is shallow, and growing faster as her situation emerges, the picture becoming clear. A soft whine seeps through her throat. Her eyes land on mine, somewhere between petrified and pleading. It’s a look I’ve seen so many times, and never get used to.
‘It’s okay, darling. You’ll be alright. We’ll have you out of here as quick as we can. Why don’t you tell me your name?’
Her hand shakes where it lies in her lap, the other does the same by her side. I take off my jacket, lay it over her up to her shoulders. It’s long enough to cover the bottom of the steering wheel in its wrong position.
‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’
Her chin trembles as she speaks. ‘Anna,’ she says. A whisper. And then, perhaps because she’s addressing an officer, she adds, ‘Anna Johnson.’
‘Well, Anna. Try not to worry. Help’s coming and we’ll have this sorted before you know it. But I want you to do me a favour and try to keep your head still, okay? Do you feel any pain?’
She takes in her surroundings, eyes roaming all around, but coming back to me with nothing. Voices blare from the radio. I turn down its volume.
‘Do you remember where you were going, Anna?’
She looks beyond the empty windscreen, perhaps catching sight of the state of the car, perhaps unsure whether any of this is real or if she’s asleep.
‘Or where you’d been?’ I ask, drawing her attention back even as my own is distracted by the rapid thump of boots on tarmac behind me. I glance over my shoulder, my heart falling through the floor. It’s not the paramedics.
‘Two seconds, Anna. I’ll be two seconds and right back. Understand?’
She blinks, which I take to mean yes and climb out to speak to the fire crew.
‘Steve. What’ve we got?’
Despite my desperation for a crew in green, the capable presence of Fire Incident Commander Graham Humphreys is more than welcomed. He pulls on his gloves as he approaches. All business. Ready to go. His men behind are already unravelling the hose while they await instruction.
I wait until we’re close to explain. ‘One female casualty, Graham. But I couldn’t say for how much longer.’
He’s looking at the damage, and can guess the rest. He’s seen enough of these, same as I have.
‘No easy way out,’ I say. ‘The roof will have to come off, at least. But you know better than me.’
‘Paramedic?’ he asks, looking behind him, but all we see are the two fire trucks, a row of police units, and the articulated lorry holding back the traffic.
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
Graham nods to his boys to examine the area for spilled fuel and other substances while I radio Control for an ETA on the paramedic.
‘We’ll make the scene safe, then assess where to cut,’ Graham says, and moves away to instruct his men, adding, ‘But we need that paramedic.’
Control tells me there’s been some trouble on one of the estates in town that’s sucked in some of their resources, but assures me a crew is on their way from another area and will be with us imminently.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I seethe. Imminent could be anywhere from immediately to thirty minutes or more. And we’ve got to get her out of there now.
I climb back in the car. ‘Anna. Anna!’
Her closed lids peel open.
‘Stay awake, love. Stay awake and talk to me.’
She jolts her eyes right, at the quick movements of the fire crew, the drag of the hose over the ground.
‘Don’t worry. They’re making sure the car is safe, that’s all. They’ve got it covered.’
Head still against the headrest, she looks back my way. Her eyes are wider than they were before, and under the glaring lights from the fire truck, they’re a very soft blue. A tear slides down her cheek. She’s just a kid.
‘You’re doing incredibly well, but we want you out of here, okay?’
Her lips are pale and dry. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Of course you are. But right now you have all the best men and women of Newport at your feet. All you have to do is sit here and keep me company while they do their work.’ I smile like there’s nothing to worry about. ‘How old are you, Anna?’
Her voice catches in her throat when she tries to speak. She coughs and tries again. ‘Nineteen.’
‘Local?’
‘Rogerstone.’
‘Not far from home, then. Is that where you were going?’
Half closed lids flutter as her mind trudges through the fog looking for an answer. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you do? Are you a student?’
Her skin is as pale as chalk. Or maybe it only seems that way because her ebony hair is in such contrast to it. ‘Training to become a veterinary nurse.’
‘Really? Could have done with you when my son went through his home aquarium phase. Never could keep the little buggers alive. We stick to dogs these days. Can’t go wrong with a dog.’
‘Fish are tricky,’ she says, with a quiver in her lip.
‘Bloody right there. Cost me a fortune. Had to replace them when he was at school. Did you know that no two goldfish look the same?’
Her throat bobs when she swallows. ‘Not many fish in the practice.’
‘That’s because they never make it that far. How do you even know when a fish is sick? No, don’t tell me. It’s green around the gills.’
A soft breath escapes through her nose. ‘Stops eating, listless.’
‘And I suppose floating on its side isn’t a good sign either.’
She wants to laugh, but the situation won’t allow for that.
‘What’s your favourite animal?’ I ask, hearing another siren and hoping to Christ it’s who I think it is. ‘Are you one of those horsey types?’
She gives the smallest of smiles, but her eyelids grow heavy with the effort. ‘Like horses. But smaller too,’ she says. Her eyes close and I glance over my shoulder, relieved as fuck to see the green of a paramedic vehicle, and yellow of an ambulance further behind but coming up quick.
‘How small, Anna?’ I raise my voice to snap her awake. ‘Dogs? Cats? Guinea pigs? Those impossibly small hamsters?’
She nods her answer.
‘Anna? Anna, look at me.’
She does, cracking her eyelids open.
‘Paramedics are here. I need you to stay alert, alright? Keep looking at me if you can. Granted, it’s not a pretty sight, but do your best.’
‘Tired.’
‘I know, sweetheart. And you’ll rest soon. But for now we need to know how you’re feeling so we can help you.’
‘Feel nothing,’ she says, eyes rolling under her lids.
Reaching ov
er, I steady her head between my hands, keeping it straight as I gently pull it away from the headrest. The eyelids come open like one of those dolls that sleeps when you lie it down and wakes when you pick it up again.
‘Please, Anna. It’s important you don’t rest just yet. Keep talking to me, okay?’
I don’t know what she hears in my voice, but her features crumple and she starts to cry.
‘Do you want me to hold your hand?’ I ask.
She nods between sniffs. With my right hand still holding her head up, I reach under my jacket with the left to take hold of her fingers. Her skin is soft but cool, her grip weak.
‘This is Anna,’ I tell the flush-faced female paramedic who appears at the window. ‘She has a laceration to her forehead, but it’s stopped bleeding.’
I gesture with my eyes to the foot well. The paramedic looks too.
‘Hi Anna, I’m Charlotte. I’m here with Ben and we’ll have you out of here before you get pneumonia. Is there any pain, my love?’
Anna moves her head a little side to side to indicate no, her hair scratching over my hands.
‘Head okay? Arms? Legs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Righto, my lovely. Sounds as if you’re doing great. Ben here will pop this neck brace on you as a precaution. And, Officer, let’s swop places so I can take a closer look.’
Once Ben has the neck brace fitted, I let go of Anna’s hand and tell her I’ll be right back. She’s uncertain, I know she is, but there’s no time for comforting. The quicker she’s assessed, the quicker we get this damn tin can apart and her out of it.
Graham’s team prepares the cutting equipment as I return to the driver’s side. One of the men punches the jagged glass out from the door frame so I can lean my arm in.
Anna’s head has gone again to the headrest, but she turns to look for me. I find her hand again and squeeze it tight. Charlotte undoes the top two buttons of Anna’s dress so she can attach the monitor pads. She wears a thin gold chain around her neck, and in its centre her name in gold letters lies clinging to her skin.
Charlotte glances to the footwell, but she’ll only be seeing the same thing I saw, the plastic of the dash and twisted shards of metal. When I look to Anna, her eyes are closed.
‘Anna.’ I squeeze her hand.
‘Anna, wake up, darling,’ Charlotte shouts, as if she’s addressing a geriatric. ‘Stay awake, my love.’
Anna’s eyes open, but Charlotte’s retreating quickly from the car. She runs towards Graham. He nods and they hurry into action.
‘It’s alright, Anna.’ I lean in through the broken window. ‘Time to get you out. You ready?’
She looks terrified, but nods once. Then says, ‘I don’t know.’
Graham shouts to his team that they’ll start with the door, then the A post – the one holding the windscreen, before moving through each post in sequence to remove the roof. They don’t say what comes next, but it’ll be her seat, and that’s where things become more complicated.
‘I’m coming back in. I won’t leave you, I swear. Okay?’ I grip her hand and wait for her to acknowledge me. When she does, I let go and run to the other side.
Charlotte puts a hand on my arm to stop me. ‘I need to monitor her.’
‘I can do that. Just tell me what to do.’
Her lips press into a thin line.
‘Charlotte, she trusts me. That goes a long way, doesn’t it?’
I don’t wait for her answer, there’s not enough time. I return to kneeling on the seat, ignoring the shards of glass that dig into my calves, and take hold of Anna’s hand again. My jacket has slipped from her shoulders and I tuck it in place, tell her to focus on me. When she does, I explain what will happen. I say there’ll be some noise but that I’m staying here with her and all she needs to do is keep looking at me and keep talking and she’ll be fine. We’ll get her out of here, she’ll be fine. I say it again and again, until even I believe it.
Chapter 5
They take her to Cardiff. The City Royal would have been closer, but the University Hospital has specialist surgeons, more equipment, and for tonight a guaranteed, dedicated team. I go with her in the ambulance, hold her hand the whole way there, talk when she opens her eyes, call her name when she closes them. But by the time the back doors of the ambulance crash open, her grip on my fingers is so loose, it falls away when I let go. I rush with the crew down the corridors, my job now to collect any evidence should she not make it. A blood sample before a transfusion, clothing, jewellery, everything that could piece together what happened. She herself hasn’t told me anything. And when it came down to it, rightly or wrongly, I chose to give her comfort instead of a grilling. At moments like this you’re forced to use your better judgement, your instinct even, and suffer the consequences afterwards. What else can you do?
*
‘That’s everything,’ the nurse says, handing me the plastic bag in which are Anna’s dress, denim jacket, underwear, a smaller clear bag with her jewellery – a bundle of rings, the gold chain and pendant, ANNA – another with a vial of blood, and another with a saliva swab. I sign and print my name and job title across the paperwork, then take the bag over to Sacha along with the glove with Anna’s phone inside.
‘Take these back to the station. I’ll meet you there.’
She doesn’t reach for it right away, but looks up at me from where she sits on one of the plastic chairs. The shadows under her eyes tells me she’s at that point in the night where she’s hitting the wall. But aren’t we all? Our job’s not done yet. I gesture again with the bag and she reaches up to take hold of it, gets to her feet.
‘We did what we could, Steve,’ she says, standing close enough that I smell the night air and exhaust fumes clinging to her uniform.
‘The sooner we put these through the system, the sooner her parents can have them back. Start on the paperwork and I’ll follow on once I’m done.’
Sacha doesn’t protest, not like some of the others would. She doesn’t say there’s no more to be done here, or complain about doing the donkey work, or insist I return to the station with her immediately. What she does instead is trust me. Not as her superior, which I’m not, but as someone with more hours on the job than her.
The soft peel of her shoes over the linoleum floor gets lost to the insistent noises of a busy NHS emergency ward in the middle of another hectic night shift. I find a coffee machine and root about in my pocket for the right change.
‘Steve.’
I turn to see Fred Dalston, his sergeant’s lid propped under his arm. Jaffa hovers behind with his hands in his pockets and his face solemn, like he’d rather be somewhere else. You and me both, Jaffa. Some parts of the job are just shit.
‘Sorry I didn’t get there sooner,’ says Dalston. ‘A mini riot broke out up at the Stow Estate and I had to cover Jonesy. Some plonker with one of them Samurai swords. Thought he was some sort of martial arts expert. Seen better knife work from my sister’s three-year-old tackling a plate of peas. Anyway, bit of a crap one for you, mate.’
His hand lands on my arm while I’m still looking at the change in my palm, trying to do the maths.
‘Want a coffee?’ I poke at the coins, not sure I’ve got enough for one, let alone two. Dried blood stains my fingers.
‘I just passed Sacha and told her to wait in the car for you. You’re done here, Steve.’
‘I’m waiting for the parents. They should be here any minute.’
I don’t think I have enough change after all. Prices at these machines are bloody extortionate.
‘Family Liaison’s with them, and me and Jaffa will do the rest.’
‘I was with the girl. Better it be me.’
‘Steve.’
Damn machines. Five pence short. I drop the coins in my pocket and turn. Dalston’s standing closer than I expect and his eyes are as hard as stones. ‘Get back to the station.’
‘No disrespect, Sarge, but they’ll be wanting answers and I was at
the scene.’
‘So was Jaffa.’
I look over his shoulder at my colleague and try to recall seeing him there. If anything, he was probably directing traffic half a mile down the road.
‘Fred—’
‘Look at yourself, Steve.’
My friend’s voice is barely above a whisper, but firm enough for me to know he means business. His eyes roam down over me and I follow their gaze to see what the hell he’s talking about.
Before they wheeled Anna into the operating theatre, someone passed my jacket to someone else, who returned it to me. I had put it on out of habit and so I wouldn’t have to carry it. But looking at it now, I notice the burgundy smudges in sweeping streaks from the hem of the yellow and silver reflective material upwards. More of it is tattooed on the sleeves.
I shrug the jacket off and turn it inside out to the lining. But then I see the dark patches on my utility vest, and when I remove that, it’s on my polo shirt, too. I don’t even know how it got there, but you’d think a black uniform would hide it. Not well enough. I look to Dalston, but his eyes are on my arms. I hold them out and turn them, the heavy jacket dangling from one hand. All down my forearms to my hands is a deep red, as if some bored toddler with a paintbrush and a tub of fence paint has used me as a blank canvas. I tuck my arms under the jacket and clutch it in front of me, but the sergeant is shaking his head.
‘Return to the station with your partner, PC Fuller. That’s an order.’
I clamp my lips together. This might be the first time he’s ever issued me a direct order, and he knows I won’t dispute it. I’m close to. I was with Anna right there until almost the end. She never regained consciousness after she got here, which means I was the last person she spoke to, the last person she looked at. But no matter what my reasoning or beliefs, my job is not to question my superior’s directives. My job is to do as I’m told.
I’ve only gone a few steps down the corridor when he adds, ‘And Fuller? Once you and Sacha finish your reports, go home. Your shift’s done.’