No Further Action

by TL Dyer

Will do. See you then. And Tricia? Put down the ice cream, turn off the cop shows & get some sleep. It’s 3 in the morning!

  I smile as I picture her reading the message, but it’s a smile that fades when she replies.

  At least I have an excuse. What’s yours, Officer?

  Chapter 26

  I catch a few hours’ sleep, and get up before anyone else. It’s Saturday, which means Dan won’t see daylight until gone noon and Ange will take advantage of her rotational weekend off to have a lie in. Last night’s drizzling rain has cleared to leave a bright morning, only a few white clouds drifting across the otherwise empty blue sky. Despite my lack of sleep, I feel the urge to get up, to move, to get outside.

  After a quick shower, I lace up my walking shoes, slip on a fleece jacket, and grab Rumpole’s lead and my backpack from the coat peg. Less than enthused, the aging Staffie heaves his head from the bed with a look that translates to, Not a hope in hell. This is his usual response to the idea of a walk these days, but being as we don’t often make it out of the door until the sun’s on its way down rather than coming up, he must think I’ve lost my mind. He might be onto something.

  I crouch to scratch his fur, hitting the sweet spot behind his ear so he leans his head into my hand.

  ‘Come on, old man. What do you say? Some clean air to blow out the cobwebs, make us feel young again?’

  Rumpole’s groan of satisfaction vibrates through my fingers, and while I’m on his good side, I clip the lead to his collar. The sound alone activates his legs. When I stand, he shuffles himself to do the same, getting onto all fours with a grunt and a puff of air through his nostrils.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ I say, checking the pockets of the fleece have enough dog bags, then walking him down the hall to grab my keys from the side table. Outside the air is crisper than it looks. I pull up the zip on the jacket, and with a little tug on the lead for encouragement, Rumpole gets up from where he’s downed his backside by the front step as I was locking up. Just a short walk to see how he goes. But we’re less than halfway down the street when he hits his stride, tail up, all four legs working in unison almost to a trot, nose dipped to the ground and leading the way for both of us.

  We take a different route, ducking down the lane between the houses and crossing through the thin forest to walk alongside the river in the opposite direction to normal. It’s not even eight o’clock yet, so with no one else around, I release Rumpole’s lead from his collar and watch as he strays further from me, going on ahead and pausing only to familiarise himself with this part of our neighbourhood and those it belongs to.

  ‘Yeah, you get it, boy, don’t you?’ I say, half to myself, because Rumpole’s too far ahead and lost to his exploring to take any notice. Too busy throwing off the lid of that box and stretching his limbs, waking up, sucking in a long, clean breath and seeing things afresh.

  We follow the track for a couple of miles before we find a small jetty reaching out no more than two metres over the edge of the river. Rumpole claims it first, his claws tapping as he circles the wooden planks, nose snorting between the slats, tail batting furiously at thin air. When I draw closer, he looks up to make sure I can see what he does.

  ‘I like your thinking, mate,’ I say, dropping down the banking from the path.

  Rumpole circles a couple more times before dropping his backside to the jetty, legs out beneath him, tongue flapping over his teeth. I sit on the boards beside him, drop my backpack from my shoulder and open it for a bottle of water and his collapsible bowl. Drool seeps from his black lips as he waits for me to pour, and before I’m done he’s head down, snout and tongue flicking half of it over the side to decorate the planks. When he pauses, I top up the bowl some more, and take a few sips from the bottle myself, its contents lukewarm.

  I lean back on my hands, the sun’s early morning rays strong on my face, the river before me tumbling over stone and over itself on its continual journey south to the coast. I close my eyes to listen, take it all in, this rare moment of solitude, of peacefulness, knowing even as I try to absorb as much of it as I can, that it can’t last.

  Rumpole falls silent beside me, and I open one eye to check on him. He knows my every movement, and at the crack of my eyelid he peers up at me from where he’s stretched out on his belly, his chin on his paws, settled now and sleepy after his workout. I’m more than a bit envious at the proficiency with which he can switch from alert to comatose.

  ‘I know someone who would have loved you,’ I say, imagining Anna crouching next to us on the boards, oohing and aahing as she rubbed Rumpole’s ears and stroked his head, and I imagine him rolling over and her laughing and scratching his belly. I reach out and run my clawed fingers over his short fur until he does just that, easing first onto his side, before keeling over, limbs collapsing wherever they fall, a thin rasp of satisfaction whistling through his nose.

  ‘Yeah, you don’t fool me. You’re a sucker for a bit of attention, aren’t you, old man? Eh?’

  His long chesty growl of pleasure makes me laugh, but it’s a laugh that catches before it’s fully out. My throat tightens as if someone’s wrapped a cord around my neck and is choking me with it. My eyes lose focus and I snatch my hand away from Rumpole, clamp the back of it to my mouth and stare out across the river wondering what the hell is wrong with me. My breath quickens, blowing hot puffs against my skin. And in my feet there’s a tingling that’s spreading up from my toes to my ankles to my legs, and I’m not sure whether it’s pins and needles or just straight up numbness.

  From the river, I look to the boards I’m sitting on, to my legs I can see but not feel, and to my hand as I pull it from my mouth. But it’s all wrong. Like the edges of a dream that’s caving in, one I’m not about to wake up from this time.

  Much as I’ve tried to deny it, I know what it is. I’ve heard about it enough, seen it enough. I’ve calmed real ones and even pacified a few fake ones, but that’s not the point. I don’t panic. Ever. I can’t afford to. So I can only think it must be something to do with being here. It’s too quiet, too alone, too much space and it’s crushing me, I can’t breathe.

  With hands unsteady, I force my limbs into action, tipping the rest of the water from the bowl and packing up the bag in a hurry. I clip on Rumpole’s lead and ignore the look he gives me, ignore the unease that’s flooding my body and for which the only thing I can think of to chase it away is to keep moving. I throw the bag strap over my shoulder, tug on the lead, and jog up the banking, Rumpole heaving himself up behind.

  My eyes are fixed dead ahead at a target I focus all my energies on, and I only slow the pace when we’re minutes from home and whatever this is subsides. It’s also when I notice that my partner is panting heavily.

  *

  After breakfast, I leave Rumpole flat out in his bed, his food too much effort to touch, and head out in the car. I’ve had two calls and a text message from Dalston, enquiries about a game of squash this afternoon ‘if I’m up to it’. What does he mean by that, I’m thinking, as I hit the motorway, going west. Then I remember, touching my hand to the back of my skull where the swelling has come down now but it’ll be a while before I’ve got a full head of hair again.

  Ten minutes later I leave the M4 at Coldra and come back on myself before going north, through Christchurch and Bulmore and over the bridge into Caerleon, a pretty little town on the River Usk revered for its sites of Roman architectural significance. Quaint and historic it might be, but it takes all of a few minutes to drive from one end to the other, and I’m already wondering why I’m bothering when I pull into the car park of Sainsbury’s at the edge of town to return Dalston’s message. I tell him I’m unavailable but don’t go as far as to make up an excuse. He’s made it clear where he stands. I don’t need telling twice.

  I drop the phone in the door’s side pocket hoping that’ll be the last I hear of him until I’m back on duty, and edge the car out from the parking space, thinking I’ll drive north to Usk next, scout out the co
llege in case anyone’s in on a weekend. Might be the perfect time to have a word in Brad’s ear. But it’s Saturday morning and the tiny car park has filled up fast, meaning I get stuck waiting for a Land Rover and a Renault Espace to manoeuvre their way around each other, one coming in, the other going out. And it’s while I’m waiting that my luck takes a turn for the better. No, not luck. Hadn’t the bio on the website described him as living in Caerleon? Isn’t that why I came here instead of the college first?

  ‘Just out for a drive, my arse,’ Smithy would say. And maybe he’d be right. I’m even kidding myself now.

  I see him first when he comes from around the front of the store. Brad, Adrian Simons, is jogging between cars with an armful of starch – pancakes or bagels, or whatever it is Americans call breakfast. No blazer today, but a light polo shirt. Trainers instead of brogues. The fringe still flaps in the breeze though, as he exits the car park on foot and takes a right.

  Two sharp blasts on a horn jolt my attention back to where the space ahead has cleared. The car behind is trying to do the same as me and get out of here. I wave an apology and move forward to the exit, looking down the street in time to see Simons getting into the Mustang which he’s left at the kerb. With the one-way road clear to my left, I pull from the exit and slip into a gap in a layby about three cars down from where the smouldering chrome strap-on is parked. Well, I mean, why else does a man take his prized Mustang to the supermarket just to pick up breakfast?

  I’m mulling this over when the man himself hits the indicator and pulls out from the parking space. He passes me, with the aviators on and not a glance my way, and I have to wait for a bus to go by before I can slip in behind.

  Simons is a careful driver despite the proximity of the bus on his tail and the Mustang’s engine capacity – teenage boys and petrolheads would be disgusted at such a waste. All three of us meander down Mill Street, then Castle Street, the bus taking a right at the junction but the Mustang going straight on down High Street to bear left over the bridge I passed earlier. I stay back, giving him plenty of room as he takes another left down New Road, open green fields to one side and gated houses to the other, the kind with slate driveways and cherry blossom trees sheltering wide-paned glass conservatories or granny flat extensions.

  ‘Don’t you fucking dare,’ I mutter to myself. I’ll despise the Yank a little more if his salary stretches this far. But he passes them and we drive on until we come to a turning that the sign says takes us onto Bulmore Road. The houses along this stretch are modest, but still worth a bit I imagine given their location, their freshly whitewashed walls, pebbled driveways and varnished gates. And it’s at one of these the Mustang slows and turns in, tyres peeling over the stones, the driver threading the car centre perfect through the gateposts.

  I bring the car to a stop where I’m partially hidden by the neighbour’s conifers, picking up my phone as a ruse even while keeping my eyes on the house, the road ahead, and what’s behind me in the mirrors. It’s a quiet spot. The two-storey detached looks quiet too, and when I see Simons walk to the double gates to close and lock them, I reach for the door handle. But that’s when the cedar wood front door of the house opens and a young girl comes out, brown hair in pigtails that tap at her back as she skips across the driveway. She holds out her hands to take from him what he’s bought and he bends to kiss the top of her head, for which she beams ear to ear before running back inside. She brushes past another girl at the doorway, this one older but with hair the same colouring as her sister, both that of their father’s, who steps outside when Simons turns from the gates and pulls his keys from his pocket. He throws them to her and she catches them in both hands, her smile more tempered than her sister’s, but there all the same, their desire to please him barely contained. Her footsteps crunch over the driveway as she rounds the house and points the key fob to where the car is hidden from view. He says something as he props his arm over her shoulder, her forehead the right height for him to plant a kiss on, and like that they disappear back inside, closing the door on their Saturday morning.

  A sharp stab pierces my finger and I look down. I’ve been gripping my phone so tight in my hand, the screen has splintered. I throw it to the side pocket and pull away from the Simons’ happy family home without a second glance.

  Now I really am driving aimlessly. My foot’s on the pedal, the window open to clear my head, but it’s a struggle not to think of Anna. Not to think of Simons, with his smarmy haircut and his dick on wheels and his good life that says he can have the best of all worlds – a beautiful home and beautiful family; a steady job at which every day he’s adored by doe-eyed young women who primp and preen around him, this intelligent man with a wouldn’t-harm-a-fly veneer, and so different to the other boys they know, the idiots, the pricks, that all they can think of is when they’ll see him next and how they can engineer a meeting with him. And how does he respond to that, this gentleman they assume he is, this man with more years and experience than them? Does he back off, does he draw the line and make it clear on which side the lecturer and his students stand? Does he keep the conversation strictly academic? Keep his hands in his pockets and his thoughts to himself?

  Or does he enjoy the attention, revel in the flirtation, occasionally go a little further for someone unusual, someone not like the other girls, maybe someone like Anna? Did their conversations go deeper, crossing that boundary between work and something else one evening after class, her hand brushing his? And who would know, who would find out just this once? It’s not as if she’s a child. Two grown adults, but one who should know better, one who already had his life mapped out. The other was just starting out, and that made her an open book. It made her easy pickings and also susceptible to losing her way. Did she think she was in love with him? She sounded desperate enough in the text messages. Did she think he was in love with her? When they slept together, did she think it was special, that he had to be with her, that he would give up everything to be with her if she asked? Did she lay everything that she was on the line for him? In the way young women do, just like Tricia said.

  My fist slams the steering wheel, but I won’t rest until it’s his face on the end of it. It’s the last thing I can do for Anna. I couldn’t save her life, I didn’t get to say to her parents, ‘She’s had an accident, but she’s going to be okay.’ I couldn’t even keep her alive long enough for them to be there with her as she slipped away. But I can do this. I can look Simons in the eye and tell him I’ve got a read on him, because I’ve seen thousands like him over the years. I can tell him he might fool everyone else but he doesn’t fool me and I can crush him with what I know and then stand back and watch as his life crumbles piece by piece, just as I saw Anna’s family crumble, the lives of her friends forever changed, the person she was and the woman she would have been – the hearts she would have touched, the animals she would have cared for, all of that gone in the click of a finger. All of that gone in someone else’s wrong word, wrong deed, wrong choice. And as my fingers grip the steering wheel, I know in my gut and in the tightness of my chest that Simons is to blame for what happened to Anna. If there’s anything this job has given me, it’s an exceptional instinct, and right now that instinct is screaming Simons might as well have been in the car with her that night. He might as well have killed her with his own hands.

  Chapter 27

  They’ve put Peghead on a ward on the fourth floor just down from Maternity. I might have cracked a joke about that if his wife wasn’t sat at his bedside and I didn’t know they’d tried for years and hadn’t been able to have kids. Now that they’re past the mid-life mark, I wonder if it’s something they still talk about, and whether being here, with newborns at the other end of the corridor, feels like another one of life’s sick jokes.

  I kiss Mary on the cheek and tell her not to get up on my account when she rises from the bedside chair, but she insists, says the place is too stuffy and she’ll be glad of the break. She taps Peghead on the back of the hand
and tells him she’ll go to the cafeteria downstairs for a coffee, then promises, at his insistence, to fetch him something sweet and loaded with calories, and maybe a magazine from the shop.

  After she’s gone, I sit in the plastic chair she vacated, and assume by its warmth that she’s been here a while.

  ‘I love my wife, Fuller.’

  ‘Don’t doubt it, Don,’ I say, surprised that these should be his first words to me, and wondering if his stint in here has led to some serious life contemplation. I’ve heard that too much time away from the job can do that to a copper.

  ‘But she’s the worst fucking liar this side of the Severn Bridge,’ he adds.

  ‘She is?’

  ‘Coffee, my arse.’ He shuffles himself upright against the pillows, fists pressing into the mattress to give him leverage. ‘Fag break’s what she really means.’

  ‘I didn’t know Mary was a smoker.’

  ‘You’re not meant to. Neither am I.’

  ‘You don’t approve?’

  ‘Couldn’t give a shit.’ He shoots me a pointed look, as if I’ve accused him of defrauding the Queen. And while I like to think I’m pretty sharp on most occasions, I’m struggling a bit now.

  ‘So why hide it?’ I ask.

  He snorts a laugh, rests one hand over the other on top of the folded sheet around his waist. ‘That’ll be the Catholic in her. It’s not me, per se, she’s hiding it from. It’s her bloody self. She can’t live with the guilt.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I say, without thinking, then mumble an apology in case Peghead’s of the same denomination as his wife.

  ‘Once again, my dear colleague, I couldn’t give a shit.’

  He doesn’t look too bad, all things considered. Aside, that is, from the bandage wrapped around his upper left arm and the grey shadows under his eyes, which I would guess has more to do with being stuck here in a bed that’s not his own, than anything else. The pursed lips and weary blink he gives me suggest the same.