Risk of Harm

by Lucie Whitehouse

  His glove was soaking – he’d tried to staunch the bleeding but now he was losing consciousness, his face dazed behind the visor. Robin put her hands on the wound, one over the other, and pressed as hard as she could. He flinched, his whole torso lifting off the tarmac. ‘Stay awake,’ she yelled at him, ‘stay awake.’ She raised her head and screamed, ‘Ambulance – we need an ambulance here.’

  Samir’s body blocked the light. ‘They’re coming. Any second now. You’ll be all right, okay? You’re going to be all right.’

  Blood welled round Robin’s fingers. She heard Lennie sob and shook her head: No, don’t show him we’re scared.

  Running footsteps and then – thank God – in a blur of bottle-green and high-vis, the paramedics arrived.

  Samir gave them his office and when he closed the door behind him, Lennie ran to one of the bucket chairs and curled in on herself, head to her knees. The little of her face that might have been visible was hidden by her hands, which clamped the sides of her head as if she were trying to keep it from bursting apart. Her body heaved as she sobbed, breaths coming faster and faster until she was hyperventilating. Stupidly, Robin scanned the room as if Samir might keep a pile of paper bags lying round.

  ‘Sit up,’ she told her. ‘Sit straight.’

  ‘Can’t,’ Len gasped.

  ‘Yes, you can.’ Putting her hands under her shoulders, Robin gently pushed backwards until Lennie was sitting upright then prised her hands away from her head. Demonstrating with her own as if Len might have forgotten how, she told her, ‘Cup your hands over your mouth and try to breath out – you’re breathing in and in and in; you need to breathe out. Out – there you go. And again – try to wait longer before the next one. Okay, and again.’

  It was several minutes before her breathing sounded even half right. When it did, Robin knelt so their eyes were on a level. Len met hers briefly then looked away, and Robin was suddenly furious.

  ‘What the hell were you doing?’ she demanded. ‘What were you doing out there?’

  ‘Protesting!’

  Don’t shout, Robin cautioned herself, don’t shout. ‘You should have been doing your homework, for Christ’s sake,’ she half-shouted, ‘not getting involved in something like this. How did you even know about it?’

  ‘Twitter.’ Tears poured down her cheeks. ‘We saw Ben Tyrell trending and I knew he was involved in your case. Those people and their horrible ideas, and what happened to Austin … I just couldn’t stand it.’ Her hands made fists.

  ‘We – you and Asha?’ So she had seen her.

  ‘We were all there, the whole of our politics group. Apart from Austin, because he can’t even leave the house,’ she said savagely. ‘It was for him – we were making a stand. I was with Ash but we got separated straight away …’

  ‘For God’s sake, Lennie, do you have any idea how … You could have been injured, like he was.’ She flung her arm towards the window, as if the officer – Shaun Palmer was his name – were still lying out there in the road. He was long gone, blue-lighted to the hospital the moment the paramedics got him into the ambulance. ‘You could have been killed!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Anything could have happened.’

  ‘I know! Stop, Mum. Please.’ She was shaking visibly, her skin paper-white.

  ‘Did you see who stabbed him?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t see anything. I wasn’t next to him, I was a couple of people away, and it was so mad – all these bodies slamming into me, I was trying to get to the edge but I was trapped, I couldn’t move, and … Some of those men, the skinheads …’ She sobbed. ‘Then everyone started running and he fell to the ground.’

  ‘You’ll have to give a statement.’

  A heaving sob. ‘Is he going to die?’

  The blood pulsing under her fingers, hot and much too fast. ‘I don’t know.’

  Len covered her mouth. She looked so young. No wonder she’d been terrified, Robin thought; she’d been terrified and she was thirty-seven and a trained police officer. She wanted to shake Lennie for being so stupid, for even thinking about confronting people like that, but at the same time she was so proud, she was almost tearful herself. Fifteen years old and she’d come to stand up against a bunch of card-carrying white supremacists. And she’d stayed when everyone else had run.

  ‘It’ll be okay, love,’ she said, crouching again, noticing the sheen of sweat on Len’s forehead. ‘The paramedics were there so fast, they’ll do everything they can for him, and it doesn’t matter if you didn’t see who did it, we’ll work it out.’ Steve Taggart evidently didn’t have half Ben Tyrell’s nous. ‘I mean,’ she almost laughed, ‘can you think of anywhere with more cameras than a police station?’

  Lennie made a horrible retching sound.

  ‘Len? Are you going to be sick?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ She retched again; Robin grabbed Samir’s bin and put it in front of her. Lennie fixed her eyes on it, swallowing repeatedly. ‘Someone else went down.’

  ‘One of the hard-core nutters.’

  ‘He was on the pavement. Is he dead?’

  ‘No, unconscious – knocked out. Someone threw a stone at his head.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You saw it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Did you see who threw it, Len? Whatever we think about those people, it’s still a crime, a violent crime, and someone will be charged for it. We’ll get CCTV but if you saw …’

  ‘Me.’

  Robin didn’t understand.

  ‘Me, Mum,’ Lennie’s eyes stayed on the bin. ‘I threw the stone.’

  Robin stared.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ her voice rose hysterically. ‘I mean, I did, but I didn’t mean that to happen – it was like this one moment, I was so angry and I just wanted …’

  ‘Sssh.’

  Lennie lifted her head, eyes wide.

  ‘Keep your voice down.’ Robin gestured frantically around. Could anyone hear them? Samir – had he stayed in Rhona’s office? She looked up, made sure the heavy door was closed before whispering, ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I was so angry – my body was angry. I was angry already because of Austin, and then I saw this guy yelling at our friend Mo, really screaming, like he was about to hit him or spit in his face or something, and I … I hated him. I saw a stone in the gutter, right by my foot, and I picked it up and threw it. I didn’t know it was going to hurt him – not like that.’

  ‘How big was it?’

  Lennie made a shape slightly larger than an egg. Then moved her fingers until it was half as large again.

  Oh God. ‘Did anyone see you do it?’

  She nodded, terrified. ‘Uncle Luke.’

  ‘Luke?’

  Another nod. ‘I threw it and when I turned round, he was there. Right behind me.’

  ‘I need the loo.’ The sweat was starting to bead at Lennie’s hairline. ‘Now.’ She covered her mouth again.

  ‘Want me to come?’

  She shook her head and ran, yanking the door open and lurching out into Rhona’s office. ‘Lennie?’ Robin heard Samir say before the outer door was cranked, too, then slammed shut.

  Seconds later, he appeared in the doorway. ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘She feels sick.’ She felt sick herself, and suddenly very cold.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘My God, Samir.’ She put her face in her hands. ‘My family.’

  She heard him cross the room and when she looked up, he was standing in front of her. He took a step forward and put his arms round her.

  ‘Your clothes …’ Robin said. She was covered in blood – her own, Shaun Palmer’s.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  He held her tightly. She turned her head until her ear rested in the hollow between his shoulder and collarbone, her nose a centimetre from his neck. The way he smelled, his clean cotton shirt, the ludicrous Old Spice deodorant, and underneath both, the heat of his body and the scent of his skin, familiar
to her now as it had been twenty years ago when she’d used to lie next to him and just inhale it. Abandoning self-restraint, she took a deep breath and let the smell flood her, and as she did, his lips touched the top of her head.

  A minute, maybe longer, his arms around her, his nose in her hair, the fabric of his jacket under her fingers. Voices reached in from outside – they were doing the clear-up, bringing in the people they’d managed to lay hands on, starting house-to-house across the street for witnesses. All she wanted, she realized, was to go home, go to sleep and block it all out. And then, when she woke up, to find him there, no barriers between them.

  As if he’d read her mind, he let her go and moved sharply away behind his desk. Turning, Robin saw the photographs on the corner. Harry and Leila, and Liz.

  ‘Mad times,’ he said, and she had the idea he was explaining for both of them.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  She’d delayed and delayed until it was almost too late to come at all, and when she arrived, the ward was powering down for the night. In the bay opposite, a woman pulled the curtains round her bed with a brisk metallic rattle. The nurse behind the desk hesitated, looking for confirmation from a colleague who was locking the medication trolley. ‘Okay,’ she told Robin, ‘but only for a few minutes.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll be quick.’ As quick as she could: she needed to get back to Lennie, whom she’d left with her dad at Mary Street. During dinner, a dismal affair of defrosted spaghetti bolognese, Len had barely picked up her fork. Her dad was trying to jolly her along, thinking she was only miserable because of what she’d seen.

  As she approached, her mother was lying back against the pillows, eyes shut, hands resting gently on the blanket. Like this, the damage was less visible, her eye normal-looking. Only the slight sag at the corner of her mouth hinted that anything had happened at all. The high colour was gone from her cheeks and her breathing was slow and regular. Was she already asleep?

  ‘Mum?’

  Her eyes opened immediately. ‘Hello, love.’

  ‘Is it too late?’

  Her mother inclined her head, as if she’d asked a larger question. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I was only resting my eyes.’

  ‘You look better.’

  ‘Do I?’ One eyebrow went up, the other struggling to follow it. ‘I feel awful – I hate this, lying here doing nothing.’

  Robin was taken aback – her mother, admitting to discomfort? Weakness? ‘Well, it’s not really your scene, is it?’ she said, ‘There’s work to be done, you know, while you’re lazing round with your feet up.’

  Her mother gave her a crooked smile.

  She brought a chair close to the bed, her stomach a knot of nerves. As she sat, her mother lifted her hand off the blanket and extended it to her. Robin hesitated, unsure if she was reading her correctly – apart from the painful grip when she’d asked for her help, she’d probably been eight and crossing the road the last time her mum had held her hand. Awkwardly, she reached over the bed-rail and took it.

  ‘Mum,’ she said quietly. ‘Did you hear about the protest at the station today?’

  Her mother’s eyes were locked on her face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Luke was there, with Billy Torrence.’ Robin steeled herself, keeping her eyes on their linked hands. ‘Not just there, Mum, he was in the thick of it, he hurt one of the counter-protestors, a student from the university. Badly hurt him – he’s had to have surgery to save the sight in one of his eyes. It’ll be okay but that’s pure luck.’

  She made herself look up. To her amazement, her mother wasn’t aghast. Did she understand?

  ‘Mum, Luke’s going to face criminal charges. Serious ones – affray at the very least, and with the violence, it’ll mean prison time.’

  Her brother in prison – the idea was shocking, almost impossible to grasp. And frightening. How would he survive? Would he survive? It would be proper time, too, not a couple of months; the sentencing guideline for affray was up to three years. If the charge was violent disorder, which it might well be, it could be significantly more. He wasn’t tough enough.

  Her mother nodded, still bizarrely sanguine. Were the drugs clouding her brain or did she not believe it? Maybe she thought there’d been a mistake, her lovely boy would never do such a thing. ‘Mum,’ she whispered, ‘I’m talking about Luke going to prison.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You understand what I’m telling you?’

  ‘Of course. The stroke hasn’t affected my mind.’

  Robin shook her head, bewildered. ‘There’s something else: he’s gone AWOL, we can’t find him – us, the family, I mean, not the police, though they’ll be looking for him, too. He’s not answering his phone, he’s not at home, none of his friends have seen him. Nat’s rung everyone she can think of. I’m scared.’

  She remembered his desolate face on the railway bridge. If he’d actually felt like ending it then, he had more reason now. His look of horror when he realized how hurt the student was. He’d known he was in real trouble. Would Natalie ever take him back now? And what about Jack? Could Luke stand knowing that his son would grow up like Kev did, with a father who’d done time? And prison would change him fundamentally. Forever.

  ‘He hasn’t gone AWOL, Robin,’ her mother said quietly. ‘He’s doing some thinking.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He came to see me right after it happened. He came straight here and told me.’

  ‘He came … So you already knew?’

  ‘Yes. And I know what Lennie did, too.’

  Robin stared at her.

  Uncle Luke. He was there. Right behind me.

  ‘What a disaster,’ her mother said. ‘What a complete and utter disaster.’

  Robin reeled – she felt actually light-headed. Ridiculously, she’d been holding out a last bit of hope that Luke somehow hadn’t seen, that in the madness of the scrum he could have missed it. Hasn’t he done his damage? No, of course he hadn’t. There would always be more.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You didn’t do it – either part.’

  ‘You asked me to look after him and I didn’t. I knew he was at the end of his rope but I was thinking about depression. I never thought he’d get involved in something like this.’

  But why not? She’d been berating herself with that question whenever she wasn’t literally sweating with anxiety about Lennie.

  ‘You know he’s easily influenced,’ her mother said. ‘You’ve always known.’

  ‘But white supremacists? Taggart gave a Nazi salute.’

  Walking on to the ward, she’d intended to admit seeing Billy’s name on For Queen and Country but now she found she couldn’t do it. She was ashamed: she’d seen it and she still hadn’t put the two together. But then, for her, the idea that anyone she knew, even Billy, would throw in his lot with those people even fleetingly, even in extremis, had been unthinkable.

  And that had been her mistake.

  Naivety.

  No, worse than that: it was a lack of understanding of how people – the world – worked. She blinked to stop the prickling in her eyes. She’d fucked up, she wasn’t going to cry.

  Further down the ward, the nursing staff were plying back and forth between beds, turning off lights for those who couldn’t do it themselves, pulling more curtains, but for now, at least, they were leaving her mother and her bay-mates to it. In the silence between them, Robin became aware of snoring from the bed behind, the tiny woman with the puff-of-smoke hair. The sound was oddly reassuring. Life will go on, it seemed to say, mad and mundane.

  ‘You’ve kept him going,’ she said. ‘You and Nat – you’ve kept him on the straight and narrow for years. I was handed the baton for a few days.’

  Her mother ran her thumb slowly over the back of Robin’s hand. ‘There are different ways of taking care of people, you know.’

  Oh great, Robin thought, here it came, the extolling of feminine virtues, the detailing of
her lack thereof, Robin as Lady Macbeth, too self-absorbed and preoccupied with ambition to keep her own brother out of jail.

  ‘Listen,’ her mother said. ‘I know you think of yourself as some sort of … Tin Woman but you’re good at your job because you care. That’s your caring. I understand it now, since you’ve been back. We’re different in lots of ways, we know that, but we both take care of people, only in different arenas.’

  Robin said nothing, completely wrong-footed.

  ‘Sometimes I think that if things had been different,’ her mother went on, ‘if my parents had ever encouraged me to have a career, maybe I’d have liked the police.’

  ‘Really?’ She was frankly incredulous now.

  ‘No, maybe not,’ another crooked smile, ‘maybe something a bit less … full on. But I would have liked to do something to help people beyond the family, your dad, you and your brother.’

  ‘You’ve always cared much more about him than you do about me,’ Robin blurted.

  ‘You never needed it as much.’

  ‘But I did. I did need it, I still do. You’re my mum.’

  Her mother breathed out, not quite a sigh. ‘You were so self-sufficient, even as a small child. Sometimes I felt … redundant. And later, when you had Lennie, you pushed me away. I would have liked to help you but you had your own set-up, you and Corinna, then Frances; you shut me out.’

  ‘I was afraid of your judgement; you were so angry with me.’

  Her mother huffed a little. ‘You always talk about that. I just thought you’d made it so hard on yourself, having her so young. On your own.’

  ‘But you’re tough on me, Mum, you are – much tougher than you’ve ever been on him. You’ve got to admit that.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Because my standards are higher for you – because I know you can do more. You’re stronger. When you said you were expecting Lennie I was disappointed because I thought you’d messed up your chance of a career, wasted your potential. I was wrong about that, wasn’t I? You just did both.’