Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine)

by Black, Helen

  The pounding rang out again and she heard the sound of disturbed movement from upstairs. She ran for the door and flung it open. Annabelle stood outside in the pouring rain, her hair plastered to her head.

  ‘Annabelle?’

  ‘I need your help,’ she cried.

  Sam appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Lilly told him, ‘go back to bed.’

  ‘I’ve got an exam tomorrow, if anyone’s interested,’ he mumbled and sloped away.

  Lilly ushered Annabelle into the sitting room where she stood, dripping, water collecting at her feet.

  ‘I’ll get a towel,’ said Karol and disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘What’s going on, Annabelle?’ Lilly asked.

  The other woman was soaked. The waterproof jacket that should have been perfect hung off her shoulders, unzipped, the hood down.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know who else to turn to,’ she said. ‘The police have come for Tanisha again.’

  Lilly groaned. Please God, Tanisha hadn’t breached her bail conditions already.

  Karol returned and handed Annabelle a towel. Lilly cringed at the stains. The towels in Annabelle’s house were pristine. Egyptian cotton, smelling of fabric conditioner. Annabelle appeared not to notice and held it to her face.

  ‘They say Tanisha’s involved in another attack,’ she said. ‘But this time the girl’s dead.’

  Lilly’s mouth fell open. ‘Who?’

  ‘Chika Mboko.’

  The sting of surprise hit Lilly. Only yesterday Chika had been in the witness box, larger than life. Full of life.

  ‘You have to come,’ said Annabelle. ‘You have to make them understand that Tanisha had nothing to with it.’

  Lilly flapped her arms by her sides. ‘She sacked me.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll care about that now?’

  ‘I have children in the house,’ said Lilly. ‘I can’t leave them here on their own.’

  Annabelle glanced at Karol who was clearing away the glasses. He looked up at Lilly.

  ‘I could stay the night,’ he said. ‘Sleep on the sofa.’

  Lilly shook her head. This was utter madness.

  ‘I’ll get my coat.’

  Demi thunders past Gran to her room.

  ‘Take off those wet shoes,’ Gran shouts.

  She doesn’t pay attention and throws herself on to her bed. She’s drenched, her jeans sticking to her skin. The mud she’s caked in spreads on to her duvet. The cover was clean on this morning. Laundry day.

  She doesn’t care about that. She doesn’t care about anything.

  Her best friend in the world is dead. Beautiful, funny, strong Chika is gone.

  She bites down on her pillow to stop herself from screaming, knowing that once again, she’s all alone.

  The custody suite was quiet. By midnight, the suspects had either been processed or had been bedded down for the night to sleep off whatever had got them into trouble in the first place. The only interviews that took place in the middle of the night were for prisoners suspected of serious arrestable offences, or where the prisoner was a child.

  Tanisha McKenzie was both.

  ‘Tell me this is a bad dream,’ said Lilly.

  Jack frowned and placed a polystyrene cup of coffee on the counter. It was dark brown, small lumps of powdered milk floating on top.

  ‘I wish it were, Lil,’ he said.

  ‘So, what’s the story?’

  He sighed. Tiredness was scored across his face and there were circles under each eye, like wicked smiles.

  ‘Phil Cheney’s doing the autopsy now, but preliminary findings suggest a number of stab wounds to the back, possibly puncturing the heart, lungs or both.’

  Lilly took a breath. Chest wounds were often fatal, but to catch the heart through the back took force. Whoever cut Chika clearly meant business.

  ‘What makes you think Tanisha’s got anything to do with it?’

  Jack gave a tight laugh. ‘Other than the victim was the only witness in the case against your client.’

  ‘That’s not enough and you know it. What evidence have you got?’

  Jack flicked the cup with his thumbnail so the creamy clumps bobbed up and down. He stared into his drink, resolutely away from Lilly.

  ‘Tonight I saw a kid die. Not a nice kid. Not a white middle-class kid from a good home and a fancy school, but still a kid. So don’t lecture me about what I can or can’t do.’

  ‘I wasn’t lecturing …’

  He still refused to look at her. ‘There is one person, and one person only, who is linked to the attacks on both Malaya Ebola and Chika Mboko and I want to speak to that person. Is that so difficult to understand?’

  ‘No.’

  Tanisha was sat in her usual place in the interview room, head in the crook of her elbow, on the table. Annabelle sat beside her.

  ‘This is getting to be a habit, Tanisha,’ said Lilly.

  Tanisha pushed herself up and Lilly noticed her pregnancy was now showing. Had that happened overnight? Or had Tanisha simply stopped hiding it now the truth was out?

  ‘I want you to know that I appreciate what you did for me in court and I appreciate you coming here tonight.’

  It was obviously rehearsed and Annabelle beamed like a proud mother whose young child had just delivered her first lines in a school play. Lilly smiled all the same.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me your movements today,’ she said.

  ‘Not much,’ Tanisha replied. ‘I signed on at the police station, went shopping in between.’

  ‘This evening?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘All night?’ Lilly asked.

  ‘I ain’t stupid, you know, if I bust my curfew they’re gonna throw my arse back in jail.’

  ‘I can vouch for her,’ Annabelle added.

  Lilly chewed the end of her pen and studied them. ‘The thing is, ladies, we’ve been here before haven’t we? You telling me you were nowhere near the scene of a crime, me going in there and making a prize twat of myself.’

  ‘It was different then,’ said Tanisha.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I panicked that time, just denied everything.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I don’t need to panic,’ said Tanisha. ‘I got you.’

  Jack angled the camera at Tanisha. It was like déjà vu. Only it wasn’t a trick of the mind caused by lack of sleep, they really had all been here before, playing this same scene.

  ‘I’ll get straight to the point.’ His jaw was stiff. ‘Where were you tonight, Tanisha?’

  ‘At home, watching TV.’

  Annabelle leaned forward. ‘I can confirm that.’

  ‘So you were together?’ Jack asked.

  ‘No,’ said Tanisha, ‘I was in my room.’

  ‘I can’t stand those reality shows the young people seem to love,’ said Annabelle.

  Jack ignored Annabelle, kept his eyes trained on Tanisha. ‘And you stayed in your room all night?’

  ‘I was in there when the feds came for me, wasn’t I?’

  He’d checked the notebooks of the uniform who had arrested her. There was no doubt they’d found Tanisha in her bedroom.

  He wasn’t wearing a tie to smooth so he rubbed his palms along his thighs. The trousers were an old pair he’d found at the back of his locker. Tired grey joggers with a hole in the knee. He’d had to hand in the jeans he’d been wearing earlier to forensics. They’d test the blood and check them for anything else that might have leaked on to him while he held Chika in his arms.

  Anger boiled under his skin. ‘Did you stay up in your room all night?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Tanisha paused. ‘No.’

  ‘Which is it?’

  ‘I came down once for something to eat. Annabelle wasn’t there, so I grabbed an apple.’

  ‘You remember that clearly, do you?’ Jack snapped.

  ‘Yeah, cos I don’t really like them, but Annabelle sa
ys I should eat all that healthy shit for the baby, so, you know.’ She shrugged. ‘I chopped it up and took it back upstairs with me.’

  Jack whipped his head at Annabelle. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Annabelle said. ‘Bathroom, study perhaps.’

  ‘It’s a big house,’ Lilly interjected.

  ‘So you can’t be sure then, that Tanisha was there all night,’ said Jack.

  Annabelle spluttered. ‘What?’

  He tried to check his building rage. ‘In this huge house of yours, you can’t know for certain that Tanisha hadn’t left. She could easily slip out and you’d just presume she was upstairs.’

  Annabelle shook her head. ‘It’s not like that. I check on her all the time.’

  He slammed his hands on to the table top and all three women gasped. ‘Tonight, Chika Mboko died and I need to know if Tanisha killed her.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Tanisha whispered.

  He breathed out though his nose and raked his hands through his hair, dragging his fingernails into his scalp. He had nothing. In fact, he had less than nothing. He had a witness who would swear that Tanisha was at home eating fruit. He needed to change direction.

  ‘Why did you and Chika fall out?’

  ‘Huh?’ Tanisha moved back in her chair.

  ‘You used to be friends, but you fell out,’ he said. ‘I want to know why.’

  Her answer was instant and mechanical. ‘She said I stole her phone and I never.’

  ‘See, that just doesn’t ring true to me.’ He folded his arms. ‘All that bitterness over a phone.’

  ‘I’ve known grown men fight in the pub over football,’ Lilly commented.

  ‘The thing is, Chika intimated that it was about much more than that,’ he said.

  Tanisha narrowed her eyes. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That it was complicated. Those were her exact words.’ Jack rubbed his nose with a finger. ‘And a row over a phone doesn’t sound that complicated to me.’

  Tanisha leaned right back in her chair, folded her own arms so that she and Jack were in mirror positions.

  ‘I arranged to meet her so that she could tell me exactly what did happen between you,’ he said.

  ‘She wouldn’t have told you shit,’ Tanisha laughed. ‘She would have dragged you over there and made up some crap.’

  ‘I guess we’ll never know,’ said Jack. ‘Which, from where I’m sitting, looks bloody convenient for you.’

  The house is in darkness, except for the winking LCD light of the alarm. Trick cranes his neck to look through the window and lets out a whistle.

  ‘You ain’t winding me up? This is really your gaff?’

  ‘Shush,’ Jamie puts a finger to his lips. ‘You’ll wake my parents.’

  Trick is still shaking his head in disbelief as Jamie puts his key in the lock, and taps in the alarm code. Jamie’s never considered his home to be particularly posh. All his schoolmates live somewhere similar. Many of them have another house as well, in Norfolk or, more often, France. The way Trick is acting you’d think it was a mansion or something.

  He shuts the door as gently as he can, but Trick is already crashing through to the dining room.

  ‘For fuck’s sake keep quiet,’ Jamie hisses. ‘If my dad catches us we’re dead.’

  Tricks nods his understanding and slips inside.

  ‘My old man’s a right bastard as well,’ he stage whispers. ‘Proper handy with his fists.’

  Jamie’s stunned. His dad’s pretty crap, always going on, always looking at Jamie with his disappointed face, but he’d never beat him.

  ‘One time he broke my mum’s cheekbone,’ Trick tells Jamie.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Wrapped a baseball bat round his head.’ Trick sniffs. ‘We never heard from him no more.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Jamie pats his friend’s arm.

  ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.’

  Jamie turns the dimmer switch so that the room is bathed in a low light. Enough to see, but not enough to wake his folks.

  Trick’s eyes are wide and he spins around like he’s crossed through the wardrobe into Narnia. He lets out a bewildered giggle.

  ‘What is this?’

  Jamie would have thought it was pretty obvious, what with the table and chairs. ‘The dining room.’

  ‘You have a special room just to eat in?’

  Actually, the Hollands almost never use it. His parents eat out most nights and if Jamie’s home from school he’ll pick at a microwaved lasagne with the telly on in the kitchen. Dad always complains that it’s an easy room for their cleaning lady, Anjia, and that they shouldn’t have to pay for it. Jamie doesn’t want to explain any of this to Trick.

  ‘Let’s just get out of here,’ he says.

  They’d meant to come hours ago but the time had danced away. Hanging out with Trick is like that. Plans get made but never pursued. Hours stretch and bend and disappear. Total freedom. After a lifetime of having every moment of his existence scheduled and timetabled, Jamie has never been so happy and he would gladly stay with Trick for ever.

  There are downsides of course. Trick hoovers down the powder at an alarming rate. He calls himself a meth monster and it’s no lie. And there’s a reckless side to him. Sometimes it’s exciting, like when he rubs himself against Jamie’s arse in broad daylight. Sometimes it’s scary, like when he runs across the road, narrowly avoiding oncoming buses, or steals a pile of chocolate from a newsagent’s.

  ‘Stay here,’ Jamie warns and leaves Trick fiddling with the candlesticks while he creeps upstairs.

  The door to Mum and Dad’s room is shut, but his heart still pounds as he passes. He’s glad to reach the end of the hallway and his own room. It feels strange being inside. There’s his duvet and posters, his wardrobe full of clothes. Was it only yesterday that this was his life? It seems like years ago. Like a fading memory.

  He opens his drawer and takes out Uncle Theo’s cash. Underneath are a handful of postcards, a beaded necklace he bought on a school trip to Provence, unused book tokens, an iPod and a chap stick. They don’t seem familiar at all, as if they belong to someone else.

  He shuts the drawer, glad to leave this existence behind. At the door, he has second thoughts, scurries back and retrieves the iPod. He’s spent hours loading it with all his favourite tracks.

  With any luck he can sell it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Carla Chapman is manning reception and she hates it. She’s supposed to be a copper, not a glorified secretary, smiling at the great unwashed as they come to tell their tales of woe. She should be out there on the street solving crimes, not filling in Incident Report Sheets.

  She hears along the canteen bongo drums that Jack McNally has bagged himself another SAO. A murder. What she wouldn’t give to be involved in that.

  Actually, she’s a bit miffed that Jack hasn’t been in contact. After she trawled through all those hours of CCTV footage for him and found that vital piece of evidence, you’d have thought he’d have asked her to get on board. One good turn and all that.

  It could be that he assumes she’s got a full work-load. Or that she’s not on duty today. There’s no way he would know that she’s been plonked on flipping reception doing meet and greet.

  She pulls out her phone. Maybe she should text him, offering her assistance. Something professional and helpful, with just a hint of the naughty. Before she’s even decided what to say, a punter comes in off the street. It’s a woman. Not local by the look of her, with dark hair cut and coloured in a way that smells of money. Her suit is the same. Definitely designer.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Carla trills.

  The woman steps to the counter and places a leather briefcase at her feet. ‘I don’t know.’

  Carla smiles encouragingly. The woman seems lost and nervous. Carla would place a bet that she’s never stepped a foot in a police station in her life.

  ‘My son’s disappeared,’ she says at last.r />
  ‘When?’ Carla asks, pulling out a missing person’s report sheet.

  The woman frowns, or at least tries to, but she’s got one of those foreheads that won’t move. Probably full of botox.

  ‘I last saw Jamie on Monday morning, before I left for work.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  Carla stops filling out the form. Teenaged boys go missing every day of the week. It usually turns out they’ve spent the night at their mate’s and forgotten to ring home. No big deal.

  ‘Have you tried to call him?’ she asks.

  ‘He’s switched off his phone.’

  ‘What about his friends? Have you given them a call to find out if he’s there?’

  ‘I don’t know his …’ The woman looks pained. ‘He goes to boarding school and his friends will all be there.’

  ‘What about a girlfriend?’ Carla asks.

  The woman bites her top lip. It’s completely unlined. Botox, no doubt about it. ‘No girlfriend.’

  Carla tries not to sigh and pushes the form across the desk. ‘Why don’t you fill out the details and if we hear anything we’ll get in touch, but to be honest with you, boys of that age usually turn up when they get hungry.’

  ‘I think he might have already been back,’ the woman says. ‘Some of his things might have gone.’

  ‘Might have?’

  ‘I can’t be sure.’

  ‘Like I say.’ Carla taps the form.

  The woman takes out a fountain pen from her inside pocket and scans the form, writing out her name: Mrs Sally-Anne Holland.

  ‘If you need to call, I’d prefer you to contact me and not his father,’ she says.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  Mrs Holland looks up at Carla as if pleading with her to understand. ‘I haven’t told him Jamie’s missing.’

  ‘Surely he’s noticed,’ Carla laughs.

  ‘He thinks Jamie left for school on Monday and, as he boards, my husband simply assumes he’s in school.’ Mrs Holland gulps, a string of delicate seed pearls bobbing at her throat. ‘I don’t want to worry him, you see.’

  Carla cocks her head to one side. Something doesn’t ring true. This woman has come out of her way to attend a police station a long way from home, and now she doesn’t want her husband involved.