by Ian Mayfield
Jeff shrugged. ‘That’s all right, guv. This business has knocked us all for six.’
‘Mmm.’ Zoltan looked as if he’d been on his feet since Saturday. Even Jeff, who in his time had slept through the Hertfordshire oil terminal explosion and an earthquake in Turkey, had had a restless night. ‘Who’s still on this? I can’t remember.’
‘Hiya.’ Lucky came in, brushing by them with a sheaf of statements.
‘It was Lucky, you, me, Nina and Jasmin,’ Jeff said.
‘We can’t spare Lucky from the other matter, really.’
‘Jasmin’s not here,’ Jeff said, not having to look.
‘And then there were two.’ Zoltan grinned sardonically. ‘Only question is whether we’ve got enough to bring him in.’
‘We’ll know when we see him.’ Jeff held out a hand at what he estimated was six foot four.
‘Let’s do it,’ Zoltan said without hesitation.
‘Now?’
‘Right now.’ The DI put his jacket back on.
‘Who’s nicked my chair?’ Lucky plonked her work down and looked around.
‘Sorry,’ Jeff called across. ‘By my desk.’ He paused by the door. ‘While you’re there, could you fetch me my gas bill? May as well pay it on the way over,’ he added to Zoltan.
‘This it?’ Lucky said, bringing it over.
‘With some scribble on the back.’
She glanced at the bill, made to hand it to him, and froze. He tried to take it from her but it was gripped tight in her fingers.
‘D’you mind?’
‘Sorry.’ She relinquished it, turned and walked slowly away.
‘She looked as if she’d seen a ghost,’ Zoltan remarked in the corridor.
Jeff unfolded the bill and read it. His eyes widened. ‘Not bloody surprised,’ he said.
The Handcroft Estate was a strange example of a 1960s housing development built around existing roads. White-boarded, flat-roofed terraced houses and small blocks of flats seemed to have been dumped beside, or possibly across, the old lanes with little reference to ease of access.
Albion Street twisted around the estate like an angry man elbowing his way through a crowd. Even in broad daylight it was easy to get lost, and subsequently mugged, on the Handcroft and they were glad to be in a car. They parked next to a set of large communal steel dustbins and walked across an overgrown lawn to a green door with 32 on it in dirty white plastic numerals. Zoltan rang the bell. A few moments later a woman with auburn hair opened the door. A look of open hostility was already on her face.
‘Vicky Prosser?’ Zoltan smiled like a shark and flashed his warrant card. ‘Afternoon. I’m DI Schneider, this is DC Wetherby. Is Michael in?’
‘He’s at work.’
‘May we come in?’ Grudgingly she stepped aside. ‘Thank you. Most kind.’
He walked through into an untidy lounge with a marble effect tiled fireplace. Jeff wandered upstairs. Vicky Prosser followed Zoltan, angry and bewildered. ‘What’s he done?’
‘Where does he work, Mrs Prosser?’
‘He ain’t been in trouble since he was a kid,’ she insisted. ‘You check.’
‘This Michael?’ Zoltan took a framed photo from the mantelpiece and studied it. It showed a tall, skeletal young man with sandy hair, bare-chested and wearing long board shorts. It had been taken on a sunny day and the youth’s skin showed up almost as albino. Gaunt was the word.
Jeff came back, shaking his head. Zoltan handed him the photo. He peered at it and said, ‘Aye, could be.’
Vicky Prosser found her voice. ‘You got a warrant?’
‘What for?’ Zoltan said innocently.
‘Coming in here snooping around.’
‘We haven’t been doing any snooping. You invited us in.’
‘What about him?’ She rounded on Jeff, who looked remorseful.
‘I needed the loo,’ he said. ‘Sorry - should’ve asked first.’
Vicky Prosser snatched back her son’s photo and replaced it. ‘You bastards tell me what’s going on.’
‘You tell me where he works, Mrs Prosser,’ Zoltan said.
‘Carter Engineering, on the Purley Way,’ Vicky Prosser spat, as though divulging a state secret under torture. ‘Better get over there quick if you want him. His shift finishes at four.’
You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Zoltan thought. He smiled at her, lifting his radio and switching it to talk-through. ‘All units from DI Schneider. Anyone in the vicinity of the Purley Way, over.’
‘DI Schneider from Zulu three-five,’ a male voice came back almost at once. ‘We’re at Fiveways. That near enough, over?’
‘It’ll do,’ Zoltan said. ‘Can you go to Carter Engineering and pick up Michael Prosser, an employee there? Bring him to Croydon for questioning.’
‘Will do, sir. What’s the beef?’
Zoltan hesitated. He turned away from Vicky Prosser and shifted his grip on the radio. ‘Suspicion of rape, Sutton, five years ago,’ he said. ‘Just bring him in.’
Vicky Prosser’s reaction was everything he’d feared, but she went for Jeff instead.
They were out of luck. Fifteen minutes and a cup of possibly poisoned tea later, Zulu three-five radioed back to say that Michael Prosser had skipped the end of his shift. He’d received a brief phone call around the time they were swinging on the doorbell of 32 Albion Street, and when next the foreman had checked he was no longer at his machine. Perhaps Vicky Prosser wasn’t as thick as she made out.
A disconsolate trio sat round Zoltan’s desk at the back end of the afternoon. There was an APB out on Prosser/Bayliss and the brown Honda Civic that was his current set of wheels, and they could only hope.
‘This close,’ Jeff grumbled, holding thumb and forefinger together.
‘It is him, then?’ Jasmin asked.
‘Going by the photo?’ Zoltan and Jeff exchanged nods. ‘Oh, definitely.’
‘Look on the good side,’ Jasmin said. ‘He is wanted for rape. Where can he go?’
‘Where indeed?’
Jasmin and Jeff sat up and looked at the DI.
‘Surely not?’ Jeff said.
Zoltan smiled serenely. ‘Why do you think I let Vicky hear me on the radio?’
Sandra slid open the gate of the ancient hospital lift and came face to face with Paul Jackson. They stood staring at one another for a moment like two kittens in a drainpipe. He looked so certain she was going to hit him that for a moment she was tempted.
‘How’s she doing?’ she settled for asking instead, biting back the selection of insults that occurred to her.
‘Awake,’ he said curtly. ‘Hurt. Lost. Humiliated. What do you think?’ His head drooped closer to his chest with every word, as though he were putting it on the block.
‘Lucia with her?’ she asked. But he pushed past and slammed the gate shut. ‘Sod you, then,’ she muttered to the descending lift.
In Nina’s room Lucia was on her feet, rummaging through her purse for change for the vending machine. ‘Hi,’ she said.
‘She asleep?’
‘Drifting.’ Lucia shrugged. ‘You gonna be all right?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘OK, I’ll split.’ Gently she reached out, touched Nina’s hair. ‘Sis? Sandra’s here. I’ll leave you for a second, but I’ll only be outside, yeah?’
After what seemed a full minute, Nina’s head moved in an almost imperceptible nod. Her sister turned to Sandra.
‘She’s awake. Go easy.’ Lucia crept out of the room. Sandra advanced gingerly and sat down.
A tiny, unrecognisable voice croaked, ‘It’s all right. I won’t break.’
‘Hey,’ Sandra said. ‘How are you?’
Nina turned her head on the pillow, opened her eyes and mustered a faint smile. She still had a nasal canula which made her face look puffy. ‘Have to forgive me lying here like this,’ she wheezed. ‘Only it hurts to move.’
‘No problem.’ Suddenly Sandra was doubting the wisdom of having insisted
on this job. Interviewing victims of violent crime in hospital was always a delicate business; when the victim was not only one of your own but also your best mate, it was a potential minefield. She wondered if the guv’nor really was too busy. Maybe even Sophia feared being at a loss in this situation. Nina had always looked fragile, like antique porcelain. But something other than physical damage had happened to her in the Clarkes’ back garden. The lustre of her violet eyes, the keen quality in them that marked her down as a copper, was missing, leaving a dull void. It was as if part of her had died.
Sandra reminded herself Nina was tanked up with all kinds of drugs. It didn’t do any good. She still wanted to cry, to mourn.
To mourn! Ridiculous. Nina was alive, for God’s sake. She’d pull through. Nice and easy with the questions, lass. No rush.
‘They treating you all right in here?’
‘Like a baby.’
Sandra leaned forward. ‘Mate, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask - ’
‘I was exp...’ Nina’s lips kept on going, but her larynx wouldn’t co-operate.
‘Sorry?’
‘I was expecting,’ she tried again, forcing the word out, ‘the guv’nor. Summerfield. Heighway, even.’
‘Sophia’s had the Commissioner’s office on the blower,’ Sandra said. ‘He wants to come and see you, but he’s gonna wait a few days till you’ve mended a bit.’
Nina scowled. ‘Got to look my best for the big guy.’
Sandra shrugged. ‘If this is what it takes to get noticed...’ She started to smile, but the joke had fallen on stony ground. She slid a hand onto the pillow. ‘Nina, I’ve got to ask. What the fuck happened?’
‘I was hoping,’ Nina croaked, after what seemed like a great deal of thought, ‘you could tell me.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘It’s... it’s all a blank - like a black cloud...’ she muttered. ‘I remember, um... running out of the club. And driving Luke home. And then going to Ballards Way. But...’
Sandra waited for her to say something else. She didn’t. ‘Can you remember why you were there?’
‘Debbie’s back, isn’t she?’ Sandra nodded. Nina looked pleased with herself. ‘I figured that out. The mugs, yeah?’
Sandra tried to look as if she knew what Nina was talking about.
‘How did I end up here?’
‘Pure bloody chance,’ Sandra said, seized by a sudden impulse to stroke Nina’s cheek, prove to herself the miracle had happened. ‘Kim was giving Lucky and Juliet a lift.’
‘Down Ballards Way?’
‘You know what she’s like. Anyway, they saw your car. Thought it was a bit funny, got worried and came back to have a look. Nick of time, as it turned out.’
‘God, I must’ve looked a right mess,’ Nina said. She gasped and her eyes screwed tight shut. When she reopened them, they were full of tears that spilled over at once and flowed over her cheeks onto the pillow.
‘Nina?’
She shook her head, as violently as she dared. ‘When I woke up - I think I sort of just woke up, like - well, it wasn’t gradual, put it that way.’ Sandra had to lean close to hear. Her voice was little more than a whisper, and kept cutting out like a ropy outboard motor. ‘One moment I was, I dunno, somewhere; then suddenly I’m awake, aware. All these tubes and machines and... and oh, my God, it was all so clear... like I was on speed or something. As God is my witness, I’ve never had so much clarity in my whole life - like my whole life was all crammed into that single second... And then...’ She took in a deep, painful breath. ‘Then I just realised all this - all this junk was for me. Plugged into me, like I’m some fucking domestic appliance. Like it was all that was keeping me alive. I kept expecting somebody to come along and - and pull the plug out and I’d be gone, and I couldn’t stop them, and that, and...’
‘OK,’ Sandra whispered.
‘And,’ Nina said with extreme difficulty, ‘I was all alone. Like I didn’t have a clue where I was or what was happening and there was nobody there. Oh, God, Sandra, I’ve never been so fucking frightened. Never. Not even when - ’
Her mouth slammed shut like a disturbed clam.
‘When what?’ Sandra prompted.
But all Nina did for a long time was subside into silent misery. By now Sandra could see a large damp patch on the pillow. She snapped out of the semi-daze she was in, took a clean tissue from the box on the bedside cabinet and attempted to stem the flow.
At last Nina spoke.
‘Mum and Dad warned me,’ she said. ‘They’ve been dreading this since the day I joined up. I’d no right to put them through it. It’s my fault. I walked into it.’ Her body shook with a violent sob: a moan of agony, or anguish, escaped her.
‘What are you saying - you what?’ Sandra pleaded. ‘Nina, what happened?’
‘What happened?’ she repeated vaguely, as though the question filtered down to her through a dull, turgid mind. She said, ‘I’m done for.’
‘You’re gonna be fine. Out of here in no time.’
‘No.’ She looked across at Sandra, and her expression carried such sadness it put a lump in her friend’s throat. ‘The Job, I mean. I’ve had it.’ She licked her lips. ‘I - I - I don’t - I don’t think I can do it any more.’
‘You can’t let those bastards win!’
‘What bastards?’
Sandra could feel the back of her neck burning in impotent anger. She said, ‘We know it was Porter.’
‘What?’
‘Him and Quaife. We’ve got eyewitness statements from Debbie and her dad. Every bobby in the country’s out looking and the ports and airports are sewn up tighter than an Eskimo’s nipple. They’re going nowhere.’
‘Please don’t, Sandra.’
The sudden plea brought her back to her senses with a jolt that snatched her breath away. She stared.
‘I don’t care,’ Nina whispered. ‘I don’t fucking care.’
Sandra, thinking she understood, closed her eyes and passed a hand over her face. She said, ‘I saw Paul outside.’
‘Thought you must’ve.’ She tensed. Nina said, ‘It’s OK.’
‘He is your husband.’ She didn’t know what else to say.
‘Yeah. For now, that’s enough. I need him. Just concentrate on getting out of here, then worry about...’
There was a sharp knocking. Sandra craned round. Two faces were framed in the glass pane of the door. One was Lucia’s; the other, tight lipped and irate, belonged to Nurse Aziz. Sandra nodded irritably and turned back to Nina, who looked exhausted. She said, ‘I’m sorry, mate. That was right out of line.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Nina said, barely audible. ‘I didn’t tell you, did I?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘Who,’ she smiled.
Sandra, mystified, shrugged.
‘I can see the funny side now.’
Light dawned. ‘I’ve got to admit,’ Sandra sniggered, ‘that black eye is a fucking work of art.’ She was delighted to see Nina’s lips twitch.
Nurse Aziz came into the room, followed by Lucia, who appeared to have been attempting to restrain her. She snapped, ‘OK, officer, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave now.’
‘Tell her not to make me laugh,’ Nina pleaded. ‘It hurts.’
‘I was just going,’ Sandra grinned. She leaned over to Nina and said, ‘You’ll be OK, you.’
Nina’s lips moved.
Sandra leaned closer.
‘Don’t forget me.’
‘Don’t be daft. We’re all rooting for you.’
Nina smiled and closed her eyes. Nurse Aziz bent over, noticed the damp patch and started muttering about fluids. As Sandra went to the door Lucia smiled anxiously and flashed her a tentative thumbs-up sign. Sandra frowned, held her hand out flat and tilted it.
‘Nasty?’ Jasmin giggled. ‘Jeff?’
‘He got really nasty,’ Zoltan repeated. ‘“Sorry, I should’ve asked before using your loo.” And glib with it. I didn’t know you ha
d it in you, constable.’
‘Aye, well.’ Jeff wasn’t sure he was that keen on Jasmin finding out about his dark side just yet. It was his loss that Zoltan had adjusted the rear view mirror for a better sweep of the road behind, so rendering her admiring smile invisible to him.
‘I’m not complaining,’ the DI said. ‘Even in Special Crime, an occasional bit of old-fashioned, heavy-handed bobbying has its uses. Gave Vicky Prosser the nudge to think she’d put one over on us, anyway.’
‘Hopefully,’ Jeff sighed, looking at his watch. It was after one and they’d been in Glazebrook Road for two hours without much happening. The flat looked empty, curtains open, windows resolutely black.
‘I think still that there is someone in the garden over there,’ Jasmin said. Twenty minutes ago she’d reported seeing movement in the shadows behind some railings. They’d watched, but none of them could be certain. Wishful thinking, possibly.
‘Sure we shouldn’t go and check, guv?’ Jeff said.
Zoltan shook his head. ‘I want him in the building when we take him.’
‘Bang to rights, huh?’ Jasmin said, gleeful at a chance finally to use the phrase.
‘We hope.’
‘As if we were sure he’ll turn up,’ Jeff said gloomily. ‘What if he knows Pegley’s been nicked?’
‘They haven’t seen one another for years, remember?’
‘Pegley says.’ He tensed. ‘Eh up.’
A car was pulling up outside the flats. The front passenger door opened and a woman got out. They heard the word ‘cheers’ in an Irish accent.
‘Colleen O’Dwyer,’ Zoltan said. ‘Funny sort of time to be out.’
‘She has been working, I think,’ Jasmin said, as the car drove off again. ‘Those are scrubs she is wearing.’ Suddenly she pointed. ‘I was right. Look.’
They turned and saw a tall, thin figure emerge from behind the railings and hurry across the road. O’Dwyer, oblivious, had gone indoors. The figure pushed open the door and slipped through.
‘He’s going to use her to get into the flat,’ Zoltan said. ‘Right, let’s go.’