by Oliver Tidy
‘That I missed Maureen and the kids too much.’
‘You think he believed you?’
‘Why shouldn’t he? Anyway, it’s partly true.’
Marsh looked like she was trying to accept this.
‘He screams in his sleep, too.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t think he knows it. He’s never mentioned it and neither have I, but I don’t mind admitting I was frightened a couple of times.’
‘Screams about what? Can you make out what he’s saying?’
‘I would say don’t laugh, but I’d probably be wasting my breath.’ She looked at him expectantly. ‘Giant dancing ears. That’s what it sounds like. Forgive the pun.’
Marsh was clutching her stomach like she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. When she brought herself back under control, she said, ‘You must have got that wrong. That doesn’t make sense. Could it have been giant dancing bears?’
‘I don’t know. It was late. I’d just been shouted out of my sleep. He only screamed it a couple of times. I put a chair under the door handle and got under the covers.’
Marsh wasn’t laughing now. She was beyond that. In fact she realised that she needed the bathroom. If she hadn’t already, she was in danger of embarrassing herself in a whole new way.
‘Don’t go away,’ she managed before hurrying out.
Romney came out of his office and approached Grimes’ workstation. He was looking in the direction Marsh had just hurriedly disappeared in. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Morning, gov. Yeah. Fine thanks. What’ve done to your hand?’
‘No one told a certain dog that it’s supposed to be man’s best friend.’
‘Looks bad, gov. Swollen. Have you been to the doctor? When I was a kid, my neighbour got bitten by a stray. Week later he was dead.’
Romney relegated the reason he had come out to speak to Grimes to second place. ‘Died of what?’
‘Rabies. Do you know, there’s still no cure for it?’
‘Your neighbour died of rabies?’ Romney lost a little of his colour.
Grimes noticed this and felt obliged to be a bit more positive. ‘But there’s no rabies in the UK these days, is there? Eradicated years ago.’
Romney got back to the reason he’d come out to speak to the big man. ‘Settled back in with the family all right?’
‘Yeah. We’ve changed everything around. Maureen and me got our own room, which is nice. I’m really grateful for your help, gov, but like I said, I should be back with the family and I missed them too much.’
‘Of course. I understand. Anytime. If it gets too cramped you can always come back.’
‘Brilliant, gov. That’s good to know. Thanks again.’
‘About Friday night.’
‘Yes, gov.’
‘I might have been a bit pissed.’
‘You weren’t that bad, gov. I’ve seen worse.’
‘I might have said some stupid things.’
‘I don’t remember anything like that, gov. All I remember is when I came in we had a drink and I went off to bed.’
This seemed to please Romney. Obviously relieved, he changed the subject. ‘Joy all right?’
‘Yeah, think so.’
‘She didn’t look all right.’
‘Said something about stomach cramps,’ lied Grimes.
‘She tell you what happened to her?’
‘Yeah. Bastards. They want to hope I don’t get my hands on them.’
Romney ignored it. ‘Was she crying again?’
‘I didn’t notice, gov. I don’t think so.’ Grimes didn’t want to have to explain things.
‘Do you know anything about the battery being out of the kitchen clock?’
‘Oh yeah. I meant to say. I borrowed it for my alarm.’
‘Couldn’t you have just bought one?’
Grimes looked like it hadn’t occurred to him and in a bid to deflect Romney’s ire said, ‘Billy Savage won a hundred grand on a scratch card.’
Romney blew out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘And people say there’s no God.’
‘What do you mean, gov?’
‘What I mean is, how else could such an undeserving, lazy, thieving, scumbag, benefit-cheating family of leeches win something like that unless there were some equally unpleasant character of a deity looking down from on high and waving his wand to take the piss out of all the honest, law-abiding and hard-working members of civilised society?’
‘Luck?’
‘Do me a favour. What is luck? I’ll tell you what luck is. It’s another figment of stupid people’s imagination.’
‘How else could he have got the lucky, sorry, winning ticket then?’
‘He probably stole it.’
‘You might not be alone thinking that. Apparently, he wasn’t a popular winner.’
‘I’m not surprised. Why?’
‘The scratch card was part of a fund-raising initiative run by The Pilgrims Hospice organisation. A pile of tickets went missing from one of their charity shops. They wanted to call the whole thing off but for some legal reason they weren’t able to without risk of being sued. Then Billy Savage popped up with the winning ticket and to save all the fuss and bother and bad publicity they honoured it.’
‘Surely the cards had serial numbers on them. They could have located which shop the winning one came from.’
‘They did. Billy Savage claimed he’d been in to buy a toy for his little sister and while he was there he’d bought a couple of tickets. They don’t have CCTV in charity shops, yet.’
‘Why didn’t I know anything about this?’
‘It wasn’t on our patch. Not our problem. There was a picture of him in the local fish-wrapper grinning in front of his new car, apparently.’
‘I don’t buy that any more. How did the tickets get nicked?’
‘Break-in at a shop.’
‘Scrotes broke into a charity shop? A hospice charity shop? A charity that supports where people go to be looked after when they’re dying?’ Grimes was nodding. ‘What is the world coming to? I do hope that there is a God because that means there will be a hell, even if burning alive for eternity is too good for some people.’
‘Talking of burning alive,’ said Grimes, ‘Any news on Bernie Stark’s post-mortem?’
‘I didn’t get the chance to tell you. Maurice Wendell called on Friday night when you were out. He couldn’t find any evidence of foul play. Bernie Stark died of a heart attack. Maurice said he’s seen healthier-looking hearts on the meat counter at his local butchers.’
‘That’s good news for us then, isn’t it?’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, if he died a natural death – no suggestion of foul play – there’s nothing for anyone to investigate, is there?’
‘Maybe. There is the small matter that most of his face had been burned off. But then again Maurice had ideas for that. It’ll suit me if we won’t have Boudicca’s mates from the inquisition sniffing around with their thumbscrews. I’d still keep a low profile if I were you. No need to remind her that she’s cross with you. Let’s hope that all blows over.’
‘No problem there, gov.’
‘Still leaves some unanswered questions about what Billy Savage and his mates were doing there.’
‘We could always ask him,’ said Grimes, stating the blindingly obvious.
The phone on Grimes’ desk rang. As he picked it up Marsh pushed back through the squad room’s double doors. Romney could see she’d been crying again. She caught him looking at her with a frown and smiled. Grimes put down the phone. A little of his colour had been washed out of him.
‘Super wants to see me,’ he said.
‘Why?’ said Romney with an edge that betrayed his anxiety. Marsh’s emotional issues were quickly banished to the back of his mind.
‘Don’t know, gov. She’s not going to explain herself to me, is she? Just click her fingers.’
‘More like the heels of her jack
boots,’ said Romney. ‘Well don’t keep her waiting. And come and see me when she’s finished with you.’
Grimes stood and walked away with the enthusiasm of a man heading towards the gallows. He tucked his shirt in all the way round as he went and Romney noted the remarkable shine to the seat of his trousers.
‘Thanks again for your help yesterday,’ said Marsh.
‘No problem. How’s your stomach?’
‘Pardon?’
‘He said you had stomach cramps. Is that why you’ve been crying a lot? Anything to do with your assault?’
The directness of Romney’s approach embarrassed Marsh and she found herself blushing. ‘I’m fine, thank you, sir. I think I’ve got a bit of an allergy.’
‘Joy, I’m not stupid. Something’s wrong. Maybe it’s none of my business because it’s personal. If you need someone to talk to about something...’ And he almost said something nice, something touching and caring and unusual. ‘...find someone. Take some time off if you need to. I can’t have my DS trailing me around bawling her eyes out. It won’t inspire confidence in the public and it looks bad.’
Joy forced down her natural reaction to such a hard-hearted remark – she knew him and she wasn’t entirely surprised – and said, ‘I’m fine, thank you, sir.’
‘Start acting it then, will you? I need you focussed.’ He smiled at her and she was forced to consider whether he believed that was supposed to be motivational.
He went back to his office leaving Joy to wonder if perhaps she had misunderstood him. Maybe he had wanted to say something supportive, something sensitive, maybe even show some compassion, offer some comfort but hadn’t known how to and had covered it up with something tough and insensitive. It occurred to her that he hadn’t meant to come across as a cold-hearted git. It was just his way of dealing with displays of emotion. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen feelings make him obviously uncomfortable. No wonder he was on his own. The man was an emotional cripple.
Romney shut his office door, settled himself in his seat and loosened his tie. He felt hot. Could they have fired up the station boiler so early in the year? Maybe engineers were testing it for the winter. He reached out to touch the little radiator under the window behind him – cold as a witch’s tit. Maybe he was coming down with something. He turned on his monitor and went to his newly-discovered fount of all knowledge: Wikipedia. He was aware of a fluttering in his ribcage, like a small butterfly desperately and hopelessly beating at a closed window, as he dragged his unwilling fingers across the keyboard punching in the letters r...a...b...i...e...s in a bid to find out something about a disease he knew surprisingly little about and would have been happy if it could have stayed that way. Still, out of personal necessity, his interest had been piqued and he felt it better to be aware than ignorant. Just in case. One never really knew.
Despite the huge block of closely-typed text he was confronted with, his eye was irresistibly and immediately drawn to an image of a miserable-looking mangy mongrel dog whose head was being held up with a stick under its chin. The caption underneath the photograph said: Dog with rabies in the paralytic (post-furious) stage. Romney’s stomach reacted unpleasantly. He swallowed hard and with some difficulty, and skim-read the article:
“...causes acute encephalitis (Romney clicked on the highlighted term to discover this meant inflammation of the brain) ...transmitted by a bite from an infected animal... almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis (another click – not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms)...infects the central nervous system, ultimately causing disease in the brain and death... once symptoms begin to show... virtually untreatable and usually fatal within days. Another image accompanied this part of the text: a black and white photograph of a man strapped to his hospital bed and writhing in agony against his restraints. Romney’s mind and imagination played a horrible trick on him.
Early stage symptoms... malaise, headache and fever... acute pain, violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, depression, and hydrophobia... incubation periods as short as four days (Romney’s breathing stilled and he was unable to prevent himself from mentally counting back to his encounter with Mrs Allen’s shih-tzu – less than forty-eight hours). He read on and his brow was creased ...partial paralysis, anxiety, insomnia, confusion, agitation, abnormal behaviour, paranoia, terror, and hallucinations, progressing to delirium... attempts to drink, or even the intention or suggestion of drinking, may cause excruciatingly-painful spasms of the muscles in the throat and larynx. Romney stared at the little bottle of mineral water on his desk. He did not feel repulsed by it. It did not unreasonably terrify him. He felt no urge to hide from it. He reached for it, unscrewed the cap and took a mouthful. It felt refreshing. He did not feel any of the promised excruciatingly-painful spasms of the muscles in the throat and larynx.
Death... two to ten days after first symptoms... survival... rare, even with the administration of proper and intensive care... virus cannot be easily detected within the host. ...difficult to diagnose... in the early stages... easily confused with other diseases or aggressiveness... diagnosing rabies... performing... viral culture on brain samples taken after death. (Not much fucking use to the victim, thought Romney, aggressively) ...diagnosis... reliably made from skin samples taken before death... saliva, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid samples (just the idea made Romney giddy) ...the animal from which the bite was received should also be examined for rabies.
The differential diagnosis in a case of suspected human rabies may initially include any cause of encephalitis, in particular infection with viruses such as herpes viruses, enteroviruses, and arboviruses such as West Nile virus. The most important viruses to rule out are herpes simplex virus type one, varicella zoster virus, and (less commonly) enteroviruses, including coxsackieviruses, echoviruses, polioviruses, and human enteroviruses. Romney understood virtually nothing of what he was reading now and he had lost his sense of self-discipline and interest to click on the highlighted words for illumination. He found himself totally fixated on one sentence: the animal from which the bite was received should also be examined for rabies.
Treatment... highly successful... if administered promptly.
The first dose of rabies vaccine is given as soon as possible after exposure, with additional doses on days three, seven and fourteen after the first. Four injections. (The room tilted.) The old nerve-tissue-based vaccinations require multiple painful injections into the abdomen with a large needle...
He closed the viewing window, stood and looked out of his office window. Fucking hell, he allowed himself, that rabies was some nasty shit. The reading had been supposed to quash any irrational fears he may have been suffering from over being bitten by a dog with a frothy mouth. In that respect it had not been a success. If anything, he felt quite unsettled. He unwound the home-applied bandaging from his dog-bitten hand and flexed the fingers. Everything was still sore and inflamed. The skin felt tight and looked like someone had pumped air into it. Perhaps he should visit a doctor. He brought the wound to his face and was just sniffing around it when a loud tap on the glass of his partition made him jump and swear and look around murderously enough to induce a look of genuine fear on the face of DC Harmer who was standing there clutching a file to his chest.
*
Grimes checked himself in the toilet mirror before going upstairs and was both glad that he did and dismayed to find evidence of his breakfast egg on his shirt front. He scrubbed at it with a damp paper towel and the stain was replaced by a large wet patch covered with tiny scuffs of white. He managed to button his jacket to cover it, but the fabric was so taut across his stomach that he could not fully exhale without endangering the jacket’s retaining properties. And the effect drew attention to his fatness. Something he dearly wished to avoid in the company he was off to keep.
With a deep breath he managed another hole in his belt, which helped with appearances but hurt his stomach. He consoled himself with the hope that she wouldn’t want to s
ee him for long.
Grimes struggled to remember the last time he had set foot in what had been Superintendent Falkner’s rather dreary and functional office space and what was now Superintendent Vine’s tastefully decorated, understated but sophisticated home from home. The battered metal filing cabinet had been replaced by a new one that subtly blended with the new colour scheme. Falkner’s big old desk had been swapped for something better proportioned to the room and brand new. Gone were the hard orange plastic seats from the canteen. In their place were matching chairs and they were of the upholstered variety with armrests. There were pot plants, prints on the walls and a very nice Venetian blind. The whiff of fresh paint still hung pleasantly in the air alongside the unmistakeable and pungent fragrance of freshly-laid carpet. The whole aromatic effect was something to inhale and savour.
One day soon his own home would be mended and infused by such rich scents. And he wouldn’t have had to pay for, or lift a finger for, any of it. Thank God the neighbour had thought to take out comprehensive household insurance.
He looked forward to the day they could move back home with a sudden and powerful longing. He already sorely missed his family space and comfort. After only two nights in his sister-in-law’s garage the tang of spilt engine oil, musty-dampness and long-unswept recesses were combining to make him wonder about his hasty decision of abandoning his comfortable lodgings at Romney’s. Still, at least he, Maureen and the kids were back together.
He hoped the builders would pull their fingers out and be done before the autumnal evenings closed in. He’d checked the walls of his new temporary accommodation on Sunday – maybe something he should have done before moving in – single skin blockwork with a rendered finish. That wouldn’t be much of a barrier against the cold. He had to hope that the corrugated asbestos roof didn’t leak. On top of that, he’d woken up to find the biggest spider he’d ever seen on top of the duvet not two feet from his nose and glaring at him from big black eyes on stalks. If Maureen had seen it she’d have screamed the place down. He should have caught it and put it out instead of punching the covers to watch it fly off into the shelves of paint tins. He’d better try to find it when he got back.