Mimic

by Daniel Cole

  ‘Police!’

  ‘On the floor! I said: on the floor!’

  As heavy footfalls stormed up the stairs, she left her unconscious acquaintance where he lay to peer round the wall, pulling a string jumper over her head as along the corridor another door was separated from its frame:

  ‘Police! Get on your knees!’

  They were in her friend Greg’s room – a treasure trove of narcotics, counterfeit goods, and dubiously acquired high-end bike parts.

  Cursing when she spotted her rucksack and boots in the doorway, she cautiously stepped out to retrieve them, creeping into the hall just as more officers came thundering up the staircase.

  Rushing into the next room along, she pushed the door to and waited for them to pass.

  ‘What … What’s going on?’ asked a girl she didn’t recognise from the threadbare sofa, hair hanging over mascara-smudged eyes, needles still hanging out of either arm.

  ‘Shhhh!’ she whispered back. ‘It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.’

  More than happy to oblige, the girl lay back down and pulled the duvet over her head.

  Rolling her eyes, she didn’t feel the least bit guilty. There was no way she’d make it out with one of her old school friend’s half-fried floozies in tow.

  Seizing her opportunity, she tiptoed back out into the corridor and started heading down the stairs, freezing when four more officers entered the squat house, filling the hallway below and blocking her exit. With no other option, she hurried back up, returning to the room she’d just come from as a commotion broke out: Greg, as addicted to poor decisions as any drug, deciding to put up a fight.

  She gently shut the door and rushed over to the frosted window, pushing the stirring girl’s head back down onto the pillow on her way past. Opening only at the very top, she squeezed her rucksack through the narrow gap first and then dropped her boots out one at a time. Clambering up onto the windowsill, she scraped several neat white marks across her skin as she fell out onto the fire escape.

  London was its usual grey self as she stepped into her boots, threw her rucksack over her shoulder and started climbing down towards the street, the devil on her shoulder convincing her to skip the last ten rungs by dropping onto the bonnet of a police car, which turned out to be less unoccupied than first thought.

  The young officer in the driver’s seat stared up at her with his radio handset hovering in front of his open mouth.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ she muttered before leaping down off the vehicle and sprinting into the alleyway opposite.

  She emerged out on Parliament Street and joined the procession of office workers marching down the road. Conscious that she was still far too conspicuous among the suited and booted, she tied up her chin-length hair and swiped a pair of plastic sunglasses from a street vendor’s display.

  Seeing a police car pull up at the junction ahead, she forced herself not to react and continued walking straight towards it, watching out of the corner of her eye as it turned onto the main road and rolled by. She’d made it at least another five paces before hearing the sirens wail.

  Breaking into a sprint, she shoved a businessman out of her way and tore across the street, car horns blaring in her ears as she entered The Red Lion pub, exiting through the back onto Derby Gate. As she hurried up to the rear entrance of a nearby building, she could hear the sirens getting louder … the patrol car speeding around the corner after her.

  ‘Come on. Come on. Come on,’ she whispered, stepping forward one place in the queue.

  Handing the man at the entrance her ID card, she stepped through the doors of New Scotland Yard just in time, a smirk on her face as she watched the police car give up the hunt and turn round.

  Performing her morning ritual, she got off the lift two floors higher than she needed to, the short walk to the stairwell providing an opportunity to peek through the glass doors of the Homicide department. A recent recruitment freeze coinciding with a one-off opportunity to progress in the Narcotics team had diverted her career path temporarily, but if there was one thing she had learned during her short time on the force, it was that it was always easier to move sideways than upwards.

  Coming out of the stairwell, she headed into the toilets to make herself look a little more presentable, washing her face and removing her nose and lip rings ahead of facing her achingly conservative training officer, Dennis Trout, who’d no doubt already be sitting at his desk raring to go.

  ‘Goodness. Goodness, Ms Marshall,’ he exclaimed as she slumped into the chair opposite. He was well into his fifties and was an inherently kind-natured, gentle and dull human being. Dennis didn’t smoke. He didn’t drink. He liked model aeroplanes. How on earth he’d survived a career in Narcotics, when he looked like someone who’d water down cough mixture, was beyond her. ‘You’re almost an hour early!’ he informed her before eyeing the rather see-through jumper and ripped jeans disapprovingly. ‘Ummm, Marshall.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ she cut him off. ‘Hey, was there a raid this morning I didn’t know about? Thought I passed something on my way in.’

  With a frown, Dennis clicked about on his computer before glancing around the room. ‘Not us,’ he shrugged.

  ‘As long as I’m not missing out,’ she smiled. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘That would be grand. But first … And I know it’s not really my place to say, but …’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she huffed.

  ‘It’s just, I never realised you had so many …’

  ‘Tattoos?’

  ‘Yes.’ She waited for the point that was presumably on its way. ‘Perhaps I could give you a bit of friendly advice from someone who’s been “inked” himself.’

  ‘I would really like that,’ said Marshall sarcastically.

  ‘Don’t get any more.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, you look great, and you’ve got your whole angry biker thing going on. But over time they’re going to fade and turn blue, and by the time you’re my age you’re going to look like a …’

  ‘A …?’ she prompted him as he searched for the right word.

  ‘… Smurf.’

  Unable to help cracking a smile, she got up and squeezed Dennis’s shoulder affectionately:

  ‘Duly noted. So, how about that coffee?’

  At 7.15 p.m. Chambers climbed the driveway up to his front door, the framework of scaffolding standing between him and the house an unwelcome reminder of prison cells and work-related stresses every time he returned home. Suffering with a streaming cold, eyes watering and nose rubbed raw, he was back almost forty-five minutes late, time enough for the atmosphere inside to frost beyond saving.

  Kicking off his shoes, he assessed the battlefield: Eve was slaving away in the kitchen, a half-empty bottle of wine on the worktop, while his mother made unhelpful remarks from the dining-room table:

  ‘You’ll kill us all if you reheat that.’

  ‘I should be so lucky,’ muttered Eve under her breath before calling back: ‘I’m not reheating it. I’m just still heating it. There’s a difference.’

  Mrs Chambers scoffed at that: ‘Maybe where you come from.’

  ‘Evening both,’ he greeted them, taking his cue to intervene. ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ he said, hurrying over to assist Eve, who gave him a distracted kiss to the eyeball.

  ‘Something going on at work?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s always something going on at work,’ they chimed in unison, much to the un-amusement of the elderly woman.

  When they finally sat down to eat, Chambers sighed in relief, rubbing his right knee as Eve watched him in concern.

  ‘You’ve been overdoing it,’ she told him, slurring ever so slightly, deciding that having tried sticking up for herself, killing her with kindness, and one eventful time even threatening to deprive the old bat of grandkids just to spite her – she’d try drinking her way through her mother-in-law’s biannual visit. ‘You need to tell people you can’t be on your feet all day.’
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  ‘I’m fine. And I don’t want everyone knowing my business.’

  ‘It’s your leg, not your hopes and dreams!’

  ‘I don’t want them to know!’ His expression turning sad, Chambers took her hand, his mother looking as though she might lash out with the knife to separate them. ‘Because it’s a constant reminder of the only time I ever broke a promise to you. And I hate that.’

  Eve squeezed his hand tightly.

  ‘So, “bungalow” is just a fancy term for a flat with a roof then, is it?’ blurted Mrs Chambers, crapping all over the touching moment.

  ‘Why do you love stairs so fucking much?!’ Eve snapped back at her, patience apparently exhausted.

  Even the extractor fan cut out to partake in the stunned silence that followed.

  Deciding it best to pretend as though it never happened, Chambers let go of Eve’s hand, picked up his cutlery, and smiled:

  ‘This looks delicious. Shall we?’

  Thirteen hours and an uneventful shift later, Marshall made it back to her tiny studio apartment, the concrete sliver of balcony looking out over the river its only redeeming feature. Tossing her bag onto the sofa, she commenced her nightly ritual: putting a meal-for-one in the microwave as she lit up a cigarette and stepped outside to watch the city lights on the water.

  Shovelling the tasteless lasagne into her mouth, she opened a bottle of beer and took a seat on the floor beside the archive boxes, the contents of which were already strewn across the rug. She picked up a copy of the signed confession of James ‘Jimmy’ Metcalf, the homeless man who had admitted to murdering Henry John Dolan in the park and who had now served over seven years of his life sentence as a result.

  Pulling the telephone as close to her as the cable would allow, she dialled the number for Belmarsh Prison scrawled at the bottom of the page, absent-mindedly shading in part of a sketch she’d been working on as she waited for someone to answer.

  ‘Hi. It’s Trainee Detective Mar— … Yeah, me again. So, did you ask him? … Yeah … You’re shitting me?! Sorry. I mean: that’s great! How about tomorrow? … I’ll see you then.’

  Placing the receiver back on its cradle, she looked down over her paper floor: the unsolved case file of Alphonse and Nicolette Cotillard; a pharmacological encyclopaedia’s dog-eared page describing the effects of pancuronium bromide; the report on the assault of one Detective Sergeant Benjamin Chambers; and three overdue art history books, one lying open on a double-page spread of The Gates of Hell. She raised her bottle in toast to Rodin’s beautifully crafted representation of torment and suffering, the darkest parts of her yearning for a fleeting peek inside.

  Taking a celebratory swig, Marshall smiled.

  Finally, she was getting somewhere.

  Saturday

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘Morning all. We’ve got a white male, bulky, dark-blond hair … quite handsome apparently.’

  ‘Sounds like me,’ quipped Winter, responding into his walkie-talkie as he surveyed those in his vicinity.

  A static click:

  ‘Yeah, if by “dark-blond” you mean “losing his”, and by “bulky” you mean … “just fat”. Plus, this guy’s not old.’

  Winter looked confused: ‘Old? You think I’m old?’

  Radio silence.

  ‘… Guys?’ Only a shrill alarm responded, however, as someone fitting the description sprinted out through the doors. ‘We’ve got a runner!’

  Bursting out onto Fulham High Street, Winter’s strip-light-strained eyes took a moment to adjust. Spotting the tracksuit-wearing man tearing past the cracked windows of Argos, he took off in pursuit, weaving between the traffic as he followed his suspect into the park.

  ‘Hey!’ Winter coughed unhealthily, already severely out of breath and losing ground. He went to vault a bench, but then thought better of it, making a beeline instead for an elderly gentleman wheeling an even elderly-ier bicycle: ‘Sir, I need to commandeer your vehicle.’

  ‘My wife gave me this bike.’

  ‘I’m sure you can get another one.’

  ‘Wife?’ The old man seemed quite taken with the idea.

  ‘Bike.’

  ‘Oh … Then no.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll bring it back. I promise.’

  With reluctance, the pensioner allowed Winter to straddle his ride home and, after a shaky start, pedal away after the untiring criminal.

  Building up some speed, he was only a few metres behind when the man flung the gate open and headed towards the playing fields.

  ‘Stop!’ panted Winter, now feeling quite sick. ‘Stop, you bastard!’

  But when he failed to comply, Winter stood up on the pedals to accelerate harder – a final burst of speed as he aimed the handlebars at his quarry’s back.

  Wincing, he closed his eyes … colliding painfully with the criminal and landing in a confusing heap of wheels and limbs in the middle of the road.

  Winter slapped a limp arm across his suspect’s chest: ‘By the power vested in me by the multinational conglomerate of Sainsbury’s plc. I now pronounce you: not really allowed to go.’

  ‘OK. OK. You win.’ As the queue of traffic grew by the second, the man unzipped his jacket to surrender the can of Irn-Bru and copy of Jurassic Park on VHS.

  ‘I’ve still got to take you in,’ Winter told him, struggling to free his leg from between the spokes.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘… Although, you might have to carry me.’

  With his detainee’s assistance, Winter hobbled proudly back through the doors of the supermarket, the alarms announcing his triumphant return like a chorus of trumpets. His boss, Dan, an acne-ridden grease slick of a teenager, looked decidedly unimpressed as he handed over the recovered merchandise.

  ‘One can of carbonated unpleasantness and “an adventure sixty-five million years in the making”,’ he announced, reading the quote off the front cover. ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘You’ve been gone for like an hour!’ Winter was a little thrown by the reaction. ‘The alarms went off at least five times while you were off playing cop.’

  ‘He smashed up some old geezer’s bike and all,’ added the inarticulate shoplifter, sensing the tables turning in his favour.

  ‘Thanks,’ Winter told him sarcastically.

  The man smiled.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Dan.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Let him go. I’ll have saved up a house deposit, and you’ll be six-feet under by the time the police get round to turning up.’

  ‘I’m not old!’

  ‘We got the stock back. And anyway, I know him. His nan lives down my road. Marcus, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ grunted Winter’s walking aid.

  ‘But—’

  ‘That’s a direct order from your superior,’ Dan told him.

  One finger at a time, Winter released his grip on the young man, who adjusted his shell suit as though it were a fine three-piece. Looking bemused, he slowly backed away.

  ‘Know what makes me manager material? I can read people. He won’t do it again,’ said Dan knowingly, watching Winter’s capture roam the aisles like a rehabilitated animal he’d just set free.

  ‘He’s heading straight for the videos,’ Winter pointed out.

  ‘You’re on your final warning. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The alarms tripped once again, Marcus the shoplifter now nowhere to be seen.

  Turning back to Dan, Winter had to physically bite his tongue in self-preservation.

  ‘Well,’ said the teenager, as though he were in no way to blame. ‘Get after him then.’

  Winter could actually taste blood now:

  ‘Shoplifter – I’m in pursuit!’ Hobbling towards the open doors, he muttered to himself: ‘Maybe I am too old for this.’

  Marshall wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring into space when the metal door clunked loudly and a prison officer escorted a vaguely familiar man into the visitation hall. He
looked well, far healthier than in the mugshot attached to his arrest file. He was of average height and build, clean-shaven, his long straggly hair now cut just above the ear. Even the dark-blue jumpsuit looked almost tailor-made on him.

  ‘James Metcalf?’ she smiled, getting to her feet and extending a hand. ‘Trainee Constable Jordan Marshall.’ She figured it best to drop the ‘detective’ bit.

  ‘Jimmy,’ the man replied. ‘And …’ He held his cuffed hands up apologetically.

  ‘Can we take those off please?’ she asked the guard, who looked uncomfortable with the request. ‘It’s all right. I’ve already cleared it with the governor and signed a waiver. Take them off please.’

  The man did as he was instructed.

  ‘Cheers, Frank,’ said Jimmy pleasantly.

  ‘Want me to stay with you?’ the guard asked Marshall.

  ‘No. Thank you. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘You behave yourself, Jimmy,’ the man smiled. ‘And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the Spurs game.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ laughed the younger man, the door closing on them as he turned back to Marshall. ‘He might be a screw, but he’s all right, Frank.’

  She gestured for him to take a seat opposite the stacks of paperwork, where a chilled bottle of water was already waiting on the table for him:

  ‘First off – let me say thank you for agreeing to speak to me.’

  ‘Couldn’t really keep saying no, could I? After you’d asked so nicely almost twenty times.’

  ‘Twenty-two,’ Marshall corrected him, ‘but who’s counting?’ she said breezily but knowing full well why he had agreed to meet with her on this particular occasion. He was surprisingly well spoken for someone who had lived on the streets much of their adulthood. But then she felt like a judgemental bitch for even thinking it. She knew better than most how a single decision could change the course of a person’s life. ‘Can I get you anything before we begin?’

  ‘I’m good.’

  ‘OK. As I’m sure you’ve already gathered, I’m the minion they’ve tasked with dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on a warehouse-worth of old case files. It’s just a formality, but as I explained to your governor the other day, during my consolidation work, I came across a discrepancy that could have a major bearing upon the evidence that led to your conviction. So, obviously I felt it important to come in and clarify some of the details surrounding the murder of Henry John Dolan that you allegedly committed and confessed to.’