by Zoe Sharp
They hadn’t seemed to notice the almost tangible resentment their arrival had caused. Everyone concerned had suddenly turned into one of the three wise monkeys. Tess and her oversize companion, I’d noticed, had slipped away almost immediately.
“Officious bastards,” William had muttered under his breath when the pair of coppers had gone away empty-handed. “Anybody want to take a bet they’re going to put all the blame on Slick for either cocking up or just riding too damned fast?” Nobody was foolish enough to take him up on the wager, least of all me.
When it became clear that they weren’t going to get to speak to Clare today, William and his mates had departed. Before he left, William had given me his mobile number and asked me to let him know any developments. I’d had a momentary picture of Tess’s sullen face but promised to call him, nevertheless.
Sam had gone not long after, with much the same request. Pauline had stuck it out the longest, but she finally threw in the towel around six o’clock.
“I suppose I’d better go and feed that hound of mine before he eats any more of the sofa,” she’d said, reluctant. “You will let me know of any changes, won’t you, Charlie?”
“Of course,” I’d said, smiling at her.
Now, sitting and thinking while I drank too much bad coffee, my mind went round and round what might have happened until it felt like a washing machine on a fast spin cycle. And, tucked away right at the back was the sneaking guilty suspicion that it might have been all my fault.
Or at least something that I could have prevented.
***
Sometime during the week before I’d seen Slick Grannell for the last time at Devil’s Bridge, I’d had another visitor. One even less welcome and not just for the message he brought.
I’d been taking down the old lathe-and-plaster ceilings upstairs, ready for knocking the dividing walls out. My local builder had finally deigned to put in an appearance for long enough to install a pair of whacking great RSJs to prevent the far gable collapsing into the field alongside the cottage. My aim was to have the whole of the front bedroom ceiling transferred into the skip I had parked in the lane outside before I quit for the day. Achievable, if I put both mind and muscle to it.
I’d been working steadily all afternoon. I told myself I was simply taking advantage of the extended daylight hours and the lack of neighbours but privately I could admit there was a lot more to it than that. The harder I worked the less time I had to think. And the better I slept at night.
Dr Yates, the psychotherapist my father had cajoled me into seeing, would have been proud. Or exasperated.
I’d heard the car coming and, as I’d done later with Sam’s Norton, I’d hung out over the upstairs front window sill and watched it arrive. A large official-looking dark green Rover saloon with a large official-looking driver. I’d recognised the car for what it was without knowing the occupants and had felt the first stirrings of unease.
The passenger door opened and a slim man in his mid forties stepped out, a neat figure with an air of unassuming authority about him, in a sober dark blue suit. He tipped his head back to meet my gaze and a pair of piercing muddy green eyes locked with mine. I resisted the urge to squirm.
“Detective Superintendent MacMillan,” I greeted him coolly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Charlie,” he returned, his voice chillingly pleasant. “I’d like a word, if you have a moment?”
It was politely put, but to my ears it still sounded like an invitation from the Stasi. I had a sudden perverse desire to make him meet me on my own terms so I waved towards the front door. “Be my guest,” I said. “But you’ll have to excuse the mess.”
MacMillan paused and a smile almost made its escape across the thin lips. “Burglars?” he asked, reminding me of the first time we’d met, when two men had trashed my old flat on St George’s Quay in Lancaster. They’d had a pretty good go at trashing me at the same time.
“No – builders. They steal just as much of your money and wreck the place, but at least they leave the video,” I said dryly. “Come on up. The coffee’s on.”
He left his driver in the car and made his way upstairs without undue haste. He reached the first floor and made a deceptively thorough inspection of the alterations I’d made so far in the time it took me to pour him a coffee from my filter machine and add milk and sugar.
As I handed it over his gaze settled on me, sharp and assessing to the point of unfriendliness. I felt a sudden desire to confess to something.
“You’re doing some major work, Charlie,” he said. “Have you been living here long?”
If he’d pulled my driving licence records or run the bike’s registration in order to find me, he would have known that but it was interesting that he felt the need to make idle conversation. The Superintendent was not normally one for small talk.
“Only since the beginning of May,” I said, playing the game. “I’m turning the whole place upside down.”
He smiled briefly again, little more than a flicker that came and went like a flashlight. “I can see that.”
“No, actually that wasn’t an exaggeration,” I said. “The views are all from upstairs, so I’m opening out the first floor and moving the living room and kitchen up here. Both bedrooms and the bathroom are going downstairs.”
He frowned, eyes sliding away for a moment while he gave the plan some thought. “Interesting,” was all he said, so I didn’t really know if he approved or thought I was mad.
“You didn’t come here to talk about DIY, Superintendent,” I said. I leaned against the partly-exposed stonework of the chimney breast and took a slug of my coffee. “What have I done now?”
“Why should you think that? Although, now you come to mention it, the last time your name came up in conversation I believe you were at the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list,” he said, and he was only half joking.
When I didn’t dignify that one with a reply he took a sip of his own coffee, stilled a moment as though he hadn’t expected it to be any good, and took another before continuing. Then he said, “What do you know about Devil’s Bridge?”
Not quite what I’d been expecting. “Devil’s Bridge?” I repeated blankly. “I never saw you as a born-again biker, Superintendent.” And when he frowned at me I added, “It’s just a biker’s hang-out. Nothing heavy – no gangs, no Hell’s Angels – just a lay-by near the river at Kirkby Lonsdale where we go to meet up on a Sunday. Why? Not been demoted to Traffic, have you? Who did you piss off?”
That smile nearly made it out again, but was quickly snuffed.
“On the road between Lancaster and Devil’s Bridge there have been twelve fatal crashes involving motorcycles so far this year and the Chief Constable’s been getting stick about it,” he said, his voice flat. “We have reason to believe there’s more to it than just bad luck or bad judgement.”
“Like what?”
“Like some kind of organised illegal road racing. We’ve put in a number of new fixed safety cameras along that road in the last six months. All of them have been repeatedly and systematically vandalised.”
“Safety cameras?” I said. “That’s an insult to our intelligence. Funny how the increase in cameras just happened to coincide with the regional police forces gaining control over the revenue they generate, isn’t it?”
“It’s a proven fact that the numbers of Killed or Seriously Injured drops where we site cameras,” MacMillan said, his tone ominous now. If I’d had more sense and less outrage I might have taken it as a warning.
“Yeah, and it’s another proven fact that the numbers rise everywhere else,” I said. “Look, Superintendent, much as I would love to stand here all day and debate the statistics on Gatso cameras with you—”
“Motorcyclists are dying, Charlie,” he said quietly, cutting me off at the knees. “They go out and disable the cameras and then they race on the public roads, and they’re dying because of it.”
I shut up for a moment and stood very
still like I was trying to feel fine rain falling, wondering if the news surprised me. After a few moments I came to the conclusion that it did not. “If you know it’s going on and you don’t like it, why don’t you stop it?”
He came as close as he ever did to shrugging. “We know people are dealing drugs and we don’t like that either, but that doesn’t mean we can stop them. These days juries tend to prefer truth to supposition.”
I gave him a shrug of my own and moved across to dump my empty coffee mug into the plastic bowl I was using for washing up. Everything in there was covered with a film of dust. “So get something a jury will like.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” he said behind me. “We’ve tried to get a man in undercover but they seem to suss him out every time. What we need, I feel is someone less – conspicuous.”
I heard the sliver of embarrassment in his tone. I stopped, put down my mug with a sharper click than I’d been intending and didn’t turn round. “No.”
MacMillan stayed silent and then I turned. “No,” I said again, wiping my hands on a tea towel. “Some of these people are quite possibly my friends. I won’t sell them down the river for you. This is not drug dealing or prostitution or armed robbery. This is a group of lads going out on their bikes at the weekends and riding too fast. And you want me to help you prosecute them? No way.”
He pursed his lips and carefully put down his own empty cup on the window ledge next to him. “Have you considered that you might be saving their lives?”
“Oh no,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “Don’t try emotional blackmail on me, Superintendent. You’ll have to go and find someone else to do your dirty work for you.”
The policeman studied me for a few seconds, his head on one side slightly, then fractions of expression passed across his features. Disappointment and resignation. “All right, Charlie, this was a very unofficial request and you’ve made your position clear.” His voice had returned to its usual clipped delivery. He nodded, just once, and that wry smile snuck out for another brief appearance. “It’s good to discover you’ve survived your recent experiences with your spirit intact,” he said. “I’ll see myself out.”
I followed his progress down the new bare timber staircase. Halfway down he paused and glanced back at me, almost rueful. “I confess I had hoped for better from you, Charlie.”
“No, John,” I said, almost gently. “You just hoped for more.”
***
Now, as I sat in the hospital waiting area and sweated and drank too much coffee, I recalled every word of that conversation. I hadn’t consciously known that Slick Grannell was one of the group of road racers MacMillan had spoken of, but when I thought about it I realised that at some level I had been aware of it, nevertheless.
And maybe, because I’d refused to do anything about it, Slick was dead and Clare was smashed to pieces. Sometimes you have to face the consequences of your actions. God knows, I’d had to do that a few times. But it didn’t compare to living with the knowledge that I’d done nothing.
The bell had just rung on the second round of me beating myself up about that when my father walked in.
Actually, that doesn’t begin to do justice to his dramatic entrance. He swept in, looking tanned and healthy, with the kind of arrogance only surgeons at the top of their game can truly master. I teetered between dislike and admiration of his utter self-assurance.
An entourage of medical staff scurried in his wake including, I noticed, the young doctor to whom I’d given his number. They halted en masse in the corridor and let him come on towards me alone.
“So here we are again, Charlotte.” He greeted me with the slightest of wry smiles, although his voice was formal and without inflection. I couldn’t really tell if I’d annoyed or gratified him by my interference.
I stood, realising as I did so that he and a number of those around him were dressed in surgical blues. I hid my resentment that he hadn’t thought to seek me out as soon as he’d arrived by telling myself he’d gone straight to his patient instead. Never one to mistake his priorities, my father.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Being prepped for surgery,” he said, not quite answering the question. He caught my expression and sighed. “Your friend has serious and extensive injuries, but I feel we may be able to do something for her.”
I nodded, his confident tone lifting some of the weight from my tense shoulders. It made me suddenly tired and only too aware of the lack of food and the excess of coffee I’d consumed since breakfast.
“When can I see her?”
“Now – but no more than a minute,” he said, giving me a firm stare over the top of his glasses. “I would not normally allow it, but Clare has been asking for you quite insistently. Please bear in mind that she’s received a lot of pain relief and things will be a little hazy for her.”
“Thank you,” I said. An inadequate display of gratitude but the best I could manage. “And thank you for coming.”
“You might like to bear in mind that had I not still had some official connections with this hospital, your request would have been impossible,” he pointed out sternly. He paused, then added in a surprisingly gentle tone, “I can’t always come to your rescue, Charlotte, however much I might wish to.”
Ignoring my confusion at that, he turned and strode away. I was left to be scooped up by the junior staff in his wake. “This way, Miss Foxcroft.”
“It’s Fox,” I said automatically. I got an inquisitive glance in reply but I didn’t feel like elaborating. I’d shortened my surname after I was chucked out of the army to distance myself both from my parents and my past, but the reasons were too long and too tedious to go into with strangers.
They took me straight down to the prep room outside the operating theatre where they were going to work on Clare. I was given plastic over-boots and a gown and told to scrub my hands before I was allowed in. I found my friend lying on a trolley amid a stack of what appeared to be retro-industrial machinery. She looked pale as milk and about eight years old.
“Charlie!” she whispered, her voice fogged and edgy with the pain. “God, am I glad to see you.”
I moved in and clutched her icy fingers, mindful of the butterfly drip plugged into the back of her hand. She seemed to be wired up to just about everything.
She was wearing a short hospital gown that left her grossly swollen and misshapen legs uncovered. Both were bathed yellow with iodine and the bruises that were already starting to bloom. My eyes skimmed over her left thigh. It looked unnervingly flattened, like a rubber moulding from which all inner support has been removed. Both kneecaps were clearly dislocated.
I tried to avoid looking at the area around her hips. At the linked thin metal rods sticking out from her abdomen that were holding her pelvis together with all the sophistication of a Meccano set. Her modesty was protected by a piece of light sterile cloth draped across her lower body that resembled a partial collapse at a Big Top.
I swallowed and flicked back to her face.
“Don’t worry, Clare. They’ll fix you,” I said, my voice fierce with unshed tears. “I promise.”
She made a sort of fluttering motion with her other hand. “Just as long as they make it stop hurting,” she said faintly.
“They’ll do that, too,” I said. I hesitated, but couldn’t put off the next question. “Where’s Jacob?”
She shifted uncomfortably, gasped as a new spasm gripped her body. “Ireland,” she managed. “Don’t know where exactly. You know how he hates mobile phones. He’s travelling. Somewhere in the south. Buying trip.”
She began to cry without seeming to be aware of it, tears spilling down her cheeks. One of the theatre nurses threw me a sharply reproachful glance.
“You’ll have to leave now,” she said.
“I’ll find him,” I said to Clare, ignoring the nurse. It wasn’t Jacob’s fault. Thank Christ for that. “What the hell hit you?”
“Transit van,” she murmured. “Det
ermined sod.” Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment then snapped open like she was having to fight to stay with me. “Take care of the dogs for me, Charlie. They’ve been stuck in all day. Poor old Bonny. And don’t let—”
“You really will have to leave,” the nurse said. “Right now!”
“I will,” I said, answering both of them at the same time. I leaned forwards, urgent. “Clare, what do you mean about the van? Determined to do what? Knock you off?”
The nurse grabbed my arm but I shook her loose. Another of the surgical team seized me by the shoulder. I stopped struggling.
“All right, all right, I’m going!” I snapped, allowing them to hustle me outside.
As the doors swung shut behind me I got one last look at Clare. Her eyes were closed again and she lay still and quiet as a corpse against the white pillows.
***