The Girl in the Green Dress

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘Let me talk to the press officer. She can speak to you directly – she’s called Rowena Swift.’

  The name brought back Sarah, teasing him as they tussled about naming Teagan on the day she was born. Rowena, Morwenna, Myfanwy, Ffion. Head thrown back and laughing when Steve said, ‘Look, there’s unusual and then there’s unpronounceable. How will anyone ever spell it?’

  Teagan was a compromise. Tegwin the Welsh name, Teagan, the Irish version.

  ‘All Celtic, isn’t it?’ Steve had argued. ‘Teagan I like. Tegwin sounds like some bozo from a sitcom, Tegwin the Tool.’

  ‘Steady, boyo,’ Sarah said. ‘It means “beautiful”. She is beautiful. Look at her.’

  Teagan had a cap of fine dark hair, eyes almost black. Allie had been practically bald at birth, just a fuzz of downy fair hair for the first year. Aled meant ‘child, offspring’. Child. He couldn’t remember now what Allie meant. ‘Harmony’? He looked it up on his phone. Yes, ‘harmony’. Or ‘stone’. Or ‘noble’. Also ‘fair, defender’.

  Steve heard singing, Allie’s voice reaching him from the living room. ‘Mr Cellophane’, from Chicago, one of the show tunes she’d liked. Singing was certainly never one of Allie’s strong suits.

  The doorbell rang and Steve took delivery of the food. He let Teagan dole it out and sat with the girls in the living room to eat. Teagan had paused the video, which was now showing Allie and Helena in the snow. An outrageously expensive skiing trip to France with school that Steve had been cajoled into paying for.

  He ate his meal, aware that he was hungry, really hungry, for the first time in days. Enjoying the saltiness, the spice, which left his mouth peppery. ‘Is this the one where you tumble?’ he asked Helena, who nodded. ‘Let’s see,’ he said.

  Teagan set it playing and they all watched as the two girls laboured up the slope, turned round, painfully slowly, trying to manoeuvre the long skis. Then Helena began to slide before she was ready. Allie grabbed for her and the two performed a slow, clumsy glide round, arms and ski sticks whirling, until Allie fell, bringing Helena down with her. The screams of the pair were drowned by Bets’s laughter – she had been filming them. Steve was saved from the tears that threatened by his phone ringing. He took it through to the kitchen.

  ‘Mr Kennaway, Rowena Swift here.’ Half-baked puns about her name and the speed of her getting in touch flew through his head.

  ‘First of all, I’d like to say how very sorry I am for your loss. For you and all the family.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Your family liaison officer has spoken to me and I understand you’d like an opportunity to speak to the press. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re interested in raising awareness by speaking about Allie’s transition and what that meant for you all as a family.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, after a pause. He hadn’t exactly thought of it in those terms but it was part of what he wanted to do. He wanted people to hear about Allie. Not the Allie in the headlines now, not the victim, but the Allie from before. The Allie who couldn’t hold a tune and nearly broke her neck skiing. The Allie he had carried on his shoulders and taught to dribble a football. The Allie who had then taught him so much. The person behind the label. The daughter who had been born a son.

  ‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll sound people out and get back to you.’

  Jade

  Jade parked and got out, automatically glancing up at her windows, a matter of habit. Something shivered up her spine as she saw the bathroom light was off. The bedroom still glowed, a rectangle of sunshine yellow through the thin curtains, but the window to the right was a black hole.

  Quickly she got back into the car and locked the doors, switching off the internal light. Was someone up there watching for her? Had they already seen her?

  She started the engine and moved the car onto the street at the front where it couldn’t be seen from her side of the flats.

  Then she rang Mina.

  ‘Jade! I knew I forgot something. Cooking oil.’

  The shopping. Fuck. ‘Mina, I can’t do anything about that now.’

  ‘You’re not in the shop?’

  ‘No. Look. Have you been in my flat?’

  ‘No. But the fireman came.’

  ‘What fireman?’ Jade said, her skin crawling.

  ‘Checking the smoke alarms. Mine’s fine. And yours too.’

  ‘You gave him my key?’

  ‘It was very quick. Two minutes and he brought it back. It doesn’t take long.’

  ‘What did he look like, this fireman?’ Jade dug her nails into her palm.

  ‘Big,’ Mina said. ‘Nice-looking man. He can give me a fireman’s lift any time.’ She chortled.

  ‘How old?’ Jade said.

  ‘Younger than me. Too old for you.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Oh, yes, grey hair.’

  Jade swallowed. ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About an hour ago.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for calling on people.’

  ‘Ah, no,’ Mina said. ‘I asked him about that and he said it’s the best time to catch people in.’

  ‘OK,’ Jade said.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Mina said.

  ‘Yeah, fine.’ Jade couldn’t cope with Mina getting into a state on top of everything else. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  Jade called Bert and asked him if anyone had called to check fire safety.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Should they have?’

  She wasn’t going to get into it with him. ‘Just wondered. Might be worth getting it done some time.’

  ‘Jade?’ he said, puzzled.

  ‘Got to go. See you.’

  Jade grabbed at her hair, trying to think straight. Her mind spooling too quickly, a sickly sensation. That bastard had come here, to her home. Blagged his way in, and now what? Was he there? Or had he left when he found out she wasn’t home? There was no sign of his Merc anywhere nearby. Had he gone off to try to find her elsewhere? Left something for her in the flat, a warning, a booby trap? Was he waiting for her? To do what? Threaten her? Punish her? Silence her?

  She shuddered.

  She should call it in. Sit here like a lemon while the others stormed the steps and burst into her flat. But what if he wasn’t there? If this was just a head-fuck? The boss had let her come back to work, but if Jade started acting paranoid, delusional, she’d get the sack again, wouldn’t she? What if she was completely wrong? What if Harris was long gone and Jade cried wolf and dragged a load of coppers out, wasting time and money all because her bathroom lightbulb had blown?

  Sack that. If he was there, she wanted to be the one to find and arrest him. The thought of slapping cuffs on him made her blood sing.

  She saw the pathologist peeling down Allie Kennaway’s face to expose the skull, lifting her brain, then herself running to spew up. And before that, the way they’d laid her dress on the side so it could dry and preserve the evidence. Allie’s friends blunted by shock and her little sister, so fierce with everyone.

  ‘You bastard,’ Jade breathed. He’d known all of that and still he’d lied and bullied and bent to get his way, twisting everything so his lad would escape.

  Jade imagined going up to her flat, up the stairs with the dodgy light. Opening her door. She hadn’t even a knife on her to cut him down. She had some pepper spray, if she got close enough to use it.

  Jade swiped at her phone and found the name she wanted.

  ‘J? Someone else you want me to find?’ DD asked. ‘Getting to be a habit.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Where?’

  She told him her address. ‘I’m in the car outside, the Nissan Pixo.’

  ‘They’re not paying you enough,’ he said.

  The next ten minutes stretched out. Jade kept checking the time on her phone. The tension spiralling inside gave her stomach-ache. She reached for her tablets, then thought bette
r of it. She needed to be sharp, even if that meant edgy and wired. She tore at her nails. She could be wrong. Maybe she was. DD would rip the piss out of her and demand more cash. Whatever.

  At last a car pulled in behind her, headlights already off. Engine so quiet as to go unnoticed. She wondered where he’d got the ride, if he owned it, had borrowed it, stolen it.

  She unlocked the passenger door and DD got in beside her. He wore dark clothes, hoodie and pants, beanie hat, the glint of gold from the chain round his neck the only thing to catch the light, apart from his eyes. Glittering eyes. For a second she thought he was laughing at her but then she saw he was excited. This, the whiff of danger, the sniff of illegality, the chance something might kick off was meat and drink to DD. Always had been. Way back, there’d been other nights, other fights, pacts made, scrapping and stealing, and Jade had been there at his side. Losing herself in the wildness, in the high of the moment. Two fingers to the world and never mind the bruises.

  She told him the minimum. Dirty cop, spoiling evidence, son in custody. How they were trying to pin it on Bishaar, the guy from Somalia.

  ‘That is well wrong.’ Even DD had some moral code. ‘And Plod’s here why?’

  ‘I caught him out, found proof. So my guess is he either wants to beat the shit out of me or get shot of me.’ She didn’t dare say there was a chance the flat was empty.

  ‘And you want?’

  To kill him. ‘Collar him. Take him in.’

  ‘I can’t be here, once we’re done. You know that?’ DD said.

  ‘Sure.’ While DD wasn’t on Greater Manchester’s most-wanted list he was a known criminal and he needed to stay off the radar. Any discovery of his involvement in Jade’s affairs would muck things up for her, too. In their history, their life as kids scrabbling to get by, the things they’d been, the things they’d done, that was all buried and no one else’s business.

  ‘You notice anyone else hanging around?’ DD said.

  ‘No. We just need him on the floor,’ she said. ‘So I can cuff him. I won’t make the call until you’ve gone. You carrying?’

  ‘Depends,’ DD said.

  ‘I’d rather you weren’t. More risk.’

  He nodded. He pulled a pair of thick leather gloves out of his pocket.

  ‘You still spar?’ Jade said. He’d been a boxer, taken it up at a time when he needed to defend himself. Developed a ferocious skill. DD’s anger was slow to burn but unstoppable when roused. The discipline of the sport helped him control it. Some of the time.

  ‘Keep my hand in. Try that.’ He held out a glove. Jade took it. It weighed a ton. The knuckles filled with lead, she reckoned, the same principle as a cosh. A punch with one of those to your spleen or kidney and even the biggest man would be crippled by the pain.

  ‘I think he’ll be in the bathroom. The light’s off. We go straight in there, fast. Try to catch him on the back foot. Aim high. He’s tall.’

  They got out of the car and Jade locked it. She led the way up the concrete stairway, DD right behind her, their footsteps almost silent.

  Outside her door, Jade stopped and listened. The only sounds she could make out came from Mina’s along the way, the natter of a television.

  Jade looked over her shoulder at DD, who rolled his hat down, turning it into a balaclava. Jade readied herself, pulse bumping in her throat. She switched her phone flashlight on.

  DD winked at her and Jade put her key into the door, pushing it wide open as soon as the catch gave and jumping aside to let DD ahead. She raced after him along the short hallway to the bathroom. DD flung open the bathroom door, fists up, Jade’s light spilling on the basin and toilet.

  Movement and bulk from the left and a crackling sound, then DD fell, collapsing back on to her. Jade dropped her phone. Harris lunged for her. She saw the stun gun, squat and black, in his hand and scrambled to her feet. DD was motionless.

  Harris, grinning, came for her. His eyes shards of ice. His size filling the bathroom doorway. Jade ran but he was fast, grabbing her arm and yanking her backwards, swinging her round so she crashed into the wooden chair, falling over it, catching her mouth, her face, her hands. The wood splintered with a ripping sound.

  A grunt alerted her. He was almost upon her. Jade rolled to the side, pulling part of the broken chair on top of her, thrusting it at him.

  He snatched it away, threw it behind him.

  Get up. Get up.

  She scrambled across the space towards the window, to the television. Harris got his foot caught in the remnants of the chair, giving her a precious second to stand.

  Blood thundered in her ears, her heart hammering like a piston.

  She lifted the TV and held it up in front of herself. A barrier. Maybe a weapon. Staggering under its weight. She stepped towards him but the cables held and pulled her to a halt.

  Harris slammed into the screen, knocking her off balance. The TV smashed down, glass shattering, flying across the floor.

  He came closer, the stun gun raised. She was crouching, cornered. She sprang up and launched herself at him, judging the angle, tilting her head and leaping to head-butt him full on the nose. The crack of bone, the spew of blood hot on her face. At the same moment the gun made contact with her shoulder. Her body locked rigid. The charge sent her nerves into a frenzy, spasms of pain spurting through her arm, up her neck, in her mouth, across her face. Black flies swarming in her vision. Falling. His howl in her ears. Her own scream.

  Jade played dead, stilled her limbs, held her breath. She heard him swearing above her, his voice thickened by his broken nose.

  There was banging at the door, a voice calling her name. She heard Harris turn away from her.

  Summoning all her strength, she raised herself halfway up, her arms jittering, any noise she made muffled by the calling and thumping from outside. She was dizzy, the room revolving, then dipping like fairground waltzers.

  On her knees she could see he still held the gun loosely at his side. Close enough to reach. Jade snatched for it, and using her body weight for leverage, she twisted hard, forcing his wrist round so he had to let go. He roared. Wheeled at her. But she had the gun. She pressed it against his abdomen and pulled the trigger. He fell. Smashing into bits of broken chair making the floor rock and shudder. She leant over, jabbed it into the centre of his chest and pulled the trigger again. Saw the rictus grin as the electricity ripped through him. ‘Damn your black heart,’ she said. ‘Damn you, you fucker.’

  Jade’s hand flexed on the trigger, the hunger to make Harris suffer, to keep him incapacitated, was too big to deny. She centred the muzzle. Squeezed again.

  A hurricane in her head, released through the gun in her fist. A deep well of rage, liquid fire, stoked by other blows, other attacks, by horrors she did not name. Terrors that set her mind shrieking and her flesh crawling.

  She leapt round as someone touched her back. DD. Conscious, upright, his own hands raised surrender style.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Jade spat.

  ‘You want him dead or alive?’ he said. ‘I mean, if it was my call, I’d go for it, babe.’

  Babe? Jade was panting. Her back ached and her heart was juddering. She was itching to zap Harris again. Or DD, if he didn’t shut the fuck up.

  ‘Might take some explaining, though,’ DD said. ‘And maybe you want to see him in court, see him banged up.’

  Allie Kennaway on the cobbles in her prom gown, one shoe gone.

  ‘Fuck!’ Jade rocked back on her heels. She got to her feet, bent, bracing her hands on her knees. DD was right. She let the fury ebb away, a tide going out. She was sore everywhere, like she’d been hit by a tank.

  The banging at the door was even more frantic. But she tuned it out.

  Harris was too heavy to roll over so she knelt and cuffed his hands in front of him.

  More thundering on the door. I’m coming. Just keep your bloody hair on.

  ‘You all right?’ DD said, rubbing his own chest. ‘Fucking kills, doesn’t it? And
you’ve got blood.’ He pointed to his own face.

  ‘Not mine.’ Not most of it, anyway. Jade nodded at Harris, still unresponsive. His nose streaming blood.

  ‘Big fucker.’

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Jade staggered upright but DD beat her to the door. Bert was there. With a hammer. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, when he saw Jade. His eyes swung round the flat, to Harris and the shattered furniture. Then at DD, looking every inch the psycho serial killer in his balaclava.

  ‘Are you all right, Jade?’ Bert said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m good.’

  ‘It sounded like someone was murdering you,’ Bert said, eyes sliding back to DD.

  ‘He was.’ Jade jerked a thumb towards Harris. ‘Least, he was trying.’

  ‘He’s a big bugger,’ Bert said. ‘So what’s going on?’

  ‘I’m out of here,’ DD said, pulling off the balaclava. ‘I weren’t here,’ he said to Bert. ‘You never seen me, clear?’

  ‘You never saw him,’ Jade told Bert.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s important. You heard the racket, you came round, found me and King Kong here. That’s all.’

  ‘Are you asking me to tell fibs?’ Bert frowned.

  ‘If you have to. Probably won’t come to that.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because I’m not pressing charges,’ Jade said.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Bert said. ‘You’re a police officer.’

  ‘So is he.’ Jade gestured to Harris. ‘And what he’s already done is far more serious, believe me. That’s what I’m arresting him for. Soon as he wakes up.’

  ‘If he wakes up,’ DD said. ‘You might want to send for the priest.’ He looked at her for a moment. Then he left without another word.

  Jade asked Bert to go and tell Mina everything was OK.

  He came back in a minute. Mina had been watching a Harry Potter film and she’d thought the noise was on the soundtrack.

  ‘You think he needs an ambulance?’ Bert said.

  ‘I’ll call one,’ Jade said. ‘And the police. After I’ve nicked him.’

  A few seconds later Martin Harris sputtered and began to move, lifting his head an inch off the floor, trying to move his arms against the cuffs.