Backlash

by Nick Oldham

  The first sign of opposition was Joey Costain’s elder brother, Troy, who had been sleeping on the settee in the living room. He had woken up feeling mean and ready to fight.

  ‘Alpha Sierra 2 to Alpha Sierra 1.’

  ‘Go ’head,’ said Roscoe. Maybe they had got him.

  ‘No joy,’ DS Evans said over the radio. ‘The flat’s empty.’

  ‘Has everything been thoroughly turned over?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Roger. In that case, stand down and make your way back in.’

  ‘How are you doing?’ Evans asked.

  ‘Still searching,’ she said. She was standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, looking up into the square black hole that was the loft entrance. A pair of legs appeared and a detective eased himself out and dropped lightly onto the landing floor. He brushed himself down. ‘He ain’t up there.’

  Roscoe hissed with frustration. A blank. ‘Thanks.’

  In the lounge, several generations of Costains had assembled, roused from their various sleeping arrangements. There were more people than Roscoe could have imagined the house was able to accommodate. Rather like an extended Asian family under one roof, though they would have been furious at the comparison. They had actually been quite compliant with the exception of Troy who had been smothered and subdued before he became a problem. He had come very close to being locked up.

  The living room smelled awful: stale, boozy breath, body odour and flatulence combined to make a foetid aroma.

  Roscoe walked in and, without exception, they glared at her. Including, she was certain, the babe in arms being cuddled to the bare, floppy breast of one of the womenfolk.

  The room betrayed their gypsy origins. It was all very clean and well cared for, but the leather furniture, ornate horse brasses and outrageous fittings gave the game away. Everything was larger than life and twice as tacky – even down to the massive TV and video set in the corner of the room with speakers that would not have looked out of place behind a rock ’n’ roll band.

  ‘OK, we’re done,’ she announced. ‘The only damage caused was to your front door and I’ve got a before and after photo of it. A joiner will be round later to fix it at our expense.’ She smiled. ‘Would anyone like to tell me where I can find Joey? It would be in everyone’s interests. That way we won’t have to keep coming back and hassling you.’

  ‘You must be fuckin’ joking,’ came a reply from somewhere. Roscoe could not pinpoint the mouth. For a moment she thought the babe in arms had uttered the immortal phrase. No doubt they would be the first words the little dear would speak.

  ‘Thought as much,’ said Roscoe. ‘Thanks for your cooperation. The necessary paperwork’s on the mantelpiece – underneath that lovely candlestick. Bye.’ She gave them a royal wave and left. Once in the car, en route to the station, she called Henry on the radio. ‘Negative, both addresses.’

  ‘Thanks for that. I’ll stand our helpers down now. Everything seems to be QT.’

  ‘Roger,’ Roscoe said. She sat back, head against the headrest, feeling the energy draining out of her. Time to go home and get some sleep. The arrest of Joey Costain could wait until she could think clearly again.

  The personnel carrier dropped Henry off at the front of the police station. He went up the steps, strode across the concourse which separated the station from the Magistrates Court and let himself in through the front door at ground level. He had to trot down a flight of stairs to the basement level to get to the custody office, a location he was heartily sick of already. Once he had finished his business there he promised himself a twenty-minute break during which he would savour a wonderful cup of tea and put his swollen feet up.

  Coming in the opposite direction, out of the garage, dragging her feet, was a jaded Jane Roscoe. She was less than ecstatic to see him.

  ‘Thanks for all your help tonight, Henry,’ she said, trying not to sound too begrudging.

  ‘Cheers. I’m just sorry you didn’t get a result – but I’m sure you’ll pick Joey up sooner rather than later. He doesn’t exactly keep a low profile.’

  ‘Yeah – if I ever wake up, that is.’ She yawned widely. ‘I’m going to phone the hospital before I go to see how Dave’s getting on, then I’m going home to sleep – unless I nod off in the car on the motorway, in which case you’ll find me in a ditch.’

  Henry was standing in front of her in the narrow passage, impeding her progress. There was a hesitant pause between them.

  ‘Could I just . . .?’ Roscoe intimated she wished to proceed.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ Henry babbled, realising he was stopping her. He twisted sideways and they passed within an inch of each other, not touching. When the manoeuvre was complete, Henry said, ‘By the way, Jane – I was probably out of order earlier. I know it’s not your fault you got my job. If it means anything, I think you’re a bloody good DI on tonight’s performance.’ He shrugged with a hint of embarrassment and pouted.

  Roscoe regarded him. Her expression betrayed nothing. She nodded, turned and was on her way. Only then did her face crack into a big smile.

  Henry, on the other hand, having extended the olive branch of peace was gobsmacked by her non-reaction. ‘Ignorant cow,’ he muttered, then put her out of his mind, veered right into the custody office.

  It had become fairly busy. A normal, early hours Tuesday morning in the Blackpool cells. Full of drunks, thieves, wife-beaters – although husband-beaters were in the ascendancy these days. It was just run-of-the-mill horrendous.

  The Blackpool Central Police Station Prisoner Sausage Machine. The baddie-processing industry at its most efficient. Twelve thousand or more bodies pushed and prodded through every year with no let-up for the police, the courts, the duty solicitors. The wheels of justice grinding inexorably on and on: churning out files, charge forms, bail forms, fingerprint forms, descriptive forms to infinity, decimating South American rain forests by the acre. One of the busiest custody offices in the country. A well-oiled, finely tuned mangle of humanity. Each detained person bringing in his or her own story, sometimes tragedy. Most were from backgrounds where the descent into crime was inevitable.

  Henry pushed his way through the prisoners and their escorts and picked up the ‘live’ custody binder, which held the records of all the prisoners currently in cells. He found a quiet space – as if – and settled himself down to read every record, ensuring they were as up to date and accurate as they could be. Too many officers had fallen foul of wily solicitors by not ensuring the forms were filled in correctly. Henry had almost lost his job once for adopting a cavalier attitude to filling in custody records. It had been a salutary lesson.

  As satisfied as he could be that everything was OK, he decided on a walk round the cell complex to visit all the inmates. Fifteen people were locked up. Most were fast asleep. One drunk was constantly kicking his cell door, bawling obscenities. Henry paused for a few extra seconds to peer through the spyhole into Kit Nevison’s cell. The big man was soundly sleeping, snoring loudly.

  Once the male side had been done, Henry moved through the reception area, across to the female block. Only the one female was in custody, the one he had arrested.

  As soon as Henry stepped into the corridor, he knew something was amiss. His sixth sense kicked in. He stiffened. The air did not smell right or feel right. The hairs on the back of his neck crawled like tiny insects. Then his eyes zoomed onto the bootlace protruding under the sliding door hatch of the girl’s cell. It was looped down and pulled up tight over the hatch-locking mechanism, basically a spring-loaded latch, which gave it the necessary purchase, then back up through the gap between the hatch and the cell door, a gap which, in an ideal world, should have been non-existent, but which had appeared over the years as the door had aged and the steel had buckled slightly from constant use. It was a gap which many prisoners in many other similar situations, intent on taking their own lives, had used to good advantage to achieve their aim.

  Henry knew imme
diately that by fastening the bootlace on the inspection hatch, the girl was now hanging by the neck on the other side of the door.

  ‘Oh God,’ he muttered, dashing to the cell door. He attempted to open the hatch, but the girl’s dead weight on the other side made it impossible for him to move the latch. He cursed again and put his eye to the spyhole. By standing on tiptoe and looking down he could just see the dark shape of a pair of legs splayed out on the other side of the door.

  He had to act fast to save her – if she wasn’t already dead – and until he knew otherwise he had to assume life was still there. He kept his voice calm but urgent as he spoke into his radio.

  ‘Inspector, get the custody officer to come to the female cells immediately with his keys and the ligature scissors, and call an ambulance please. There’s an attempt suicide in here – a hanging.’

  ‘Received.’

  Henry assessed what he might be able to do in the intervening seconds before help arrived.

  He had seen this before.

  The bootlace somehow smuggled into the cell, long enough to be wrapped around any suitable object and then around the neck. They did not hang themselves in the true sense of the word, just put the makeshift noose around their necks and leaned into it, letting the whole body go limp and heavy, cutting the blood supply to the brain, stopping breathing. Dying quickly. Very quickly. He knew that if a prisoner was desperate enough, they would succeed in their morbid endeavour. He also knew from research done into the subject of deaths in police custody, a point nine inches above ground was sufficiently high to achieve the objective.

  But how had she managed to sneak the lace into her cell? Henry was already preparing to ask tough questions. She’d been strip searched. Henry knew she had. She was wearing a paper suit. Who the fuck hadn’t done their job properly?

  Henry could not even manage to slide his fingers between the bootlace and the door. He banged the wall and hopped with frustration.

  ‘Where the fuck are you?’ he yelled out loud.

  There was the sound of running footsteps, keys jangling, shouts. The custody officer came racing in, the gaoler at his heels. Henry stood back and allowed him to get straight to the door. No explanations were necessary. Henry was considering the ramifications of a death in custody and all the things that might result from it: the protracted investigation; the awkward questions; the Police Complaints Authority; inquests; discipline, possibly criminal proceedings; maybe demotions or job losses. Shit, he thought. The implications were terrifying. Not on my first night as a uniformed inspector, he prayed, do not be dead, you bitch.

  The big key went in, turned and the heavy brass lock opened. The sergeant heaved the door outwards with difficulty, the girl’s weight on the other side of it making it hard to open.

  There she was, legs akimbo. The weight of her body being held by the bootlace which was cutting deep into the soft flesh of her neck. Bootlace, Henry thought again. Where did that come from? Her head lolled forwards, her chin almost on her chest, purple tongue lolling out obscenely. Spittle bubbled out of the corners of her mouth, snot hung from her nose. The eyes bulged out of their sockets. Her skin was tinged blue.

  She looked dead.

  The custody sergeant inserted the flat-edge ligature scissors, specially designed to slide between skin and ligature, underneath the bootlace. The gaoler went on one knee and took the girl’s weight. The scissors snipped. She sagged and fell loosely against the gaoler’s hands. He eased her gently to the floor.

  The severed bootlace hung from the door hatch, swinging from side to side.

  ‘Leave it where it is for now,’ Henry instructed the sergeant, thinking about preservation of evidence. If the girl was dead, which seemed pretty likely looking at her, Henry would start from the premise that he was dealing with a murder, which was standard practice at all sudden or unusual deaths, even though this had happened in a police establishment and it was a highly unlikely scenario. When murder was ruled out, only then would he move onto suicide. Murder first, other causes second. It was his golden rule.

  The gaoler was kneeling over her, breathing heavily from the exertion of running. His first and second fingers prodded her neck for signs of a pulse.

  ‘Can’t find a thing,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck, fuck,’ growled the custody sergeant. He too could see the bleakness of the future. After all, this was his custody office. He would have a lot of difficult questions to answer.

  ‘Right,’ Henry said. ‘Try to resuscitate.’

  The gaoler looked up at him as if he was barmy. ‘She’s dead, boss.’

  ‘Not until a quack says so,’ Henry insisted. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He tapped the sergeant on the shoulder. ‘You do the heart, I’ll do the lungs. We keep at it until the paramedics arrive.’

  For the second time that night, Henry dragged his first-aid training knowledge and skills out of the deep recesses of his mind. He knelt down at her head, tilted it back and blew. The only difference with this casualty was that he did not think there was a hope in hell of success this time round. He and the sergeant worked on her for ten minutes. Constantly. It was exhausting work. Henry sweated, drops of perspiration blobbing down onto the girl’s lifeless face. He glanced up once during the procedure, his vision reeling, head full of air, temples thumping. A group of onlookers had gathered, cops drawn to the spectacle like moths to a flame. In among them was Jane Roscoe, an expression of grave concern on her face. Their eyes met for a brief instant, then Henry resumed his task. It was like being in a different world, as if it was happening to someone else. It was a world of slow-moving disorientation where nothing was real except the fight for life.

  He opened his lips and re-formed the airtight seal around the girl’s lips. Suddenly she convulsed and coughed upwards into his mouth. Disgusted, retching, Henry spun away, spitting and coughing, emptying his mouth of whatever it was she had coughed up. It tasted like slimy gravel. But looking back at her, the disgust left him. She was wracked in a fit of choking and alive.

  He wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve and nodded triumphantly at the sergeant who had kept going with him. They had done it. They had brought a seemingly dead person back to life. Persistence had paid off. The sergeant held out a hand. Henry shook it. A few watchers clapped and shouted ‘Well done!’

  The paramedics arrived just as they turned the girl on her side into the recovery position.

  So sucked in by the emotional drama of it all was he that Henry found himself accompanying the girl as she was stretchered away through the narrow twisting cell corridors to the ambulance waiting in the police garage. He held her hand all the way, squeezing, patting, leaning over her and clucking soft, reassuring words of comfort.

  Her eyes rolled like a pair of doll’s eyes, fluttered open showing bloodshot whites. They never seemed to focus on him or anything until they reached the ambulance. Then she became more lucid and tried to sit up. Henry gently pushed her back down. ‘It’s OK . . . don’t move . . . you’ll be fine.’

  Underneath the transparent oxygen mask, her swollen, cracked lips moved, trying to say something. Henry could not hear the words. He bent over her.

  ‘Shouldn’t,’ she said, her voice just a whisper.

  ‘What?’ He did not understand and shook his head. Her lips moved again. He put his ear an inch above the mask.

  ‘Afraid . . . afraid . . .’ she said. Tears streamed out of the corner of her eyes. ‘One of yours.’ The effort of speaking drained her, but at least Henry thought he had made some sense of her words, though not all of them. He recalled the fear she had expressed when he had talked to her in the cell: the fear of retribution – that if she said what she knew, something terrible would happen. Was this enough for her to try and take her own life? To do such a thing, she must have been terrified . . . so what did she know?

  He had no further time to think about it as the paramedics slid her into the ambulance. One went to the front of the vehicle to drive, the other stepped in besid
e her. ‘You sendin’ anyone up with her?’ he asked Henry.

  ‘Christ – yes.’ He clicked his fingers, thinking fast. She needed protection and, technically, as she was still in police custody, someone had to stay with her.

  Everyone had slithered back into the station, all onlookers gone now that the drama had ended, except for the constable who had been in the report-writing room earlier. Henry turned to him decisively before he too could skulk away. ‘John, you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hop in and go with this lass to the Blackpool Victoria Hospital and look after her while I decide what needs doing, OK?’

  PC Taylor looked decidedly unenthusiastic. His shoulders sagged at the prospect of a nannying job. ‘I’ve just been told to walk the town centre,’ he bleated.

  ‘And now I’m telling you to get in the ambulance, OK?’ Henry cocked a slightly annoyed thumb at the open door. ‘Now,’ he said firmly.

  The officer removed his helmet and climbed in wearily. The paramedic gave Henry a thumbs-up and closed the door. The vehicle moved off.

  Henry watched it go, hands thrust deep into his pockets. When it was out of sight a huge lion-like yawn crept up on him from somewhere. Very long, very wide. It went on forever. He shook his head when it had finished and turned – straight into Jane Roscoe. She had been standing behind him.

  ‘Just how I feel.’ She smiled.

  ‘What are you still doing here?’

  ‘Love the place so much, can’t bear to leave it.’

  ‘Me too.’ He smirked.

  She considered the lie for a moment. ‘Beats Barbados, hands down.’

  ‘Better than the Maldives, I’d say.’

  ‘And the town. Blackpool has the allure of the Left Bank in Paris, all the pavement cafes. It’s somewhere you just want to chill out in and watch the chic world go past.’