by James Damm
“Our finest officers,” Tom repeated, a smirk on his face. “I’ll tell my mum about that one.”
“No pressure,” Juliet agreed. “Maybe we should get back to it? When the Prime Minister described the police force as both prepared and powerful, I don’t think he meant you armed with a bacon roll.”
“You should see me once I’ve had a full English breakfast,” Tom said, a wry smile on his face. “No criminal is safe.”
Dusting themselves down, Tom chucked his coffee cup and paper bag into the bin next to their bench as Juliet packed away her Tupperware into her rucksack.
“Are you going to be okay?” Tom asked, sincerity creeping into his voice.
“I’ll be fine,” Juliet stated. Tom didn’t say it, but the name of Will Bowman entered his mind. The biggest case she’d ever worked before had now been eclipsed. “Murder cases get under my skin. What’s happened before won’t happen again.”
Chapter Four
Hostility swirled around thousands of miners and police. Bottles, sticks and bricks hurtled in every direction while the crowd roared. For a few brief moments, the police on horseback appeared out of the sea of uniforms. The confrontation outside of the Bellington mining pit, beneath blue autumn skies, hid a dramatic, almost desperate air. There was a crush of bodies, pressing against lines of police shields as they tried to force their way through.
Among the swirling ruck of bodies trying to push against the line was a determined-looking man, relishing the brutal excitement of it all. Mike shouted and punched his way into the middle of a riotous battle with the cops. The intoxicating sounds of the violent crowd made his veins pulsate.
“COAL NOT DOLE,” the large and angry crowd snarled with Mike at its centre. Ready to release his repressed rage against the establishment, a powerful fist waited, clenched at his side. A forbidding character with an intense stare, Mike stood unafraid of any battle. As the police with truncheons and shields moved in, Mike braced himself for the fight to come.
Mike had mattered then. When coal was still king, Bellington did too. The miner’s strike had been a battle about pride, a way of life, the town’s entire existence. They lost the battle and lost the war.
The dregs of a pint before him, Mike wondered where the time had gone. Where had the young man with impressive muscles disappeared to? Once he had torn through the crowd, dodging missiles and baton swipes. Now he could barely hobble to the pub and back in one piece.
After the coal went, Mike and Bellington continued to exist, even if the rest of the country liked to pretend they didn’t. Working-class industries, working-class jobs, and working-class people. From steel to coal to shipbuilding, one by one the government came for them all. The scars remained, the child witnesses had become adults and eventually the wise old heads around town. An unmistakable sense of purpose remained stolen from them. Bellington was where you were born, where you’d die and everything you were. If Bellington was nothing but a forgotten scar, what was Mike?
“It was a dirty job, a dangerous job. But it was not demeaning,” Mike would preach to anybody who would listen. “We loved working together, depending on each other. There was a sense of community that’s not here today.” The sentiment uttered a dozen times a day to other men who echoed the same sentiments in different words.
A bell rang from the bar, and an ache brewed in his chest. Eleven and last orders at the Rose and Crown. Dotted around the dated furnishing, several men either hauled themselves to their feet or remained satisfied with their last drink. On a Tuesday evening the faces, as much fixtures as the furnishings, all belonged to the old crowd. The ex-squaddies, miners or men who worked with their hands scattered among the tables and chairs. They would exchange words and conversations some nights, others none. That night, Mike opted to stew in his own thoughts in the corner as the pints consumed became countless.
With what only felt like a blink, the pub emptied as tired and hollow bar staff called time on another evening’s ritual. Mike stood in the doorway with another patron, smoked a cigarette before exchanging a nodded goodbye.
In the distance, beyond the old miners’ cottages, row upon row, would be the two old pitheads. All coalmines had to have two, for safety reasons. Catch them at the right time and Bellington’s stood silhouetted against the metal Northumberland sky. A backdrop for a lifetime.
Time passed.
Mike’s mouth, dry and gasping, demanded attention. His hand grasped for a glass of water on the bedside and found there was not one. Empty food wrappers, receipts and a load of other crap was all that his hand could find for company. The resolve to haul himself to his feet and start the arduous task of finding both a glass and the tap would be some time coming. A self-loathing fire needed feeding first.
As Mike peeled the initial layer of the day back, the cogs in his head pounded and reluctantly turned. Where had he been the night before? How much poison had he drilled into his fracturing body? What embarrassing act or statement would come back to humiliate him later? Alone in his twisted sheets, the anxieties needed boxing away, emotions to be caged and buried. The layers between sleep and consciousness were plentiful, not an instant switch from one to the other. His feverish nightly dreams were still too fresh to be comfortable.
There had been a maze, a concrete one too high to see over. Running from something but finding no exit, Mike had awoken regularly in a cold sweat only to be hauled back into the darkness and terror. The maze was one of the regular dreams. The drink always found comfort in pulling the strings of delicate fears and horrors. Sometimes the walls would move in, squeezing his chest and body, trapped until he awoke with wheezing and heavy breath. The line between dream and waking was never clear-cut. Sometimes the man or people chasing him were physically at the foot of his bed before his eyes. Blinking their shapes and revulsion away could take minutes.
Mike knew he was dying. He could taste it, metallic in his sticky, condemned mouth. Pulling himself to his feet, he kicked clothes, clutter and all manner of mess out of his way en route to the bathroom. There he pissed mustard urine and looked down to see blood in the toilet bowl. A scan of the mirror illustrated a man staring back with a raw red nose and haunted yellow eyes. The decade-long lie that the colour was just the result of nicotine.
A headache throbbing, Mike stumbled to the shower and hauled himself under a stream of warm water. The heat brought his grumpy, reluctant body to attention. A single voice in the back of his mind begged for Mike to return to the duvet covers. Sleep, curl up in comfort. You have nothing to get up for, anyway.
Some days that little voice would win and Mike would sleep the day away. Such a choice was never worth it. The longer he slept, the longer he stayed awake. Routine was the only thing that kept Mike somewhat sane. Later that day he would recall with bitterness the moments spent emerging from his slumber in the shower. If only he had crawled back into bed for more rest. Then, at least, there was a fraction of a chance he’d never have woken up at all.
Instead, Mike pulled on a shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms. He muttered a meek promise to wash more clothes that day under his breath, fooling nobody. He owned no washing gel, powder or even a functioning machine to clean them. The damp smell of decay lingered in jackets, blankets, every pore on his body. A damp, musty corruption that had stretched over himself without retreat long ago.
The kettle boiling, Mike winced at the noise and pulled the least-dirty cup he could find from the side. A finger and some water cleaned it well enough. When he hunted for remaining contents in coffee jars, every one came up empty. With no food in either, Mike swore and went rooting through drawers and the pockets of clothes until finally he discovered a crumpled note.
On his way to the corner shop, no sense of day or time, it surprised Mike to see so many faces around the place. He dismissed it as a weekend or school holidays. Groggy and half-asleep, he slid past all the huddles and into the shop. A jar of instant coffee, tins of Special Brew and a sliced loaf. Mike made no excuses anymor
e to the server. They could see all they needed to know before them. A barely surviving alcoholic, best just to serve him and let him be on his way. Today proved strange, however – Mike had to get the shopkeeper’s attention and struggled to maintain it. His eyes were fixed to some video playing on his phone and wordlessly they exchanged money and goods. With the change pocketed, Mike thought no more of it on his way back to the most hopeless and loneliest home he’d even known. The wife? Dead. The first-born son? Dead. The other son? Fuck knows where. Life passed by at this stage. It surprised Mike he’d made it as long as he had.
Clearing a space on the sofa, Mike bundled two slices of bread into his mouth to soak up the bile and nastiness in his stomach. By this point daytime television would be on, maybe even Jeremy Kyle. Hopefully, there’d be a brawl. Mike liked it when the guests brawled.
Then Mike saw it, the pictures. Instinct made him flick the channel, but it was no use. Every channel, every transmission pumping out the same coverage from the same news stations. The face of his son, archive footage of him flying in the sky, putting out fires. His throat closed, his head spun, and Mike reluctantly turned up the volume. The newsreader wearing a black suit and a black tie, his words deliberately sober and expression grave.
“We regret to inform you this morning that a member of the public discovered John Fitzgerald’s body in London. Police are treating the situation as a murder…”
Is that what the headline said? Mike’s head flicked back to dreams of the maze and feverish hallucinations. Could it be real? His stomach aching and churning, the words continued in a similar vein on every channel he flicked to. Every time he got closer to listen. Something about a stabbing, multiple wounds. The Prime Minister made a statement.
Mike’s hands shook. His son. Jonathan.
There was no being sober for this, he thought, every part of his body shutting down and looking for its crutch.
A tremor took over as he opened a can.
Chapter Five
A Londoner most of her adult life, Juliet knew rush hour in the capital city well. Twice a day Tube stations swelled with people, roads halted and pavements became a blurred chaos of under and over-taking. Anarchy gripped the city, yet gradually it’d untangle itself and order would resume. The hour following the announcement of John’s murder was something else entirely.
In the car’s safety, halted in traffic, Juliet listened to the thoughts that filtered into her mind. All focused on the murder, attempting to digest and make sense of it. Glued to smartphone screens, Juliet watched strangers shake their heads and mutter statements of disbelief to each other. Only in tragedy would Londoners break the sacred code of silence among strangers. The disbelief and immediate anxiety that filled their minds was identical to Juliet’s own shock a couple of hours earlier.
Even with the Prime Minister’s announcement, many doubted whether the information could be true. Others speculated the death of John Fitzgerald could only be an assassination at the hands of a foreign nation. Yet why would any kill him, on foreign soil in such a sloppy manner? The tension building inside people’s minds showed a failure to internalise the situation. To those Juliet witnessed and heard, the news didn’t feel like the murder of an individual; it felt like an attack on a way of life. John Fitzgerald was as known to children as their own family members. Imagining a life or country without John was like imagining the Queen dying, yet somehow more shocking to the core. The Queen had a successor, an institution built around her, whereas John Fitzgerald wasn’t meant to die.
Tom and Juliet’s driver tried to pass throngs of people with no obvious purpose. There seemed no time for work or reality as the world stood still for something closer to fiction. Disbelief could easily swell in hysteria. Surely it was only a matter of time before the Prime Minister announced formal days of mourning? The monarch would receive such treatment, so why not the country’s home-grown superhero?
Somebody out there had enough access to the most powerful man alive to catch him off-guard. The murderer knew of a way to disable John’s well-known regenerative abilities. With the superhero out of the way, would there be a follow-up? A further attack? From the car window Juliet’s eyes fell on troops and armed police outside Tube stations, a signal of security and safety. The Prime Minister had felt the need to make that decision, the type made in the event of a terrorist attack. London was a city under an invisible siege, against an unknown enemy.
“How are the kids?” Juliet asked to break the silence of twenty minutes in the car. The driver’s instructions were to take them to the base of operations.
“I told my wife something big had happened, and she’s keeping them off school today. They’re too young to understand, but they’ll pick up on any atmosphere. Better to let them play,” Tom said.
The Specialist Crime and Operations Directorate’s Homicide Command, a name which had taken years for Juliet to memorise, undertook all homicide investigations in London. Split geographically into six units, Ethan’s branch was East London. Inside the building the entire investigation would take place, from autopsy to interviews. As the driver pulled up outside, armed police covered every angle and exit.
“They’ve moved the body inside,” Juliet stated with certainty.
They checked Juliet and Tom’s identification passes at least three times on the way in. Nobody was getting in or out of the command centre who wasn’t supposed to be there. Inside there was hustle and bustle, officers pacing and making rapid phone calls. Their name badges stated many government agencies and positions. From police to civil service to intelligence agency personnel, there was a sense of chaos, urgency and getting stuff done. Their minds were unruly and untamed. Juliet couldn’t help but sneak in here and there. Spies in terrorist circles had nothing, plants in foreign agencies had nothing. Every tip, every informant, and every semblance of a lead was coming up blank. They all had nothing.
“Let me find Ethan,” Tom instructed as they paused in a waiting room. “I’ll see where we’re at with the investigation.”
As Juliet sat, she gazed upon a room full of discarded coats, breakfast sandwich wrappers, empty coffee cups and deserted seats. The room stank and was stuffy, and Juliet reasoned that many of the people she’d passed on the way had been here since the early hours. A break for the next few days was unthinkable.
The only animation in the room came from a small muted television screen in the corner playing BBC News. The headline was obvious, but over the inaudible newsreaders was the incredible footage taken for granted for so many years. A montage of heroic snippets: John pulling bodies out of burning buildings, to hauling gasping citizens from flood waters. The images were like a comic book movie brought to life, almost clichéd, but showed the grounded, gritty work the superhero did day to day. No aliens, super-villains, or valiant battles. Like chores, the footage was John’s nine to five routine.
Then, on the television screen before Juliet, the most iconic footage appeared: John’s first act of heroism, the Cherwell School fire. In an era of drones and worldwide smartphone usage, it would surprise many to cast their mind back to 2006. Mobile phones had cameras that could record only a minute’s grainy footage at a time. On the television screens in front of Juliet, the infamous mobile phone footage of the school on fire played; the tennis courts outside swarming with pupils and smoke billowing out of the third floor. The audio was jagged, loud, and with a lot of interference. As the footage rocked and bounced, the viewer could just about make out the situation. School children wildly looked upon their school on fire. Firefighters had joined the chaos, their attention fixed higher. Trapped on the fourth floor, above the flames, was a classroom full of children.
Juliet recalled the silence and concern as she’d first watched the video all those years ago. How could the firefighters rescue all those pupils in time? The mood of the clip calmed as the weight of the situation dawned on the cameraman. There was a class full of children trapped and about to burn to death before their eyes.
&n
bsp; At this point the footage cut away, presumably hitting the end of the phone’s storage capabilities. The next video was further away, a hiding child commentating. The crowd was cheering, jumping, and it was unclear what was happening. For less than ten seconds the video focused on a pixilated figure flying down from the air, grabbing a falling child and floating to the ground. The child placed into the safe arms of emergency services.
The video then switched, another phone and another angle. The extraordinary footage continued as the figure flew into the air, now grabbing two at a time in each arm. Juliet and her friends in sixth form had looked at each other questioningly and the person on the computer dutifully pulled up the accompanying news articles stating every child survived the fire. Some articles referred to the unverified video, but many did not. The first question was obvious. Was it real or was it fake?
Today the world recognised the figure in the footage as John Fitzgerald, a soldier on leave from duty in the right place at the right time. As Juliet’s mind drifted from the footage on the news channel, she dwelled on the Cherwell School fire. How often could humanity witness a story where everything turned out okay? A story where the ordinary man wins and nobody suffered? The hope that filled the country that day was unlike anything Juliet had ever encountered. The world had its own protector. Now he lay dead in another room.