by Diane Saxon
‘Poppy.’ Her voice rasped out as though she’d never used it. ‘What happened to Poppy?’
Taylor stretched his arms out to rest his hands on his knees. ‘She’s in surgery.’
‘Surgery?’ The fast surge to her pulse jerked through her body. ‘Was she shot? I didn’t think Lawrence—’
Taylor shook his head. ‘He didn’t. At least not today. She was shot the other night.’
She shuffled against the air-filled pillows. ‘By her own dad.’ The horror of it was beyond her comprehension.
‘Yep. The night of the fire. She told DC Downey her daddy shot her like the rest of the family. But the bullet lodged in her rib and she escaped.’
‘Lucky.’ Gregg stroked his fingers over his smooth chin with eyes bleak to decry his own word.
Poor girl. Jenna couldn’t bring herself to consider anything about Poppy’s situation luck. Her entire family were dead. The only one left alive was Poppy. How was she to survive?
She glanced at her own sister. She survived. One day at a time and that’s all anyone could hope for Poppy.
‘No next of kin have come forward.’ In the silence, it remained unspoken that she would go into the system. Foster parents until she was eighteen.
No. There was nothing lucky about Poppy Lawrence’s situation.
‘What about Fleur, the family dog? Will she get to keep her?’
In the long silence, Taylor took out his notebook and scribbled on it. ‘We’ll let social services know. See what can be done.’
Jenna moved her attention onwards as Gregg slipped from the room with a quick raise of his hand.
If she could have killed Mason, she would have done. Arms folded he’d wedged himself in the corner of the room. Belligerent because he knew how she felt.
He’d not needed to contact her sister and worry her unnecessarily.
Fliss’s pale face and huge eyes reflected the terror that could only be escalated by her own trauma and Jenna wouldn’t have put her through it all again for the world.
‘Don’t blame him.’ Fliss’s eyebrows lowered as she held Jenna’s gaze with her own. ‘You wouldn’t have told me.’
‘I would have.’
‘What? After I heard it on the news?’
Helpless, Jenna fluttered her hands in front of her face. ‘I would have rather cleaned up at least before you saw me.’
‘I’ve seen worse.’ Fliss’s voice hardened. ‘Only last time, I was on the receiving end and the injuries were mine.’
‘They were.’ Jenna sat forward and wrapped her arms around drawn-up knees. ‘I’m not even injured.’
‘You have a ruptured eardrum.’
‘That’s it. A ruptured eardrum is hardly a heroic injury.’ The ringing in her ears had faded, but sounds were still muffled.
Fliss leaned in to whisper in her face. ‘I don’t need you to be a hero. I need you to be alive.’
Breath backed up in her lungs. Alive. She was. Just. If the shot had been off by a few inches, it could have been her brains blown to smithereens.
At the sound of footsteps and soft murmured voices outside of the door, they fell silent and watched as a doctor stepped inside and took the clipboard of notes from the bottom of her bed without so much as a glance in her direction.
Aloof and detached, he pulled a pen from his top pocket, filling the silence with a rhythmic click, click, as he depressed the button. In – click, click. Out – click, click.
The jaw she’d managed to unclench started to stiffen again.
When he glanced up, his eyes widened for a split second, quickly covered by a rapid blink and a look down at his notes. His narrow chest expanded as he took in a long breath and then lowered the clipboard onto the bed beside her feet.
‘I’m Doctor Saunders. And you are Jenna Morgan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you confirm your date of birth?’
She waited for eye contact as she reeled off the information. ‘First of December 1990.’
He pulled at his lip as he scanned her from the top of her head to the tip of her toes and notched up her irritation. She really wanted to go home.
‘Doctor Saunders. Apart from a possible burst eardrum, I have no other injuries. Can I please go home?’
With a soft grunt, he clicked the pen – click, click, then one last time – click. He tucked it back into his top pocket. ‘I’ll check your ears in just a moment. There’s a lot of blood, all over you. Are you sure you’re not injured?’
Jenna ground her teeth and swivelled her attention to DI Taylor in the vain hope he might save her.
He squeezed the top of his nose between forefinger and thumb and grimaced. There would be no help forthcoming from him. Nor Mason, the coward. Her sister just stared straight at her, her tongue lodged against the side of her cheek.
As the doctor continued his long contemplation of her, Jenna wriggled her backside on the bed.
‘I suggest you change out of those clothes, into a hospital gown.’
Fliss whipped out a small, white cotton bag from inside her oversized handbag and jiggled it in front of the doctor. ‘I brought PJs and slippers.’
DI Taylor pushed up from the chair and held up a hand before she could move. ‘I’m afraid she can’t get changed yet. Jenna, you know the form. SOCO are on their way. They need to take photographs and bag all the evidence.’ He gave the doctor a tight smile. ‘I’m sure you’re familiar with the process.’ At the doctor’s blank stare, DI Taylor continued. ‘DS Morgan there…’ he inclined his head in her direction, gaze stony and hard, ‘…is what we classify a crime scene and we need a scenes of crime officer. It can’t be done by any Tom, Dick or…’ A look of relief flashed over his face as the door cracked open a mere few inches and their Chief Forensics Examiner peered through over the top of his half-moon glasses. ‘…Jim.’
Jim Downey sent her a soft smile as his astute gaze picked up every detail. ‘Jenna, I thought I’d pop in and check on you.’
Heart skipping with relief, Jenna sent him a smile of her own before a swirl of doubt circled. ‘Jim, I thought you’d be at the scene.’
He tugged the door closed behind him and stepped up to the bed. ‘I’ve been in contact with them. The scene is secure. PC Gardner is in very capable hands, so too is the suspect. Both very dead.’ His sad, serious gaze met hers, misty grey swirling with concern. ‘You are not. Currently, my priority is securing any forensic evidence here without visiting the scene first. We don’t want any cross-contamination and as my team had already arrived at the site, I volunteered to do this side of things.’
It helped to know this wasn’t strictly the case. He could have sent someone else to deal with her, but his concern was for one of his own. He’d never have left the scene to someone else if he had any doubt about the abilities of his team. The warmth of his concern spread through her chest.
Flustered, the doctor backed out of the door into the corridor. ‘I’ll come back… later. I’ll…’ he stumbled over his words, ‘I’ll be back.’
Jim slanted her a tight smile. ‘Was it something I said?’
‘No, Jim.’ DI Taylor shuffled himself past the tight confines of the room to plonk his backside back down in the high-back vinyl-covered chair. ‘He’s still at that new stage, thinks he knows everything, cocky as hell, and knows nothing. He’ll learn.’
Jenna’s thoughts jangled. New and cocky. They didn’t always learn. PC Gardner certainly hadn’t. He’d not been gifted the time to learn.
She swallowed as the conversation around her continued, oblivious of the pain touching each of her raw nerve endings.
‘Could do with improving his bedside manner I suspect.’
Jenna raised both hands to scrub them across her face.
‘Uh-uh.’ Jim stopped her mid move. ‘Not yet you can’t. Let me gather my evidence, Jenna, and then we can make you comfortable.’
She sat in silence. Comfortable would be a shower so hot it sluiced the skin from her bones.
Jim slipped his PPE on over the top of his own clothes and then snapped on two pairs of gloves. He took each item from his bag, one at a time, and placed them carefully on the side table.
He glanced up, pinning each of the onlookers with his schoolteacher stare. ‘This will take a while. I suggest you take a break. Come back later.’
DI Taylor and Mason both moved to the door together in a fast rush to obey.
Fliss never moved a muscle. ‘I’ll stay.’
Jim’s lips twitched. He started with the digital camera he removed from a plain black case.
‘You probably know all of this, Jenna, but I’ll walk you through it as we go along.’
As he snapped the first few frames, Jenna darted him a self-deprecating grin. ‘Normally I’d do my hair and face before a photo shoot.’
‘Hmmm.’ He came in close, angled around to the side of her, too far in his zone to take notice. ‘Blood splatter, this is the most important point. It proves you were standing where you say you were at the time, and the position of PC Gardner and the perpetrator.’
She shook her head. ‘Gordon Lawrence. I don’t think I have any of his blood on me. The angle from the second shot fired would have been wrong.’ She pictured Ethel in her mind. Totally wrong. ‘I don’t know for sure though. I was on the ground by then.’
Jim held still, his gaze conducting a long, slow assessment of her. ‘Can you slip off the bed and stand upright for me?’
Pain burned through her knees as she straightened her legs before swinging them over the side of the bed. She let out an involuntary grunt.
Over the top of his glasses, Jim’s steady gaze met hers. ‘You might want to mention that to the doctor.’
A sob stuck in her throat and her voice came out a croaky whisper. ‘I just want to go home, Jim.’
He reached out a hand, his long, thin fingers encircled her forearm as he gave a gentle squeeze. ‘I understand, Jenna. You, personally, need this finished. You, professionally, need to ensure everything is right.’
She ducked her head and blinked away the sharp sting of tears. ‘I know. I think I banged up my knees when I hit the ground. They’re just bruised.’
‘Anywhere else?’
‘No. I landed on top of Poppy. His daughter.’
Jim nodded his acknowledgement. ‘Okay. Tell the doctor. Now, turn.’
She did as instructed, her watery gaze meeting Fliss’s as she turned her back on him to stare directly at her sister. She mustered up a brave smile, but the edges of it wobbled and one fat tear trembled on the edge of her eye and then rolled down her cheek. She held Fliss’s stare and clenched her jaw. She’d get through it. She had no choice.
The click and whirr of the camera dragged her attention back. ‘I shouldn’t have anything on my back, Jim. Lee Gardner stepped in front of me.’ She closed her eyes and jerked them back open again as the image of PC Gardner’s head exploding filled her mind with hues of crimson.
‘Have you written up your notes yet?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and then held still for him to take more snapshots before she continued. ‘I’m ready to as soon as I get cleaned up.’ She held out both hands. Dried blood coated them.
Jim tucked the camera back into his bag and took a swab from the small packet he picked up from where he’d laid it on the bed. ‘I need to collect samples from you. I’ll start at your back. When PC Gardner was shot, what did you do?’
‘I…’ She thought the events through. It was essential to the case. She had to face it. She drew in a long breath through her nostrils. Business. Professional. She could do it. She started at the end. ‘PC Gardner stepped in front of me.’
‘To protect you?’
‘No.’ She had to be honest. Heat scorched up her neck into her face. ‘He was a complete arse. As he always has been. He should never have been a police officer. Never once have I been impressed with the way he handled things.’ Once started, the rush of emotions poured out, desperate, angry, confused. ‘He didn’t step in front of me to protect me. I hate to say this, the man is dead.’ She paused, the pulse thundering in her ears as the scene flashed in front of her eyes again. ‘But he seemed to think he was invincible. He was arrogant in his belief that Gordon Lawrence would lay down his weapon on his say-so.’ She hauled in a deep breath.
Jim carried on as though it was a casual chat, but she knew he was aware that it helped to talk about it, to get it out. ‘And did you?’
‘No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The moment I saw him, I knew he was going to pull that trigger. We weren’t going to talk him down. He’d already killed his own family. It was just a matter of delaying it for as long as possible so we could get armed response there.’
Jim’s soft sigh whispered over the top of her ear as he continued to take his samples of blood and tissue from the back of her head.
‘What happened when PC Gardner was shot?’
Thick fog whirled to mask the memory. Determined to push through it, Jenna focused. ‘I dropped to the floor with Poppy.’
‘You protected her.
‘It was instinct. There wasn’t even a conscious thought, I just grabbed her and hit the ground. I was face down. Poppy underneath me.’ She raised her hand and this time Jim allowed her to touch her face as he’d already conducted evidence-gathering in that area. She touched her fingertips across her grazed skin, drawing in a sharp breath at the sting of it. ‘My forehead hit the ground. It hurts.’
‘We’ll call the doctor back in a moment. Get you cleaned up.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Gunshots.’
‘How many?’
She searched her memory. ‘A million.’
‘Think it through, we’ll need your account for continuity. Keep in mind perceptual distortion.’
Aware of that factor, Jenna reined herself in. Played the scene over in her head again, again, again.
The first shot fired by Gordon Lawrence. She fell. Another gunshot echoed. It had sounded like three, but she knew there were only two shots fired.
Gunshot ricocheted around and around. And the reality of why Jim was taking swabs from the back of her head, her neck, her shoulders pushed through. Tiny tremors shuddered from her core outwards in ever-widening ripples to wrack her body as her insides turned to water.
Jim wrapped a steadying hand around her elbow. ‘Jenna?’
She shook off the invading chill and raised her head. ‘Am I done? Can I shower now?’
Jim stepped back and stripped off his gloves. He slipped them into a small plastic bag leaving him with a second pair he wore underneath. ‘I need your clothes.’
Her fingers twitched ready to rip the clothes from her back, she couldn’t divest herself of them fast enough. It didn’t matter that Jim was about to see her stark naked, it didn’t matter she had to preserve all forensic evidence. She needed to be out of them immediately.
With shaking hands, Jenna stripped her jacket from her body. As she turned to place it in the forensic evidence bag, her gaze clashed with Jim’s measured pewter one and every flight instinct dried up in an instant.
Tensile steel strengthened her backbone and she drew herself erect. This was her job. She’d do it.
She toed her boots from her feet and let Jim pick them up as she unbuttoned her trousers, slid the zip down and let them slither down her legs to the floor. Each item was bagged by Jim, labelled, sealed.
Jenna glanced at her white T-shirt. The front V of it was soaked in blood and, if she wasn’t mistaken, matted hair with a tiny piece of skull. As she raised her head, Jim leaned in to pluck the sample from her chest with a neat pair of tweezers.
‘Almost missed that little sucker. It must have been inside your jacket collar. Let me check a little closer.’
He dipped his head, so the small thinning patch on the top was visible. An hysterical giggle bubbled up her throat until she could do nothing but hold her breath. The inappropriateness
of it whirled through her mind. It made no difference that she knew it was her coping mechanism at the sensory overload taking place. If she let it burst free, Jim would raise his head and bestow one of his cool, assessing stares to frighten the crap out of her. He’d not had to do that for the past several years with her, but she’d witnessed it plenty of times when he’d turned it on newbies. Even his own son.
She screwed her eyes closed and clamped down on the laughter. When she opened them again, Jim was nose to nose with her. Almost cross-eyed, Jenna focused on him.
‘Are we okay?’
She gave a jerky nod. ‘Fine. Just fine.’
‘Excellent.’ He stepped back out of her personal space and reached for two more forensics bags. ‘I’ll step outside now. Slip your top off and put it in this bag. Your underwear needs to go in this one. Then you can slip on a hospital gown and call me back in.’
Jenna whipped off her top and shoved it in the bag. She took the proffered hospital gown from a silent, supportive Fliss, slipped it over her head before she unclipped her bra and whipped it from underneath. As she tugged it into place, she pushed her knickers down her legs and flicked them off the end of her feet.
Pain vibrated through her knees as she straightened, and she bent low again to take a peep. No clear memory of her fall existed, but the dark red on both knees promised that there was plenty of bruising to come out over the next few days.
‘Are you decent?’
Jenna shot upright and yanked the hospital gown together over her arse as Jim’s voice came from the other side of the partially closed door. She slipped back onto the bed and tugged the pristine white sheet up to cover her naked legs.
As Jim came back into the room, Jenna searched his face. ‘Can I have a shower?’
His lips twitched, eyes filled with affection. ‘Yes, Jenna, you can have a shower.’
54
Thursday 23 April 1800 hours
Sometimes the job was difficult, often tedious. Occasionally, she hardened her heart to the evilness and atrocities people inflicted on one another. Once in a while, however, a case wrenched her heart out and left trailing arteries in its wake so she would never forget.