by S Williams
* * *
you need to come. now. fast
* * *
999: what is your emergency?
Jay read through the text thread, trying to make sense of it. Why had Slane lied? Why had she said Daisy hadn’t called the police? And why had she said Daisy had beaten her up?
Jay lay back down on the bed and thought about the guard on the door. Thought about whether it was to keep Daisy out, or to keep her in.
As she fell asleep another thought came to her as well.
Maybe I’m in danger.
‘You never explained to me what put you onto Daisy in the first place. Why it was so important to keep the surveillance secret.’
Slane sighed as if the question bored her. The inspector had become more and more distant as Jay asked her questions.
‘I’m afraid it’s a little above your clearance level, Constable. Especially as you’re no longer an active player in the operation.’
‘What operation? As far as I can see, without Daisy there is no operation.’
Slane smiled thinly. ‘There are several other lines of enquiry. We are chasing down suspect internet searches carried out in various spots around the city centre. Cafés. Libraries.’
‘She doesn’t know how to use the internet.’
‘So she told you. We believe differently. It was internet traffic that first identified her. That and…’
‘And what?’
‘Like I said. Above your clearance.’
‘Why haven’t the police come to see me?’
Slane paused.
‘I’m not sure what you mean, Jay. We are the police.’
‘I mean the uniformed police. The regular police.’
‘This investigation is very sensitive. There is a public protection dimension to the information surrounding it. That’s why you had to sign the non-disclosure form when you joined us.’
‘Right.’
Jay rubbed a hand across her face.
‘Sorry. The pain makes me grouchy, and the pills make me fuzzy. Between them I keep on forgetting things.’
Like Daisy, she thought.
‘I understand.’ Slane switched on one of her smiles. ‘But don’t worry. Grant – the guard who’s protecting you – has gone to check out a safe house. We’ll be moving you tonight. Once you’re there you’ll be completely secure.’
Slane’s smile got wider. ‘Nobody will know where you are.’
Jay felt a chill of fear spread through her. ‘Who’s guarding me now, if Grant has gone off to check out this safe house?’
‘Don’t worry. We’ve hired one of the hospital security, pro tem. No one will get through.’
And I bet I won’t get out, thought Jay, grimly.
‘That’s good news,’ was all she said.
Slane stood. ‘Try to get some rest, Jay. Hopefully, by tomorrow you’ll be clear-headed and we’ll do a proper interrogation, and this will all be over.’
Slane nodded once, smiled, and left. Jay decided it was the first real smile she’d seen her do, and it filled her with dread. As did the use of the word ‘proper’: it conjured up images of hot coals.
‘I don’t trust you a fucking inch,’ she whispered.
‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it. I’m sure you must be mistaken.’ Doctor Hall looked at her in surprise, one eyebrow raised. Jay was impressed and wondered if he practised in front of a mirror. He had come in to change the dressing on her ribs. She nodded.
‘That’s what she said. Apparently, I’m being taken off-ward tonight. Somewhere more secure.’
‘No one’s informed me. I shall have to–’
‘Don’t worry. I probably got the wrong end of the stick,’ she said, cutting him off. ‘I don’t suppose you could arrange for a wheelchair to be sent up here?’ She pulled open her drawer. Inside was a home-rolled cigarette she’d bummed off the nurse. ‘I’ve given up. Decided to make a clean break after the, um, incident. This is the only one I have. Now I know that I’m not going to die, I thought I might…?’
If the surgeon disapproved he hid it well. ‘I’m sure that can be arranged, Jay.’ Doctor Hall stood. ‘I am really pleased with your recovery. But you don’t really need to be pushed–’
‘I know, Liam, but it would make me feel special.’ He looked at her quizzically.
‘How did you know my na–’
‘Name tag.’
He looked down at his name tag, containing his details and hospital ID.
‘Oh. Right. Then good. I’m on nights as well today. I’ll come in and check on you later.’ He smiled distractedly and walked towards the door.
‘Hey, Liam?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m interested. Were my bloods done when I was brought in?’
‘Your bloods? What do you mean?’
‘When I arrived, I guess it was by ambulance?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Inspector Slane turned up later? Not with the police who came with the medics?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m guessing no one knew what had happened to me at that time? That all avenues must have been considered?’
‘What are you getting at, Jay?’
Jay held his gaze.
‘I’m just wondering if my blood was checked for drugs. In case there had been foul play. Surely that would have been done. Check for rape drugs and whatnot?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he said after a long beat. ‘I’ll check.’
31
29th October
‘What the fuck do you think’s going to happen? Someone’s going to come along and kidnap the wheelchair-bound hot lesbian chick in a nightie and waistcoat from the front of the hospital whilst you chat up the receptionist? Please. Stop reading the melodramas outside my door and get some perspective!’
Jay smiled at the stand-in guard, wagging her cigarette in her fingers. She had done a speed-bonding job on him as he’d wheeled her down through to the hospital entrance to smoke her cigarette.
The stand-in guard looked uneasy. ‘I’m not sure. That inspector is pretty scary.’
‘Or do you think I’m going to jump up and leg it in an Uber, so that I can stop the torture-doctors from experimenting on me any further like I’m in an episode of American Horror Story? Thanks for the lend of your phone, by the way; my girlfriend will be worried stiff. The boss hasn’t let me be in contact. Between you and me I think she’s not down with the queers.’
The guard rolled his eyes.
‘What are people like? I’m not too keen on Inspector Slane. Two years I’ve been here, and nobody has talked down to me like her.’
‘That, Derrick, is because she’s a bit of a wanker.’
‘And that monster who was with her.’
‘Grant,’ supplied Jay.
Derrick nodded.
‘He gave me a right grilling. Complete bastard. Like you’re in any position to run away. You can’t even walk!’
‘Bastard, indeed.’ She cupped her hand around her roll-up as Derrick flicked his Zippo. ‘Bastard from planet Bastard. Don’t let the fuckers grind you down, that’s what I say. Anyhow, I really appreciate you letting me text my girl. I’ll be quick and I’ll wipe the message off your phone afterwards. No one will know.’
‘No sweat. I don’t understand why the inspector won’t just let you talk to her. It’s not as if you’re some big security risk, is it? She must be worried stiff. Your girlfriend, that is.’
Jay nodded, trying to remember the last time she had actually had a girlfriend.
Too long, she decided.
‘Cheers, Derrick. Now go and see what luck you can get with the hot chick handling the phone at reception.’
‘Lucy.’ The security guard smiled. ‘Okay, but you’ll be able to see me through the glass doors, yeah? Just wave when you’ve finished.’
‘Sure,’ said Jay, taking the offered mobile, then looking up at him, wide-eyed. ‘You’ll need to unlock it first.’
‘Wha
t? Oh, yeah. Sorry.’ He leant forward and swiped a pattern on the home screen, opening up the device, then sauntered toward the automatic doors to the hospital reception. Jay watched him enter and strike up a conversation with the receptionist, then Jay turned her attention to the phone.
‘Thank fuck you’re an android boy, Derrick,’ she muttered, referring to the operating system. She checked the signal bar and saw she had data connection, allowing her to access the internet. Glancing around her to make sure no one was near, she opened up the Play Store and downloaded Uber, the taxi app. She verified it using Derrick’s email and phone number.
‘Really, Derrick,’ she whispered. ‘If you are going to put your entire life on your phone at least have passwords.’ As she suspected, once the guard had unlocked the device she had access to everything on it. When the app was live she ordered a car to pick her up from the entrance to the hospital, around the corner from where she was, and put a random address as the destination. The app told her that a car was 0.9 miles away and would be with her in four minutes. It even supplied her with a map showing the position in real time.
‘Step one,’ muttered Jay, checking that Derrick was still usefully occupied. He glanced up at her and waved. She gave him the thumbs up and held up her hand, fingers outstretched, indicating that she’d like five more minutes. He nodded and turned back to the receptionist.
‘Juicy Lucy must be quite something,’ Jay said under her breath. She looked around at her fellow smokers. It was something to see. There were people attached to drips, on stands with little wheels on them. People, like her, in wheelchairs. Men in dressing gowns and women with coats thrown over nighties. All sucking away. To Jay it looked completely desperate. She saw one young woman, clearly just having given birth, dragging so hard she looked like unhappiness was all her life consisted of. Checking that Derrick was still occupied, Jay reached down, hitched up her hospital nightie and unrolled the legs of her trousers, covering the bruising.
‘Here, love!’ The unpregnant girl looked up from whatever horror was playing in her mind and stared at Jay. Jay stood and tucked her nightie into her combats. It now resembled a pirate shirt. Jay felt the urge to swagger. ‘I was just keeping this warm,’ she said, indicating the wheelchair. ‘You look like you need it more than me.’ The girl glared at her for a moment, then gratefully sat down. Jay turned the chair slightly so that it was facing away from the door, then handed the girl a note from her pocket.
‘Could you give this to my mate when he comes back? Tell him I’ve just nipped to the loo. Since the birth, my pelvic floor has completely cocked off.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said the girl, absently taking the note, her concentration on her cigarette and the years of possible incontinence ahead of her. ‘I’m having to wear special bloody pants!’
Jay smiled in sympathy, then walked swiftly away, chin down, counting in her head. At any second she expected a shout from Derrick. She was convinced her crappy plan was going to be discovered, right up to when she turned the corner and saw the Uber idling just outside the hospital grounds. Jay gave it a wave and hurried over. As she neared she saw that her luck was holding; that the driver was a woman. Jay opened the back passenger door and slid in.
‘Cheers,’ she said, pulling on her seat belt. The car slid smoothly away.
‘No problem, love. Layton Avenue, is it?’ Jay could see the destination she had given flashing on the car’s navigation panel, along with the route to get there. It gave an ETA of seventeen minutes. Jay slumped her shoulders and looked at the driver. When the car stopped at a junction, the driver glanced in the mirror.
‘Jesus, love, what happened to you? Did you have a fight with a bus?’
‘No. Just with a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
‘Right.’ The driver nodded, turning back to the road. ‘Gotcha.’ She slid quietly through the traffic, onto the inner circle road.
‘In fact,’ said Jay. ‘It was him who made me order the car. He wants me to come back to him. Says he’s really sorry. Never meant to do it.’ Jay kept her eyes focused on the passing scenery, pinching her top lip between her teeth The driver looked at her worriedly in the mirror as she drove.
‘Come on, love, you don’t want to put up with that! I saw a programme on it. Coercive Abuse, it was called. Something like that.’ She tapped the screen of the satnav. The little picture of the house. ‘Is that him. Is that where you’re going?’
Jay gave a small shudder, and nodded. She swiped the phone into life and deleted the Uber account.
‘Or at least that’s where he thinks I’m going. I had to tap it in because we’ve got a linked account. He could see what I’d done. Like he always can.’ Jay held her breath, seeing if the woman would get it. The pain in her leg ripped into her, and she took the bottle of pills the specialist had given her out of the waistcoat and popped the lid. Under the sad gaze of the driver, she flipped a couple into her hand and dry swallowed them. Derrick would almost certainly have returned by now. Jay reckoned she’d have maybe five minutes of him too embarrassed to call it in, hoping against hope there was a safe explanation. Then maybe another ten minutes for them to check on hospital pick-ups. Buses. Black cabs.
If they were smart they’d track the phone.
Jay thought of Slane; how she’d been used.
They were smart.
Jay wound down the window and threw the phone out. She watched as it smashed on the road behind them.
The driver, whose name tag said ‘Brenda’, smiled at her and said, ‘He can’t see you now, can he?’
Jay shook her head and smiled bravely back. ‘I don’t suppose you could drop me at the Corn Exchange, could you? I’ve got a friend who works there. She’ll take me in. He doesn’t know about her.’
‘Of course, love.’
Jay felt a surge of gratitude.
‘And I know it’s a huge ask, but could you drive on to Heaton Park? It’s just up from the road I tapped in? Say you dropped me there?’
‘Keep him off the scent, yeah?’
Jay nodded. Under interrogation, she was sure the woman would say where she actually dropped her, but it was all about worst-case scenarios. All about maximising the time.
And it wasn’t as if she knew anybody at the Corn Exchange anyhow.
‘Cheers. I just want to lie low for a bit. Make some choices. You know what I mean?’
The truth of what she said shone through, and the driver nodded and drove.
Four minutes later she stopped outside the Corn Exchange. Jay got out, wincing with the pain, but noting it was already beginning to recede, the little tablets doing the heavy lifting for her.
‘Hey!’ said the driver.
Jay froze and looked back down at Brenda.
The driver held out her hand. ‘This is a roll of pound coins.’
Jay saw what looked like a plain packet of polos.
‘Keep it in your pocket. Next time you’re in trouble hold it in your fist.’ The woman placed it in the palm of her hand and made a fist around it, demonstrating. ‘He or anyone else comes near you, smash them in the face. It’ll break their jaw big time.’ She opened her fist and offered the roll. Jay looked at her. Thought of a woman in a city picking up men. Even with the app. Even with all the checks and balances it must take nerve.
Jay nodded and took the roll. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem. Hope you get fled.’
Jay stood and slammed the door. She watched the Uber drive away, disappearing into the Leeds traffic. She looked at the Corn Exchange for a second, then turned and limped her way to the indoor market.
32
29th October
When Jay entered, she was momentarily stunned by the noise. After the quiet of the hospital, it was almost overwhelming. The pills she had taken for her pain deadened it a little, but she still felt like she was being sonically crushed. Also, the sheer bustle of the place was intimidating, with people pushing past each other in a hurry to reach the next ba
rgain.
Hunching her shoulders, she hobbled down the stone lanes created by the stalls until she found herself in a quieter part of the market. She skimmed past the grey stalls, with their none-brand goods and a fug of industrial-strength skunk smoke hovering above them, towards the Moroccan café she used to frequent when she first went on the beat. Opposite was a phone repair kiosk; a grey-market establishment that had one foot in the legitimate repair business, and the other in the highly suspect practice of being able to unlock any phone, no questions asked. We unlock fones while u w8! the legend above the bead-strings, that served as a door, declared in old-skool speak.
Jay smiled; she used to visit here too. Whenever she locked herself out of her phone or had problems rooting it. She passed through the curtain and entered the tiny store, glancing casually about. There was only one other customer; a young man with tweed drainpipe trousers and a mock Victorian black creeper jacket. He was deep in discussion with the owner about UI skins and crypto hard-vaults: Jay slid in and pretended to view the phone cases that lined one entire wall.
Five minutes later, when the man finally left, Jay turned and limped to the desk. The owner, a thin man with shiny skin and scraped back hair, was fiddling with an open phone, a watch-screwdriver in one long-fingered hand.
‘Hello, Beemer; how’s it going?’ she said softly.
The young man, nicknamed after the car he told everyone he was going to own, looked up at her. It took him a couple of beats to place her, then he smiled and stuck out his fist. She smiled back and raised her own, gently bumping.
‘Crap, what the fuck happened to you?’ His smile slipped as he took the rest of her in. ‘You been in the wars and no mistake, Jay.’
‘And the rest,’ she agreed. ‘Look, Beemer, any chance of closing the gates for five minutes? I’ve got myself in the middle of a shitstorm, and I need some help.’
