Breathe

by Cari Hunter

  Something in his tone made her ears prick up. She studied him with more care, noting how tightly he held her paperwork, and the undisguised resentment in his expression. He wasn’t angry with her, he was jealous that she had dealt with jobs he would probably give his eyeteeth to experience. To a certain extent she understood his envy. She had felt the same way when she first started, craving the excitement of major traumas and the critically ill, calls that would put all of her training to good use, but no one wanted to deal with a near-constant deluge of such jobs, and she would be content to see out the remainder of her career working shifts with a regular mate, managing falls and innocuous bellyaches and idiots who should know better.

  “I don’t self-allocate,” she said, reminding him that his role as an Advanced Paramedic allowed him to do just that. “I go to the jobs I’m sent to, and I can’t help what they turn out to be.”

  He scoffed as if to dispute that, but it was a kneejerk reaction he took no further. “The court will require a statement from you,” he said, drawing a line beneath the discussion but seeming satisfied he’d won some kind of victory.

  She collected her mug and biscuits, her patience worn to the point of snapping. “I’ll email it to Legal as soon as they formally request one.”

  “I’d like to see a copy before then.”

  “Fine.” She stood and opened the door, letting in a blast of diesel fumes that still smelled better than his office. “I’m going to tell control I’m clear.”

  She walked out without waiting for permission and sank into a crew room chair between Bob and Dougie, who were sitting with their feet up, watching Homes Under the Hammer.

  Dougie muted the television. “You all right, flower?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Bob looked sceptical but didn’t comment. He collected their mugs and went into the kitchen. Seconds later, she heard water pouring and the creak of the toaster’s lever.

  Dougie picked a crumb out of his beard. “We saw Spence at West Penn. He reckons Baxter’s after a transfer to this group.”

  “Terrific. We’re already firm friends.” Too stressed to dwell on the possibility, she changed the subject. “How was Mary Kirkholt?”

  Bob returned in time to catch the tail end of her question. He arranged brews and toast on a low table and helped himself before answering. “She was fine, very chirpy, and absolutely not stuck on the loo. KitKats and Jammie Dodgers today, and we’re now off the road until someone comes out to fix our side door, so it’s all coming up roses.”

  “I should call clear.” Jem unclipped her radio, but Dougie put his hand on hers.

  “Have five minutes. If they really need you, they know where you are.”

  She relented and picked up her mug, shocked when her hand trembled hard enough to slosh tea over its rim. She hadn’t realised how badly Baxter had unsettled her. “Okay, five minutes.”

  Bob passed her the toast. “Good girl. Oh, by the way, we asked our dispatcher to follow up on that bloke from this morning. Ian with the aneurysm.”

  She nodded, braced for the worst. “And?”

  “Stable and heading to High Dependency, and his children are sitting with his missus.”

  Jem dropped her toast onto her plate. “Get out. Really?”

  “Yep, really. Apparently, his wife wanted all our names for a thank-you card.” He cackled with his mouth full. “Tell Baxter to put that in his pipe and smoke it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The lad emptied a packet of prawn cocktail crisps into his mouth, wiped his greasy fingers on his jeans, and opened a Mars Bar. Despite his penchant for snacks, he was tall and wiry, and his low-riding jeans revealed a pair of once-white Calvin Kleins. Acne bloomed pink on his nose and chin, and although his clothes were all label brands, they didn’t appear to have been washed this side of Christmas.

  “Four, maybe five weeks,” he said through a mouthful of chocolate, turning to his mate for confirmation, but the other lad shrugged and continued to type on his phone. “What we in now?”

  Rosie stepped out of the small pool gathering by her boot. The canal bridge offered shelter from the elements, but the rain hadn’t stopped all day, and water was running in a thin line to widen already well-established puddles.

  “It’s March the fifteenth,” she said. “Which would mean you last saw Kyle around Valentine’s Day?”

  The crisp-eater clicked his fingers. “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. He got Tahlia one of those massive cards and a load of chocolate so she’d shag him, but then he fucked her off, so she started shagging Demi-Lee, which is kinda cool.”

  Rosie recorded the comment verbatim, amused by the prospect of typing everything up for Steph, who had hand-picked her for house-to-house that morning and then sent her chasing after a gang of Kyle’s latchkey kid mates.

  “Do you have an address or contact details for Tahlia?” she asked.

  The lad chugged from an energy drink and burped close-mouthed. The stink of fish and artificial fruit flavour hit her as he exhaled.

  “Her dad chucked her out cos she’s a lezzer. She was crashing with Demi-Lee for a while, but Woody reckons he’s seen her down the old mill.”

  Rosie grimaced. “The one on Bennett Street? Looks like something out of a horror film?”

  “Yeah. Second floor’s dodgy as shit. Mickey Foss fell through it a few months back, and he’s been a cabbage ever since.”

  “Thanks for the heads up. Can you describe Tahlia for me?”

  Still busy working on his Mars, the lad raised one finger as if loath to spoil his final bite. He swallowed and immediately began to pick his teeth. “She’s half-Paki,” he said around a grubby digit.

  Rosie gave him a look that made him bite down on his knuckle. “Can we phrase that any better?”

  “Sorry, miss,” he said, his cheeks reddening. “She’s small and, um, light brown, and she has long dark curly hair, and she doesn’t wear one of them scarf things. I think she’s about fourteen.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure that’ll be very useful.” Rosie tucked her notepad into a pocket on her stab vest and looked around at the group: two lads and two girls, all of them skinny and shivering, and none of them older than fifteen. “Does everyone have somewhere to stay tonight?”

  They nodded en masse, offering up addresses that were probably false and a shelter known only as “Olly’s.” She handed the lad her card. “If you think of anything else that might help, or you need help yourselves, give me a call, okay?”

  He shoved the card into his pocket without glancing at it. She knew that none of them would ever contact her, but still, she had to try. She updated her status with comms as she slogged along the waterlogged towpath, avoiding dog shit and the odd needle discarded by the smack rats who congregated beneath the next bridge down. Surrounded by abandoned mills and factories, this part of the canal had long since been claimed by Manchester’s cast-offs: the drunks and the addicts, the homeless and the destitute. Only someone with a death wish or a very strong belief in a higher being would venture there after dark. She passed a pair of the latter by the lock, their matching red coats identifying them as volunteers from the neighbourhood church. The elder of the two tipped his hat at her.

  “How do, Officer. All quiet on the western front?”

  “For once. I think the rain’s keeping them in. Even the geese look cheesed off.”

  He chuckled. “It carries on like this and the town centre will go under again. Sandbags are already out down Hearts Cross.”

  That came as no surprise. The small village of Hearts Cross bordered Stanny Brook, but it sat squarely in a flood zone and its residents were still counting the cost from the last time the river burst its banks. With government austerity policies biting hard, the council had little in the pot for essential services, let alone flood defences, and they had employed a head-in-sand approach to future breaches in the hope that the sun might finally shine on their patch and negate the need for expensive works. Such blind optimism w
ith regard to the region’s climate confirmed long-held suspicions that most of the councillors were morons.

  “Have either of you met a lass called Tahlia on your travels?” she asked. “About fourteen years old? Possibly sleeping rough?”

  “No,” the younger chap said. “There are kids dotted about in a few of the mills, but the buildings are death traps, so we stay out of them.”

  “That’s understandable.” She gave them her card, issuing the usual request should they cross paths with Tahlia before she did. The church ran youth groups and a food bank and took a mobile soup kitchen into the town centre at night. No one seemed to mind listening to a sermon if they were hungry enough. “Right then, I’d best let you get going,” she said.

  They performed an awkward shuffle on the narrow path, Rosie stepping aside and slipping on a muddy verge. Rain was seeping beneath her shirt, and her trousers clung to her thighs as if they’d been spray-painted on. She stamped sticky lumps of mud from her boots as she walked on, her foul mood exacerbated by a WhatsApp message from Kash showing nothing but a Big Mac and a large fries.

  I hope it gives you heartburn, she replied, and swore at the central locking on her patrol car when it flashed the indicators but failed to open the doors.

  In no rush to get to Bennett Street, she took a roundabout route that weaved through the back streets of east Manchester. She beeped her horn and waved at the owner of the Manc Muffin, who always piled extra bacon on her breakfast barm. Then she circled around the back of the massive gas holders, slowing to admire their Scalextric-like structure, their framework bleak but bold against the washed-out sky. The regeneration triggered by the building of the Etihad Stadium hadn’t reached this far, but the redbrick terraced streets felt like home to her, and she hoped any eventual attempts to gentrify the area wouldn’t drive its soul from it.

  She didn’t bother stopping at the front of the old mill. Every man and his dog knew that was where the padlocked gates and security warnings were. Instead, she drove slowly around the block toward the straight section that ran alongside the river. She and Kash had crawled through a gap in the fence there one night, on a mission to disrupt a medium-sized rave that hadn’t let a lack of electricity dampen its spirits.

  Recognising the bright red slab of hoarding that marked the illicit entrance, she parked the car and tried to summon the energy to get out. The mill dominated the neighbourhood, towering above the tightly packed houses and spoiling the view from every backyard. It got set on fire once or twice a year, but it seemed impervious to serious harm, and no one would accept responsibility for its demolition. She snapped a photo, focusing on a broken window and bricks burned black and splintered at the edges, and then attached the image to a message for Jem. I’m going in. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, send help.

  Jem must have been between emergencies, because a reply came quickly. Send help where, you pillock?

  Bennett Street, Ardwick.

  Christ, is that the old mill? Jem punctuated her question with horrified emojis. Are you on your own? Please don’t go upstairs. I went to a lad not long back who’d fallen through the second floor and mashed his brains.

  Small world, Rosie thought. I’ll be fine, she typed, unsure why she had chosen to contact Jem and not Kash. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I’m out.

  Please do, and be careful. There are rats in there bigger than Alsatians.

  No, there aren’t. Rosie sent the text and then tagged on an addendum. Shit. ARE there?

  No, but they’re well organised and toothy. Crap, got a job. TEXT ME.

  I will, I promise, Rosie replied, and got out of the car.

  As if to add insult to injury, the mill was tall enough to create a wind tunnel, funnelling gusts that tore at her uniform and hair and hurled rain against her.

  “Fucking hell,” she spat, but the wind whipped the curse away as well, following it with a prolonged barrage that rattled loose panels of fencing and sent howls echoing off the brickwork. Her access route took her across a minefield of wooden planks, shattered bricks, and litter of every imaginable kind. The locals had turned the perimeter into a makeshift tip, dragging out their unwanted sofas and white goods to dump them amongst the nettles and brambles. The last time the river had burst its banks, it swept most of the crap away, but people had wasted no time refilling the gaps.

  Rosie took her time navigating the obstacle course, wary of falling and ending up with her hands full of glass or contaminated sharps. The building cast a long shadow, exacerbating the weather’s overbearing gloom, and she switched on her torch as she approached a pile of wooden crates stacked to boost trespassers through an empty window. The crates rocked beneath her weight, and she scrambled through quickly before she tempted fate, grateful to land on a solid concrete floor that was covered in charred remnants and rat droppings but not liable to collapse without warning.

  A slow pan of her torch revealed hefty floor-to-ceiling pillars and a series of low brick walls that had formed partitions back when the mill was operational. Any remaining machinery had been removed by the owners or looted for scrap metal, and the expansive space was now strewn with cider bottles and beer cans, junk food wrappers, and the odd condom. The closest corner, where two of the windows still had glass, showed signs of more prolonged inhabitation: a circle of ash from a small fire, tattered blankets, and a pair of soiled trousers, but no one seemed to have been there recently and the clothing wasn’t that of a teenage girl.

  Using that corner as a starting point, Rosie zigzagged across the floor, trying to cover as much of it as possible whilst keeping a close eye on where she was putting her feet. Several sections of the concrete had traps cut into it, covered only by rotting wooden doors and almost impossible to spot, even in daylight. Someone had splattered a couple with yellow paint, but a large hole in the centre of another implied Mickey Foss wasn’t the only one to have come a cropper in here. Kneeling by the gap, she directed her torch through it and leaned low, straining to pick out objects in the murk. Dank air hit her face, bringing with it a stagnant tang, and she could see floodwater several metres below, its ink-black surface rippling in the draught. She shivered, pushing away from the edge and then dusting off her knees as she stood. A quick check of her watch told her she had twenty-five minutes left before Jem might raise the alarm, but there was only the very back of the room still left for her to explore.

  Following the rear wall brought her to a recess housing a flight of stairs. Happy to heed Jem’s warning about the upper levels, she was about to call it a day when a sudden smash of glass and a stifled laugh sounded clearly from the floor above.

  “Shit.” She kicked the dusty bottom step, glaring at its fresh footprints. The prints were smaller than hers and overlapping, suggesting more than one person was up there.

  The first step creaked but held as she put her foot on it. She set her jaw, resigned to her fate and somewhat comforted by the prospect of Jem being sent to her should she break her neck. Jem would no doubt be less than impressed, however, so she crept upward at a snail’s pace, avoiding any obvious weak spots in the wood and holding the handrail in the few places it was securely fixed. Still hidden in the alcove at the top of the flight, she mulled over her options. The last thing she wanted was to spook anyone and have to chase after the buggers, so she tiptoed to the door and pushed it open a crack. She could hear three distinct and distinctly young voices: two girls and one lad. The kids were close by and to her left, and judging by the smell that hit her, they were all stoned.

  “Yeah, but it’s not unpossible is it?” the lad said. “They’ve got a horn.”

  One of the girls laughed. “They’ve got antlers, y’thick twat, not horns, and they’d never shag a horse.”

  “So where do they come from, then?” he asked, after a prolonged spell of inhalation that ended with a violent fit of coughing and another wave of dope smoke wafting over Rosie.

  “Africa, I think. It were on ITV,” the second girl said. “But
they got one in Chester Zoo, Woody, I seen it.”

  Rosie’s ears pricked up at the mention of the lad’s name. She walked across to them, her presence completely ignored until she stopped a couple of feet away from their smouldering disposable barbecue and cleared her throat. The trio were slouching on the floor in a nest of blankets and sleeping bags. The girl with her back to Rosie craned her neck, grinning as she viewed Rosie upside down. Her lank hair—blond, streaked through with bright green—fell about her face, and her tongue piercing flashed gold in the torchlight.

  “Hiya. You’re dead pretty. D’ya want a burger?” She rolled over clumsily, scrabbling about on the floor to retrieve a dirt-speckled barmcake housing a disc of grey meat.

  “Uh, no. Cheers, though,” Rosie said. With none of the kids showing any inclination to do a runner, she sat on a spare crate at Woody’s side.

  Woody sucked on his joint and then seemed to realise he’d made a grave mistake, not in smoking a Class B substance in front of a police officer, but in not offering her a toke. “It’s really good shit,” he said, turning the spliff’s soggy side toward her.

  “It’s tempting, but I’ll pass, thanks.”

  He shrugged at her refusal and unscrewed a half-empty bottle of cider. “Have you ever been to Chester Zoo?” he asked, regarding her with red-rimmed eyes and scratching at a scab on his cheek.

  Rosie crossed her legs at the ankles, settling in for the long run. “Yeah, once, I think. Why?”

  “Did you see the unicorn?”

  The blond girl laughed so hard that her alcopop shot out of her nose.

  “Ah,” Rosie said as their earlier exchange began to make sense. “I don’t believe it was there at the time, so no.”

  “I’ve never been to a zoo,” he said. “I shot a squirrel with an airgun once, but it’s not the same as seeing a real-life unicorn.”

  Rosie nodded, doing her utmost to remain professional. “Maybe you should do a bit of googling when you get home.”