Fiona

by D Attrill

  © Rollercoaster Ficton 2015

  The right of D.W. Attrill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Although based in part on a single true event, this book is otherwise a work of fiction as are all characters included.

  This edition published in 2015 by CreateSpace, for Rollercoaster Fiction

  Front and rear cover by author.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or otherwise shared physically or electronically without the express permission of the copyright holder.

  D.W. Attrill (Dave Attrill) is an author from Sheffield, England.

  He is known primarily for his previous thriller Playground, and lightweight poetry/prose release Battenberg And Brain Damage.

  His work has appeared in published anthologies since 2010, most recently including nationally released compilation 'The Wait'

  He has also written for the UK music webzine Metalliville since August 2001

  Originally born in Maidstone, Kent, he moved to Yorkshire with his family when young.

  He attended King Ecgbert School in Dore, Sheffield before going on to study higher-level English and also Media and Art at Sheffield College.

  Though having originally aspired to become a rock musician, he had already begun work on his first novel project in his mid-twenties, and committed himself to writing from late 2008 onwards.

  Since 1998 he has held down jobs including a catalogue salesperson, recycling plant operative and a data entry clerk.

  He currently works as an admin assistant at a structural engineers office in Sheffield.

  FIONA is his first release as D.W. Attrill and also his first to be based on actual events.

  THANKS TO

  Mum, Nick & Claire.

  Andy Wood and Andy Hyde.

  Also Liz, John and Julia; Tyn, Jess, Mark, Gareth and Leanne; Phillipa and Pat for additional guidance

  Chapter 1

  (i)

  The brutal August rain beat down as she headed up the slope. June was not unused to it in Scotland, any more than her climb up this cruel backstreet each weekday. She was only envious that her old Yorkshire hometown had reportedly sizzled in seventy-eight degrees heat this last month. Trudging up to the pedestrian crossing, she let the Glasgow rush-hour rumble by before reaching the turn and the road she knew - one that had less trees than it could do with in this weather. Her workplace stood three doors short of the end, overlooking the M8. Trying to count the lampposts until she reached it made her look odd, but it took her all the way without the weather worrying her.

  As she got to No6, she could see little light on inside the top floor windows. Someone was definitely still in - the front door to the tenement stood slightly open. Her employer usually did this just as she was expecting June to arrive: these old Victorian doors certainly knew how to stick. She took the tiled pathway one step at a time, remembering how deadly those tiles were in the wet.

  Stepping in, out of the elements, the stairwell seemed just as uninviting. June was soon overcome by the acrid linger of overdue coal tar soap, or whatever they’d washed the tiles with all these years. Somehow it seemed wasted: today’s early evening darkness denied them their shine. Noticing a light switch at her left, she thought ‘stuff it'. Her safety up these slippery, worn-down stairs was more important than helping the place stay looking old or haunted.

  June took the stairs a single one at a time, just as she had done with the path. She reached the third floor, where the door to flat 6B was at her immediate left, dark red and unwelcoming. Like back outside, there was little evidence anyone was at home today. No glow came from the crack round the letterbox.

  She knocked politely.

  “Hello. You there, duck?”

  “I’m here.” A small young voice shouted from deep within. “Wanna come right in? You know where to find him.”

  Making the most of her welcome, June twisted the doorknob clockwise and waltzed inside, taking off her coat. She shut the door behind herself, facing right down the hallway and its horrendous brown carpet.

  The rain-ravaged sky outside did not exactly make it look like summer within. The back bedroom already depended on daylight alone. Electricity across the apartment had lately been partly severed by Strathclyde Civil, due to previous unwanted visitors with syringes squatting the night, downstairs. She saw the flat becoming a ghost of the age-old Glaswegian slum it had grown from. As a second-generation Scot herself, she’d heard the stories of shoddy-to-non-existent lighting, of families sleeping in the cubby hole in their kitchen or lounge: no actual bedrooms existed in those days.

  Sounds of a very young child bawling from his cot, drowned out her doldrums. June turned the handle down and dipped her head delicately through the door to see him.

  “Boo...” She tried not to be too loud, just enough to turn him in his tears.

  The small child was sitting upright against his pillow, wailing at her though the bars of his cot.

  She crept in gingerly, putting her bag down. Trying the light in hope of luck, it still didn’t turn on. She left the door open, letting the light from the hallway help her cause. As it showed up the child in his small red-and-white onesie, she could see his face. The tears seemed to have subsided. June tried standing at the other end of the cot, as to abate her shadow. As she reached down to feel him, she found a moist patch on his trousers.

  “Ooh...who’s been having a little wazzy then?”

  The tot started crying once again.

  “Cheer up, sunshine...” She encouraged him, although she still couldn’t help think the conditions he slept in had something of a bearing on it “Come on, your auntie Junie will sort you out with clean undies.”

  June scooped the infant carefully out of his cot and carried him along to the bathroom. The tot began to wail once more.

  She placed him slowly onto the towel and made him comfortable before returning for a change of nappies.

  “Hello...” she called to the other door, en route. “Elaine? You alright in there?”

  No reply came from his mother.

  “Just gonna sort his undies out - the little monkey’s messed them yet again, heh heh.”

  June looked round again towards a rude hall of silence then back at the baby. She headed into the bedroom to break out a fresh pair. On her way back across, she listened out for his mother but still received little answer. She was suddenly fetched back into the bathroom by the ascending stench. Placing the cleans on the side she removed the offending set from the child as fast as she could and folded them away into a Disposa-Bag, then felt round for the new ones: she already forgot where she’d left them. The door suddenly behind her suddenly opened with a tuneful creak.

  Light from the hallway became blocked by a shadow June recognised.

  “There you are...” she welcomed the figure in the doorway. "You’ve been a bit quiet since you got in. Difficult day, were it?”

  The other woman didn’t answer out loud. Remaining mute, she moved in across, straight up to the nanny.

  “Ell?”

  June turned round again, only to find her employer standing right behind. Looking face to face with her scornfully, the mother didn’t yet speak.

  “What’s up, love?” June asked.

  “I told you never to touch his cot. So what do you do?”

  “The boy needed a change of...”

  June didn’t have time to finish as she was pinned against the chest of drawers behind her.

  She found herself fighting for air as two sharp hands held a garotte-like grip on her throat, thrashing her head violently backwards into the wood.

  “Don’t worry, babe.” the girl spoke aloud to the tot on the toil
et, who could probably neither hear, nor understand "Your Auntie June’s just hurt herself. Mummy will bring ye your keckies... few seconds.”

  The young woman carried her boy into the bedroom and set him back gently into his bed.

  She winked at him before closing the door.

  (ii)

  SHEFFIELD

  3 MONTHS LATER

  Plop... plop... plip!

  Acting Detective Superintendent Joanne Leyton watched the third set of coffee drops complete their journey from the top edge of the cup, plummeting to the footwell. First they had come one at a time, but now seemed to be in couples. Two more drops began their race down the cardboard wall. One was leading by a rapidly expanding margin. The last began to catch up as the leader was sent off course by a slight dimple.

  She cherished these cheap little spectacles back in the days of Cambridge University, whenever she had time to herself. Since her moving ship to the Sheffield department this April they seemed to have caught up on her. Leyton needed something to listen to whilst alone in the car, rather than the voice of her own guilt goading her. Having recently adopted the rank of Acting Detective Superintendent she disowned the title, owning to the cloud it had rained down from. Why? She wondered all the time. She was as honest as her hazel shoulder-length hair flowed. Detective Superintendent Hargreaves on the other hand had been a hard-nosed Neanderthal, who she hoped would see his latest bash at police brutality bring him to his knees. Some ten days on, it still left her visioning a bleak greying landscape that time wasn’t letting her ignore.

  The desolate environment around her now was little more enchanting itself; it irritated her enough to leave the windows dewed up instead of wiping them clear. Motorway viaducts and maligned industrial wastelands sat to her right; Meadowhall shopping precinct to her immediate left. Tales of Sheffield’s industrial past came on the house, from her colleagues. Secretly a history lover herself, she’d soon yearn for the fabled factories and steelworks to return. Not much seemed to survive in the industrial north for her to explore, not that her native southern hovel of Wrangleford excited her that much anymore.

  A sting of heat struck her thumb. A splash of coffee had squeezed its way out under the lid. The two surviving drops started a race to the death down the cup

  “Here it comes...there’s sure to be a surprise winner here....come on, come on, come on...”

  A sudden rattle on the car door rendered the contest null and void. She traced the disturbance to a towering silhouette that loomed beyond the dew-infested window. Her heart paused: pondering who the hell could be looking to give her trouble out here on a Thursday morning.

  “Police!” shouted a voice outside.

  Doubtlessly wondering what she’d done to bother her own brethren, Leyton reached for the handle, only for the passenger door to shoot open.

  Detective Constable Greg Garstone was standing there, laughing at her face. He passed her another cup he held, uncannily similar to the one she’d been studying this last sixteen minutes.

  “Yes, I’m sure that was funny, Greg,” She greeted him, less than grateful for his humour. “In fact, so is this as well. I never recall ordering a second coffee.”

  “The garage guy said to swap cups - reckons he did you one out of his ‘dented’ batch.”

  Leyton reluctantly exchanged her drink, vaguely batting an eye at the fascinating race obstacle she’d no longer see on the new one. She took one grudging slurp of her replacement before propping it upright on the dashboard, and let the warm fluid descend through her system. Sitting back to take in the November morning cold, she studied the fairground being dismantled. The company-run attraction regularly spent the autumn half-term period on the old coach park there, according to DC Armitage. Even though she had talked Garstone out of dragging her onto one of those death traps that passed for amusements last week, she was despondent at seeing the only amiable decoration on this landscape disappear.

  “Go on, test me.” Garstone, never stupid, seemed to have read her mood. “What’s on Wonder-Worrier’s mind today?” His already-thick Geordie accent seemed to thicken even more, right here.

  “I was just wondering how many it takes to pack up all that mess in one morning.”

  “Shouldn’t be a lot – our little mate Robbie helped get half of it down.”

  “Greg!” She whacked him lightly with her right hand, “Now without welching further on your promise to stay off forbidden topics, shall we get rolling?”

  “Aye.”

  Garstone reapplied his belt and eased shiftily off the forecourt.

  “O-kay, which way, to-day?” he questioned.

  “Erm left, I reckon.”

  “Okay, left she says.”

  Garstone held his side into the roundabout, ready to peel off towards the motorway junction. He suddenly swung back right as a familiar, blue-lit vehicle lurched into sight.

  “Will’s onto someone. Shall I?”

  He hit the roundabout exit in full throttle, then headed straight back down towards the Meadowhall centre behind their friend. Leyton battled with her cup, steadying it as to counteract the tilts with his turning and weaving.

  Garstone took the lower roundabout and tornadoed right into the car park ramp beyond.

  “Lovely behavior, in the presence of our own.” Leyton congratulated him “I’m sure Will would have got in contact if he needed us to assist him.”

  She received a look of ‘oh shut up whining, woman.’ from her subordinate as he sped on through the complex lower car park. Garstone loved chicaning round islands and also pedestrians that probably appeared only imaginary to him. A sudden, right swerve to dodge a Debenhams delivery van backing out, made Leyton hold on to her coffee with her life.

  “Get it drunk, girl! I had them put cold in it for you.” he tapped her hand away from it.

  The unit in front slewed to a stop across the Marks and Spencers entrance. As her own driver followed suite, Leyton placed the drink carefully on the dashboard, watching it still slop about.

  “You seen your reflection in that or something?” Garstone slurred as he stepped out.

  She delayed reply as the coffee rocked back and forth five slight times, then eventually stopped as though it was frozen.

  “Superintendent Hargreaves’s face more like.” she offered some mutual humour, the first time since leaving Midelson Rd HQ this morning. “Oh, hello...here go all the ‘gendarmes'.”

  She watched as PC Will Thompson and his trio of colleagues set off into the centre.

  “Well if I’m sitting here watching a coffee cup for another half hour, they've got another thing coming.” She eventually became defeated by instinct. “I hope this isn’t going to end up as something silly.”

  “With Children In Need tomorrow night, I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  Garstone grinned like a pig in swill as he overtook her through the door. Against their uniformed entourage, he looked the most likely cop of the rest with his coiffured brown hair and cream trench coat.

  Leyton still appreciated being incognito -a thirty-five-year-old woman running through the centre in a rusty red trouser suit, probably looked to others like a store model late for a shoot, but it still had plenty stand aside. Catching up with the other lads into the Oasis Food Court, she turned PC Thompson’s head immediately if not anyone else’s.”

  “Great of you to slow down at last Will.” she got word in first. “Tell me what the story is would you - we've been aching to find out.”

  “I’d just say the words ‘major’, ‘violent’ and ‘incident’ all came up in the message ma’am.” Thompson told her, “Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess. Gregg obviously couldn’t resist a piece of the action either.”

  Leyton followed the PC as they were led around the dining plaza.

  All the various stalls and outlets appeared just opened, diabolically starved of custom as yet.

  The only people taking up tables so far were a pair of Somalian girls secretly nattering over Frappes a
nd a shared croissant, and a partially-sighted sixty-something who seemed to have bought a McDonalds breakfast for his guide dog instead of himself.

  A wall of fluorescent-garbed staff, were gathered at the opposite end, close to the cookie stall. She couldn’t fathom head or tail of happenings, though they seemed to be surrounding a single table, or individual.

  “Ey up, ma’am!”

  A mixed-race man, in an amber fleece came bouncing up towards them.

  DC Leroy Armitage was one man any disguise would be wasted on - his broad Yorkshire dialect drowned out the atmosphere even at average volume. The chirpy cop, who regularly partnered Garstone and her, shot over to accost his superior as she tried in vain to get sight of the offender.

  “I can’t believe you were roped into this, ma’am.” he was almost laughing “It’s going to be way below you.”

  “Like listening to Greg Garstone.” she noticed he was scarcely in view “Would you fancy telling me what’s happening, Leroy?”

  “It were nowt.” Armitage chuckled “Just been some bird getting mardy wi’ staff. Feeding at the table. You know...” he was gesticulating the meaning.

  “I’m sure I get the picture.” Leyton saved him elaborating “So much for rapid response then - certainly not rapid responsibility.”

  “Oh, hey up, she’s off on one again.” went Armitage.

  Chair legs rattled as Thompson and PC Hall infiltrated the circle. Leyton just could make out a young blonde woman, sitting in the middle. She seemed to have revolved on her seat as if to face away from the officers.

  “She could have just settled this with the management.” Leyton was still uncertain about such out-of-proportion police response. “Just how did a CID department end up being dragged in to deal with it?”

  “Me brother got him’sen stopped in here, you know.” Armitage announced. “Done for walking about the centre wi’ his high-viz vest on.”