by David Hodges
‘She hasn’t long to go,’ Hayden said quietly. ‘Liver’s packed up, you see.’
Kate stared at the girl and then back at him in obvious bewilderment and he gave a wry smile.
‘My “bit of tail”’, he explained. ‘The other woman you were talking about.’
‘She’s the other woman? I don’t understand.’
‘My kid sister,’ he qualified.
‘Your kid sister?’
He nodded. ‘Tragically, a cocaine addict. Apparently OD’d about the time we had that mishap on our way to Down End House, though whether she did it deliberately or by accident, we’ll never know now. Paramedics were called by the staff at the hotel where she was staying, but too late. Almost everything had shut down by the time they got to her. Hotel manager couldn’t get hold of me on the mobile number I had left with reception, so he sent me a text. Only just picked it up.’
Kate grimaced. ‘What a bloody awful thing to happen. She looks to be so young. But … but I still don’t understand, why didn’t you tell me about her at the start? Why let me think you were over the side?’
He sighed and crossed to the window to stare out into the grounds of the hospital.
‘I didn’t want you to get involved,’ he replied.
‘Involved? Involved in what?’
He turned to face her again. ‘Assisting an offender,’ he said simply.
A nurse came into the room and inclined her head in the direction of the door.
‘I think you should leave now,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s a waiting room just along the corridor. I will call you if anything happens.’
Hayden nodded and gently ushered Kate out through the door. Fortunately, they found the waiting room to be empty.
‘Assisting an offender?’ Kate queried as soon as they were inside. ‘What are you talking about, Hayd?’
He waved her to a shabby armchair and dropped into the one opposite.
‘Her name’s Jill,’ he said. ‘Just twenty-five years old. Always been a bit wild and some years ago she walked out on my mum and dad after a terrible row with my father over some junkie pusher she was dating. I was at public school at the time and when I got home, she’d gone, no one knew where.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Then a few nights ago she turned up right out of the blue and confronted me in the nick car park, demanding my help. Heaven knows how she’d found me, but she was emaciated, barefoot and filthy dirty – as well as on a downer after her last cocaine fix. Furthermore, she had partially healed slash marks to both wrists, indicating that she had previously attempted suicide, and she swore she would finish the job if I didn’t help her out.’
He studied her for a moment. ‘So, what could I do? You more than anyone would understand the invidious position I was in after what happened to you during that old Firetrap operation a while ago.’
Kate knew exactly what he was getting at and she tensed. Her mind was already peeling back the years, to the night her own drugged-up twin sister, Linda, had appeared at her flat, seeking shelter – only to later end up a victim of the murderous ‘Twister’, when the maniacal killer the police were hunting mistook her for Kate.
‘Go on,’ she encouraged, a tremor in her voice now. ‘There’s obviously more.’
He bit his lip. ‘I found a room for her at a private hotel in Uphill, bought her some new clothes from M&S and had her clean herself up, intending to get some professional help for her addiction at a clinic near Bridgwater—’
‘Bit naïve of you?’ Kate interjected brutally.
He gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘There’s none so blind as those who cannot see, old girl,’ he retorted bitterly. ‘But in the event, she repaid me by stealing money from the hotel till to buy more coke from a local dealer she knew. Fortunately, the hotel was unaware of it and when I found out what she’d done, I surreptitiously put the money back from my own wallet. But that wasn’t the end of it all. A short time afterwards she confessed to something much worse. When she had originally turned up outside the nick seeking my help, she was apparently already in breach of her bail conditions from Oxford Crown Court, where she’d been due to answer multiple charges of assault and shoplifting.’
Kate took a deep breath. ‘But you couldn’t have known that when you agreed to help her?’
‘Doesn’t make any difference,’ he said. ‘No one will believe me. They’ll say, quite rightly, that I should have turned her in the moment I found out, so I’ll just be hung out to dry for assisting an offender – together with anyone else involved with me, which is why I wanted to keep you out of it.’
Deep down Kate knew he was right, but she hadn’t the heart to say so. Instead, tears welling up in her eyes, she reached forward and placed a hand on his knee.
‘Oh, Hayd,’ she said in a husky, hesitant tone, ‘I’m so, so sorry for all the horrid things I’ve said and for the way I’ve treated you. I … I had no idea about all this and I should have had more trust in you. I’ve been a bloody fool.’
‘Hasn’t everyone at some time or other?’ he replied, cupping a hand over hers and squeezing it tightly. ‘Problem is, people like Roscoe don’t make allowances for human failure – and he certainly won’t be inclined to be magnanimous with us after what we told him to do with our warrant cards.’
The suggestion of a smile broke through Kate’s tears at the thought of their parting comments to the DI and, springing from her seat, she fell into his lap, throwing her arms around his neck.
‘We’ll get through this together, Hayd,’ she choked. ‘I know we will.’
Neither she nor Hayden heard the nurse’s soft footfalls and initially her discreet cough went unnoticed too, but then Hayden looked up and squeezed Kate’s arms in warning, prompting her to break away from him and turn to face the young woman, smoothing the creases in her coat with both hands as she did so in a gesture of embarrassment.
‘I think you had better come,’ the nurse said. ‘I’m afraid the young lady has passed away.’
It was an awkward, unreal parting. Hayden was clearly upset at the loss of his sister, but there was no display of emotion as he stared down at the dead woman, just a resigned, almost relieved acceptance.
‘I never really knew her,’ he said after the nurse had tactfully withdrawn. ‘We never got on as kids and then she upped sticks and disappeared while I was away. I suppose I helped her more out of a sense of loyalty than anything else. Does … does that sound bad, heartless even?’
Kate shook her head firmly, staring for a moment at the white face on the pillow, framed by its mass of blonde hair – now strangely relaxed and at peace in Death’s embrace – and thinking of the loss of her own sister all those years before.
‘She chose the path, Hayd,’ she said. ‘She must have known what the eventual outcome would be, though it’s tragic the way things have turned out. At least you did your best to help her.’
He grunted, turning away from the bed. ‘At what cost?’ he replied.
Kate shook her head. ‘She’s gone, Hayd,’ she went on. ‘Nothing the authorities can do to her now – and that means you too. She’s out of it and you and I can simply walk away.’
‘Where to?’ he said. ‘In the hot blood of the moment, we appear, rather foolishly, to have burned our boats with the firm and are out of a job.’
She took his arm. ‘To a new life,’ she said simply. ‘A new beginning.’
But as it transpired, their old life was not quite done with them yet.
Hayden saw the envelope stuck under one of the windscreen wipers of her Mazda MX5 when he ran her back to the police station car park in his Jaguar. Their two warrant cards were inside the envelope, still in their plastic wallets, together with a curt note from DI Roscoe. ‘Cards would not fit the suggested cavity,’ it said with dismissive sarcasm. ‘Resignations not accepted. Debriefing at 1400 hours. Be there!’
Hayden raised an eyebrow. ‘Good lord, a reprieve, it seems,’ he drawled. ‘And after all that we said to him?
The man must have the skin of a rhinoceros.’
Kate nodded slowly. ‘Even thicker than that,’ she said. ‘And I suspect it’s the nearest our esteemed leader will ever get to admitting he actually needs us.’
‘Oh, you mean we do have value after all? So, what happens now?’
She chewed her lip for a second, then grinned, handing his warrant card back to him.
‘I suppose we do like the man said,’ she replied. ‘Attend the debrief at 1400 hours. The new life will have to wait.’
THE END
The Detective Kate Hamblin mystery series
Book 1: MURDER ON THE LEVELS
Book 2: REVENGE ON THE LEVELS
Book 3: FEAR ON THE LEVELS
Book 4: KILLER ON THE LEVELS
Book 5: SECRETS ON THE LEVELS
Book 6: DEATH ON THE LEVELS
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Glossary of English Slang for US readers
A & E: Accident and emergency department in a hospital
Aggro: Violent behaviour, aggression
Air raid: an attack in which bombs are dropped from aircraft on ground targets
Allotment: a plot of land rented by an individual for growing fruit, vegetable or flowers
Anorak: nerd (it also means a waterproof jacket)
Artex: textured plaster finish for walls and ceilings
A Level: exams taken between 16 and 18
Auld Reekie: Edinburgh
Au pair: live-in childcare helper. Often a young woman.
Barm: bread roll
Barney: argument
Beaker: glass or cup for holding liquids
Beemer: BMW car or motorcycle
Benefits: social security
Bent: corrupt
Bin: wastebasket (noun), or throw in rubbish (verb)
Biscuit: cookie
Blackpool Lights: gaudy illuminations in seaside town
Bloke: guy
Blow: cocaine
Blower: telephone
Blues and twos: emergency vehicles
Bob: money
Bobby: policeman
Broadsheet: quality newspaper (New York Times would be a US example)
Brown bread: rhyming slang for dead
Bun: small cake
Bunk: do a bunk means escape
Burger bar: hamburger fast-food restaurant
Buy-to-let: Buying a house/apartment to rent it out for profit
Charity Shop: thrift store
Carrier bag: plastic bag from supermarket
Care Home: an institution where old people are cared for
Car park: parking lot
CBeebies: kids TV
Chat-up: flirt, trying to pick up someone with witty banter or compliments
Chemist: pharmacy
Chinwag: conversation
Chippie: fast-food place selling chips and other fried food
Chips: French fries but thicker
CID: Criminal Investigation Department
Civvy Street: civilian life (as opposed to army)
Clock: punch
Cock-up: mess up, make a mistake
Cockney: a native of East London
Common: an area of park land/ or lower class
Comprehensive School (Comp.): High school
Cop hold of: grab
Copper: police officer
Coverall: coveralls, or boiler suit
CPS: Crown Pros
ecution Service, decide whether police cases go forward
Childminder: someone who looks after children for money
Council: local government
Dan Dare: hero from Eagle comic
DC: detective constable
Deck: one of the landings on a floor of a tower block
Deck: hit (verb)
Desperate Dan: very strong comic book character
DI: detective inspector
Digestive biscuit: plain cookie
Digs: student lodgings
Do a runner: disappear
Do one: go away
Doc Martens: Heavy boots with an air-cushioned sole
Donkey’s years: long time
Drum: house
DS: detective sergeant
ED: accident and emergency department of hospital
Eagle: boys’ comic
Early dart: to leave work early
Eggy soldiers: strips of toast with a boiled egg
Enforcer: police battering ram
Estate: public/social housing estate (similar to housing projects)
Estate agent: realtor (US)
Falklands War: war between Britain and Argentina in 1982
Fag: cigarette
Father Christmas: Santa Claus
Filth: police (insulting)
Forces: army, navy, and air force
FMO: force medical officer
Fried slice: fried bread
Fuzz: police
Garda: Irish police
Gendarmerie: French national police force
Geordie: from Newcastle
Garden Centre: a business where plants and gardening equipment are sold
Gob: mouth/ can also mean phlegm or spit
GP: general practitioner, a doctor based in the community
Graft: hard work
