Running Girl

by Simon Mason

  Item: Ladies running shoe, left foot. Colour lime green with orange pattern and laces. Size 4. Asics ‘Lady GEL-Torana 4 Trail Running Shoes’; synthetic materials. New. No visible damage.

  Item: Ladies running shoe, right foot. Colour lime green with orange pattern and laces. Size 4. Asics ‘Lady GEL-Torana 4 Trail Running Shoes’; synthetic materials. New. No visible damage.

  He knew where the old shoes had gone. But where did these new ones come from? A girl like Chloe would never buy a pair of shoes like that. So who did?

  He checked his watch. Quarter to eleven. Everything was peaceful and quiet. Still he sat without moving, gazing across the plaza at the arcade on the other side as he sorted through the questions in his mind one by one. Another five minutes passed. He squinted and frowned. Something about the shadows in the arcade opposite bothered him. He focused. In the shadow was a deeper shadow. Just a shadow. Nothing extraordinary about it. But he couldn’t make it out. The longer he stared at it, the more it became the irritating sort of shadow that the imagination seizes on, that makes no sense, that seems somehow to shift, changing into things it isn’t. A cart? A kiosk? A man sitting on a moped? Garvie looked away and back again. The shadow was still there. He closed his eyes, but when he opened them again it hadn’t moved. Another five minutes passed, slowly. At last he couldn’t bear it any longer and got up to go across the plaza, to see what the shadow really was and put his doubts to rest.

  He walked halfway across the plaza and stopped. In the middle of the shadow a headlight came on suddenly, blinding him, and as he put his hands up to shield his eyes he heard the moped being kicked into life and the engine roar as the bike came rushing out of the arcade towards him.

  Turning, he sprinted down the narrow street, the moped so close behind he could hear the tyres skidding on the ground at his heels. For a second it came alongside him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Naylor twist his body round, and he ducked as the wrench swung over his head with a whop of air. Veering sideways, he pulled a bin over behind him and heard the moped scream as Naylor swerved to avoid it. Then he was in Exchange Street (he knew without looking), up on the pavement, dodging between parked cars, crossing the road and crossing it again, doing whatever he could to put space between himself and his pursuer.

  Leaving Exchange Street, he ran into Fulkes Passage, took a sharp turn into Besom Road and set off westward, Naylor still close behind. While he had energy he could dodge the moped. But he’d soon tire. Worse, as he turned into Cornwallis Road he realized he’d already run off the edge of his mental map. He was in unknown territory now.

  Cornwallis Road was clear and well-lit. All the buildings were tower blocks. There were no parked cars or any other obstacles. Like all the other streets around here it was deserted. Hesitating, Garvie looked both ways. Northward the road bent out of sight behind a high-rise. Southward it ran straight for ten blocks or more before disappearing under a flyover. A hundred metres up on the left was a side street.

  A half-thought went through Garvie’s mind, like a small, faint pulse of electricity. Where there’s a Cornwallis Road maybe there’s a Cornwallis Way.

  He had no chance to think anything else. The moped came screaming round the corner, accelerating towards him, and he turned south and ran.

  He ran hard out in the open, no longer trying to dodge, keeping his eye fixed on the entrance of the side street ahead. Slowly the street sign came into view and he felt a surge of hope. He made as if to run past; then, as the moped drew alongside him on the right, swerved left.

  His heart sank. Beyond the mid-sized buildings that lined both sides of the short street was the high blank brick wall of an old warehouse. Cornwallis Way was a dead end.

  Still he hoped. He staked everything on his one idea. He ran, looking out for the numbers on the entrances of the office blocks. Number 20 appeared on his left, and he took a deep breath and picked up speed as he heard the moped circle back and come down Cornwallis Way after him.

  He ran past 24.

  Past 26.

  The moped was almost upon him. He ran full-pelt towards the dead end of the road, not knowing if he could make it, just running.

  As he passed number 28 the moped caught up with him and clipped his legs, and he stumble-danced sideways, found his feet again and ran on. He ran without thinking. Ran without breathing. Ran without glancing round, even when the moped crowded him again, screaming and shoving.

  And as he ran a figure suddenly stepped out of the doorway of number 30, ten metres in front of him, and stopped under the fluorescent blue sign CITY SQUAD POLICE CENTRE, mouth open.

  There was confusion. Furious shouting, a glancing crack on Garvie’s shoulder that smacked him forward into a spin, the scream of the moped veering abruptly away, and the astonished face of Detective Inspector Raminder Singh as Garvie took off into the air. There was nothing he could do now except briefly admire the way Singh stepped aside at the last second as he hurtled past, head over heels, and hit the ground some way beyond him.

  Then there was silence and a vague whiteness in the dark street.

  When he focused again, he felt oddly calm. Looking around, he found to his surprise and delight that his pack of Benson and Hedges wasn’t lost after all but lying, conveniently open, on the pavement next to him. He took out a bent cigarette and put it in his mouth. Propping himself up on one elbow, he found his Swan Vestas in a pocket, struck a match on the gritty pavement and lit up. He took a deep, deep drag and blew out a long, slow, satisfying, clear-blue puff of smoke upwards in the direction of Inspector Singh, who stood over him in a fixed attitude of incredulity.

  ‘I was just passing,’ Garvie said at last, ‘and I remembered your office was down here. So I thought I’d pay you a visit.’

  Singh’s face became as quiet and cold as ever. ‘And I’ve been trying to get through to your mother all evening,’ he replied, ‘to ask you to come down to the station.’

  ‘Pleasant of you,’ Garvie said (with a sinking feeling). ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve just arrested your friend Alex Robinson on suspicion of killing Chloe Dow.’

  28

  GARVIE WENT WITH the young constable down two flights of stairs and along a corridor to a security door, and the constable swiped them through and they went on again, their footfalls quiet on the plastic floor.

  ‘I know who you are,’ the constable said after a while.

  His short black hair stood up from his head in a layer of fine bristles; when he smiled his teeth were large and pleasantly crooked. He didn’t look much older than Garvie himself.

  ‘Oh yeah? You been looking at the wanted posters?’

  ‘You’re Leonard Johnson’s nephew.’

  ‘You know Uncle Len?’

  ‘Everyone knows Len.’

  The young policeman smiled pleasantly. They went through another door and along another corridor, functional and windowless, over-bright with old fluorescent strip lights.

  ‘You OK?’ the young policeman asked. ‘You’ve cut your face.’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s this guy in here I’m worried about.’

  They came at last to a door with a small grille in it, and the policeman peered through before swiping it open.

  ‘Nice meeting you,’ he said. ‘When you’re ready, knock on the door and I’ll let you out.’

  They shook hands and Garvie went into the room and heard the door shut behind him.

  Alex was sitting on the floor of the cell, knees up to his chest, back of his head resting against the wall. His face showed no expression as Garvie went in. No expression was possible on a face so puffed and bruised, one eye closed already, the other closing fast, and an upper lip like smashed fruit.

  The panel lights overhead lit him up like a magazine shoot.

  ‘Hey, man.’

  Alex inclined his head and winced.

  ‘Resisting arrest is what they told me. Refusal to cooperate. Won’t talk to anyone except G. Smith.’

  Alex cl
eared his throat. ‘Hard talking at all, Garv.’ His voice was like underwater gravel, gritty and wet.

  ‘There’s a couple of coppers not talking much, either, according to Singh.’

  Alex’s one visible eye glittered briefly. Lifting a hand, he indicated the side of his head, and Garvie put his own hand up and winced.

  ‘I know. Got a bashed shoulder too. Remember harmless Naylor? Well, he isn’t.’

  He went forward and sat down on the cell bench, and they looked at each other for a moment in uneasy silence.

  ‘Singh tells me they’ve got something serious on you. He didn’t tell me what. He also says you’re refusing to give an alibi.’

  Alex groaned deep in his chest. He whispered, ‘I didn’t kill her, Garv.’

  ‘You better say what you did do. Or the police might muck things up and stick a charge on you.’

  ‘Not talking to the pigs. Never.’

  ‘Talk to me, then.’

  Alex thought about that. ‘Almost as bad.’

  Garvie looked around the cell. ‘Perfect place for an interrogation.’

  ‘No, man, no. Not again.’ He rested the back of his head against the wall and for a long time was quiet and stony-faced.

  ‘I’ll just start you off,’ Garvie said, ‘and you can take it from there. Let it all out.’ He sighed. ‘Thing is, Alex, you’ve been lying to me. You said you hadn’t been up at Pike Pond for weeks.’

  The boy groaned.

  ‘Friday evening?’

  He groaned again.

  ‘Someone must have seen you. One of those old biddies in the big houses, I bet.’

  ‘Garv, I was there for, like, five minutes. ’Bout half nine. I made the deal and left. Didn’t see anyone else. No one.’

  ‘I believe you. But Singh’s got other stuff on you too, hasn’t he?’

  Alex said nothing.

  ‘Come on, man. Spill. I know it’s nothing to do with Blinkie’s Porsche.’

  ‘That troll. I only got close to Blinkie ’cause I thought he was the one Chloe was going with. It threw me, all that talk about a Porsche.’

  ‘Right. It’s something to do with those kids at your place, I’m guessing.’

  ‘All right, you freak. They saw the piece. They were pushing me for stuff and I wouldn’t give it them and they shopped me. Police found it when they came for me.’

  ‘That’s bad.’

  ‘Something else too before you get all guessy. The police got records of the calls I made.’

  ‘To Chloe? That’s bad too.’

  ‘Sometimes I was pretty mad at her. I said stuff.’

  ‘Very, very bad. Anything else the police know?’

  Alex shook his head slowly, painfully. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘What about what they don’t know?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Stuff you haven’t told them. Stuff you haven’t told me.’

  ‘I told you everything now. What I didn’t tell you guessed anyway.’

  ‘Friday afternoon, Alex.’

  The boy was silent.

  ‘Don’t make me guess this too. You were up at Pike Pond at half nine, but you weren’t there at three in the afternoon, were you?’

  Alex stared at the plastic cell floor.

  ‘At three you were home in your lovely squat.’

  Alex breathed hard, twice.

  ‘And you had a visitor. Didn’t you, Alex?’

  Nothing broke the silence in the cell except for Alex’s ragged breathing.

  ‘Come on, Alex, help me out.’ Garvie sighed. ‘She left Jess’s about half two. Fled, more like. She needed help. And who would she go to, Alex? Who was the only person she could trust with her life?’

  With a long groan of pain Alex broke down, and Garvie let him weep.

  ‘All right, dude. Tell me how it happened.’

  Chloe had turned up at Limekilns at just gone three. It was a shock. Big time. For months she’d avoided him, refused to see him, refused to talk to him, pretended he didn’t exist; then suddenly she was standing there on that broken-down, filth-puddled doorstep. And he hadn’t had a clue what to say to her or even what to think.

  ‘Can I come in, then?’ she said at last. And went past him up the stairs.

  For a moment he wondered if she was coming back to him. But she looked strange – beautiful as usual, but pale and blurred around the eyes – and he was confused, and went up the stairs after her without any idea what was going to happen next.

  What happened next wasn’t his fault. She told him she was in trouble but not how or why. She wouldn’t. He guessed, of course. It was that new man of hers, the guy she saw in secret, but though she all but admitted it, she wouldn’t say anything about him. Nothing. It made Alex mad. She ignored all his questions, just kept saying she needed to go somewhere for a while, but by then he wasn’t listening. She started to cry but wouldn’t let him hold her. Soon it all got out of hand. He was shouting, she was crying, and there was no sense to any of it any more, just noise and temper.

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing, Garv. I swear.’

  ‘Of course, you told her you were going to find him anyway, this man of hers, and sort him out.’

  ‘Well. Yeah.’

  ‘And did you tell her you were going to sort her out too?’

  The boy didn’t reply.

  ‘Did you, Alex?’

  After a long pause, he said quietly, ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘But you were that mad you wanted to show her you did. And how did you do that?’

  ‘Don’t, Garv. Please!’

  ‘Getting out that “protection” of yours and waving it under her nose?’

  ‘Garv, I never would’ve—’

  ‘Chasing her down the rotting steps with it?’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘Driving her away when all she’d done was come to you for help?’

  ‘Stop it, Garv! Stop!’

  He broke down and wept in spasms, his back scraping like sandpaper against the cell wall, and Garvie went across and put his hand, softly, on Alex’s shoulder, and Alex reached up and took hold of it, and they stayed like that for a minute or more.

  ‘I did all that,’ he said at last. ‘But I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘I know. But it doesn’t look great, does it? What with the identification up at Pike Pond and the police finding the piece and all those abusive calls. So now you got to do what you really don’t want to.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Talk to the pigs.’

  ‘Oh man.’

  ‘Least it’s not hard. Really, all you got to do is give them your alibi.’

  ‘Alibi!’

  ‘I know you’ve got one – there’s no point pretending you haven’t. What time did Chloe leave you Friday? Half three?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What time did you show up in her garden that night? Half ten?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘So all you have to do is say what you were doing for those seven hours. How incriminating can it be? You were up at Pike Pond doing a deal at half nine. That’s awkward, but at least it’s an alibi. What were you doing the rest of the time?’

  Alex snuffed.

  ‘Come on, Alex.’

  ‘I was at home having my tea,’ he said quietly. ‘I was that sad.’

  Garvie didn’t smile. ‘You big buffoon. I knew you hadn’t forgotten your mum’s stews. So all you got to fess up to is being safely home at tea time. Doesn’t do your image much good, but at least it means you won’t get sent down.’

  He sat again on the cell bench and rested his chin on his hand. ‘All right. Now I’ve got to think.’

  There was a long silence in the bright white room. Alex briefly fell asleep and when he woke Garvie was sat exactly as before, thinking, sphinx-faced and immobile against the cell’s white wall.

  ‘Course,’ he said, as if continuing a conversation, ‘you’re the easy part of all this. The h
ard bit’s the boyfriend.’

  Alex grunted and shifted painfully against the wall.

  ‘Didn’t she tell you anything about him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What kind of car he drove?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where he lived?’

  ‘No, Garv. Nothing. She just said he was trouble.’

  ‘Did she? What sort of trouble? Violent?’

  Alex thought. ‘She was scared, man. Like he was – what’s the word? – unpredictable.’

  ‘A man with a temper.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Someone she couldn’t get away from. Someone living round here. In Five Mile. Working at school, maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, she didn’t say anything definite. Besides’ – he hesitated – ‘I wasn’t really listening.’

  ‘She must have let something slip.’

  Alex shook his head.

  Garvie pondered. ‘How about this? Did she say anything odd?’

  ‘Odd?’

  ‘Something that didn’t add up.’

  ‘I don’t ... I don’t think so.’

  ‘Try to remember. Something unusual. Something that stood out.’

  For some time the boy was silent. Then he said, ‘You got something, Garv. Yeah. I’d forgotten. In the middle of all that row she said ... what was it? I don’t remember. But, like you say, it was something that didn’t add up.’

  ‘What was it?’

  He frowned and shook his head. ‘I can’t get at it. There was so much shouting and stuff. But it was funny. Something catchy. You know, like one of those slogans. It’s getting better all the time.’

  ‘It’s getting better all the time?’

  Alex shook his head. ‘But something like it. You know what I mean? Like a jingle.’ He scowled hard. ‘It’s all in the mind. That’s not it, either. It’s no good, I can’t remember, Garv.’

  He began to cry again. ‘Garv,’ he said in a gasp. ‘She came to me for help, Garv.’

  Garvie hesitated. ‘Yes, Alex. She did.’