by Gavin Smith
For vital seconds he’d never win back, Harkness stared and pondered. He was being taunted but to what effect? Was Firth about to set light to this block of flats in protest? Was he producing evidence of his own guilt and the search team’s failure that might disappear again the second Harkness barged his door open? Was Harkness hallucinating, giving form to his own waking dreams?
Dream or not, he couldn’t stay on the sidelines. Before he knew what he was doing, he was sprinting across the road, vaguely aware of screaming tyres as a car narrowly avoided killing him. In the coolness of the stairwell, shadows jostled for form and something clattered down the concrete steps towards him; then he was lunging, hopping and staggering through lager tins, soiled nappies and rotting food disgorged by the bin toppled by Firth.
Reaching the landing, he saw Firth’s door slam shut. Even then, he frittered seconds away, wondering how he could cleanse himself of the foul-smelling paste that now coated his right hand without having to look at it; conscious that he should probably phone this in, if only to Brennan. A prophetic glimpse of what was to come made him catch his breath, but he banished it quickly; he didn’t believe in curses, still less in artificial symmetry.
Approaching the door, he reached for his baton, felt its reassuring grip then left it in its holster; he and Firth were beyond that now. The thick, dust-laden curtains had been pulled across the flat’s front window but the door stood ajar.
“Nigel. I’m coming in. I’ve reason to fear for your safety.” Out of habit or training, he delivered the lawful pretext, reminding himself why he was here, or at least why he should be here.
“I want you to,” Firth replied. “Invited you, didn’t I?”
Harkness nudged the door open, allowing the sun at his back to pick out the scene; his own long shadow extended to the darkened circle in which Firth stood, crutch wedged beneath an armpit for support, petrol can suspended above his slick skin and soaked hair, the last few drops being shaken out of it. A stinging vapour of petrol hazed the air.
“Put that down. Drop it now!” Harkness shouted, fighting the urge to run, not to protect himself but to avoid seeing what he now knew was coming. Firth obliged by dropping the petrol can and producing a chrome-plated lighter from a back pocket. He flicked the lid up and rested his thumb on the flint.
“Go on, Sergeant Harkness, why don’t you give me some more of your expert advice? But you’d best be quick.”
“Don’t do this, Nigel. It’s never that bad. Just tell me what you want.”
“Is that it? Come on, Sergeant, ain’t got much time left.” Firth spoke evenly, almost languorously, as if he’d taken something hefty for the pain or gladly abandoned some long struggle. The tears in his eyes and hoarseness in his words could just have been the result of petrol fumes. “And don’t you fucking move one step nearer me or I’ll fucking do us both.”
“Alright, I was wrong.” Harkness slipped his left hand into his waist pocket, squeezed the panic button on his radio then detached the battery to mute it. With a bit of luck, it had squawked for urgent assistance before dramatically dying.
“Wrong about it all and now I’m ready to be educated. You win this round.”
He raised both hands, open and empty, measuring the distance between himself and Firth. He couldn’t cover the six feet separating them before the other man’s thumb rolled a lethal spark from the lighter. Even rooted to the spot, he knew the airborne vapour could set him aflame too. He had to stop Firth dead in his tracks or get out of the flat.
“Is that it? Come on, Rob, make it fun. I can hear your head ticking. Reminds me of Roland at The Willows. I called him Roley-Poley ‘cause of the way his fat gut slapped against my back when he was raping me. He always had a good old think before he said ‘owt to me. What would I like to hear? What would make me shut the fuck up about it all? How could he make himself believe he deserved to live?”
“I said I was wrong. I’ll admit that. I’ll hold my hands up. No excuses. I fucked up. We fucked up. It’s been confirmed, just now. Murphy was an accident. If I was wrong about that, I’ll sit there and let you correct me on the rest of it. We can talk this out. Get the record straight. About everything.”
“I can’t honestly say I give a fuck about your record. I ain’t even going to solve your whodunit for you. We’ve got no needle between us, you and me. You’re nothing to me. Just another turnkey.”
“That’s great, Nigel. We don’t matter. You’ve got your self-respect. So don’t do this to prove a point to anyone else when you’re the only one that matters.”
“Is that what you think? No, mate. My liberation’s coming. I’m just borrowed matter and it’s time to give it back, let the universe do something better with it. This recipe ain’t worked out too well. ”
“So you’re a coward too? You’d rather throw it all away than make something of it?” Through the open doorway, a chorus of sirens found them, swelling from the expectant silence like hysteria.
“Here they come. Makes me feel wanted.” Firth laughed and swallowed a sob. “If you don’t know what I want, I only know one way to make you understand.”
“Don’t you waste this life.” Harkness drew himself to his full height, stepped forward, finger jabbing. “I don’t care what you did. Forget your cosmic bollocks: You die, you die forever, end of story, no more you, just pain then more pain then nothingness.”
“I do hope so. You thought you knew the truth. This will be your truth and mine. This is how it all ends. This is clean. Get a good look.”
Firth’s eyes rolled up as he disengaged from this world, either blurring into endless distance or unconsciously seeking out a higher power. Harkness rocked backwards on his heels, unbalanced, poised precariously between fight and flight. He should have leaped at Firth, swiped the lighter from his grasp and subdued him, but instinct wouldn’t permit it. He might later taunt himself with the notions that he’d acceded to Firth’s skewed logic or even thought it a fitting if messy means of resolving the case.
Yet instinct won, showing him Firth’s thumb grinding delicate, playful sparks out of the lighter’s flint as Harkness folded in on himself to drop to the floor. As his knees and elbows hit, the air around them both flashed into raging light and heat.
Harkness found himself floored by a blow he hadn’t felt, rolling towards the door, ears full of thunder and eyes goggling at the curtains of flame that tore at the ceiling. At the heart of the maelstrom, the demon that had been Firth thrashed, keening with grief and fury; leaping and flailing at the windows, the ceiling and at Harkness with barbs and lashes of incandescence.
Somewhere beneath the robes and trappings of the demon, Firth somehow kept his feet, giving expression to the outrageous, inconceivable pain with frantic movement. Harkness couldn’t be sure if Firth’s clothes or his very flesh was burning away in strips.
Expelling fear and sense from his lungs in one long scream, Harkness ripped down one of the long, dust-thickened curtains, stretched it out before him and threw himself at Firth. Closing his arms and his eyes as they fell, Harkness felt the beast ripping the fibres contemptuously aside, sinking its blistering fangs into his hands and forearms, sucking in its hunger at whatever stale air remained in his lungs.
He tried to cling on, wrapping what had been Firth in the curtain, willpower vying with stronger forces as he rolled and crushed and smothered. Then something in him broke and he was crawling from the inert, smouldering package, adrift on an ocean of pain, half-blinded by flame, the outline of the doorway become the purest expression of hope.
The sirens drew close and stopped and heavy feet rapped on the landing outside.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You’ll be relieved to hear your mobile didn’t survive the blaze.”
“How’s that then? I survived the heat but it didn’t? That’s the last time I buy Swedish stroke Japanese.”
“Not that. Must have fallen out of your pocket and a fireman stood on it.”
“Not all bad
news then. Feed me a grape, would you?”
“Shall I peel it as well? Play the lyre for you?”
“It wouldn’t work; your face is too honest. Anyway, don’t be so cheeky. I’m poorly and I’m still your boss. So just tug your forelock and do what you’re told.”
Harkness lay on the steel-framed hospital bed, slick with sweat and rigid with pain. The canula, piercing the broken skin of his left hand through his dressings, shackled him to the bed more surely than straps or cuffs would have done. The suspended bag of intravenous fluids was half empty again, suggesting his body was still greedily rehydrating. In the first 24 hours of the ordeal, he’d imagined that his body was a parched and broken land. The bandages were the merciful shade of palm groves, the drip a system of irrigation, both driving away the cruel aridity.
He’d later dreamed that he was sitting cross-legged in the rockery of a suburban garden, amusing himself by scraping his knuckles and wrists across the broken stones and glass shards set into them until he was watering the garden with his own lymph and blood and the air itself quivered with pain.
He‘d known exactly where he was; a glimpse through the bay window had shown him the parrot, the flock wallpaper, the bible-reading man and the rocking, bubbling girl. Not even the fat oracle, filling the window, knocking at the glass and beckoning with her hands like foam hammers, had been able to persuade him inside. He’d lifted his arms, spraying arcs of blood over the window, blotting her out, telling her he’d done enough and bled enough and wouldn’t be stepping foot inside that house again. The dream had stayed with him for so long that he couldn’t remember when it had started and how he’d been jarred out of it.
He had only a hazy recollection of his trip to the hospital. He’d been told he’d walked himself into the ambulance and demanded his phone so that he could take charge of the incident. In A&E, he’d finally accepted that he was a patient after receiving the heavy dose of morphine necessary for a junior doctor to manipulate and examine the blistered mess he’d made of his wrists and arms without having him leap through the ceiling.
Later, consigned to a trauma ward for observations, he’d demanded to know why he was in a bed when he’d only come to visit, then tried to kick away the bars that were unjustly trapping him. The nursing auxiliary had unscrewed the end of the bed and wedged pillows there to accommodate his overhanging feet. She’d then arranged for an opiate night-cap to ensure a quiet shift for her bolshie patient and the ward staff.
With morning had come acute pain and understanding. His face radiated heat and his arms and hands crackled white hot with an agony that showed no sign of burning itself out. His naked body was separated from the starched cotton and old vinyl of the bed by a slippery layer of sweat and unguents and every part of him itched and demanded to flex and stretch. Yet every movement seemed to tear at the flayed skin beneath the bandages that swaddled his wrists and hands. Desperate to hold something, to read or drink or urinate without shouting for assistance, he repeatedly tried to pinch forefinger and thumb together, only for the pain to flare behind his eyes and squeeze a bellow from his lungs.
“Give it a rest, you silly sod. You’re disturbing the other inmates.” Slowey was still there. A good man in a storm, that Slowey.
“Sorry. Drifted off there. So, what’s the prognosis?”
“First degree burns to the face. Second degree burns to a large area of your hands and wrists. You’ve probably escaped nerve damage, septicaemia, skin grafts and all that other horrible stuff. You’ll need those dressings for a week or two to keep it all clean. You might not play the guitar for a while. Other than that…..”
“Not me. Him. Firth.”
“Oh. Nobody told you?” Slowey had fixed his face in the solemn neutrality he brought to bear on bereaved relatives who might not have heard the news yet.
“My interest is entirely professional.”
“Well, he’s still alive. You saved his life. Technically.”
“But?”
“But he suffered third degree burns over about 60% of his body. He’s got his own oxygen tent in ICU but he’s not likely to see the day out. Galloping infection in what remains of his skin. Fluid loss and damage to nerves and blood vessels means his body can’t do anything about it.” Slowey shrugged. “The doctors are just treading water with him. Keeping him switched on while they look for a relative. We’re helping but it’s a tall order given his background. Or lack of one.”
“Talking?”
“Lord no. You’d have to wear a sterile suit to get near him and he’s out for the count. I mean, I asked about him talking but they just gave me that look – you know, the one that says you’re a fascist pig and don’t try your tricks on me I’ve seen all the TV shows and I know what you’re like so just forget your silly bollocks questions and put your cosh away. Then they pointed out that he’d feel it all if they brought him round and all he’d do is scream until they put him under again. A lot of the nerves get burned away but the ones that are left more than make up for it.”
“Uncomfortable with hospitals?”
“No. They only bother me when I’m the one stuck in that bed. I’m uncomfortable with your booloo behaviour though.” He proffered another grape which Harkness declined with a minute shake of the chin. “Fact is, we’ve got a good thing going in that department. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve always accepted that you’re a bit of a mentalist and it does make life interesting. But who’s going to sign my OT claims if you die or – even worse – get sacked. So sort yourself out. Sarge.”
“Ken, I thought I had a tear in my eye for a second, but it turned out to be a weeping blister. What about the case?”
“It’s still there. But there’s another big case conference today. The gossip in the enquiry office is that it’s resolved itself. Prime suspect and secondary suspect have squared themselves away. Nobody else in the frame. Well, you know the way it’s going. Oh, and there’s a sweepstake on when Firth will peg out.”
“I should be there.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” Slowey sighed and wedged another grape into Harkness’s mouth. “Don’t ask me to paint you a picture. Management’s still reeling. Just stay off sick. Christ knows you’ve earned it. Or do I mean deserved it?”
Harkness stifled an urge to rip off the dressings, vault from the wretched bed and run far away, as if by doing so he could leave the wounds on the linoleum floor to be swept up and incinerated painlessly. Slowey glanced at his watch then found his eyes distracted by a dotted movement on the IV stand. Moving in closer, he gestured at the procession of ants climbing the grimy metal upright in search of supplies.
“See, life goes on,” he said. “Meet the new cleaners, hard at it. By the way, I’ve not seen Hayley around. Want me to knock on?”
“She…..I haven’t seen her. I wasn’t really with it. Can still smell her perfume though. And someone’s brought me some decent clothes and a book. I can’t pick it up but it’s the thought…..”
“Well, I didn’t bring that stuff. I don’t care that much. In fact, I’d make you walk out of here with your stupid, scalded arse hanging out of that gown to teach you a lesson about consequences.”
“Look, I….”
“No, don’t get serious on me. I’m just yanking your chain. You did a ballsy thing. And you’ve got your free holiday, whereas I’ve got Biddle as my gaffer. Someone had to replace you. He hasn’t got your knack for fucking things up, but he’s got stripes and he hasn’t got an excuse so he gets to fill in.”
“Right. Piss off then. I’m going to catch up on my sleep. What time is it?”
“About 10 o’clock?”
“When? I mean, what day?”
“When? I mean, what day?” A familiar voice, a known perfume, vanilla and juniper with something musky.
“Today or tomorrow. We’re just waiting for the doctor to sign him off.”
“Will the doctor be here again today? I mean, it’s after six.”
“I’m sure he will.”
/> “But you don’t know. What does that mean, ‘sign him off’? Does he need more treatment?”
He knew Hayley’s hands would be planted on her hips as she stared at her victim. Her tone of patient indignation wouldn’t waver until she got the right answer, a tactic she’d perfected in a thousand sales negotiations.
“Well, the doctor has to decide.”
“Don’t you know?”
He was amazed that she’d turned up. She was always the solid one. To her, it wouldn’t matter that the partnership might soon break up; she would keep honouring the contract until it was formally dissolved.
“Well, I’m not sure it’s my place to….”
“Well, what would happen if I took him home tonight?”
“Well, perhaps the doctor would be the best one to advise you on that.”
“Would he die? Would his head explode?”
“Well, no, but….”
“But what? Look, Jennifer, your badge says you’re a nurse. An actual nurse. You have a mind of your own.”
“Mrs Harkness….”
“I am no such thing. Don’t make assumptions. Call me Hayley as we’re on first name terms.”
“Mrs….Hayley. If you’d like to follow me, I’m sure we can find the doctor together.”
“Jennifer. Just step on the brakes. Allow me to make myself clear.”
Hayley would have somehow made herself a foot taller by means Harkness had never been able to guess. She also amplified her voice to within a whisker of bawling outrage, an effect which tended to make an opponent choose between a climb-down and a screaming row.
“If my partner can be safely discharged into the hands of someone competent to change dressings, see to his basic needs and generally look after his welfare, then tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I’m assuming he’s not under house arrest.”
