A Quiet Death

by Cari Hunter

  “Crossing Balan!” she yelled into the radio. “He’s heading for the playing field!”

  “Right behind you,” Nelson replied. Engine noise in the background told her he was driving.

  She reached the edge of the grass seconds before she saw the headlights, the high beams arcing to catch Gobber square in the back. Now close enough to hear his rasping breaths, she dug in and increased her pace. Her fingers brushed his jacket but lost contact when he dodged.

  “Just stop, mate,” she told him. “We’ve got a bloody car.”

  “Fuck you,” he gasped, barely able to speak for wheezing. Although not as plump as his brother, he wasn’t slim. “Fucking dyke pig!”

  Estimating Nelson’s position, she swerved to the opposite side, hemming Gobber in and herding him toward the car. Realising what she’d done, he spun to face her, his fists already raised, a glint of metal in one of them. Sanne didn’t think; she barely even knew the Taser was in her hands until its red dot lit up the centre of Gobber’s chest.

  “This is your one and only warning,” she said. “Drop the knife or I drop you.”

  He was bigger than her, and his nostrils flared as he considered his options. He tensed at the slam of a car door.

  “I didn’t do nothin’,” he said. He opened his hand, and the blade stabbed into the grass by his boot.

  “Step away from that and put your hands behind your back.”

  He did as she instructed, but she kept the Taser sighted as Nelson cuffed him, only deactivating it once Nelson had turned him around.

  “There’s a van on the way.” Nelson was all business, but the relieved look he gave her spoke volumes.

  “Great, thanks.” She grabbed Gobber’s shoulder, steering him across to the blue lights that were approaching at speed. “You’re a bloody dickhead,” she said, and began to read him his rights.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sanne clicked to the next section of the computerised pro forma and nibbled the chocolate off a KitKat as box after box of free-text options loaded.

  “Bollocks,” she said, catching sight of the numbers at the bottom of the screen. “There’s five bloody pages of this.”

  Nelson stirred his coffee with his own KitKat. “Just be glad you didn’t fire the damn thing. The form for that is three times as long.”

  Taser drawing, it seemed, was a serious business, requiring a dissertation-length explanation of the hows, whys, and wherefores.

  “I suppose it could be worse.” She rethought the line she’d just typed and erased all but the first word. “We could be fingertip-searching the Beswick abode.”

  He raised his mug to salute her “glass is half full” disposition. “There’s always a bright side, San. How’s your leg?”

  “It’s throbbing.” She resisted the urge to rub the aggrieved area. Peggy Beswick had one hell of a right arm for a seven-year-old, and the bruise was now a hot, swollen lump. “What were they doing with a baseball bat anyway? None of them struck me as the sporty type.”

  “Self-defence, at a guess, although I’m sure Sid won’t admit to that. Things have been a bit fraught on Phelot since the punch-up at the pub. He dropped the nines a couple of weeks ago after a brick was chucked through their front window.”

  “I bet he chucked it right back.” Sanne frowned. “Should ‘big fuck-off knife’ be hyphenated or not?”

  “Definitely hyphenated,” Nelson said and then coughed, alerting her to Eleanor’s presence, but she had already heard the tap of heels on the carpet and was busy typing again by the time Eleanor reached her desk.

  “I’m assuming you don’t need medical attention or counselling after your close encounter with a seven-year-old and her knife-toting brother.” Eleanor set Sanne’s first report back on her desk.

  “No, boss. I’ll live,” Sanne said.

  “And using the back door to access the garden was out of the question?”

  She squirmed a little under the scrutiny. In the heat of the moment, shinning out of the window had seemed a perfectly logical choice, although with hindsight perhaps things could have been done differently.

  “There was a dog in the kitchen,” she said.

  “Huge, nasty thing,” Nelson added. “I don’t think the family would’ve moved it even if we’d asked nicely.”

  “Fair enough,” Eleanor said. “Make sure you mention the dog as well, Nelson.” She turned her attention back to Sanne’s screen.

  “I should have this finished soon,” Sanne said, pre-empting the enquiry. “How are things down in Custody?”

  “Lively.” Eleanor read over Sanne’s shoulder but didn’t offer a comment. “Sid Beswick is screaming blue murder at anyone within earshot because he thinks his family is being persecuted, Spud’s moaning about the food, and Gobber’s complaining of chest pain and a twisted ankle.”

  “He ran fast enough for someone with a bad ankle.” Sanne slapped her mouse and accidentally deleted a paragraph. “No! Come back! How do I make it come back?”

  “Right click, undo,” Nelson said, well accustomed to her computer-induced tantrums. “Are any of them being interviewed tonight?” he asked Eleanor.

  “No. They’re all waiting for their regular solicitor, who, surprise surprise, won’t be able to attend until tomorrow morning.” Eleanor raised her glasses and settled them on her head. “At least that’ll give us a relatively early night. Get everything submitted and then go home.”

  “San’s not going home,” Nelson said. “She’s got a brand new niece to visit.”

  All the stress fell from Eleanor’s face, and her broad smile lit her eyes. “Congratulations! Does she have a name yet?”

  Sanne tried not to react at the unintentional tweaking of a sore spot. “Uh, no. Keeley hasn’t quite decided on one.”

  “Be sure to let me know.” Eleanor nodded at them both. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the briefing.”

  Five minutes after Eleanor’s departure, Nelson switched off his computer. Sanne stopped typing and listened to him rearranging things on his desk.

  “Go home, mate,” she said. “I’ll be ages yet.” That wasn’t strictly true, but he had already missed putting his children to bed, and she didn’t want to delay him further.

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Give my love to the tiddler.”

  “I’ll send you a photo. And her name, if it’s printable.”

  “Oh, I’ll be waiting up for that. Night, San.”

  She waved at him and cracked on with her report as the office fell silent. All being well, she would be meeting Meg at Keeley’s at eight. Right on cue, her phone buzzed. Meg: Sweet and sour chicken, or beef in black bean?

  Both, Sanne replied, and clicked onto page four.

  *

  Television light was flickering behind the front curtains when Sanne neared her parents’ house on Windermere Avenue, but she drove past without stopping. She knew her mum was round at Keeley’s, and she had no intention of speaking to her dad. The sleet had turned to thin rain, swirling the mist beneath the streetlights and casting an eerie cloak over the back field. She had always thought fog the kindest weather for Halshaw, blurring the grimmer details. Like those on Malory Park, the majority of Halshaw’s houses and flats were council owned, their residents mostly unemployed or the working poor. Sanne had grown up a couple of streets over from Meg, the two of them determined to break the Halshaw cycle of exam failure, underage pregnancy, benefits dependence, and addiction.

  After bouncing her Land Rover through a pothole, she braked hard to allow a stooped man to cross the road. He tipped his cap at her, his hand quickly returning to support the bag of booze he’d bought at the precinct. She recognised him as one of her school classmates, although she couldn’t remember his name. She took a left at the bus shelter, which for once still had its glass in it, and parked behind Meg’s car three minutes early. Meg met her on the pavement, wearing the same clothes she had left Sanne’s cottage in and smelling of hosp
ital soap. Sanne pulled her close and kissed her.

  “Hey.” Meg breathed the word against Sanne’s lips. She looked pale and weary.

  “Hey yourself. Did you not make it home?”

  “No, but it’s a long, depressing story that I’ll tell you later.” She squeezed Sanne’s hand and ducked into her car, bringing out a bulging bag from the Chinese chippy and a present wrapped in “Happy Birthday” paper. “Technically it is her birthday,” she said, plonking the gift into Sanne’s waiting arms.

  Sanne linked arms with her and led her to the front door. “At what point did you realise you’d forgotten to buy wrapping paper?” she whispered.

  “About ten minutes ago. Fortunately, the chippy is right next to Kumar’s, and he sells everything. Well, everything aside from ‘It’s a Girl!’ paper.” Meg rang the bell and winced at the excited screeching that ensued. “Jesus, it sounds like a zoo in there. Why aren’t the little bleeders in bed?”

  Behind the door, two of the lads had entered into a pitched battle, rattling the plastic intermittently as they fought. Sanne opened the letterbox and peered through it.

  “Oi! Don’t make me come in there and arrest you.”

  Both lads froze, and a small hand waggled out of the gap. “Hallo, Aunt San.”

  “Hiya, Kyle. Where’s your Nana?”

  The paw withdrew as the door opened.

  “She’s right here,” Sanne’s mum said. She kissed Sanne’s cheek and then Meg’s. “Come in out of the rain. You’ll catch your deaths.” Her rolled-up sleeves and the bubbles in her hair told of an interrupted bath time, and sure enough, Kiera—slippery wet and naked as a jaybird—darted down the hallway and wrapped herself around Sanne’s leg.

  “Hallo, poppet.” Sanne scooped her up, bubbles and all. “Where’s this new sister of yours?”

  Herded toward the living room, Sanne tiptoed around abandoned toys and school bags. A roll of carpet still sat along the edge of the stairs, and the unpapered walls were covered in crayon scribbles. The council had finally crumbled beneath Keeley’s constant mithering and moved the family to a four-bedroom house well over a year ago. Keeley had been in the process of “decorating” ever since. Holding court on the sofa, surrounded by pink balloons and teddies, she was maternal bliss personified—pint of cider in one hand, Mars Bar in the other. It took Sanne a moment to spot the baby, tucked in a bassinet beside the massive telly.

  “Hi, you two,” Keeley said, through a mouthful of Mars. “Did you bring food? I’m bloody starving. Ooh, is that Chinese? Fab.” She plucked the bag from Meg’s hand and waddled into the kitchen, leaving her mum to swap Kiera for the latest addition.

  Meg put her chin on Sanne’s shoulder and considered the baby. “She’s quite cute for a new ’un,” she whispered. “No cone head. Good bit of hair. Face isn’t too squished.”

  “Doesn’t look like Wayne,” Sanne added.

  “No. That’s a bonus.” Meg made a point of surveying the room. “Where is the doting dad, anyway?”

  Sanne’s mum paused in the middle of wrestling a nappy onto Kiera. “He’s wetting his new daughter’s head down the Crown and Horses. He came by earlier to see her, but he moved back in with Sheryl Hopworth about four months ago.”

  “Ouch.” Meg wiped macaroni from one of the armchairs and steered Sanne into it. “I’ll go and help Keels.”

  With the lads playing upstairs and Kiera dozing in front of the gas fire, peace descended on the living room.

  “You look tired, Mum,” Sanne said as her mum sagged onto the sofa and took off her slippers. “You can’t run after six kids and Dad all day. You’ll make yourself ill.”

  Her mum’s brow knotted. “Five kids.”

  “Yeah, but I’m counting Keeley.” Sanne stroked the baby’s palm, smiling at the instinctive grip around her finger. “Is Dad okay?”

  “He’s been a bit up and down. Some pain with his stomach, but he won’t go to the doctor.”

  “Because the doc would tell him to stop drinking.” She tried to quell the anger that surged whenever she considered the impact of her dad’s miserable existence on her mum. She’d wished him dead since her childhood, and nothing had happened to change that as she’d grown up.

  “There was blood in the toilet the other day.” Her mum opened her hands helplessly. “I don’t know what to do, Sanne.”

  “I’ll speak to Meg. Don’t worry, okay? You’ve got enough on your plate. Speaking of which…” She resettled the baby in her bassinet as Meg and Keeley returned from the kitchen to distribute brimming dishes of Chinese takeaway.

  “Come on, then. Don’t keep us in suspense.” Meg sat on the floor by Sanne’s feet. “What’ve you called her?”

  “Oh, I love it!” Keeley said. “You’ll love it, too! It’s so exotic.”

  Meg gripped Sanne’s ankle, shifting slightly so she could watch Sanne’s reaction. “I can’t bear the excitement!” she said in a fair approximation of Keeley’s pitch. “Do tell!”

  “Khaleesi!” Keeley clapped her hands. “Isn’t it adorable?”

  Meg coughed so hard that Sanne thought she’d choked on her sweet and sour. Her eyes filled with tears, and her shoulders began to shake. “Where’ve you hidden her dragons?” she spluttered.

  “Huh?” Keeley said.

  Sanne thumped Meg on the back. “It’s certainly original.”

  “I’m already calling her Kally,” her mum said.

  “But why would she have dragons?” Keeley asked.

  “Have you not read the books?” Meg said.

  “I quite like Kally,” Sanne muttered.

  Keeley eyeballed Meg. “What books? I stole the name off Janice Jones. Her baby’s not due till March, and Tilly Price says she’s fuming now.”

  “George R.R. Martin’s epic series of swords and gratuitous nudity,” Meg said. “It’s quite famous. It’s on the telly and everything.”

  “Sounds like crap.” Keeley stabbed a piece of beef. “I’ve not read nothin’ since Fifty Shades.”

  Meg nodded in sympathy. “I think Fifty Shades ruined reading for a lot of people. Ow!” She rubbed her bum where Sanne had kicked her.

  “Sorry. Cramp,” Sanne said, flicking a grain of rice at her.

  From the corner, Khaleesi let up a thin wail, her little hands punching above the bassinet sides.

  “I’d cry too, love,” Meg said. She set her plate on the floor and went across to commiserate with the new arrival.

  *

  Despite the mortgage that occasionally brought her out in a cold sweat, Meg loved everything about her house: the stream that ran along the bottom of its garden; the Belfast sink and bay windows; the blackbird that nested in its tallest conifer; but, she decided as she slid through a deep froth of bubbles into red-hot water, the oversized double-ended bath she’d treated herself to at Christmas was now her favourite thing of all.

  “C’mon, San, it’ll get cold!” She ducked her head beneath the suds, rinsing away the stink of the soap she’d used in the staff shower. When she resurfaced and opened her eyes, Sanne was gingerly dipping a toe.

  “Bloody hell. At what point in the next millennium is this going to get cold?”

  “Fine.” Meg stretched the full length of the bath as Sanne withdrew her reddened digit. “But you’ll get all goose pimply waiting for—hey, what the hell happened to your leg?” She beckoned Sanne closer and laid a careful hand over the black and blue contusion at the midpoint of her thigh. It must have been sore, but Sanne didn’t react to her touch.

  “I had a run in with a seven-year-old.” Sanne eased Meg’s fingers away, keeping hold of them as she lowered herself into the bath. “At a house full of white racists.”

  “Did you arrest him?”

  “Her.” Sighing, Sanne wriggled lower, arranging her legs either side of Meg. “And she was seven years old, Meg.”

  “Old enough to know that clobbering coppers is wrong.”

  Sanne’s eyes slid shut, and she answered through a yawn. “Give
n her upbringing, I’m not so sure. Anyway, enough about me. How crappy was your day?”

  “On a scale of one to ten?” Meg squirted gel onto a sponge and swirled it around as she debated her score. “If ten is being battered by my brother and spending the day on the kitchen floor, this was maybe an eight.”

  “Was Donovan being an arse again?”

  “No, he’s on leave, but we had a young lad who fell from scaffolding and landed on his head. Plus, remember that Romanian lass I told you about?”

  “Domestic violence with the burns?”

  “Yeah. She”—Meg made her fingers into air quotes—“‘left the ward for a cigarette’ and never came back.”

  “Christ.” Sanne pushed herself upright, all signs of sleepiness banished. “Does Fraser know?”

  “He was the one who told me, and he’s working the case now, so fingers crossed he’ll find her.” Meg tugged Sanne’s foot until she slid beneath the bubbles again. Though they sometimes discussed their work, neither tended to dwell on the details for long, and she didn’t want Sanne distracted when EDSOP was in the middle of a major investigation. She began to soap Sanne’s toes with the sponge.

  “Did your scaffolder die?” Sanne asked, apparently not as relaxed as Meg had hoped.

  “Yes, about ten minutes after his parents arrived.”

  “At least they were with him.” Sanne provided her other foot when Meg tapped it, but her eyes were still wide open, and her finger was drawing patterns on the side of the bath. “I climbed out of a window today, and a lad pulled a knife on me.” She spoke hurriedly, as if afraid that she might lose her conviction. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but I hate keeping secrets, and I had my Taser, so it was okay and probably not as dangerous as I just made it sound.”