by Chris Ould
“Yes, Sarge.”
“Right.”
Stafford straightened up with a grunt and stepped away, moving immediately to deal with the crowd of onlookers and speak to the man who was sitting on the kerb some metres away: the driver of the lorry.
Holly looked down at the girl’s face. Her skin was pale, almost grey, and streaked with make-up. A purple-pink swelling from the collision was already distorting her cheekbone and right eye.
What was she? Holly wondered. Thirteen? Fourteen, maybe? She seemed very frail, very damaged and only the weak bubbling of blood at her nostril gave any sign that she was still breathing.
“It’s all right,” Holly said to the girl. “My name’s Holly. You’ll be okay.”
Then, in the distance, she heard the two-tone siren of an ambulance. It was getting closer.
“That’s the ambulance,” Holly told the girl. “They’ll be here soon. Don’t worry.”
On the damp tarmac the girl didn’t move.
3
Drew Alford saw them coming as they rounded the corner of the tower block, still running but only at a jog now. None of the gang was what you’d call fit and they’d run all the way from the minimart, a good quarter of a mile.
Skank and Rizza were both pretty light, but Tyler Smith – bigger and heavier than either of them – was down to a fast walk. As soon as he saw Alford he slowed and then stopped altogether, breathing hard from the unaccustomed exertion.
“All right?” Alford asked as he came closer. “How’d it go?”
Skank had a grin on his face.
“Nah, no problem,” Rizza said. “Piece of piss.”
“You didn’t say nothing, right – to the owner?”
Skank shook his head, still grinning. He was a skinny, grubby-looking figure with acne and about a dozen whiskers on his chin. “Didn’t need to,” he said. “You shoulda seen his face when we start tipping stuff over. Then Ty does the windows and the woman’s all screaming: ‘Don’t do that! Don’t do that! I know what you want!’”
“Where’s the hammer?” Alford asked, turning to Tyler.
“Here,” Tyler said and showed him the hammer concealed under his hoodie.
“Okay, stash it somewhere in case we need it again.”
Alford looked at his watch, thought for a moment, then addressed them all. “Okay, anyone asks, we were all down Jak’s offie from quarter past six. I went in for the fags then we stayed round the side, okay? Hanging out.”
“You an’ all?” Tyler asked.
“Course me an’ all,” Alford said irritably. “That way we all say the same thing, dickhead.”
Tyler scowled at the insult but said nothing else.
“So what you want to do now?” Skank asked, hunching into his coat. Now that they’d stopped running and the adrenalin rush was evaporating he was starting to feel the chill.
“You can do what you want,” Alford said. “I’m going in. It’s too fucking cold to hang about here any more. Tomorrow, though, right? I’ll text you.”
“Okay,” Skank said. “I might get a burger, down Patrick’s.” He nudged Rizza. “You wanna come?”
“Sure, whatever,” Rizza said.
“Stay away from the minimart,” Alford warned them as they turned to move off.
“What about you?” he asked Tyler as the others walked away.
Tyler shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “If you’re going home I could walk back with you.”
“All right, come on then,” Alford said.
Together they headed towards the looming shape of Penrice House, the windows of its fifteen storeys lit yellow in the cold winter’s night sky. As they crossed the road towards it Tyler said: “So how much we gonna get?”
“For what?”
“You know – for doing the shop.”
“Say it a bit louder,” Alford said. “Tell everyone.”
Tyler glanced quickly along the road and realised they were alone. He scowled then because he hated it when Drew made him look stupid.
“So how much?” he asked again.
“I dunno yet. Depends, don’t it?”
“What if he doesn’t give us anything?”
“He will. Anyway, it’s not about that.”
“What do you mean? I thought—”
“It was a try-out,” Alford said. “Prove he can take us seriously. After this there’s gonna be more. That’s where we’re gonna be earning for real.”
He glanced at Tyler – never the brightest of bulbs – to see if he’d got it, but from the uncertain look on Tyler’s face it was clear he was still struggling with the idea.
“Never mind,” Alford told him. “Let me worry about that. Just remember what I said. We were all down the offie, right? All of us.”
“Yeah, I know,” Tyler said.
“Right. Come on then, let’s get a fucking move on before the cops think about looking to see who’s around.”
And with that he shoved his hands in his pockets and quickened their pace towards the entrance to the tower block.
4.
GATEMEAD ROAD
19:16 HRS
The paramedics had arrived two or three minutes ago and, doing as she’d been told, Holly continued to hold the wound dressing in place on the girl’s arm while they did their job. One of the paramedics – a woman in her thirties called Blanche – was carefully fitting a neck support to stabilise the girl’s head. The other, named Sancho, was monitoring the girl’s stats with a stethoscope in his ears.
“BP’s one-twenty over sixty,” he said. “Pulse weak – you on apprenticeship then?” He glanced over at Holly so she’d know he was talking to her.
“A trainee, yeah,” Holly nodded. Like all the other TPOs she hated being called an apprentice. She thought it made them sound less official, but the label had stuck when the TPO scheme was announced and that was how most people thought of them: apprentice coppers.
“Shallow breath sounds on the right. Query pneumothorax,” Sancho said to Blanche. Then: “First RTC?”
“What? Oh. First serious one, yeah,” Holly said. It still struck her as odd, the way all emergency service personnel jumped in and out of banter mode, no matter how serious the situation.
Sancho nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This isn’t so bad. If she’d gone under the wheels you’d be on shovel duty by now.”
“Knock it off, Sancho,” Blanche said, gruffly. She had finished fixing the neck support and was straightening up. “Ignore him, love,” she said to Holly. “Everyone knows we don’t use shovels.”
“Right,” Holly said.
“Nah – it’s wallpaper scrapers.”
Sancho chuckled at the gag and Holly knew she’d have to let that one go. TPOs were fair game as far as the police regs were concerned, and now that seemed to extend to the paramedics as well.
When Blanche went off to get a spinal board, Sancho changed position. “Let me have a look at her arm,” he said.
Holly moved her hand from the wound dressing and Sancho gently peeled it off. The flesh of the upper arm was sliced down to the yellow of the bone, but there was remarkably little blood: just a bit of oozing now that the pressure had been released.
“Not too bad,” Sancho said. “She’ll have a nice scar. But that’ll be the least of her worries.”
“Is—” Holly hesitated. “Will she be okay?” It was the question she’d been waiting to ask since the paramedics had arrived.
Sancho seemed to register the fact that Holly was genuine in her concern and treated it seriously.
“Once we get her stabilised she’ll be fine,” he said, strangely definite in his words.
He took a fresh dressing from the kit beside him and leaned a little closer to Holly, lowering his voice. “Best to remember there’s always a chance the victim still knows what’s going on around them,” he said. “Even like this. Best to stay positive.”
Holly nodded, matching his whisper. “So she isn’t…?”
“Sh
e could have a fractured skull, and her vitals aren’t great. We’ll see. You want to check her pockets, see if she’s got any ID?”
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
The only pockets Holly could find were in the cardigan the girl was wearing. In the left-hand one she found a small leather purse, but before she could open it Blanche returned with the spinal board, and when the two paramedics started the procedure to move the girl Holly stood up and backed out of the way.
For the first time since she’d arrived, Holly looked round. Apart from Oz and Sergeant Stafford there were two more uniformed regs in attendance now and the crowd of onlookers had been moved back from the roadside. Under their gaze Holly suddenly felt exposed, and because she wasn’t sure what else to do now she opened the girl’s purse to look inside. There were a few loose coins and a laminated bus pass. The photo it carried wasn’t very good but it was clearly the injured girl. Her name was printed underneath: Ashleigh Jarvis.
“All right, Holly?” Sergeant Stafford had approached while she was still looking at the bus pass.
“Yes, Sarge,” she said, trying to make it sound as positive as she could. “I found some ID. Her name’s Ashleigh Jarvis.”
She handed the purse and bus pass to Stafford who looked at them, then nodded. “Good. Means we can find her family. She’ll be going to the Vic, so I want you to go with her in the ambulance. I’ll send a reg down as soon as I can but we need to deal with the scene. All you have to do is stay on hand and if there’s any significant change in her condition let me know, okay?”
“Yes, Sarge,” Holly said.
The stretcher was in the ambulance now and as Blanche closed one of the back doors she called out: “Eddie?” She was ready to go.
Stafford looked, then gave a wave. He turned back to Holly. “Okay – gob shut, ears open, and don’t get in their way. Got it?”
“Yes, Sarge,” Holly said, and she ran to get in the ambulance.
5
“Yeah, it’s me,” Drew Alford said into his phone as he emerged from the stairwell. He was alone now. Tyler lived two floors below.
“That thing you wanted. It’s done… Nah, it was fine, we just did what you said… Yeah… When?… Okay, I’ll see you then.”
He rang off as he reached the third door along the landing and took a worn Yale key from his pocket. He shoved it into the lock and twisted, pushing the door open as he did so.
Inside the flat Alford looked into the sitting room, then the double bedroom. Both were empty as he’d known they would be as soon as he’d walked in and not heard the telly. Gone down the pub, probably. Well that was okay. It suited him.
In the kitchen he went to the washing machine and squatted down to look inside. There was a pile of wet laundry in the drum, washed but not spun. He thought about it for a beat, then opened the door and pulled the damp clothes out onto the cracked vinyl floor.
Standing up, he stripped off the clothes he was wearing, pushing each item into the machine as he took it off: trainers, socks, jeans, T-shirt, hoodie. He put his mobile, fags, lighter and a small amount of loose change on the worktop.
When he was down to his pants he searched the cluttered and untidy worktop for the washing powder and couldn’t find it. He swore, then squatted and searched the cupboards underneath, finally locating the box under the sink.
Without measuring he poured powder into the dispenser drawer of the washing machine and rammed it home. Then he took off his pants, chucked them in with the rest of his clothes and set the machine to its highest and longest setting. For a moment nothing happened, but then there was a click and a hum and the sound of water under pressure.
Alford waited there, naked, until he was sure that water was filling the drum, then he padded barefoot to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The spray head was old and only half the jets worked. While he waited for the water to warm up he looked at himself in the mirror.
He examined his lean body from different angles, checking that there were no marks. He’d been pretty sure there wouldn’t be, but it was as well to make certain.
To his own eye he reckoned he had a good body; pretty bloody decent. So it was just a shame it’d had to be that way. She didn’t know what she’d missed. Fucking shame.
He chuckled when he realised he’d made a pun and turned away from the mirror. The shower was making steam now, so he opened the door of the cabinet and stepped inside. Then he started to wash himself down. Thoroughly.
6.
STARLIGHT MINIMART
FIRSLEY ROAD
19:19 HRS
Inside the minimart, TPO Sam Marsden examined the three starburst fractures in the window. It was hard to believe that none of them had actually smashed through the glass but only filled it with jagged cracks.
Turning to look at the rest of the shop, Sam thought it looked as if some kind of natural disaster had struck – a hurricane, maybe. There was an acrid smell of vinegar from a broken bottle and down both aisles the contents of shelves and racks were strewn across the floor. At the far end of the shop the wife of the owner, Mrs Walker, was bending down to pick up tins, placing them back on the nearest shelves, seemingly at random.
Now that he’d seen the full extent of the damage, Sam picked his way carefully back through the spilled crisps and packets of biscuits towards the till where PC Yvonne Dunlop was talking to the owner. Yvonne was in her early thirties, as tall as Sam, with high cheekboned good looks. It was as well not to be distracted by that though. Yvonne Dunlop had a reputation for telling it like it was and she didn’t take shit from anyone.
“What about the CCTV, Mr Walker?” she said, and gestured to the camera attached to the ceiling above the counter.
The shop owner shook his head. “Doesn’t work. It’s just a dummy.”
“Right. Well, maybe you should think about getting the real thing. It might help prevent something like this happening again.”
“You know how much it costs to put that in? Be about two months’ profits. We might as well pack up now.”
“You’ve had trouble before though, right? Just after Christmas?”
Mr Walker nodded, but it seemed to Sam that there was some reluctance to the admission.
“So was this the same people?”
“I dunno, do I?” the man said. “They had hoods – hoodies – I couldn’t see who they were.”
Yvonne made a note. “Any idea how old?”
“Teenagers.”
“White, black, Asian?”
“I dunno. White, I think – look, I told you, it was all too fast to tell. One minute there’s nothing, then the next they’re steaming in, shouting and yelling, stuff going all over the place…”
“Did they speak to you? Did they demand money or try to get into the till?”
“No, nothing like that. They just wanted to trash the place. One of them had a hammer and he went straight for the window.”
Yvonne paused in her writing, then looked directly at the shopkeeper. “So why would they do that do you think? Why would they want to trash the place rather than try and take anything?”
For a moment it seemed as if Mr Walker might say something about that, but only for a moment, then he shook his head. “I dunno. Look, it’s kids, right? Probably think it’s a laugh or something.”
“You haven’t had anyone making threats, demanding money?”
“No.”
“You sure? Cos to me it looks like that’s what this might be about.”
Mr Walker shook his head again, resolute. “No, nothing like that.”
Yvonne held his gaze for a moment longer, then let it go. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll need statements from both you and your wife.”
“I’ll get her,” Mr Walker said and moved out from behind the counter as if he was glad of the excuse to leave.
Yvonne watched him go, her expression less than impressed, then she turned to Sam. “You can take Mrs Walker’s statement. She’s not
going to tell you any more than her husband so don’t waste any more time than you have to. It’s going to end up as NFA whatever.”
NFA was No Further Action and Sam was coming to realise that it was a common fact of life in a lot of cases like this: small scale, no arrests.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “I mean, why bother to report it if they don’t want to tell us anything?”
“Insurance,” Yvonne said flatly. “Can’t claim unless they’ve got a case number.”
“So you think they do know who it was?”
“Maybe not who the youths were, but I’d bet they know who sent them. They’re not going to say though, cos that’d only make things worse.” She gestured at the dummy CCTV camera. “Even a real one of those doesn’t stop someone trashing the place, so what’re you going to spend your money on – CCTV or the guy who can stop it happening in the first place?”
Before Sam could frame an answer his radio came to life. It was Sergeant Stafford’s voice. “Six-One-Four from Nine-Five, receiving?”
“Six-One-Four, go ahead.”
“How long before you finish at your current location?”
Sam looked to Yvonne for guidance.
“Ten minutes,” she said.
“Nine-Five, we’ll be free in ten minutes,” Sam told Stafford.
“Okay, soon as you are I need someone for a notification of an accident and a ride to the Vic. Name of Jarvis.”
7.
EMERGENCY DEPT
QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL
19:43 HRS
Holly had almost had to run to keep up with the paramedics as they wheeled the stretcher from the ambulance into the ED. She’d caught bits of the rapid-fire exchange of medical terminology between the hospital staff who swooped in as soon as they entered the building, but it was too fast and too full of abbreviations to make sense of. All she did know was that Ashleigh Jarvis’s condition hadn’t improved on the fifteen minute, siren-wailing journey to the Queen Victoria Hospital.
And again – because she’d been following the stretcher – Holly had noticed the girl’s bare feet. Something about them wasn’t right, but for a moment she couldn’t work out what. Then she’d realised: they were dirty. It was possible that the girl had lost her shoes when the truck hit her, but if so, why were the soles of her feet so dirty – as if she’d been walking barefoot before the accident?
