“Okay, Armed Response, go go go.”
Seven police officers in full combat uniform disappeared into the building as soon as the van drew forward. They were inside for several minutes before Miller heard his radio come alive.
“ARU to DCI Miller, all clear in here, I repeat all clear – you can send in the medical team, over.”
This was it. A sudden panic hit Miller’s insides, as he lifted his arm, and gestured the medical team to advance towards the broken down entrance to the building.
“Please God. Please.” Said Miller as the medics ran inside the building, eager to reach the patient before one more valuable second could be wasted.
“Okay, we’ve got an output,” shouted the doctor as he crouched beside the lifeless, almost dead body. “It’s very weak. We need to boost this heart-rate, get me a shot of adrenaline, please.”
The lighting inside the stinking, rotting old mill was very poor, just the shakey, chaotic torch lights that were strobing all around the patient. “Hold the light still. Keep it steady, that’s it.”
PART TWO
FEBRUARY – Three months earlier
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Melanie Meyer was running late for picking the kids up from nursery. The last thing she needed was the bloody cops pulling her over. The police car that had followed behind her for the past mile or so flashed its lights and played a boo-wop sound on the siren. She pressed her indicator and pulled over to the side of the road, close to the Town Hall in Swinton. “Fuck my life.” She muttered as she pulled on the hand brake of her silver VW Beetle.
The police man switched off the blue lights and got out of his car. He had a sarcastic grin on his face, thought Mel, as he slammed his own door shut and walked slowly towards the car. Mel pressed the electric window button on the door handle and her window began sliding down.
“Hello. Alright?” she said as the policeman reached the window.
“Switch the engine off please, madam.” Said the policeman. He looked like a proper jobs-worth, she thought. Mel noticed that he had three stripes on his shoulder pads. She was trying to remember what that meant, as she turned the ignition off. She couldn’t remember, her mind had gone blank.
“Thanks. You know why I’ve stopped you, don’t you?”
“No, sorry, don’t know,” said Mel, realising that she was shaking slightly. She’d never been stopped by the police before. She’d been caught a few times on the speed cameras and received fines through the post, but Mel had never actually been pulled over. She was surprised by how much the experience was making her feel scared – almost as though she was back at school and had been sent to see the headmistress for smoking.
“You just came down Station Road at forty-two miles an hour.”
“Did I?” Mel was genuinely surprised to hear that. But, she knew that she was running late, and it wasn’t beyond
the realms of possibility. “Sorry… I…”
“It’s thirty miles per hour on that road.”
“I know, look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t realise. I’m running late…”
“And the schools are just closing, and if one of the kids stepped out from behind one of those parked cars, we’d be dealing with a dead body here.”
Mel bit her bottom lip. That was a pretty dramatic thing to say. It was beginning to occur to her that she was in deep trouble. She’d already lost nine points on her license from speeding tickets. She was down to her last three. If she was about to lose them, she was facing a ban. Her face dropped at the thought of the consequences. How would she get to work? How would she get back for the kids if she got a ban? This was a nightmare.
“You probably think I’m exaggerating. Believe me, I’m not. I visit these accidents everyday. I pick little kids up off the road, old people, cyclists, pedestrians. Every day we are called out, and we send them off to the cemetery because of stupid, avoidable accidents caused by people who are rushing around like you…”
“Flipping heck, officer…”
“Sergeant. Sergeant Knight. Can I see your driving license please madam?”
Mel Meyer grabbed her handbag off the passenger seat and started rummaging inside, looking for her purse. She looked up at the Sergeant, and noticed that he was staring straight down her blouse, at her cleavage. He stared hard at her when he realised that he’d been spotted. Mel blushed, and returned her attention to finding the purse. She could feel this policeman’s eyes feasting on her boobs, and her legs. It made her feel very vulnerable, and creeped out. After a couple more seconds, she found what she was searching for, and pulled out her driving license.
Sergeant Knight seemed to take an age inspecting the license, looking at the photo-card, then back at Mel, and then back at the photocard again. Mel had heard a few people talking about the police being a bit over-the-top these days, but she had never had any dealings with them before. As this was her first experience, she felt extremely uneasy. This copper was giving her the creeps, and she couldn’t wait to answer his stupid fucking questions and get on her way.
“What will happen now?” she asked.
“Have you received any penalty points in the past?”
“A few.”
“A few?” Sergeant Knight laughed mockingly. “How many is a few?”
“I think I’m on nine.”
“Ooooh.” Sergeant Knight inhaled loudly, almost whistling as he blew the oxygen out again.
“So what will happen? Am I banned now?” Mel was not impressed by this police man. He seemed to be getting a bit of a buzz out of this. The guy was a freak, she was sure of it.
“I need to take some details. What’s the big hurry anyway?” Sergeant Knight clearly wasn’t in a rush, he seemed to be drawing this out for as long as he could possibly take. “Can you come and sit in the police vehicle a moment?” he asked. “Bring your handbag. You’d be advised to put your window up and lock the vehicle.”
“Sir, sorry. Look, I know I was speeding, okay. But seriously, I’ve got to get my kids, I need to pick them up from nursery. I know I shouldn’t have speeded…”
“You still need to come and sit in my car. I’ll have to breathalyse you.”
“Aw, seriously? I’ve just finished work.”
“It’s procedure. I’m sorry.”
The “procedure” took fifteen minutes, and as Mel Meyer indicated right and pulled off from the kerb, she was running thirty five minutes late, and there was still fifteen or twenty minutes to go through the rush-hour traffic until she reached the nursery school in Eccles.
“Stupid fucker!” Mel was angry. With herself, sure – but that would have to wait. She was more angry with that stupid bastard copper. Who the fuck did he think he was? She wondered, instantly realising that the answer to that question screwed up the point of it. But never the less, she felt extremely mad. There was absolutely no need for all that
bullshit. “I wish I had run a fucking kid over now! Dickhead!”
she muttered to herself, without the slightest hint of humour.
It was turning out to be one of those days. Mel hit every red light, every road-works and found herself behind every school bus, as she tried to make her way to the nursery. When she finally arrived there, she was almost an hour late.
“I’m so sorry!” she blushed as she jogged into the reception. The nursery’s secretary gave Mel a very well rehearsed, very stern look of disapproval.
“We’ll have to charge you for an extra hour. Each.” She said. Mel nodded, trying to fight back tears of frustration.
“I’m so sorry. A meeting at work ran late, then a policeman stopped me. And then I somehow managed to hit every possible delay on the way over here.”
“It’s our policy I’m afraid. We have to charge you.”
“Right!” Mel snapped. She’d managed not to shout it, but it was a very close-call. Deep down, she knew that it was out-of-order to take her frustrations out on the nursery. They didn’t have to look after her children for free. Mel took a deep breat
h and held it. Her mind was racing, but she told herself to simmer down, to just get over it.
The secretary seemed satisfied that Mel had calmed herself, as she turned to collect the red-faced woman’s children, three year old Holly and the baby, one year old Thomas. The sight of the infants quickly calmed Mel, and within seconds of being presented with a nearly-dried, painting that was supposed to be of Peppa Pig, the stress and drama was all but forgotten, as she thanked the staff and took her children out to the car park and began the task of strapping them into their car-seats.
By the time that Mel had arrived home, placed the kids in front of C-Beebies and started making their tea, the hellish journey home was almost forgotten about. Her husband, Peter, or as he preferred to be known, Pete, arrived home early and Mel couldn’t disguise her look of surprise at seeing him so early. Pete looked really stressed out, which just wasn’t normal and Mel was instantly distracted from the nightmare journey, the prospect of losing her driving license and that stuck-up cow at the nursery being such a bitch.
“What’s up with you, love?”
“Oh, you don’t wanna know.”
“What?” Mel tilted her head slightly, she wasn’t used to seeing Pete looking so unhappy. “What’s happened?”
“That shop I’ve been fitting out in Cheetham Hill – this bleeding guy turned up today mob handed, said I have to get out, said he’s the new owner and I haven’t got permission to be in there.”
“You what?”
“It’s a fucking blag. I’ve been stitched right up. That Sanjeev has got me to fit the fucking place out, he’s been like my best mate, getting stuck in, helping me with some of the work – God, I’ve put in about ten days work so far, plus I’ve forked out for materials. The jobs nearly done now, complete shop refit. I’ve got two days work left, just finishing off, a bit of painting and that, cleaning down. And then this fucking guy I’ve never seen before has just turned up with a car full of mates and told me to clear off.”
“Jesus Pete. Fuck. That’s a fucking piss take!”
“He said I can take my tools, but that’s it. I was pleading with him, I said I’m due about two grand for this job. He just shrugged at me. He was grinning. Aargh, I’m so pissed off. I’ve tried ringing Sanjeev, but his phone’s off.”
Mel was standing there, just staring at her husband, her mouth was wide open.
“Aw, fucking hell Pete. That’s, I don’t know…”
“Absolutely fucking fuming!”
“Can, well we can do summat can’t we?”
“Fuck knows. Who’s going to give a fuck? It’ll take about two years to go through all the courts and that.” Pete looked his wife in the eye, and the desperation was unmistakable. This was an extraordinary sight for Mel, she’d never seen Pete looking so gutted. “We’re just going to have to put it down to experience.” Pete looked like he was close to tears. His voice was quivering as he spoke. He ran a small, one man business. He didn’t have the reserves or the cash flow to cope with this. It was going to take months to recover from this loss of money. And his pride was hurting as well.
Mel walked over and hugged him tight. “What a set
of twats, Pete. That’s proper shit that.”
This comfort, and sympathy from his wife was the last straw, Pete caved in and the tears began to roll down his face. They were the hot, stinging tears of deep frustration and anger. Mel could feel her husband trembling. She wanted to be able to do something, anything, to make him feel better. She was desperate to pull a solution to this nightmare situation from somewhere, but it wasn’t as simple as that. She felt her own eyes filling up. Pete put everything into his work. He’d built this business up from nothing, from doing odd-jobs on the weekend, and now some arse-hole has just come along and took the absolute piss. “It’s going to be alright Pete. We’ll sort summat love, don’t worry about it.”
Pete didn’t say anything. He just continued to stand there, too embarrassed to pull away from the embrace. He didn’t want Mel seeing him scriking like a soft little kid. A few minutes passed, and Pete began to realise that this self pity wasn’t the answer. He wiped his face on his sleeve before he pulled out of the embrace.
“I’m going out. I’ll have a long walk. I’ll walk into town and get the tram back. I need to clear my head.”
“Yeah, good idea love. Do that. I’ll see to the kids and everything.”
“Sorry.”
“Pete, don’t be a dick! You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”
“I know. But, well… I should have seen it coming. Fuck’s sake.”
Pete went upstairs and had a quick wash, changed his clothes and set off out.
“I’ll be an hour or two. See you in a bit!”
“Alright love – seeya babe.”
Mel was glad when she heard the front door close behind her husband. She watched him marching down the drive, and then along to the bottom of the avenue.
“Poor bastard!” said Mel under her breath. That had been a brand new experience and she wasn’t a fan of seeing her husband looking so hopeless and down beat. It just wasn’t his way. Although she felt guilty for feeling relieved that he’d gone out, Mel needed five minutes chill-out time, just to get her head around that absolutely disgusting trick that had been played on Pete.
She made herself a coffee and then wandered through to the living room where Thomas had crashed out in his rocker, and Holly was chilling out, banging two giant Lego bricks together as she watched the TV.
“Mummy! What’s wrong?” asked Holly, she picked up on the tense atmosphere as soon as Mel appeared in the lounge.
“Nothing darling. What’s wrong with you?” she laughed.
“Nothing wrong with me!” said Holly, grinning from ear to ear. She was pointing both of her hands at her beaming, smiling face.
Mel laughed out loudly, and kissed her little girl’s cheeky face. “You’re a cheeky chops! What are you?”
“Cheeky chops!”
Mel was glad to feel the tension slip a little as she sat down and began to watch the telly, the thundering heart beat that had been banging in her chest was starting to soften a little. Mel took her phone out of her handbag and saw that she’d had a text message. It was from an unknown number.
“Hi. Good meeting you today. You seem like a lovely girl. If you want, we could forget all about that unpleasant business today.”
Mel blinked a few times, and read the message again. “What the fuck…” she whispered to herself, as she felt her heartbeat begin to speed up again. She sat up, and had to re-read the text message again. And then a fourth time. She couldn’t actually believe what she was reading. She looked at the time of the message. It had been sent at 17.20. That was almost two hours after she’d been pulled over.
“Excuse me?” she wrote, and sent her message.
A few minutes passed before her phone vibrated. She grabbed it off the sofa and saw that there had been another message, from the same number.
“All I mean is, it would be a shame if you got banned. Doesn’t seem fair.”
Mel was staring at the phone. Was this a wind-up? she wondered. No. How could it be? Her mind began racing, she felt a bit giddy as she realised that this was genuine. This was that weird copper. Mel went through it all in her mind. Since it had happened, Mel had only told one person about the policeman pulling her over, that witch at the nursery. But she wouldn’t know anything about the points though, or Mel’s previous nine penalty points and the fact that she was facing the prospect of being banned.
Mel couldn’t remember feeling so weird. This was now the strangest day she had ever experienced. First, the bullshit at work that had made her late, followed by the horrible journey home, that weirdo copper, then Pete being ripped off for grands. And now this, police corruption or whatever it was.
Mel was staring at the screen. She was trying her best to think of a reply. But she just didn’t know what to write. She realised that her heart was racing and she felt as though he
r face was burning up. After a few minutes had passed, she managed to think of something to say in response. She began typing her message. “Yes, I could do without losing my license tbh. I’ll probably lose my job as well.” Mel stared at the message. Should she say thanks at the end, she wondered. What was the correct etiquette for dealing with corrupt policemen? And what did he want anyway? It was obvious that he wanted something in return. Dodgy bastard. Mel decided to send it, with a thanks on the end. He might just be a nice guy who felt sorry for her. The world was full of good Samaritans she had to remind herself.
“No problem. But you have to do a favour for me!” said the reply, which beeped and vibrated less than twenty seconds after Mel had sent her reply.
“What’s that?” Mel pressed the send icon, and noticed that her hand was trembling quite violently.
The reply from the unknown phone number genuinely shocked Mel. She couldn’t believe what she was reading.
“Send me a picture of yourself. Without any clothes on. As soon as you do, I’ll rip up this paperwork. End of
story.”
*****
After the initial shock of reading the message, Mel Meyer decided to turn her phone off. That message was just so surreal, so unexpected, it had made her feel completely confused. She was no prude, but that kind of talk was completely out of the ordinary to her.
She managed to put the weirdness of the day out of her head as the practicalities of running a busy home, with two babies to look after, feed and bath, and then get to bed with a bedtime story for Holly. By half past seven, Mel’s jobs were done. She decided that her and Pete could phone a pizza for tea. Sod cooking tonight, she thought. While she was tidying up a little, filling the washing machine and washing up the breakfast and the kids tea dishes, Mel’s mind returned to that shocking text off the policeman.
As she paced around the house, Mel experienced a great many emotions. She felt angry, furious that this copper thought that he had the right to behave that way. She felt cheap, that this copper thought she was just a piece of easy meat that he could get to undress and take photographs of herself for him, just by sending a text message. She felt annoyed that he obviously thought that she looked like a slag. Only slags did stuff like that. She felt confused and overwhelmed, she wanted to know why he thought she was a slag.
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