Head Wound

by Judith Cutler

  I asked it now. Getting no response, I continued, ‘I’m Jane, by the way. I told you that I’m the head teacher here. And at Wrayford school too. I live in Wrayford. In Little Orchard Close. Where are you from?’ Wrong. I should have asked the question I now put, ‘Do you know Wrayford?’

  She snorted. ‘Wrayford? One room, one house, I know that.’

  ‘A house near me? Tell me, what can I call you?’ I knew the police had training courses for hostage situations, which this was rapidly becoming. So far as I knew, there weren’t any for teachers. Not yet, at least. ‘I’d like to call you by your name.’

  ‘Men say that.’

  So her name was all she had left that was hers?

  The kitchen was suddenly flooded with light. What the hell was going on? Arc lights outside, that’s what.

  She blinked, eyes darting round the kitchen. Now she could see a whole lot more knives. But she didn’t move towards them. She jerked the one in her hand in my direction.

  ‘Why police clothes?’ she asked suddenly and reasonably.

  Reasonably I replied, ‘Because my policewoman friend, Elaine, who is out in the road there, was afraid that whoever was searching for you might have a gun and try to shoot people – including me.’

  ‘Searching for me!’

  ‘The man you were running away from,’ I suggested, ‘when we brought you here. Please, tell me your name. And please put that knife down. The sooner we can join Elaine out there the sooner we’ll be safe. Look, if you don’t want any policemen around, let me phone Elaine and tell her to get rid of them.’ But now my phone was a problem.

  ‘You phone that man?’

  ‘Why on earth should I?’ Helpless, I sat down, hard on a stool. ‘I want you to be safe. I want me to be safe. Elaine, my friend, will keep you safe – protect you. Look after you. Arrest the man with the gun. Only please put down that knife.’

  My phone rang. We both jumped.

  ‘Can I take it?’ Assuming it was safe, I reached for it.

  The knife was an inch from my hand. ‘Not that man.’

  I shook my head as if I was safe back in my office. ‘Most unlikely. Elaine, I should think. Can I look? Yes.’ With one finger I pivoted it so she could see. ‘Yes? OK? I’ll put it on speaker so you can hear.’

  ‘What in hell are you waiting for?’ came Elaine’s voice. ‘We’re waiting for you in the blasted cold here by the back door. Not a bloke for miles.’

  Casually I picked up the phone. ‘I hope we’re on our way now. But promise me – and this is a matter of life and death – no men. Not even Rufus. Not even a male doctor. A woman doctor. Promise.’

  ‘You’re dead serious, aren’t you?’

  I tried for a joke. ‘Better serious than dead.’

  God knows what the woman made of the conversation, especially my flippancy. But at last she nodded, gesturing – with the knife – towards the door. ‘OK, you go first.’ The knife was so close to my throat I could feel how cold the blade was. ‘Go. But no men.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  There were no men. None visible, at least. And Elaine, hectoring, edgy, irritating Elaine, stepping forward with a kind, almost motherly smile on her face. It might have been a social meeting: she looked ready to shake hands. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Elaine Carberry: I’m here to see you’re safe and sound. We want to talk to you about the man who was chasing after you and then we’ll take you to a safe house – one specially for women. Look, give me that knife and come into the van – you too, Jane – out of this cold wind.’

  The young woman got into the people-carrier but still clutched the knife like a talisman. What if she used it on herself?

  ‘There you go. Sit yourself down. This is Sergeant Sue Beard. I’m sorry we all look like astronauts, but you’ll be seeing us properly once we know there’s no one with a gun going to take a potshot at us. Now, just remind me of your name, will you, love? Oh, and put your seat belt on, there’s a good girl.’

  To do that, she had to put down the knife, which disappeared into a cardboard tube as easily as if it had never been anywhere near my jugular. She fumbled with the buckle. I helped. She was dithering. I took her hand and squeezed it, smiling at her as if we were friends.

  It was all so normal.

  The drive wasn’t. We hurtled through the lanes as if the roads had been cleared for us. It occurred to me that perhaps they had. Or perhaps there was a mighty whiffler, in the form of another police vehicle, preparing our way. Funny how Shakespeare comes in useful when otherwise you might be in hysterical tears. Or weeing yourself.

  Actually, finding a loo took precedence over everything.

  Elaine greeted me as I emerged to wash my hands: it felt a bit as if we were in a clip from the classic TV series, Cagney and Lacey, with me as the Sharon Gless character. Until I saw myself in the mirror. All my carefully applied make-up had disappeared or streaked and my hair, not at its best after all the oils and water it had been involved in, looked as if it had been sat on.

  ‘Wash it all off. Start again. Here.’ To my astonishment Elaine shoved a make-up bag into my hands. ‘Come on, you’ve got this gorgeous guy kicking his heels and you want him to see you looking like a wet weekend? Rufus, of course,’ she said, not quite patiently.

  ‘Rufus? What’s he doing here?’

  Arms akimbo, she gaped at me: ‘Maybe he tagged along just for the fun. Actually, Jane, he’s a witness, isn’t he? – he might even have been a victim of the white van man had things gone badly.’

  ‘Oh. Of course.’

  ‘Don’t sound so damned enthusiastic. And get some of that slap on. You really do look gross, you know.’

  I obeyed.

  ‘If only I knew that girl’s name! She’s still not telling us.’

  ‘The poor kid seems frozen inside,’ I said.

  ‘Hm. Hope it’s not Stockholm Syndrome. No, she doesn’t like men, does she? Hang on, your eyes are lopsided. That’s better. I’m in a huge battle, Jane: she’s a sex worker and is almost certainly here illegally. That means some of my colleagues see her as a law-breaker. I see her as a victim, and want to find out who trafficked her. But her pulling a knife on you doesn’t help.’

  ‘It was just lying around. Once it was in her hand it seemed to hypnotise her.’

  ‘Make sure you put that in your statement. Come on, never heard of a comb? Appearance is all to do with morale, see. Or do I mean the other way round? On a regular basis my colleagues see things – well, like that stuff in the woods … One of the things that helps them keep going is putting on a good front. I’m sure you’ve done it times out of number yourself, what with Simon and now this job of yours. That’s better. Come on.’ She was halfway out of the door.

  I was still staring at the mirror. ‘What now?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘We get a very quick statement from her – and her name, with luck. Not my job – I’ve got trained interviewers on to it. Sooner rather than later she’ll need a medical examination, but as I told her I’m in favour of getting her to a women’s refuge or a safe house for a few hours’ sleep. You look as if you could do with the same once someone’s jotted down your immortal words. There’s a B & B we often use but it’s a bit late for them.’

  ‘I’ll sleep in a cell if you want.’ Actually, the way the adrenaline was pumping, I might never sleep again.

  ‘I think Petrie might have a few words to say about that. Come on: someone’s organising coffee.’

  All this about Rufus was confusing me. We’d had a nice meal. We’d talked. We’d got involved in a charade that with hindsight was deeply embarrassing. It might have saved our lives, though. I must think of it as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. No. Not after what mouth-to-mouth had done to Will.

  The room rocked.

  ‘OK – my office now.’ She grabbed my elbow and propelled me to her goldfish bowl. She dug in her desk. ‘Here – this is strictly against the rules, but you need something.’ The something was a glug of whisk
y in a disposable plastic tumbler. ‘Fire-in-your-belly time. And one of these.’

  A KitKat bar. Was I to take the lot or just one of the four fingers? I halved it and pushed the other half towards her. ‘Thanks. Elaine, what in hell is going on? I feel as if I’ve found one piece of someone else’s jigsaw and don’t know what to do with it.’

  ‘Join the club. Actually, you’ve been supplying us with quite a lot of pieces without necessarily knowing what they were. Sometimes I didn’t know which puzzle they fitted either. I need you to go through everything with me but maybe, for both our sakes, not tonight.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘After seventeen hours at work, your brain starts squeaking.’

  I made a few mouse-like noises. ‘Mine too.’

  ‘Quite. OK, fifteen minutes max with Jason so he can record your thoughts while everything’s fresh in your mind, and then you and Rufus can go – wherever you and Rufus want to go. Now, the guvnor – no, not Tom, but the Lord High Executioner – wants to talk to me now. Ten minutes ago. Whenever. Come on: I’ll introduce you to Jason.’

  Jason had been quick and efficient, as befitted a man with a first in English from Manchester, information I gleaned as he took me to where they’d lodged Rufus, in a soft interview room. He wasn’t pacing up and down cursing the fact he had to wait for me. He was sprawling on an institutional sofa deeply asleep. There was nowhere else to sit except on the same sofa. I sat – collapsed – beside him and, despite my misgivings, was asleep within moments.

  So we did have breakfast together, in the romantic setting of McDonald’s. If Elaine had hoped we’d be engaging in deep and passionate conversation, she’d have been disappointed. For a start, we were all too aware that we’d woken with foul mouths and cricked necks and stiff limbs almost entangled with each other and not known how to deal with the situation. Knowing it was all recorded on CCTV didn’t make it any better, and it was hard to believe that no one was sniggering at us behind their hands as we asked to be released from the room.

  But now the prosaic, even mundane, conversation was actually quite intimate in its own way. Some of it involved his deciding what to tell Lules when he phoned her. Yes, we’d had supper together after a chance meeting. No, to anything else – not until she could see and feel he was safe, I suggested.

  ‘You could come with me to collect her? I’d really like that,’ he ventured over his second horrible coffee. He added, as if groping for a plausible excuse, ‘So she can see you’re safe too?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said a little too briskly, perhaps, adding truthfully, ‘I’d love to.’ Or did that sound as if I was making unwarranted assumptions? And then I realised it wasn’t assumptions about Rufus and me I was making. ‘How would Lules feel about it, though?’

  He looked puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not thinking very clearly, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Who would, after last night?’

  ‘The thing is, Lules doesn’t know anything about last night until you tell her. She might violently object to your having anything to do with me outside school.’

  ‘No. She’s very fond of you.’

  ‘But she loves you. Oh, I know you get all the sulks and tantrums, but that’s because she loves you. And when you love someone you don’t necessarily want anyone else muscling in.’

  ‘So you think – you think I should consult her before I take someone out for a meal? Come on, Jane!’

  ‘I didn’t quite say that. But she’s been through a lot recently. She might need the status quo just as it is, at the moment, at least.’ I folded the paper napkin with stupid precision. ‘Conversely – and I’m just looking at scenarios here – Lules might get the notion that just because we get on well she’d love me as her new stepmother. And she might’ – I paused awkwardly – ‘want to push things along too fast? Or if things didn’t work out well between us, she could feel betrayed.’

  ‘Lots of ifs, Jane! But you’re right – on all counts. But one thing I must say – I haven’t enjoyed a meal out with someone so much in years.’ He gave a questioning smile.

  ‘Me neither! I’d love another soon – one that didn’t end quite as last night’s did.’

  ‘Though of course we did sleep together,’ he pointed out.

  We were in no hurry to get back to the police station, talking idly as if we’d suddenly become old friends.

  ‘See you later?’ he asked as we slowed to a stop outside the entrance.

  ‘Only if you wait a long time,’ Elaine declared cheerfully as she came up behind us. ‘Jane and I have a giant jigsaw to put together. I could probably manage without her, but I doubt if she’d ever forgive me if I even tried. Oh, and there’s a small matter of going through your statement, Jane – there are bits that didn’t make complete sense, which young Jason should have spotted at the time, to be honest.’

  ‘I’m surprised she made any sense at all,’ Rufus observed. ‘I wasn’t particularly coherent and she had much more trauma to deal with than I did.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d best be off then, Jane – one thing Lules hates is when I haven’t shaved. I’ll call you – right? Early this evening, provided Elaine’s finished with you by then,’ he added dryly.

  We kissed socially, left, right and then added one on the lips for luck. As we parted I saw mirrored in his eyes my hopes and fears. But we both managed a smile and a casual wave.

  As if that could possibly fool Elaine.

  At least I could divert her. ‘That poor girl – the one who rather interrupted our evening: how is she? And do you know her name yet?’

  She signed me in and gave me a name tag. ‘She’s very traumatised, isn’t she? They’ve messed with her head even more than they messed with her body. Which is a lot, believe me – she may require surgery. The problem is she’d been trafficked from, we think, Albania. As I said yesterday, in some people’s eyes she’s an illegal immigrant who’s been doing illegal things and therefore deserves everything she gets. You’d be amazed how few prosecutions have been undertaken under the Modern Slavery Act. Sometimes I think my colleagues lose sight of people as people! Women, more particularly. Those guys washing cars – their story is being believed, of course, because they’re men doing manly things. Hey, remind me to show you the pics of where they were being kept.’ She punched the lift button as if it was personally responsible. ‘As for women – oh, there are always excuses. Lack of evidence. Trails leading nowhere. Leaky borders – well, that’s one excuse I do understand. But I want that woman to be recognised as a slave and I want the guys who trafficked her and used her put away for a very long time.’ The lift doors closed gently as if reluctant to inflame her anger further. ‘The doctor says she’s twenty at most. Hard to tell exactly because of poor dental health, poor diet, drug use. But she won’t give her name in case – in case of God knows what. She’s afraid of giving anything away in case the traffickers take it out on her family. In fact, she insists she’d rather die than go back. She’s on suicide watch at the refuge,’ she concluded, breaking off to check her texts. ‘Blast! Now I know I said you had to go through your statement with Jason again, but it seems he’s not going to be in for a bit yet.’

  ‘What about that giant jigsaw we were going to fix?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Might have to delay that too. Do you fancy a bit of retail therapy while you wait? The Outlet?’

  Any moment I might scream. But I kept my voice under control. Just about. ‘I might fancy it but I’m not going to shop. I’ve got an enormous amount of work to do to prepare for another day away from Wray Episcopi School. The forensic guy couldn’t work overtime because of the budget – where have we both heard that before? – so we can’t use the school. Again. So when Jason eventually rolls up, then, and only then, will I come back. And maybe then we can talk about the bits of jigsaw.’

  ‘It’s not like you to take that tone!’

  ‘I’m not taking any tone – I’m simply saying I’m as overworked as you are. But I just want … a bit of space
, Elaine. My own space. Even if it’s bounded by a car.’

  ‘Shouldn’t that be “bounded by a nutshell”? So long as you don’t get bad dreams. OK. I’ll authorise security to let your car out.’ She handed over the keys without enthusiasm – or more as if she half-wanted to say something.

  ‘You know I’d stay if I could be of any use. But I’m not one of your team and I know there’s information I can’t be privy to,’ I offered, as a verbal olive branch. ‘But there is a lot of stuff – maybe no more than gossip – that you might want to hear. About Ken and Joy, for starters.’

  ‘I’ll shout you lunch. Scout’s honour,’ she added over her shoulder as she dashed off.

  This week or next?

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I really didn’t want to go anywhere near Wray Episcopi in general and its school in particular, but felt honour-bound to do what I’d said, in my strop, I was going to do. It was a nice enough morning anyway, which was an excuse for taking a slightly longer way round to give me time to get my courage up. And to summon up a smile. A car I was sure was Ian Cooper’s outside Donna’s house. How lovely to be free enough of baggage to do exactly what you wanted to do when you wanted to do it. Though I wasn’t so sure what Donna’s nan would make of the situation.

  I also passed the van belonging to young Aaron, the builder who’d repaired the school roof. It was parked outside a cottage about the same size as Donna’s. Something pinged in my head. What if he knew Kayleigh and Cecily and the tweeting sister and one of them had got him to leave something behind when he repaired the roof? What if the forensic examiner and I had actually been sitting on the problem? Wasn’t there some movie where a character put shrimps on a curtain rail? Could that be all the problem was? Heavens, why hadn’t it occurred to me when I’d caught the whiff of something last night?

  Luck might be on my side. He emerged, blearily.