Cutting Edge

Forty-four

“Where’s Calvin?”

Resnick looked up from changing the tape. “He’s being questioned by detectives.”

“About me?”

“Not directly, no.”

“I want to see him.”

“Afterwards.”

“After what?”

Resnick pressed record and pause simultaneously. “I think what you were about to tell us was to do with the legal action, why you didn’t proceed.”

Sarah Leonard’s blue uniform hung down from the handle of the bathroom door, ballpoint pens poking from the breast pockets, one side weighed down by a stethoscope, a notebook, her watch still pinned to the front, beneath her badge.

Sarah knelt in the bath, running the water from the mixer shower over her face and hair. She was thinking about Tim Fletcher, how easy he was to talk to, how she might have found him attractive if only he were a little taller. God! Sarah laughed up into the spray of water. If only for Ian Carew’s body, Tim Fletcher’s personality, his mind. She closed her eyes tight and brought the shower rose closer to her face.

“You can’t tell me that man did what he did through anything other than guilt. It had already happened when he was in charge of those machines one time before. And he’d been proved guilty for it. Why else pay all that money out of court? He knew, Imrie, he knew that was his responsibility, same as what happened to me, and he couldn’t live with it no better than I could. Except he didn’t actually know the pain, he didn’t feel the pain, he just knew he caused it and that’s why he swallowed all them pills and then took a razor to his wrists on account he didn’t want to take any more chances. Risk something going wrong, not when it was his own life he was dealing with. No.”

Ridgemount dampened his bottom lip with his tongue; Resnick signaled to Patel, who poured some more water and left it within reach of Ridgemount’s right hand.

“I thought that was some kind of sign. I thought that meant that man had accepted all the blame to himself and now it was going to be over. Except the dreams never left me and I could never get back to sleeping normal like anyone else and all that did leave me was my wife and my little girl. So I knew …” looking at Resnick, searching his face, “I knew that wasn’t the end of it. I knew there had to be something more.

“See, it would have been better if they had killed me, there on that operating table, if they had killed me dead, ’cause what I was, what I had become, that was worse than being dead. But God had left me alive and I had to find a way of dealing with that and I knew I couldn’t turn round and do what that man had done and take my own life, not after God had sent me through that fire and brought me out on the other side.”

“I thought, they are all at fault. What they got to do is accept their blame.”

“And I waited and meantime the pains in my head got worse and still they done nothing, so little by little I took it on myself to find out where they were, what they were doing, and they were all, most of them, carrying right on like before as if nothing had ever took place. And I kept watching them, them who’d been in there with me during my operation, I watched them and I waited for something to tell me what I could do that might finally ease my pain.”

“Me and Calvin, we lived our life best we could and all the while I was waiting for some kind of sign.”

Sarah watched the pan, waiting until the boiling milk had bubbled almost to the rim before whisking it off the gas and pouring it into the mug, spooning in three heaped teaspoonfuls of hot chocolate and stirring hard. On the way over to the sink she licked the pieces of dark chocolate away from the spoon before dropping it into the bowl. She collected her book and carried book and chocolate up towards the bedroom. She was just settling into bed, wondering if she might get to the end of her chapter before falling asleep when she heard the glass break.

Her first thought, as she sat up in bed, it was someone on the way home from the pub, kids coming out of the Marcus Garvey Center; once before a neighbor across the street had a brick thrown through her window, some people’s idea of fun.

But this had not been at the front, the sound had come from the back.

Sarah stood at the door to the bedroom, eased the door open and held her breath. Nothing moved below: no light save that from the street which filtered through the front room curtains and the pebbled glass above the front door.

Still she waited.

It need not have been her house at all, it could as easily have been next door. It could have been someone throwing stones from the field. If it had been a burglar, it was possible she had already frightened him off; or he could be down there, waiting. For what? Part of her wanted to turn round and get back into bed, pull the covers up over her head. Whatever she had downstairs that was worth taking, let him take it. Not for the first time, she cursed herself for not having a phone point put in the bedroom. Even so, surely that’s what she should do, go downstairs and telephone the police.

“What they all still had”-sweat was beading along Ridgemount’s lip, running into the corners of his eyes and making them sting-“was their liberty to do as they chose, have affairs with other women, other men, go off and study, anything they liked and I was trapped by what had happened to me and what had happened to me was their fault.

“So I watched that nurse, the way he would come on laughing and joking all the time with the other nurses and patients, always letting on like there was never a care in the world. No, you’re fine, nothing’s going to happen to you. Nothing’s going to go wrong, you take my word for it, you trust me, this operation’s going to be the best thing ever happened to you, put another ten years on your active life.”

“And that young woman, the one whose job it was to make sure that anesthetic machine’s working right, she’s up to the university making out she’s so smart and clever, going to get herself a degree and everything, thinks she’s so wonderful, couldn’t see the machine going wrong.”

“All of them, what I wanted, what I was waiting for, a way to take their liberty away without taking a life, ’cause the taking of a life, that’s wrong. That don’t help anything.”

“How about Amanda Hooson?” Resnick asked. “What about her life?”

“Now that,” Ridgemount said, looking straight at him, “that was never meant to happen. I never knew anyone could struggle so. That was a mistake.”

“Sarah!”

The second she heard the voice, she knew whose it was and she rocked sideways against the door, a single low breath expelled from her mouth.

“Shall I come up to you or are you coming down to me?” He was leaning against the wall between the front door and the foot of the stairs. In the faint light she could see only his face at all clearly and as she got closer she saw that he was no longer wearing the same clothes as before, but black jeans and a black cotton sweater. Hands in his pockets as he leaned there, nonchalant.

“You see,” he smiled, “I said it wasn’t over.”

“What? What isn’t over? What?”

He came towards her and she backed up the stairs, four or five treads, before thinking this is the last thing I have to do, show him I’m afraid. So she went back down, didn’t stop until she was face to face with him, more of a sneer than a smile at the corner of his mouth, she could see that now.

“What do you want?”

Before she could react, he grabbed the front of her dressing gown and pulled hard, throwing her off balance, hard into him. She pushed herself clear, one hand clawing for his face, but he only laughed and pulled again twice with the hand that had never let go and her dressing gown was wide open, the shirt that she wore in bed with its buttons torn away.

“What I want,” Carew grinned, “the same as you.”

Sarah kicked out with her bare leg, fast but not quite fast enough, her shin catching him high inside the thigh, and as he hopped back she aimed her elbow at his face, felt it strike something and barged past him towards the front room and the phone.

He caught her below the waist and flung her round, the knuckles at the back of one hand grazed against the iron of the fireplace and her head and shoulder thumped against the side of the easy chair. He jerked her again and lost his grip and she fell heavily on the base of her spine and cried out with the sharpness of the pain.

“Now,” Carew said, not unpleasantly, “why don’t we stop all this silly pretending?”

“When exactly was it,” Resnick asked, “that you realized what you had to do?”

Ridgemount’s gaze lifted from the table. “When I read it in the paper, what bad been done to that young doctor, the way they described how he’d been cut, with a scalpel, cut about the legs so’s likely he’d never walk again. That’s when I knew. Joseph, I said to myself, that’s what you have to do.”

Resnick’s pulse was beginning to race. He had to be sure. “This young doctor, what was his name?”

Ridgemount looked surprised. “Fletcher. Tim Fletcher.”

“You weren’t responsible for that attack?”

Ridgemount glanced over towards Patel, shook his head. “Haven’t I been telling you?”

“Wait,” said Resnick, on his feet, keeping his voice as calm as he was able, “with Mr. Ridgemount. Let him continue with his statement. I’ll send someone else along.”

He closed the door firmly and then began to run towards the CID room.

“Now isn’t this better,” Carew was saying, “instead of all that fighting? And over what?”

He was lying next to her, part on top of her, one leg and the weight of his chest pinning her down, pressing her back against the front of the settee. The roughness of the cheap carpet was rubbing against her leg, against her hip, and her other leg was going numb. Carew was playing with her breast, pausing every now and then to kiss her mouth, the side of her face, to slide his tongue inside her ear.

“And just wait,” he smiled, “it’ll get a good deal better.” He lowered his mouth to her face and licked a line from below her ear around towards her chin. “That’s what I could never understand about Karen. Silly little cow! Didn’t know a good thing when she felt one. Dumping me for Fletcher. Pathetic!” Carew slid his tongue inside Sarah’s ear and slowly out again. “Still,” he grinned, “soon cut him down to size.”

The two cars cornered too quickly, almost colliding with one another as they swung into Carew’s street. A third was pulling up in the road at the rear, not wanting to get caught out the same way a second time. Divine hammered hard at the door and when a sleepy medical student opened it warily, he barged him aside and went in, Naylor close behind.

Sitting in the second car next to Lynn Kellogg, Resnick thought, he isn’t going to be there, eating a take-away and watching television, it isn’t going to be that easy.

“When we picked Carew up,” Resnick said, “he was chatting up one of the nurses, Sarah Leonard …”

“You think he might be out with her?”

“I don’t think we should wait around on the off chance they come wandering back, hand in hand. Get through to the station, see if her address is on file. If not, check with the hospital. Don’t let them give you no for an answer.”

Resnick got out of the car and walked along the pavement to where Divine and Naylor were now standing.

Carew readjusted his weight, used his knees to ease Sarah’s legs further apart.

“Aah,” he breathed, closing his eyes. “This is going to be beautiful.” Opening them again, face so close to hers, “Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Sarah said.

Ian Carew smiled and sank himself down.

Sarah braced the fingers of both hands against his forehead, found his eyes with her thumbs and pressed as hard as she could. Carew screamed and arched back and she continued to squeeze her thumbs into the sockets, rocking him off balance without slackening her grip and managing, almost, to roll him over, till he punched her in the stomach and she couldn’t prevent one of her hands from jerking away and then the other. He screamed at her and this time she hooked her thumbs into the corners of his mouth and pulled. Carew swung up and knocked her clear, forcing her away with his legs; stumbling to his feet then, jeans around his thighs, unable to keep his hands from rubbing at his eyes.

Sarah pushed at him hard, stiff-armed, and as he fell backwards she raced for the door. She had the top bolt back and was working on the second, the one that always stuck, when Carew staggered into the hall. For a moment she froze, thinking he was going to come for her, but instead he went in the other direction, towards the scullery where he had broken in; a wave of relief swept through her and she ran back into the front room for the phone.

He hadn’t gone away: he had gone to the kitchen for a knife.

His words came with difficulty, jagged spaces in between.

“You bitch … fucking stupid … bitch … I’m going to … kill you for that.”

Sarah screamed.

She grabbed at a cushion and held it out in front of herself as Carew closed in with the knife. She continued to scream, loud enough to be heard in the street.

Resnick charged the front door with his shoulder and very little happened. He and Lynn barged it together and it shifted against its hinges but wasn’t about to give. Resnick lifted the green dustbin from the front yard and yelled a warning just before putting it through the glass of the front window.

The screaming stopped.

Lynn Kellogg was in the room first, in and racing towards the back of the house, following Carew. “Lynn!” Resnick called. “Let him go!” He knew Divine and Naylor were out there somewhere, covering the back alley. To his right, Sarah Leonard swayed and Resnick moved swiftly to her, fearing she might fall. “Are you all right?” he asked, sensing the emptiness of the words as he spoke them. Sarah nodded once and shivered as she pulled the cushion close against herself and hugged it tight. Resnick picked up the phone to call for a doctor, the ambulance.

As he ran, Carew clawed at the jeans that were slipping back down his legs. He couldn’t properly see where he was going and he was rocking from side to side, scraping himself against the chain-link fence, grazing his leg against the brickwork of the wall.

Lynn saw the discarded pram in time and hurdled over it, cursing herself for being so unfit, aware that by rights Divine and Naylor were waiting to pick Carew up but knowing how much she wanted him herself.

Thirty yards ahead of her, Carew’s toe caught the edge of a sodden mattress and he lost his footing and that was all she needed. When she took hold of him, one arm in a choke hold round his neck, her free hand tightening on his right wrist, Carew still had the kitchen knife gripped tight. Lynn shifted her balance so that one of her knees was pressing hard into the small of Carew’s back and then, as she would say later in her report, she applied the necessary pressure to the prisoner’s arm to make him drop the weapon he was carrying.

The flicker of light came from Divine’s torch as he and Naylor hurried towards her.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. Yes. Thank you. I’ll be fine.”

Resnick stood over her, hesitating. The sound of the ambulance siren could be heard as it approached along the main road heading into the city.

Sarah Leonard had refastened her dressing gown and sat the cushion in her lap; she had only looked at Resnick once in the past few moments. She looked up again now as Kevin Naylor came into the room from the rear of the house. “We’ve got him, sir. Lynn got him. And a knife. He’s on his way back to the station.”

“Good work.”

Sarah started to shake then, cry tears of relief. Resnick knelt alongside her and held her until the ambulance arrived and the paramedics helped her away.

“Make sure nothing gets moved till forensic are through. Just in case we can’t prove what he did to Fletcher, I want to make this one stick.”

“The woman, sir. No danger she won’t, like, give evidence?”

“No danger at all.”

Resnick unbolted the front door and let himself out on to the street as the ambulance pulled clear. In the space before the next police vehicles arrived it was quiet. Neighbors had retreated back into their own lives, the News at Ten. Above the upward slope of houses he could see the amber light that hung over the center of the city. He thought about Ridgemount about to spend his first night in a police cell and the things he’d felt driven to do to find peace. He thought about Sarah Leonard, the next time she was in her house alone, the response to every unfamiliar sound, each opening of the door. And somewhere, in some small hotel or rented room, Elaine. He left the car where it was and began to walk, hands in his pockets, wanting something to clear the air, wanting rain.