Kiss and Die

Chapter 51

‘Police officer down,’ Detective Inspector Johnny Mann shouted into the radio.

The noise all around him was deafening.

‘I said police officer down. For fuck’s sake get an ambulance here.’

The woman clutched her little girl to her as she stood staring down at Mann and Tammy who was convulsing on the pavement amidst the nodding puppies, replica toys, t-shirts and sunglasses.

‘At the junction of Saigon Street. There could be other casualties…I don’t know…Just move it.’

Mann knelt over Tammy’s unconscious body and pushed his fingers over the wound in her chest to try to stop the bleeding. ‘Give me that. Quick…’ he shouted to the woman who was still holding the white silk shawl she had been haggling over. ‘Another one…more. Quick! Quick!’

She looked around, flustered, threw it to him. He pressed the fabric into the wound. Above the screams of frightened tourists, Mann heard Ng shouting for him.

‘Over here, Ng. It’s Tammy, she’s hurt.’

Ng crouched beside them for a second. Shrimp ran past. Ng called out to him: ‘Check if there’s any sign of them, Shrimp.’

‘I’m on it,’ Shrimp answered, leaping over the smashed stalls, dodging the screaming tourists who were caught in the middle of it, frantic to get away. He caught sight of the backs of running gang members and increased his pace. As he exited out from the tunnel of stalls he heard voices. He came face to face with an Indian boy holding the bloody knife in his shaking hand.

Shrimp pinned him to the ground and read him his rights.

The ambulance screamed down Saigon Street and came to a halt as its lights filled the night sky above the bright stalls.

Mann felt Tammy’s pulse…nothing. He knelt over her, locked out his arms, placed one hand above the other over her chest. Tammy’s body bounced under Mann’s pressure as he pressed hard and fast rapid presses onto her chest. Blood seeped through his fingers turning the white silk shawl crimson.