Split Second

CHAPTER SEVEN

Andrew

Boxing Day and he found Val at the kitchen table, her chin on her hand, elbow propped, staring out to the back garden. Papers strewn about, Post-it notes and pens. It looked like she was preparing a report for work. She often brought work home, responsible for training across all the departments at the town hall. But he knew this current project was personal: the burial of their son.

‘Do you need a hand with that?’

She turned, took a breath like someone coming round from a sleep. Dragged herself into the present. The here and now. ‘No, it’s okay. Just think,’ she said, ‘they’re out there today, opening their presents, stuffing their faces, swigging-’ She broke off. ‘Do they think they can get away with it!’ Her face was mobile with emotion, her eyes burning. ‘How can they sleep? How can they function? The families must know.’

He thought of the figures in the garden, the lad rearing up and away from Jason. He rubbed at his face. ‘They’ll find them,’ he said. He went and stood behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, kissed the top of her head.

‘You okay if I go for a walk?’

‘Sure.’ She put her hand up to squeeze his.

His shoes were still soaked. He thought of the journey home on Christmas Eve, swigging the brandy, stepping in puddles.

Outside, the wind cut into his face, icy blasts that drove heavy, brass-tinted clouds across the sky. Frost glimmered on the fences and shrubs. Black ice gleamed malevolent on the tarmac.

He had no sense of where he was going, no route planned out. He just walked and walked until his body warmed and the aching in his limbs made him feel halfway alive.

The house was quiet on his return. On the table, Val’s lists. The bewildering range of things to do for Thursday. Val’s neat print marched in serried ranks down the page.

NURSERY – BUY TREE

TAKE WATERING CAN/SPADES

FELIX – FLUTE

REHEARSE BEARERS (COLIN, NICK,

HARRY, MARLON)

FEES FOR CELEBRANT

B &B DETAILS

BAR

DECOR FOR CC

She always made lists. Andrew remembered the long period of limbo waiting for Jason to come home from hospital. The first few weeks not knowing if he would or not. Val constantly refining the lists of clothing and equipment. Not daring to buy anything for long enough. Colin and Izzie had offered them plenty of baby gear, but they decided not to have it in the house until they knew for certain that Jason would pull through.

In the incubator they used special materials; ordinary fabric would have been intolerably harsh against his raw, fragile skin.

They watched him grow from a scrap of skin and bones and a flickering heart, the whole of him smaller than Andrew’s hand, to a young man with his dragon tattoo and muddy-blond tresses and lazy smile.

‘He’s so laid back, he’s horizontal,’ Val had complained one summer when she’d come in from work to find Jason, then fifteen, still in his pyjamas, scoffing cereal and playing on the games console. ‘Why won’t he get a job?’

‘He doesn’t need the money,’ Andrew suggested.

‘It’s not about the money,’ she said, ‘but the experience.’

‘What – working in a fast-food joint for crap wages?’ Andrew said. He was with Jason on this one.

‘He’d learn something. Customer service, how to operate a till. You worked when you were his age, didn’t you, at the golf club.’

‘Collecting glasses. Everyone worked back then. There were more jobs, less pocket money.’

‘That’s where we’ve gone wrong,’ she said darkly.

‘Hey.’ He put his arms around her waist, drew her close. ‘We’ve not gone wrong; he’s a lovely boy. Lazy as sin, but lovely with it.’

‘Well if he’s here all day, he can do more at home.’ And she’d followed through, leaving lists of chores, instructions for the washing machine, the hoovering, reminders about the dishwasher and tidying his room.

When Val surfaced, he expected her to ask him where he’d been, why he’d taken so long, but she just said, ‘Hi. There’s some minestrone if you want. Colin and Izzie called. And your mum rang. They’ve got someone for the bar at the cricket club.’ They were hiring the cricket club for the celebration after the funeral.

‘Good,’ he said.

‘Your suit. It’ll need cleaning.’

‘Right. I can take it,’ he said. She was doing it all. He knew keeping busy, tackling the practical tasks, helped her cope, but he could at least do some of the running around. ‘I can get the tree too. A rowan.’ He steeled himself. ‘Drop his clothes off.’ Just the thought of it, that they were picking out burial garments for his eighteen-year-old son, lit the anger inside. The anger was good, though, hot and clean and fierce. Far better than the fog of grey desolation, the marsh of despair that threatened to suck him under.

‘Okay,’ Val said. ‘They’re on his bed.’

He went upstairs and stood outside Jason’s door. He felt the rage burn, pushing his heart harder, searing his guts, curling his hands into fists. Then came the pictures in his head. Those fists slamming into the feral lad, smashing his face, beating him again and again until there was nothing left. Hands throttling the girl, choking the life from her. A knife for the bug-eyed one, plunging it into him again and again, watching the shock and then the pain and fear fill those eyes. Hurting them, hurting them so they knew what it felt like. Killing them, over and over and over again.

Louise

Louise stared at the television, shock radiating through her like lightning. Police had released CCTV images of the three young people wanted for questioning on suspicion of Jason Barnes’ murder. They showed them getting on a bus. Two lads and a girl. The boys wore hoodies, and the girl’s face was obscured too, by the fur-trimmed hood on her jacket. Then on to the screen flashed a sequence of three e-fit portraits, and the voice-over was describing them. The broadcast moved on to the next story.

Louise was trembling. She grabbed her cigarettes and went outside. Seeing them on the camera like that pushed her close to imagining what had come after, when they had chased Luke down Kingsway, pictures in her head that she censored. Redacted they called it nowadays, didn’t they? Big black lines through intelligence and military reports. Big black clots in Luke’s brain. Redacted.

She smoked her cigarette down to the filter and tasted the bitter scorch on her tongue. She resisted the temptation to light up another, and went to the corner shop to see if the pictures were in the lunchtime edition. She needn’t have wondered: it was on the sandwich board outside. EXCLUSIVE: GOOD SAMARITAN MURDER – SUSPECTS PICS.

‘All right, Louise,’ said Omar at the counter. ‘How is he?’

‘Same, thanks.’ She picked up the paper.

‘Scum,’ Omar said, nodding at the front page, ‘that’s what they are, scum.’

It didn’t really help.

The e-fit drawings were clearer than anything you could make out on the CCTV that had been shown. The CCTV could have been anyone, but the sketches were distinctive. The big lad had popping-out eyes, it said he had red hair, and the other one had a mean mouth, he looked a bit wizened. The girl was nice-looking, a heart-shaped face.

Sian was coming into the shop as Louise was leaving. She blushed as she said hello.

‘How’s your mum?’ Louise asked, force of habit.

‘Not bad, but her legs are up again,’ Sian stammered. ‘If there’s anything I can get you-’

Louise cut her off. ‘We’re fine, love, ta. Thanks all the same.’

Back home, Louise made a coffee and read the article through carefully. Luke was only mentioned twice. Luke Murray (16) was being kicked by the assailants when Jason Barnes (18) came to his aid. And, Murray remains seriously ill but stable in hospital. He has not regained consciousness since the brutal attack.

She wondered whether to text Ruby, but decided to leave it. Ruby had stayed a second night at Becky’s, coming back in between to change and to visit the hospital.

Her phone went. Declan. ‘How’s Luke?’ he asked.

Louise told him there had been no change.

Declan had been into hospital once and it had been painful to see. He’d blushed deep red on arrival and hadn’t the wherewithal to chat along to an unresponsive body on a bed. He’d barely exchanged a word with Louise. When he left, she told him that as soon as they had any news she’d let him know and he could come visit again. Letting him off the hook.

Time was the two lads had been inseparable, egging each other on, both drawn to mischief, hot-headed, impulsive. Both prone to giving cheek. But in the last couple of years Declan had started messing with pills, and nowadays he was out of his skull half the time, spending his life in front of the Xbox cocooned in a haze of chemicals.

‘Are you at home? Can I knock on?’

Louise felt a spike of unease. Why on earth would Declan want to visit her? ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘See you in a bit.’

When he arrived, she offered him coffee but he just wanted milk. His eyes were watery and red-rimmed, his lips chapped, his hair straggly and unkempt. Louise felt a wave of sadness for him. He’d lost his way. His life a narrow rut growing deeper, his health precarious. He’d be old by thirty at this rate. And what alternatives were there? There was no one to guide him, to champion him. His mum as lost as he was. He’d never work, not legally; he hadn’t the discipline or the self-belief, let alone any marketable skills. It was such an awful waste.

He nodded at the paper. ‘You seen the pictures?’

‘Yes, have you?’

‘Only on telly.’ He leaned closer. ‘This one,’ he pointed to the bigger lad, ‘I think it’s Gazza.’

Louise felt her blood chill, cold spackle her skin. ‘Who?’

‘Gazza; his real name’s Tom Garrington. Don’t know him really, like, but Luke had a run-in with him a while back.’

‘When? What?’ Her rapid-fire questions disconcerted Declan and she bit her tongue as she watched him struggle to focus.

‘A while back.’

‘How long? When?’

‘Erm…’

‘Summer?’

‘No. Halloween.’

‘What happened?’

Declan puffed out his cheeks, released a slow breath. He looked hounded, head hanging low between his shoulders, eyes averted.

‘Declan, whatever it is, it’s fine. This could be really important.’

‘There was a party – this empty house off Braithwaite.’ One of the roads on the estate. ‘Everyone went. They was all, like, off their heads, man.’ He slid a frightened glance her way. ‘There was a lot of gear.’

‘Gear?’

‘Stuff.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Pills and coke and that meow stuff.’

Oh God. ‘Go on.’

‘That Gazza, it was his birthday, he was with this girl. Well, dunno if he was with her but he was next to her, slagging her off, she was crying. She was off her face, man.’

‘This girl?’ Louise touched the picture in the paper.

‘Nah. Anyway, he’s saying a lot of shit, how he’s going to cut her up and stuff, and Luke just tells him to pack it in. Then he’s yelling at Luke, like well stressed, man, abuse and that. Luke’s ready to thump him. Gazza goes for him but Luke trips him up and he falls in all this crap, like where people have left pizza boxes and dead drinks and fag ends and that. Well rank. Everyone laughs, man.’ Declan tugged at a strand of greasy hair, looking guilty. ‘Then Luke gets his phone out, “say cheese”, takes a video, like. We had to leave then. Luke sent the file round. Put it online.’

For this. For this they had kicked him half to death. Pity and grief and dismay crept through her.

‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’

Declan flushed. ‘It were ages ago. I’d forgotten.’

‘Was this other guy there?’ She tapped the paper.

‘Dunno.’

‘You need to tell the police.’

He sighed, slumped, stared at her, mouth hanging open.

She fought the anger heating her flesh and resisted the impulse to grab hold of him and shake him and tell him to frame his bloody self. ‘Yes, everything you’ve told me.’

‘I’ve not much credit left.’

She bit her tongue. ‘Wait.’ She dialled the number the police had given her, her pulse racing, her stomach knotted and a great weight crushing her heart.

You’d have thought the police would have been falling over themselves to hear what Declan had to say, but they kept them hanging around the reception bit at the police station long enough. Louise gave the gist of why they were there to three separate people one after the other, like it was a memory test.

Finally DC Illingworth, a woman about Louise’s age, glowing with a violent tan and dressed in a purple pinstripe shirt and black slacks, took them into a small room and sat them down. It was just a little box, table and four practical chairs, steel frames and padded seats.

DC Illingworth apologized for the cold and turned on the convector heater. Once she’d established who they were – Luke’s mother, Luke’s friend – and taken their dates of birth and addresses, she asked Declan if he would like Louise to stay or whether he’d prefer to talk to her on his own.

‘She can stay,’ he said ungraciously. Louise could see he was slightly embarrassed at being given the choice. She was relieved. Declan needed a steady hand to keep him on track at the best of times. His mind wandered, making him prone to telling rambling stories that never quite reached their destination. She wondered how stoned he was today and thought about asking for a coffee to sharpen him up, but held back.

‘You recognized one of the e-fits in the paper?’ The detective drew out a copy of the newspaper from the file at her elbow.

‘That one.’ Declan pointed to one of the faces. ‘Tom Garrington.’

‘How do you know him?’

Louise waited while Declan told his story, listening for any deviation from what he’d said earlier. DC Illingworth interrupted a couple of times to ask questions, and each time Declan had to gear himself up to find his thread again. Louise stiffened with impatience. Her legs ached and she realized that she had them twisted and was pressing the top of one foot against the other calf, cutting off her blood supply.

To her credit, the police officer was very patient with the lad and didn’t try rushing him. When Declan got to the end – their swift departure from the party in the empty house and Luke sending the clip round – she turned to Louise. ‘This is what Declan told you?’

‘Yes,’ Louise turned to Declan, ‘but you missed out the drugs.’

Spots reddened on his cheeks and he gave a little twist of his head, sliding his eyes sideways like she was a fool for bringing it up.

‘We need you to be completely honest, Declan, completely open; don’t leave anything out,’ the officer said.

‘’Kay.’ He nodded, bit at a fingernail.

‘So tell me about the drugs.’

‘Just there was a lot there, all sorts. Everyone was high, you know.’

DC Illingworth sat forward. ‘Do you still have a copy of the video Luke took?’

Declan nodded. Louise felt sick. She didn’t want to watch it. She folded her arms and looked down as Declan found the file and passed his phone to the detective.

As DC Illingworth played the clip, Louise could hear the mess of chatter and music, then Luke’s voice clear and close, bubbling with laughter, ‘Say cheese.’

Oh you bloody idiot, Luke. You sweet, stupid idiot. When would he wake up? When would she hear him talk again? Would he be able to talk? Were those to be his last ever recorded words, ‘Say cheese’?

‘I need to make a copy of this,’ the woman told Declan, ‘but it is very helpful to have it.’

Louise understood that it would back up Declan’s story. Declan wasn’t exactly a straight-up guy who you’d buy a used car from, but this was proof.

‘You’ll arrest him?’ She gestured to the phone still in Illingworth’s hand.

‘If our enquiries…’ The detective was hedging her bets.

‘But that’s proof!’ Louise objected.

‘It’s proof of this specific incident.’

‘But that’s why!’ Louise heard her own voice high and tight. Too loud in the small space. ‘That’s why they attacked him.’

‘You’re probably right, but we have to follow procedures. We have to be methodical, meticulous-’

Louise snorted and shook her head, wired with exasperation.

‘If we don’t stick to the procedures, gather sound evidence and build a watertight case, then no one gets justice. And that’s what we’re all here for.’ Illingworth held Louise’s stare.

‘How long?’

The detective shook her head. ‘It’s an impossible question.’

It’s an impossible bloody situation, Louise thought. ‘I need a break.’ She stood up so abruptly that she had to reach out and catch the chair to stop it falling. ‘Is there anywhere I can smoke?’

‘I’ll take you outside. You can stay here, Declan.’ The boy was halfway to his feet. Probably gagging himself. Well he can wait, Louise thought, and then hated the meanness in her.

The detective left her in a small courtyard where a shelter covered a metal bench. Her hand was shaking as she lit her cigarette. Rage. At the delays, at the plod-plod way of dealing with it all. At the whole bloody world. She closed her eyes and smoked.

You’ll give yourself a heart attack. Her grandma’s words to her grandad when the miners’ strike was on and he’d be yelling at the television: ‘I was there; it wasn’t like that, pack of lies!’ The news covered running battles between the police and the pickets who travelled to support the strikers. ‘They were beating us up!’ He’d throw his arms up, his face deep red. ‘A load of southerners working for the Tories, no idea about mining, about what this means, about those communities.’

‘Sit down before you fall down,’ Grandma had said. ‘Why are you so surprised? We all know whose side the press are on, most of them.’

He had fallen down eventually. Louise had found him on the kitchen floor, coffee spilt. Only five weeks after he was made redundant. There’d been a terrible split in the union ranks in the run-up to the firm’s closure. Militants, ‘bloody Trots’ as he called them, dividing the membership, running dirty-tricks campaigns and smears, accusing some of the moderates of being moles or spies, in bed with management,

‘Divide and rule,’ he sighed one night when Louise was helping him fit new vinyl flooring in the bathroom. ‘Oldest trick in the book, and now we’re doing it to ourselves.’

His anger had turned sour and dirty in those last few months, and after he was out of a job he became bitter. Like the fight had gone and all he could do was brood.

Now Louise realized he was probably depressed. Even with all his learning and reading, all his political analysis, the job had defined him. He was a docker, his comrades were dockers, and when that was taken from him, he was a hollow man. His wife and Louise and Luke weren’t enough to complete him.

Her cigarette finished, Louise took a moment gazing upwards, where the shreds of white and pink cloud trapped the sunset against the deep blue of the sky. There was a gap in the rumble of traffic and no other sound broke the silence. No drill or dog or music or voice. As if the city held its breath. Then the drone recommenced, and bone-weary, she went back to join Declan.

She was calmer by the time they were through. Her anger had settled to a slow, smouldering burn deep in her belly rather than the roar and crackle of flames in her head. She asked to speak to DC Illingworth on her own.

‘I need to know what’s going on,’ she said, keeping her voice level. ‘No one’s telling me anything. I didn’t know those pictures would be in the paper. No one said Luke had been on the bus. I should be told these things, not have to read about it in the papers.’

She sensed a reserve creep into the police officer’s manner, a shutter coming down. ‘You have a family liaison officer?’

‘You tell me,’ said Louise. ‘I was given a name and number but I’ve never been able to reach them. They’ve not phoned me back.’

‘Has anybody been to the house?’

‘No. Look, I don’t need babysitting, but I shouldn’t be the last to know.’

‘I agree.’ The detective gave a thin smile. ‘Let me check this out. You don’t mind waiting?’

‘No.’ Waiting was her new way of life. Maybe she should have brought her patchwork with her.

She texted Ruby to tell her she was running late and to call at Angie’s if she needed anything.

After ten minutes, Illingworth bustled back in, all efficiency. ‘Right. I think there’s been some crossed wires at our end, probably the result of the holidays: officers on leave and so on. So, I’ve had a word with DI Brigg, the senior investigating officer, and he’s happy for me to be your designated point of contact. It makes sense, as we’ve met already. Any developments that we are able to make public, I’ll let you know. You understand there will be times when we are made aware of new evidence or information but need to keep it confidential.’

‘Okay.’ She could hardly argue otherwise.

‘Here’s my card, that’s my direct number.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And thanks for coming in today with Declan.’

‘Only way to get him here,’ Louise told her.

‘It really has been invaluable. Thank you, Louise.’ She smiled. Bright and friendly. Laying it on a bit thick, Louise thought. Anxious to smooth over the cock-up, get Louise onside. Stop her complaining. The police had a grubby history of failures in dealing with ethnicminority victims, a past they were eager to see dead and buried. Someone like Louise raising a fuss about her experience, given that Luke was a mixed-race victim, would be terrible PR for them. The possibility that she might need to do that, if things didn’t improve, if Illingworth didn’t keep her word, was there. A strategy. She’d go to the papers if she had to. They were all desperate to talk to her as it was. Them and the TV news crews clustered round the house. How does it feel, Mrs Murray? Louise, has Luke opened his eyes yet? What would you like to say to our viewers? Pushing their business cards through the letter box. Shouting about exclusives, and Hear the victim’s point of view. Yes, she’d do whatever she had to do to make sure Luke got the justice he deserved.