Stone Cold Red Hot

Chapter twenty three

I kept my arm bent on the journey so the blood wouldn’t drip onto the seats. The dustbin lorry was making its way down my road so I got dropped at the end. I limped home, the rifle in my good hand, wrapped in its black plastic, like some gunfighter from a B-movie. All I needed was High Noon playing in the background or the whistling from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I’d never been able to work out the words to that one, always sounded like ‘who ate my lego’.

I didn’t feel much like a hero. I was wasted, battered and burnt. There were no townsfolk ready to pat my back and tip their hats. It seemed such a long walk home. And what was there to celebrate? A job done well? I argued to myself that I had done my best, that I had done what I could, that it wasn’t my fault that things had turned out so badly. I knew intellectually that my persistence and my wits had led me to uncover the truth about Jennifer. But she was dead, all I could bring her brother was her corpse and a story to shatter his world. As for the Ibrahims, whatever happened to their tormentors they had lost a child. Their son had been murdered. And a young policeman had died with him.

I shuffled past the dustbin lorry, avoiding the men who pulled the wheelie bins onto the automatic fork-lift at the back. My teeth ached in my mouth, my leg was pulsing with pain and my arm was aflame. I felt so sick. My face was wet. Stupid tears. I hadn’t any tissues. It was hard to get my key in the lock. I was cold too. I sniffed hard and tried again.

Once inside I used my good arm to push the gun on the high shelf in the hall, as I turned away it slid off and cracked me on the temple, sending a sickening sensation through me and I lost my temper.

“Stupid fucking thing,” I screamed and triggered a coughing fit. I wanted to get hold of it and smash it to bits, bang it on concrete until it was broken and bent but I was too hurt. I pushed it back up, crying with frustration now.

I went upstairs to the bathroom to examine my arm. I eased my jacket off. The tape recorder looked intact. I rewound it and played a fragment. Barely audible. It didn’t matter now. I wasn’t about to forget what she had said. I took off my fleece and my t-shirt, pausing each time the movements made the pain ripple and made me sway. Several pellets had lodged in my upper arm, one in the shoulder. They looked like bits of gravel. Blood had streamed from each of them and run down to soak my cuffs. Like long ago days, when I’d fallen off my roller skates and pebble-dashed my knees and sat wincing in the kitchen while my mother picked the grit out with tweezers and daubed the lot with sweet smelling Germolene. I collected the first aid kit and made my way gingerly down to the kitchen. I laid it all out on the table. Talking aloud I enumerated all my woes and cursed and swore while I sorted out the essential items and mixed up some disinfectant. I made tea and took two of the painkillers that the hospital had given me. Everything took me twice as long as the injuries made my left hand useless.

My arm was swelling, the pellets sinking deeper into puffy flesh and bruising edging the wounds. It was hot to the touch. I used the tweezers to dig out the bits letting myself howl and moan when it hurt. Which it did. A lot. Some of the fragments were sharp edged and tore at my skin as I pulled. Each wound bled afresh which I hoped would wash out any dirt. At last I thought they were all out. I dabbed disinfectant on the first one and screamed at the bite. I couldn’t bear it.

I mixed water from the kettle with salt and used that. That hurt too. Holding my breath I slathered Germoline around the holes and wrapped a large sterile dressing over the area. One-handed I couldn’t fasten it as snugly as I wanted, I’d ask Sheila to re-do it later. The huge dressing had been in the first aid box for ages, I’d always wondered why they had included it – it seemed so extreme. Now it had found a home.

In the lounge I poured myself a generous measure of brandy and sat on the sofa with my legs up. I sipped at the drink, the glow fierce in my tongue and warm as it went down my throat to my stomach. I gazed out at the garden, losing myself in the patterns of the tree branches against the sky. The sun edged its way into the garden and in through the large windows, it reached the sofa. I drained the brandy and got the cotton throw off the easy chair, lay down again and covered myself with it.

The sun was warm on my face and chest, amber light through my eyelids. I soaked in the glow as I spiralled into sleep.

I woke with a start. It was three o’clock. For a moment I panicked about picking the kids up until I remembered Ray’s assurance that he would do it. The phone was ringing, then the answerphone kicked in.

I sat up, balking at the pain as both my arm and leg protested. My mouth was dry, my tongue like a pumice stone, my throat felt raw. I could hear a man’s voice leaving a message. I got to my feet testing my weight on my damaged leg. I could walk if I took it slowly.

I got a glass of water in the kitchen and chugged it down. Digger looked at me expectantly then padded over. His wagging tail thumped against my leg and all the nerve endings shrieked in agony. I gasped aloud and gripped the sink until it felt safe to let go. Digger had slunk back under the table. I chucked him a dog biscuit. No hard feelings.

The light on the answerphone told me there were two messages. I played them back. Dianne had heard about the fire, from Ray, and would call round later to see how I was getting on. The second message was from the detectives following up an enquiry into the fire; they would be contacting me for a statement. Good. I wanted those thugs sent down. I wondered whether they had other witnesses; had anyone actually seen who threw the petrol bombs? Could they prosecute them all for involvement, conspiracy to endanger life or whatever? The tapes would help build the case, too. Had Mandy Bellows heard about it all yet? If she’d not been ill would action have been taken already and the fire not happened? If we’d got into the house more quickly, if we could have got in the front? If the police had sent a riot squad instead of two patrol cars? I realised what I was doing and shook my head. All the supposition in the world wouldn’t change the facts. Nor would feeling guilty.

I was half way upstairs when the phone rang again. I reached it and snatched it up before the tape could kick in.

“Hello?” I sounded croaky.

“Is that Sal?” A man’s voice.

“Yes.”

“It’s Stuart Bowker. We met the other night.”

“Oh, yes.” A blush washed my face and neck. Thank God he couldn’t see me.

“I…well, I hope you don’t mind me ringing. I got your number from Diane. I thought perhaps you might like to go for a meal sometime or to see a film or something.”

“Oh.” There was a horrible pause then we both spoke at once and both stopped. I tried again. “Well, I’m not really up to it at the moment.” It sounded like a brush off. Was it? I couldn’t work out what I felt except horribly embarrassed.

“OK,” he said, “maybe some other time. I’ll give you my number.”

“Right.” I had lost the power of articulate speech. He reeled it off but my biro wasn’t working. I pressed down hard on the paper instead.

We said goodbyes. I replaced the receiver and groaned to myself. Before I could move away it rang. Him again?

“Hello?”

It was the police. Arranging to take my statement? I didn’t catch what she was saying and had to ask her to repeat it.

“Your car, we’ve found your car, you reported it missing. Well, it’s turned up over in Sharston. I’m afraid it’s a write off, it’s completely burnt out. They must have doused it with petrol and set fire to it.” She gave me the address, I scratched that on the paper.

I didn’t have any great bond with my car, I never relished it or cherished it like some people do. None of my cars had ever had a name or been invested with a personality. A car was a car. I used it to get me, the kids and the shopping from A to B, that’s all. So I was surprised at my reaction. I think the news had just come at a bad time. I put down the phone and burst into tears. I found a box of tissues and curled myself into the armchair in the corner of the kitchen and bawled for England. Quarter of an hour later, with a nose like Rudolph’s, and only able to breathe with my mouth open, I disposed of all the crumpled tissues and packed away the first aid kit.

I heard the commotion as Ray, Tom and Maddie arrived back and took myself off to wash my face and put a dressing gown on. Using my teeth as well as my hand I managed to fashion a sling from an old scarf to reduce movement of my arm. When I joined them in the lounge Ray did a double take at my new injuries.

“What did you do, Mummy?”

“I burnt my leg,” I explained, “and then I fell off my bike.”

Ray looked askance. What the fuck had I been doing on my bike?

“How did you burn it? Were you playing with matches?”

“Was it a bonfire?” cried Tom.

“Sort of.”

“Why weren’t we there?”

My heart chilled at the thought.

“Oh, it wasn’t a proper bonfire, just burning some old paper.” I didn’t want to burden Maddie with the ugliness of the world. She already absorbed more than enough violence and misery via the news. I didn’t want to have to explain why people had persecuted the Ibrahims, why they had burnt their house and slaughtered their son and killed another young man into the bargain. Eventually she would ask those sort of questions and I would do my best to explain, but not yet.

At four o’clock the police showed up and I spent a grim hour giving them a statement and answering their questions. They wouldn’t tell me much about the case, only that they were making good progress and they were confident of being able to mount a prosecution. There would be an inquest, opened and adjourned until the Coroner’s Office had completed their enquiries.

I felt drained when they had gone and went up to sleep, telling Ray that I would eat later. I missed Diane who called and left me a bunch of freesia. The kids were in bed though still awake so I said goodnight to them.

I reheated spicy chick peas and toasted some pitta bread. Clumsily I filled the bread with the chick peas and added some creamy yoghurt. It was good to eat.

The evening paper had come. The fire was front page news. Two dead in horror inferno’. And beneath it, ‘Boy 6, and brave PC in arson tragedy’. Pictures of Carl Benson in his police uniform, a school photograph of the little boy, Mohammed Ismail Waberi, and another of the burnt out house. There were quotes from the fire service about their hostile reception, the brutality of the arson attack and the rescue by onlookers (they mentioned both Johnny and I by name) and crew of Mrs Ahmed and the two younger children. Carl Benson’s girlfriend was expecting their first child. A police spokesman mentioned the harassment the family had suffered and a council spokesperson sent condolences to the families involved and re-affirmed the council’s determination to stamp out racial harassment and to repossess tenancies from abusive tenants. A leader on the inside took up the issue.

I folded the paper up.

I could hear Ray hammering in the cellar. Someone had put the freesias in an old wine carafe. They were dwarfed. I found a smaller vase and transferred them. I couldn’t smell them, my sense of smell was less than perfect with all the weeping and wailing I’d done and the effects of the smoke. But maybe they had no fragrance, hot house flowers often don’t.

What now? I asked myself. I took the flowers into the lounge. I felt displaced, what would I do with the evening? Television didn’t appeal and I knew I’d never be able to concentrate on a book. Chores would be nearly impossible with my injuries.

What now? My cases were over to all intents and purposes though there would be the inquest as well as the trial to attend. It would be months before there was any sense of closure on that and for the Ibrahims their loss would never end. Mrs Benson would bury her son Carl, and her grandchild would never meet its father; he would be a story, a handful of photographs, newspaper clippings, a hero.

With luck, people like Mandy Bellows and the lawyers in her section would get greater powers to act quickly in cases of racial harassment. Lessons would be learnt. With enough will, policies and practises in the police and health and education would change too. And perhaps for Maddie’s generation things would be better, moving closer to the equal rights that any democracy must pursue.

And I had yet to tell Roger Pickering about Jennifer. Finally tell him where she had gone. Take away his hopes for a reunion. Kill her for him. And string his parents up beside her, accidental murderers. Destroy all his memories of growing up, corrupt the house and garden. Crucify him.

Or did I? I tried to imagine lying, colluding, denying all I knew but if I did the secret would haunt me, Jennifer would haunt me.

I would have to tell the police. Ask them to dig up the garden, find the proof. I could imagine the headlines; the press would go wild, comparing it to Fred and Rosemary West with their victims’ bodies in the cellar, or the soap-opera Brookside with the corpse under the patio. The ripple of shock would spread around Jennifer’s friends, Mrs Clerkenwell, the street.

At long last Roger would lay her bones to rest with proper ceremony. Hers and her child’s. Her grave would be marked and known, her fate identified. I did not know whether Roger would ever exorcise her ghost, whether the nightmares of his family would fade and if he would find peace.

When Jennifer had a resting place I would take the little mosaic vase and place it there.

I cleared my plate away. No two cases are ever the same. There would be more work coming in. Safer work, I hoped. With happier outcomes. Tomorrow I had to get my dressing changed on my leg. I’d ask them to look at my arm too, just to make sure there was no infection. I would ring Roger and see how Mrs Pickering was. I’d prepare invoices for Roger and for Mandy Bellows.

I shuddered at the thought of passing him my bill on Monday and then devastating him with the truth. No, I’d post the bill on to him later. I’d have to sort out someone I could refer him to, he’d need support, tons of it, to weather what was coming.

And now?

It was tricky dialling but I got through straight away, the number that the pencil rubbing revealed was legible.

“It’s Sal, I’ve been thinking it over. I’d like to do that, have a meal sometime. Can I ring you next week to fix it up?” By then I may be able to hold cutlery like a grown-up.

“Great. Yes, do. I’d like that.” He sounded delighted.

“OK. I’ll do that, then. Bye bye.”

“Bye.”

I grinned and felt a cloud of butterflies rise in my belly.

The future beckoned.