Bright Spark (13 page)

“I’m
Marjorie,” said Sharon’s mother from the front door. “Bring it straight in.”

As
the driver retreated to his van with a diffident shrug, Sharon briefly
considered beating the youth to death as a good use for the adrenaline surging
through her limbs. She’d already rehearsed the take-down in her mind. Balls to
being lady-like, she heard the instructor yelling, kick him hard in the balls.

“There
you are, dear. Hope we’re not putting you out too much. I’ve just ordered a few
things to keep us going.”

Sharon
counted slowly to ten, replacing the
aerosol in the glove box and swallowing her exasperation. The driver had
stacked half a dozen boxes on the kerb and she could dimly hear a washing
machine spinning. Her mother had made herself at home.

“I’ve
made you a sandwich, dear. Given your curtains a good wash, too.”

       One
thousand, two hundred and ninety seven. One thousand, two hundred and ninety
eight. A volley of punches to the face and a couple of kicks to the ribs and
happy sack from a demented screw couldn’t stop him counting. One thousand, two
hundred and ninety nine. Mum, a screaming cinder stalking his dreams, couldn’t
stop him counting. One thousand, three hundred and counting. Psycho cops and
leg-smashing, hurtling cars couldn’t stop him counting. One thousand, three
hundred and one. Counting things pinned them in place, kept away the chaos for
seconds, minutes, hours and days that would always belong to him.

       “Fuckin’
get me seen now, ya saggy old bitch.”

But
how could he count with that racket going on? It was worse than being run over.
The fluorescent tube seemed to bulge, he blinked and the stipples in the
ceiling tiles jumbled themselves again. Now they’d formed the face of Jesus to
distract him. Jesus shouldn’t pout and blow kisses like that. Didn’t the
stipples want to be counted? How would the place endure if nobody knew how many
stipples there were? The man outside must have shared his outrage but really
wasn’t helping.

Nobody
liked to wait, but some people couldn’t handle it. The nice doctor had made it
easier for him though. Somebody very like him had spumed pain and rage on the
tarmac, in an ambulance, on a trolley under pigeon-shit and strip lighting and
blank faces. Eyes flaring open with every jolt, all senses amplified, drinking
in the sweat-sodden weight of the policemen pinning his chest, the powder-blue
gloves and emerald collars of paramedics too wise to make eye contact, and the
outrageous voltage of pain arcing from his leg.

Then
a sharp pen had jabbed a full stop onto the page. A white coat. A bright light
in his eyes. A hand too cool and dry for the weather and his rage. A hot pinch
to the bunched muscle of his shoulder. A bulge in his stomach. A metallic
tickling at the back of his throat. Eyelids fluttered and fell shut. Then
numbness, bliss, a tailor-made dementia he’d pay top dollar for if it wasn’t
being given away for free.

 “Fuckin’
stupid old bitch. Fuckin’ find a doctor meself.”

Something
hit the floor outside. Metal clanged against metal, plastic rolled and bounced
on linoleum. A chatter of squawking consternation rose up, as if a hawk had
broken into a rookery. The balding, paunchy copper in the fluorescent flak
jacket glanced towards the racket, breathed in deeply then sighed it all out
again, a gesture that seemed incomplete without a cigarette to match his
yellowed fingertips.

The
walls of the cubicle bowed in and out with the rise and fall of his chest. If a
thought bubble had appeared above his head, Firth could have filled it in: how
many piece-of-shit scrotes can I deal with in one day and can I think of a good
reason not to graze my knuckles on this next one? Then there’s always the
fucking paperwork. Cops always brought a signature whinge about paperwork into
any situation.

The
copper’s skinnier and younger colleague shifted his weight from foot to foot as
he hitched the curtains aside and peered out. Firth closed his eyes and the
young cop became a spaniel, whimpering and fussing for the chance of new sport.

“This
one will need gripping too,” said the spaniel, looking over his shoulder at the
fat old collie his colleague had become.

Another
sigh from the collie, a flash of canines as he bit his lip. “We’d better sort
it. I’ll stay here. Can’t leave a murder suspect unattended, even if he is
ripped to the tits. You know what to do but don’t get yourself snotted.”

Yipping
and with one paw on the baton clipped to his belt, the spaniel bounded away.
Firth tried and failed to prop himself on one elbow and settled for peering
over the rail to which he was handcuffed. You had to relish the highs because
they never lasted. He couldn’t miss the floorshow they’d ever so kindly laid on
for him.

“Go
get him, Fido,” he drawled. “Burn that mother down.”

“What
did you say, fuck-nuts?” said the collie, glancing at his watch.

Through
the parted curtains, Firth watched the soap opera unfold, everybody knowing
their parts and playing them to perfection. Centre-stage with Burberry cap and
leisurewear, the somehow familiar figure bouncing on his toes, throwing arms
out wide and shoulders forwards, pointing with both hands at the patina of
crusted blood and bruising on his face. As supporting actress, a matronly woman
in powder-blue scrubs hovered on the edge of punching range, steepled hands
alternating between reasoning and warding. Joining from stage left was the
young copper, with the measured gait and squared shoulders of a gunslinger.

The
familiar figure flicked a glance towards the skinnier cop and made eye contact
with Firth. When the lovely drug wore off, Firth knew he would recognise him.
Maybe he wouldn’t have to wait that long. He had an inkling that this was not a
nice person to know.

“There
you fuckin’ are,” shouted the angry man, forgetting the nurse and launching
himself towards the cubicle. Perhaps he wanted to help count the stipples on
the ceiling.

The
skinnier cop raised his hands and said something Firth couldn’t hear. The angry
man had plenty of inertia, barely taking his eyes of Firth as he swatted the
cop’s hands away and raked a hand across his stunned face in one continuous
lunge.

With
speed and grace he must have been saving for a special occasion, the paunchy
cop glided into the angry man’s path, used his left palm to neatly bat aside
another swinging swipe from the right, and shoved the heel of his right hand
into the angry man’s nose with a noise like damp, splintering wood.

Now
a puppet whose strings had been cut, the angry man dropped to the floor in a
jumble of limbs, bellowing outrage. The paunchy cop stood squarely, shaking his
hand and peering indignantly at the scuffs on his palm. He seemed about to
complain and then thought better of it as the skinnier cop dropped to the floor
to wrestle the angry man onto his belly. An arm had been levered into a lock
before he gathered his wits and resumed the fight. By this point, he was face
down on the floor, smearing blood and snot across the linoleum and spluttering ‘fucks’.

The
paunchy cop reluctantly dropped to one knee, jabbed a knuckle into the pit
beneath the angry man’s ear, hard enough to squeeze the nose against the floor,
and whispered something. In a heartbeat, the rage evaporated and the skinny cop
ratcheted the cuffs onto pliant wrists.

“There’s
a good lad, Kevin,” said the paunchy cop, “nice and calm now. No more fucking
me about.”

“You’re
under arrest for affray,” began the skinnier cop, sucking back blood from a
split lip with one hand and fumbling his pocket-book out of a pocket with the
other. “You do not have to say anything…..”

“Amen
to that,” said the paunchy cop, interrupting. “But he will have to say very
sorry with sugar on top to one or two people if he wants some medical
attention.”

“….but
it may harm your defence…”

“Listen,
son. Balls to all that. Just get it written up right and get that lip looked
at. I think you and me are here for a while with these clowns. That means a bit
of OT and you’ll want some compo from this wanker too.

“‘Scuse
me, Sister,” he continued, examining his right palm. “You got a plaster for
this?”

“And
you’re sure about the address, Rob?”

“No.
But that’s where the Probation Service have him lodged, according to LIO.”

“And
he’s been properly nicked for a relevant, arrestable offence?”

“By
me at 1223 hours, not at the premises I’m after searching.”

“Couldn’t
you just hit him with your stick? Why did you have to use a car?”

“Not
ideal, but it did stop him running. Silly bastard made me break a sweat but
nobody cries about that. Don’t get me started on my bunions. It’s just not
fair.”

“So
how long will he be out of the game?”

“Christ
knows. Bed rest with free drugs has got to appeal more than a concrete bunk and
sweaty cops shouting at you.”

“Balls.”

“Indeed.”

“Right,
well, give the hospital some stick. Find somebody who’s pro and get him
discharged pronto. Little prick’s messed up my wall chart.”

“Tossing
his flat’s a good way to fill some time.”

“Mmm.
Yes. Your warrant. And you’re looking for?” D.I. Ray Newbould held his fountain
pen poised millimetres above the signature space on the search form and flexed
his eyebrows.

Just
read the bloody thing, thought Harkness. I’ve typed it all out in black and
white. Oh, hang on – you already have. You just need to make me go through the
motions to show your mettle and cover yourself.  Here I am, freshly suited and
booted, having detained the prime suspect, briefed the SIO and typed up a
Section 18 application in record time, and you’re brushing up on your
management skills.

“Well
boss, I have reasonable grounds for suspecting there are, on the aforementioned
premises, items relating to the murders for which Mr Firth was arrested, or
relating to some other similar or connected arrestable offence. I’m thinking
clothing, footware, petrol, cigarette lighters and the like, but I’ll apply my
informed discretion as the situation demands. Within the confines of the
legislation, naturally.”

The
office seemed to shrink as the mercury climbed. Dingy as the room was, the
lights and VDU had been turned off to minimise heat. Harkness’s latest change
of clothes was already clinging to him and Newbould’s palms had blotted the
search form.

“Right.
Good.” Newbould signed the application emphatically enough to tear a gouge in
the carbon paper. “Here you go. OSU is waiting for you outside the flat. Found
‘em tossing it off, playing cards in the canteen. They’re on double bubble so
make sure you give them something to do.”

“Good
grief. You do leave the office now and again.”

“Keep
me posted. Oh, and while I think on, you’ve forgotten something.”

“A
peck on the cheek or something a little more committed?”

“This
arrest. Bit weak, isn’t it?”

“That’s
a bit harsh. I’ll grant you it’s circumstantial. For now.”

“I’m
worried it might stay that way. And you’ve got history with this chap.”

“I
know him well. That can only be good.”

“Or
it might blinker you. And play badly at court.”

Harkness
sat down again and crossed his arms. He sighed and looked for inspiration at
Newbould’s wall-chart, where errant lives had been ironed into linear form,
intersecting lines in definite, primary colours, chaos made to look like
causation. He admired and distrusted its neatness.

“Yes,”
he said, surprising himself. “It might do both. But look at it this way; Firth
will do for now.”

“Come
on, Rob. Try a bit harder. Pretend I’m a custody sergeant who doesn’t like you.
Come to think of it, none of them do.”

“I’ll
lead with the weak stuff, then. He’s a convicted arsonist stooging around the
scene of an arson attack. He runs when challenged.”

“I’d
run from you. You’ve got form for locking him away, and you’ve got a face like
a baboon’s arse right now.”

“It
gets better. Next, the attack may well have been aimed at Dale Murphy. As
you’ll know if you’ve had a go at that big pile of paper I left you, he’s the
prison officer once interviewed by this very department for knocking the
inmates about. One of them was Firth.”

“That
it?”

“Someone
had a scrap with Murphy in the local last night. Murphy hasn’t been seen since.
Not long afterwards, the house goes up. That someone might be Firth. We can’t
be sure ‘cause someone broke into the pub and had the CCTV footage away.
Someone also gave Slowey a thumping when he went there to follow up.”

“We
should get a grip of this ‘someone’. He’s a menace. In the meantime, I suppose
your version of ‘someone’ will do.”

“Is
that a vote of confidence?”

“You
know how it is, Rob. Sometimes you get to the polling station and can’t find a
candidate you actually like. So you just have to pick the one who looks the
most harmless.”

“You
should be a motivational speaker.”

“Enough
of this banter, then. You crack on with Firth. Do it by the book and don’t
embarrass me. Try to think of your next promotion board as well as your next
court appearance.”

“That
all?”

“I’m
not entirely convinced he’s our man so this enquiry will be proactively
horizon-scanning,” said Newbould, seeming pleased that he’d finally managed to
cram that phrase into a sentence. “Keep the enquiry up to date and that means
grow up and talk to Biddle.”

“Any
press interest yet?”

“Why
else would I still have my tie on? It’s like bloody Tenko in here.”

“Do
me a favour then. Get Firth’s and Murphy’s faces on the news channels. Any and
all sightings. Still need to prove they were both scrapping in that pub and
where they got to afterwards.”

“Already
done, Rob. I do read your stuff, eventually. Oh, and I nearly forgot something
else. Well, two quick things actually.”

Harkness
paused, half-standing.

“You
still look like shit. Do something with your face.”

“And?”

“Biddle’s
got Slowey’s services when he’s free. With my blessing. He’s less likely to get
hurt that way. If you want him back, talk to Biddle.”

Harkness
smiled beatifically and backed out of the office. He contemplated showing his
face in the enquiry office, being civil to Biddle and asking nicely for one of
the road-legal, fully functional cars that had doubtless been allocated to the
team by now. Then he cast his mind forward to his destination and decided that
the moribund Mondeo was far more in keeping, besides which nobody would want to
steal it and anyone vandalising it would struggle to make matters worse. In any
case, he didn’t have the time to log it back in and explain why he’d turned the
back end into half an accordion.

On
the odd occasion that Harkness had driven a truly desirable car, he’d
understood how an assemblage of metal, rubber and fossil fuel could be more
than just the sum of its parts. The sleek BMW he’d wangled as a courtesy car
when Hayley’s Mini had been in dry dock had been a symphony of opulent power,
with no discordant notes to detract from the melody. By contrast, the Mondeo
left him in no doubt that only an increasingly fragile chain of grating,
metallic linkages kept him in motion – every instrument in this vaudeville
orchestra pit was comically grating and mistimed.

The
tortured grinding of metal on metal and the hacking rattle from the exhaust
drowned out the noise of the traffic stacked up on Yarborough Road in the
thickening heat of early afternoon. For Lincoln, he knew he cut a fascinating
figure – a half-wrecked car driven by a singed, hulking ape in a suit was an
awfully long way from discreet. The car’s undercover days were certainly over.

On
Burton Road, the Mondeo crabbed past the car that had struck Firth, beached
on the pavement with a ‘police aware’ sticker across its spangled, bowed
windscreen. A face from the crowd that had surrounded Firth loomed, pointing,
over the shoulder of the local rag’s stringer, who spun to photograph Harkness
as he passed. Seconds too late, he smoothed away his angry frown and clamped
shut his gaping mouth; Neanderthal cop in a stock car was just the type to
brutalise a vulnerable suspect in a provincial paper anxious for spicy copy.

He
shrugged and rued the curse of clumsiness. Ham-fisted and handy with his fists
seemed to be inseparable concepts in the eyes of many of his peers, besides plenty
of suspects and their lawyers. Impulse-control, a psycho-therapist had
flippantly suggested after his first divorce and last ever marriage, was not a
way of manoeuvring spacecraft in low-earth orbit.

Things
not entirely meant kept happening anyway; and the intense concentration
required to persuade his long limbs to catch a ball or not smash pricy china
mugs was akin to the effort needed to avoid speaking his mind to a solicitor,
flooring a spitting, hateful criminal or turning down any sexual opportunity,
particularly the unlooked for and destructive ones. Perhaps he should just
resign himself to his reputation and allow himself to be feared; after all, it
was nearly the truth and a close enough cousin to respect to be useful in his
job.

The
Ermine estate stewed in the torpor that had sealed the city into its own
nacreous sphere. The better cars gleamed, outlined by tarmac bruises where
soapy water hadn’t quite evaporated away. A waft of burning meat found him, no
longer an aroma and forever a stench, an intimation of heat, idiocy and the corruption
of flesh. A lean child wearing only football shorts, flesh flashing white and
scarlet and alone save for a bull terrier panting under a bush, forlornly tried
and failed to keep a football aloft on a square of dead grass. Somewhere, as
ever, dance music thumped, this ground’s very own seismic pulse.

Queen
Victoria Road meandered through a landscape of near identical blocks of flats
and semi-detached houses. The sign for Pemberton Court had once again been torn
from its mounting but the police Sprinter van marked the spot nicely. Harkness
kerbed the Mondeo and killed the engine, putting the car briefly out of its
misery.

He
rolled up his sleeves and surveyed the scene. There seemed to be a studied
quality to the calmness that greeted him. A police van parked here would
generally provoke some smirking and jeering from the balconies above, and the
volume of the nearest music system would be cranked up to eleven. Instead,
nothing stirred and little could be heard save faint birdsong and the diesel
drone of the Sprinter.

He’d
got into the habit of pinpointing the nearest CCTV camera when he visited the
estate and waving at it to see if the operators at City Hall had found time to
watch their screens between yawning, scratching and brewing up. It took him
seconds to spot it this time, and he had to look upwards from its concrete
roots to where it sat, rotating periodically and blindly within a garland of
sycamore leaves. Intimate footage of the life-cycle of spiders would not help
his case, but at least the local drug dealers would benefit. He had a good mind
to write to the council.

Had
the crew of the Sprinter started without him? He peered through the driver’s
window; the front seats were unoccupied, the key was in the ignition, the
engine was running hot with its radiator fan spinning and the air conditioning
dial was fully on. Shaven heads above hunched shoulders bobbed in the passenger
compartment and he made out a low murmur of conversation.

The
van shook as someone stood up sharply, flinging playing cards into the air and
hitting their head on a luggage rack. Harkness found the crew door and yanked
it open. Four pairs of eyes stared back at him. Four cops sat at a folding
table, hands of cards spread out before them amidst a jumble of crisps, sweets,
loose change and bank notes. One stood, rubbing his head and biting his lip. A
pair of scuffed para boots were propped on the door frame at his eye level,
their owner peering at him through bifocals over a Dan Brown novel as he
lounged on a camp chair. All wore the black polo shirts and utility trousers of
the Operational Support Unit.

“Can
we help?” said the reader, dropping his feet and leaning forwards to show the
stripes embroidered onto his sleeves.

“I’m
the toss-off police. You’re all nicked. Unless I get a cut of your winnings.”

The
black-suited cops exchanged glances, used to being insulted but unused to
foregoing some form of retaliation. The sergeant hopped down onto the concrete,
yawned, adjusted his crotch and faced Harkness with hands on hips.

“You’ll
be DS Harkness then?” he said, making it sound more like a challenge than a
question. “I was told to look out for a lanky twat with a Hiroshima tan.”

“And
I expected Sergeant Bilko without the charm so neither of us is disappointed.”

“Hello
then, Rob. Nice to see you again.”

“Hello
yourself, Graham. Long time no see. Sorry I’m late but you know how it is.
Paperwork and so forth. See you managed to fill the time.”

“Couldn’t
start without you. Now you’re here, you should know we booked on at seven in
the a.m. and we’ve only got minutes left before we have to drive back to Boston. Unless you want to get into overtime.” He sniffed and drew a hand across his nose
which left behind a smirk.