Case One (2 page)

Reverend Michaels was just inside and he turned at Charlie's sudden entrance.

“Charlie? You been running again? How do you expect to sing for the Lord if you're always out of breath?”

“Sorry, Reverend,” Charlie said. “I was— I didn't want to be late.”

“Okay, well you'd better take a minute to catch up with yourself, then we'll start properly, okay?”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “Thanks.”

And as he started along the aisle towards the rest of the choir he was glad to be safely in the one place he knew neither Tyler Smith or any of the other Kaddy Boys would come looking for him.

2.

TAMLIN ROAD
19:09 HRS

Holly Blades was running. She was trying to keep up with PC Oz Sitwell, watching for puddles and kerbs in the darkness, dodging the other people on the pavement, and trying to pay attention to the radio traffic in her earpiece, all at the same time.

“
Delta Mike from Nine-Five. Re Gatemead Road. Confirm one injured party. Teenage female in collision with HGV. Urgent medical attention requested. Over.
”

“
Nine-Five, received. Ambulance service on way. ETA three to four minutes.
”

“
Understood. Three-One-Seven from Nine-Five, location please?
”

A couple of paces ahead Holly saw Oz Sitwell raise a hand to his radio without breaking stride: “Nine-Five from Three-One-Seven. We're on Tamlin Street now, Sarge. Two minutes…”

“
Received. Eight-Three-Two from Nine-Five…
”

Holly stopped listening in order to concentrate on running. Below her uniform beret her ponytail swished against the fabric of her stab vest in time with her strides. Even though she'd been wearing the bulky vest and heavy utility belt almost every day for the last two weeks they still seemed to weigh as much as they had when she'd first put them on. Weren't you supposed to get used to them the more you wore them?

Oz cast a glance back towards her and Holly knew he was checking she was still there. She made an extra effort and pushed harder, catching up with him as they rounded a corner and emerged onto the main road. He hardly seemed to be breathing any faster than normal, but Holly knew he was a regular half-marathon runner, so this was only a jog for him.

“Warmed up yet?” Oz asked with a grin.

“Just a bit,” Holly panted. Five minutes ago she'd been complaining about being cold as they walked their patrol across the Cadogan Estate. Not any more.

Oz gestured. “Just down there,” he said.

Ahead Holly could see the blue lights of Sergeant Stafford's patrol car. It blocked half the road and there was a long line of stationary cars behind it. Others were just barely crawling past in the opposite direction, out of Weston city centre.

Holly and Oz covered another thirty metres at a run and then Oz put his hand out, slowing them to a jog, then a brisk walking pace for the last few metres. When Holly looked at him quizzically he nodded to the crowd of people ahead.

“Try not to turn up out of breath,” he said. “Panics people. Get your breath first, then you can ask questions, yeah?”

Holly nodded. “Right.”

“Okay, go on then.” He gestured her to go first.

Holly hesitated. She couldn't even see over the crowd and although her uniform made her look bigger than she was, she'd have much preferred just to follow in Oz's six-foot-two wake. But she was out in front now and, with Oz waiting, there was little choice but to go for it.

“Excuse me! Stand back please,” Holly called out, trying to sound as convincing as she could. “Stand
back
please!”

For a moment nothing happened, but then a man at the rear of the crowd looked round, saw the two officers and stepped aside. A woman did the same and then, miraculously, the crowd was parting.

Perhaps they only saw the uniform, Holly thought – not the sixteen year old inside it – but she couldn't help feeling a pleasing sense of authority as she carved her way to the front of the crowd. And then she saw the broken figure in the road and the pleasure evaporated in an instant.

The girl was lying on the tarmac, shielded from the traffic by the patrol car. A foil survival blanket was draped over her body and Sergeant Eddie Stafford was kneeling beside her, one hand pressing a wound dressing to her arm, the other making sure her head didn't move. There was blood trickling slowly from the girl's nose and ear, but for some reason what drew Holly's attention most were the two bare feet she could see protruding from the survival blanket.

“Sarge…?” Holly said, uncertain what to do now.

Stafford looked up, first at Holly, then at Oz. When he spoke it was to Oz and his tone was urgent but calm.

“We need to get the ambulance through,” he said and nodded towards the traffic. “See if you can shift that lot and get it in, okay?”

“Got it,” Oz said and went off to deal with the vehicles.

Stafford looked to Holly.

“Anyone else here yet?”

“No, Sarge. I haven't seen anyone.”

“Okay, come here.”

Stafford was in his late forties with short-cropped, greying hair. He had a reputation for being tough but fair – maybe tougher than he was fair when it came to Trainee Police Officers like Holly – but at least you knew he was the real thing: still on the street after nearly thirty years in the Job.

“Have you dealt with an injured person before?” Stafford asked as Holly moved closer.

“Yes, Sarge. Sort of.”

The “sort of” was an old lady who'd tripped on some steps and gashed her knee in the fall. All Holly had done was apply a gauze pad to the bleeding and stay with the woman till the ambulance came. This was different though, and Holly knew it.

“Right, come round here then,” Stafford said. “Kneel down.”

Holly did as she was told. When she was in position, Stafford took her hand and placed it on the wound dressing on the girl's arm. “Press there, keep the pressure on. Use your other hand to stabilise her head. Don't let it move, okay?”

“Yes, Sarge.”

“Right.”

Stafford straightened up with a grunt and stepped away, moving immediately to deal with the crowd of onlookers and speak to the man who was sitting on the kerb some metres away: the driver of the lorry.

Holly looked down at the girl's face. Her skin was pale, almost grey, and streaked with make-up. A purple-pink swelling from the collision was already distorting her cheekbone and right eye.

What was she? Holly wondered. Thirteen? Fourteen, maybe? She seemed very frail, very damaged and only the weak bubbling of blood at her nostril gave any sign that she was still breathing.

“It's all right,” Holly said to the girl. “My name's Holly. You'll be okay.”

Then, in the distance, she heard the two-tone siren of an ambulance. It was getting closer.

“That's the ambulance,” Holly told the girl. “They'll be here soon. Don't worry.”

On the damp tarmac the girl didn't move.

3

Drew Alford saw them coming as they rounded the corner of the tower block, still running but only at a jog now. None of the gang was what you'd call fit and they'd run all the way from the minimart, a good quarter of a mile.

Skank and Rizza were both pretty light, but Tyler Smith – bigger and heavier than either of them – was down to a fast walk. As soon as he saw Alford he slowed and then stopped altogether, breathing hard from the unaccustomed exertion.

“All right?” Alford asked as he came closer. “How'd it go?”

Skank had a grin on his face.

“Nah, no problem,” Rizza said. “Piece of piss.”

“You didn't say nothing, right ­– to the owner?”

Skank shook his head, still grinning. He was a skinny, grubby-looking figure with acne and about a dozen whiskers on his chin. “Didn't need to,” he said. “You shoulda seen his face when we start tipping stuff over. Then Ty does the windows and the woman's all screaming:
‘Don't do that! Don't do that! I know what you want!'
”

“Where's the hammer?” Alford asked, turning to Tyler.

“Here,” Tyler said and showed him the hammer concealed under his hoodie.

“Okay, stash it somewhere in case we need it again.”

Alford looked at his watch, thought for a moment, then addressed them all. “Okay, anyone asks, we were all down Jak's offie from quarter past six. I went in for the fags then we stayed round the side, okay? Hanging out.”

“You an' all?” Tyler asked.

“Course me an' all,” Alford said irritably. “That way we all say the same thing, dickhead.”

Tyler scowled at the insult but said nothing else.

“So what you want to do now?” Skank asked, hunching into his coat. Now that they'd stopped running and the adrenalin rush was evaporating he was starting to feel the chill.

“You can do what you want,” Alford said. “I'm going in. It's too fucking cold to hang about here any more. Tomorrow, though, right? I'll text you.”

“Okay,” Skank said. “I might get a burger, down Patrick's.” He nudged Rizza. “You wanna come?”

“Sure, whatever,” Rizza said.

“Stay away from the minimart,” Alford warned them as they turned to move off.

“What about you?” he asked Tyler as the others walked away.

Tyler shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “If you're going home I could walk back with you.”

“All right, come on then,” Alford said.

Together they headed towards the looming shape of Penrice House, the windows of its fifteen storeys lit yellow in the cold winter's night sky. As they crossed the road towards it Tyler said: “So how much we gonna get?”

“For what?”

“You know – for doing the shop.”

“Say it a bit louder,” Alford said. “Tell everyone.”

Tyler glanced quickly along the road and realised they were alone. He scowled then because he hated it when Drew made him look stupid.

“So how much?” he asked again.

“I dunno yet. Depends, don't it?”

“What if he doesn't give us anything?”

“He will. Anyway, it's not about that.”

“What do you mean? I thought—”

“It was a try-out,” Alford said. “Prove he can take us seriously. After this there's gonna be more.
That's
where we're gonna be earning for real.”

He glanced at Tyler ­– never the brightest of bulbs – to see if he'd got it, but from the uncertain look on Tyler's face it was clear he was still struggling with the idea.

“Never mind,” Alford told him. “Let me worry about that. Just remember what I said. We were all down the offie, right? All of us.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tyler said.

“Right. Come on then, let's get a fucking move on before the cops think about looking to see who's around.”

And with that he shoved his hands in his pockets and quickened their pace towards the entrance to the tower block.

4.

GATEMEAD ROAD
19:16 HRS

The paramedics had arrived two or three minutes ago and, doing as she'd been told, Holly continued to hold the wound dressing in place on the girl's arm while they did their job. One of the paramedics – a woman in her thirties called Blanche – was carefully fitting a neck support to stabilise the girl's head. The other, named Sancho, was monitoring the girl's stats with a stethoscope in his ears.

“BP's one-twenty over sixty,” he said. “Pulse weak – you on apprenticeship then?” He glanced over at Holly so she'd know he was talking to her.

“A trainee, yeah,” Holly nodded. Like all the other TPOs she hated being called an apprentice. She thought it made them sound less official, but the label had stuck when the TPO scheme was announced and that was how most people thought of them: apprentice coppers.

“Shallow breath sounds on the right. Query pneumothorax,” Sancho said to Blanche. Then: “First RTC?”

“What? Oh. First serious one, yeah,” Holly said. It still struck her as odd, the way all emergency service personnel jumped in and out of banter mode, no matter how serious the situation.

Sancho nodded. “Don't worry,” he said. “This isn't so bad. If she'd gone under the wheels you'd be on shovel duty by now.”

“Knock it off, Sancho,” Blanche said, gruffly. She had finished fixing the neck support and was straightening up. “Ignore him, love,” she said to Holly. “Everyone knows we don't use shovels.”

“Right,” Holly said.

“Nah – it's wallpaper scrapers.”

Sancho chuckled at the gag and Holly knew she'd have to let that one go. TPOs were fair game as far as the police regs were concerned, and now that seemed to extend to the paramedics as well.

When Blanche went off to get a spinal board, Sancho changed position. “Let me have a look at her arm,” he said.

Holly moved her hand from the wound dressing and Sancho gently peeled it off. The flesh of the upper arm was sliced down to the yellow of the bone, but there was remarkably little blood: just a bit of oozing now that the pressure had been released.

“Not too bad,” Sancho said. “She'll have a nice scar. But that'll be the least of her worries.”

“Is—” Holly hesitated. “Will she be okay?” It was the question she'd been waiting to ask since the paramedics had arrived.

Sancho seemed to register the fact that Holly was genuine in her concern and treated it seriously.

“Once we get her stabilised she'll be fine,” he said, strangely definite in his words.

He took a fresh dressing from the kit beside him and leaned a little closer to Holly, lowering his voice. “Best to remember there's always a chance the victim still knows what's going on around them,” he said. “Even like this. Best to stay positive.”

Holly nodded, matching his whisper. “So she isn't…?”

“She could have a fractured skull, and her vitals aren't great. We'll see. You want to check her pockets, see if she's got any ID?”