Suffer the Children (35 page)

‘Get off my car!’ calls Staffe.

Denness doesn’t shift an inch. He says, calm as you like, ‘There’s no need. You’re not going anywhere. Not till we’ve had a chat.’

‘I’ll go where I want and when. It’s nothing to do with you. I could still have that racial incitement pressed, you prick.’

Denness laughs. ‘I’m no prick, and you’re no fucking hero. And that’s why I’m here – to make sure you’ve got that straight.’ He stands up, probably measures a couple of inches taller than Staffe; a good ten years younger. His scars are more pink and Staffe can’t work out if this is a good or a bad thing. For sure, Denness has enough violent form, most of it gratuitous, and he would be a firm favourite in anybody’s book.

‘Move away from my car. I need to go somewhere.’

Denness moves to one side, sweeps his arm like Walter Raleigh and says, ‘Making the children suffer just a little bit more, hey?’ and as he registers the look of shock on Staffe’s face, he slowly spreads his arms, like an Angel of the North, and kicks out with his winklepicking foot – straight to Staffe’s groin.

Staffe bends double and sinks to his knees. The rough tar of the road cuts his knuckles as he falls and he gulps for air.

‘You must be very proud of yourself, Inspector.’

He looks up at Denness and sees him smile down at him, crossing his arms across his chest as he stamps down on Staffe’s torso.

‘I’ve got the measure of you, Denness.’ A sharp pain jags into Staffe’s lungs as he talks and he thinks Denness might have cracked a rib with the heel of his winklepicker. ‘You think you’re some kind of vigilante, cleaning up the streets, hey? But you’re a thug. Just a thug.’

‘Doing your job for you, is what we’re doing.’

‘We?’

Denness furrows his brow and kicks out at Staffe’s head but he manages to roll away and takes a blow on the shoulder. He scuttles away, on his backside, up against the tyre of the E-Type and Denness walks casually after him, still towering above. ‘She’s a good kid, Sally. Only thing she done wrong was get in the way of that dirty fuckin’ nonce. An’ you want to send her down. You fuckin’ muppet.’

Staffe looks into Denness’s eyes as he talks. He believes that he believes what he is saying. There might be some greater cause to be fought behind the common violence. But Staffe sees
something
else. It is something he sees ten times a day – on a good day. He tries to take in lungfuls of air, readying himself for the next blow, but each pocket of air pushes his lung into the cracked rib. He feels as if he might faint. ‘You hate me, don’t you, Ross?’

‘Why should I?’

‘I’m police. I’m a pig. I bang the good people up. Let the nonces get away. I’m on your case, aren’t I?’ The words wipe the smile off Denness’s face. ‘And I’ll get you, Ross. I’ll send you down.’

Staffe watches Denness plant a sharp-toed shoe, ready to swing the other at his head. He wills him to do it. ‘You prick,’ he says, readying himself for the contact and focusing all his energy on the whoosh that precedes the instant that the material of Denness’s low weave jean hits his raised arm.

It comes, the Whoosh! And when it does Staffe rotates his arm – hard and fast. He feels a bone crack. But he also sees Denness’s standing foot skid upwards. He watches Denness struggle to keep his balance.

Staffe pushes himself up against the Jag and off the ground, and he throws himself at Denness. He knows that if this
struggle
lasts any time at all, he is done for, so he dives at Denness’s face with his head. He feels the
schlock
of bone on flesh and pulls his head back for another go. But he sees Denness smile, as if he might have something up his sleeve. Their faces are close up and he can smell Denness’s breath and aftershave: sweet and leather.

Beneath him, Denness’s body shifts, as if he is manoeuvring to get to a weapon. A knife? A gun, even, and Staffe knows he has to end this soon, so he opens his mouth as wide as he can and thrusts his face at Denness’s, biting hard into Denness’s cheek. He brings his teeth together until he can taste a vestige of blood. He watches Denness’s eyes go wild with pain and he brings up his hand, rams his big fingers into Denness’s eye sockets. He doesn’t just hit the eyes, he hits through them – as if his own sight depended on it. And he rolls away.

He rolls away and he stands, slowly, looking down at Denness holding his head, hands over his eyes and wailing, curled up. There is no sign of a weapon, on the ground or in Denness’s pockets.

Jessop taught him that trick, taught him that sometimes, you have to distil all the violence you are capable of and pack it tight into a couple of instants – especially as the years roll on by. He takes the E-Type’s keys out of his pocket, puts them in the hand at the end of the arm that feels as if it is fractured. Simply making a weak fist to hold the keys brings tears to his eyes, but with the other hand he takes a hold of Denness’s hair and he drags him along the rough tar. He knows Denness is a more complex character than he first thought, but there’s no time to investigate that now. He needs a clear mind and knows he must neutralise Denness.

Staffe opens the boot and lifts Denness’s blinded head one more time, kicks his backside and watches him tumble headlong into the tiny boot. With the heel of his Chelsea boot, Staffe stamps and stamps at Denness’s torso until it finds a way to fold itself into the minuscule void, then he slams the boot shut and locks it.

He sits on the boot and looks at his forearm. He needs to go to hospital but is certain that time is against him. Denness was here to stall him for a reason and when Denness doesn’t turn up, wherever, they will know to close the door on him. He reaches into his pocket with his good arm and takes out the one hundred mill of Johnson’s morphine and plunges the needle into the solution. He presses the syringe’s plunger, expelling the air and squirting the solution high into the air. He lets most of the liquid out, just leaves himself a modicum, knowing this is a fine balance. If ever he needed his wits …

Helena’s garden is a lovely thing, but it is not made for security. The willows weep so low that Staffe can scuttle along the path, to the sound of birdsong, and out of view of the drawing room without getting within thirty yards of the house. He takes a wide arc around the perimeter of the herb garden and down along the side of the house where there are no windows at all – save the frosted glass of bathrooms. The pain has returned but he swallows and incants a mantra. It does some good, but the morphine is better. However, he doesn’t want to impair his judgement.

All being well, just another ten minutes and his work will be done. He will be able to get a cab to the nearest A & E and put in a call to Harrow nick, saying that they should look for an E-Type Jag in the staff car park of the holidaying school. A Ross Denness can be found in the boot. The keys are in the exhaust and under no circumstances should the officers involved use force to gain entry to the car.

This is what he wishes for. Just a few minutes more.

When he gets to the side of the house, he crouches as he makes his way back round the front, below window height. Once he gets to the French windows of the drawing room, where Helena Montefiore had received him and Pulford those few days ago, he takes pause. He can hear voices, even though the doors are closed. The top panels to the side windows are open and he can hear the singsong, cajoling poshness of Helena. He thinks he can hear her say ‘Thommi’ but that is not the name he came to hear. He suddenly considers how foolish he will seem if Sally Watkins isn’t here.

He waits and waits, but still he doesn’t hear Sally’s name. Helena talks to Thommi’s friend, a girl called Georgie, and Staffe begins to curse.

As a last ditch, he decides to venture further round so he can see into the room and take one final look before he makes good his retreat. He inches forward and peers into the room, hoping that nobody is looking his way.

And he is in luck – in one way.

The three women sit around a coffee table. It seems that they are looking at a map. They all appear to be happy and they smile, look lovingly into each other’s eyes. Thommi talks with her hands and Helena answers back, with her hands. They are like a mirror image. Georgie, hair short-cropped and black, just like Thommi, has her back to the window.

Helena stands up and goes across to the sideboard, comes back with purple-covered booklets and the two girls snatch them up, read them from back to front, cocking their heads and rocking to and fro, laughing at each other.

It would seem that Helena Montefiore, rather than
harbouring
a criminal, is planning to take her daughter away from it all. While her husband lies dying in a London hospital, she is keeping it all from Thomasina. And who can blame her.

Staffe trusts his judgement. He is pleased to have taken an instant liking to Helena Montefiore. He prepares to knock on the window, wish her all the best, when Georgie jumps up and turns to the window.

Georgie looks straight at Staffe and her mouth drops open. What little colour there is in her pale face quickly drains away. Staffe’s heart stops and he looks behind him, to see what it is that has spooked Georgie so, but there is nothing there.

When he turns back to face into the room, Helena has an arm around Georgie. Georgie, with her freshly cropped and dyed hair. Georgie with her brand-new name and her new passport and her new life.

Staffe looks into the eyes of Helena. They narrow and she makes the faintest, imploring smile. Then he looks at Sally Watkins. There is a new life, a new brightness in her eyes. He looks at Thomasina Montefiore who is about to burst into tears. And, finally, he looks back at Georgina. She smiles like he has never seen her smile before and in the instant he decides to walk away, she blows him a kiss. As he turns, the three women embrace and make a tight circle. Walking away, he hears them crying. It is a happy sound and by the time he is in the shade of the weeping willow, it merges with the birdsong.

Staffe goes through to his bathroom in Queens Terrace, takes out his running gear from the Adidas bag and runs the shower. The water jets down, hard on his scalp and shoulders and Staffe turns the heat up a notch so it almost scalds him. He scrubs and scrubs, the smell of coal tar getting thicker and thicker, the steam getting more and more dense.

Tonight, he will run west in the dark and the river will be silver in the moonlight and it will curve to meet him at Putney Bridge. He will leave it to run into the Deer Park but it will find him again, on the other side of Kingston Gate, closer to its source – back in time.

I would like to thank Clive, Pat and the Parva Lads from prison; Susan and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation; Aileen, Dave and Jenny from Liverpool; Dave, Patricia, Pat and Terry from probation, as well as everyone at Arch, Adelaide House, Southwood and Walton; Eduardo and the village folk of Yegen; Livewire in Kenmare; Tony from the Bridge; Patrick, Rob and Jake from Conville and Walsh; and Walter, Katherine, Angus and Lee from the stuff of dreams. I am particularly grateful to Edmund Cusick, poet, for his grace, loyalty and inspiration.

Adam Creed was born in Salford and read PPE at Balliol College Oxford before working for Flemings in the City. He abandoned his career to study writing at Sheffield Hallam University, following which he wrote in Andalucia then returned to England to work with writers in prison. He is now Head of Writing at Liverpool John Moores University and Project Leader of Free To Write. He has a wife and two beautiful daughters.