'a glorious sadness' opening chapter sample:

‘...What it is with the ‘H’ mate see,

You get some people and they talk about the rush.

But it ain’t a rush.  It’s gentler than that. 

You’re surrounded by piss and shit, your fucking life ain’t nothing, no friends, family hate ya; nothing.

And yet the ‘H’ mate.  The feeling;

It takes you over you know.

Like a sudden sadness maybe

But it’s a fucking

glorious sadness...’

(Prisoner 3091: 2009)

Prologue

Sweat slithered down his forehead in a thick film, it ran into his eyes making them sting and between his lips making them roll together and smack at the taste.  Drops of it fell further onto his loosened shirt as his well polished brogue shoes pounded off the concrete and mercifully he felt able to give into his lungs and slow to a walk.  His footfalls were the only ones he could hear now amongst the closely packed houses and this came with a mixture of emotion, they had split and hurriedly starburst in different directions and it was probably the right decision but with it came questions.  Had they come after him and he’d outrun them?  A man in his 50’s and considerably out of shape; he doubted it.  So had they gone after his companion?  Maybe they’d caught him already?  He kept walking but turned to look over his shoulder as if that might give him the answer but all he could see was dimly lit pavements, shiney with moisture and terraced houses separated only by patches of shadow. 

The man rounded a sharp corner at the end of the street and considered coming to a complete stop, his body badly needed rest even if it was just 30 seconds.  His lungs gasped for breath, so much so that his mouth gagged and gaped to fill them.  A build up of lactic acid tugged at both hamstrings and he took long strides on tip-toes to stretch them out as the light rain fell in a drizzle.

His panic subsided a little and he found himself shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the situation ‘Stupid, fucking stupid’ he said out loud to his own shadow that appeared out in front of him before sliding underneath as he walked in the proximity of yellowed street lights ‘I’m not a young man anymore’ he said expelling a deep breath and lifting his face to the cooling rain.  He had opened up his chest with his hands on his hips and a stiffened back like he used to do when he ran for his school in the county cross country championship; he was a winner three times on the trot but that was almost 40 years ago and his lifestyle had since taken a far more sedentary route.  Certainly he shouldn’t be running through deserted streets from faceless, hooded men and in one of the country’s most notorious estates.  He shook his head again and noted that the sweat that had gathered on his back had already been turned cold by the sub-zero temperatures.

‘WHAT YOU RUNNING FROM!’ A mocking voice cut through the night and he spun towards its source.  The streetlamps illuminated two figures, their hoods still firmly up, the closest one with hands pushed firmly into his pockets pulling the hood to a point over his head, swinging both arms from the elbows with a determined menace as he started a walk.  To his left he was flanked by the second figure, a similar walk but with arms hanging free, fists clenched.  As their quarry broke back into a run, so did they. 

His footsteps once again pounded through the Effingell Estate, a name steeped in irony and proof perhaps, if any was required that local councils do indeed have a sense of humour.  What they did lack however, was a sense of planning and the estate was a warren of alley ways and bolt holes that the locals had learnt extensively and become able to turn to their advantage when required.  Sure enough, a third hooded man thrust himself out of an invisible alleyway surprising the sprinting figure, forcing him to veer sharply off the pavement and out into the road.  The drop off the kerb caught him quite unawares and he stumbled where a body of water had formed in the gutter before losing his balance completely, scraping to an uncomfortable stop on his knees. Sodden and bruised he looked up at the sudden appearance of a high revving engine and a pair of headlights.  The car was stolen and being driven like it with the occupants laughing at each other through a smoke-filled haze and with spots of water covering the windscreen they could see nothing of the man on his knees in front of them, with a single arm raised in self defence.

All three of the pursuing men stopped a fraction of a second before it happened and for them at least, time slowed down.  The car hit the stricken man before brakes were applied and the speed of the vehicle combined with the stance of the man forced him under the front grill and dragged his mass along the slimey tarmac, shedding bits of him as the turning wheels and metal underside allowed.  The bulk of the man stayed together and continued its forward momentum, thrown out from under the vehicle which lurched sideways into a row of cars that were parked in a silent formation.  The two front occupants of the vehicle, the laughter wiped from their face made eye contact.

‘What the fuck was that!’ The driver still gripped at the steering wheel as his passenger exhaled his question, rain still fell lightly on the windows as both made attempts to peer out through the condensation. 

He was controlled in his reply.  ‘I think it was someone’ the engine still ticked over, hurriedly he selected first gear, scraped away from the side-swiped cars and accelerated into the warren of the Effingell Estate. 

The three men on foot had stopped short and took a second of their own to assess what had happened.  The third man who had been the late-comer noted lights flickering on in surrounding houses and paced over to where blood-sodden trousers had been pulled down to blood-sodden ankles.  With slick and well-practised movements he crouched down and patted the pockets, he swore before staying low and scanning the ground the best he could in the low light.  A small, square object caught his eye, lying against the wheel of one of the parked cars it was sheltered from the rain and he jogged over to it.  It was the main body of a mobile phone; the battery part had come away and was nowhere to be seen.  He quickly ran it over in his hands, satisfied he stuffed it into his pocket and as a front door to one of the houses opened behind the cars he stayed low and slipped back into the shadows.

5 hours later.

‘Sergeant Cutter! You got the call too then?’ The first light of the morning did nothing to increase the temperature and Detective Constable Thornton tugged at his suit jacket as he acknowledged the Sergeant who was already half way through his roll-up.  Ian Cutter himself had left his coat on its peg and was stood in just his suit but seemed far more accustomed to the freezing fog that floated, unmoving in the December morning.  He smiled a greeting ‘Yup, all you want on a Saturday morning’ he exhaled smoke before tapping the cigarette thoughtfully on his lip.  He ran his other hand over the top of his head, his mature years and hereditary genes had long since taken away the opportunity of running his hand through hair but it remained his thinking stance.

‘I have to say, the wife wasn’t too happy; supposed to be taking her shopping today see’ Thornton forced a laugh; his colleague made no reply.  ‘So you get any clue as to why we’re all here?’ he did his best to sound casual as he motioned back at Langthorne House Police Station where a team of four summoned Detectives were walking round bleary-eyed and tossing a coin to determine who went back out for the milk.

‘Nope; we’re being briefed shortly though I think’

Thornton scowled a little ‘so they haven’t even told you why we’re here?’

‘And why would they give me any special treatment?’ Cutter’s eyes twinkled as the young Detective squirmed.

‘Well I just thought that with you being a skipper an’ all you know, you might have a clue or summin’?’

‘Well now you know so you can stop digging’

‘I wasn’t digging’ Thornton did his best to act indignant.

‘Really?’ Cutter stubbed out the tiny bit that remained of his roll-up, smoke remained in his breath as he coughed cold air. ‘Then why else are you stood in a smoking area, shivering with cold when it appears that you don't smoke?’

Thornton paused before forming a smile at Cutter’s back as he walked away.  ‘Blimey, you should be a Detective!’

Cutter didn’t stop to look round ‘I know plenty of people who’d disagree.’

‘So what have we got?’ Cutter’s style was always straight to the point ‘and it had better be good enough to warrant a 4am wake-up call’.

The office wasn’t much warmer than the exterior and Detective Chief Inspector Price strode the length of the room to click at the manual heating control.  He took the opportunity to check that the door was firmly shut to his office and noted that three of the four Detectives looked over as his movement attracted their attention.  The fourth was hurriedly completing his errand of fetching milk.

‘We had a job come in over night’ Price paused.

‘I guessed that’ Cutter was always impatient when conversing with someone who didn’t have the same direct route to the point.  He had remained standing as a subtle way of pushing things along.

‘We have a body’

‘That’s not particularly surprising either’ Cutter buried his hands in his pocket.  He was the Major Crime Sergeant, generally all he dealt with was the high end of the crime spectrum and there was often a body involved somewhere.

‘A man was struck by a car.  Nasty incident by the sounds of it, early reports state that he was killed instantly...’ Price allowed a further pause.

‘I assume it was malicious?  Some sort of intent been implied?’  Cutter was digging for the reason he was there.

‘Well perhaps.  That’s not really known at this time Sergeant’.  Cutter pulled at the knot of his tie and at the top button of his shirt, all the while holding an expectant look at his colleague.  ‘You see, this one is a little different in circumstance’.  Price again peered across to ensure that the door was still shut to his office.

‘Hit and run’s are not really my thing Sir; if I’m just here because them traffic boys couldn’t be arsed to...’

‘No Ian’ the force of the interruption and the use of Cutter’s first name was effective in stopping him in his tracks.  Price continued ‘That’s not it.  You are here because I need you here’ Cutter noticed for the first time the ashen face of the DCI.  Young for someone of his rank, he had been in the position just over a year and his promotion was timed with his 35^th birthday.  Add to this Price had always been a baby-faced officer and had sometimes found that the older, established members of the Police had been a challenge to manage.  Always immaculate in his presentation, his creased suit and ill matching shirt/tie combination smacked of someone in a hurry to get to the office and with more pressing matters than what he was wearing.  Cutter showed himself to a seat opposite where Price had flopped with an elongated sigh.  The Sergeant could see he was putting his words in some sort of order before he started speaking again.

‘The body.  It’s Chief Constable Alan Cottage’

There; he’d said it.  Detective Sergeant Ian Cutter was a man with 26 years experience and most of that he had spent in amongst a major crime department where dealing with twisted sexual deviants, murderers and rapists were an every day occurrence; as were bodies lying in the road.  Rarely fazed and never speechless he sat staring at his commanding officer with no idea what he should say next.

‘The guv’nor?’ he managed.

‘Yes’.

‘Chief Constable?’

‘Yes’

‘Dead?’

‘Yes’

Cutter was back on his feet.  ‘Hit by a car?’

‘Yes’

‘What he just stepped out or summin?’  Cutter rose back to his feet and started to pace, his hand again running over his head and Price noted his reaction was attracting attention outside of the room.

‘Look, sit down.  There are, shall we say aggravating factors’

Cutter returned to his seat ‘aggravating factors? You mean aggravating factors other than the fact that we’ve just lost the Chief of Police?’

‘Yes.  Bearing in mind who we are talking about; it was called in at around 1am this morning from an informant who lives in the house outside which, the Chief fell.  He is from the basement flat of 9 Bench Street’

‘Bench Street?’ Cutter’s face contorted in confusion.  ‘Bench Street, Effingell Estate?’

‘Yes’

‘What the hell..? Why would he be..? I mean, he hasn’t done field work for donkey’s years, the man’s closer to retirement than I am, what the hell...’

‘He wasn’t doing fieldwork.  He wasn’t there as a police officer Ian’.

Cutter exhaled and ran his hand back over his scalp.  Several times. ‘So what was he doing there?’

Price forced a smile and looked beyond the Sergeant as movement again attracted his attention outside of his office and he gave a thumbs-up in response to a carton of milk being held up.  He focused back on Cutter who still stood with his hand on his head. 

‘Welcome to the reason you are here’

To read all 110,000 words follow the link and order a copy of your very own.... http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/charliegallagher



Do you want me? - Plod Blog 6

Peto Court, Door number four, ground floor on the south entrance.  I'm just walking past, door flashes open, 5ft 6" figure appears, apparently having a break from her bridge-guarding duties she looks me up and down with the eye that does move, her moustache shaking from the warm breeze emitting from her crutch and tainted with the feint must of yeast.
'Are you ok?' I said as the smell was steadily getting stronger and I feared that some part of her at least was dead.  She huffed dramatically shaking large breasts that were untethered and pushed a 'Pink Floyd' t-shirt firmly downwards towards ill-fitting tracksuit bottoms, her breath like the inside of a communal fridge.
Her hands found her hips, fingernails from the poster of a horror movie 'do you want me?' she demanded, her eyes blinking out of time as she waited for the answer.
It was my turn to look her up and down,  'Good god no' I said.
'Only there were some of you here earlier and my neighbour, 'e said that youse wanted to speak to me' behind her several cats made a bid for freedom along with the smell of their piss.
'I can assure you that I don't want you' I reiterated, my tone almost pleading, hands outstretched. 

That was when I went back over in my mind the conversation with the colleague who had sent me here.  'Can you do me a favour' he'd said 'I need a witness statement for a job' he'd said 'she's down Peto Court and I went there earlier but she wasn't in'.  I remember I'd declined 'no way' I had said with my own diary already chocka for the day.  'Ok mate, no worry, to be honest I was quite looking forward to seeing her again anyway.  She was a witness to that assault outside the night club; great tits'.

I think it was at this point that I had agreed to do it.  Now as I checked her name and realised that it did indeed match with the paperwork given to me by my colleague I suddenly became very aware that the only great tit was the one now stood in amongst the cat shit, piss and vomit on the floor of room 4, Peto Court and dressed like a police officer.  I had been had.  It's known at 'the old tit trick' on station; I'll fall for it again too.

I also attended a death reported in an impressively sized home in one of the posher areas of the town.  An elderly couple were present, the female half having been the unfortunate member to have slipped away overnight and her husband having the shock of waking up next to her for the last time.  These sorts of things always tug away at the heart strings; they were a married couple for almost 70 years; a lifetime together and now an 88 year old fella is left all on his own.  I'm not sure where you go from that.  I don't think its internet dating. 

Lovely old fella too, a soldier who saw a lot of action he still has a sharp mind and I spoke to him in the kitchen when he insisted on making me and the attending undertakers a cup of coffee.  He said he'd lost a lot of friends who had been fighting alongside him and he'd lost a lot since to various illnesses.  He then fixed me with watery eyes and said with absolute honesty 'I wish they'd let me go back out to the front line; when I go it'll just be another passing' he had looked around to where his wife had been bagged and was being silently carried away 'I always wanted to die for something' he said.

Seeing an elderly man cry for his wife is something that stays with you.  Like her wristwatch.

Billy The Kid - A short story - Part ONE

Billy the Kid.

Part ONE

               

‘In my experience, those who beg for mercy seldom deserve it’ Police Constable John Crouch finished his sentence and stepped out of the driver side of his patrol car where he manoeuvred his body into a long, satisfying stretch that took in all of his back, arms and legs.

His colleague’s balding head appeared the other side of the roof and it was instantly clear that he wasn’t necessarily going to agree ‘that might be true, but you was kicking him in the crutch.’

‘Which is exactly what he did deserve’.  Crouch turned away from his colleague and made for their target address.

PC Darren Tainton watched him go.  Spring was fresh in the air despite the fact that the sun was into its descent and early evening was perhaps less than an hour away.  For Tainton this was the best time of the year where the shackles of winter had been shaken from the world and it seemed like everyone was stepping out again, blinking in the strengthening light and feeling a sense of hope perhaps; wellbeing.  He suddenly felt in no hurry to follow Crouch up the steps and out of the sunshine.  Instead he turned to face the sun’s rays.

‘Oi!  You got love eggs in or summin’?  We ain’t got time to be standing round smiling at the sky.  Let’s get this done and get in for some coffee’ PC Crouch continued his stomp up the path to number 17 Blackhill Lane, an address where they had been asked to check on the welfare of the old fella who called it home.  It was the type of call that had both officer’s had received many times before; elderly occupant, not been seen for a couple of days, not answering the door or the phone, letters piling up, feint whiff of something undesirable...  This would often end with one or both of the officers sat in the living room flicking through televisions stations whilst the other goes through the same doubts over the morality of making a cup of tea in the kitchen.  The tea would then be made whilst a corpse sits starey-eyed and lacking in conversation in its favourite chair. 

Undertakers were 45 minutes; always 45 minutes without exception and this would give the attending officers enough time for a short sit down at least.

As the door went in on Blackhill lane an all too familiar stale atmosphere engulfed them as they stepped in. 

‘HELLO... MR ANTRIM?  POLICE’ a small pile of letters slipped underfoot as Tainton made for the living room.  He pushed at the frosted glass door and the disturbed air again made straight for his smell receptors.  ‘I don’t think he’s gonna be answering us mate’.

Crouch turned his own nose up ‘maybe, but all old people’s houses stink don’t they’ Crouch put hands on hips to further his point.  ‘I have a theory that all old people smell like they’re dead, the only thing that makes that worse when they actually are, is that they don’t cover it up with their Old Spice or lavender body wash or whatever any more’

‘That’s an interesting theory’ Tainton was no longer surprised by the views of his colleague or his bluntness in expressing them.  ‘Well he isn’t in here’.

‘Or in here’ Crouch had leant round into a kitchen diner that was tagged onto the living room.  His torso was distorted black and white behind the glass frosting that seemed to be a theme throughout the house and he called back through.  ‘Shall I put the kettle on now or come back down?’

Tainton didn’t reply, opting just to shake his head as he placed his foot on the first step leading to the first floor.  Tainton never enjoyed these situations; he would rather pace down a pitch-black alleyway after a suspect armed with a knife or baseball bat than pad up a set of stairs in the expectation of finding someone dead and rotting.  Tainton had never been good with the concept of death.  Even as a child, he could recall a finding a dead cat scraped up by a car driver who believed he was being thoughtful when he had placed it’s little body by the side of the road.  The younger Tainton might have come through this experience unscathed but its eyes had been left open, unmoving, staring, sorry.  It was an image that infiltrated his dreams and made them nightmares, an image that visited him for years after that event and one that his child psychologist had warned may well stretch into adulthood.

But Tainton was a police officer now; the people who are called when someone feels the need to run away from something terrible.  The same people who are then expected to turn up and run towards it.

Tainton wasn’t quite running this time, it was more of a deliberate movement up the stairs, tensing his neck so that should anything be laying on the landing he could snap his head away and then look back in his own time.   He paused at the top and he heard his colleague start at the bottom.  He turned to face him and noted he was chewing.  ‘What’s that?’

‘Biscuit’

‘Tell me you ain’t eating his biscuits.’  Tainton already knew the answer.

Crouch smiled in response to the disapproving look ‘well he ain’t gonna need them is he’.

‘What if it was the biscuits that killed him?’ Tainton found himself whispering, still stood at the top of the stairs holding the high ground and forcing his mate to stop.

‘Well there was no sign of a fucking struggle’

Tainton shook his head once again before climbing the remaining stairs and stepping onto the empty landing.  Gingerly he made his way to the room directly in front of him.  The door groaned on its hinges as it swung open to reveal a bathroom empty of corpses, if a little unkempt.  Tainton was a little surprised; he’d had a run of discovering bodies in the bathroom and he had fully expected his run to continue.  Many popular conditions such as heart failure and pneumonia tend to fool the unfortunate recipient into believing that they are in need of emptying their bowels when in fact all it serves to do is ensure that they shed their mortal coil in such a fashion as to leave it sat upright on the toilet with trousers round its ankles. 

Or worse, slumped forward.  With trousers round its ankles.

Perhaps fate had shown mercy and allowed this gentleman the quite literal deathbed, gently slipping away overnight as outside of his bedroom window the world spun madly on. 

‘Hello... Mr ANTRIM’ Tainton called out again ‘POLICE’ his voice lacking in any conviction as he stepped across the landing to the only closed door on the top floor, that of the master bedroom.  The door when pushed open revealed drawn, thick curtains which blocked out the daylight into what was actually a relatively small room.  The door’s swinging movement was halted very suddenly and both officers looked down to see a slipper-clad foot pointing directly upwards.

‘Here we go’  Tainton knew that he couldn’t hesitate or he simply wouldn’t enter, he wiped at his nose as the musk of the room was disturbed by movement and tried to step over the prone figure to reach the curtains.  The sudden change from the bright light of spring to a darkened room rendered him almost blind and two sure ingredients for Tainton’s worst nightmare would be a dead body and darkness.

Tainton kept his head and eyes up and slowly reached toward the window to tug at the curtains, quickly he realised they were beyond his reach and Crouch expressed his usual patience.

‘Come on mate, get in there, fucking hell.’  Tainton rocked back onto the flats of his feet and fixed his colleague with a stare.  He slid his asp from his load vest and snapped it to the open position before taking up the stretch position once again.  This time the addition of the length of the asp put the curtains just in reach.  Tainton spoke as he tried to get a grip of one of the curtains ‘you know how I am around bodies, I really don’t like it.  Freaks me out’

The curtains had been twitched enough to open them up by just an inch or so, but with the sun so bright it was enough to increase visibility tenfold.  Mr Antrim was wearing a grey robe with blue piping, which looked expensive to the point of being out of place in amongst what was a less than flamboyant house.  His face was tilted away from Tainton and this suited him just fine.  The Constable did now hesitate, ideally he would simply step over Mr Antrim laying prone on his bedroom floor and tug at the curtains for full visibility but even this felt wrong.  Tersely and with impatience clearly registering on his colleagues face he lifted his foot far higher than necessary and swung it quickly over the body, now off balance his foot fell back to the floor with a thud.

In an effort to get both his balance and his composure back Tainton paused to shift his weight.  And this is when it happened. 

Some time later, both officers would admit to it happening so fast that neither could say exactly what had occurred, but have subsequently pieced it all back together.  Tainton firmly placing his foot on the floor had the effect of jolting Mr Antrim who’s eyes suddenly bulged wide and confused; Mr Antrim, not fully conscious but terrified then snapped up to a sitting position and raised his arms, wrapping them firmly round both of Tainton’s legs in a vice like grip.  Tainton; on edge due to circumstance already and now believing that he was being dragged to the underworld by a dead-eyed corpse reacted without conscious thought and screamed at the top of his voice, firmly shut his eyes and slammed down the asp that was still in his right hand, striking Mr Antrim.  Twice.  The blows, designed to free him from the tight grip, connected with the top of the skull and forced his head back down to the floor at some pace where he was to receive a third blow, this time to the soft part at the back of the head against the floor.  Where Mr Antrim died instantly.  

Blood flowed freely and quickly from the two wounds, pooling on the surface on the cheap, non-absorbent carpet and around the boot of shocked Police Constable Crouch whose trousers were also smattered with blood and tiny skull particles. 

‘Why..?  Why did you do that?’ Crouch’s eyes beamed wide and staring.  The very same expression was mirrored on the ashen face of his colleague.  He flicked from the scene laid out on the floor to his bloody asp and back again as he struggled for a word, a sentence, an explanation.

‘I didn’t mean to.  I mean, he just caught me out, I thought he was dead’

‘He fucking is now!’

‘Well maybe he isn’t’ Tainton fell to a squatting position making a two finger salute to find a pulse. ‘Jesus, fuck, there isn’t a pulse.  He’s dead!  He really is dead!  Get an ambulance, get an ambulance here quick!’

The radio strapped to his chest burst to life. ‘Alpha two one, alpha two one are you receiving?’

It was their call sign; the two men exchanged a look like for a second they believed that the force control centre knew what they had done, that they had killed an elderly man.  Clubbed to death in his own bedroom.  The pause went on too long.  ‘We have to answer them’ Crouch said.

‘And say what?’Tainton had changed his mind about the ambulance just as soon as he had suggested it.

‘Alpha two one, alpha two one for a welfare check are you receiving? Over’

‘There you are’ Crouch breathed out, he actually felt better ‘they just want to know that we’re ok, we haven’t updated yet is all.’  With that, PC Crouch turned and moved back onto the landing, feeling like he had to step away from the scene, from what had happened before he could transmit a response.

‘We’re not fucking alright are we; what are we supposed to say’ Tainton slumped onto the bed, the asp, still in his hand lolled against his leg, smearing blood on his trousers.

Crouch lifted his radio to dry lips ‘Alpha Two One, we’re all in order here control, we’ll update shortly’

Tainton’s head snapped upright and he bore a hole in the back of his colleagues head.  Crouch turned to meet his stare as the radio kicked in again.

‘All received two one.  Assume you have found Mr Antrim and all is well?’

Crouch was held in Tainton’s desperate glare as he replied ‘yes, yes, all in order’

Tainton broke his stare as his head fell into his hands.  He gripped fistfuls of his own hair and closed his eyes to Mr Antrim and the pool of thick blood that seemed to have now consumed the whole room.  Tainton hissed his words: ‘why did you say that? Why would you say we were fine?  He’s dead’

‘What should I have said?  Yeah, could you send a body-bag please, appears we’ve clubbed him to death!?’

‘But he is fucking dead!’ Tainton suddenly ran a thought through his mind, his eyes suddenly grew wide again, realisation perhaps or maybe just desperation.  He sat upright, his body language holding Crouch’s attention.  ‘They were expecting a dead body’ he said, almost sounding excited, ‘they thought he was a gonner when they sent us here.  Now we have a dead body.  We just say that this was the scene that we walked into, he coulda fell, banged his head; it happens.’  Tainton rose back to his feet, suddenly looking round furtively for props to add flesh to his story.  Crouch was unmoving and unimpressed.  Tainton picked up on it.  ‘What?’

‘You’ve got blood on your asp, hair fibres, probably pieces of skull.  Your trousers and mine; both splattered in blood and shit.  He’s still fucking warm and he’s bled out within the last few minutes.  CSI are gonna want answers; the autopsy is gonna want answers.  Every fucker is gonna want answers and right now all we have is that you twatted him with an asp’

Tainton could have gone back into his panic mode, hands grabbing at hair, pulling it tight til it hurts like hell as if the pain is some sort of retribution, what he deserved for what he’d done.  But there wasn’t time.  A voice, a voice had called up from downstairs.

Say the words

It was the first time I had been asked to do this and I was more than a little nervous.  I just didn't want to mess it up.  I knew the name of the girl, it was very much etched on my mind but to be sure it didn't escape me at the key moment I had scribbled it on a piece of paper that was now getting moist in my right palm.

Tom was with me.  He would have done this a million times and I was thankful that when I stood on the front door step, my nuckles stinging from a combination of the freezing night and the bumpy frosted glass and my cap now two handed against my stomach that Tom was stood beside me.  The same stance, the same expectant look, the same heavy feeling.

It took another knock for a light to go on.  I looked round to see if I had disturbed anyone else.  3.15am, the very dead of night and the cloud cover keeping it dark to the point of black.  A freezing fog hugged the ground, we had walked steps up to the front door to a house dug into a hill looking down on the silent police car.  A second light went on.  The house was 'upside down' in its design and I could make out a woman walking down steps from where the lounge and kitchen was on the first floor and her bedroom higher up still.  I could make out flesh coloured legs sticking out of a white robe and she was hastily wrapping a tie round her waist.  She paused to pull it tight before the door opened.

The woman was middle aged, maybe fourty something and her hair messed up enough to suggest she had been in bed a while.  Her eyes were blinking, not yet accostomed to the light and quickly filling with surprise and confusion at the two police uniforms filling her top step.
'Can I help?'
'Sorry to disturb you, are you Mrs Evans?'
'Yes, yes I am, what's this about?'
'Mrs Evans, I'm here about Claire; I understand she's your daughter?'

Tom had told given me advice in the car on the way.  Good advice. 'You can't beat round the bush' he had said, 'don't invite them to sit down, don't even ask to go inside.  You've just got to make sure you have the right house and then tell them.  Then deal with the fallout.  If you delay people will jump two steps ahead of you and it will go bent'.

'Claire?  Yes, but she's gone out'
I remember tensing my jaw, in truth it closed so tightly that for a split second it was like it was never going to open again.  Like I wouldn't be able to tell her, I couldn't.

I did though.  'Mrs Evans' I said.  'I'm afraid Claire was involved in a road traffic accident earlier this evening'  I paused a little, I had to be sure this was sinking in.  I wasn't going to be able to tell her twice.  It was Mrs Evans' turn to tense her jaw, she waitied for me to continue.  'I'm so sorry Mrs Evans, Claire died at the scene'.

And there it was. 

Her 19 year old daughter had been snatched away from her and it felt like it was me who had done the snatching.  I still struggle to describe what I saw next, it was mainly concentrated in her eyes, they just drained away; everything, the life, any signs of internal lights or emotions slipped away from the top down.  With it went all of her colour, she became unsteady on her feet and Tom reached out and took hold of her arm.  Her face slumped and then froze and I knew that it would never manage a smile again.  Never a genuine one.  Everything was gone, my words had taken it all away.

I was aware of steps creaking, a man in a vest quickly descending, his face angry at the disturbance and demanding to know the reasons.  'What's the matter?' he barked at his wife who's face was still fixed, the eyes that had locked forward were now fidgeting from me to Tom and back again, she was still being held up, her breathing had become shallow.
'Claire' She managed, a word made up more of breath than voice.
'What about her?'
Squat, balding and with a well established middle-age spread he looked me up and down.  'Mr Evans' I said.
'Yeah' his impatience clear.
'I'm sorry sir, I've come to inform you that Claire was involved in a road traffic crash a short time ago.  She died at the scene.  The ambulance staff did everything they could...'

Mr Evans took a step back, like he had just taken a blow to his torso.  His face flushed red as anger roared up through him and he made fists with both hands and stepped back towards me 'you're fucking lying' he bellowed, his voice travelling out into the still night, shaking the fog.
'I'm not.  I wouldn't' I pleaded, my chin dropping to my chest as I waited for the blow to land.

It never did.

'Maybe we can step in; you'll have questions' Tom offered, he stretched out the arm that was not still holding up Mrs Evans and rested it across my chest as some sort of barrier.  The woman had now heard the news twice and the second time it had sunk in.  Sobs very suddenly rose up from her heart and erupted from her face, then a scream like I have never heard before, like the last of anything good was leaving her body and just the sadness, the desperation and the emptiness was left.  She let it all out, her legs gave way and she sunk to her knees on the doorstep; another scream long and breathy and then she sucked freezing air back in, taking with it the darkness from the night and she was silent.  Her eyes fixed, face like it was clay; nothing left.

We walked up the steps to the kitchen, I took in a picture of a girl which clung to the wall; she was pretty and smiling in a school uniform.  I had no doubt it was Claire, probably just three years ago or less.  We got into the house and it was a case of riding it out.  The father stayed angry; denial hit him hard and it took him a long time to get past this, to believe what we were saying.  He needed to hear detail to know we weren't lying and I had to tell him.

'Your daughter had been for a night out.  From what we can piece together at the moment she was walking home with two of her friends and she was walking along the side of the main road.  There are no paths or banks, she must have stumbled out into the road.  Claire was struck by a lorry.  Her friends called the ambulance but there was nothing they could do'.

Gradually the mother's sobs returned, they had started as a whimper but built quickly to the point where we had to call a Night Doctor to administer a sedative.  The father stayed angry for a long time but like the flick of a switch he moved onto a sort of acceptance and never once let any of us see him cry.  A younger brother appeared, woken by the commotion he punched a wall, splitting plaster and his hand which shed fresh droplets of blood. 

It was hell on toast.

To look back on it now it was the worse moment of my time in and out of that uniform.  I said the words that ruined those people's life, I said the words that they will never truely recover from, I said the words that meant they would never see their daughter again.

Give your loved ones an extra squeeze when you see them.  You can't wrap them in cotton wool or protect them against all that there is but you can make the most of them every time you are in their company.  And if you ever have to suffer a late night knock from a police officer delivering the worst moment of your life then know this; it is quite possibly the worst of theirs too.