If I Should Die (Joseph Stark) (28 page)

‘I wasn’t eavesdropping,’ interrupted Stark, ‘and what little I heard I’ve kept to myself. I’m no gossip. And you have five seconds left.’

‘
You’re a lying snake!
’

‘
Four
seconds,’ said Stark, levelly. Doubt finally flickered in Harper’s eyes. ‘Three. Two. One.’

Harper pulled Stark forward, slammed him back and let go in one motion. He stepped back a pace, breathing heavily, thwarted and, if
anything, angrier. He glanced around, for the first time checking they were alone. ‘You don’t want me as your enemy, boy!’

Stark shook his head. ‘No, I don’t, and I’ve done nothing to make you mine. But I’ve faced enemies deadlier than you, and if you think you can intimidate me, you’re mistaken, again.’

Harper sneered. ‘Got an answer for everything, haven’t you? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing – inveigling yourself into the guv’nor’s good books, sucking up to Millhaven and trying to make me look a bloody fool!’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘
This was my case!
’ barked Harper. ‘Everyone else may think the sun shines out of your arse but I’m not falling for your golden-boy act. I know what you are.’

Stark’s eyes narrowed and cold fury crept into his voice. ‘You’re right about one thing,
Detective Sergeant
. I’m not what people think. Nurse your paranoid delusions if you must, but if you ever lay hands on me again you’ll get a glimpse of what I really am.’

For the briefest moment Harper’s uncertainty flickered into fear, but then he huffed derisively, yanked open the door and left.

Stark stared after him, still fuming, but also wondering if he might have done more to avoid it. He’d sensed resentment brewing, but this escalation … If there had been opportunities to nip this in the bud he had missed them. He let out his breath with a resigned sigh. Occasionally in life you ran up against someone with real or imagined cause to dislike you. Just knowing they thought ill of you was sickening enough but direct confrontation was worse – always unpleasant, always pointless and always sad, leaving you replaying the scene over and over, wishing you had thought quickly enough to explain the misunderstanding or defuse the situation.

After their father’s death had rendered Stark and his little sister targets for playground bullying, he had learnt quickly to meet threats head on, but success in addressing the causes was never as simple. He could have told Harper that what he’d heard on those damn stairs was nothing to the whispers already circulating in the station, but that would only have made matters worse. The unfortunate sod had had every reason to suspect he was being talked about and every need to blame someone other than himself or his poor wife. He’d chosen the
stranger in town, and nothing Stark could say would alter that for now.

Crappy traffic delivered Stark to the Carter with barely a minute to spare, tired, despondent and sore.

‘No book today?’ asked Kelly, from the doorway.

Stark forced a smile. ‘I just got here.’

‘Come on, you’ve got work to do to get back on my good side.’ Stark followed, trying not to limp. He got changed, met her by the pool and slipped off his gown.

She looked him up and down, frowning. ‘You’re losing weight.’

‘Am I?’ He stared at his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. She was right. He hadn’t really looked at himself in a while. There’d been little fat on him a few weeks before. Now there was none.

‘And you look like you haven’t slept in a week,’ she added.

‘I’ve been pining since Friday night.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ She didn’t seem glad. ‘Ready?’

Never less so, thought Stark, wearily, but he set about the routine with all the gusto he could summon, determined to make a good showing. The harder he tried the worse it got. His hip felt like it was full of sand.

‘Stop,’ said Kelly. ‘Stop!’

Stark obeyed, shocked and frustrated in the extreme. She took hold of his left leg in the water and lifted his knee. At a certain point he winced. She moved it to one side and a sudden, sharp stab shot up through the whole left side of his body. He clenched his jaw to prevent the yelp escaping but she was watching him too carefully to miss it. ‘Okay, that’s enough pool work for tonight. Get yourself dried off.’

As he was changing she called over the cubicle, ‘Just a towel round your lower half, please.’

‘
Just
a towel?’

‘Don’t be shy. I want you on the couch and I need to get at you unhindered.’

Stark might have burst out laughing but for the lack of humour in her voice. A beautiful double-entendre gone begging.

‘On your back, please.’ She laid a second towel over his groin and peeled his away, preserving his modesty while leaving him naked
down one side from torso to toe. ‘This was the shrapnel?’ she asked, feeling the largest scar.

It was disconcerting having her touch him intimately in so matter-of-fact a manner. He definitely no longer thought of her as just his clinician. ‘Yes.’

‘Fractured and punched a hole through your pelvis just above the hip joint. They considered a metal plate but needed to close the gap so they went for a bone graft from your heel and sat you still for eight weeks instead. I bet you were a model patient. Bone fragments were found in the hip joint itself, causing some cartilage damage, which had to be repaired here.’ She touched the lower keyhole scar. ‘That damage causes inflammation and discomfort if you overexert yourself, making your limp more pronounced. This hurt?’ She articulated his leg as she’d done in the pool and the jolt of pain strangled his answer. ‘On a scale of one to ten?’

Stark recalled Fran asking him that very question about Kelly but his chuckle died as Kelly repeated the move. ‘Six or seven,’ he hissed.

‘This is new, I take it? It hasn’t been like this since your surgeries?’ Stark shook his head. ‘So when did it start?’

‘Recently, I suppose.’

‘You said you’d been on your feet a lot at work. Has there been a gradual worsening in line with that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which you put down to what? Wear and tear?’

‘I guess. I’ve tried walking it off, walking to work, but it hasn’t helped.’

‘Hmm.’ She tilted his leg the other way but Stark was ready and swallowed the yelp.

‘You’re not fooling anyone, you know,’ she said. ‘It’s possible the cartilage has deteriorated, or even that there are still tiny bone fragments rattling about. Unless you’ve fallen or twisted it sharply recently?’

‘I tried lifting a drain gully last week. I don’t think that helped.’

‘No, I don’t suppose it did.’ She articulated it one more time. Stark wished she wouldn’t. ‘Hmm,’ she mused. ‘This may be more tear than wear. We’ll need to monitor it. If it gets worse I’ll refer you for an X-ray.’

‘Okay.’

‘Can I trust you to tell me if it gets worse?’ It was a serious question.

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, then.’ Her finger traced the big scar for a second more, then she covered him up. ‘Get yourself dressed. We’re done for now. Are you still up for tonight?’

‘More then ever,’ replied Stark.

‘Good. You could use a decent meal.’ He must’ve looked a little crestfallen. ‘Chin up, I’ve finished being severe with you.’ She smiled. ‘Wait for me in the lobby – I’ll be ten minutes writing this up.’

It was twenty minutes before she emerged but Stark didn’t begrudge her one second. She’d changed into jeans and a scarlet top with sequins around the neckline. Hair still up, drop earrings and matching pendant on a slim silver chain, she looked elegant and relaxed at the same time. Fran had been right: this girl was light years out of his class.

They set off, Kelly talking about Thai food. Stark almost felt hungry. The next thing he knew she was gently shaking him awake.

‘What? Whe– Shit, did I nod off?’

‘In the middle of my wittiest anecdote. You sure know how to flatter a girl.’

‘Sorry. God, I’m really sorry.’ He looked about and realized they were parked outside his flat. ‘Ah, this doesn’t look like the restaurant.’

‘Sizzling Crying Tiger will have to wait again.’

‘Really? ’Cos I’m starving …’ he lied.

‘If I thought you’d make it through the starters without going face down in your plate I’d consider it.’

‘I’ll be fine, honestly. I’ll start with a coffee –’

‘If you think I’d settle for a first date where my opposite number needs a double espresso just to listen to a word I say without falling asleep, you’ve got the wrong girl.’ She laughed. ‘You’re not fit for company.’

Stark could see he was losing and fell back to a secondary position. ‘Why don’t you come up instead? I’ll make us
both
coffee and a bite to eat.’

‘I’ve heard some come-up-for-coffee lines before but never from anyone less able to deliver.’ She shook her head. ‘Get yourself upstairs, make
yourself
something decent to eat and get to bed. Do not pass Go and do not drink any coffee.’

‘Doctor’s orders?’

‘Something like that. Now go.’ She looked a little less playful now.

‘Can I get a rain-check at least?’

‘Thursday. If you turn up in better shape.’

‘How about a kiss goodnight?’

‘Don’t push your luck.’

‘But I might not make it to Thursday. I’m deteriorating fast. This could be our last chance.’

She laughed again, that full throaty laugh, head thrown back, elegant, kissable neck exposed. Stark cursed himself.

‘I’ve gotta give you credit for thinking on your feet,’ she continued. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t use the broken-lift excuse to get me to help you up the stairs.’

‘That was my next line.’ He smiled.

‘Come here,’ she said softly. She placed a warm hand on his cheek, leant in, and slapped him playfully. ‘You’ll have to do better than that if you’re gonna make up for
two
failed first dates.’

Stark sighed. ‘Third time lucky. Thursday, then?’

‘Uh-uh. It’ll still be the first date, remember. Now, goodnight.’

Stark got out and closed the door. The window slid down.

‘Eat, then sleep!’ she called.

‘Goodnight.’ He waved good-natured defiance, closed the door, grinning a lot less than the week before, and did exactly as he’d been told.

Stripped of distractions, though, his mind accelerated into spin cycle once more. His thoughts ranged from Harper to Maggs to Kelly’s neck to telling his mother the truth. When the phone rang at eleven it actually came as a relief. ‘Sarge?’

‘Did I wake you?’ asked Fran.

‘No.’

‘Good. I thought you might already be flat out. You looked like death warmed up all day.’

‘Your concern is always welcome, Sarge. Was that why you called?’

‘You wish. We’ve had a decent shout on Pinky.’

‘Great. Good luck with that.’

‘Ha-ha. Get downstairs. I’m two minutes away.’

‘You’ve
got
to be kidding.’

‘Don’t be like that. This is the real deal. The manager of that Orpington hostel called. He’s heard Pinky’s linked with a local squat.’

‘Have I done something to make you hate me, Sarge?’

‘Put it this way, I can’t think of anyone more deserving.’

As soon as she saw Stark limp to the car and climb awkwardly in, Fran wished she hadn’t called him. He’d looked like death warmed up earlier but now he seemed corpse-cold. His eyes were sunken and his drawn face was taut, rigid. ‘Get out. I’ll call Dixon.’

‘I’m okay, Sarge. Let’s go.’

‘Bollocks. You’re no good to me like this. Go to bed, for God’s sake.’

‘I’ve tried that. This is better,’ replied Stark.

Fran bit off her frustration. Why did he always hit you with honesty just when you were ready to accuse him of lying? She really didn’t want to lose time calling Dixon, but she had a feeling she’d regret this. ‘Jesus, you take all the fun out of torturing you.’

She flicked on the car’s concealed police lights and siren and passed him the hastily scribbled postcode, which he dutifully typed into the sat-nav. She kept her foot to the floor all the way there. Stark held on tight without comment. As they neared their destination she killed the lights and noise.

They pulled up next to a uniform van. A sergeant and five constables stood ready to assist. This squat, they explained, was notorious for drug use and dealing, but recent rumour suggested prostitution and possibly even trafficking. The sergeant eyed up his guests and clearly found both wanting, politely suggesting they take the rabbit hole with one of the constables. Fran gave him the benefit of the doubt and put this down to Stark’s appearance rather than hers. They were stationed by the moonlit plywood back door when they heard the loud banging from round the front and the sergeant calling, ‘
Police, open up!
’

There was a few moments’ silence, and then the back door burst open as two men rushed out. The constable was ready and wrestled the first, struggling viciously, to the ground. The second shouldered Fran flying. As she went down she saw the man bounce off Stark with
a curse. Light glinted off a blade. The man bellowed and charged again.

The next moments were a blur as Fran lay winded on the ground, watching helplessly. Only later, replaying it in her mind as she’d been trained, was she able partially to separate out what had happened. One thing was for sure: it was nothing like unarmed combat training; no telegraphed single thrust to block and disarm, more a series of vicious little stabs, snake-strike fast, barely blocked or dodged, Stark giving ground, twice having to arch his back to keep his guts from the blade, landing counter-attacking blows to little effect. Then, suddenly, he stepped towards one thrust and drove his fist sickeningly hard into his opponent’s face. The man staggered back, blood gushing from a twisted nose, screamed and charged again. This time Stark sidestepped, blocking, then used his shoulder and the attacker’s own momentum to slam him against the adjacent brick wall. In one movement Stark grasped the wrist of the knife hand with both of his own, turned so the whole arm was tucked under his armpit and sat down with his whole weight, slamming the man face first into the ground, breaking his jaw and dislocating his shoulder. In a flash Stark was kneeling with one leg over the dislocated arm and the other knee pressing down between the man’s shoulder blades on the back of his neck, holding the long double-edged knife dagger-like, raised ready to stab.

Fran looked into Stark’s face and recoiled. It was a terrifying mask of focused, burning hatred. For a horrible moment she thought he meant to kill the prostrate man, but instead he pressed even more weight on to the man’s neck, eliciting a scream of submission. The hatred in Stark’s face tightened into anger, contained, quivering, utterly immovable.

The sergeant and another constable appeared and stepped in to take over, and suddenly the tension was gone. Stark crouched quickly beside Fran, placing the knife on the ground and checking her over with eyes and hands. ‘Are you cut?’ he demanded.

‘Get off!’ She slapped away his hands, touched by his concern but alarmed by the impertinent thoroughness of his search, and not a little humiliated at being so easily brushed aside.

‘
Are you cut?
’ he demanded again.

‘No! Now get your bloody hands off me before I slap your ugly face!’

He complied, still checking her out visually to be sure. Then he stood and pulled her up, as if she weighed no more than a feather. He was barely short of breath.

‘Thanks!’

‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, either missing the sarcasm or ignoring it. His voice now sounded mechanical, distant. He glanced at his left hand, tugged off his tie and wound it round his palm, like a bandage.

‘You okay?’ she asked.

He nodded.

An ambulance was summoned. Stark received several sideways looks from the uniforms as they tended the injured suspect. Whatever had happened there, it hadn’t been standard police self-defence technique. Questions were bound to arise about reasonable force. They were probably thanking their lucky stars they could honestly say they’d seen nothing. Fran looked for the constable who
had
been there but couldn’t pick him out. Stark watched impassively as his groaning assailant awaited medical attention.

She pulled out an evidence bag and carefully bagged the knife. Blinking, as if he’d never seen it before, Stark watched her zip the bag and hand it to the nearest officer.

‘You’d better take a look.’ The sergeant led the way inside, shining his torch ahead of their feet as they stepped over the rubbish, and worse, littering the filthy old carpet. Half of the doors in the rambling old house were padlocked. A constable stood ready at one with a crowbar. Fran nodded. Some were empty but in one room they found a girl sitting on a grubby mattress, terrified, and in another room a second woman, who was drugged out of her wits. The sergeant called for reinforcements.

Two more doors were forced. One stood empty. In the other they found a girl with pink hair.

Fran waved everyone back as she and Stark entered. The girl was cowering in a corner, curled up in a foetal position, cradling her knees, one wide eye visible. Beside her Fran heard Stark gasp. His face was pale, shocked, almost frightened. Looking quickly around she saw no
cause so waved at him to stay where he was and approached the girl cautiously. As she reached out a hand the girl snarled at her, sending her reeling backwards.

‘Get a blanket, Sarge,’ said Stark, suddenly, and before she could stop him he was sliding his back down the wall to sit a foot away from the girl. Her hand shot out in a claw. He caught it but not before it had raked his face. The other shot out but he caught that in time with his other hand. She struggled futilely against his grip. Stark was murmuring to her, reassurances, calm, firm. Fran snatched up a thin quilt from the mattress, cautiously placed it around the girl’s shoulders and backed away again. The struggle gradually ceased. Stark kept up the reassurances and slowly shifted from gripping her wrists to holding both hands. He was still like that when a WPC and some paramedics arrived and slowly coaxed the poor girl away. It was Pinky, no mistake. Her face was marked with yellowed bruises and healed abrasions; her lip had a tight scab where it had been split. Most of the marks looked old, but not all.

‘Which hospital will they go to?’ asked Stark.

Fran looked for some recognition of events but he seemed strangely calm. ‘Princess Royal mostly, but I asked that Pinky go to the QE. Is your face okay?’ It was bleeding from four diagonal scrapes. Stark felt them and looked at the blood as if he had no idea where it had come from. ‘Let’s have someone clean that up.’

He let her lead him out. It wasn’t that he was elsewhere: he seemed right there in the present, but he let himself be led, like a child unthinkingly holding an adult hand.

The scrapes weren’t deep. A paramedic cleaned them and taped a small dressing over Stark’s cheek. He didn’t flinch. He’d have to be tested for HIV and hepatitis now, of course, a matter of routine, but the paramedic was reassuring him that the risk was negligible. Everyday infection was far more likely. He asked Stark if his anti-tetanus protection was up to date. Stark gave the barest of laughs and nodded.

The bloody tie was unwound to reveal a cut down the fleshy muscle of his palm beneath the little finger. Stark looked at it. ‘You’re gonna get cut,’ he muttered, under his breath.

‘Quoting Maggs again?’ asked Fran.

Stark shook his head. ‘Training. So was he. Barehanded against a knife you’re gonna get cut. It’s just a question of how badly.’

‘They teach us to run away.’

He nodded. ‘And when you can’t, you’re –’

‘Gonna get cut.’ She shook her head. Who’d join the army?

‘Take your jacket off and roll up your sleeve,’ the paramedic ordered.

Stark had completed only the first half of the order when Fran gasped.

‘Don’t move,’ commanded the paramedic.

Stark’s white shirt, from a little under his left armpit to his waist, was sodden with blood. He stared at it dumbly, barely registering surprise, then held up his jacket to the light. In the front left panel there was a small slash. He tutted and let it drop.

‘Keep
still
,’ hissed the paramedic. Using the larger slash in the shirt, he tore it open to reveal a two-inch horizontal cut, bleeding steadily, halfway up Stark’s left ribs.

Stark stared down at it. ‘Just a question of how badly,’ he said.

‘Looks superficial,’ said the paramedic. ‘Rib stopped it. You were lucky. Hold still while I clean it. This’ll need a stitch or three.’

It needed nineteen. The hand needed four. They were straight cuts, the paramedic commented, as he worked: the knife had been sharp. They’d heal quickly, neat as you like. Soon to be lost among all the others, he didn’t add.

Stark never winced. Fran was growing more certain by the minute that this wasn’t bravado. Adrenalin could leave you unaware of injury, but so could shock. It seemed obvious now to her that Stark was barely present, after all. She called to a nearby uniform, who scuttled off and returned with two large evidence bags. ‘I’ll need that jacket and shirt.’

With a soft sigh Stark stood and removed the ruined shirt.

‘Jesus!’ The paramedic’s eyes widened.

In all her curiosity Fran had never imagined such scarring. Almost as shocking, though, was how painfully lean he was. She’d noticed he was a little gaunt in the face, but his torso was all muscle and sinew … She realized her mouth was ajar and pulled herself together. ‘That’s the end of your demob suit then.’ She forced a smile, holding open the bags for him, but it was a crap joke and didn’t even register with him.
Atop his left arm she noticed a tiger tattoo, monochrome and stylized, really quite beautiful once, now marred by a diagonal scar. The irony was not lost. She would never have taken him for the tattoo type. Then again most people wouldn’t have guessed at hers.

She relieved the uniform of his over-jacket and handed it to Stark to put on as the paramedic finished checking him out. They left him perched in the rear door of the ambulance as the paramedic led her aside to talk quietly. ‘He’s still in shock. We
could
take him in, but he should be fine in an hour or less.’

‘I’ll drive him home.’

‘Keep him warm. If he feels faint, get his feet higher than his head – you know the drill.’

‘Will do.’

‘There’s more going on there …’ The paramedic didn’t quite pose it as a question but it was.

‘Maybe,’ said Fran.

The man waited but she said no more. ‘All right. Well, see he’s tucked up in bed as soon as possible.’

She put Stark into the car and drove him home in silence. By the time they arrived he did seem more aware, alert, certainly more himself as he firmly resisted her offer to see him in. She waited outside instead, and was starting to worry when his light eventually came on. Then she took out her phone. It was nearly two in the morning but Groombridge would be expecting an update.