If I Should Die (Joseph Stark) (5 page)

The remains of a vodka bottle lay smashed against the foot of the monument, and a giant pack of cheese puffs had burst its contents across the ground among a number of lager cans – Tennent’s Super, like those at the crime scene. Over all hung the acrid stench of urine. Stark’s hands curled into fists.

‘I think I’d better call DS Millhaven,’ said Dixon.

Fran found Dixon and Stark guarding the memorial with an RPP sergeant. She set a couple of uniforms to take over and phoned for
SOCO. Aside from fingerprints, the lager cans and the neck of the bottle would probably have DNA, and several of the gang were on the database for previous infractions. There probably wasn’t any money for testing, but if the old boy died that would change. Better to have the evidence in the bag just in case. Dixon talked her, again, through the rationale that had led them there. He was a good copper, thorough and honest; too honest to take credit for uncharacteristic initiative. She looked at Stark but he said nothing, which, it seemed,
was
characteristic. Fran was mildly impressed but if he wanted to remain reserved she would reserve praise. ‘Reserved’ was just another word for ‘aloof’.

She let him stay while the SOCOs came and did their work. SOCOs were civilians rather than CID officers but Fran didn’t hold that against them. They were a good crowd, professional, dedicated and, most importantly, content with the tedious task of gathering forensic evidence so she didn’t have to. Stark paid close attention to what they were doing, she noted, still new to life on this side of the police tape. She studied him for a moment.

Stillness, she thought. He had a way of appearing motionless as the world moved around him, a rock in a stream, unaware or unconcerned for the turbulence it cast. Eventually the stream would wear it down. She looked for outward signs of anger but saw little. He had to be angry, she thought, looking at the mess, furious. From his perspective this was desecration. Perhaps there was a kind of frozen sternness; it was hard to tell. She shook her head. Pity the Juliet to his Romeo. Perhaps aloof was unfair: he could be friendly enough, in his way. He
was
an oddity, though. Perhaps her prejudice against all the homecoming-hero nonsense was getting in the way of figuring him out.

She asked Dixon and two more uniforms to walk the route to the Ferrier Estate to look for more evidence of the gang passing. From the memorial they could cut across the heath and zigzag along a few roads to the estate. Thinking about Stark’s initiative, she also asked Dixon to speak with the estate’s embattled off-licence.

Her phone rang. She answered and listened with rising annoyance. ‘Yes, I’ll tell him.’ She beckoned Stark over. ‘That was Hammed. Apparently a Captain Pierson has been pestering the switchboard for you. Could you please return her calls ASAP, et cetera.’ Stark looked
awkward, but also something else – annoyed? A chink in the armour. ‘We don’t encourage private calls at work,’ said Fran, pointedly. She didn’t like being his messenger girl. Admin had yet to supply him with a phone. It wasn’t his fault, but calls from a neglected Juliet were. ‘Need to use my phone?’ she offered.

‘It can wait, Sarge,’ he replied levelly.

Fran caught Stark checking his watch at the end of the day. ‘Somewhere you’d rather be?’

‘Hospital appointment, Sarge. It’s on the schedule,’ he added, as her frown deepened. They were expected to do overtime in the crucial early stages of an investigation. She could demand he stay.

‘What is it this time?’

‘More physio.’ Two half-truths.

She paused. ‘Clear off, then.’

The Gosport physios had referred Stark for hydrotherapy but the nearest facility had closed. The same proved true in Greenwich. The Carter Orthopaedic Hospital in Dulwich was a private charity and more than happy to mop up NHS overflow. The cabbie was honest and Stark arrived early, so the friendly receptionist directed him to the well-stocked tea and coffee machine, free, with a selection of biscuits. ‘You’re not in Kansas any more,’ he said to himself, as he settled into an armchair with his book.

‘Mr Stark? They’re ready for you now. Turn right down the corridor and follow the blue signs.’ She smiled. You got the odd smile in the NHS but mostly harassed exasperation. This one smiled because she was nice and had time. It was almost disconcerting.

He was greeted by a short, round, grey-haired woman with an easy grin that wrinkled her whole face. ‘Lucy,’ her badge declared. ‘Hop in there and change, dear. Just your gym kit for the moment so we can do our initial assessment. Pool work later. I’m off now but Kelly will be through in a mo. Good luck.’ It was a cheerful farewell rather than a ‘you’re doomed’, but Stark still felt an odd tweak of trepidation. He stepped out of the cubicle, expecting another Lucy, but was pleasantly surprised to see a girl his age or younger with dark-brown hair, blue eyes, a pretty face and a figure to make anyone with a clinical-uniform fetish die on the spot.

‘Something the matter?’ she asked, glancing up from some notes. He shook his head and managed a smile. ‘Quite the rap sheet you’ve got here, Constable. Or are you still a corporal?’

‘Yes and no. Joe will do fine.’

She continued scanning through the file, occasionally glancing up at him, or parts of him. ‘How did you find hospital physio?’

Oversubscribed, underfunded, impersonal and frustratingly non-military after Headley Court … ‘It hurt, if that’s any guide.’

‘You’ve had worse, I expect,’ she replied. ‘Most of what they’ve had you doing seems appropriate. They say they’ve done all they can, thought hydro might move things on. Been doing your homework?’

‘Religiously,’ he lied.

‘Good boy. Right. Let’s see what you can do.’

He was accustomed to running through his routine barely supervised in a gym full of other invalids or alone at home. Close, direct scrutiny added a hesitant self-consciousness combined with boyish bravado, no doubt exacerbated by her attractiveness, that made the whole thing slightly uncomfortable.

‘OK, I’m getting a view of your limitations. Hop into your trunks and we’ll run through some basic pool work to finish up. There’s a clean dressing-gown in the cubicle.’

He changed again, slower this time, grateful there was no mirror. He emerged to find her also in a gown, which he supposed he should’ve expected but hadn’t. She led him through to the pool and slipped off her gown to reveal a sensible one-piece swimsuit, not skimpy by any means. On a figure like hers it didn’t need to be. She paused on the steps, halfway into the water. ‘Come on, don’t be shy.’ She smiled. ‘I promise this will hurt you more than m—’

Her eyes widened in shock as she took in his scars. Then she blinked, realizing what she was doing. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I had no idea …’

‘It’s OK.’ But Stark found he’d already tugged the gown back on to hide the worst; it was too late to disguise his embarrassment, only its depth. ‘I should’ve warned you. I’m sorry.’

‘No, I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting … The file said, but …’ She was making herself look him in the eye now, professionalism reasserting. ‘Let’s start again. Why don’t you describe the scars to me, cause and effect?’

Stark caught his fingers feeling the rough scar down the left side of his face and pulled them away. He nodded, wishing now that she wasn’t so pretty. You stared into the mirror, alive, whole, healthy, but scarred. You mourned the old you, the unblemished you, and in your heart you dreaded this moment. He’d been lucky: no girl back home to speak of, not counting Julie, no one to say she didn’t mind while her eyes screamed otherwise, only his own revulsion to face. Unlike many of the lads, he’d had time to heal a little more, physically, mentally, to ready himself. Even so, it stung. Kelly was the first young, pretty woman to see him like this and it was painfully clear that physical attraction couldn’t have been further from her mind. At least her interest was clinical; she was only obligated to be kind, not dutiful, deliver platitudes rather than pity.

He peeled off his gown, relating the nature of each scar in turn, trying to sound matter-of-fact. The ones on the right of his face, neck and head and the missing finger were all from the initial IED explosion, but they were cosmetic, irrelevant to this process, so he didn’t mention them.

The same went for the burns on the backs of his hands and fingers where he had gripped the wheel while the dashboard caught fire. Second degree mostly, they’d healed slowly, painfully, but the docs had decided they weren’t bad enough for skin grafts.

Of the rest, rocket-propelled grenade shrapnel was the most common, peppering him down his left side, back and neck. He pulled down the hem of his shorts to show the left hip where a small piece had caused so much damage. Interspersed were the contrastingly neat surgical scars with their rows of dots to either side.

Lower still was the skin graft from his relatively undamaged right thigh to his left. Even days later, back in the UK and stabilized, it had looked as if that piece of RPG casing might still cost him his leg. The donor-site scar was a vertical rectangle with horizontal red striations, the recipient site an irregular dented mess, though surprisingly more healed-looking and less red.

Worst of the bunch unquestionably was the bullet. It had struck him in the upper chest just above the ceramic front-plate of his Osprey body armour, piercing the Kevlar, slanting down through his right shoulder blade and crumpling against the inside of the back-plate.

The surgeons had performed miracles putting bone fragments back together and his shoulder hurt less than his hip, but the exit scar, or cluster of scars, was appalling. As well as going through the top of the right lung it’d nicked his aortic arch and if the medic hadn’t quickly got a drip into him he’d have died on that dusty stretch of waste-ground.

He realized he’d stopped talking. Kelly’s expression had remained one of composed observation throughout. ‘Well,’ she said levelly, looking up into his eyes with a slight smile, ‘you’re a bit of a mess!’

There was a message on Stark’s machine when he got home – Captain Pierson checking that he’d received her previous one and reminding him that a response was expected. He couldn’t ignore it much longer: they were clearly determined to pursue him. That thought kept him awake into the night.

Tuesday began with tangible tension. Fran had been assigned the case, effectively placing her above DS Harper in the overall investigation. Harper had obviously not taken it well and sat stone-faced in the team meeting.

Fran appeared unperturbed. ‘The victim is still sedated. Forensics called to say that key clothing and footwear collected from the suspects’ homes had clearly been washed overnight. They’re still looking but the chances of finding anything useful have greatly diminished. Gibbs and Co. may be smarter than they look. Perhaps they realize they’ve crossed a line this time.

‘On a happier note, fingerprints at the scene and the war memorial match several of the gang, including both Gibbs and Cockcroft. If required, DNA testing will probably confirm. SOCO at the crime scene also found empty cocaine wraps. Following TI Stark’s line of enquiry we questioned the proprietors of the Ferrier Estate off-licence. They were defensive – probably as worried about visibly assisting the police as being charged with serving the under-aged. After some reassurance they confirmed that two of the gang, Colin Messenger and Paul Thompson, bought lager and crisps early that evening, not vodka, but that they often stocked up on all three. Sadly their decrepit black-and-white CCTV feeds a prominent monitor but it’s just for show. The recording VCR died years ago.’

‘Okay,’ said Groombridge, from the back. ‘All this puts the gang at the scene but so far we’ve nothing to prove when. CCTV is inconclusive. All they have to do is claim they were there the night before instead. We’ll need to trip them up. So, before we round them up for
questioning, let’s talk MMO. Means and opportunity are obvious, but what about motive?’

‘They were pissed,’ said Harper. ‘And they saw an easy target.’

Lazy thinking expressed as certainty, thought Stark, shaking his head.

‘Have you something to add, Stark?’ asked Groombridge.

All eyes turned on Stark. ‘Nothing, Guv.’

‘Come on, something’s on your mind.’

He was cornered. ‘Being pissed is not an excuse, Guv.’

‘Well, I think we all agree with
that
, Trainee Investigator,’ replied Groombridge, coolly.

Stark thought about quitting while he was behind, but … ‘Not a motive, I mean. Testing has demonstrated that people’s behaviour is not altered by alcohol –’

‘Bollocks!’ scoffed Harper. ‘Tell that to my missus when she’s had a few!’ He chuckled. A few people joined in but Stark suspected politeness. He’d overheard furtive speculation suggesting this wasn’t the first time Harper had returned from a sudden ‘illness’ with a bruise or two.

‘Go on, Stark,’ prompted Groombridge.

Stark glanced at Harper, wishing he’d concealed his thoughts better. ‘Repeated experiments show that alcohol impairs physically but its behavioural effects are dictated by culture rather than chemicals. In many cultures it is merely a social norm, as behaviourally neutral as coffee. But in many, like Britain, it’s perceived as a disinhibitor. People act according to their preconceptions.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning it doesn’t cause aggression or promiscuity, it merely enables them.’

Groombridge nodded. ‘Drinking makes relaxed people relaxed and violent people violent.’ He’d known all this and put Stark on the spot anyway.

Harper wasn’t laughing now. People were avoiding looking at him.

‘So,’ continued Groombridge. ‘Motive. Why did this lot start attacking people? Why the homeless in particular, aside from the obvious vulnerability? They’ve a taste for violence, but is there something more, something we might use?’

No one had any answers. Harper repeated his view that they were just vicious little cowards, at one point staring at Stark as if daring him to contradict. Stark voiced no opinion, and was glad when Harper and Bryden set off with uniform to see who could be found. ‘What shall I do, Sarge?’ he asked Fran.

‘Dixon.’ She beckoned him. ‘You and Stark, take the victim’s photo and see if you can get a name out of social services.’

The local-authority social workers just winced and shook their heads. They had better luck with the homeless charities, where several people recognized him. Alf was the closest they got to a name, but one worker rummaged through his files and found a better photo.

They got back in time to watch through the glass while Gibbs was interviewed. In a set of police overalls, his clothes confiscated by SOCO, he didn’t look as cocksure as he had on home turf. Even so, he remained defiant, sullen and contemptuous, flatly denying all knowledge of the assault, insisting he was at home in bed. As feared, he claimed that he and his mates had been in both locations the night before and he knew nothing about the cocaine. He was dismissive of the memorial.

Groombridge and Fran emerged far from happy. ‘Enjoying the show, Lover-boy?’ asked Fran.

Lover-boy?
Stark frowned.

‘Your neglected sweetheart’s been on again. The girls on switchboard are starting to talk and Maggie’s bordering on huff.’

‘Sarge.’ Stark kept his eyes front and centre.

‘Rumour has it your Captain Pierson sounds far from happy with you,’ pressed Fran. ‘There’s a lesson there, about wasting the time of your superiors in rank and gender.’

Stark accepted the dig without comment.

‘Perhaps you’d like to do the honourable thing,’ suggested Fran, pointing to the nearest phone.

‘I’m sure you’d rather I got on with some work, Sarge.’

Fran huffed. ‘Find anything?’ Stark showed her the photo. ‘All right, get your popcorn. It’s going to be a long day.’

That’s five hours of my life I won’t get back, thought Fran, watching from the canteen window as the last of the Rats swaggered from the building to the disgusting cheers of those already released. Some were under eighteen, juveniles in England and Wales, and couldn’t be searched or questioned without an ‘appropriate adult’ present to ensure they ‘understood what was happening’. Few of their parents wanted to know, organizing social workers had slowed everything down, and when questions were eventually put they regurgitated identical answers.

The cluster of horrible little specimens jeered and gesticulated rudely at the station before oozing away up the street. They understood what was happening all too well. There were times Fran wished she lived in one of those banana republics where you could bang scrotes up because you knew they were guilty rather than because you could prove it. Not an uncommon sentiment in her line of work, she suspected, however PC the party line.

But the baseline said no more than twenty-four hours without charge. In this case the super probably had the ‘reasonable grounds’ to extend that by twelve while the investigation was ‘being conducted diligently and expeditiously’. And assault was an indictable offence, of course, meaning they could then apply through the Magistrates’ Court for another thirty-six and again after that for yet another thirty-six, ninety-six hours altogether without charge, even the minors, as they were all over ten and therefore legally responsible under UK law. A formidable power. Fran considered this magisterial oversight to be just one of those hoop-jumping inconveniences above her pay grade. You worked with what you had. The guv projected the same, though he’d confided in her that he thought things had gone just about as far in their favour as was reasonable, and perhaps a little more. In truth, it rarely came up anyway. Only for the big, complicated cases, the dangerous suspects. For the rest, the everyday humdrum crimes, you either had evidence to charge or you didn’t. If you didn’t, maybe you would tomorrow. In this case they didn’t, and Royal Hill had too few cells to have that many clogged up. There was little gain in holding on to disruptive delinquents when they could be brought back if and when new evidence emerged. So long as the little sods didn’t do a bunk.

She swallowed her frustration and went back to her desk. There
wasn’t much in the way of new evidence. Ferrier Estate residents reported hearing a disturbance at just after one in the morning, but none had looked outside. The estate lighting was regularly smashed with stones anyway, the CCTV cameras had been vandalized so often they’d been abandoned years ago, and even if they’d been able to reference clothing from other footage it would be circumstantial at best. They needed more. They needed blood.

Stark was cataloguing all the footage they did have, a menial job but someone had to do it. His limp seemed more pronounced and once she’d noticed him suppress a wince. On closer inspection he was sweating a little too. For a moment she allowed herself to imagine how hard this might be for him. Nonetheless he had a job to do, just like everyone else.

Alf’s photo appeared on the next day’s local news but no one phoned in to claim him. Fran sent Dixon and Hammed out on foot with shelter workers to speak with the local homeless.

Before midday she looked up to see Stark pulling on his jacket.

‘Where are you going?’ she demanded, but then she rolled her eyes. ‘Not another one.’

‘Sorry, Sarge.’ He did seem contrite but made no offer to stay. It was on the schedule he’d submitted and that, Cox had decreed, was that. ‘If I miss it they can bump me off the list. Failure to engage, court-martial offence.’

‘People don’t like having their time wasted,’ agreed Fran. ‘Which department today? Detox massage or hot-stones therapy?’

He ignored the question. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

Fran thought for a moment. ‘Wait, I’ll give you a lift. Alf’s sedatives were withdrawn this morning but he didn’t regain consciousness. I want to speak to his doctors and see for myself.’

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she drove. He looked tired. Clearly he was struggling physically. Whether he’d cope, time would tell. Despite herself, she hoped so. Much as he grated on her, he might have the makings of a decent copper. Whether he’d cope mentally was another issue. From the schedule’s lack of disclosure she suspected that one or both of his weekly appointments might be for mind rather than body. She’d given him opportunities
to confess but he’d overlooked or ignored them. It bothered her that she couldn’t always tell which. Sometimes you knew he was taking the piss, others you were left guessing.

The old boy looked like he had nine toes in the grave already. His darkly bruised and stitched face was sunken and yellowed. The doctor on duty put his chances at less than fifty-fifty now.

Fran seethed. Looking at the poor old sod, imagining his last waking moments, made her angrier than she could ever remember. If he died she was going to make it her personal mission in life to hound Kyle Gibbs to his grave. Stark’s face betrayed nothing.

‘What time’s your manicure?’ she asked outside.

‘Ten minutes, though they have a rather quantum perspective on time around here.’

‘Need someone to lean on?’ She grinned, nodding at the complex hospital map. ‘Help you find the right department?’

‘I can make it from here, thanks.’

‘Clear off, then.’

She watched as he limped in, waited a few seconds and followed. Stark was standing right inside, pretending to read the signs. ‘Forget something, Sarge?’ he asked innocently.

‘Yes. Don’t be late!’ She spun on her heel and walked out, cursing under her breath.

Stark smiled but didn’t laugh. He’d been on his feet more in recent days than in any given month since his discharge from Headley Court and his hip ached. He’d finished the previous day with OxyContin and a double, drugged himself asleep with a cocktail of opiate and alcohol. The good folk of Headley Court would not approve. They’d spent weeks getting him ready for the real world and that didn’t include substance abuse. But needs must … He’d slept like a log but woken groggy and, with nothing more than digital filing to stimulate his attention, he’d struggled through the morning on coffee. Fran’s trip to ICU had killed his hopes of eating before his session, and Doc Hazel kept him waiting.

The sight of Alf had set a fury in him that the shrink predictably pounced on, spending disproportionate energy delving into his anger about something that should make anyone’s blood boil. He
fought a constant urge to clam up, but he wouldn’t be accused of failing to engage. It made a change from prodding old wounds, perhaps, but it missed the point, as usual.

Having exhausted the irrelevant, the good doctor finally asked a pertinent question. ‘Why do you call it “taking the coin”?’

‘It’s from the Napoleonic wars, or before. Taking the King’s shilling meant enlisting as a soldier or sailor. A shilling was your daily pay before stoppages.’

‘So it’s about being paid,’ said Hazel, making a note.

Stark sighed, trying not to get angry. Regardless of how it might have been in Napoleonic times, a modern soldier did their duty for the
privilege
of taking the coin, not the payment. It represented the reciprocal covenant between the soldier or sailor and the monarch they fought for, but the thought of trying to explain that in a way that might be understood was too daunting to attempt and he was relieved when Hazel moved on.

‘Tell me about IEDs.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything, I suppose.’

‘The clue’s in the name – improvised, so they vary enormously, though on three themes. Most are pressure triggers, often two bits of springy metal held apart at either end with wood or plastic. Push them together in the middle and you make a contact, the battery or batteries send a current along wire to trigger the explosive, which is either strapped on or hidden in something innocent-looking nearby, such as a cooking pot or plastic container. Sometimes they’re buried, sometimes just under an object you might knock or kick aside. Bigger, stiffer triggers can be buried for vehicles. Those are all plant-and-forget, by far the most common. There’s self-detonation “suicide” devices – they’re more commonly used against civilians – and finally remote-detonation devices, operated with two mobile phones or a radio-controlled servo, usually in line of sight.’