Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes (18 page)

“It’s never been that. Let me ‘ave a look at you.” He stepped forward. She stepped back. He laughed. She took another step back.

“Don’t make me chase you,” he leered.

And she knew there was no point trying to run. He was too close. He would catch her. Where was Mitchell? Where was Riley? Then a voice reminded her that she was police.

“Big mistake,” she said, tugging her revolver from under her coat. “I’m police and you’re under arrest.” The end of the barrel caught on cloth. She wrenched it free. But the man was already moving towards her. The gun was pointing down as his forearm smashed into her chest, and a vice-like grip clamped down on her wrist. As she fell, her finger curled on the trigger. The gun went off, but his grip didn’t slacken. His weight on top, she slammed into the ground. Something sharp jarred against her shoulder and she wanted to scream, but his forearm was now pushing down on her neck.

“Bit young for police, aren’t you?” he hissed, a mouthful of foetid air blowing into her face.

She tried pulling the trigger again, but her fingers wouldn’t work. The pressure around her neck was growing. Her vision was narrowing. All she could see was his face, and she didn’t want that to be the last thing she ever saw. With her free hand, she tried to claw at his eyes. He shifted his weight, stamping his knee down on her stomach.

With the sudden, excruciating pain came a memory of Friday afternoons at the academy. The mixture of boxing, wrestling, and riot control was always taught with one eye on the clock, and an assumption that the class was unnecessary. At the end of each session the instructor always finished with a reminder that when all else failed, they had their revolver. But her weapon was useless now.

This was it, she thought. This was death.

No. It couldn’t be. Where was Mitchell? Where was Riley? Surely they’d save her. But no one was coming. She was on her own. Live or die. It was down to her.

“And if you’ve run out of bullets,” their instructor had said, “club ‘em with the barrel. Hit ‘em with something that ain’t your fist, unless you want an ‘andful of broken bones.”

Desperate, she scrabbled with her free hand, searching the ground for something, anything. Her fingers curled around stone. A brick. She swung it up in a ninety-degree arc, straight into the side of the man’s face. There wasn’t much strength to the blow, yet the man suddenly froze. His eyes widened. His jaw went slack, the hand gripping her wrist went limp, and he collapsed on top of her. The weight knocked the last of the air from her lungs. With her knees as much as her hands, she heaved his body clear, and crabbed away. Somehow the revolver was still in her hand. Gripping it two-handed, she pointed the gun at the man as she gasped for breath.

He was motionless. Unconscious, she thought, except she hadn’t hit him that hard. Somehow, the brick was still stuck to the side of his head. Her vision cleared. Understanding dawned. It wasn’t a brick. It was a lump of rubble, out of the end of which was a spike. No, half a spike. The other half of that jagged metal rod was now embedded in the man’s brain.

She scrabbled away from the corpse until her back was against the wall, and kept moving until she was standing up, leaning against it for support.

He was dead. She’d killed him. Before that had a chance to sink in, a shot rang out. Then another. And she realised that there had been other shots as she’d fought with the man. The gunfire was coming from inside the shop.

She staggered out of the alley, and across the road. She had to investigate. She was police. She had to. Automatically, she reached for the door, pulling it open. She had to go inside. She had to. It was only after she’d stepped into the gloomy interior did she remember to raise her weapon.

To her left was a figure. She swung the barrel around, but again she wasn’t fast enough. This man grasped her wrist, but unlike the dead man, his grip was gentle.

“What happened?” Mitchell asked, taking the gun from her hand.

“Someone came out. I killed him,” she said. “I had to.”

“This way,” he said, leading her to a bench. Her foot slipped on something, but Mitchell had an arm at her elbow, catching her before she fell. She sat and looked at the floor. It was covered in dirt and dust, and blood. Two bodies lay near the entrance. Both had been shot. She stared at the bodies for a long minute and realised Mitchell had gone. She stood and walked over to the corpses. She peered at one body and then nudged the other with the toe of her boot until she could see what was left of the face. It didn’t look like Emmitt or Clipton. For some reason that struck her as funny. She laughed.

“Come and sit down,” Mitchell said.

“Where’s Riley?” she asked, shrugging off his hand.

“Taking Standage and her family back to the police station. I thought they’d be safer out in public than in here.”

“Standage was here?”

“And so were her husband and son. But I need you over here,” Mitchell said.

“You do? Why?” she asked, this time letting him lead her over to a corner of the shop.

“They were expecting a collection this evening.” That comment baffled her until she realised his hand was pointing towards the centre of the shop. It took a moment for her eyes to focus on the suitcases piled there.

“Were they going away?” she asked.

“It’s the money,” Mitchell said, “the cases that were taken from that abandoned house. It’s going to be collected tonight. We’ve got thirty minutes before help arrives. Maybe longer. Keep your eyes on the front door. If they come, we’ll have to fight.”

She stared at the door. Then she realised her hands were empty. She reached for her holster, but touched unfamiliar cloth instead. Of course, she remembered, she wasn’t in uniform, and then everything else came back to her all in a rush. The man, the arm on her neck, the hand on her wrist, the foul, stinking breath. She closed her eyes, but it wouldn’t go away.

“It’s all right,” Mitchell said. “It’s over.”

Ruth shook her head, not in disagreement, but in an attempt to rid it of the image of the dead man, and the spike sticking out of the side of his head. She opened her eyes wide, gritted her teeth and focused on the door. The sergeant, she realised, was facing the other way. She turned to see what he was looking at.

“Keep your eyes on the front. I’ve got the back,” he said.

“Right. Yes. Shouldn’t I have a gun?”

He placed the revolver next to her. “Don’t pick it up yet. Wait.”

She looked at the gun, and then the door. Suddenly she felt cold.

“I had no choice,” she whispered.

“You did what you had to do,” Mitchell replied.

“I could have run, or called for help,” she said. Mitchell said something, but she didn’t hear what. She was lost in the past, replaying the scene trying to find someway that it could have ended differently.

“Mitchell!” a voice called from outside.

“Weaver?” Mitchell replied. “Is that you?”

“Yes. We’re coming in.”

Weaver wasn’t alone. With the captain were a dozen Marines and a score of police.

“There’s evidence here!” Mitchell snapped. “And you’re trampling it into the dust. Don’t you know how to secure a crime scene?”

Weaver threw him a glare. “Corporal,” she said, addressing a Marine, “secure the area.” She turned back to Mitchell. “Standage escaped. Riley is getting someone to bandage her head.”

“What?” Mitchell exclaimed.

“Standage and her husband,” Weaver repeated, “escaped as the constable was escorting them – on her own, I might add – through the city. They hit her over the head, left her unconscious, and got away.”

“And the child?”

“Gone with them. Riley said that you thought the child was being held hostage to secure Standage’s compliance. I think you are wrong. She is the one at the heart of this. We need to find her. I’ll tear the city apart if I need to. I take it the body in the alleyway over the road is your work.”

“It’s mine,” Ruth said.

“Yours?” Now it was Weaver’s turn to sound shocked. “Are you all right?”

Ruth shrugged.

“I’ll need a statement from both of you,” Weaver said. “But I’ll start with the cadet, then she can get home.”

Ruth gave an account of what had happened. She wasn’t sure what she should say, or when she should lie, so she kept to the truth. It didn’t take long before she was finished.

“I’m going to have someone take you to the hospital,” Weaver said.

“I’m fine,” Ruth said.

“No, you’re not,” Weaver replied.

“I’ll take her,” Mitchell said.

“No, you won’t. You have to explain what happened here, and why precisely you’re here in the first place.”

Ruth thought she was in the hospital for hours. After the doctor had given her a reluctant all clear, she looked at her watch and saw it was only six p.m.

“It’s broken,” a familiar voice said.

She looked up and saw Mitchell.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Close to ten. I’m going to take you home.”

She was too tired to do anything but follow him outside. There was a carriage waiting, pulled by two horses. The driver looked familiar, but it wasn’t until they were at The Acre she realised it was Isaac’s man, Gregory. She was too tired to ask about that, either.

“Where have you—” Maggie began, running out of the door. “Ruth, what happened? Henry?”

“It’s a long story,” Ruth said. “I’ll tell you after I’ve changed.”

She went inside, and upstairs. She sat down on the edge of her bed and then fell into it. Her last thought before she went into a deep sleep filled with nothing but dead faces asking unanswered questions, was that Maggie had called the sergeant by his first name.

Chapter 9

Strike A Match

20
th
September

“You shouldn’t go in,” Maggie said. “Stay at home.”

“No,” Ruth said. She’d considered it and thought of little else since she woke up. “If I stay here today then I won’t go back at all. I don’t know if… after last night, I…” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if this is something I want to do, just that I haven’t had a chance to find out if I’m any good at it.”

“You’ll be entitled to a few days off, at least,” Maggie said.

“Maybe, but not today. There will be questions to answer, and I’d rather get them over with. Anyway, if I stayed at home, you’d only do the same, and you’ve children waiting to be taught.”

Ruth began the day by giving another, and far more formal, statement. The presence of the representative of the Home Secretary told her it was linked to the death of the man she’d killed. That interview was over quickly. The ordeal wasn’t. On leaving, she was given instructions to go to the commissioner’s office. He was waiting for her, and again, she had to go through the events of the night before.

“I wish you’d come to me,” Commissioner Wallace said.

“There wasn’t time,” she said. “I mean… I’m sorry, sir, but there really wasn’t. After I gave you that first message I was sitting by a window watching the Mint, and then we followed the woman, and it all… sort of… happened.”

“Yes, I suppose so. We need a better communication system. We really do. Phone boxes in the street if nothing else. However, it’s done now. Some of the criminals have escaped, but they will be caught. More importantly, there is no way that this operation can start up again.”

“There isn’t? What about Clipton?” she asked.

“He is irrelevant. It’s the two Standages who were behind this.”

“They were?”

“She had access to designs, ink, and paper,” he said. “The husband knew how to lay electrical cable. Emmitt was the man who knew how to build the printers. Yes, he could build them again, but without the Standages, he will get no further. I am worried about their son, of course, but let us be grateful no other innocents have been caught up in this affair. As for you, you’ll have to see the psychiatrist, and you’ll be on light duties until you’ve been signed off. Unfortunately, Serious Crimes counts as light duties. Next time…” He shook his head. “Let’s just hope there isn’t a next time.”

“How was the commissioner?” Mitchell asked.

“Not happy,” Ruth said. “But he said it was over. We’ve stopped the counterfeiters.”

“Well, yes. Perhaps,” Mitchell said. “No, leave your coat on, we’re going out.”

“Where to?”

“You’ll see.”

Ruth followed Mitchell outside, and out of Police House. The streets seemed strange to her that morning. She felt somehow separated from the people as if their lives were unconnected to hers.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Nowhere in particular,” Mitchell said. “Sometimes it’s good to get out and see that the world still goes on.”

It did. They took a shortcut down Religion Road, the narrow street where churches, chapels, and temples, the mosque, and the synagogue each occupied a different semi-detached house. They ambled through sprawling suburbs that ringed the trading and administrative heart of the city. Gardens were well tended. Communal pigs rolled around in their stys. An occasional engineer could be seen marking out where cables could be hung. Truant children laughed as they spied the police officers and ran away. Yes, life went on.

“What did they print in the newspaper?” Ruth asked.

“About last night? Nothing,” Mitchell said.

“But three people died.”

“And that will be reported. Eventually. I think they’re waiting until after the trade deal to run the story.”

“Are the editors happy with that?” Ruth asked. “I mean, isn’t the newspaper meant to print the news?”

“Sure, but the advantage with only having one national paper is that whatever they print
is
the news and it’s new whenever they print it. Delaying the story works out well for them. The ceremony and the radio broadcast, and people’s reaction to it, will fill the editorials for the next few weeks. Maybe even longer. Then they can print this story, and it should keep them busy until the election.”

“That’s not how it should work,” she said.

“That’s life.”

Ruth kicked at a pebble. She hated that answer. It was one that Maggie gave her too often. “And life goes on,” she said.

“Precisely. It is what it is.”

“But the case isn’t over?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

“Emmitt and Clipton weren’t in the warehouse. They weren’t, were they?”

“No. Not when we got there,” Mitchell said.

“And why
did
you go there? Inside, I mean. When Riley left me she said she was going to get you.”

“We were heading back towards you when we heard a child’s scream. We went inside. A few seconds later it was all over.”

“Oh.” It seemed entirely too brief an explanation. “Do you know the name of the man I killed?”

“No. Not yet. We’ll find out, but it’s Turnbull I’m more concerned about. Rather, I want to know who killed him, because I’m certain it wasn’t suicide.”

“Does the commissioner know that?” Ruth asked.

“I told him. I’m not sure if he believes me, or if it’s that he doesn’t want to believe me. He’s very proud of what he’s done with the police. I suppose it did need to be more organised,” he added grudgingly. “You know he was a politician?”

“Yes. You said. So did he.”

“He led an opposition faction in the last round of elections,” Mitchell said. “Didn’t win, of course, and in the end he lost his seat, but he did have a lot of supporters. The Prime Minister gave him the big chair in Police House in the hope of keeping the isolationists quiet. It worked. I… it’s no secret I wasn’t happy with that at the time, but the job seems to have mellowed him. He was a monarchist when he started. An imperialist as well, at least as far as an isolationist can also support empire building. But he’s going to get the PM’s seat when she steps down, and that’s going to be soon.”

“He told me,” Ruth said.

They passed a field where turnips were being hoisted onto a cart. From the way the farmhands were cheering on the team working the row she guessed it was the last of that crop to be harvested.

“Was that why you left the police?” Ruth asked. “Because of his appointment?”

“What? No. No, it was… it was something else.”

“What?”

He looked at her. “I suppose you deserve an honest answer to an honest question. It was to give Riley some space.”

“Really?”

“Pretty much,” Mitchell said. “I found her when she was ten, and she’d lived with me ever since. All of a sudden she was the age I’d been when The Blackout occurred, and she’d become a copper like I had. I missed out on having a life because we were too busy staying alive. I didn’t want her to do the same, so I gave her the house, and I left. Sort of the reverse of how things were done in the old world.”

“That’s it?”

“More or less.”

“It wasn’t to bring justice to the parts of the world without it?”

He gave a short laugh. “No, though that’s what I ended up doing. There weren’t that many punishments in the early days. There was execution of course, but that was reserved for the worst cases. For the most part, people were exiled. That was as good as a death sentence, but some people survived it. After a decade or more of brooding on their fate, there were some pretty embittered psychopaths out there.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what to say. “How long did you do it for?”

“Just a few years. I would come back, periodically, and there were a few trips overseas.”

“Really?” she asked with sudden curiosity. “Where?”

“It wasn’t as glamorous as you might think, travel rarely is, and at the end of it, I’m back where I started. There’s a lesson in there, though one I personally don’t plan to learn from.”

Ruth mulled that over. She was curious as to where he’d gone and what he’d seen, but there was something else far more pressing she wanted to ask. “Do you…”

“What?”

“Do you remember the first person you killed?”

“Rarely does a day go by when I don’t,” Mitchell said. “It was during The Blackout. I did it to save Isaac. Knowing what I do now, I still don’t know if that was the correct decision.”

“What do you mean?”

“No, that’s a history lesson for another day, but what you did last night was very much the right thing, and you should never doubt it. It was self-defence, nothing more.”

“And…” She hesitated again, but couldn’t see the harm in asking, though she wasn’t sure what help the answer would be. “How many people have you killed?”

“I don’t know. You’d think I would. Certainly I remember a lot of them, but that’s the problem. There have been so many, directly and indirectly, for whose deaths I am responsible.”

“Indirectly? Do you mean immediately after The Blackout?” she asked.

“In a way. There was a time, you see, a moment, a second when I stood between the people and the mob. Do you know what the mob is? No, when I was your age, I didn’t understand it either. It was just a word they used in the news and history books. Like revolution and terror. I knew the meaning, but I didn’t understand it because I hadn’t experienced it. I learned quickly enough when I stood in front of a crowd of hundreds that was representative of thousands in the camp behind. When I looked at these people, some of whom I knew, scared, hungry, desperate, that’s when I understood. The mob is what people become when decency is subsumed by our worst instincts. When the individual collectively loses its belief in anything bigger than the self. All it took was a spark, and we had murder, cannibalism, and the survival of the savage. I stopped it. Not me alone, but I was there. It was a brutal time of brutal law, and this democracy is the end result. The alternative…” He sighed. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

The road grew rougher. Mud had spread from the ditches and gates, covering the asphalt. It was only by the absence of ploughed furrows that Ruth could tell where the road had been and the fields now began. They reached a broken stile. Mitchell climbed over.

“I never knew England when it wasn’t like this,” he said, as he led her up a slight rise towards the corner of a field. “I think I would have liked to. I didn’t see any of this until about a week after The Blackout, and then it was a nightmare landscape of smoke, fire, and screams. And we were the lucky ones.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Ruth asked.

“Isaac, me, thousands of others,” Mitchell said. “The ones who took shelter in the London Underground. On our way from that city to the coast we gathered more. There were at least a hundred thousand of us by the time we saw the sea. Not everyone who emerged from a basement or bunker wanted to join us. Some thought we were crazy, and many more ran at the sight of our ragged column staggering south. Maybe we were crazy, placing our lives in the hope that the message Isaac had received was true, and there would be cargo ships waiting on the coast. But they were there. You’ve heard the stories, and I bet no two versions are the same, but that’s how people remember it. There were the cargo ships and the cruise ships with their mostly American passengers, and then there was us, making our long walk. Then the stories jump to how we learned to dig and plant and plough and sow.”

Mitchell stopped, halfway up the shallow slope, and turned to look back at the fug of smoke and smog hovering over the city.

“Billions died across the world. Millions died here. Not in The Blackout, but in the aftermath. It’s a terrible thing, radiation sickness. If it’s a low dose you might get better. But you can get a lethal dose, get sick, and seem to recover, only to fall ill again a few days later. That’s what happened. When we arrived, footsore, thirsty, and far beyond weary, many people were dead and more were dying. Each passing day, the number of sick grew and all we could offer them was the comfort of companionship in their final hours. We almost gave up. Those days, those weeks, it seemed as if everyone would die. Then it was over. You know when ‘over’ was?” He started walking up the slope again. “It was when the number of dead was less than the number of graves we could dig each day. We used up the last of the fuel doing that. But we had food. We thought it was going to be okay. And then the other sicknesses came. Cholera. Typhoid. Flu. Then something else that no one could identify. People started dying again, and this time we didn’t offer them comfort. We just hoped that we would be spared. All that death, it changed us. Some found religion. Others lost it. Some lost all sense of what it meant to be human, but a few of us decided we couldn’t give up. We carved a society out of this small corner of England. Then we took back Scotland and Wales, and then we went to sea, searching for others who’d not been as fortunate as us. We hoped to find some bastion of civilisation that had held on to more than we had. People who could reach down and offer us a helping hand back up. We didn’t find one. We were it. Call it Britain if you want, and if you think that matters, but most of us don’t. If I had to call myself anything, it’s lucky. Lucky to be on a stretch of coast rich in fish, with good soil, on an island linked by railways, and where preserving steam trains was a hobby. We had food thanks to… well, thanks to those cargo ships. Luck. Coincidence. Geography. Call it what you want, we have a duty to those not so fortunate, but we also have a duty to ourselves.”