Time to Play (North East Police) (14 page)

Pulling herself out from under the tarp, she shivered as a blast of cold air hit her. Peeking out through the window of the rear door, she saw the shimmer of frost on the windscreen of the vehicles in the back yard. It was icy cold: she wasn’t used to weather like this. If she was going to leave the confines of the building she’d been staying in, she would need warmer clothing.

Frowning, she realised that a big part of her didn’t want to leave. She knew she should: the chance of getting caught if she stayed was high; she was in a police station, after all. But it felt safe. If she left she didn’t know where she would go, or if anyone would help her.

Climbing up the stairs to the break room, she pulled some more chocolate bars from the fridge, folding the bottom of her dress up a little to hold them.

She’d found the kettle and figured out how to turn it on to heat water, and had found the staff coffee and tea. She’d tried both, the coffee making her nose curl with its bitterness. But she liked the tea. Belatedly realising she had to put the chocolate bars down to make a hot drink, she dumped them unceremoniously on the table.

No one was here, anyway.

She hummed to herself as she made her drink, an old song Noni had sung to her when she was little. It was in her native tongue and it made her feel safe, ‘
sleep now, youngest one, your mother is far away, and she can’t come for you
.’

Picking up the chocolate bars, she turned and made her way back to the stairs.

Maybe I won’t leave. Maybe I’ll just stay here instead. I like it here.

She pushed open the door at the top with her hip, then froze as she heard the bottom door open and footsteps start coming up.

Oh my God. There’s someone coming!

She felt her heart pounding in her chest as panic threatened to keep her frozen to the spot. If she stayed though, she knew she’d get caught. Turning quickly, she pushed open the door to the female toilets and entered. She went into a cubicle, silently put the chocolate bars and the hot cup down on the top of the loo, and sat on the seat.

Terrified, she couldn’t stop shaking.
If they find me they’ll send me back to that house, I can’t go back there. They’ll kill me. Please don’t find me!

She jumped as the top door of the stairs closed with a crash; it was spring loaded and if it wasn’t caught then it shut itself, loudly. She imagined she could hear footsteps outside in the corridor that led to the break room, and she would have sworn she heard them stop outside the toilets.

Holding her breath, she waited for the bathroom door to open.

But it didn’t.

She heard another door open and close somewhere further past the rest room, and deciding that now was the time, she moved from her position. Gathering up her snacks and drink, she snuck out of the bathroom, tiptoed back to the stair door and opened it. She tried not to breathe in case someone was lying in wait for her, and cocked her head to one side, listening for any sound that the person was nearby.

Only silence greeted her though, so she went through the door, using her hip to close it softly so that the only sound it made was a click. She wanted to run down the stairs, and hide under her tarp and never come back out. But she couldn’t. If she ran she’d spill her tea and someone would realise. So she silently went down the stairs, navigated around the piles of equipment and found the place she’d been calling home. Pulling the tarp over her head, she sat and finally exhaled.

That was close. I need to be more careful.
She wrapped her now cold hands around the warm mug of sweet tea and took a couple of sips.

Noni had loved her tea, preferring it freshly brewed from a pot rather than the bagged form that was more popular. And because Noni had enjoyed it so much, Elvie had been brought up on it. It had been a tradition of sorts, Noni having a cup ready for Elvie before bedtime, and Elvie getting up and having a pot ready when her gran had got up in the morning.

Thinking about her gran made her sad. It had been so hard. People telling her what to do and how to act during the funeral. Her great aunt had taken care of the arrangements, but they’d never been close. The only person that mattered to Noni was Elvie, and Noni’s sister had always been jealous of their close bond. The second the funeral was over, her aunt had left Elvie in the house on her own, saying she’d come and sort out Noni’s things in a couple of days. But she hadn’t come back.

Elvie didn’t know why. She didn’t know how the men had known to take her either. All she knew was that she wished she was back there, with Noni still looking after her.

She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of the outer door opening again, and more footsteps heading up the stairs. Snuggling down into the tarp, she silently finished her tea and fell into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

8
^th
November, 1010 hours – Unit 12b, Sunderland Enterprise Park

Danny didn’t want to wake up. He felt consciousness try and pull at him, and fought it every step of the way. But finally his eyes cracked open a slit.

Sunlight shimmered through the crack in the rear door and for a moment he forgot where he was, staring as the light danced with the dust particles in bright rays.

Slowly though, the pain invaded his mind. He pulled his bottom lip inwards, it had felt dry and cracked, but as his tongue flicked over it he realised that something wasn’t right. It was the metallic taste and the feel that it was all rough and cut up. He felt like every limb was burning, and suddenly he remembered the rats.

Tears sprang to his eyes as he imagined them crawling all over him, biting at his flesh and eating his lip.
Oh Christ, fucking hell. I’m still alive. How am I still alive? There must have been hundreds of them.

He shuddered in disgust; all he could see in his mind was dirty great rats with huge teeth baring down on him.

And then the door behind him opened.

Rocko and Gaz entered the unit, Gaz immediately coming round to face Danny.

‘He’s still alive. The rats have done a good job of munching at his face like. Looks like something out of the Walking Dead. Gross, look at his lip. It’s hanging off.’

Gaz slapped him hard across the face, and Danny groaned as his cheek started burning. He felt his lip split and blood started to drip down his chin.

‘What we gunna do with him, boss? Leave him for the rats or finish him off?’

‘What a fucking pain in the arse. Why’d you have to mess up, Danny? I had big plans for you.’ Rocko’s voice penetrated the fog of agony, he sounded disappointed, pissed off even. But Danny no longer cared.
Just end it you fucking twat, finish it. Please, God, just let me die. I can’t take any more.

‘Do you know what I do to people who screw me, Danny? And their families? I’m not going to leave you here for the rats, they get fed enough shite. You’re gunna die knowing that because of you, your little girl is gunna grow up without her daddy, your girlfriend is going to find your body and be traumatised for life, always looking over her shoulder wondering if she’s gunna be next. And eventually, when they finally feel safe, I’m gunna come for both of them. They’ll see me and realise in that moment that their lives will be over. And I’ll make sure they both understand that it’s all your fault. That if you had kept your dick in your pants and not fucked one of my girls, not helped her escape, and not been caught yourself, that their lives would have carried on as normal. And both of them will hate you for what you’ve done, in those last few minutes they will curse the piece of shit you are and wish to God that they’d never met you.’

Anger burned in Danny’s stomach.
No! Please no, not my family. I didn’t shag the girl, I swear I didn’t! Please don’t hurt my family.

His silent screams echoed round his mind, but he knew Rocko couldn’t hear them. He shook his head from side to side, grunting, trying to beg to tell them not to do that, to tell them the truth about the girl and what had happened.

But it was no use.

He felt the blade cut across his neck, the silky smooth feel of steel on skin almost deceptive in its intent. Blood gurgled in his throat, and he saw a red streak fly past him onto the rear door and ceiling. His last thought as he drifted off was of his daughter, and how she would grow up not knowing him, not knowing that he had died trying to do the right thing.

‘You really gunna do that to his family, boss?’ asked Gaz, once Danny’s eyes had glazed over and his chest had ceased to rise. ‘I can take care of that for you. I’ll make them both wish they’d never met this useless sack of shit.’ He kicked at Danny’s leg before turning to face Rocko, his eyes sparkling. ‘I could bring them here, boss. Make her watch while I bleed the little one dry. I could fuck her, all over. Then kill her too. I don’t mind, boss.’ Gaz was almost salivating at the thought.

‘No.’ Rocko’s voice was sharp. ‘What he did isn’t their problem. It’ll be enough that they live without him and that he died thinking they would suffer.’

‘What shall we do with the body?’

‘Untie him, wrap him in plastic. We’ll dump him after dark. Then you can come back and clean this place with a gallon of bleach.’ 

8
^th
November, 1905 hours – Buchanan Residence, Sunderland

‘God damn stupid lift, always on the blink when I have shopping to carry,’ mumbled Marlo, balancing the large box on her arms while the carrier bags dangling from her hands cut off the circulation in her fingertips. ‘Always bloody happens when I’ve got shopping. I’ll be emailing the maintenance man about this.’

Griping didn’t make her feel better, but she did reach the top in what seemed like record time. She manoeuvred herself around the door to the corridor and tried to pull the handle down with her little finger.

The door suddenly sprang towards her, hitting the fingers that held the bottom of the box and causing her to instinctively release her hold on the box. Marlo cried out, partly in pain as her fingers suddenly realised there was blood flow, and partly to warn whomever was about to barrel through the door that she was there.

Tins clanked down the stairs as she moved back to allow the other person through. ‘Jesus, you could’ve bloody looked,’ she snapped, not bothering to look up. She didn’t know her neighbours anyway, but no one went barrelling through a stairwell door without at least considering someone might be coming the other way. It was just plain rude.

Placing her carrier bags on the floor, she bent over and tried to retrieve a tin of tomatoes that was rolling towards the top of the stairs.

‘Anyone ever tell you, you have a habit of bumping into people?’ said Ali with a smile, bending to help her pick up the items that were now strewn over the landing.

‘Just living up to my name I guess,’ she grumbled back, remembering him calling her a jerk the last time they had collided.

Even his confusion didn’t stall her, and she looked him in the eye. ‘Next time you wanna call someone a jerk, at least have the decency to do it to their face.’

Ali’s confusion was blatant, ‘Jerk? I didn’t call you a jerk.’

Marlo threw her hands up and shrugged in exasperation, ‘And he can’t even own up to it. At least have the decency to admit when you’re at fault.’

‘Marlo, I didn’t call you a jerk.’

She felt her temper start to rise. ‘I heard you,’ she said. ‘You knocked me over and asked me to carry that bloody box to your office, and as I was leaving you called me a jerk!’

She saw the moment Ali realised what she was on about, his expression changing from confusion to acceptance. But she froze as he surprised her by taking her hand, ‘I didn’t call you a jerk, Marlo. I was referring to myself. You carried my box and said something that I took the wrong way. I was calling myself a jerk for dismissing you like it was your fault.’

Marlo raised her eyebrows, questioning him even as her pulse quickened under his touch. He hadn’t released her hand, and it felt warm where his lay on top.

Whoa there girlie, don’t even go there.

Ali sighed, ‘We were talking about the murder case a few months back. You said it wasn’t my fault that the guy had escaped, and I snapped at you. I was the jerk, Marlo, not you.’

Marlo pulled her hand back, considering his explanation. It did ring a bell. Her tone softened, ‘It really wasn’t your fault you know.’

‘I know, it feels like it, though. You’re a cop, you know what it’s like. A man died. Maybe if I’d done something different, he’d have lived.’

‘Not at your hands, Ali. You’re not responsible for a prisoner once they enter the prison system. There wasn’t anything you could have done differently to change the outcome. Brown wanted to escape and he did what he needed to do to facilitate that. The prison service staff messed up, every Tom Dick and Harry knows you don’t leave a high-risk prisoner like that with one staff member to look after him. The other guard shouldn’t have left. But Brown will get caught again, and when he does the prison service will throw away the key.’

‘I know you’re right, but still. I’m sorry for being a jerk, and I’m sorry for knocking your shopping down the stairs. I’ll go grab what’s down here,’ he said, leaving her sitting on the floor and picking the items off the steps and bottom landing. His cheeks coloured slightly as he handed her a box of Tampax that had gone astray, but it was nothing compared to how hers felt. Burning wasn’t the word!
Of all the things he could’ve picked up, it had to be these? It couldn’t have been a tin of bloody beans?

‘What are you doing lurking in the stairwell anyway?’ she asked, suddenly wondering how he came to be there.

‘I live here. Fourth floor.’

‘Howay, pull the other one, it’s got bells on it. I live on the fourth floor. Surely we’d have seen each other?’

‘Seriously, I’m in flat E. Inherited it when Alex moved in with Cass last year.