regardless of her appearance. Yet he didn’t know how to say what he felt must be said, by him, to her.
‘I screwed up. It may not mean much, but …’ He had to force himself to go on. ‘… I feel sick to the pit of my stomach.’ He struggled for strength one more time.
‘I’m sorry.’
Big Jess gave out a weary laugh, raising her clawed hand. ‘You know … last night I’d’ve pulled your heart out. But somewhere in the wee small hours, I said “what the hell!” You can’t stay angry all night, Loach.’ She noticed the flowers, and noticed soon after checking his face that the flowers were not for her but for her friend. Nonetheless, a tired smile lifted a few of her sagging facial muscles for a brief respite. ‘Anyway … you’ve the bottle to turn up,’ she reminded him, referring to the flowers. ‘There’s not many would do that for a brass.’
He reached out to touch her, but quickly and clearly her eyes signalled that he shouldn’t, and he respected her wishes. Her eyes then motioned his to the side ward just off the corridor.
‘She’s going back to Newcastle …’ Her mind seemed to wander. ‘Who knows? Maybe her old boyfriend might have her back. Even considering …’
She never finished the sentence. He learned why in the side ward. Lying in the solitary bed was Jackie, or what was left of her. He couldn’t see much really, as most of her head and upper body was swathed in bandages. What yesterday had seemed such a fragile, delicate beauty had been fractured and torn to pieces … and partly, at least, because this ephemeral creature had trusted him.
Over by the window, Detective Inspector Dutrow was standing with a nurse. ‘She’s asleep,’ he said softly.
Awkwardly, Loach handed his bunch of flowers to the hovering nurse, and Dutrow gestured that they leave the room. Loach was grateful to accept the suggestion, since there was obviously nothing he could offer Jackie anymore.
In the corridor they passed Big Jess, who ignored them. Loach tried to think of what to say to Dutrow, something that wouldn’t be embarrassingly inappropriate … anything, in fact.
‘Jess tells me Jackie’s going back to Newcastle.’
‘That’s good.’ They walked on in silence for a while. ‘If she stays, the likes of her could well be dead by this time next year.’
The thought of her further suffering and early death depressed Loach to the point of tears. He desperately tried to hold them back, though without knowing why, except that he was with a fellow officer, so he must not surrender to grief or self-pity. Like a robot, he followed Dutrow to the lift, which they entered in silence.
‘I’ve another visit to make,’ Dutrow announced on the way down. ‘I’d like you to come with me.’ Loach wondered what was next, but didn’t say anything, rather accompanied the Detective Inspector mechanically.
In some other ward, in some other bed, Dutrow showed him another mummified patient, wrapped in bandages and tape, who appeared to have broken every single bone in his or her body.
‘You may not have heard, but there was a nasty accident last night at my Division. You know the front steps there are pretty dangerous. We’ve all complained about them. Just shows you. They tell me he’s in a worse state than Jackie upstairs.’
Loach looked down at the bandaged body manifestly unconscious and oblivious to his sympathy. ‘Is he one of your constables there?’
‘No, no. I thought you knew him.’
Perplexed, sceptical, Loach shook his head. ‘How could I? There’s no way I’d know him through all those bandages.’
‘True …’ Dutrow gazed at the motionless form on the bed. ‘Anyway. He’s the civvie on duty at the reception. You know?’ He turned to Loach. ‘The one you gave the letter to? For me? I hear he was a nice lad. Pity it hadn’t happened to that punk Diesel, eh?’ he nudged Loach. ‘But you never know your luck.’
John Redwood and two other Specials, another man and a woman, were clambering on board a single-decker bus to quell a burgeoning riot among twenty football supporters turned into a mob of hooligans. Brandishing beer bottles and lager cans like weapons, the heaving mass of sweaty bodies came in full battle uniform: knee-length scarves, jaunty caps and rosettes; more like a party gone wild than a mob gone berserk, each hooligan intent on showing he could laugh, shout or sing louder than the next, all showing exaggerated signs of public drunkenness.
‘Here we go, here we go, here we go,’ some of the wrestlers were singing. ‘Way the reds!’ bawled others.
Hand waving aloft to calm the situation, Redwood soon had to bring them down to protect his own midriff from two thugs brawling nearest to the door. He tried to deal with them firmly, yet quietly, and with professional courtesy.
‘All right. Can we settle down – please.’
The two thugs stopped brawling and aped his ‘please’ with raucous laughter. Another thug grabbed the woman Special and bounced her on his knee.
‘Hullo darling.’
Restoring order, Redwood tried reasoning with them. ‘Now listen, everyone. I’m sure you don’t want to miss the final.’ A few hoots and hollers came from the hecklers who were not otherwise occupied punching out somebody next to them. ‘But we have a job to do. And we need your co-operation …’
The mob gave him a sing-song reply: ‘Two, four, six, eight – why should we co-operate?’
One of the thugs snatched Redwood’s cap and hurled it like a frisbee the length of the bus. ‘A hundred and eighty!’ he boasted.
‘Come on, now,’ Redwood endeavoured to caution them. ‘Let’s be sensible …’
But the mood on board the bus was getting angrier and uglier, more disorderly by the second. Some of the mob were crowding around Redwood, surrounding him, pushing and shoving every which way.
Just when it seemed as if he might be swamped, a loud voice shouted from the back of the bus. ‘No, no, no! Hold it!’
Everyone stopped wrestling, and hostilities vanished in an instant.
The irritated voice belonged to Sergeant Crombie, who had been observing the drill from the back seat of the stationary bus at Tally-Ho, the Police Training Centre where Specials and police alike are trained. The hooligans were not supporters of the Birmingham City Football Club or the West Bromwich Albion Football Club or the Aston Villa Football Club or any other for that matter. They were simply off-duty policemen thoroughly enjoying the academic discipline of teaching new Specials the ropes.
Sergeant Crombie was a large, imposing figure whose aggressiveness seemed heightened, if possible, by the brevity of his hair. His iron stare had already singled out Redwood for a dressing-down, and the others moved away from the eye of the storm.
‘Who’s the ringleader? Him?’ Sergeant Crombie badgered Redwood, pointing to one of the pseudo-thugs. Redwood nodded, which only seemed to aggravate the tough sergeant. ‘Then collar him!
