imaginative person but she had an overwhelming sense of fear all of a sudden, and she wasn’t sure if it was her own or someone else’s.
‘Hello? Can you hear me? Open the door, please, love. I need to check you’re all right.’
Silence.
Oh shit, Sandra thought, but not for her own sake, despite being scared at the thought of what might confront her inside the house. Oh shit something very bad has happened here. Oh shit we probably can’t make this one right. Oh shit we should have come out a lot sooner.
Oh shit.
She got on her radio and asked for back-up.
‘With you in two minutes,’ the dispatcher said, and Sandra thought about two minutes and how long that might be if you were scared, if you were dying. She’d asked for paramedics too, hoping they’d be needed.
The second police car came with two large constables, one of whom put the door in for her. His colleague went past him at speed, checking the rooms on the ground floor.
‘Clear.’
Sandra was halfway up the stairs, listening to her heart and every creak from the bare boards. The torch was slick in her hand.
‘Hello? Anyone here?’
The thunder of police boots on the steps behind her drowned out any sounds she might have heard. Bathroom: filthy in the jumping light from her torch, but no one hiding. A bedroom, piled high with rubbish and dirty clothes. No bed, but there was a pile of blankets on the floor, like a nest. A second bedroom was at the front of the house. It was marginally tidier than the other one, mainly because there was almost no furniture in it apart from a mattress on the floor. Shoes were lined up neatly in one corner and a collection of toiletries stood in another.
The woman was lying across the mattress, half hanging off the edge, a filthy blanket draped across her. Her head was thrown back. Dead, Sandra thought hopelessly, and made herself smile at the small boy who crouched beside the body.
‘Hello, you. We’re the police. Are you all right?’
He was small and dark, his hair hanging over his eyes. He blinked in the light, his eyes darting from her to the officer behind her. He wasn’t crying, and that was somehow worse than if he’d been sobbing. Sandra was bad at guessing children’s ages but she thought he could be eight or nine.
‘What’s your name?’
Instead of answering he huddled closer to the woman. He had pulled one bruised arm so it went around him. It reminded Sandra of an orphaned monkey clinging to a cuddly toy.
‘Can I come a bit closer? I need to check if this lady is all right.’
No reaction. He was staring past her at the officer behind her. She waved a hand behind her back. Give me some room.
‘Is this your mummy?’ she whispered.
A nod.
‘Is your daddy here?’
He mouthed a word. No. That was good news, Sandra thought.
‘Was he here earlier?’
Another nod.
Sandra inched forward. ‘Did you put that blanket over your mummy?’
‘Keep her warm.’ His voice was hoarse.
‘Good lad. Good idea. And you put something under her head.’
‘Coat.’
‘Brilliant. Can I just check to see if she’s all right?’ Sandra stretched out a gloved hand and touched the woman’s ankle. Her skin was blue in the light of the torch, and even through the latex her skin felt cold.
‘He hurt her.’
‘Who did, darling? Your dad?’
The boy blinked at her. After a long moment, he shook his head slowly, definitely. It would be someone else’s job to find out who had done it, Sandra thought, and was glad it wasn’t her responsibility. The closer she got to the woman on the mattress, the more she could see the damage he’d done to her. And the boy had watched the whole thing, she thought.
‘All right. We’ll help her, shall we?’
His huge, serious eyes were fixed on Sandra’s. She wasn’t usually sentimental, but a sob swelled up from deep in her chest and burst out of her mouth before she could stop it. She held out her arms. ‘Come here, little one.’
He shrank into himself, turning away from her towards his mother. Too much, too soon. She bit her lip. The sound of low voices came from the hall: the paramedics at long last.
‘I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here. We’ve got an ambulance for your mummy. We need to let the ambulance men look after her.’
‘I want to stay. I want to help.’
‘But you can’t.’
The boy gave a long, hostile hiss, a sound that made Sandra catch her breath. The paramedics crashed into the room, carrying their equipment, and shoved her out of the way. She leaned against the wall as they bent over the figure on the mattress. It was as if Sandra had come down with a sudden, terrible illness: her stomach churned and there was a foul taste in her mouth. A cramp caught at her guts but she couldn’t go, not in the filthy bathroom, not in what was going to be a crime scene. She clenched her teeth and prayed, and eventually the pain slackened. A greasy film of sweat coated her limbs. She lifted a hand to her head and let it fall again. What was wrong with her?
The boy had scrambled back when the paramedics crashed into the room. He crouched in the corner of the room among the shoes, those round solemn eyes taking everything in. Sandra watched him watching the men work on his mother’s body, and she shivered without knowing why.
It was a day like any other; it was a day like they all were inside. Time pulled that trick of dragging and passing too quickly and all that happened was that he was a day further into forever.
He sat on his own, in silence, because he’d been allocated a cell to himself. It was for his protection and because no one wanted to share with him. He wasn’t the only murderer on the wing – far from it – but he was notorious, all the same.
That wasn’t why no one wanted to share with him. His health wasn’t good, a cough rattling in his chest all night long. That was more of a problem than the killing, he thought. But he’d taken his share of abuse for the murders, all the same. No one liked his kind.
He shifted his weight in the cheap wooden-framed armchair, feeling it creak under him. He had never been a fat man but prison had pared away at his flesh, carving out the shadow of his bones on his face.
The room was fitted out like a cheap hostel – a rickety wardrobe, a small single bed, a desk against the wall. There were limp, yellow curtains at the window. At a glance you might not notice the bars
