BiteMarks (11 page)

“
Are you a friend or relative?”

“
No.” I produce my warrant card. “I'm a Police Officer. I was off duty and heard her screaming so I went to her aid.”

The receptionist's fingers clatter over the keys at speed, expression giving nothing away.

“
I just need to have a chat with the Ward Manager.”

“
Is there a problem?”

“
No, but she's a very poorly girl and I don't think she'll be up for any questioning.”

“
You misunderstand me; I've not come to ask her anything, just to see how she's doing.”

“
I'll still have to check.”

I kick my heels while I wait for her return; reading the public information notices and glancing at the zombies awaiting triage. There's a sour odor of vomit competing with the chlorine reek of hycolin in the air. A man wearing a bloody bandage like a turban catches my eye, aiming a 'fuck-you-looking-at?' in my direction; I ignore it, not much time for pleasantries right now. Eventually there's movement back at the desk, and the receptionist arrives with the Ward Manager in tow.

“
I understand that you'd like to see one of my patients?” Emphasis falling on the possessive.

“
Yes.”

“
For what purpose?”

I force the rising flames of rage back down, maintaining a firm grasp on my composure. Just. “I spent half of last night holding that girls neck back together after some psycho tried to tear her head off with his teeth. I woke up this morning with her blood still on my skin, and figured that since she's a 'working girl' there might not be a queue of friends waiting to inquire after her welfare. I thought that I'd at least come and see how she was.” I pull my warrant card back out. “I didn't make this at home, and while I know that it doesn't give me right of way here, it should at least show who I am and that I don't mean her any harm.”

“
You've got ten minutes with her. Follow me.” She turns and sets off down the corridor at pace, not bothering to check whether I'm still with her. The sound of her shoes is angry castanets on the reflective beige floor.

I use the walk to check out the signs and the occasional passing nurse, smiling at a cute, tiny brunette, in a gray uniform; who blushes and smiles shyly back. We take a turn down a smaller corridor, passing a door marked 'Phlebotomy', tempting – maybe later, and continuing through heavy double doors onto a small side ward.  

“
I'm sure that I don't need to tell you what kind of condition she's in, but I want to make it abundantly clear that there'll be no upsetting her or questioning going on. If there is then I'll remove you myself, police officer or not. She's at the end on the left.” She turns and clacks rapidly away again.

“
Thank you.” I call out after her fading footfalls.

The room Cristal is in is cooler than I expected, with drips and monitors crowding around the sleeping, or sedated, girl like uninvited voyeurs. Much of her face and neck is bandaged since human bite marks are easily infected, and only one of her eyes is uncovered, swollen and purple with flakes of dried blood in the long lashes. I close the door quietly behind me and take a seat, suddenly feeling awkward and exposed, unsure of what I'm doing here now.

“
I don't know why I came here. The polite thing to say is that I came to see if you're all right, but I'm not sure if that's completely true.” I look up but there's no change in her breathing or position, and the visible eye remains closed. “I'll catch him for you. You didn't deserve this. I guess a lot of us have things happen to us that we didn't deserve. I'll find him because of our similarities; I need to apologize for that … I think you saw what I did, but I also wanted to tell you that I'm not like this man in almost every other respect. That's it for now.”  I rise to leave, not sure if I believe everything that I've just said, opening the door to go.

“
Kill him.” 

Her hard voice makes me flinch. I pause long enough so that she knows I've heard her, before I slip out through the door and close it softly behind me. Kill him. My echoing footsteps reiterating the handclap cadence of the two syllables as I move.

There are people outside the doors as I leave, smoking furiously and huddling away from the drizzle under the scant overhang – the only shelter available. A greasy-haired woman in hospital pajamas and a dressing-gown inhales deeply from her cigarette, distended stomach advertising the reason for her stay; I hope the baby enjoys the poison as much as she does.

A fragment of song dances through my head,
the saddest thing I ever saw...smokers outside the hospital doors
. I fight hard to suppress the strong urge to laugh, disguising the noise as a cough. I fish my phone out of a pocket and switch it on, no messages or missed calls, no real surprise there, and I scroll through the short list of contacts until I find Karen's number.

“
Hang on a moment, I'll just head to somewhere I can talk.” There's a sound of high-heels on a hard surface, followed by doors opening and closing. “Sorry about that. Hi there, stranger, I was beginning to think you were a fuck and run.”

I give an approximation of laughter “What a charming turn of phrase. No, I just wanted to make sure I gave you some space. You might have had some regrets, me being a junior Officer and all … ”

“
No regrets here. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, fancy a repeat performance?”

“
Of course, how about my place tomorrow night?”

“
I'm free, babes.”

“
Good, I'll cook for you then, too.”

“
The last time a man cooked for me it was beans on toast.” She laughs.

“
I can probably do better than that.”

“
In that case, it's a date.”

“
Do you need to speak to me in a work-related capacity before then?”

“
I got the message. You found her yourself?”

“
Heard the screams from my apartment and saddled up my trusty steed. I've just been to QMC to check on her.”

“
Not so smart that, you could be accused of interfering with the CID investigation. Did she have anything to say for herself though?”

Well, she asked me to kill the guy who attacked her...

“
I didn't go there to question her, just to see whether she'd made it through the night, but she was asleep or unconscious, so no, nothing of note.”

“
It's okay to be ambitious, honey. Don't worry about coming in, we'll talk shop for a while when we get together.”

“
Okay, you got me; but I wasted my time here anyway.”

“
I can't wait until tomorrow.”

“
Me neither, see you later.” I end the call. Perhaps there's no real issue with a relationship built up on empty sex and veiled evasions. Maybe if you look closely enough most of them are. How much does another person really want to know about you, the real you? What if you've been pretending for so long that you can't remember who that person is anymore? I'm in danger of convincing myself that I should give this relationship a real chance, as I cross the open space between the main buildings and the car park. I jog down the steps away from the insipid fingers of daylight between the blocks, stopping to feed coins into the machine, paying my release fee.

There's a man standing next to my car as I approach. I can see him from distance; that's the whole point, he wants to see how much he scares me. He's about six feet in height, black and muscular. He wears white cats-eye contact lenses.

“
We must stop meeting like this, Antony, people will start to talk.”  

His grin is broad but humorless “I don't know whether I like you hovering around my girls, po-lees boy.”

“
Oh well let me know when you come to a conclusion on that.”

I reach around him for the door handle, clicking the central-locking open with my key fob and dropping the fob back in my pocket. As predicted he grabs hold of my arm, squeezing tight to demonstrate his considerable strength.

“
I don't like the way that you spoke to me at my house, and I don't like the way you spoke to me right then. You might want to remember who I am, and that I see you around all the time with that pretty dog of yours.”

I swing my arm in an arc, bringing it around his own and locking the elbow joint straight; at the same time I kick his legs from underneath him and release the arm-lock, slamming my forearm into his throat to trap him against the side of the car. He hangs choking, eyes bulging in surprise and trying to get his feet back under himself. He may be strong, but so am I, particularly when enraged.

“
Your pets aren't the only things in this world that bite.” I hiss at him, teeth bared and muscles aching with the effort of supporting his weight. “I've felt something like fear the last few times that we met. It's new for me and I didn't like it, but now it's gone.” I let go of him and he makes a noise like he's emerging from underwater.

“
You're a dead man,” he says in a ragged voice, backing away from me now.

“
Tell me about it,” I reply, getting into the car and starting the engine.

Chapter 8

“
It's been like pulling teeth, mate.” Marcus flashes his own pearly whites with the pun, recounting his attempts to obtain information about unusual cosmetic dentistry done in the area. His teeth reflect the dull fluorescent bulbs in the empty police briefing room. “Of course there's nothing to say he definitely had them done around here.”

“
So you failed to extract any useful information at this stage?”

He mouths the start of a reply and then breaks into a much broader grin, slapping me firmly on the shoulder. 

“
Careful, you're in serious danger of developing a sense of humor, mate.”

“
I take it they all asked for a warrant before they'd give up anything useful?”

“
Correct.”

“
Assholes. So we're no further forward now, we've just got another half-dead girl to add to the mix.”

“
I didn't say we were no further along, did I?” Grin still in place.

“
What have you got?'

“
Just absolute confirmation that it was indeed done locally after all. He's using the dentist on the corner of Carrington and Mapperley Park.”

“
How do you know that?”

“
Easy. When they'd each finished telling me precisely nothing, I just had a quiet word with the dental nurses and gave them our brief description of a very pale guy with vampire fangs and a predilection for mutilating young women. Told them that if he did have his teeth done there, they might want to consider ensuring that they weren't alone with him when he came back in for his check-up. Only one of them suggested that I might want to come back with that warrant sooner rather than later.”

“
You bastard.” I punch him on the arm. “Why didn't you just tell me that up front?” 

“
Where's the fun in that? Anyway, we just need to give CID a heads up now and they'll take care of the rest. Problem solved.” 

“
Don't you think that having come this far, we should follow it through?”

“
No.”

“
Just think about it for a minute, Marcus. It would be a great arrest to make, which wouldn't do our fledgling careers any harm, and we're almost there now anyway. You're the one who said let's catch the guy ourselves in the first place, remember?”

“
There's a big difference between making some informal inquiries and getting lucky, and actually managing to obtain a warrant to get the details of who we're looking for from the dentist. So that looks like the end of the line for what we can do anyway. Besides, if the Criminal Investigation Department get a sniff of what we're doing, which amounts to interfering in the investigation and possibly even withholding evidence by the way, then you're fucked.”

“
And you.”

“
Not me, I've already told you what my plan is for immunity, the gay black thing remember?” He laughs.

“
We don't need a warrant.”

“
I'm not fucking breaking in, so get that idea right out of your head.”

“
Don't be daft; I meant that we should be able to figure out his identity without the dental records.”

“
Telepathy?”

“
CRIMINT. We know he's local, we've got a distinctive description, and there's a good chance that he's been in trouble before. So with a little time and effort we'll find him in the system somewhere.”

“
Good luck with that, mate.”