Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) (14 page)

He laughed. ‘No shit.’

‘Seriously. She says there will be no forensics.’

‘That doesn’t prove much,’ he said.

Lilly leaned in. ‘I’m not the one that has to do the proving.’

‘What about Chika Mboko? She says your client was one of the main perps.’

‘Like I told you, she’s a liar with a grudge.’ Lilly tapped the table with her fingernail. ‘And let’s be honest, you don’t have a
statement
from her.’

Jack pressed his lips together. Lilly could almost hear his brain ticking over. No doubt Chika had been strong-armed into
talking
to Jack at all. If she’d fingered Tanisha, she did it verbally. There was a good chance Chika would never come back to the station to sign anything, less chance still that she would actually turn up at court to testify.

‘Without Chika, you only have the film,’ she said.

‘And the fact that Tanisha lied about being there at all,’ he retorted.

Lilly risked a glance at the WPC’s table. She was still glaring at them. The police wanted a result on this, but the evidence wasn’t concrete. Without a material witness, the case might get chucked out before it came to trial. Jack had to know Lilly would push for that.

‘I’m willing to roll the dice,’ she said. ‘Are you?’

The chief super pushed aside a plate of lasagne and chips. The fork fell on to his desk, leaving a silver splash of grease.

‘Does anyone actually eat this rubbish?’

Jack didn’t feel it necessary to confirm that he had virtually lived off canteen food for most of his life as a copper. Apart from the short interlude when he’d lived with Lilly, and eaten like the proverbial king, it was his main source of nourishment. On his days off he usually had a take-out.

‘So where are we, Jack?’ the chief super asked. ‘Any closer to resolving this mess?’

Jack see-sawed his hand. ‘I can prove the McKenzie girl was at the scene with CCTV footage, but I can’t prove she did anything while she was there.’

‘I thought you had a witness?’

‘Pretty dodgy,’ said Jack.

‘So what? Every grass turning Queen’s is a thief or a dealer,’ said the chief. ‘If I know one thing, it’s that there is no honour among the criminal classes.’

‘I’m not convinced we can even rely on her to get to court, sir, and without her, I’m skating on very thin ice.’

‘Then do a deal.’ The chief waved a dismissive hand. ‘She must have something she wants to go away.’

Jack gulped down his distaste. Bartering with the likes of Chika Mboko was not high on his wish list.

‘I mean it, Jack,’ said the chief. ‘We need this nailed and you’ll just have to do whatever it is that you need to do.’

The custody sarge yawned loudly, revealing a mouthful of silver fillings.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘It’s been a long shift.’

Lilly nodded in agreement. She was exhausted, desperate to go home and cuddle up with Alice in the bath. Then she planned an enormous glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Lilly looked over at Tanisha who was slumped on the bench opposite the high custody desk, eyes closed. She checked her watch. Eight o’clock on a Friday night.

‘Any chance of getting a wiggle on?’ Lilly asked the custody sarge. ‘I’d like to get Tanisha out of here before the drunks start polling up.’

‘Officer McNally is reviewing the evidence against her,’ he said.

‘Trying to work out if he can justify a case.’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’

‘And can he?’ Annabelle asked Lilly, her cheeks pinched.

‘Depends how much heat he’s getting from the top brass,’ Lilly replied.

At last, Jack arrived. Lilly tried to read his expression, but all she could see were the dark circles under his eyes. She smoothed down her suit jacket, straightened her spine.

‘Well?’

Jack’s face gave nothing away.

‘Jack?’ she said.

Then she caught it. That flash of discomfort.

‘I’ll be charging your client with attempted murder,’ he said.

Annabelle gasped. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have no choice.’

Annabelle’s eyes were wild, animalistic, flicking back and forth. She was shaking uncontrollably as they stood outside the station.

‘We shouldn’t have left Tanisha in there.’

‘I’ve already explained that we have no choice here,’ said Lilly.

Annabelle shook her head. ‘You should have made them see that this is all wrong. You barely said a word.’

Lilly sighed. Fortunately the wind was loud and Annabelle didn’t hear.

‘Tanisha will be taken to court first thing tomorrow morning and that will be the time to put forward arguments,’ said Lilly. ‘Once the police decide to charge, there is absolutely nothing the defence can do. The same with bail. I can talk till I’m blue in the face, but there’s no way on God’s earth that a custody sergeant on the end of his shift is going to release someone on an attempted murder. You must see that.’

But Annabelle couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were open yet completely blind.

‘You should have told the police that she was pregnant,’
Annabelle
said.

Lilly pulled up the collar of her jacket against the cold. She wanted to go home.

‘We’ve been through all this,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference to tonight’s decision, so we’ll keep it back for tomorrow.’

Lilly glanced at her watch. She’d sneaked a call to Penny
asking
her to collect Alice from nursery, but it was getting late and Penny would be waiting. She couldn’t spend another half an hour going over and over the same ground with Annabelle.

‘I’m going to need to prepare for the hearing,’ she said.

‘But what are you going to say?’ Annabelle’s voice was almost a wail. ‘How are you going to make them understand?’

Lilly’s tone was brisk. ‘Look, Annabelle, I need to tell the court that Tanisha’s current placement with you is steady, that you’re both reliable and responsible, so what you need to do for me right now is to remain calm. Go home and find anything you can for me to prove to the magistrate that Tanisha has changed.’

Annabelle raked her fingers through her hair, from the scalp to the tip, as if she were trying to throw off her desperation.

‘I just want to make everything right,’ she said.

Lilly nodded. She understood the sentiment, but over the years she’d learned the hard way that some things were broken beyond repair.

A horrible R&B track blasts out from the speakers, followed by a chorus of whoops from the girls who start gyrating furiously.

Jamie detests this sort of music.

‘Come and dance,’ the girl next to him giggles.

She’s been sitting by his side for twenty minutes, banging on about spending the summer in Rock, because, it’s ‘like totally crazy, yeah’. She says her name’s Melody and wears loads of those rubber bands around her wrist.

‘What’s this for,’ Jamie points to a white one.

‘I’m, like, totally against globalization,’ she says.

Jamie takes in her Converse trainers, her Jack Wills micro
miniskirt
, and several Hollister vest tops layered over one another.

‘Right,’ he says.

Someone turns up the volume until Jamie feels like his ears might bleed.

‘Dance,’ Melody mouths and holds out her hand.

‘I can’t stand this mass produced shit,’ says Jamie.

‘What?’ Melody shouts.

Jamie points to his ear and shakes his head. Another boy sidles over. He’s wearing what looks like a skiing helmet with a plastic cup taped to the side. A rubber pipe runs from the cup to his mouth and he constantly re-fills the cup from a two litre bottle of Merrydown cider. Jamie’s tempted to ask why he doesn’t just drink from the bottle, but presumably that’s not the point and he thinks his home-made contraption is hilarious. From the look on Melody’s face, he’s spot on. She leans into the boy’s arm, doubled up with laughter. Jamie watches them take to the dance floor, then heads off for the toilet.

Sometimes, especially when he’s at these parties, watching everyone staggering about, grinning at one another, completely wrecked, he wonders if he’ll ever fit in. Scratch that. He knows he’ll never fit in.

When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he stops short. On the second step is Tristan, wrapped around some girl, sucking her face off. Can he sneak past without being noticed? Or should he make his way out into the garden? No doubt it’s pretty busy out there. The bad weather won’t be enough to deter the shaggers, but there’s bound to be a dark corner he can make his own.

Before he can make up his mind, Tristan looks up.

‘Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,’ he sings.

Jamie nods hello.

‘Enjoying the party?’ Tristan’s voice is fuzzy around the edges. ‘Cos I am having a fucking ball.’

The girl he’s with giggles. She’s wearing denim shorts over thick black tights and her thighs are just a bit too chunky.

‘This is Kate,’ Tristan leans towards Jamie. ‘Completely top girl.’

She giggles again.

‘And this,’ Tristan takes a step down to Jamie, loses his balance, so that he falls into him, ‘is my good mucker, Jamie.’

‘Hi Jamie.’ The girl is equally hammered and gives a small burp.

Tristan puts his arm around Jamie’s shoulders, as much to hold himself up as to show friendship. He smells of beer and sweat. Kate’s saliva glistens on his mouth and chin. Jamie gives an
involuntary
shudder.

‘So Jamie, how are you getting on tonight?’ asks Tristan. ‘Seen anyone you fancy?’

He and Kate both laugh. Jamie joins in.

‘Lost your cherry yet?’ They double over as if it’s the funniest joke.

‘On my way to the toilet actually,’ says Jamie and pushes his way past. Behind him, he can hear them calling him back, but he’s not stopping. When he finally gets to the top, he throws himself in and locks the door behind him. The little room stinks. Someone’s been sick. They’ve flushed the chain, but there are strings of purple mucus sliding over the side of the bowl. He flicks the lid with a finger and it clatters down. He reaches for some loo roll, but the holder’s empty and there are no spares anywhere. No doubt some twat is setting fire to them outside.

He decides to brave the lid and sits down. Through the locked door he can hear the muffled sounds of the party in full throttle. Beyoncé has been replaced by Cheryl Cole, and a group of girls run down the corridor, pumps thumping on the wooden floor boards, as they sing along.

Jamie reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the packet. Carefully, he opens it and peers at the white powder. For twenty quid it looks a miniscule amount, but he knows it will be enough to do the trick.

He reaches into his other pocket and takes out a sheet of tin foil that he begged from one of the dinner ladies at school. He told them that he wanted to wrap up a biscuit for later. The dinner ladies all live in the council houses in the village and either hate the boys, or feel sorry for them. This one had not only given him some foil, she’d made him a ham sandwich. He hates ham, but didn’t like to tell her.

Jamie smoothes out the foil on his lap and taps the ice into a small, neat pile. Finally he takes out a lighter and a metal tube, the width of his index finger. He pops the tube in his mouth, his lips making the shape of an ‘O’ and sparks up the lighter. The flame burns bright as he passes it under the tin foil.

Within seconds the powder begins to turn and he greedily sucks up the vapour. He remembers the first time he took
crystal
meth. He’d been in Luton doing his Help the Aged thing, when the black girl offered him a smoke. He’d scored a bit of weed from her before but as soon as he took a puff of her spliff he was knocked off his feet. He’d been worried it was heroin. Everyone knows how bad that is, how you end up stealing cars to pay for it, or dying of Aids. The girl just laughed and told him it was ‘glass’. Even from that little taste, the rush had been
incredible
, and he knew he wanted more.

As soon as the smoke hits his throat, Jamie feels the huge wave of energy flow through him. It makes him laugh out loud. All those stupid thoughts and worries melt away and he knows he can take on the world.

When half the powder is gone, Jamie throws open the toilet door, smacking it against the wall behind. It leaves a small black mark that would send his mum apoplectic. He doesn’t even try to wipe it away with a licked finger, but heads down the stairs.

Tristan is still on the bottom step, though Kate has disappeared. He’s leaning against the wall, sweating.

‘Tristan,’ Jamie booms, and throws his arms around his neck.

‘Feeling a bit rough, to be honest, mate.’ Tristan sounds forlorn. ‘Think I need to sit down for a bit.’

‘Fuck that,’ Jamie shakes his housemate hard. ‘Let’s party.’

‘There is no way on God’s earth that I will agree to your client being given bail.’

Kerry Thomson went back to the stack of files on the desk in front of her. It was Saturday morning in the Magistrates’ Court and she had taken over the whole advocates’ room. She was the prosecutor Lilly most dreaded. Kerry seemed to dislike Lilly and not only because they were on opposite sides of the fence. It was personal. If she could make her life difficult, she would.

‘I’m not trying to be difficult,’ Kerry didn’t look up from her papers, ‘but this is a serious case and your client should remain in custody.’

Lilly stood her ground and stared at Kerry. She’d lost more weight since the last time they met and the shoulders of her suit jacket sagged like loose skin.

‘The evidence against Tanisha is piss poor and you know it,’ Lilly said.

Kerry sighed and placed her finger on a page to mark her place. ‘Tell it to the magistrate.’

‘I will.’ Lilly gave a tight smile. ‘I’ll also tell him your main
witness
has got a past like Paris Hilton.’

Kerry waved her hand as if Lilly were an annoying insect.