Force Of Habit v5 (23 page)

‘Looking for her mum and her brother, Darren.’

‘What a family. That only leaves the youngest that isn't in any trouble.’

Downstairs Danny Ward passed the police car. Nothing unusual about a police car on the estate. He struggled up the stairs. He was finding it harder and harder to breathe. He used the railing along the landing. He was feeling really hot. He got to his front door. His pockets were empty. The key and his gas were in his school trousers back in the changing room. He fell against the door and let himself slide down until he was sitting on the step. The door opened and he fell backwards onto the hall floor. Someone blocked out the sky. He tried to cry out but nothing came. He could barely breathe at all now. The person leaned in close. It looked like a policewoman. What had Darren done now? It was always Darren. Danny had been hoping he was here and that he would go mental on those kids chasing him. That he would go and sort them out once and for all. He wanted to ask what Darren had done but he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe.

He was lifted up. Hands held him as he tried to walk towards the people in the living room. Breathing was like trying to suck air into his lungs through a straw the size of a pin. He noticed Chelsea was in the group. She was crying.

‘It's mam,’ she blubbed.

Daniel ‘Weirdo’ Ward, fainted.

TWENTY-SEVEN

North carried Danny Ward into A&E.

‘He has Asthma.’

The woman behind the glass wall disappeared. Seconds later the security door opened and he was called through. The nurse fired questions at North and he answered as best he could. A doctor appeared. A syringe squirted and North had another flashback. Adrenaline plunged into the boy. He breathed. His temperature was taken, blood pressure, a number of tests run. He was going to be fine but they were going to keep him in overnight for observation. The boy slept. North went to find the kid's mam.

***

‘Jesus, how many cars hit her?’

‘Just the one. It broke her right arm and leg, inflicted some nasty cuts and bruises but she was also carrying injuries that couldn’t have been sustained by the car impact. Injuries that had to have been inflicted just prior to the accident.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Cars don’t try to rape and strangle you. There are other indications too and there are signs of possible torture. The doctors think that someone had abused her quite badly.’ The nurse turned in response to a sound across the ward. ‘I’m sorry, someone is at the ward door,’ the nurse moved off.

This was no coincidence. Another torture victim, a victim linked to the Lumsden case who was once a prostitute and drug user and the hospital admission records showed that Donna Ward had been attacked the same night as Denise Lumsden. Had she also been dealing drugs, just like her daughter, Dawn, and Denise Lumsden? Chelsea had said that she was with her girlfriend. Where was she when all this happened? Where was she now? Donna, then Dawn had gotten bad habits at a young age. Now Chelsea was heading down the same path. He looked over at her. She was nestled in Mrs Shepherds arm.

Donna Ward lay alone in a dark room, bathed in the dim glow cast by screens monitoring the tubes and wires running to and from her battered body. She was in a coma, beaten and tortured into within an inch of her life.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘What the hell is going on?’

He was in a corridor looking through a window into the room. A nurse had gone in and raised the blind for him. It was the nearest the doctor would allow anyone to get. She'd lost a lot of blood, suffered severe shock and trauma, had numerous wounds, including bite marks, and a number of broken bones. A piece of flesh had been torn off her breast. She'd been sexually assaulted. It was touch and go whether she would live. Donna Ward had been brought in by ambulance two nights ago, responding to a call from a passing motorist. The hospital had called the police.

North called the station.

The police had taken a man in for questioning, the driver of the car that collided with Donna Ward but who hadn’t been the one to make the 999 call. He'd been banged up in the station for the last two days. They had six hours to charge him or let him go.

North put the PCW outside Donna Ward’s door and instructed her not to allow anyone in but him and the medical staff. Absolutely no one. If anyone even tried - anyone - she had to inform him immediately.

‘What's so important about her anyway?’

A commotion broke out behind them.

A woman came along the corridor towards them, at least North thought it was a woman, it was hard to be one hundred percent. The nurse was calling down the ward after her in hushed tones. It looked like the nurse had gone to answer the buzzer and the woman had forced her way past. The PCW stepped forward to restrain her. North admired her resolve – this one could give Shontelle-Leigh Stafford a decent run for her money.

‘Aunty Chris!’

She even had a bloke’s name.

Chelsea ran towards her. They embraced, arms tight around one another. Chelsea began crying again. She spoke but the words were unintelligible. The PCW looked at North for guidance and he had her back-off. The nurse returned to her station. They all left the pair to it. They eventually separated and Aunty Chris led Chelsea to a chair. When she was satisfied Chelsea was okay, or at least as okay as she was going to get, she came towards the window.

‘Chelsea called me,’ she said to North. She reeked of tabs and had the stains of a long term two pack a day addict and a hard face forged by hard times. A face that melted when its eyes fell on Donna Ward. The deep guttural sound it emitted caused North's body hair to prickle. The face pressed into the glass and left a trail as it slid down the window. Aunty Chris lay on the floor and cried her heart out. Chelsea started up again. North didn't know what to do with either of them. They made him feel uncomfortable. The social worker consoled the girl and the PCW got down beside Aunty Chris. The noise brought the nurse back and she checked the woman over. She was okay to be moved and she got North to help her. They struggled their way into an examination room where they laid her down. Aunty Chris’ whole body began to judder. North wished he'd left the nurse to it and done a runner the moment they had put her down. He took a glance at the nurse to see if he could still chance it.

‘Oh, no you don't, I have to go get help. You need to stay with her,’ she waved him closer and got him to hold her hand. North wanted to chew his off at the wrist. This was well out of his comfort zone.

‘Come back with a sedative,’ said North. ‘A big one.’ The nurse began to close the door. ‘Make it two,’ he said.

It seemed to take forever.

North glanced at the door for about the fifty-seventh time.

‘He's killed her,’ said Aunty Chris.

North did a double-take. Thought he was hearing things. She was till sobbing. Snivelling. Making revolting noises in her nose and throat. He wasn’t sure whether to press her on what he thought she had said or keep schtum and hope she elaborated. If he pressed her she might regain her senses and clam up.

‘He's killed them both,’ she sobbed.

He had heard it.

He’s killed her. He’s killed them both.

He.

North watched her tremble and felt the judder grow beneath his hand. She broke down again and was making those blood curling sounds when the door opened and the nurse came back in. A doctor followed. A small glass bottle appeared. A hypodermic plunged into it. North's protestations were ignored and the needle broke Aunty Chris' skin and the liquid rushed in.

She became still. Silent.

Great.

Just great.

He was ushered back out into the corridor. The social worker seemed to have calmed the daughter.

‘Your Aunty has had to be sedated,’ said North. ‘She will be asleep for a while. Is she your mum’s sister?’

She snorted. Shook her head.

‘Your dad’s?’

‘I told you, I never had a dad.’

Then who the fuck was Aunty Chris?

‘She’s my mam’s girlfriend. She gets us to call her that.’

TWENTY-EIGHT

She had been clothed in a low-cut top, push-up bra, skirt, knickers and heels. One shoe was missing. The heel had broken off the one that wasn’t. All but the shoe had been cut and torn, the cuts often having carried on into her skin. Her clothes had been shredded with her in them. The only thing that had remained intact was a cheap charm bracelet the doctors had removed from her wrist. Someone at the hospital had had the good sense to take pictures in the moments when she was rushed in and examined, as scissors had performed the last few strokes necessary to completely remove everything so they could get to work.

North looked at the photographs. Read through the paperwork. The social worker had given North some background. Donna Ward was a supervisor for a large company doing contract cleaning. She was in charge of cleaning the county court buildings. A good employee, started as a cleaner ten years ago and made supervisor only a year later. Her manager said she had stood out from day one, had smarts, was conscientious, rarely sick and wished she had more like her. It was totally unlike her not to show up for work and not get in touch so she had called. The daughter had answered and said she was sick, sleeping and apologised but it was her fault as her mother had asked her to call and she had forgot.

North already knew that Donna Ward had previous and that it was all ancient history. There had been no signs of drugs or drug use when she had been admitted to hospital. She seemed to have been on the straight and narrow for a decade - so why was she out alone last Monday night, all dolled up, in the pissing rain, in a dress so short you needed two hair-do’s to go out in it? North had seen more material in one of Arnie’s hats. She would have been freezing. Maybe there was a jacket lying out there somewhere. There was no alcohol and no drugs in her system so she hadn’t been partying. Maybe she had been on her way to a party. She couldn’t have been prostituting herself, could she? She had no reason to. There had to be another explanation. He would be asking the girlfriend as soon as he was able.

Right now he was back at the station to see the man who had initially found her but hadn’t called it in. What was his game? Was he their man? Had she escaped from him and he went in pursuit, ran her down, and was in the process of lifting her back into his car when he was disturbed by the people who did call it in? The guy rang alarm bells. He had previous. Relevant previous. He’d been charged and found guilty of soliciting a person in the street or public place for the purpose of obtaining sexual services from them as a prostitute. And he been covered in Donna Ward when he was picked up.

‘There’s something really creepy about that weirdo,’ a PCW whispered to him as he entered the room.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said the weirdo.

‘What’s he doing on the floor?’

‘He fainted when we brought him in.’

He had lost count of the number of hours he had spent in this room. The number of times he had had been brought here. The number of times he had had to tell his story, over and over again. He was tired. It was stressful. He made mistakes. They told him he lied. Now they were doing it in the middle of the night. Surely that couldn’t be right? He had rights.

‘It wasn’t my fault.’

He looked up at them. They looked down at him. The policewoman who had been so nice was trying to reassure him. A doctor was talking to him as if he was a small child. He’d had a nasty shock. The doctor wanted to inject him with something to help make everything better. Stuart Wright couldn’t take his eyes off the needle. The policewoman was coaxing him. She was so nice. She had been with the policeman who had arrested her two nights ago. He’d like to ask her out and had spent much of the last two days in here thinking about where they would go and what he would buy her, how he would make her laugh. He flinched as the metal pierced his skin and he stared at the needle, plunger descending, pushing heaven only knew what into his body. Then his rising panic was overrun. He felt like he was floating. He became calm. He saw the face of the policeman with the nice lady. The other policemen hadn’t been nice. This one didn’t look nice either. Not nice at all.

He was lifted back onto the chair.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he mumbled. But he knew that it was.

‘Is he okay to talk to Doc?’

‘He’s fine, he just had a bit of a panic attack.’

North watched the doctor put the used syringe away, for disposal later, pack up and leave. He turned to the suspect.

The suspect talked.

He knew that he’d been driving too fast. Usually he was so careful. People were always getting angry at him, driving too close behind, flashing their lights, beeping their horns, making gestures and shouting from angry faces. He could see them in the mirror but didn’t let on. He couldn’t understand people. He was only obeying the law. Why should they get angry when he was obeying the law? It didn’t make any sense. But he hadn’t been obeying the law that night. He’d been angry. He’d been replaying the conversation he had had with his boss at the end of his shift when he should have been going home. He’d been running an alternative version, one where he was giving his boss a piece of his mind instead of just standing there and accepting a double shift that had been forced on him, yet again. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. Just because the others had families. He’d been livid. He had gone beyond words and was pummelling his bosses face in when he had hit her - she just came out of nowhere. One instant the road was clear the next there was a horrendous thump as the front of the car hit her and then the crunch of the windscreen and the metal buckling as she was thrown up onto the roof.

It wasn’t his fault.

Was it?

He didn’t think it would have been any different if he had been doing thirty – she just ran out into the road, she hadn’t even been on the pavement, he didn’t know where she came from.

North steered him back on track.

He had stamped on the brake but his hatchback was too old and too entry level for antilock braking and he’d gone into a slide. He couldn’t see anything. He remembered screaming until he had hit something and the car had stopped. He hadn’t been able to move at first. It took him a while to come to his senses and then check he was okay. The door had refused to budge and that sent him into a deeper panic. He was trapped. He couldn’t move. Eventually his brain had suggested clambering over the passenger seat but the seatbelt had held him back. He was never going to get out. He’d worked himself into a bit of a state. It seemed to take forever before he managed to fall out onto the wet tarmac and felt the cold rain on his hot skin. The car had mounted the pavement and hit a sign. He had clawed his way onto his feet and walked back along the road.