Split Second (4 page)

It was half past four. They had sat with their son in the anteroom in the bereavement suite since ten past midnight. Andrew had held Jason’s hand, tracing the lines on his palm, lines of destiny now met, rubbing the calluses on his fingers made by the guitar strings, noticing the fine golden hairs on the back of his wrist.

The policeman stopped and cleared his throat. ‘If you need a bit longer . . .’

A bit? How about another fifty years?

‘. . . but the pathologist—’

‘Start work at four in the morning, do they?’ Val snapped, and shivered.

Andrew took her arm and led her back, along to the lifts, up to the room.

At quarter past eight the sun rose crimson over the snow-covered city and the pathologist came for Jason.

Louise held Ruby’s hand; her daughter’s touch was warm, the skin smooth and soft, unlike her own, roughened from chores and her habit of biting the skin around her nails.

The doctor was young, Oriental-looking, Chinese or Japanese, maybe Korean. Dr Liu. She spoke softly and Louise had to crane her neck to hear her above the white noise spitting in her head.

‘Luke is still unconscious,’ the doctor said. ‘There’s a fracture to the skull so we want to do a scan to check on that; there is a chance we will need to operate, to reduce any swelling and alleviate the pressure on the brain.’

Louise felt her nose burn, bit her cheek; the tang of blood made her mouth water.

‘He’s breathing on his own, which is a good sign,’ the doctor went on, ‘and there is nothing to signify damage to any other internal organs.’

‘Will he be all right?’ Louise asked, the words sounding brittle and dusty. Broken leaves.

‘We’ll know more when we have the scan results.’

Which was no answer at all really.

‘Can’t you wake him up?’ Ruby asked.

‘The body can better repair itself in the unconscious state. It’s best if he wakes up naturally. He is being hydrated with a drip. You can go in to see him before we take him up. It looks bad.’ Her eyes held Louise’s, black like jet beads. ‘It may be a big shock.’ She glanced sideways at Ruby, then to Louise, an unspoken question.

‘Rube, if you—’ Louise began.

‘I wanna see him.’

Oh God. Louise barely knew him. His face was misshapen, swollen and still bloody. A lump the size of an orange on his left cheek and his right eyelid torn, the lashes, his long curling lashes, gummy with blood. His lips cracked, slightly parted, his front teeth at the top missing. The ferocity of it ripped through her in a wash of terror and rage. Oh my poor lamb. How frightened he must have been.

‘Oh God,’ Ruby breathed.

That he should suffer so. Someone had done this to him, her blessed, troubled boy. Louise turned away, her hand shielding her eyes, her chest aflame. Ruby was crying quietly, sniffling. Louise hugged her, murmured words of solace, then stepped away, studied her son. She wanted to scoop him up, cradle him on her knee and sing to him, comfort him. Or shake him awake, force him to his feet, clean his wounds. She wanted to kiss him, stroke his hair, but his head was so raw, so exposed, she was fearful she might hurt him. His hands lay at his sides, the drip going into his left arm; she picked up his right hand, hot and limp, pressed her mouth against his palm, tasted salt there, smelt iron. She tried to replace the bloated face with his usual profile, that of his father Roland. The Nigerian student who had spent a summer working in the care home where Louise had her first job. Roland, who broke her heart. Wooed her with his flirting and his patter, promised her the earth, then when she fell pregnant told her he was engaged to a girl back home and he’d be marrying his intended as soon as he graduated. Roland the rat, sleek and smooth.

‘He’ll be going up for the scan in a moment,’ Dr Liu said. A knock on the door made them all turn. It was the police.

He took them into a side room. Louise hated leaving Luke, but the police officer said it would only be for a few minutes.

‘What happened?’ She had agreed to tell the officer anything she could to help, but she was also frantic to know how it had come to this.

‘He was attacked by three youths earlier this evening,’ the man said.

A sea of fury swelled inside, the waves smashing against the rock of her heart. ‘Where? Why?’

‘Kingsway. We don’t know why yet.’

‘Because he’s black?’ Louise said. Pity and grief and hurt swirling through her. Laced with guilt too, because her first thoughts had been that Luke had done something silly and got himself hurt. But someone had done this to him. Deliberately battered him.

‘We’ll be looking into that as a possibility.’ The man had his notebook open; he twisted his wrist and read his watch, jotted down the time. ‘I just need all the formal details out of the way: name, address, date of birth and so on.’

She gave him those, then he asked her when she’d last seen Luke.

‘Tea time. Half six. Then he went out.’

‘Where was he going? Did he say?’

‘He’s a teenager; “out” is all I get. Sometimes he goes into town with his mates, but he wasn’t dressed up or anything.’

‘Where else?’

Round Declan’s getting stoned, she thought, or in the park. But in this weather? Mind, they didn’t feel the cold, did they, kids; image was more important. ‘Perhaps just with his mates.’

‘I’ll need their details.’

She nodded. ‘The people that did this. Who are they?’

‘We’ve not identified them yet.’

‘Do you think they knew him?’ She was desperate for answers, for meaning, for sense.

He took a breath, scratched his head. ‘I don’t think anything; I’m just asking the questions we need to ask. Has Luke been in any trouble recently?’

‘No,’ she said. He had settled on an apprenticeship as an electrician. One of Carl’s mates had taken him on. He didn’t like the college part, but he’d gone along each week so far. And he’d wired some outside lights for Christmas. Rigging them up in the sycamore tree at the corner of the garden. It looked great – big, soft white globes, way better than the tacky flashing Santas and cartoon reindeers on the house opposite. She’d been so proud of him, and excited at the prospect that he might find his footing working in the trade. Make a good living. Settle into his own skin and forget about the army.

‘Any history of trouble in the past?’ the policeman asked her.

She sighed, worried that her answer would influence how he thought of Luke and what effort they’d put into catching his attackers. ‘A couple of cautions for antisocial behaviour and criminal damage.’

The officer waited, his pen poised. ‘Why was that, then?’ Did she imagine it, or had his tone changed, the warmth leaking away?

‘Messing with fireworks,’ she said, ‘and some graffiti.’ He could find out anyway – she didn’t want to appear uncooperative and add to any impression he might have that her family was a bad lot. ‘But he’s turned things around now,’ she said as brightly as she could manage. ‘He’s got an apprenticeship, as an electrician.’

He wrote it down. ‘Anything else you can tell me?’

‘He said he’d be back about eleven.’

‘Ruby?’ The man shifted his attention to her. ‘Anything else?’

She shook her head.

Louise swallowed. Sat up in her seat, determined to keep on top of it all, to just do what had to be done. To fight the impulse to withdraw into sorrow and shut down.

‘There was another victim,’ the policeman said. ‘Jason Barnes, do you know him?’

Louise shook her head.

‘He didn’t make it.’

‘What!’ She tried to untangle what he was saying. Saw the resignation in his eyes. ‘Oh my God. Oh no.’ She couldn’t stop trembling. Thinking that could have been Luke. Dead. Killed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to respond. ‘Can we go now?’ she asked, rising. Her head spinning, her knees weak as straw. She had to get back to him. Dread pooling in her belly, between her shoulder blades. ‘Please?’ She had to be there, watch over him, keep him safe.

He nodded, and she held on to Ruby’s arm for support and numbly retraced her steps.

The light on the snow was blinding, Andrew winced and narrowed his eyes. Two men were clearing the paths; the clang of shovels on the stone rang loud in the air. The snow muffled the other sounds, shushing the city.

He had moved the car in the middle of the night, sweeping clods of snow from the windscreen, the frosty air stinging his nostrils and nipping at his ankles; he had pulled on shoes but not socks in the race to get to the hospital.

Now they walked to the car park. ‘You’d better ring your parents,’ Val said.

This could kill Dad, he thought, already battling high blood pressure and angina. ‘I’ll tell Colin.’ His older brother lived close to the family home. ‘He can go round there.’ He pulled out his phone.

‘In the car.’ Val frowned.

He didn’t understand.

‘Less noise,’ she said dully. There was nothing for him in her expression, no affection, no compassion. She was exhausted.

Colin answered. ‘Andrew, hi. How you doing?’ Upbeat, bright.

Andrew closed his eyes, cleared his throat, a noise like a whimper.

‘What’s wrong?’ Alarm now, and Andrew felt the hair on his neck stand up and the bottomless swirl in his guts.

‘It’s . . .’

‘Andrew?’

He forced the words past his tongue, through his teeth. Into the air, in the car, in the car park, let them loose to fly across the glittering roofs, up amid the skyscrapers and towers and bridges, across the city to the whole wide world. ‘Jason was stabbed last night, a fight on the street.’ He heard Colin gasp at the other end but he kept going. ‘They took him to hospital, they couldn’t bring him back. Can you tell Mum and Dad?’

Colin was saying things,
shock, can’t believe, sorry
, and Andrew clung on, his fingers a vice around his phone, answering the questions while he watched the city sparkle and wondered if they had the old sledge and if Jason might fancy a go.

‘Andrew.’ His father was in the kitchen doorway, his face whey-coloured, eyes wounded. ‘There’s someone here from the police.’

Andrew dipped his head. Three people came in; two men and a woman. His parents had knocked their kitchen through years ago, combining the old scullery with the bigger room and creating space for the family to eat in. Introductions were made, condolences given, and the man doing the talking asked for Val.

‘She’s upstairs with my mother,’ Andrew told them.

‘She witnessed the fight?’ the man asked.

‘Yes.’ The word rustled in his throat. He’d drunk a cup of tea, but it hadn’t touched the dryness when he swallowed. The man turned to Leonard, Andrew’s father, still hovering in the doorway. ‘Is there somewhere we could talk to Mrs Barnes?’

‘The living room.’

‘We need to get a statement from each of you,’ he explained to Andrew.

There was no rushing any of it, as people were rearranged and notebooks and forms produced. They must know, he thought, that we can’t function any faster, that everything is slow motion, gravity’s shifted. All at sea, unable to resist the current. A container ship had shed a load of plastic ducks a long time ago, in the Atlantic; years later, bleached and blinded by sun and salt, they were still washing up, teaching climatologists about the currents.

‘Mr Barnes?’

‘Sorry.’ He laid his arms on the table, tried to clear his head. His back ached, the whole of his spine, as though the snow had got in there too, crystals of ice fusing the bones and burning the nerve endings. He felt a jolt of surprise when he saw an outlined plan of their house and garden, the houses either side, the dual carriageway. He recalled filling in car claim forms after a bump when Jason had been a toddler. The diagrams: X marks the spot. Jason’s maps, ‘Why is it X, Dad?’

The questions came at him and he replied as best he could: Jason was home from uni, back two days, gone out to meet friends for a drink. Andrew was in the shower when . . . Jason was so concerned about the other boy . . . No, they didn’t know him . . . No, they didn’t know them either . . .

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

What? he thought. That he was a lovely young man, he was frightened of heights and moths. He wouldn’t get on an aeroplane or learn to drive because of global warming. He fell off his bunk bed and broke his wrist when he was ten. He hates jazz. The only thing he can cook is bacon and egg. He’s ticklish. He is dead. He is dead and cold and I will never hear him laugh again. He has a tattoo of a dragon on his shoulder. He can’t change a plug or build a shelf but he plays music like an angel.

Andrew shook his head and put his face in his hands.

The woman was their family liaison officer, Martine. She told them it would be a couple more days before they would be able to return home, and they might want to consider staying on at Leonard and Jean’s anyway. There would be a great deal of media interest in the case. The police would work in partnership with the media, but it was important that the family didn’t talk to anyone without running it past Martine, who would check things with the press office.

‘It’s already in the lunchtime edition.’ She laid the
Manchester Evening News
on the table.

Val grabbed at it, her lips moving round the words of the headline.
Have-a-Go Hero Stabbed to Death. Teen victim fights for life.
‘How did they get his picture?’

Andrew stared at his son, a recent image, his hair tangled, muddy blond, almost shoulder-length. He’d grown it over the summer. ‘YouTube,’ he told her. He felt sick. The doorbell went, and then his brother was there, with his wife and the kids. Everyone was there. Everyone except Jason.

T
he operation had been a success, the surgeon told them. They had removed the fluid that had built up and hoped that the swelling would now subside. Luke would be kept sedated and given respiratory assistance for the next seventy-two hours. This should give the best possible chance for the brain to heal.

Louise ran her hands over her head, bone-tired. Hollow but for the burr of anxiety. ‘He will get better, wake up?’