Jo trotted a little more quickly, calling after him. ‘Hey, I just want to talk!’
The lock-up door squealed open fully as she approached, and Jo heard the growl of an engine inside. As she drew level, a red and white dirt bike lurched out, carrying a young man wearing a baseball cap. She tried to leap out of the way, but the back end of the bike skidded around the slammed into her lower half. All she could do was throw out her arms as she was sent sprawling across the ground. The boy – and she was almost certain it was Blake Matthis – gave her a half-sympathetic look, before smoke clouded the air and he shot away in the same direction the other lad had fled.
Jo winced as she used the wall to haul herself to her feet. Her left leg was completely dead from the impact, but she managed to get on her radio.
‘Dimi, he’s here,’ she said. ‘Exited the flats on to Brook Street. He’s on a bike.’ She managed to stagger out too, but her leg still wasn’t co-ordinating with the rest of her body, and it dragged behind her. The bike, which had no plates, was already a hundred metres away, and now the other boy was on the back of it as well. ‘He’s heading south.’
Dimitriou said they’d come to her, and they arrived on foot a minute later.
‘You sure it was him?’ asked her colleague.
Jo nodded, and pointed back to the lock-up. ‘He was in there.’
‘You get the tag?’
‘Bike didn’t have one,’ said Jo. ‘It was just a 50cc thing. Red and white.’
‘Call it in.’ It was practically an order, but she didn’t quibble.
Dimi didn’t seem to have noticed she was hobbling, but Reeves asked if she was okay. The feeling was coming back into her leg, in waves of a deep throbbing ache. Jo explained what had happened with the bike.
Dimitriou was peering into the lock-up. ‘Looks like he’s been holed up in here a while.’ His face screwed up and he lifted his sleeve to his nose. ‘Stinks.’
Jo, having come off the radio with Traffic, joined him inside. The interior of the garage looked like a delinquent’s bedroom. Sleeping bag on a beat-up sofa, beer cans, a pizza box, as well as a small holdall. There was a mobile phone too. ‘He left in a hurry,’ said Reeves, picking it up. She sniffed at something unpleasant.
The smell reached Jo’s nose too – it was like a public toilet, and sure enough, a bucket in the corner was a couple of inches deep with what looked like urine. The remains of several roll-ups floated on the surface.
‘Why was he living in squalor when his family home is two hundred metres up the road?’ asked Dimitriou.
‘Maybe he was expecting us,’ said Reeves.
Jo shrugged. ‘Kids like Blake Matthis aren’t scared of us,’ she said. ‘Probably learned his rights before he learned to read.’ She thought of the bike. ‘He was ready to run though.’
‘All the more likely he had something to do with Xan Do,’ said Dimitriou. He looked into the holdall, but all Jo could see were clothes. ‘Let’s do a search and take a look at the phone. He’s not going to get far.’
* * *
There was no great urgency to bring Blake in, and for the remainder of the afternoon Jo settled back into work in a leisurely fashion, with briefings from Heidi on some of the latest stats, and an update from Andy Carrick on some of the personnel changes among the uniformed officers and operational frameworks. As the hours wore on though, she found her mind turning towards Theo with increasing regularity, like bursts of static. By four o’clock it was almost constant and she was struggling to concentrate on anything else. Dimitriou and Alice suggested an after-work drink to welcome her back, which she declined. George did not look terribly disappointed.
In the car, she flexed her leg before setting off. She didn’t need to inspect under her trousers to know a hell of a bruise was coming through. Though she was pretty sure he hadn’t ridden at her on purpose, an ABH charge would await Blake if Carrick was feeling vindictive.
Despite the pain, a glance in the rear-view mirror surprised Jo – she was practically beaming. And as she closed in on Little Steps, thoughts of seeing Theo and holding him made her almost giddy. Was this how it was going to be now, every time they were separated for a few hours?
She was driving past the university parks when a call came through on the emergency services network. Attendance required at a serious incident on Canterbury Road. An injured elderly IC1 male. Ambulance was already on its way. Jo suffered a moment of confusion.
That’s Harry Ferman’s road.
She wasn’t far away. It would be a fifteen-minute detour, if that. Canterbury Road was maybe thirty houses, and she guessed most contained Caucasian residents over fifty. The chances of it being anything to do with Harry, at number 21, were slim.
A uniform responded they were en route, asking for more details.
‘Neighbour reported the sound of a disturbance,’ said the dispatcher, ‘and found the elderly man next door with a head injury.’
‘What house number?’
A brief pause.
‘Twenty-one. That’s two, one.’
Jo swallowed, and pushed the respond button. ‘DS Masters attending,’ she said.
She checked her mirrors, indicated, and swung a U-turn.
Chapter 3
Harry Ferman’s front door was open, and three civilians were standing on the pavement outside. There were no emergency vehicles yet. Jo pulled up, and climbed out, not bothering to close the door. ‘Is Harry in there?’
An elderly woman – ashen-faced – nodded. ‘I saw him through the window.’
Jo entered, struck by the familiarity of the place. The front door opened onto a narrow hallway, with a coat hanging from a peg, a small umbrella stand and a runner over a threadbare, heavily patterned carpet of faded russet and gold. She entered a lounge stuffed with plush furniture and an old cathode-ray TV. The walls were crowded with small paintings and photographs, and a dresser dominated one corner, lined with ornaments, including the paperweight she’d purchased for him the previous year in Edinburgh.
A young woman in what looked like a nurse’s uniform was crouching beside Harry, who lay with his head propped up against a seat cushion. She was holding a towel to the back of his head and it was almost completely saturated with blood.
‘Oh my God, Harry!’ said Jo, kneeling down beside him.
His skin was grey and his eyes remained open just a fraction. A few tulips lay strewn on the carpet beside a broken vase.
The woman looked at her desperately. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend. I’m a police officer.’
‘Is the ambulance here?’
Jo shook her head. ‘It will be soon.’
‘He’s not responding at all,’ said the woman. ‘I can’t stop the bleeding.’
Jo had so many questions, but they could wait. ‘Pulse?’
‘I’ve not had chance.’
Wondering what sort of nurse didn’t check for a pulse, Jo laid her fingers against his wrist. His skin was still warm, but she couldn’t feel anything and his hand was completely limp. Heavy. She checked the carotid artery too, but there was nothing there either. She leant right over his face. ‘Harry, can you hear me?’
Ferman’s glassy eyes didn’t so much as flicker.