Cath Staincliffe - Desperate Measures

‘It’s all right, Simon,’ he said, ‘you’ll be all right. I’ll just be here, I’ll wait here.’

‘But Dad-’

‘Go on now. You’ll feel better for a wash.’

The boy smelled of sweat and tobacco. His hair was messy, his face angry with spots. Simon had gone into the bathroom and Roy went to change his bed and found the gun under his pillow. He felt a shock, like a blow to the heart, as he saw it and understood that it was real, that his son had brought a gun into the house. Roy picked it up. It was heavy, cold to touch, hard. Roy had never seen a gun close up before. He wrapped it in a small towel and put it on top of the wardrobe in his and Peggy’s bedroom. Then he stripped Simon’s bed and made it up new.

He went to the bathroom and knocked and passed Simon some clean jeans and underwear and a T-shirt.

Roy sat on the edge of the bed and waited. He could hear water running in the sink, and Peggy moving about downstairs. When Simon came back in, shivering, his arms thin sticks poking out of the T-shirt, Roy patted the bed beside him. ‘Sit down.’

Simon did.

‘I found the gun,’ Roy said.

‘What?’ Simon looked alarmed.

‘I put it somewhere safe,’ Roy said.

‘I need it.’

‘No. You’ll hurt yourself or someone else.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Simon said, his voice louder, eyes frantic, ‘You don’t understand.’

‘I know this is hard,’ Roy said.

Simon was crying again.

Roy moved to put an arm around him, miserable himself.

‘Don’t!’ Simon flinched away.

‘Your mum and I-’

‘Just go. Leave me alone.’ Simon’s knee was jerking up and down, a measure of the anxiety.

‘Simon?’

‘Go away!’

Roy sighed and got to his feet. He thought about telling Simon what the doctor had said, that another week might see a change in his mood and they could try another drug if not. Was that offering false hope? Roy didn’t believe things would improve. Should he tell Simon what he thought they should do in the meanwhile?

He said nothing.

Peggy was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. The washing machine was on, the spin part of the cycle, deafening. She looked at Roy, eyes busy with questions and gestured for him to come in the other room to talk. When he told her about the gun she lost her breath and had to use her inhaler.

‘Listen,’ he said as soon as her breathing had eased, ‘I’ve had an idea. Dr Halliwell wants to leave it another week. I don’t think- look, we could see about getting him in somewhere.’

‘Mental hospital? How?’

‘I don’t know, but I can find out.’ Did you call the police or an ambulance? He feared it would need a referral from Simon’s own GP. ‘If it was an emergency,’ Roy said, ‘which it is…’

‘Have him committed, sectioned?’ Peggy said.

Roy took her hand. ‘He’s not safe,’ he said, ‘he’s getting worse, Peggy.’

‘I don’t know,’ Peggy said.

‘We’ve got to do something,’ Roy said, ‘even if Don Halliwell won’t.’

Peggy frowned, she didn’t like it when he criticized the doctor. Roy wondered why, when she stood up against the rules and regulations or her religion in order to be with him, to have a family, then why did she still kowtow to the GP?

‘I’ll find out,’ Roy said, ‘somewhere like that, they must deal with this sort of thing all the time, they’re specialists.’

She gave a nod, eyes riddled with worry.

‘Mr Gant, Roy?’ They were here for him now. The police.

Roy looked down at the grave, the artificial grass. Down the hill he saw movement, two men smoking, rough clothes, spades leaning against a tree. The grave diggers waiting for him to leave.

Shap came downstairs holding up Dr Halliwell’s briefcase. ‘I don’t think we’ll need the gun if we’ve got this,’ he said.

‘Why keep the briefcase?’ Richard said, ‘Why didn’t he get rid of it?’

‘Thick?’ Shap said.

‘It would be watertight if we had the gun as well,’ Richard said, ‘keep looking. I’ll ring Janine and tell her we’ve got the briefcase.’

It was a cold, blustery, miserable day for a funeral, or maybe an appropriate one.

Janine parked some distance from the crematorium, eyes roving over the grounds. She saw the group of mourners drifting away from a graveside down the hill.

‘I don’t think there’s anything in the PACE rules says at what point you interrupt a funeral,’ Janine said, getting out of the car.

‘Looks like they’re done,’ Lisa said.

Still no word from Richard but Janine reckoned they had enough to question Gant while the search for the weapon continued. She saw Gant look up and notice them but he stayed by the grave.

They walked along the path and down the slope to the freshly dug plot. The priest took his leave and once he had moved far enough away to be out of earshot Janine spoke to Roy Gant. ‘Mr Gant, Roy.’

Roy had been too late in the end. He’d rung round helpline numbers in the phone directory. Most of them told him the GP should set an emergency admission in motion; failing that he could ring the local social services. A mental health social worker working with the police could arrange a section.

He explained to Peggy. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I just don’t know.’

Roy had gone upstairs to tell Simon his tea was ready, would he come and have some, to find his bedroom deserted.

He had driven round with no idea where to look. Simon had not wanted to leave the house recently, the outside world as scary as the one in his head.

Roy went home when it got dark. Peggy had reported him missing and as he was known to be vulnerable the local police were alerted to be on the lookout for him.

Roy hadn’t been back ten minutes when they had come to the door, a man and a woman, very serious and ill at ease. They asked Peggy and him to sit down and Roy felt dread scrabble up his spine, clutch at his guts. The woman spoke, ‘A young man matching Simon’s description was involved in an accident earlier this evening. I’m afraid he didn’t survive his injuries.’

‘Simon,’ Peggy said. She began to gasp for air. Roy passed her inhaler, helped her to use it.

‘What accident?’ Roy said, clasping Peggy’s hand. The words hurt his throat.

‘A fall from a motorway bridge.’

‘He didn’t fall,’ Roy said.

Peggy’s breathing worsened.

‘Mrs Gant?’ said the police officer.

‘You’d better get an ambulance for her,’ Roy had said.

Now someone else was calling him. ‘Mr Gant?’

Roy turned away from the grave.

‘Leave me,’ he said, ‘please?’

It wasn’t meant to be like this, they were too soon.

‘I can’t do that. I’m DCI Lewis, I’m investigating the murder of Dr Halliwell. I’m sorry to intrude on your grief but we’re going to need you to come with us.’ Then she began the caution.

‘Roy Gant, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything-’

‘He never listened,’ Roy Gant interrupted, not looking at Janine but staring down at the coffin, the wind snatching at his clothes. ‘There was stuff all over the internet, I printed it off, I showed him. Increased risk of suicide in young people…messing with drugs was what made Simon depressed in the first place. When he started the tablets…’

‘You might want to wait until you’ve seen a solicitor,’ Janine said.

Roy Gant dismissed her concern with a toss of his head. ‘He didn’t even read the damn journals. If he’d ever said, “Sorry, I got it wrong-”‘ He broke off. He rubbed his fist on his forehead. ‘Simon was my world, and then he was gone.’