Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

But of course, they couldn’t cancel the call-out, she could hear the siren already, nee-nawing along the valley. The stupid dream had left her muddled, panicking, when if she’d only gone and checked from Sammy’s room in the first place…

Gill turned off the burglar alarm and waited for Dave to move. He’d settled into a rhythm. A thump then he swayed back again and readied himself. As soon as the next blow fell, Gill slid back the bolt quick as a flash, twisted the key in the lock and snapped off the Yale. She threw open the door just as he charged again.

He fell headlong, feet tangling over the door sill, pitching forward so fast he’d not got time to brace his fall. It didn’t help that his reactions were severely hampered by the amount he’d had to drink. A big man, tall and solidly built, he landed heavily with a great cry, banging his face on the hardwood floor, and the air was knocked out of him. Gill hoped he’d broken something. He groaned, lay dazed. The siren grew louder and soon blue revolving lights flashed into the house and swung round Dave’s prone body.

While Dave sat on a kitchen chair, bleary-eyed, wiping blood from his nose and chin, Gill apologized for wasting their time. She could tell there was some scepticism politely masked in the eyes of the female police constable, who no doubt suspected domestic violence and was unconvinced by Gill’s protestations. ‘I’d no idea it was my ex-husband, he hadn’t phoned to let me know he was coming,’ she said. Could they tell he was pissed? Off his tits? Would they do him for drunk driving? Oh, how she longed to drop him in it. But she buttoned her lip and made nice and apologized and behaved calmly and it seemed to pay off.

The fact that she was a DCI and several ranks up the food chain helped. The service still expected officers to respect and be unfailingly obedient to senior staff.

When their tail lights finally disappeared over the brow of the hill, she imagined they’d be dissecting the call-out, speculating about how long Chief Superintendent Murray had been knocking lumps out of his lady wife. And whether to report the incident. Domestic violence accounted for a substantial amount of violent crime and new guidelines meant the crime could be reported even when the victim did not wish to press charges. The fact that Gill had been demonstrably sanguine and untouched and it was Dave who was injured might have persuaded the coppers that this was a misunderstanding and not a case of abuse. Or perhaps they thought Dave was the victim and Gill’s call had been some mind-fuck to avert suspicion. While men were a far smaller proportion of victims of domestic violence, they were even more reluctant to report the attacks than women were.

Bound to be rumours, she thought. Police officers were the worst gossips and there was always plenty to gossip about, normally who was shagging who – and who’d found out. This would make even juicier material.

Dave’s car was unlocked, the keys still in the ignition. She removed them and put them in her pocket. He was going nowhere, but she was tempted to make him sleep in the summerhouse in the garden. Freeze his balls off overnight.

He tried to sit up straight as she came back into the kitchen. ‘Gill, you and me, Sammy,’ he slurred, ‘you and me and Sammy-’ Blood crusted his nostrils, he’d a scrape on his chin. He wore a suit, a shirt, both creased and stained, his hair was dishevelled, the smell of booze coming off him and sour sweat.

‘I’m going to bed,’ she said.

He leered.

‘That is not a fucking invitation. You can sleep on the couch. There’s a sleeping bag in the utility room.’

‘We need to talk.’ He leaned forward, one hand spread open, imploring her.

‘You got that right. In the morning. We will. I’ll talk, you listen. You-’ She bit off the rant.

‘Gill,’ he chided her.

Sudden tears, tears of anger, pricked her eyes. She clenched her teeth at Dave and his sodding mess.

‘In the morning,’ was all she trusted herself to say.

Dave was on the lounge floor when Gill came down at half five. No sign of a sleeping bag. She made coffee, ate porridge with brown sugar and crème fraîche. Felt halfway human. She’d barely slept, too busy rehearsing her speech to Dave, then meandering off-track into a parallel universe where it didn’t matter what befell him, where she could exact revenge, see him ridiculed, demoted, gone, with no messy repercussions for either her or Sammy. Fantasies.

She kicked his foot. ‘Wakey-wakey.’

He groaned, didn’t even open his eyes. She kicked him again, his shin, harder. ‘Get up. Now.’

He yelped, and this time his eyes flew open. She saw the confusion in them: he didn’t know where he was, how he’d got there. He blinked a few times, raised himself on one elbow, coughed.

‘Coffee in the kitchen.’

‘It’s not six yet.’ He was staring at his watch. ‘If you want to go-’

‘I’m going nowhere, not until we’ve talked. And we’re going to talk now. Not later or tomorrow but now. Got it?’

He sank back, hand over his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he muttered.

When he joined her he’d washed his face, not that it had improved anything much, just made the edge of his hair wet. He sat down at the table where she’d left him a mug of coffee. She was opposite him, leaning against the work surface, arms folded.

‘Do you remember last night?’

‘Course.’ He gave her a smile. Grotesque. He was lying.

‘Do you? The accident, the arrest, me coming to bail you out?’

He looked alarmed, tried to cover it with a laugh. He’d not a clue.

‘Thought not,’ she said. ‘Let me tell you what happened, Dave. You were drunk. That probably goes without saying except it actually needs saying, loud and fucking clear. You were completely rat-arsed and you got into a car and drove. A criminal offence under section 4 of the 1988 Road Traffic Act. You attempted to hammer your way into my house, scaring the shit out of me. In fear for my safety I put out a 999 call. Officers attended the scene.’ She watched his face blanch. ‘I didn’t press charges. God knows I’d have liked to, you could argue that as a serving police officer I had an ethical duty to but I felt it was important, for the sake of our son, not to have you splashed all over the Oldham Chronicle, looking like a dick.’

He rubbed his face, winced as he touched his nose. ‘You hit your nose,’ Gill said. ‘I wish you’d broken something. What was it all in aid of? Can you even remember?’

‘I wanted to see you,’ he said.

‘Why?’ She was genuinely mystified.

‘To… just to see you.’

‘You were drunk,’ she said.

‘I’d had a couple-’

‘No! Just listen to yourself. It’s out of control. You’re out of control. You need help.’

He barked a laugh, humourless.

‘I don’t want you coming here, drunk. If it happens again, I will press charges.’

‘Bitch,’ he said.

White-hot rage flooded through her. It took every ounce of self-control not to fly at him, knock him off his chair. Wordlessly she took his car keys from the drawer, dropped them on the table. ‘Get out.’

‘Look, we can-’

‘Get out,’ she repeated, ‘get the fuck out and don’t come back.’

Janet felt weighed down, her movements hampered by the protective vest. They waited in cars parked outside Beaumont House, the tower block where the Perry twins lived.

Rachel yawned, which set Janet off.

‘Keep you awake, did he?’ Janet asked.

Rachel gave her a dead stare.

‘Pardon me for breathing,’ Janet said.

Word came to move in and they filed up the stairs, following the trained firearm unit in their Darth Vader outfits. Janet and Rachel stopped on the fifth-floor stairwell while the specialists went up to the next level.