Mark Sennen - Touch

There was a pause and Savage was aware of her heart beating fast. The door opened and a woman stood in the porch. She was short with dark hair. Her features were plain and her face was etched with a sadness and a faraway expression.

Motion. Davies pulling the woman out of the way so that she stumbled and fell down the step and then he was dashing into the house with Denton following.

‘Go! Go! Go!’ A crashing sound came from the rear of the property as the backdoor was smashed in. Savage and the other officers ran from the cars to the front door and into the house.

Large entrance hall, wide stairs twisting upwards to a sort of galleried landing where Davies stood shouting.

‘Bastard’s in the bathroom trying to top himself!’

There was another crash and a scuffle and a shout.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Davies disappeared from view and Savage directed two of the officers up the stairs.

‘Man down! Man down!’ Davies shouting again, hysterical this time.

Savage followed the officers up the stairs. A man lay in one corner of the landing, trying to protect himself by wrapping his arms around his head. Davies was kicking the shit out of him.

‘You fucking wanker. I’m going to throw you over the banisters when I have finished and no one here is going to say you didn’t jump.’

In the bathroom Denton sat on the floor slumped against the bath. A cutthroat razor lay beside him and he was using one hand to try and stem the flow of blood from a gruesome looking gash on his left cheek. A huge flap of skin hung loose and Savage could see the white of bone in amongst the red flesh. Denton smiled up at her from a pale grey face and spat blood into his free hand.

‘Ambulance!’ she shouted behind her and rushed in. A mirrored cabinet reflected the horror in the room and she ran over and threw the door open.

Aftershave, deodorant, packets of soap, bath scents, sanitary towels, everything came tumbling out as she ransacked the cupboard. Fuck! No first aid!

She grabbed the box of sanitary towels from where it had fallen into the sink and ripped the packet open. Out came a towel and she tore the packet apart.

Denton grinned from behind the blood.

‘I’ve always liked kinky, ma’am, but I don’t want to die with a Simon Cowell on my face.’

‘You aren’t going to die you daft bugger, I just don’t want you looking like the elephant man when you come back to work. Now shut up and keep still.’

She moved Denton’s hand away from his face and pressed the flap of skin back in place. Denton flinched but didn’t cry out. Then she took the sanitary towel and placed it over the wound.

One of the other officers had come into the bathroom and Savage told him to open some more packets. She applied a couple more towels to the wound and that seemed to staunch the blood. Denton was losing consciousness now though, eyes closing, head lolling.

‘Carl, stay with me, stay with me!’

Denton’s eyes flickered open and his head moved in acknowledgement. Then his eyes closed again.

It seemed like ages before she heard the wail of the ambulance, although it could only have been a couple of minutes. There was a commotion from the hallway down below, a clattering on the stairs and the paramedics arrived on the landing with a stretcher. One came in and knelt beside her and assessed the situation. He put his hand on Denton’s head, used his thumb to lift an eyelid and shone a penlight in Denton’s eyes.

‘Keep holding that, love,’ the man said to her. ‘He’s lost a lot of blood, suffering shock too, but I think he’s going to be alright.’

Back in early summer, some weeks before he had first met Trinny, it had been cold, the promise of a scorcher that a few warm spring weeks had hinted at long gone. Day after day of rain kept him cooped up inside the cottage, wallowing round the place, the gloom more to do with his mood than the fact he had the curtains drawn.

There had been a knock, knock, knock on the door. Rap, rap, rap at the entrance to his very soul.

‘Hello, Matthew. It has been a long time.’ Two figures stood outside in the drizzle sheltering beneath a large umbrella, each wearing cheap tourist-type translucent yellow waterproofs and thin smiles.

Harry stumbled back from the door, shocked at the apparitions. Ghosts weren’t supposed to appear in broad daylight.

‘You bastards!’

‘We need to talk.’

‘Too right we do. Get the fuck inside.’

Once inside they talked and Harry listened. Like always. They explained, reasoned, apologised, pleaded. Finally they grovelled and begged for the absolution which Harry knew they had come for. Selfish as ever.

Their words and moans and sobs blended into a cacophony that drilled down through his skull and into his brain. An egg whisk went to work in there, mixing and blending and churning until the only thing remaining was a uniform mush that meant nothing. Harry couldn’t take it any more so he left them in the house and went outside. The earlier rain had stopped and now the air was still, the smoke from the chimney rising in a vertical column. Up in the heavens a formless grey mess hung like a suffocating blanket; no cloud shapes, no sun, only bleak sky.

And that was how he felt. Empty and cold. But he also knew he could be full again. Like Mitchell said, you had to grasp the moment and then you could be free. Problems, problems, problems, he thought to himself.

He trudged round to the barn at the side of the cottage, went inside and knelt in the dirt. With his eyes screwed shut he prayed to God to do something, to show a sign, but he knew God would remain silent. God wasn’t merciful and the meek did not inherit the earth: they got fucked while tied to a little wooden bed in a cold attic room.

Harry opened his eyes and stood up, soggy knees the only sign God had sought fit to give him. Then he noticed a beam of light coming through a hole in the rear wall. The light danced across the space like some sort of primitive laser, illuminating motes of dust in the air on its way. Where the beam hit the far wall it shone on a rusty six inch nail struck in there at a weird angle. Hanging on the nail was a long piece of chain and a couple of padlocks.

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Tuesday 2nd November. 9.41 am

Tuesday morning at the station and a feeling of anti-climax hung in the air. Richard Trent’s brief had made an allegation of police brutality and although Trent hadn’t been sprung from his cell, Savage reckoned it was only a matter of time. ‘He was resisting arrest’ Davies had told Hardin. Savage played back the incident in her mind and decided Davies’s account lacked one or two small details. If Trent’s guilt proved short-lived then maybe she would have to have words with Hardin about those missing details. For now she was content to keep quiet.

DC Carl Denton’s bed for the next few nights would be up at Derriford hospital, but he was doing OK. The surgeons had sorted out his face, although they spoke of a nasty scar being forever on show for his efforts. At the morning meeting Hardin was talking about recommending Denton for a bravery commendation.

‘Saved a man’s life and that’s no small thing.’

‘Saved a piece of shit if you don’t mind me saying, sir,’ Davies said. ‘World would be better off without the likes of Richard Trent.’

‘Ah, but if Mr Trent had succeeded in topping himself we would be in a spot of bother, wouldn’t we?’

‘We are in a spot of bother, sir, ‘Savage said. ‘The VODS data was useful intelligence, but the information has zero evidential value. None of the rooms at Trent’s place match the decor or layout of the rooms in the videos and the initial search didn’t find any ropes or bondage equipment. The team are going through the house room-by-room, but so far nothing. And according to a neighbour the BMW gets cleaned once a week, every week. On a Monday. When he heard that Layton headed down to the car valeting place and impounded every vacuum cleaner they own. But if he can’t get something from them or the car we are stuffed.’