Paul Finch - Strangers

Lucy rubbed her gloved hands together. The temperature inside the van was noticeably dwindling, mainly because the engine had been switched off so the heating had deactivated. She glanced sidelong at Haygarth. Someone had given him a coat to wear over the white custody tracksuit, but if he was feeling any chill, he wasn’t showing it. His head still hung, while his hands, which looked overlarge and knobbly at the ends of his long, thin wrists, were clasped together as though in penitential prayer.

This had certainly been his attitude since DI Doyle had arrested him earlier that day. It wasn’t unknown for violent criminals to occasionally feel guilty, or even to turn themselves in through remorse. Others coughed because their life outside prison had become unendurable, because they needed a more stable and disciplined regime. But neither of those possibilities struck Lucy as a given where Michael Haygarth was concerned. Perhaps they might if his only offence had been to attack the lady next door, but the conscience thing didn’t seem quite so likely when you considered that up until now he’d been happily sitting on the deaths of two other women.

Unexpectedly, he looked up and around. ‘Ma’am … I, erm …’ His eyes widened, in fact bugged, while his wet mouth had screwed itself out of shape as if he suddenly felt distressed about something.

‘Best not to talk, Michael.’ Lucy refused to make eye contact with him. ‘It’s for your own good.’

‘But … I need to relieve myself.’

‘You’ll have to wait, I’m afraid.’

‘Seriously … don’t think I can. Didn’t Miss Doyle say they might be an hour or more?’

‘It’s honestly best if we don’t talk.’

‘But this is ridiculous.’ His voice thickened with feeling as he stared down at the floor again. It was his first show of emotion in several hours, since he’d been arrested in fact, and yet still there was that air of the pathetic about him, of the beaten.

‘Michael … it’s just not possible at the moment,’ Lucy said, angry with herself for having started conversing with him.

‘All I want is a toilet break, and … now you’re not letting me have one.’

‘You never mentioned you needed a break back at the nick.’

‘I didn’t need one then.’

‘We’ve only been out here ten bloody minutes.’

‘Sorry, but I can’t help it. It’s all that tea you kept pouring down my throat in the interview room.’

‘Just try and wait, Michael … you’re not a kid.’

But he now sat stiffly upright, his face etched with discomfort. ‘What if I released it down my leg and messed your van up, eh? All because I couldn’t hold it? I bet you’d have a right go at me, wouldn’t you?’

Lucy thought long and hard.

It wouldn’t be the first time a prisoner had urinated on her, and quite often that had happened inside the back of a police vehicle. It wasn’t always their fault; some of them were losers in so many aspects of life. And it wasn’t as if clothing couldn’t go in the wash or that she herself couldn’t just step under a warm shower. But it always took so long to get the smell out of the car or van. This was a pool vehicle, of course, and different officers would drive it every day, so it wouldn’t solely be her problem … except that she was the one who’d get blamed for it, and on top of that, she’d be stuck in here tonight with the stink for God knew how long.

‘They probably won’t be more than an hour,’ she said, though it was as much an attempt to convince herself as Haygarth, and in that regard it didn’t work.

Most likely they’d be much more than an hour. They might even be several hours.

He muttered something else, his voice turning hoarse. She noticed that his bony knees, formerly wide apart, were squeezed together. He’d begun twitching, fidgeting.

Could it really do any harm?

‘Alright,’ she said reluctantly. ‘We go outside and you pee against the nearest tree, but you’ll have to do it one-handed because you’re staying cuffed.’

‘That’s fine.’ He sounded relieved and waited patiently while Lucy reached down, found the release lever on the door and flipped it upright.

If Alan Denning in the cab heard the clunk of the rear locks disengaging, he didn’t respond. Most likely, he couldn’t hear it with what sounded like Rhianna blaring away. Lucy thought to call him anyway, for the purpose of extra security, but decided that Denning, being the epitome of the big, unfeeling, hairy-arsed male copper, would most likely respond with: ‘Don’t be so soft, Clayburn! Make him fucking wait! He can tie a fucking knot in it!’ Or something similarly enlightened.

She kept her mouth shut as she climbed out onto the road, Haygarth following, grit and twigs crunching under their feet. Proper darkness now enveloped the woods, the source of the constant dripping and pattering completely invisible. Lucy’s torch had been purloined by one of the others, but there was sufficient light spilling from the back of the van to show the nearest tree-trunk, a glinting black/green pillar standing on the verge about five yards away, with a huge hollow some eight feet up it, where a knot had fallen out. Haygarth made a beeline towards it, but Lucy stopped him, first peering down the length of the van to see if anyone else on the team was hanging around at the front, maybe having a smoke. From what she could see, there was no one. The glow of the headlights speared forward, delineating the concrete bollards that signified the end of the track. Those too sparkled with moisture. Beyond them lay a dense mesh of sepia-brown undergrowth. Nothing moved.

‘Okay,’ she said, proceeding to the tree. ‘This’ll do. Make it quick.’

Haygarth grunted with gratitude as he assumed the position. Lucy stood alongside him, but turned her shoulder so that, even by accident, she couldn’t glance down and catch sight of anything. It fleetingly occurred to her that, given, Haygarth’s alleged form, this voluntary blindsiding of herself might not be the wisest policy, but it was done now, and he had the air of a broken man in any case – plus Alan Denning was only a shout away.

She heard Haygarth sigh as liquid splashed gently down the bole of the tree.

‘That’s much better,’ he mumbled. ‘God, I’ve been waiting for this.’

‘DC Clayburn, what the hell’s going on?’

Lucy turned, surprised. Behind the blob of torchlight approaching from beyond the bollards there was an indistinct figure, but she knew who it was. The clumsy, slightly stooped gait was the main giveaway, but the harsh, humourless voice was added proof.

‘Ma’am, the prisoner …’ Lucy’s words tailed off as everything suddenly seemed to go wrong at once.

First, she sensed movement alongside her. When she glanced around, Haygarth, who was six foot four – and with one arm extended upward could reach to nearly nine feet – was rooting inside the tree-trunk cavity.

‘What’re you …?’ she said, fleetingly baffled.

Next, DI Doyle ran forward. At the same time, with a metallic thud, a driving-cab door swung open in response. Then there was a plasticky crackle , and Haygarth laughed, or rather giggled – it was a hyena-like sound rather than human.

Lucy tried to grab his arm, but he barged into her with his left shoulder, knocking her off balance. And now the object he’d been groping for inside the tree came into view. It was only small, but it had been swathed in a supermarket wrapper to protect it, so its make and model were concealed. And it was anyone’s guess what calibre it was.

As Lucy fell to the ground, he swung the object around. Its first booming report took out Doyle’s torch. She was only about ten yards away, but her light vanished with a PLOK . By the way she grunted and gasped and doubled over, the bullet had punched clean through it, tearing into her midriff.