Tom Graham - Life on Mars - Borstal Slags

‘You are mad,’ said Sam, shaking his head slowly as he looked from the gun to the shattered remains of the lorry, from the bloodstained man crumpled at the Guv’nor’s feet to the Guv’nor himself, standing there in his camel-hair coat and black-leather string-backs, wreathed in a slowly arcing aura of gun smoke. ‘This isn’t law enforcement – this is some sort of crazy macho playground you’re romping around in, you and your bloody Magnum. This isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t the job I know. What the hell am I doing saddled with you, Gene?’

From the corner of his mouth, Gene replied, ‘Go on home to your kids, Herb.’ He leant over the groaning man sprawled at his feet, kicked away the now-dented licence plate bearing the name Gertrude , and said, ‘And as for you, sunshine, you’re nicked – what’s left of you.’

The truck thief lay motionless in the intensive care ward, a cluster of clumsy plastic tubes tied with bandages to his nose and mouth. Beside him, a ramshackle tower of boxlike machines wheezed, chugged and beeped, keeping the lad in the bed on the very cusp of life. A nurse checked a paper read-out covered with wiggly lines, twiddled a fat dial or two, and fidgeted with the hem of the starched white sheets.

‘You’re not relatives,’ she said to the two men standing at the foot of the bed. ‘What are you? Police?’

‘DI Tyler,’ said Sam. ‘This is DCI Hunt. We’ve just, um, arrested this man.’

‘How? By dropping an anvil on him?’

‘He pranged his stolen motor,’ put in Gene. ‘I think he might have bumped his noodle.’

‘Sorry to have to bother you with this, Nurse,’ said Sam, ‘but does anyone here have a clue as to this young man’s identity?’

‘No.’

‘When he was undressed, was there no ID found on him? No wallet, nothing like that?’

‘His personal things are over there,’ said the nurse, indicating a small wooden locker. ‘But there’s nothing of interest, just shredded rags. We had to cut his clothes off when he came in here – what little clothing hadn’t been cut off him already.’

She stared fiercely at Gene.

‘He tripped on a kerb stone,’ said Gene, innocent as a cherub. ‘Anyway’s up, we need to have a chat with him.’

‘You’ll find that rather difficult, officer. He’s still unconscious.’

‘My uncle’s unwashed pantaloons he’s unconscious! He’s faking it. I can sense it. Sleeping Beauty here can hear every word we’re saying – can’t you, old son?’

‘He’s certainly not faking anything,’ said the nurse, aghast.

‘Is he not? Let’s put it to the test, why don’t we?’ He strode over to the bed, took hold of the truck thief’s ventilator tubes, and gave them a rattle. ‘Wakey, wakey, pretty baby, or I wrench these gizmos out your epiglottis and shove ’em right up your—’

‘For God’s sake!’ the nurse spat, shoving Hunt back. ‘You two are leaving right now. Right now! Or else I’m calling the police.’

‘Calling the police?’ said Gene, fishing out a packet of Embassy No. 6s. ‘There’s a flaw in your logic there. See if you can spot it.’

‘This boy is unconscious, and likely to remain so for some time – assuming he ever recovers at all,’ the nurse said fiercely.

‘I’ve been telling my DCI the same thing,’ said Sam, deeply uncomfortable to be associated with Gene when he was behaving like this. ‘Come on, Guv. This lad’s not going anywhere, we can always see him another time. They’ll let us know when he comes round.’

Truculently, Gene jabbed a cigarette between his lips. The nurse gave him a look: Don’t you dare …! Fixing her with a fierce look of his own, Gene raised his lighter, toyed at the flint with his thumb – then eased off.

‘Don’t take it personal, luv, I’ve had a day,’ he said. ‘Tyler – let’s roll.’

Sam apologized to the nurse for his DCI’s atrocious behaviour, and turned at once to go. He reached the plastic swing doors that led out of ICU into the busy corridor beyond, but found he was alone. Glancing back, he saw Gene rummaging through the small wooden cupboard which contained the tattered, blooded remains of the truck thief’s clothes. As the nurse furiously declared that she was going to get the porters to throw him out, Gene suddenly raised aloft a folded sheet of paper.

‘Nothing but rags?’ he said. ‘This could be vital.’ And to Sam: ‘See what happens if you take these medical birds too serious?’

He shoved the piece of paper into his pocket and – to Sam’s infinite relief – strode briskly through the swing doors and away along the corridor.

‘What a filthy, arrogant, reckless brute,’ the nurse said, shaking her head. ‘He should have been a consultant.’

They emerged into the cold night air outside the hospital. Ambulances clanged by. Gene sparked up his cigarette and drew deeply on the nicotine as if it were the very elixir of life.

‘You need to clean your act up, Hunt,’ Sam challenged him.

‘And you need to unclench those lily-white arse cheeks of yours, Tyler. We’re none of us in this job to make nurses happy – well, not like that, anyway.’

‘She’s got grounds to lodge a serious formal complaint against you. You assaulted a man on life support!’

‘I wobbled his pipes, that’s hardly an assault,’ Gene said dismissively. ‘And you’re forgetting – Uncle Genie had a ferret about and came up this .’

He held up the folded piece of paper. It was dotted with the truck thief’s blood.

‘It better be worth it,’ said Sam, watching Gene unfold it. ‘What is it? Looks like a letter.’

‘A spot of bedtime reading. Let’s see how it compares to Dick Francis, eh?’ Angling it towards the light coming from a sodium lamp, Gene perused it for a moment. ‘Nice handwriting. Very neat.’ And then he started to read it out. ‘“Dear Derek …” That our lad in there, you reckon? “Dear Derek, so brilliant you could make time for a visit. Really good to get time with you again. Tell Auntie Rose not to fret so much.” Gene shot Sam a serious look. ‘I hope he did tell her. I won’t have Auntie Rose worryin’.’

‘Get on with it, Guv.’

Gene peered closer at the letter, falling silent, his eyes narrowing, his expression darkening.

‘Guv?’ Sam asked.

‘My God, Tyler!’

‘Guv, what is it?’

Gene gave Sam an intense look. Gravely, he announced: ‘It’s Fluffy, Sam. She’s back on the tablets.’

Sam looked blankly at him. ‘What?’

Gene read out, “‘Don’t forget to give Fluffy her special tablets – take her to the vet in Lidden Street if she gets sick again.”’ Gene looked up sharply from the letter. ‘Sam, this stuff is dynamite.’ He balled the letter in his fist and bounced it off Sam’s chest. ‘Too exciting for me . I’ll never get to sleep after that.’

Sam retrieved the screwed-up letter, flattened it out, and glanced over the rest: ‘“… if she gets sick again. It’s very important I can trust you to look after her. See you again soon I hope. Love – Andy.” Andy,’ he said. ‘Derek and Andy.’

‘Those names don’t mean anything to me,’ said Gene.

‘Me neither. But look here – there’s a rubber stamp at the top of the letter approving it for posting. It says “HMP Friar’s Brook”.’

‘HMP!’ scoffed Gene. ‘It’s just a bloody borstal, Tyler. A kiddies’ lock-up for scallies whose balls ain’t dropped. That’s where his mate Andy is, is it? Doing a spot of bird in the nippers’ clinky? And what high-profile criminal caper did he mastermind, d’you think? Clocked some old granny for her pension book and Green Shields to pay for Fluffy’s suppositories? Or is he the Mr Big behind the Manchester used-fridge mafia?’