Nicola Barker - Behindlings

She paused, mid-flow, noticing the police car on the other side of the road with its lights off and the officer standing — perhaps a little uncomfortably — alongside the others.

‘ Uh… It’s a fair old trip home for him,’ she bundled on, clumsily. ‘Bolton or Derby or somewhere…’

‘Just tell me you didn’t give him the fare,’ Hooch demanded.

Josephine stopped dead, a couple of feet from them, ‘Why?’

Doc rolled his eyes, despairingly.

‘She gave him the money, Doc,’ Hooch’s harsh voice was leavened with both boredom and resignation.

Jo frowned, pushing her hood back, ‘Is he… is Patty needed by the Police for something?’

The constable — who’d been quietly scrutinising Jo as she approached, but had said nothing — suddenly opened his mouth to speak, but before he’d uttered a syllable, his un-uniformed colleague was clambering out of their jeep, swinging herself up lithely onto the running board, pressing her two elbows into the roof for support, and bellowing, ‘Josephine bloody Bean. ’

Jo glanced sharply over the road, her own mouth opening slightly (the way a snake’s mouth opens in panic or in the heat). She stared at the woman for several moments. Then something registered.

‘Anna Wright, ’ she spoke slowly (and rather less enthusiastically. Bollocks to Canvey. There was no hiding here.).

The male officer did a double-take. ‘Good God,’ he muttered, ‘Josephine Bean. I heard you on the radio the other day, talking about…’

He ground to an abrupt halt, as if suddenly reconsidering the delicate social implications of Jo’s sanitary campaign. Jo appreciated his dilemma, fully. ‘The environment, ’ she filled in softly — seeing Doc and Hooch exchange curious glances — then adding, ‘Edward Cole, right?’

‘Right,’ he grinned. ‘Maths, physics, geography.’

‘We… uh…’ Jo turned towards Doc, uneasily, ‘we were all at school here together — in Canvey…’

‘ God you look different,’ the female officer shouted (making absolutely no effort to leave the confines of the car), ‘it took me a moment to recognise you without your hair. Remember her hair, Eddie?’

She waved to the uniformed officer. ‘Blonde. Gorgeous. Right down to…’ she touched her waist, ‘like Alice in Wonderland. ’

Jo smiled at this description, but seemed correspondingly pained by it.

‘And you’ve been doing sterling work at Southend General, I hear,’ she yelled, ‘all credit to you there.’

‘Yes. Well. Thank you, ’ Jo shouted back. (Doc cringed at the volume. Jo noticed. Her shoulders lifted with the stress.)

‘We should meet up for a drink later. How about it? My shift finishes in…’ the officer inspected her watch, ‘just under an hour.’

Jo paused, uncomfortably, ‘I would love to, Anna…’

‘ What? ’ The officer put her hand to her ear. Jo glanced towards Doc, then raised her voice, fractionally, ‘ I said I would really love to, Anna, but…’ She floundered.

‘But you should,’ Doc suddenly interrupted — his expression supremely benign, his voice utterly phlegmatic —‘you should meet up. That would be very… very lovely for you. To…’ he eyed the male officer, slyly, ‘to catch up with your old school pal, ’ he smiled with an almost mesmerising insincerity, ‘after all this time.’

He continued to smile.

Jo’s eyes widened (Doc seemed about as trustworthy as a ravenous cat in an aviary) –

It goes way beyond that…

Way beyond hunger

Jo blinked

— I am being slowly ingested

Here, in Canvey

Devoured again

Just like before.

She paused for a second, drew an extremely deep breath, then turned back to face the un-uniformed officer. ‘You’re right, ’ she shouted, ‘that would be… it would be…’ she grasped for the appropriate word, ‘ fun, ’ she rounded off, lamely.

Fun was not a word generally found to the forefront of her vocabulary –

Fun.

‘Great.’

The un-uniformed officer beat a jovial little percussive solo onto the jeep’s roof with her fingers, ‘You know Saks, Josie? Just down the road? Directly opposite the Bingo?’

Two cars flashed between them. Jo waited until they’d passed, then nodded, mutely.

Nobody calls me Josie

Nobody ever called me Josie here

Saks? Oh my Sweet Lord

‘Just after eight, then. Okay?’

‘Yes,’ Jo nodded, ‘that’s… that’ll be…’

The jeep’s radio — having previously purred along in a thoroughly unobjectionable monotone — now began crackling at a prodigious volume. The female officer clambered back inside to deal with it.

‘That’ll be fantastic,’ Jo spoke into thin air.

Doc scowled at her. This girl was so… so gawky. So blundering. Useless at deceiving. Not a dyed-in-the-wool Behindling. Not a born sleuth by any stretch of the imagination.

‘Before we all get completely carried away here,’ the male officer strove — semi-jovially — to regain the assembled company’s attention, ‘your white van still needs moving, sir. And if I could possibly have a quick word…’ he switched his focus to Doc, ‘about…’ he paused for a second, as if considering how best to frame his enquiry.

‘She’s already told you,’ Doc grumbled impatiently, nodding his head towards Jo, ‘the boy’s in Benfleet, at the station, probably heading back here on foot, even as we speak.’

‘It’s not a boy I’m looking for,’ the officer butted in (he was thoroughly sick of this boy, and bemused by every mention of him), ‘I’m actually trying to track down Wesley. I’ve been informed that you’re the one person most likely…’

‘He’s over there,’ Hooch interjected (patently infuriated by the widespread perception of Doc’s Following seniority), pointing across the road towards Katherine’s bungalow, ‘in that house.’

The officer’s gaze followed the line of Hooch’s index finger. He scowled, ‘But that’s…’ He stopped himself, just in time, his eyes meeting Josephine’s, almost apologetically.

‘The whore’s house,’ Hooch completed his sentence for him.

The officer stiffened.

‘Are you able to confirm this, sir?’ He turned back to Doc who was staring over at Hooch, infuriatedly.

‘Is it a summons?’ Hooch brazenly enquired, apparently oblivious to Doc’s finer feelings, ‘because of all the trouble with those seagulls in Rye?’

This was one intervention too far for the officer, ‘If you really want a ticket, sir…’ he snapped.

Hooch looked to his laurels, swooping down — with a defiant snort — to grab Doc’s half-finished mug of tea, tossing the remainder into the gutter, throwing the cup into the back of the van and slamming the doors shut with a bang.

The officer returned his full attention to the Old Man, ‘I believe your people track Wesley by phone and the internet? We tried to do the same, but the lines are down. There were rumours of a virus on the site. Would you happen to know anything about that?’

‘Should I?’ Doc asked, unhelpfully.

‘The lines are down?’ Jo interjected, ‘and a virus? ’

This was plainly news to her.

The police officer nodded, ‘Since earlier this afternoon, apparently.’

‘But has that ever happened before, Doc?’ Jo turned to the Old Man.

‘Skegness. About eighteen months back.’

Not Doc, but Hooch again, peeking out from behind the protective shield of his van’s front passenger door, ‘That site’s really losing its focus. Needs shaking up a bit if you ask me.’