Triple Header by Colin Campbell- written version
The first head Ham came across on Wednesday night didn’t really count as one of the three since it was still attached to its shoulders. It nearly wasn’t for long though when Andy Scott threw the patrol car into Brigham Street and Mick Habergham screamed at his partner to stop, but with a few inches to spare the drunk in the gutter kept his head.
“Jesus, Andy. Not two in one week.”
Andy bristled.
“I didn’t hit the last one.”
“You bounced him off the bonnet. Course you hit him.”
“No he bounced off the bonnet. Shouldn’t have been resisting arrest.”
They were talking about the first nightshift of the week, Monday, when Bob McFalls had asked for an extra unit to transport a prisoner. Unfortunately for Ham, Andy got the keys first and was patrolling at breakneck speed as usual. Add blue lights and siren and he became positively reckless and when they’d flown around the corner Bob had to dive out of the way. The prisoner jumped out of his skin, and onto the bonnet, before rolling off into the strong arms of the law. With no witnesses to contradict them the grazed shin and bump to the head were recorded on the custody sheet as minor injuries caused prior to arrest.
The D and I in the gutter tonight could easily be written up the same way since he was clearly drunk and definitely incapable. Any bumps and bruises he might incur on arrest could be put down to lifestyle choices, i.e. getting falling-down-drunk three days out of four. It would have been difficult trying to explain how his head came off under the patrol car but fortunately nobody was going to lose their head until later. Ham climbed out of the car and checked the body.
“Aw. I think he’s lost his teeth again.”
Andy wound the window down.
“You sure? Remember last time?”
“Last time he’d had more to eat. Lumpy vomit. Anybody could have missed them. Must have been on a liquid diet tonight. No lumps. And no top plate. Are you going to give me a hand or what?”
“Or what. This is a van job. He’s not getting in the back of this car smelling like that.”
Winding his window up Andy shouted over the radio for the van while Ham tugged the divisional drunk into the recovery position. Joe Callahan had been an alcoholic for so long he should be able to collapse into the recovery position on his own but now he was the police’s responsibility Ham had to keep him alive until he was handed over. Avoiding the vomit leaking out of the slack-jawed mouth Ham was back in the car in double quick time.
“You know, it’s scandalous we can’t take him to the Bridewell.”
“The cells don’t take D and Is any more. Remember?”
“I remember when they did. Easiest lock-up going in my probation.”
“Yeh well. I left my history books at the nick.”
“Back in ’76 they had the detox centre. Ideal place for such as Joe. Book ‘em in. Clean ‘em up. And dry ‘em out. Bypassed the cells altogether.”
The van came round the corner a lot slower than Andy had, little Billy Hollis barely being able to reach the pedals. Andy did get out this time, indicating the prone figure on the road.
“Bypass the cells nowadays too. Straight to hospital.”
Ham pulled his gloves on ready for the old heave-ho.
“The doctor’s going to love us.”
Getting a grip under Callahan’s shoulders, Ham sat the drunk up. Callahan gulped once, then threw up over Andy’s shoes.
“Dirty fucking bastard. I’ll give the doctor something to complain about.”
But he didn’t. He simply helped manhandle the dead weight into the back of the van then followed Billy Hollis to casualty.
∗
The old drunk had come round a bit by the time they’d booked him through Triage. Being rolled about in the back of the van for half an hour had done wonders for Callahan’s constitution but not for his temper and it was nip and tuck whether he’d develop into a Drunk and Disorderly before they could offload him. Ham had talked him round with the promise of early release once the doctors had checked him over but old Joe wasn’t impressed.
“Where’m I sposed to go?”
“Anywhere but the railway arches. You’ll only get moved on again.”
“Where’s’ma teef?”
“God knows. Check tomorrow to see if they get handed in.”
That was a forlorn hope. The chances of anyone taking a set of manky teeth to the police station were slim to anorexic.
“Ma wife gave me ‘em teef.”
“Just chill out Joe. And eat soft dinners.”
Andy was talking to Billy outside when Ham joined them. The van was parked in the ambulance bay, freshly hosed out and ready for the next prisoner. Andy’s shoes had been hosed down as well. It was ten to midnight. Almost the bewitching hour. Wednesday night. It should be quieting down around now. Fat chance. The radio crackled into life.
“Alpha Three. Have you resumed from the hospital yet?”
For a second Ham considered saying no, but if he did then someone else would have to go. Since the only thing you had going for you on nights were your colleagues he couldn’t drop the ball. He cleared from the hospital and asked for details.
“Sudden death at Branksome Business Park. Possible suicide.”
∗
There was no, Possible, about it. The gable end of the three-story office block painted a gruesome picture of a suicide that, while certainly being successful had clearly not gone according to plan. Unless the plan was to drop from the fire escape almost to the ground before having your head ripped off by being pulled up short. Whatever failures Duane Chambers had encountered in his business life, not being able to tie a good knot wasn’t one of them. He hadn’t seen that coming two hours earlier though, while writing his suicide note.
∗
As head partner of Chambers, Martin and Gough Advertising Agency, writing a short note should have been far easier than all the advertising slogans he’d dreamed up over the years, but composing a letter advertising his own death was proving more difficult than he thought.
Sitting at his desk in the third floor office Duane slid the notepad aside and took another drink of his coffee. Decaffeinated, so it wouldn’t keep him up all night. It was paying attention to these little details that made him the insufferable prick that he was, driving his wife and family away, and persuading his business partners that they would be better off without him. It also made him the most efficient advertising executive this side of The Pennines, so losing his business to a pair of low rent hangers-on was even more annoying.
It was dark as night outside, probably because it had slid into night while he’d drunk three cups of coffee and produced exactly zero copy for his latest campaign. The Farewell-Cruel-World campaign. He was having trouble defining his audience, the first step to any good advert. Who were you trying to sell to? Who were you trying to influence? In this case his wife had left him and his partners didn’t care. So who gave a flying fuck what happened to Duane P. Chambers?
The profanity shocked him even in his thoughts. He wasn’t a man accustomed to swearing but then again he wasn’t a man accustomed to committing suicide either. Choosing a method of departing this life had proved easier than writing the farewell note. His fingers played across the towrope on his desk then practiced the knot he’d selected from his repertoire. It wouldn’t surprise anyone who knew him that Duane P. Chambers had been an excellent Boy Scout and his hands tied a perfect noose.
Being an insipient coffee drinker, instead of a whisky drinker like his partners, it should have been more difficult to make the final decision but unlike his partners he liked to keep a clear head when conducting business. To be drunk when ending your life was simply taking the coward’s way out and Duane didn’t consider taking his own life to be the coward’s way out. He considered looking death in the face and taking the plunge to be doing the honourable thing, even courageous. It was just a pity his sense of distance wasn’t as good as his knot skills.
“To Hell with the letter.”
With a dash of instinct that might have saved his marriage if he’d displayed it earlier he scribbled a single line__
Farewell cruel world
__then stood up. He downed the last of his coffee and slung the rope over his shoulder. The main office was in darkness and he considered turning the rest of the lights on but decided against it. There was something dramatic about the light spilling across the empty desks and drawing boards. It only just picked out the fire escape door at the far end and that was just the way he wanted it. When they found him let the light provide its own trail and let his office be the only place of illumination. That’s how it had always been with his partners so let that be how it ended.
He nudged the bum-bar and cold night air made him feel faint. The door swung outwards onto the metal fire escape. After taking a moment to gather himself he tied one end of the towrope to the door handle and stepped outside. His Jaguar was parked in its bay across the car park. The rest was empty. The noose fit snugly around his neck. Then, ignoring the basics that even a fairground bungee-jumper would observe, he paid no attention to the length of the rope and jumped over the railing.
∗
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Being the first head of the night, Ham didn’t realise it would be the easiest one to find. All he had to do was follow the speckled trail of blood across the car park to the Jaguar S Type that was parked neatly in its bay. Duane P. Chambers’ head was upside down under the front nearside tyre, like a football trapped before the shot at goal. The comical look of surprise on its face took the edge off Ham’s shock at finding the wall spray-painted red in an arc where the body had swung gushing blood before it dropped.
The duty inspector pulled up behind the patrol car, blue lights flashing for all to see. Soon the ambulance would home in on those lights and the Coroner’s Officer and SOCO would have a good look before the body was moved. The head too, but just for now Ham leaned a Police Accident sign against the wheel arch to keep it hidden. The body was less of a problem, crumpled as it was beneath the dangling noose. Andy, as usual, lowered the tone.
“Not a bungee-jumper then.”
“I don’t know. Missed the ground until his head came off.”
SOCO took an hour photographing the outside scene before Andy went up and found the note. Breaking protocol he brought it to the top of the fire escape, put one hand across his heart, and shouted down to the gaggle of police officers.
“Farewell cruel world.”
The inspector displayed a brief moment of humour.
“Don’t do it man.”
“All the way down there? No way boss.”
“No. Jump if you like. But don’t move the letter you arse. This could be a murder scene until we know better.”
Ham was smiling up at his crestfallen partner when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Just hold this a minute will you?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
This time the expletive spurted out with more venom. The Scenes of Crime photographer dumped the head in Ham’s arms then set the tripod up at the back of the ambulance. The stretchered body was covered in a white sheet leaking blood. A soft electronic whine sung in Ham’s ears and he thought he was having a reaction.
“Flash.”
The photographer raised the flash unit to show it was charging up.
“Just a couple more shots before we go. Bring the head over here.”
Ham took the head to the back doors of the ambulance. The photographer manoeuvred it into position on the severed neck until Duane P. Chambers looked almost as good as new.
“Hold it there.”
Flash. The blaze of white light blinded Ham and the next couple of shots went by in a blur. Head on shoulders. Head off shoulders. Meaty cross-section of shoulder part of neck. Meaty cross-section of head part of neck.
“Just in case they don’t believe it’s the right head.”
The photographer wasn’t even smiling when he said it. If Ham had known he still had another two heads to deal with he wouldn’t have thought it funny either.
∗
“Do you miss being in SOCO?”
It was half-past-one and they were heading back to the station to complete the sudden death report and get a head start on their meal break. Andy was stalling. Once he was behind the wheel of a patrol car on nightshift he flew around the division like a whirling Dervish but when it came time to return to the nick he suddenly took his foot off the gas. It was as if he was waiting for any excuse to stay out, holding back until the last minute in case another immediate came in. Part of his stalling technique was making small talk.
“You know? After such a long time?”
The best part of Ham’s service, fifteen years, had been as a Scenes of Crime Officer and being dumped out by the civilianisation programme had been a shock to the system. Having to relearn everything he ever knew about frontline policing would have been doubly difficult if he hadn’t crewed up with Andy Scott, who was born for the frontline.
“Photographing severed heads you mean?”
“Well, yes. I suppose so.”
“Tell you the truth, after this last couple of years on the beat, I’d almost forgotten what it was like. Caught me by surprise a bit.”
The speedometer was sinking below 30mph, Ham’s normal patrol speed. Andy was clearly praying for something to happen before they reached the station.
“What was all that, holding-the-head-on-the-shoulders, about?”
“Physical fit. Like when you find the broken tip of a screwdriver at a burglary then stop someone with a broken screwdriver later. Match the two together and you’ve got a physical fit. Case proved.”
“Yeh, but. A head. Wasn’t any secret where it came from.”
“I know. But with forensics you’ve got to go to the far end of a fart. Just in case. They’ll do the proper fit at the mortuary, with measuring tape and close-ups. This was just coverage in case anything went wrong.”
Into Norman Avenue and almost home. They were down to 20mph now and only half a mile from safety. Ham’s stomach rumbled. He could see the canteen windows across the rooftops of the estate.
“So? Do you miss it?”
Ham thought about it for a moment; the murder scenes he’d covered; the burglaries he’d examined; the injuries he’d photographed. There was something about getting kitted up in a paper suit and being the most important man at the crime scene; being an expert whose knowledge everybody wanted a part of.
“Sometimes; when I see a murder on the news and there’s SOCO going through their paces. You felt a bit special.”
“You’re special now.”
“Stop taking the piss.”
“No, really. Frontline. Uniform patrol are the first on the scene of everything. Any evidence gets lost in the first hour it’s down to us. That makes us special.”
“The magic hour.”
“Yep. Cases are won and lost on what we do.”
Ham’s stomach rumbled again.
“Yeh, well. What we do now is go in for meal. You’ve stalled long enough. There’s nothing else coming in so, “Home James.” And don’t spare the horses.”
And just like that Ham jinxed the rest of the night. His radio crackled into life.
“Alpha Three. Can I divert you to a serious RTA?”
“Aw fucking hell. Not an accident?”
“Car into lamp post. Valley Road. One person made off.”
“Oh great. And a TWOC as well.”
Andy didn’t need asking twice. He spun the car round and floored the accelerator. Ham’s head whipped on his shoulders and hit the headrest. What the radio didn’t say was what the car had hit before the lamp post. Ham thumbed his transmit button.
“Alpha Three. One-twenty.”
The sirens and blue lights cut through the night.
∗
What the car hit was less important than what it left behind, and what it left behind nobody in the black BMW would have guessed. Robin Wade flew down the bypass in his father’s car, allowing the adverse camber to take it towards the central reservation. The twenty-three year old accountant laughed as if he was on a roller coaster and corrected his steering. In the passenger seat his best friend, Gary Field, laughed even more.
The girls in the backseat were way past laughing; they were hysterical, sitting with their mini-skirts up above the Plimsoll line and legs slightly apart. This was party night, and neither Rebecca nor Suzie was going to waste a minute of it. Suzie leaned over Robin’s shoulder and passed him the bottle of Johnny Walker. Robin swerved as he took it and they all laughed some more. Rebecca shrieked, flashing a brief glimpse of skimpy white knickers in the driver’s mirror before slamming her knees together. Enough’s as good as a feast. The feast was due once they got to her flat and the competition was on as to who got the plumb choice of the wealthy businessman’s son. She intended it to be her.
Nobody paid any attention to the speed, especially the driver, but it was fast, well over the 70mph the dual carriageway allowed. The bypass swept down the hill and slid into Valley Road. Once it straightened out after the slight kink in the road it would run straight as a dye along the valley bottom to the posh end of town and Nirvana. That meant heaven for the boys, and if the girls had anything to do with it, the girls as well.
100mph.
Whisky sloshed over Robin’s jeans as he passed it to Gary. They were flying now and, boy, wasn’t this fun? If his father only knew what his son was doing while he was away on business. The kink in the road caught them all by surprise, not only a gentle dogleg but a slight rise as well. At 100mph there is no such thing as a gentle anything. The BMW took off and they really were flying. The dogleg threw the car towards the central reservation again and the hillock launched them to disaster.
Rebecca screamed first. Gary was busy swigging from the bottle and didn’t see the road sign, and Suzie was hidden behind Robin. Robin was struck dumb. The car hit the speed limit sign halfway up its eight-foot pole, bending it at right angles and turning the circular disc into a scimitar. It cut through the nearside support like a knife through butter, throwing Robin to one side. Suzie wasn’t so lucky. Her neck stuck up like a gofer out of its hole and met the scimitar full on.
Then in a flash they hit the lamp post and the car stopped dead, crumpling like an old cigarette packet as the engine was driven into the passenger compartment, breaking Gary’s legs. His seat shot back pinning Rebecca, and the entire car belly-flopped onto the central reservation in a shower of broken glass and steam.
∗
Ham’s first thought was, how could anyone make off from this? Steam drifted around the car like a pall waiting to settle over the dead, only judging by the coughing and moaning those left in the car weren’t dead. Yet.
Andy pulled the patrol car across the carriageway and left the blue lights on, being careful to avoid the BMW’s approach path in case of skid marks. AIB would need them to gauge speed and distance and SOCO would need them to photograph. Ham wasn’t calling for the Accident Investigation Branch or night SOCO when he climbed out of the car though.
“Alpha Three. Code Six. Casualties still on site. We’ll need two ambulances and the fire brigade with cutting gear.”
The front end of the BMW was concertinaed to half its normal length and the roof crushed. The driver’s side had been sliced open like a peeled can by the road sign but if they were going to get the passengers out the rest would need cutting off. Something sparked and popped above them and Ham looked up at the damaged lamp post. The twin bulbs blinked on and off, leaning like a half-chopped tree waiting to fall.
“And you’d better call Street Lighting to secure the lamp post.”
“Alpha Three. One Twenty.”
Andy was already heading for the nearside, ignoring the lamp post altogether. Ham went to the driver’s door, expecting the worst. The cut metal and shattered windscreen were head height. In the distance sirens rose above the silent night. Andy was tugging at the passenger door when Ham peered through the slashed support.
Nothing.
The driver’s seat was empty apart from a puddling of blood sprinkled with shards of glass. Looking through the car Ham saw Andy peering in the other window. In between them a smartly dressed young man moaned, semi-conscious, his knees jutting up at an obscene angle. His seat had been pushed back into a teenage girl whose face was a mask of blood and matted hair. She coughed and spluttered through her broken nose.
Ham stepped back and took a deep breath. During his years in SOCO he’d photographed some horrendous injuries, mostly after the victim was dead, and it had hardly ever bothered him. Apart from the post mortem on the twelve-month old baby. It was easy to disengage himself from the corpses in a way he’d never been able to do with the living. Show him a cut finger and he’d gip like a schoolgirl. Paramedics had his heartfelt admiration.
It wasn’t until he stepped back from the car that he noticed that the blood puddling in the bottom of the driver’s seat was still filling up. A steady trickle ran down the back of the seat, swilling wafer thin slivers of glass out of the stitched creases. Ham leaned in the window for a better look then jerked back in shock, banging his head on the roof.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
For a moment he was back with Duane P. Chambers, except there was no severed head here, just the meaty jut of neck leaning over the back of the driver’s seat. Blood leaked out of the cut joint and dribbled down the upholstery. The rest of the girl looked as if she might have been attractive but she was never going to smile again. Unlike Duane’s neck there was no ripped tissue on the girl’s throat, this was a clean cut, as if she’d been beheaded on the guillotine.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
A whisper this time. Andy stood up and looked over the roof at his partner. The drip white face and staring eyes told it all. The onset of shock needed holding back otherwise they weren’t going to get the job done. Andy knew it, and just what to do about it.
“We’re going to have to address this language issue Mick. Any more JFCs and you’ll be getting sued by Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
It was the first time Andy had used Ham’s real name and it was that more than the joke that pulled him round. He quickly scoured the interior but unlike the guillotine there was no basket to collect the head. When he stepped back a second time the colour had returned to his cheeks.
“Well there’s no chicken in a basket in there.”
“No sign of the driver either.”
Andy was looking down the central reservation where the dual carriageway split to avoid a copse of trees. Beyond that the road levelled out, passing through an industrial estate on its way out of town.
“Bastard could be halfway home by now.”
“Yeh, well. Let’s see where home is shall we?”
Ham walked to the back of the car and called up on the radio. Reading out the number he waited for the registered keeper details. And his address.
∗
It took over an hour for the fire brigade to cut the casualties out, pealing the BMW’s roof back like a sardine can. Three ambulances arrived but one of them was really nothing more than a hearse. It had to wait until the night SOCO finished photographing the headless corpse in situ. AIB were busy looking for skid marks with the traffic officers who had, thankfully, taken over the accident from Ham and Andy. That left Ham and Andy to look for the missing head.
“Jesus Andy. How far can a head go?”
“Well that’s a step up from Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Now who’s swearing? But what about the head?”
“Talking about head, I knew a girl once__”
Ham stood, arms akimbo, on the central reservation and gave Andy an old fashioned look. Making a joke of it was the only way to get through the night sometimes but there were jokes and there were jokes. When Michael Barrymore’s boyfriend had drowned in the swimming pool with an enlarged back passage, Herald Of Free Enterprise jokes had circulated like wild fire, suggesting that if he’d kept his back doors shut he wouldn’t have sunk. But a young girl losing her head in a car wreck seemed less funny when you had to go looking for the head.
“Alpha Three. Can I speak?”
The casualties were being loaded into the ambulances out of earshot so Ham fingered the button and acknowledged the call.
“No reply at the keepers address. Owner is away on business.”
Ham looked at Andy.
“So it is stolen then? No wonder he ran off.”
The radio dispelled that theory.
“Neighbours say the son has access to the car. He’s not home either.”
“Bingo. And I’ll bet he doesn’t go home tonight either. Fucking bastard.”
“Language.”
“I’ll give him fucking language if I get my hands on him.”
Ham glanced along Valley Road. Beyond the copse of trees and past the kink in the road it ran straight as a dye along the valley bottom towards the posh end of town. Somewhere up there a rich kid was hiding from his responsibilities and Ham wanted to make him pay. Throughout his service he’d been able to separate his feelings from the job, it was the only way to reach retirement without driving yourself into the ground, but tonight it felt personal. As he looked he noticed something in the copse.
“It can’t have gone that far can it?”
Andy was way ahead of him, trotting along the grass verge towards the trees. Ham followed then stopped short on the edge of the woods. There was no blood, not even a trickle, and that made it look all the more disturbing. Ham took one look at the girls face then turned away. Without waiting for Andy he shouted up the road for the photographer. Even Andy wasn’t joking when the SOCO staked a flag in the ground for line of sight and began the timed exposures for the long shots.
∗
There was no more small talk on the way to the canteen this time, and to be honest eating didn’t seem like the thing to do, but if there was one thing Ham had learned over the years it was how to keep his stomach in a separate compartment from his brain. Whatever crap he saw during a shift and whatever crap he dealt with, come mealtime it was all water off a duck’s back. Some might call it callous but if an army marched on its stomach then Mick Habergham had more stomach than most.
They were late in so the rest of the shift were back out on the streets, those who hadn’t locked up and were busy completing court files or handover packages. It was after three and the night had slid past midnight into the early hours. Hopefully it would quieten down a bit now.
Ham changed to MTV on the satellite in the hope that Shania Twain would still be strutting her stuff and laid out his sandwich box on the table. Andy watched in silence as his partner first unwrapped a sandwich and laid it on the snack box lid then emptied a stack of Pringles from their portable container and played a tattoo with both sections, tapping the crumbs out. Next he laid the Kit Kat Chunky across the top and he was ready to eat. Steam spiralled up from his mug of tea.
“You must have had a deprived childhood.”
“Never wanted nothing. I led a very sheltered life.”
Andy patted Ham’s expanding waistline.
“Too much, too soon.”
“You can never have too much love.”
He knew that was true but it didn’t seem fair that some people got more than their share. Angela hadn’t received any love at all as a child, leaving Ham to make up for it as her husband. The strain often forced cracks in their marriage that he could never discuss with Andy. Some things were too private. Andy on the other hand was an open book and discussed everything about any relationship with absolutely anyone. If you ever wanted to broadcast something then all you had to do was tell Andy in confidence.
“You can never have too much loving.”
“Yes you can. Any more and your love muscle’ll drop off. When are you going to settle for the love of a good woman?”
“Never happen. Look what happened to old Joe Callahan.”
“His wife got him his teef.”
“And his wife drove him to drink. Where’s his teef now?”
“Everything in moderation. Then he’d have been alright.”
“Just contradicted yourself haven’t you? What happened to, you can never have too much?”
Ham was caught. Whenever they started talking in metaphors he always ended tripping himself up. He tried to worm out of it.
“Just working up to the point of the day.”
“No, no, no. You fucked up. Admit it.”
“The point being, that some people clearly do have too much of everything. That’s why they have no respect for others, including their mates, otherwise that bastard could never have left them in the wreck.”
A sobering thought. Andy didn’t think it won the argument though.
“Mute point. Some people are bastards born and bred. Having money just makes them rich bastards.”
“Moot. Moot. Mute means being unable to speak.”
“Exactly. Old Joe can’t speak without his teeth. Losing them probably means more to him than Ritchie Rich losing daddy’s BMW.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Andy nodded over Ham’s shoulder.
“Shania Twain.”
“What?”
Before he could formulate a rebuttal Shania’s husky tones sent shivers down his spine. Leave it long enough and MTV would always come to the rescue. And while little and large lusted after her proclivities, rich man poor man came together under the railway arches.
∗
Joe Callahan smoked his last cigarette and bemoaned the state of the trains. Standing in the cold damp railway tunnel since being kicked out of the Casualty Department had done nothing for his rheumatism and even less for his cigarette balance. It was pitch black but his eyes had adjusted enough to see the scattering of cigarette butts around his feet like confetti at a wedding. He wished he had something to drink but all he’d been able to afford were the 20 Lambert and Butler he’d just smoked. And still the train hadn’t come.
He glanced at his watch but it didn’t have a luminous dial. Judging by the patch of night sky and criss-cross of railway track outside the tunnel it could be any time from midnight to 6am. His back told him it was nearer dawn but there was still no lightening of the overcast sky. And there was still no train.
“Fucking privatisation.”
Privatisation is what he said but without his top plate it’s not what came out of his mouth. He understood what he meant though, and there was nobody else listening to his last will and testament anyway. The lack of teeth still rankled. The lack of trains rankled even more. He was certain there used to be a night service out of The Interchange but he’d been waiting in the long tunnel north of town ever since he’d made his decision and the wait was testing his resolve. Resolve was something he didn’t have much of, otherwise he’d have quit drinking and saved his marriage years ago. Now the drink had cost him the last reminder of a wife who had loved him too much to watch him die in a bottle.
“Fucking teef.”
That came out right, but there was still nobody to hear him.
“Fucking, fucking, fucking, teef.”
The rattle of stones deep in the tunnel almost scared him to death. Footsteps echoed from the blackness and whoever had fallen over scrambled to his feet. Joe’s first thought was that the coppers had come for him again.
“Anywhere but the railway arches. You’ll only get moved on again.”
That’s what the fat policeman had said, and here he was, as good as his word. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? The first train must be due any time now. In a moment of panic he took the note from his pocket and wedged it into a crack in the wall. He didn’t want the coppers laughing over it while he was still alive. Damn the state of the trains. Where are they when you want one? Just like coppers really. Never around when you need one but always there when you don’t.
The crying coming down the tunnel wasn’t the police and the uneven footsteps weren’t a coppers heavy tread. Whoever it was fell over again, kicking aggregate between the sleepers as he tried to stand up. A pale face materialised in the darkness and Joe could even see the dark smudges beneath the eyes. The smartly dressed young man was anything but smart now, his knees ragged and bleeding and his hair matted with blood.
Blood?
That dragged up some of the deep-seated Good Samaritan instinct that Muriel had known about but Joe had forgotten. The last few years he had been so self-centred that anyone else’s problems could damn well stay with someone else. The youth stumbled again and just managed to stick a hand out. The tunnel wall was damp and mouldy and the hand slipped. Joe dashed forward, thankful for once that he was sober, and caught the boy before he fell. Guiding him to the workmen’s arch they sat together and Robin Wade began to talk.
∗
On Platform 3 the worker’s express growled as the doors slammed shut. The first train of the day might not be the busiest but it made up in noise what it lacked in numbers. Garrulous figures huddled in overcoats and woolly hats and made the connections that made the workplace such a hotbed of passion. They talked about last night’s football results. They talked about the latest Big Brother eviction. And, God forbid, some of them even talked about the latest Coronation Street gossip.
Whatever they talked about didn’t matter though. They talked and that’s what counted. The human contacts that kept the world turning. The three-carriage diesel cranked up its engine as the guard signalled that all the doors were shut and the old style rolling stock – Northern hadn’t been upgraded to sliding doors and air conditioning yet – inched forward. It was 5.25am.
∗
Joe sat in silence while Robin finished his tale of woe.
“I couldn’t stay. I just couldn’t.”
In the darkness of the tunnel the huddled figures of the aging drunk and the young accountant could be interchangeable, both just careworn souls at their lowest ebb. One feeling guilty at what he had just done and the other feeling guilty about a lifetime of what he had not.
“I feel sick.”
“And so you should. It’s disgusting. What you’ve done.”
Joe was getting used to having no teeth but it was still coming out a bit mushy.
“No, really it is. You deserve everything you get.”
Robin sat up as if slapped. He didn’t know what reaction he expected, certainly not a sympathetic ear, but to be so roundly condemned surprised him. He lived in a world where if someone asked how you were, you said okay no matter how bad you felt. And if someone did happen to explain how bad things were you simply listened, nodded, and moved on. What you didn’t do was agree then say you deserved everything you got.
“But it’s not that you deserve it. It’s how you get on with life after.”
That was funny coming from an inveterate non-achiever; a man who took life’s punches on the chin then dived into a bottle. Muriel had told him the same thing so many times he knew it off by heart; he’d just never taken it to heart, until now. Somehow, telling this sorry looking sad-knacker how to get on with life made him feel maybe he could kick-start his own life again.
“My wife used to tell me it’s not the obstacles but how you overcome them.”
Robin shrugged but the sigh was more angry than sad.
“This isn’t an obstacle, it’s death.”
“Not your death. It’s a big fuckin’ obstacle yes. But face up to it.”
Yes. Helping this lad was making him feel better about himself. Perhaps this is what he’d needed all along, someone worse off than himself who he could shepherd through the hard times. Someone to take his mind off his own problems. He stood up and held out a hand.
“Come on. Let’s go see the coppers.”
And that was something new as well. Joe Callahan going to see the police instead of the police coming to get Joe Callahan. The boy stood with him and they slowly trudged along the sleepers towards the mouth of the tunnel. Joe even began to wonder if Muriel might give him one last chance.
Both were so deep in thought that they didn’t feel the vibration running through the track or hear the distant roar of the diesel. Joe heard it first and when he turned round he stood like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He would never have thought a train could be on you so fast, rushing out of the darkness like an avenging angel. His last thought was for the teeth Muriel had paid for. He really didn’t want to die without his teeth.
∗
“Alpha Three. Sorry to do this to you. Sudden death at the railway tunnel. Baxandale Street. BTP unavailable. I’ll get you units to backup.”
“Shit me. It’s twenty to six.”
Ham didn’t say that down the radio but the operator must have sensed it.
“I’ll try and get Early Turn to relieve you as soon as they come on.”
Andy acknowledged and Ham turned the car round. He’d finally managed to wrestle the keys from his partner and had been patrolling at cruise speed for the final hour of the shift, hoping to wind down as night crept towards dawn. The domestics were over, the burglars back in bed, and the streets were beginning to come alive as early starters set off for work. He had even found old Joe Callahan’s top plate in the footwell, a minor miracle in an otherwise shitty night. The first bus of the day coincided with the first train and milkmen had been delivering for almost two hours. The world was waking up to a new day, completely unaware of what had been going on while it slept. Ham continued to grumble.
“British Transport Police. Are they ever available?”
“Are if you haven’t bought a ticket.”
“Christ. They only have to patrol the bloody station.”
“And the bloody lines in this case.”
Ham nodded. A sudden death on the railway line was always sudden and definitely dead. When a train hit you at 50mph you stayed hit; you just didn’t stay where you were hit. The last one Ham had dealt with had been in SOCO, and he’d been photographing body parts for half a mile. Little bits at a time. A more urgent thought crossed his mind and this time he did transmit it.
“Have you contacted the Northern Line to turn the power off? I don’t want to end up frying like that bloke on Pelham One Two Three.”
“Alpha Three. Already done. The entire section is dead.”
∗
That was an understatement. Judging by the amount of blood, this poor fella had more of the red stuff than the advertising suicide and the headless passenger put together. Or maybe it was just that being hit by a train you bled from a whole lot more places than a stumpy neck. The point of impact was easy to find because the track was painted in the stuff; a paint bomb of life blood that quickly tapered off into a splatter trail as body parts were dotted along the line.
Half a mile further on the interior lights of the worker’s express shone out in the distance and Ham could see the early turn units taking witness details. The radio operator had been true to her word but both Andy and Ham knew being relieved wasn’t going to get them home any sooner. There was still an extended scene to preserve and no one else to preserve it. Ham looked up from the meaty torso, nothing more than a sliced carcass that had been stripped of its clothes by the impact, and backtracked into the tunnel. If the last one he’d dealt with was anything to go by this unfortunate suicide would have been waiting in the tunnel for the first train, and that could have been a long wait.
“I’m just checking in there Andy.”
The first hint of blue entered the pre-dawn sky, glinting off the shiny tracks, but the light disappeared six feet into the tunnel. Ham turned the Maglite on and played it along the side walls. Twenty feet in he found what he was looking for. Why were suicides always heavy smokers? This one had smoked a full pack while plucking up courage to step in front of the train, disproving the argument that suicide was a coward’s way out. The long wait and final step must have taken every last ounce of courage. Ham shouted over his shoulder.
“He waited here.”
“No need to shout.”
Andy was right behind him and Ham’s heart missed a beat.
“Jesus. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
He shone the torch at the pile of cigarette ends against the wall, then back towards the mouth of the tunnel and the point of impact.
“Why’d he walk all that way to be hit though? Why not do it here?”
“Why do it just before we’re due to go off?”
Ham gave Andy a look.
“I’m sure it wasn’t personal.”
The torch picked out something else, a splash of white tucked into the wall above the cigarettes. Ham plucked the piece of folded paper and read it. His shoulders sagged.
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
He passed Andy the note.
“That’s why we should still take D and Is to the cells. They must have kicked him out of Casualty as soon as we’d gone.”
The note was surprisingly well written. It was brief and to the point.
To whom it may concern.
This is Joseph Edinburgh Callahan. I am sorry for the mess but I cannot go on any longer. I let my wife, Muriel, down. I let myself down. And now I have lost the last thing she gave me. Without my teeth there is nothing of her left. And now there is nothing of me left. Break the news to her gently.
Yours sincerely. J.E. Callahan.
“Old Joe, you silly bastard.”
Ham fingered the smooth top-plate in his coat pocket.
“You silly old bastard.”
At least that solved the mystery of whose the body was. Now all they had to do was deal with the scene while early turn took statements for Coroners Court.
“Let’s map out all the bits for SOCO.”
Dawn had taken the edge off the night, turning the railway lines into pale blue scars dappled with red. Working methodically from the torso outwards they managed to find a leg, two arms, and a shoeless foot without too much trouble. The third head of the night they found in a gully off to the left. Or the biggest part of it they could find. The piece of ripped meat was only recognisable as human because of the single eye, the nose, and the teeth together with one side of the jawbone. Most of the teeth were mangled and dislodged but there were probably enough to make a formal__
Ham stopped right there.
Identification by dental records or fingerprints was normal for decaying or disfigured corpses, providing you had the dental records or the fingerprints. Nobody wanted relatives to have to look at the bloated body of a river victim or the maggot eaten face of the long ago dead. Joe Callahan’s fingerprints were definitely on record but how do you check the teeth of a man who has no top teeth?
“This head’s got teeth.”
Andy looked puzzled. Ham pulled Joe’s top plate out and held them up.
“Joe’s.”
Then he picked up the head, teeth forwards.
“Not Joe’s.”
A moan sounded from the bushes and Joseph Edinburgh Callahan sat up, shook his head, then struggled to his feet. He was cradling a broken arm. Ham dropped the head.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Even Andy stepped back in amazement.
“Fucking hell.”
Joe looked at the fallen head.
“Last time I become a guardian angel.”
“Guardian angel?”
“Said he’d been in an accident. Was gonna see the coppers.”
“Well he can’t see us now.”
“Guess not. God, I could do with a drink.”
Ham looked at the broken arm.
“You’ll get a drink. Tea with two sugars. They can hardly kick you out of Casualty now, can they?”
Joe grinned, revealing his vacant top gums.
“Knocked me out an’ all. Have to keep me overnight now won’t they?”
Ham handed him the top plate.
“Might need these then. Food’s a bit tough on Ward 19.”
Joe looked at the teeth and for the first time in his life was speechless. Ham took the folded note out of his pocket.
“This as well. Maybe Muriel will like to see it.”
“Maybe.”
The two coppers helped the recovering alcoholic up the embankment and called for an ambulance. It would have been a touching scene but Andy had to spoil it.
“Edinburgh?”
“Where I was conceived.”
“You weren’t conceived. You were poured out of a bottle.”
“Fuck you copper.”
And with his top plate in that came out just right.
“Jesus, Andy. Not two in one week.”
Andy bristled.
“I didn’t hit the last one.”
“You bounced him off the bonnet. Course you hit him.”
“No he bounced off the bonnet. Shouldn’t have been resisting arrest.”
They were talking about the first nightshift of the week, Monday, when Bob McFalls had asked for an extra unit to transport a prisoner. Unfortunately for Ham, Andy got the keys first and was patrolling at breakneck speed as usual. Add blue lights and siren and he became positively reckless and when they’d flown around the corner Bob had to dive out of the way. The prisoner jumped out of his skin, and onto the bonnet, before rolling off into the strong arms of the law. With no witnesses to contradict them the grazed shin and bump to the head were recorded on the custody sheet as minor injuries caused prior to arrest.
The D and I in the gutter tonight could easily be written up the same way since he was clearly drunk and definitely incapable. Any bumps and bruises he might incur on arrest could be put down to lifestyle choices, i.e. getting falling-down-drunk three days out of four. It would have been difficult trying to explain how his head came off under the patrol car but fortunately nobody was going to lose their head until later. Ham climbed out of the car and checked the body.
“Aw. I think he’s lost his teeth again.”
Andy wound the window down.
“You sure? Remember last time?”
“Last time he’d had more to eat. Lumpy vomit. Anybody could have missed them. Must have been on a liquid diet tonight. No lumps. And no top plate. Are you going to give me a hand or what?”
“Or what. This is a van job. He’s not getting in the back of this car smelling like that.”
Winding his window up Andy shouted over the radio for the van while Ham tugged the divisional drunk into the recovery position. Joe Callahan had been an alcoholic for so long he should be able to collapse into the recovery position on his own but now he was the police’s responsibility Ham had to keep him alive until he was handed over. Avoiding the vomit leaking out of the slack-jawed mouth Ham was back in the car in double quick time.
“You know, it’s scandalous we can’t take him to the Bridewell.”
“The cells don’t take D and Is any more. Remember?”
“I remember when they did. Easiest lock-up going in my probation.”
“Yeh well. I left my history books at the nick.”
“Back in ’76 they had the detox centre. Ideal place for such as Joe. Book ‘em in. Clean ‘em up. And dry ‘em out. Bypassed the cells altogether.”
The van came round the corner a lot slower than Andy had, little Billy Hollis barely being able to reach the pedals. Andy did get out this time, indicating the prone figure on the road.
“Bypass the cells nowadays too. Straight to hospital.”
Ham pulled his gloves on ready for the old heave-ho.
“The doctor’s going to love us.”
Getting a grip under Callahan’s shoulders, Ham sat the drunk up. Callahan gulped once, then threw up over Andy’s shoes.
“Dirty fucking bastard. I’ll give the doctor something to complain about.”
But he didn’t. He simply helped manhandle the dead weight into the back of the van then followed Billy Hollis to casualty.
∗
The old drunk had come round a bit by the time they’d booked him through Triage. Being rolled about in the back of the van for half an hour had done wonders for Callahan’s constitution but not for his temper and it was nip and tuck whether he’d develop into a Drunk and Disorderly before they could offload him. Ham had talked him round with the promise of early release once the doctors had checked him over but old Joe wasn’t impressed.
“Where’m I sposed to go?”
“Anywhere but the railway arches. You’ll only get moved on again.”
“Where’s’ma teef?”
“God knows. Check tomorrow to see if they get handed in.”
That was a forlorn hope. The chances of anyone taking a set of manky teeth to the police station were slim to anorexic.
“Ma wife gave me ‘em teef.”
“Just chill out Joe. And eat soft dinners.”
Andy was talking to Billy outside when Ham joined them. The van was parked in the ambulance bay, freshly hosed out and ready for the next prisoner. Andy’s shoes had been hosed down as well. It was ten to midnight. Almost the bewitching hour. Wednesday night. It should be quieting down around now. Fat chance. The radio crackled into life.
“Alpha Three. Have you resumed from the hospital yet?”
For a second Ham considered saying no, but if he did then someone else would have to go. Since the only thing you had going for you on nights were your colleagues he couldn’t drop the ball. He cleared from the hospital and asked for details.
“Sudden death at Branksome Business Park. Possible suicide.”
∗
There was no, Possible, about it. The gable end of the three-story office block painted a gruesome picture of a suicide that, while certainly being successful had clearly not gone according to plan. Unless the plan was to drop from the fire escape almost to the ground before having your head ripped off by being pulled up short. Whatever failures Duane Chambers had encountered in his business life, not being able to tie a good knot wasn’t one of them. He hadn’t seen that coming two hours earlier though, while writing his suicide note.
∗
As head partner of Chambers, Martin and Gough Advertising Agency, writing a short note should have been far easier than all the advertising slogans he’d dreamed up over the years, but composing a letter advertising his own death was proving more difficult than he thought.
Sitting at his desk in the third floor office Duane slid the notepad aside and took another drink of his coffee. Decaffeinated, so it wouldn’t keep him up all night. It was paying attention to these little details that made him the insufferable prick that he was, driving his wife and family away, and persuading his business partners that they would be better off without him. It also made him the most efficient advertising executive this side of The Pennines, so losing his business to a pair of low rent hangers-on was even more annoying.
It was dark as night outside, probably because it had slid into night while he’d drunk three cups of coffee and produced exactly zero copy for his latest campaign. The Farewell-Cruel-World campaign. He was having trouble defining his audience, the first step to any good advert. Who were you trying to sell to? Who were you trying to influence? In this case his wife had left him and his partners didn’t care. So who gave a flying fuck what happened to Duane P. Chambers?
The profanity shocked him even in his thoughts. He wasn’t a man accustomed to swearing but then again he wasn’t a man accustomed to committing suicide either. Choosing a method of departing this life had proved easier than writing the farewell note. His fingers played across the towrope on his desk then practiced the knot he’d selected from his repertoire. It wouldn’t surprise anyone who knew him that Duane P. Chambers had been an excellent Boy Scout and his hands tied a perfect noose.
Being an insipient coffee drinker, instead of a whisky drinker like his partners, it should have been more difficult to make the final decision but unlike his partners he liked to keep a clear head when conducting business. To be drunk when ending your life was simply taking the coward’s way out and Duane didn’t consider taking his own life to be the coward’s way out. He considered looking death in the face and taking the plunge to be doing the honourable thing, even courageous. It was just a pity his sense of distance wasn’t as good as his knot skills.
“To Hell with the letter.”
With a dash of instinct that might have saved his marriage if he’d displayed it earlier he scribbled a single line__
Farewell cruel world
__then stood up. He downed the last of his coffee and slung the rope over his shoulder. The main office was in darkness and he considered turning the rest of the lights on but decided against it. There was something dramatic about the light spilling across the empty desks and drawing boards. It only just picked out the fire escape door at the far end and that was just the way he wanted it. When they found him let the light provide its own trail and let his office be the only place of illumination. That’s how it had always been with his partners so let that be how it ended.
He nudged the bum-bar and cold night air made him feel faint. The door swung outwards onto the metal fire escape. After taking a moment to gather himself he tied one end of the towrope to the door handle and stepped outside. His Jaguar was parked in its bay across the car park. The rest was empty. The noose fit snugly around his neck. Then, ignoring the basics that even a fairground bungee-jumper would observe, he paid no attention to the length of the rope and jumped over the railing.
∗
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Being the first head of the night, Ham didn’t realise it would be the easiest one to find. All he had to do was follow the speckled trail of blood across the car park to the Jaguar S Type that was parked neatly in its bay. Duane P. Chambers’ head was upside down under the front nearside tyre, like a football trapped before the shot at goal. The comical look of surprise on its face took the edge off Ham’s shock at finding the wall spray-painted red in an arc where the body had swung gushing blood before it dropped.
The duty inspector pulled up behind the patrol car, blue lights flashing for all to see. Soon the ambulance would home in on those lights and the Coroner’s Officer and SOCO would have a good look before the body was moved. The head too, but just for now Ham leaned a Police Accident sign against the wheel arch to keep it hidden. The body was less of a problem, crumpled as it was beneath the dangling noose. Andy, as usual, lowered the tone.
“Not a bungee-jumper then.”
“I don’t know. Missed the ground until his head came off.”
SOCO took an hour photographing the outside scene before Andy went up and found the note. Breaking protocol he brought it to the top of the fire escape, put one hand across his heart, and shouted down to the gaggle of police officers.
“Farewell cruel world.”
The inspector displayed a brief moment of humour.
“Don’t do it man.”
“All the way down there? No way boss.”
“No. Jump if you like. But don’t move the letter you arse. This could be a murder scene until we know better.”
Ham was smiling up at his crestfallen partner when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Just hold this a minute will you?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
This time the expletive spurted out with more venom. The Scenes of Crime photographer dumped the head in Ham’s arms then set the tripod up at the back of the ambulance. The stretchered body was covered in a white sheet leaking blood. A soft electronic whine sung in Ham’s ears and he thought he was having a reaction.
“Flash.”
The photographer raised the flash unit to show it was charging up.
“Just a couple more shots before we go. Bring the head over here.”
Ham took the head to the back doors of the ambulance. The photographer manoeuvred it into position on the severed neck until Duane P. Chambers looked almost as good as new.
“Hold it there.”
Flash. The blaze of white light blinded Ham and the next couple of shots went by in a blur. Head on shoulders. Head off shoulders. Meaty cross-section of shoulder part of neck. Meaty cross-section of head part of neck.
“Just in case they don’t believe it’s the right head.”
The photographer wasn’t even smiling when he said it. If Ham had known he still had another two heads to deal with he wouldn’t have thought it funny either.
∗
“Do you miss being in SOCO?”
It was half-past-one and they were heading back to the station to complete the sudden death report and get a head start on their meal break. Andy was stalling. Once he was behind the wheel of a patrol car on nightshift he flew around the division like a whirling Dervish but when it came time to return to the nick he suddenly took his foot off the gas. It was as if he was waiting for any excuse to stay out, holding back until the last minute in case another immediate came in. Part of his stalling technique was making small talk.
“You know? After such a long time?”
The best part of Ham’s service, fifteen years, had been as a Scenes of Crime Officer and being dumped out by the civilianisation programme had been a shock to the system. Having to relearn everything he ever knew about frontline policing would have been doubly difficult if he hadn’t crewed up with Andy Scott, who was born for the frontline.
“Photographing severed heads you mean?”
“Well, yes. I suppose so.”
“Tell you the truth, after this last couple of years on the beat, I’d almost forgotten what it was like. Caught me by surprise a bit.”
The speedometer was sinking below 30mph, Ham’s normal patrol speed. Andy was clearly praying for something to happen before they reached the station.
“What was all that, holding-the-head-on-the-shoulders, about?”
“Physical fit. Like when you find the broken tip of a screwdriver at a burglary then stop someone with a broken screwdriver later. Match the two together and you’ve got a physical fit. Case proved.”
“Yeh, but. A head. Wasn’t any secret where it came from.”
“I know. But with forensics you’ve got to go to the far end of a fart. Just in case. They’ll do the proper fit at the mortuary, with measuring tape and close-ups. This was just coverage in case anything went wrong.”
Into Norman Avenue and almost home. They were down to 20mph now and only half a mile from safety. Ham’s stomach rumbled. He could see the canteen windows across the rooftops of the estate.
“So? Do you miss it?”
Ham thought about it for a moment; the murder scenes he’d covered; the burglaries he’d examined; the injuries he’d photographed. There was something about getting kitted up in a paper suit and being the most important man at the crime scene; being an expert whose knowledge everybody wanted a part of.
“Sometimes; when I see a murder on the news and there’s SOCO going through their paces. You felt a bit special.”
“You’re special now.”
“Stop taking the piss.”
“No, really. Frontline. Uniform patrol are the first on the scene of everything. Any evidence gets lost in the first hour it’s down to us. That makes us special.”
“The magic hour.”
“Yep. Cases are won and lost on what we do.”
Ham’s stomach rumbled again.
“Yeh, well. What we do now is go in for meal. You’ve stalled long enough. There’s nothing else coming in so, “Home James.” And don’t spare the horses.”
And just like that Ham jinxed the rest of the night. His radio crackled into life.
“Alpha Three. Can I divert you to a serious RTA?”
“Aw fucking hell. Not an accident?”
“Car into lamp post. Valley Road. One person made off.”
“Oh great. And a TWOC as well.”
Andy didn’t need asking twice. He spun the car round and floored the accelerator. Ham’s head whipped on his shoulders and hit the headrest. What the radio didn’t say was what the car had hit before the lamp post. Ham thumbed his transmit button.
“Alpha Three. One-twenty.”
The sirens and blue lights cut through the night.
∗
What the car hit was less important than what it left behind, and what it left behind nobody in the black BMW would have guessed. Robin Wade flew down the bypass in his father’s car, allowing the adverse camber to take it towards the central reservation. The twenty-three year old accountant laughed as if he was on a roller coaster and corrected his steering. In the passenger seat his best friend, Gary Field, laughed even more.
The girls in the backseat were way past laughing; they were hysterical, sitting with their mini-skirts up above the Plimsoll line and legs slightly apart. This was party night, and neither Rebecca nor Suzie was going to waste a minute of it. Suzie leaned over Robin’s shoulder and passed him the bottle of Johnny Walker. Robin swerved as he took it and they all laughed some more. Rebecca shrieked, flashing a brief glimpse of skimpy white knickers in the driver’s mirror before slamming her knees together. Enough’s as good as a feast. The feast was due once they got to her flat and the competition was on as to who got the plumb choice of the wealthy businessman’s son. She intended it to be her.
Nobody paid any attention to the speed, especially the driver, but it was fast, well over the 70mph the dual carriageway allowed. The bypass swept down the hill and slid into Valley Road. Once it straightened out after the slight kink in the road it would run straight as a dye along the valley bottom to the posh end of town and Nirvana. That meant heaven for the boys, and if the girls had anything to do with it, the girls as well.
100mph.
Whisky sloshed over Robin’s jeans as he passed it to Gary. They were flying now and, boy, wasn’t this fun? If his father only knew what his son was doing while he was away on business. The kink in the road caught them all by surprise, not only a gentle dogleg but a slight rise as well. At 100mph there is no such thing as a gentle anything. The BMW took off and they really were flying. The dogleg threw the car towards the central reservation again and the hillock launched them to disaster.
Rebecca screamed first. Gary was busy swigging from the bottle and didn’t see the road sign, and Suzie was hidden behind Robin. Robin was struck dumb. The car hit the speed limit sign halfway up its eight-foot pole, bending it at right angles and turning the circular disc into a scimitar. It cut through the nearside support like a knife through butter, throwing Robin to one side. Suzie wasn’t so lucky. Her neck stuck up like a gofer out of its hole and met the scimitar full on.
Then in a flash they hit the lamp post and the car stopped dead, crumpling like an old cigarette packet as the engine was driven into the passenger compartment, breaking Gary’s legs. His seat shot back pinning Rebecca, and the entire car belly-flopped onto the central reservation in a shower of broken glass and steam.
∗
Ham’s first thought was, how could anyone make off from this? Steam drifted around the car like a pall waiting to settle over the dead, only judging by the coughing and moaning those left in the car weren’t dead. Yet.
Andy pulled the patrol car across the carriageway and left the blue lights on, being careful to avoid the BMW’s approach path in case of skid marks. AIB would need them to gauge speed and distance and SOCO would need them to photograph. Ham wasn’t calling for the Accident Investigation Branch or night SOCO when he climbed out of the car though.
“Alpha Three. Code Six. Casualties still on site. We’ll need two ambulances and the fire brigade with cutting gear.”
The front end of the BMW was concertinaed to half its normal length and the roof crushed. The driver’s side had been sliced open like a peeled can by the road sign but if they were going to get the passengers out the rest would need cutting off. Something sparked and popped above them and Ham looked up at the damaged lamp post. The twin bulbs blinked on and off, leaning like a half-chopped tree waiting to fall.
“And you’d better call Street Lighting to secure the lamp post.”
“Alpha Three. One Twenty.”
Andy was already heading for the nearside, ignoring the lamp post altogether. Ham went to the driver’s door, expecting the worst. The cut metal and shattered windscreen were head height. In the distance sirens rose above the silent night. Andy was tugging at the passenger door when Ham peered through the slashed support.
Nothing.
The driver’s seat was empty apart from a puddling of blood sprinkled with shards of glass. Looking through the car Ham saw Andy peering in the other window. In between them a smartly dressed young man moaned, semi-conscious, his knees jutting up at an obscene angle. His seat had been pushed back into a teenage girl whose face was a mask of blood and matted hair. She coughed and spluttered through her broken nose.
Ham stepped back and took a deep breath. During his years in SOCO he’d photographed some horrendous injuries, mostly after the victim was dead, and it had hardly ever bothered him. Apart from the post mortem on the twelve-month old baby. It was easy to disengage himself from the corpses in a way he’d never been able to do with the living. Show him a cut finger and he’d gip like a schoolgirl. Paramedics had his heartfelt admiration.
It wasn’t until he stepped back from the car that he noticed that the blood puddling in the bottom of the driver’s seat was still filling up. A steady trickle ran down the back of the seat, swilling wafer thin slivers of glass out of the stitched creases. Ham leaned in the window for a better look then jerked back in shock, banging his head on the roof.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
For a moment he was back with Duane P. Chambers, except there was no severed head here, just the meaty jut of neck leaning over the back of the driver’s seat. Blood leaked out of the cut joint and dribbled down the upholstery. The rest of the girl looked as if she might have been attractive but she was never going to smile again. Unlike Duane’s neck there was no ripped tissue on the girl’s throat, this was a clean cut, as if she’d been beheaded on the guillotine.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
A whisper this time. Andy stood up and looked over the roof at his partner. The drip white face and staring eyes told it all. The onset of shock needed holding back otherwise they weren’t going to get the job done. Andy knew it, and just what to do about it.
“We’re going to have to address this language issue Mick. Any more JFCs and you’ll be getting sued by Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
It was the first time Andy had used Ham’s real name and it was that more than the joke that pulled him round. He quickly scoured the interior but unlike the guillotine there was no basket to collect the head. When he stepped back a second time the colour had returned to his cheeks.
“Well there’s no chicken in a basket in there.”
“No sign of the driver either.”
Andy was looking down the central reservation where the dual carriageway split to avoid a copse of trees. Beyond that the road levelled out, passing through an industrial estate on its way out of town.
“Bastard could be halfway home by now.”
“Yeh, well. Let’s see where home is shall we?”
Ham walked to the back of the car and called up on the radio. Reading out the number he waited for the registered keeper details. And his address.
∗
It took over an hour for the fire brigade to cut the casualties out, pealing the BMW’s roof back like a sardine can. Three ambulances arrived but one of them was really nothing more than a hearse. It had to wait until the night SOCO finished photographing the headless corpse in situ. AIB were busy looking for skid marks with the traffic officers who had, thankfully, taken over the accident from Ham and Andy. That left Ham and Andy to look for the missing head.
“Jesus Andy. How far can a head go?”
“Well that’s a step up from Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Now who’s swearing? But what about the head?”
“Talking about head, I knew a girl once__”
Ham stood, arms akimbo, on the central reservation and gave Andy an old fashioned look. Making a joke of it was the only way to get through the night sometimes but there were jokes and there were jokes. When Michael Barrymore’s boyfriend had drowned in the swimming pool with an enlarged back passage, Herald Of Free Enterprise jokes had circulated like wild fire, suggesting that if he’d kept his back doors shut he wouldn’t have sunk. But a young girl losing her head in a car wreck seemed less funny when you had to go looking for the head.
“Alpha Three. Can I speak?”
The casualties were being loaded into the ambulances out of earshot so Ham fingered the button and acknowledged the call.
“No reply at the keepers address. Owner is away on business.”
Ham looked at Andy.
“So it is stolen then? No wonder he ran off.”
The radio dispelled that theory.
“Neighbours say the son has access to the car. He’s not home either.”
“Bingo. And I’ll bet he doesn’t go home tonight either. Fucking bastard.”
“Language.”
“I’ll give him fucking language if I get my hands on him.”
Ham glanced along Valley Road. Beyond the copse of trees and past the kink in the road it ran straight as a dye along the valley bottom towards the posh end of town. Somewhere up there a rich kid was hiding from his responsibilities and Ham wanted to make him pay. Throughout his service he’d been able to separate his feelings from the job, it was the only way to reach retirement without driving yourself into the ground, but tonight it felt personal. As he looked he noticed something in the copse.
“It can’t have gone that far can it?”
Andy was way ahead of him, trotting along the grass verge towards the trees. Ham followed then stopped short on the edge of the woods. There was no blood, not even a trickle, and that made it look all the more disturbing. Ham took one look at the girls face then turned away. Without waiting for Andy he shouted up the road for the photographer. Even Andy wasn’t joking when the SOCO staked a flag in the ground for line of sight and began the timed exposures for the long shots.
∗
There was no more small talk on the way to the canteen this time, and to be honest eating didn’t seem like the thing to do, but if there was one thing Ham had learned over the years it was how to keep his stomach in a separate compartment from his brain. Whatever crap he saw during a shift and whatever crap he dealt with, come mealtime it was all water off a duck’s back. Some might call it callous but if an army marched on its stomach then Mick Habergham had more stomach than most.
They were late in so the rest of the shift were back out on the streets, those who hadn’t locked up and were busy completing court files or handover packages. It was after three and the night had slid past midnight into the early hours. Hopefully it would quieten down a bit now.
Ham changed to MTV on the satellite in the hope that Shania Twain would still be strutting her stuff and laid out his sandwich box on the table. Andy watched in silence as his partner first unwrapped a sandwich and laid it on the snack box lid then emptied a stack of Pringles from their portable container and played a tattoo with both sections, tapping the crumbs out. Next he laid the Kit Kat Chunky across the top and he was ready to eat. Steam spiralled up from his mug of tea.
“You must have had a deprived childhood.”
“Never wanted nothing. I led a very sheltered life.”
Andy patted Ham’s expanding waistline.
“Too much, too soon.”
“You can never have too much love.”
He knew that was true but it didn’t seem fair that some people got more than their share. Angela hadn’t received any love at all as a child, leaving Ham to make up for it as her husband. The strain often forced cracks in their marriage that he could never discuss with Andy. Some things were too private. Andy on the other hand was an open book and discussed everything about any relationship with absolutely anyone. If you ever wanted to broadcast something then all you had to do was tell Andy in confidence.
“You can never have too much loving.”
“Yes you can. Any more and your love muscle’ll drop off. When are you going to settle for the love of a good woman?”
“Never happen. Look what happened to old Joe Callahan.”
“His wife got him his teef.”
“And his wife drove him to drink. Where’s his teef now?”
“Everything in moderation. Then he’d have been alright.”
“Just contradicted yourself haven’t you? What happened to, you can never have too much?”
Ham was caught. Whenever they started talking in metaphors he always ended tripping himself up. He tried to worm out of it.
“Just working up to the point of the day.”
“No, no, no. You fucked up. Admit it.”
“The point being, that some people clearly do have too much of everything. That’s why they have no respect for others, including their mates, otherwise that bastard could never have left them in the wreck.”
A sobering thought. Andy didn’t think it won the argument though.
“Mute point. Some people are bastards born and bred. Having money just makes them rich bastards.”
“Moot. Moot. Mute means being unable to speak.”
“Exactly. Old Joe can’t speak without his teeth. Losing them probably means more to him than Ritchie Rich losing daddy’s BMW.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Andy nodded over Ham’s shoulder.
“Shania Twain.”
“What?”
Before he could formulate a rebuttal Shania’s husky tones sent shivers down his spine. Leave it long enough and MTV would always come to the rescue. And while little and large lusted after her proclivities, rich man poor man came together under the railway arches.
∗
Joe Callahan smoked his last cigarette and bemoaned the state of the trains. Standing in the cold damp railway tunnel since being kicked out of the Casualty Department had done nothing for his rheumatism and even less for his cigarette balance. It was pitch black but his eyes had adjusted enough to see the scattering of cigarette butts around his feet like confetti at a wedding. He wished he had something to drink but all he’d been able to afford were the 20 Lambert and Butler he’d just smoked. And still the train hadn’t come.
He glanced at his watch but it didn’t have a luminous dial. Judging by the patch of night sky and criss-cross of railway track outside the tunnel it could be any time from midnight to 6am. His back told him it was nearer dawn but there was still no lightening of the overcast sky. And there was still no train.
“Fucking privatisation.”
Privatisation is what he said but without his top plate it’s not what came out of his mouth. He understood what he meant though, and there was nobody else listening to his last will and testament anyway. The lack of teeth still rankled. The lack of trains rankled even more. He was certain there used to be a night service out of The Interchange but he’d been waiting in the long tunnel north of town ever since he’d made his decision and the wait was testing his resolve. Resolve was something he didn’t have much of, otherwise he’d have quit drinking and saved his marriage years ago. Now the drink had cost him the last reminder of a wife who had loved him too much to watch him die in a bottle.
“Fucking teef.”
That came out right, but there was still nobody to hear him.
“Fucking, fucking, fucking, teef.”
The rattle of stones deep in the tunnel almost scared him to death. Footsteps echoed from the blackness and whoever had fallen over scrambled to his feet. Joe’s first thought was that the coppers had come for him again.
“Anywhere but the railway arches. You’ll only get moved on again.”
That’s what the fat policeman had said, and here he was, as good as his word. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? The first train must be due any time now. In a moment of panic he took the note from his pocket and wedged it into a crack in the wall. He didn’t want the coppers laughing over it while he was still alive. Damn the state of the trains. Where are they when you want one? Just like coppers really. Never around when you need one but always there when you don’t.
The crying coming down the tunnel wasn’t the police and the uneven footsteps weren’t a coppers heavy tread. Whoever it was fell over again, kicking aggregate between the sleepers as he tried to stand up. A pale face materialised in the darkness and Joe could even see the dark smudges beneath the eyes. The smartly dressed young man was anything but smart now, his knees ragged and bleeding and his hair matted with blood.
Blood?
That dragged up some of the deep-seated Good Samaritan instinct that Muriel had known about but Joe had forgotten. The last few years he had been so self-centred that anyone else’s problems could damn well stay with someone else. The youth stumbled again and just managed to stick a hand out. The tunnel wall was damp and mouldy and the hand slipped. Joe dashed forward, thankful for once that he was sober, and caught the boy before he fell. Guiding him to the workmen’s arch they sat together and Robin Wade began to talk.
∗
On Platform 3 the worker’s express growled as the doors slammed shut. The first train of the day might not be the busiest but it made up in noise what it lacked in numbers. Garrulous figures huddled in overcoats and woolly hats and made the connections that made the workplace such a hotbed of passion. They talked about last night’s football results. They talked about the latest Big Brother eviction. And, God forbid, some of them even talked about the latest Coronation Street gossip.
Whatever they talked about didn’t matter though. They talked and that’s what counted. The human contacts that kept the world turning. The three-carriage diesel cranked up its engine as the guard signalled that all the doors were shut and the old style rolling stock – Northern hadn’t been upgraded to sliding doors and air conditioning yet – inched forward. It was 5.25am.
∗
Joe sat in silence while Robin finished his tale of woe.
“I couldn’t stay. I just couldn’t.”
In the darkness of the tunnel the huddled figures of the aging drunk and the young accountant could be interchangeable, both just careworn souls at their lowest ebb. One feeling guilty at what he had just done and the other feeling guilty about a lifetime of what he had not.
“I feel sick.”
“And so you should. It’s disgusting. What you’ve done.”
Joe was getting used to having no teeth but it was still coming out a bit mushy.
“No, really it is. You deserve everything you get.”
Robin sat up as if slapped. He didn’t know what reaction he expected, certainly not a sympathetic ear, but to be so roundly condemned surprised him. He lived in a world where if someone asked how you were, you said okay no matter how bad you felt. And if someone did happen to explain how bad things were you simply listened, nodded, and moved on. What you didn’t do was agree then say you deserved everything you got.
“But it’s not that you deserve it. It’s how you get on with life after.”
That was funny coming from an inveterate non-achiever; a man who took life’s punches on the chin then dived into a bottle. Muriel had told him the same thing so many times he knew it off by heart; he’d just never taken it to heart, until now. Somehow, telling this sorry looking sad-knacker how to get on with life made him feel maybe he could kick-start his own life again.
“My wife used to tell me it’s not the obstacles but how you overcome them.”
Robin shrugged but the sigh was more angry than sad.
“This isn’t an obstacle, it’s death.”
“Not your death. It’s a big fuckin’ obstacle yes. But face up to it.”
Yes. Helping this lad was making him feel better about himself. Perhaps this is what he’d needed all along, someone worse off than himself who he could shepherd through the hard times. Someone to take his mind off his own problems. He stood up and held out a hand.
“Come on. Let’s go see the coppers.”
And that was something new as well. Joe Callahan going to see the police instead of the police coming to get Joe Callahan. The boy stood with him and they slowly trudged along the sleepers towards the mouth of the tunnel. Joe even began to wonder if Muriel might give him one last chance.
Both were so deep in thought that they didn’t feel the vibration running through the track or hear the distant roar of the diesel. Joe heard it first and when he turned round he stood like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He would never have thought a train could be on you so fast, rushing out of the darkness like an avenging angel. His last thought was for the teeth Muriel had paid for. He really didn’t want to die without his teeth.
∗
“Alpha Three. Sorry to do this to you. Sudden death at the railway tunnel. Baxandale Street. BTP unavailable. I’ll get you units to backup.”
“Shit me. It’s twenty to six.”
Ham didn’t say that down the radio but the operator must have sensed it.
“I’ll try and get Early Turn to relieve you as soon as they come on.”
Andy acknowledged and Ham turned the car round. He’d finally managed to wrestle the keys from his partner and had been patrolling at cruise speed for the final hour of the shift, hoping to wind down as night crept towards dawn. The domestics were over, the burglars back in bed, and the streets were beginning to come alive as early starters set off for work. He had even found old Joe Callahan’s top plate in the footwell, a minor miracle in an otherwise shitty night. The first bus of the day coincided with the first train and milkmen had been delivering for almost two hours. The world was waking up to a new day, completely unaware of what had been going on while it slept. Ham continued to grumble.
“British Transport Police. Are they ever available?”
“Are if you haven’t bought a ticket.”
“Christ. They only have to patrol the bloody station.”
“And the bloody lines in this case.”
Ham nodded. A sudden death on the railway line was always sudden and definitely dead. When a train hit you at 50mph you stayed hit; you just didn’t stay where you were hit. The last one Ham had dealt with had been in SOCO, and he’d been photographing body parts for half a mile. Little bits at a time. A more urgent thought crossed his mind and this time he did transmit it.
“Have you contacted the Northern Line to turn the power off? I don’t want to end up frying like that bloke on Pelham One Two Three.”
“Alpha Three. Already done. The entire section is dead.”
∗
That was an understatement. Judging by the amount of blood, this poor fella had more of the red stuff than the advertising suicide and the headless passenger put together. Or maybe it was just that being hit by a train you bled from a whole lot more places than a stumpy neck. The point of impact was easy to find because the track was painted in the stuff; a paint bomb of life blood that quickly tapered off into a splatter trail as body parts were dotted along the line.
Half a mile further on the interior lights of the worker’s express shone out in the distance and Ham could see the early turn units taking witness details. The radio operator had been true to her word but both Andy and Ham knew being relieved wasn’t going to get them home any sooner. There was still an extended scene to preserve and no one else to preserve it. Ham looked up from the meaty torso, nothing more than a sliced carcass that had been stripped of its clothes by the impact, and backtracked into the tunnel. If the last one he’d dealt with was anything to go by this unfortunate suicide would have been waiting in the tunnel for the first train, and that could have been a long wait.
“I’m just checking in there Andy.”
The first hint of blue entered the pre-dawn sky, glinting off the shiny tracks, but the light disappeared six feet into the tunnel. Ham turned the Maglite on and played it along the side walls. Twenty feet in he found what he was looking for. Why were suicides always heavy smokers? This one had smoked a full pack while plucking up courage to step in front of the train, disproving the argument that suicide was a coward’s way out. The long wait and final step must have taken every last ounce of courage. Ham shouted over his shoulder.
“He waited here.”
“No need to shout.”
Andy was right behind him and Ham’s heart missed a beat.
“Jesus. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
He shone the torch at the pile of cigarette ends against the wall, then back towards the mouth of the tunnel and the point of impact.
“Why’d he walk all that way to be hit though? Why not do it here?”
“Why do it just before we’re due to go off?”
Ham gave Andy a look.
“I’m sure it wasn’t personal.”
The torch picked out something else, a splash of white tucked into the wall above the cigarettes. Ham plucked the piece of folded paper and read it. His shoulders sagged.
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
He passed Andy the note.
“That’s why we should still take D and Is to the cells. They must have kicked him out of Casualty as soon as we’d gone.”
The note was surprisingly well written. It was brief and to the point.
To whom it may concern.
This is Joseph Edinburgh Callahan. I am sorry for the mess but I cannot go on any longer. I let my wife, Muriel, down. I let myself down. And now I have lost the last thing she gave me. Without my teeth there is nothing of her left. And now there is nothing of me left. Break the news to her gently.
Yours sincerely. J.E. Callahan.
“Old Joe, you silly bastard.”
Ham fingered the smooth top-plate in his coat pocket.
“You silly old bastard.”
At least that solved the mystery of whose the body was. Now all they had to do was deal with the scene while early turn took statements for Coroners Court.
“Let’s map out all the bits for SOCO.”
Dawn had taken the edge off the night, turning the railway lines into pale blue scars dappled with red. Working methodically from the torso outwards they managed to find a leg, two arms, and a shoeless foot without too much trouble. The third head of the night they found in a gully off to the left. Or the biggest part of it they could find. The piece of ripped meat was only recognisable as human because of the single eye, the nose, and the teeth together with one side of the jawbone. Most of the teeth were mangled and dislodged but there were probably enough to make a formal__
Ham stopped right there.
Identification by dental records or fingerprints was normal for decaying or disfigured corpses, providing you had the dental records or the fingerprints. Nobody wanted relatives to have to look at the bloated body of a river victim or the maggot eaten face of the long ago dead. Joe Callahan’s fingerprints were definitely on record but how do you check the teeth of a man who has no top teeth?
“This head’s got teeth.”
Andy looked puzzled. Ham pulled Joe’s top plate out and held them up.
“Joe’s.”
Then he picked up the head, teeth forwards.
“Not Joe’s.”
A moan sounded from the bushes and Joseph Edinburgh Callahan sat up, shook his head, then struggled to his feet. He was cradling a broken arm. Ham dropped the head.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Even Andy stepped back in amazement.
“Fucking hell.”
Joe looked at the fallen head.
“Last time I become a guardian angel.”
“Guardian angel?”
“Said he’d been in an accident. Was gonna see the coppers.”
“Well he can’t see us now.”
“Guess not. God, I could do with a drink.”
Ham looked at the broken arm.
“You’ll get a drink. Tea with two sugars. They can hardly kick you out of Casualty now, can they?”
Joe grinned, revealing his vacant top gums.
“Knocked me out an’ all. Have to keep me overnight now won’t they?”
Ham handed him the top plate.
“Might need these then. Food’s a bit tough on Ward 19.”
Joe looked at the teeth and for the first time in his life was speechless. Ham took the folded note out of his pocket.
“This as well. Maybe Muriel will like to see it.”
“Maybe.”
The two coppers helped the recovering alcoholic up the embankment and called for an ambulance. It would have been a touching scene but Andy had to spoil it.
“Edinburgh?”
“Where I was conceived.”
“You weren’t conceived. You were poured out of a bottle.”
“Fuck you copper.”
And with his top plate in that came out just right.
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