Black Country: Christmas Day
Lauren Goddard sat on the roof of the thirteen-storey block of flats. The winter sun shone a grid onto her bare feet dangling over the edge. The cold breeze nipped at her wiggling toes.
The protective grate had been erected some years ago after a father of seven had thrown himself over. By the time she was eleven she had stolen a pair of wire cutters from the pound shop and fashioned herself an access point to the narrow ledge that was her place of reflection. From this vantage point she could look to the beauty of the Clent Hills in the distance, block out the dank, grubby reality of below.
Hollytree was the place you were sent if Hell was having a spring clean. Problem families from the entire West Midlands were evicted from other estates and housed in Hollytree. It was displacement capital. Communities around the borough breathed sighs of relief as families were evicted. No one cared where they went. It was enough that they were gone and one more ingredient was added to the melting pot.
There was a clear perimeter around the estate over which the police rarely crossed. It was a place where the rapists, child molesters, thieves and ASBO families were put together in one major arena. And then guarded by police from the outside.
But today a peace settled around the estate, giving the illusion that the normal activities of robbing, raping and molesting were on pause because it was Christmas Day. That was bollocks. It was all still going on but to the backdrop of the Queen’s Speech.
Her mother was still slurring her way around the cheerless flat with a glass of gin in her hand. Her one concession to the event was the line of tinsel wrapped haphazardly around her neck as she stumbled from the living room to the kitchen for a refill.
Lauren didn’t expect a present or a card any more. She had once mentioned the excitement of her friends. How they had enjoyed presents, laughter, a roast dinner, a chocolate-filled stocking.
Her mother had laughed and asked if that was the kind of Christmas she wanted.
Lauren had innocently nodded yes.
The woman had clicked the television to the Hallmark Channel and told her to ‘fill her boots’.
Christmas meant nothing to Lauren. But at least she had this. Her one piece of Heaven. Always her safe place. Her escape.
She had disappeared unnoticed up here when she was seven years old and her mother had been falling all over the flat pissed as a fart.
How lucky was she to have been the only one of the four kids her mother had been allowed to keep?
She had escaped up here when her mother’s drinking partner, Roddy, had started pawing at her groin and slobbering into her hair. Her mother had pulled him off, angrily, shouting something about ruining her retirement plan. She hadn’t understood it when she was nine years old but she had come to understand it now.
She had cried up here on her sixteenth birthday when her mother had introduced her to the family business and to their pimp, Kai Lord.
She’d been up here two months earlier when he had finally found her.
And she’d been up here when she’d told him to fuck right off.
She didn’t want to be saved. It was too late.
Sixteen years of age and already it was too damn late.
Many times she had fantasised about how it would feel to lurch forward onto the wind. She had envisioned herself floating to and fro, gently making the journey like a stray pigeon feather all the way to the ground. Had imagined the feeling of weightlessness of both her body and her mind.
Lauren took a deep breath and exhaled. In just a few minutes it would be time to go to work. Heavy rain, sleet, snow, Christmas – nothing kept the punters away. Trade might be slow but it would still be there. It always was.
She didn’t hear the roof door open or the footsteps that slowly strode towards her.
She didn’t see the hand that pushed her forward.
She only saw the ground as it hurtled towards her.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Kim screamed at the dashboard of her eleven-year-old Golf. ‘I mean, really?’ she cried, turning the ignition key once more.
Any slim hope that her tantrum had persuaded the car to start was lost as the battery squealed its last few painful breaths before dying completely.
She sat for a moment, rubbing her hands together. She shouldn’t really be surprised at her vehicle’s refusal to move. It had been sitting on the car park since 7 a.m. in temperatures that had not nudged above -2 ̊C. The Golf had had fourteen hours to plan its revenge.
‘Damn you,’ she said, opening the driver’s door.
She’d have to go back into the station and call a taxi. Oh, she could imagine the satisfied expression on Jack’s face after she had smirked at his inability to get any sense from a drunk who insisted his name was Santa Claus. Two weeks too late but the guy was insistent.
She prepared herself for his glee as she reached out to open the door to the station.
Suddenly, the door flew out towards her as two black clad uniforms exploded from the building. One continued running while the second slowed and apologised.
‘Sorry, Marm,’ he said, ‘five car pile-up on the motorway slip road.’
She nodded her understanding and stepped aside.
They slid into the squad car, hit the blues and tore off the car park. Their journey would meet little resistance from other vehicles even though it was Saturday night. Most sensible people were home watching television with a warm, comforting drink. It’s where the rest of her team were and where she’d hoped she was heading. Damn car.
Luckily, Barney was enjoying the four-bar gas fire at Charlie’s after their recent walk. On long work days her seventy-year-old neighbour stepped in and took care of Barney for her.
Coming to get you soon, boy, she promised silently as she crossed the space left by the speeding squad car.
She frowned as she saw an alien shape against the wall of the building. She knew what it looked like, but surely not, she thought as she moved warily towards it. Nestled in the corner the object had gone unnoticed by the distracted officers tearing out of the station to a multi car pile-up.
The external temperature was suddenly forgotten as ice ran through her veins.
‘No bloody way,’ she whispered, taking two steps forward. ‘Oh shit,’ she said, as she stepped into the light.
Kelly Rowe walked along Tavistock Road trying to remain visible while avoiding the snowflakes that had thickened over the last two hours and now aimed diagonally for her.
The cold wind swirled around her bare legs. The denim mini just about protected the skin to her mid-thigh.
The rest of the girls had dribbled away slowly since ten o’clock. Only Sally Summers, one of the older prostitutes, remained hopeful at the top of the road.
Snow was not good for business.
She took out her phone and made a call. Her mother answered on the third ring.
‘Hey, Mum, everything okay?’
‘Yeah, Lindy was in bed finally by ten. Kept insisting she just needed another biscuit.’
Kelly allowed the warmth to spread through her. For a four-year-old Lindy had a devious streak, and she used it to full effect on her nanna. Oh, how she ached to go home and snuggle in bed next to her little girl. Feel the plump, small hands in her own. Nothing in the world was as bad when she was holding Lindy.
She wanted to but she couldn’t.
Part of her had been secretly hoping that her daughter was awake, unsettled so she could speak to her, reassure her she’d be home soon. Just hear her voice.
‘Club busy tonight, Kel?’ her mother asked, filling the silence.
Kelly crossed her fingers and closed her eyes. Her mother thought she spent three nights each week bartending at a night club in Stourbridge. The truth would break her heart.
‘Yeah, still a few left in. Just popped out for a quick fag break.’
‘All right, love. Well, be careful getting home. It’s coming thick and fast now.’
‘Will do, Mum, thanks,’ Kelly said, ending the call.
Had she stayed on the phone any longer her mother would have heard the tears thickening her throat and for the hundredth time she cursed herself for her own stubborn streak. If only she’d swallowed her pride eighteen months earlier she might not be in this situation now.
She hadn’t expected to find herself single and pregnant at seventeen and, God forgive her, she had been an hour away from a termination. But at the very last minute, against her mother’s wishes, she had chosen not to go through with it and not one second of regret had passed through her mind since.
She had been absolutely determined to take care of her daughter and had been doing okay. She’d secured an administrative job and a small two-bedroom flat in Netherton which was big enough for her and Lindy. The rent had just about been affordable as long as she shopped clever, picking up discounted goods at the end of the day.
Two and a half years in and she’d lost her job as a care home administrator. The debts had started to mount up and every envelope that dropped on her mat was coloured red. Total desperation had gripped her when the electricity was finally turned off.
It was her neighbour, Roxanne, who had come to her aid and suggested she accept a loan from Kai Lord. The enigmatic West African man had offered her much more than she’d needed, but he was insistent she take it, for ‘the little one’.
She had briefly considered asking her mother for help but the woman had been critical of the decision to leave home so soon. She had believed Kelly incapable of taking care of her daughter on her own. To have turned to her for money would have been admitting defeat.
A dour-looking man with body odour at the benefits office had helped her with her claim before explaining it would be at least a couple of weeks before the regular two-weekly payment of £200 would begin landing in her bank and no emergency payment was available.
So, with no electricity, her rent late and barely any food in her cupboards, she had taken the money from Kai, all £1,000 of it, and got all her bills up to date. Three weeks later the loan had been called in. Payment in full with interest. A total of almost three thousand pounds: triple the amount she’d borrowed.
When she’d been unable to pay, Kai had become angry. He’d told her that his associates would not be pleased and, although he himself would never harm the ‘little one’, he couldn’t guarantee her safety from the people to whom he would sell the debt. He had offered her a way out and she’d had no choice but to take it.
The first punter had been the worst but necessity and desperation meant she had to see it through.
After the first few she had found a way of disconnecting herself from the actual act and taking her mind elsewhere.
It had all been for nothing anyway as she’d been forced to move back in with her mother after her failure to secure a job before the loan from Kai Lord had run out.
But every time she got into a car she was one step closer to being free. She already had a plan for the future. Stay with her mum for as long as it took to get a respectable job, save some money and move out when she was properly prepared.
A car turned into Tavistock Road. The speed of the vehicle was indicative of a punter on the crawl.
She stepped out of the doorway, looking right and then left. The punter would see her before Sally at the end.
She stood tall against the biting wind, the snowflakes melting against her bare skin. She sauntered to the kerb and tipped her head suggestively.
The car pulled to a halt beside her.
She smiled and got in.
‘Err… it’s a baby, Marm,’ Jack said, from behind the safety of his glass partition.
‘You do know you’re wasted as custody sergeant?’ Kim snapped. She already knew what it was. What she wanted to know was what he intended to do about it.
‘Well, I know one thing, Marm, you didn’t have it when you left ten minutes ago.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Very funny, Jack. Now, buzz me through so you can—’
‘Can’t have it back here, Marm,’ he said, cutting her off.
‘Jack, stop pissing about and take this…’
‘Seriously,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I’ve got two squad cars and a van on the way from a fight that got out of hand at the chippy.’
Fair enough, she thought. That would definitely keep him occupied for the next few hours.
‘Okay, well just call someone down to…’
‘Of course, Marm. I’ll just ring the twenty-four hour crèche on the third floor.’
‘Jack…’ she warned.
He opened his hands and shrugged expressively.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do either but the car seat handle was beginning to dig into her hand.
‘Buzz me through,’ she snapped. ‘And call social services right now.’
‘Will do, Marm,’ he said, picking up the phone.
She headed up to the office she’d left in darkness less than fifteen minutes earlier.
She placed the car seat on Bryant’s desk and switched on the radiator. Luckily the heat had not yet totally disappeared from the room.
‘Okay, now what?’ she asked, standing in front of the desk with her hands on her hips.
The small face wrinkled its nose and continued sleeping soundly.
Kim tipped her head. ‘Okay, I’m gonna search you for clues,’ she said, quietly.
She peeled back the white lace shawl that had been quadrupled and tucked around the baby’s legs and arms encasing it like a mummy. Beneath the shawl the baby was zipped into a lemon all-in-one suit that had feet, hood and ears. She felt around its body but there was nothing else in the chair. She gingerly opened the car seat clasp and touched the zip of the suit. She paused as the baby made a chomping motion with its mouth as though chewing on a steak.
Don’t wake up, she prayed silently, as her hand stilled on the fastener. She’d felt less anxious when dealing with hardened criminals. A morning raid on drug dealers, a two-mile foot chase in the dark to apprehend a rapist and entering the scene of an armed robbery were all incidents she’d recently dealt with and none had induced the levels of stress she was feeling right now.
The baby’s eyes remained closed, so she continued her investigation. As the zip lowered she saw that the child was dressed in another all-in-one suit but this was an inside garment.
Suddenly it stirred and kicked out its legs. Kim stepped back, and held her breath.
The phone rang, startling her.
‘Please tell me they’re here, Jack,’ she said, knowing it would be a social services record.
‘Ha, you wish,’ he sniggered. ‘The on-call team is currently trying to place a mother and five kids after her estranged husband issued a death threat.’
‘Jesus,’ Kim said. The season of goodwill appeared to be well and truly behind them. ‘How long?’
‘Not a clue; they wouldn’t commit, but a wrapped-up baby in the safety of a nice warm police station is not their top priority.’
‘Come on, Jack. There must be something you—’
‘Gotta go,’ he said, as a sudden rush of shouting filled the earpiece.
‘Thanks for nothing,’ she growled, slamming down the phone.
‘Oh great,’ she said, as the baby’s eyes and mouth opened at the same time.
She looked around apologetically as a loud wail filled the room. She wasn’t sure who she was trying to tell that she hadn’t harmed it in any way. There was no one around. That was the whole bloody point.
It wailed again. The sound managed to dance on her nerve endings. Shit, what was she supposed to do now?
She took out her mobile phone and pressed on her contacts. The phone was answered on the second ring.
‘What’s up, guv?’ she heard in her ear and never had she been happier to hear his voice.
‘Bryant, I need you at the station, right now.’
She looked at the baby who was screaming accusingly right at her.
‘And hurry, Bryant, this is an emergency situation.’
Andrei cried out in pain with each movement of the van. Every corner, bend or dip shot the blinding agony from his leg around his body like an exploding firework.
The sound he made was deafening in his head but muted against the cloth that had absorbed all the moisture from his mouth. He had tried to use his bound hands to clutch the metal floor of the van to steady himself and keep his leg still but the suspension was tossing him around like a rag doll. He tried to convince himself that he was on his way to hospital, that the restraint and gag were just a precaution as they travelled.
The man driving the vehicle was not known to him but he had seen him at the farm now and again. It occurred to Andrei that the black van always came after a bad accident.
Suddenly the vehicle stopped and then shuddered into silence.
Andrei listened keenly.
The side door was opened and he was hauled out like a sack of potatoes. His eyes watered as he screamed his agony into the damp cloth.
The snowfall had thickened since they had left the farm. The flakes were not fluttering around his head but smashing cold and icy onto his skin. An inch layer had already formed on the ground.
‘Please,’ he spluttered.
The sound was ignored as he was dragged down a ditch at the side of the canal. The pain in his leg was causing red darts to cloud his vision.
‘Please, take me to the hospital,’ he begged, hoping that his words would somehow be understood.
‘Shut up, idiot,’ he heard, even though there wasn’t a soul around to hear his pleas.
The male dragged him away from the bridge and along the towpath. Every movement ignited the pain in his broken bones.
He saw the man look to the left. They were fifty feet away from the bridge which already had a snow ledge on top. The man looked to the right. There was no other bridge or access point onto the canal in sight.
Andrei followed the man’s gaze up to the factory wall with cracked and broken panes of glass.
Seemingly satisfied, he pushed Andrei to the ground, ripped the gag from his mouth and tore the bindings from his wrists.
He leaned down and whispered conspiratorially. ‘Listen, the boss wants you dead and I gotta make it look good. I ain’t the murdering kind, so if you stay here I’ll come back for you when I can. If you move from here, we’ll both be fucked. Got it?’
Andrei nodded. Not sure what else he could do. The searing pain in his leg meant he was powerless to argue or move anywhere without help.
The man wiped the snow from his eyes before turning and heading back towards the bridge and the slope.
As another shot of pain brought tears to his eyes, Andrei prayed the man would be back for him soon.
‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ Kim said, as Bryant entered the squad room.
Her repertoire of silly faces had been exhausted within minutes and her current activity of pushing the car seat to and fro appeared to be making them both nauseous.
Bryant assessed the situation, shook his head and placed a carrier bag on the spare desk. He nudged her out of the way. ‘Have you not taken it out of the seat?’ he asked, unfastening the belt.
‘My dynamic risk assessment and knowledge of my own capabilities strenuously advised against it,’ she said, drily.
In one fluid movement, the baby was in Bryant’s arms and against his outdoor jacket. His arms began moving up and down rhythmically. The baby bounced a few times and began to quieten.
Kim felt the tension begin to drip out of her body.
‘Bryant, you are an absolute—’
Her words were cut off as Dawson strode into the room.
‘Kev, what are…’
‘Like I’d miss this,’ he smirked, heading for the baby. He placed a carrier bag beside Bryant’s.
She looked at her colleague accusingly. ‘You told him?’
He viewed her as though it was a no-brainer. ‘Hell yeah. You and a baby? Couldn’t keep that to myself.’
She shook her head as Dawson tickled the baby under the chin.
He shrugged. ‘Thought I’d better get here before you hauled it into interview room one and started to question it.’
‘Great, all we need now is—’
‘Hey, boss, what’s gooin on here?’ Stacey said, placing a third carrier bag on the desk.
Kim threw up her hands in despair.
‘Bryant, tell me you didn’t call all of the armed forces out too just in case.’
‘No, that’s pretty much everyone,’ he said, without apology. ‘Now if I’d had the chance to send out invitations…’
‘What’s all this?’ she asked, nodding towards the carrier bags.
‘Nappies,’ said Bryant, laying the baby on the desk.
‘Milk,’ Stacey said.
‘A toy,’ Dawson answered.
‘From the three wise bloody men,’ she said. ‘Sorry, Stace. But for your information the kid isn’t moving in. We’re minding it for a few hours not adopting it.’
Bryant began to remove the baby’s suit as Dawson looked thoughtful.
‘So, if we’re the three wise men, doesn’t that make you the virg?—’
‘I dare you to finish that sentence, Kev,’ she snapped, as Bryant turned towards her.
‘Congratulations, guv. It’s a boy,’ he said, with a smirk.
Kim looked around at the three of them thoroughly enjoying themselves and began to wish she’d just handed the baby over to Jack and ignored his protests.
She looked at the baby’s face gurgling happily up at Bryant. No, she’d done the right thing. The child was safe and warm and that was all that mattered.
‘Stace, can you pass me one of those nappies,’ Bryant said, as Kim reached for the coffee jug. It was going to be a long night.
‘I’ll get that, boss,’ Dawson offered.
She began to shake her head as her mobile began to ring.
‘Stone,’ she answered.
Her face changed as she listened carefully.
‘Okay, got it,’ she said, ending the call.
‘Bryant, hand over the baby. We’ve got a body on the Burton Road,’ she said, grabbing her coat.
It was never a good call to receive but as she threw a backwards glance to the writhing small person on the desk, it was at least a situation she could deal with.
Kim arrived at the cordon tape eleven minutes after she’d received the call. The snow was still falling freely but had not yet frozen to the gritted roads.
The row of shops backed onto an alleyway that led under a railway tunnel and then disappeared into the east side of Hollytree.
She stood for a moment with her back to the crime scene. If people were curious about the commotion they were prying at a distance. As yet members of the public had not congregated at the crime scene, eager for a front row seat to an image of a dead body.
Bryant offered his warrant card as Kim donned the plastic shoe coverings offered to her.
Halfway along the alley a familiar voice greeted her.
‘Detective Stone. I was hoping you would be the OIC called from your bed on this fresh, crisp morning.’
‘Keats, it’s almost two a.m. and I have not seen my house or dog in almost twenty-four hours. Feel free to bait me some more. I dare you. Now, what have we got?’
Keats was the local pathologist whose mood rarely elevated beyond obnoxious. He was a short man with facial hair only on his chin, which appeared to compensate for the sparseness on his head. His humour was dry, sarcastic and usually aimed at her. Most days she liked the man a lot. At this hour, she did not.
‘Ah, Bryant, thank goodness,’ Keats said, as her colleague appeared behind her. ‘A much more accomplished conversationalist.’
Bryant groaned. ‘Don’t tempt her, Keats. Not while I’m the closest one to her.’
Although Kim heard their banter she tuned it out.
The alley was dark, illuminated only by a street lamp at the cordon. The police photographer took a snap. The flash illuminated the whole alley.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Kim said. ‘Do it again.’
This tim. . .
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