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Darlene reclined on her back in the car park beside a rubbish skip. The local council’s worn logo covered one side of the heavy receptacle. Darlene’s repose held an eerie symmetry with it, as though she’d laid down beside it with care. The dust carton from the vacuum cleaner sported a missing corner and a crack on its longest edge. The lid had somehow projected itself three metres away. Its contents covered Darlene’s prone body like grey snowflakes.
Lexi dropped to her knees in the spiteful gravel, barely registering the pain of its bite through her jeans. She pressed her index and middle fingers against the woman’s carotid artery. A faint pulse returned a gentle, reassuring pressure. The sallow chest rose and fell beneath Lexi’s flattened palm.
Gravel crunched as Garima burst from the open rear door. He listed as he ran. More like a drunk than a powerful rugby prop. “Oh, God!” he cried. Not blasphemy, but an honest plea.
“Get an ambulance!” Lexi shouted.
His run ceased. Dust puffed around him from the gravel. He dug in his trouser pocket and yanked out a battered cell phone. He pressed buttons and smacked the screen twice before it roused.
“Gosh, he’s a worry,” Lexi murmured. She ran her hands over Darlene’s limbs in search of breaks, but detected nothing. A gentle examination of her head produced a hibiscus stain. Not a hemorrhage, but enough to coat Lexi’s palms and fingers. “Tell them she has a head injury.” She spoke with urgency, but not panic. “And she’s unconscious.”
Garima calmed in the face of the catastrophe. He’d spoken the truth. He proved capable and authoritative when disaster befell others. Only the contents of his own skull thwarted and bemused him. He knelt beside Lexi, the operator still reciting a calming script into the car park. Garima balanced the phone on his right palm. “What happened to her?” His brow furrowed.
Lexi rested a gentle hand on Darlene’s chest. It continued its regular rise and fall. “She has multiple shallow cuts to her crown. I think she fell backwards into the gravel.” Looking up, she surveyed the empty car park. A dilapidated Honda occupied the far corner. Dust and leaves covered its rusted chassis. One tyre appeared flat.
Sirens wailed in the distance as the local watch house sent police assistance. Garima’s description of a collapsed woman, alone and bleeding in a car park necessitated their additional response. Garima held the phone in one hand and clutched Darlene’s fingers in his other. His lips murmured in prayer and his lashes fluttered closed.
Lexi experienced a sudden aloneness. Like a door had slammed in her face and left her outside in the cold. It created a void in her chest. She ached to shake Garima’s forearm and drag him back to her. Instead, she allowed his gentle Latin benediction to wash over her. The operator continued a one-sided, disembodied conversation with himself. The battered phone distorted his voice into strange clicks and whirs.
A police car turned into the car park. Blue lights strobed off the worn, white siding of the church. An ambulance followed behind it, the garish green and yellow of the St John’s vehicle topped by a flashing red light. The cop car peeled to the right in a gravel cloud, allowing the ambulance to get closer to the victim. Van and car doors slammed as though synchronised.
Garima rose and stepped aside. He held out his hand to Lexi. Uniformed paramedics assessed the scene.
“She’s breathing,” Lexi told the nearest man. “We heard a scream and ran outside. I haven’t moved her, but she’s bleeding from the back of her head. She hasn’t regained consciousness.” Lexi gazed down at her stained hands and cringed. “We don’t know what happened to her.”
Garima’s presence soothed her. She backed against him until her shoulder touched his powerful chest. The paramedics knelt beside Darlene, speaking jargon to each other.
“You should wash your hands.” Garima glanced from her stained fingers to the phone as the chattering voice grew louder. He lifted it to his ear. “Yes, sorry. The ambulance is here now. Thank you for your help.”
Lexi nodded, and her shoulders relaxed. The unhurried actions of the paramedics displayed no desperate urgency. Though still unconscious, Darlene wouldn’t die in the next ten minutes.
Lexi’s short-lived relief evaporated as a harsh voice barked from behind her. “Lexicon Allen!” He slurred the syllables of her name as though relishing each letter. She didn’t turn around, though every nerve on her body tingled a belated warning.
“Officer.” Garima held out his hand in greeting, but Senior Sergeant Harvey Rojas only glanced at his outstretched fingers. His critical gaze roved from Garima’s shiny shoes to the top of his rugged head. He took in the white clerical collar and the priestly garb. His lips quirked up at one corner. Then, he dismissed Lexi’s brother as though he didn’t exist. And focussed his attention on her.
A young man accompanied Rojas. With his crisp new uniform and earnest expression, he still had the shine of the police training college. Neither Rojas nor regular duty had sucked the life from him yet. Lexi’s shoulders inched towards her ears. The overbearing police sergeant loved an audience.
Garima dropped his hand in amazement as Rojas spun Lexi by the elbow. “Cuff her,” he ordered the probationer.
“What?” The officer dipped forward as though hard of hearing. His gaze raked Lexi and took in her confusion. But his eyes widened at her blood-stained palms and fingers. “Oh.” He took a step towards her, already dragging clanking handcuffs from his belt.
“Wait!” Garima slid in front of her. His hands rose in placation. He matched Rojas in height. Lexi peered from beneath Garima’s armpit and saw the officer’s nose wrinkle in recognition of a decent opponent. “You will not arrest this woman!” Garima’s best pulpit voice boomed across the car park. It circled, echoing off the church’s wooden siding and returning to them. The paramedics glanced up from their work. They positioned Darlene in the folds of a plastic stretcher and tightened a brace around her head. Her eyelashes fluttered. Lexi held her breath as her brother fought her corner.
Lexi stepped from behind him and spoke to the younger officer. “We heard a scream. The holy father and I ran outside to find this lady on the ground. I checked her pulse and breathing.” Lexi held up her stained hands. The oppressive heat dried the blood on her skin, causing it to crack as she moved her fingers. “I checked for injury. She’s cut the back of her head in the gravel.”
“Lexi kept her stable while we awaited medical assistance.” Garima affected his most pompous, priestly air. He glared at Rojas, his vibrant blue irises glittering in challenge.
Rojas’ gaze slid to Lexi. She kept her hands raised, the blood on her palms. But she gave the officers no cause to handcuff her and cart her away. Rojas’ square jaw slid from side to side, his plan foiled. He kept his thumbs hooked in the armpits of his body armour in a mock, casual stance. But Lexi saw his fingers twitch, as she thwarted his plan.
A wail of misery disturbed them. Darlene’s chest hitched, rising above the plastic sides of the stretcher. The paramedics buzzed like bees. One leaned closer to her face. “Father!” she cried. Her voice wavered like a broken claxon. “Father.”
Garima’s heels crunched in the gravel. Dust coated their shiny surface like artfully placed icing sugar. “Mrs Barrymore.” He knelt beside her, his eyes wide with concern. “You’re safe,” he intoned. His voice promised security, both in this life and the next.
Lexi edged closer, but Rojas’ fingers closed around her elbow like a clamp. He pinched the skin inside, his expression bland. Lexi hissed in pain and the young officer slid his gaze towards her. She gave him credit for sharper wits than she’d imagined. But she also pitied his painful road ahead. Working for a dirty, sadistic cop like Rojas would force him to skirt a terrible line in the sand.
Darlene spoke to Garima in squeaks and sobs. He pressed his left hand over hers and bowed his head. Prayers rumbled from his chest and headed skyward. Darlene closed her eyes, and Lexi noticed a tear roll down her cheek and plop against the brace. Her chest hitched beneath their joined hands.
Gravel scrunched as a paramedic rose. But he didn’t head back to the ambulance. He walked to the skip and peered inside. At the same moment, Lexi noticed the broken catch dangling from the front edge. Without it, the lid had overextended and swung behind it as though giving gentle applause.
“What’s wrong?” Rojas jerked his chin at Lexi. He accompanied his demand with another sharp pinch of her tender flesh.
She shot darts of fire from her eyes but said nothing. With another jerk of his head, he dispatched the young officer. The man pattered towards the paramedic. He lifted his feet with exaggerated care to clear the vacuum cleaner’s discarded dust bucket. After a cursory glance over the side of the skip, he fell back as though felled by an invisible force. He clapped a hand over his mouth.
The more seasoned paramedic shouted his mate. “Put a call in for the coroner,” he said. “We’ve got a body.”
