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‘Steve, doesn’t your wife mind you taking a stranger halfway across the country on a Sunday like this?’
‘You think a different day would have been better? Honestly, it’s fine. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have offered.’
Tricia shifts in the passenger seat, and much as I’ve tried, nothing I do seems to put her at ease, not even my pathetic humour.
‘Anyway, it’s not halfway across the country,’ I say, flicking the indicator and overtaking a motor home on a long quiet stretch. ‘It’s only Redditch.’
‘Yeah, but still...’
The road opens up before us, clear of traffic and framed on either side by trees. A picture perfect Sunday drive. It’s another bright day, and the roads have been a breeze so far. I’ve chosen the more scenic route rather than the motorway, hoping that might put her at ease and we can enjoy the ride. I want to make this as easy for her as possible, this thing she doesn’t want to do, but I’m not sure it’s working.
‘Everything will be fine,’ I say, confronting the elephant in the car head on. ‘Don’t worry.’
She squints out of the passenger window, hands clasped in her lap. ‘Sorry. He makes me tense.’
‘I understand. But it’ll be okay. I promise.’ I’ve dealt with shits like him before, I want to add, but keep it to myself. In the same way I keep to myself the baton in the inside pocket of my jacket on the back seat. A shit he might be, but he could also be dangerous, unpredictable. I’m not stupid enough to go in there with nothing.
‘Well, I apologise to you and your family for stealing you away. I promise to be as quick as I can.’
‘Tricia, say you’re sorry one more time and I’ll be forced to turn around and take you back home.’
She clamps her lips together and yanks an invisible zip over them.
‘That’s better,’ I say, looking back to the road, wondering what she’d say, what she’d think, if I told her Ange couldn’t give a stuff right now what I was doing today; if I told her that Ange didn’t get back home from her day out until late, and when she did it was to go straight to bed while I sat in the armchair in front of the TV thinking about how her conversation with Lisa might have gone. Thinking about how Ange’s vitriol would have been relayed word for word, and maybe with a little extra spice on top and undoubtedly a few opinions of Lisa’s own, to my old buddy who just happened to also be my boss.
And then what if I told Tricia about Simons, that he was the boyfriend that kept messing Anna up all the time so that she’d come to work in tears? What if I said he was married with two daughters and lived in a beautiful house with a mid-life-crisis car, and how I dreamt last night that my hands were around his throat which was bloody from a knife wound I couldn’t remember inflicting but was sure I had. But worse than that, what if I told her on other nights I dreamt about Anna, and I wish I didn’t because they weren’t good dreams, they weren’t decent, the way a decent man should be, the way I’d thought I was. What if I said that I sometimes woke with Anna’s voice in my ear and goosebumps on my arms from the way her fingernails had scratched over my back? What would she think of that? What would she think of me?
‘Steve?’
I jump at her voice over the soft drone of the engine. ‘Yeah?’
‘Is there any chance we could... Only I really need to...’ She winces the rest of the sentence, features drawn into a pained apology that makes me laugh.
‘Far be it from me to get between a woman and her bladder. What level are we talking? Bush? Or a diversion into Worcester?’
‘Borderline. But let’s head for Worcester first. Only, when I’m nervous...’
‘Worcester it is.’
I catch her eye for a second, and she’s looking at me with an expression I usually only ever see on the faces of those I’m called out to. Sometimes it’s gratitude, other times relief, but never is it me they’re really seeing. It’s the uniform. The loaded utility vest, the black polo shirt, the cap, the sure expression, it’s all a signal that they’re safe now; even when inside that uniform I might be the same as them – shit-scared and no less vulnerable. But they don’t know that. They don’t need to know that.
‘Next time though,’ I say, irritated at where my head keeps taking me. ‘Make sure you go before you leave.’
‘Road trip 101,’ she says, voice softening, and easing some of the tension she’s carried with her since she’s got in the car
*
We do more than stop for a toilet break in Worcester, calling in at a Tudor-style pub on the edge of the town. The heady smell of years-old polished oak, hops, and lager-soaked carpets hit us the moment we open the door. And above the bar, stapled across the dark beams, are rows of beer mats depicting ales most people will never have heard of. While Tricia uses their facilities, I order something non-alcoholic for myself and a lager for companion, taking them into the lounge and finding a small round table between an empty fireplace and a frosted glass window letting in barely any light.
‘Nice here,’ she says, when she returns, the tension creeping back into her voice and her shoulders despite her best attempts to hide it.
‘Get a few mouthfuls of that down you.’
‘Trying to get me drunk, Officer?’
‘Yes.’
We both laugh, but she does as I say and downs a quarter of the half-pint.
‘So what should I know about him?’ I ask, when she brings the glass down to the table, into which she looks for the answer to my question.
‘That he’s an idiot.’
‘I got that much. What else? Argumentative? Quick to anger? Violent? Possessive?’
Her head comes up and I see it all right there, as much as I need to know, even before she says, ‘He won’t be expecting you. He thinks I’m coming by myself.’
‘So I’m about to ruin the homecoming.’
‘I don’t know how he’ll react. Craig can be... Shit, maybe I should do this by myself, Steve.’
‘After such a glowing report? Absolutely not. We’re doing this, Tricia. We’re doing it today and we’re doing it together. We’re getting your things, then we’re going home. How much stuff have you got?’
‘Some clothes, crap I’m not really bothered about. I’m more concerned about the certificates. My master’s, PhD, all that sort of thing, important paperwork. I asked him to box it up, but I doubt he would have.’
‘That’s fine. Make sure you take your time and get everything you need.’
My reassurance is futile. Her hand pulls down over her mouth, eyes going to the frosted window, and mind drifting ahead to the next few hours where it draws its own conclusions.
*
I follow Tricia’s directions to a residential street south of Redditch town, lined on either side by four-storey houses split into flats from basement to third floor. She points out which one it is, signposted with an estate agent’s board marked SOLD, and we park beside the kerb. I look up to the top two floors, net curtains hung at the windows, giving away nothing of what’s waiting for us inside. The lager earlier helped, but Tricia still hauls in a deep breath before she opens the passenger door.
I reach over to the rear seat for my jacket, slipping it on once I’m out of the car. Tricia unlocks the front door and I step in after her, closing it behind us. We go down a short hallway, at the end of which she unlocks a second door that opens onto a flight of carpeted stairs. There’s no sound from above. Tricia peers at me over my shoulder. I nod encouragement, even while I’m listening for what I can’t hear yet, looking past her to what’s up ahead, adrenaline kicking in as my muscle memory replays all the other times I’ve entered a property not knowing what threat awaited.
At the top of the stairs is a small bathroom, door open and room empty. Further along the landing a bedroom, emptied of everything except a single bed and mattress pushed up against the wall. In front of us, a narrow galley kitchen. Next to that, a closed door. I glance up the flight of stairs that lead to what Tricia explained earlier is the main bedroom, then back to the door where she’s waiting for me to nod the go ahead. I do, reaching inside my jacket where my fingers rest on the baton, and standing close behind her as she pulls on the handle.
‘Thought I heard you,’ a voice says, even as its owner clocks that there’s more than one of us. ‘Who’s your friend?’
We step into the room, furnished only with a wooden table pushed against the wall, and a sofa beside the window on which her ex sits in jeans too tight and legs splayed enough to turn the two-seater into an armchair. He’s got one arm stretched across the sofa back, the fitted white t-shirt he wears meant to show off his muscles, but instead looking like he’s been put in a spin wash at ninety degrees and anything of value has shrunk. He’s everything I hate before he’s said more than a handful of words.
‘So where is everything, Craig?’ Tricia asks, the both of us still stood in the doorway. I relax my hand from my jacket, but not my gaze from the man across the room who’s smile inches wider the longer neither of us blink, and in which I gauge a level of arrogance that in my experience usually has anger at its core.
‘Craig,’ Tricia snaps.
He breaks the stare to study her, palm scraping over the stubble across his jaw that’s as dark as the crop of black hair on his head.
‘You look good, doll. Really good. You dyed your hair.’
‘My things. Where are they?’
‘You must have had a long drive. I’d get you both something, but all that’s left is a couple of cold ones in the fridge.’
‘We’re not stopping.’ Tricia looks around the room, but it’s clear Craig has already emptied the place and moved out. ‘Where the fuck is everything?’
Stood behind her, I put my hand to her back. If we can do this without losing our cool, the better for everyone. She might have said he was an idiot, but he’ll know her well enough to read when she’s riled, and that will only play into his hands.
He gets up from the sofa – tall, a good few inches on me – footsteps shaking the boards beneath us as he crosses the room. I feel Tricia tense under my hand as he stops a few feet from her, gaze locked on hers as if I’m not even here. I step to the side of her as a reminder, but he ignores me, saying, ‘It’s all in the bedroom, doll. Wanna take a look?’
‘Great,’ I say, with a clap of my hands, moving in front of her so I’m impossible to avoid. ‘Go ahead, Tricia. We’ll wait for you down here.’
His eyes slide to mine as if I’m something unpleasant that’s flown in through an open window. Tricia hesitates, but I tilt my head her way and smile. She looks from me to Craig, before she turns for the stairs, her footsteps quick up to the bedroom.
‘So what is it you do, Craig?’
I plant my feet in the doorway and fold my arms, right hand tucking inside my jacket, because up this close, and with Tricia out of the room, the act of a moment ago falls as fast as an executioner’s blade. He’s not seeing Steve the Copper, he’s seeing a runt of a bloke a good few years older than him who came in with his woman and who he could take easy.
His tongue digs at a spot in the centre of his bottom lip as he weighs up his chances. ‘What’s it to you? Get out of my way.’
‘You in competition?’ I point to his chest. ‘I’ve got a friend does that kind of thing.’
‘I couldn’t give a fuck.’
‘Do you do all that calorie counting stuff too? I don’t know how you put up with that. It would drive me up the wall.’
He takes a step towards me. But he’s not angry, just irritated. I can handle irritated.
‘Win any competitions? This like a professional gig or...’
‘Look, how about we have this bonding exercise another time? ‘Cause right now I need to be up there helping my girlfriend sort through our things.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure she can manage, Craig. Though, technically, she’s not your girlfriend, of course.’
He draws in a slow breath through his nose. If I were being objective, I could see why the ladies might find him attractive. Apart from the muscle, there’s a modicum of intelligence behind the shrewd blue eyes. But as I’m not a lady, nor objective, I pin him as an arsehole. And that’s even without the background knowledge I have on him.
‘Technically,’ he enunciates, ‘we never split. So technically what does that make you? The bodyguard? The sidekick?’ He huffs a soft laugh and I do too. ‘The monkey? Is that it? She got you running around for her? Yeah, that’d be right. She’ll do that to you if you don’t keep an eye on her.’
‘Or a firm grip, right?’ I say, chuckling and nodding along with him, thinking about the trajectory from my forehead to his and how much weight I could get behind it given the height difference. In my pocket, my fingers wrap around the baton, and adrenaline’s coursing through me so I can’t take my eyes from him. Striking first would be wrong, for so many reasons. For my job, for my safety, for Tricia whose footsteps are coming down the stairs behind me. Craig breaks the stare to grab her attention.
‘Babe, there’s stuff we need to talk about.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Paperwork to sign and shit like that.’
‘I left the keys on the bed.’
He goes for a sidestep, but I go with him.
‘Doll, please. A few minutes, that’s all. Won’t take long.’
‘The estate agent didn’t say anything to me about signing papers.’
‘There’s just stuff, Trish. Stuff we should talk about.’
He tries to brush past me, but I put a hand to his chest. He thumps it away. ‘How about you fuck off for a second? This has nothing to do with you.’
‘Craig—’
‘No, babe, I have to speak to you. It’s important.’ He pushes his fingers through his hair, his feet restless, agitation rising. Now would be a good time for us to leave.
‘Did you get it all?’ I ask, without taking my eyes off him.
‘Everything I need,’ she says, and tells Craig, ‘You can bin the rest.’
‘It’s about my mother, Trish. It’s my mother. Please, doll.’
‘Go downstairs,’ I say, my arms loose by my sides, but still not letting him past.
‘She’s dying, doll. Mum’s dying.’
Her footsteps pause on the landing.
‘He’s lying, Tricia. Go downstairs.’
‘What the fuck—’ Spit launches from his lips and lands on my chin. ‘Who the fuck are you? What do you know?’
The switch has flicked and it’s me he has in his sights now, his hand coming up to grip at my shirt.
‘Craig!’ Tricia shouts.
‘Just who the fuck are you, you piece of shit?’
I’m pushed up against the door frame. It jams into my spine and I wince, but even with his face only inches away, dull eyes staring into mine, I laugh, reaching into my back pocket.
‘I’m your friendly copper, son,’ I say with my best smile, holding up my warrant card.
There are some for whom the badge means nothing, they don’t care for it, they don’t fear it. The law, the prison system, it’s a way of life for them. But I can already see Craig’s not one of those. He’s just a man with a loud voice, a quick temper and loose fist, and a mother who’d give him a bollocking if he got himself arrested.
His grip loosens. He backs up a few steps, hand going to his hair, mind running through ways out of this, but struggling to come up with any. Maybe even wondering how much Tricia has told me about how their relationship went, and why it ended.
I can think of a few parting shots, but let it go, for Tricia’s sake. This needs to be the end of it for her, and there’s no need to give Mr Muscle here any more reason to keep showing up in her life. When I’m sure there’s nothing more coming from him, I turn from the room and follow Tricia down the stairs.
With the box of her things in the boot, I get in the car, glancing only once up to the window where the outline of her ex is watching us go. I take off my jacket and throw it in the back, grateful that I didn’t need to use the baton. Like most men handy with their fists around women, he’s all mouth and no substance when facing off with another man, let alone a man with a badge. Still, it’s a good twenty minutes down the road before either one of us speaks.
‘Don’t know about you,’ Tricia says, breaking the silence, ‘but I could do with a G and T.’
*
We’re sitting in the same pub we stopped at earlier and at the same table. Except this time the logs in the fireplace crackle under the flames warming the room, the atmosphere, and our faces. We order food from the bar, Tricia clearing every scrap of her steak dinner as if she hasn’t eaten a proper meal for days, then follow it up with a row of shots that dowse any lingering tension from the day.
The first two rounds we knock back without a thought, but it’s the third that’s the clincher. And as the light outside fades and we sip from lager chasers, neither of us mentions how this means there’s no going home tonight. Instead, we drown that prospect under another round, and another, as the drink loosens the conversation.
I renege on my vow of work silence to regale her with some of the more ridiculous things I’ve seen and heard on duty. But they have nothing on Tricia’s anecdote about a customer who had her deceased cat stuffed with her dead husband’s ashes so they could always be together. Tears of laughter stream down our faces as the bar behind us fills and the voices grow louder.
‘More drinks,’ I say, pointing to her half-empty glass. ‘Another of those, or is it shot time again?’
I flick my wrist to look at my watch. I’m reading it but not registering it, because where my right hand rests on the table, she’s covering it with her own.
‘Thank you, Steve. For what you did.’
‘Not at all. Shall we go with the shots, then?’
‘I don’t know if I could have come on my own. Or if I had, I don’t know that he would have let me leave.’
Her fingers tighten around mine, and I’m torn between the warmth of her palm and not wanting the laughs we’ve been having to end.
‘There were sheets on the bed. Nothing else in the house, but upstairs in the bedroom, he’d left the sheets on the bed.’
Even through the gin shots and lager messing with my head, the upset in her voice is clear. The fear still there, of what might have been if she’d come alone. I flip my hand to thread my fingers through hers. An instinct to comfort. One I do without thinking.
‘You’re safe now, Tricia,’ I say, the same words I’ve said all my career, every time hoping the recipient believes me. Every time hoping I’m right.
She nods, her lips thinning as she fights the tears the alcohol has brought full circle. But neither of us pulls our hand away.
Later, in the Gents’, I press my forehead to the cold mirror over the sink. And before I leave, hold down the off switch on my phone until the screen goes blank.
