Autumn Page 5

  ‘What gets me,’ Glover moaned as he forced the garden gate open (the bottom hinge was broken and it scraped noisily along the ground) then walked up the path, ‘is the fact that these people are even awake at this time. You know, most of them are usually off their faces on booze or drugs and they don’t open their eyes before mid-afternoon. Bloody hell, these people shouldn’t even be conscious yet, never mind up having a domestic.’

  ‘Probably still awake from last night,’ Brigid suggested.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Glover agreed. ‘Dirty bastards. More bloody trouble than they’re worth. Don’t know why we waste so much time here. Should just build a bloody brick wall around the estate and seal the lot of them in, let them fight it out amongst themselves…’

  Brigid smiled to herself. Glover was a far more experienced officer than she was, but even after just a couple of days working with him she’d learnt to read him like a book. The closer he got to an incident, she’d noticed, the more he seemed to chatter and swear. She, on the other hand, became more controlled and focused as they approached potentially dangerous situations like this. It was the idea of conflict that she didn’t like. Once she was in the middle of the trouble, actually doing something about it, she could handle herself as well as the next man. In fact, she could usually handle herself better than the next man.

  ‘What’s this bastard’s name again?’ asked Glover, nodding towards the grim building they now stood outside.

  ‘Shaun Jenkins,’ Brigid replied. ‘The call came in from his partner, Faye Smith. Said he was threatening her and the kids.’

  ‘And how many kids was it?’

  ‘Three,’ she replied as she reached up and banged on the door. ‘Open up please, Shaun. It’s the police.’

  No answer. Brigid hammered her fist on the door again. She could hear something happening inside now. A child crying, then several sets of heavy footsteps, racing each other to the door. Then a collision and a muffled scream. Jenkins, it seemed, was having a last ditch attempt to sort out this domestic without police involvement.

  Glover leant forward and shouted through the letterbox. ‘Open up, Shaun. I’ll kick the door down if I have to.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ an angry voice spat back at him from inside. Glover glanced at Brigid, then stepped back and kicked the lock. They could hear more struggling inside the house now. Something slammed against the door – Faye Smith, presumably – then it opened inwards. Brigid barged through and grabbed Jenkins who had his partner in a neck lock, trying to drag her up onto her feet so he could kick her down again. Brigid grabbed the junkie by the scruff of his scrawny neck and hauled him into the nearest room, then threw him onto a grubby-looking sofa. A large, solid woman, she had a weight advantage over most people, and this scarred, drug-addled excuse for a man didn’t have a hope. Even if he’d been lucid enough to fight back, he still wouldn’t have had a chance.

  Brigid glanced over her shoulder at Faye Smith who lay on the threadbare hall carpet in a sobbing heap. ‘I’ve got this one,’ she shouted to Glover, ‘you get the rest of them sorted out.’

  Faye Smith limped towards the room at the far end of the hallway. The policeman could just make out the shape of a child hiding in the shadows of the kitchen door. He saw two more – both boys, both half-dressed – standing at the top of the staircase, peering down through a hole in the broken wooden bannister.

  ‘It’s all right, lads,’ he said, ‘your mom’s okay. You stay up there and get yourselves dressed and we’ll be up to see you in a couple of minutes.’

  Glover glanced over to his right and saw that Brigid was in complete control in the living room. He had to admit, she was turning out to be bloody good in situations like this. He was happy for her to take the lead, despite her relative inexperience. She towered over Jenkins, and the wiry little man squirmed on the sofa.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s been going on here, Shaun,’ she asked him, ‘or should I—’

  A sudden spit of crackling static from her radio interrupted her. Distracted she grabbed at it, keeping one hand tight around Jenkins’ neck. She couldn’t make out what was being said through the white noise and interference. It sounded like whoever it was was struggling to speak…

  A sudden movement from Jenkins immediately refocused her. ‘Look, Shaun,’ she said, ‘we can do this here or we can…’

  The drugged-up expression on Jenkins’ face began to rapidly change. He became more alert, and Brigid tensed and reached for her baton, sensing he was about to kick-off. Jenkins tried to push himself up, but then stopped and fell back down. The expression on his face changed again. His features began to twist and contort with pain.

  ‘What’s the matter, Shaun?’ she asked, still cautious. Jenkins grabbed at his throat and she relaxed her grip slightly. His breathing changed, becoming shallow and irregular. She could hear his lungs rasp and rattle. Was he for real? Christ, what should she do? She hadn’t covered this in training. Did she risk trying to help him or should she call Glover and… and the colour in his face was beginning to drain. Bloody hell, there was no way he was faking this. Was this a seizure or some kind of fit brought on by whatever he’d taken, or was it something she’d done? Had she used too much force? Jenkins’ eyes, already wild and dilated, began to bulge as he fought for breath. He threw himself back in agony and began to claw at his inflamed throat.

  ‘Glover!’ Brigid shouted. ‘I need help! Get yourself in here!’

  She had to take a chance. She grabbed Jenkins’ flailing legs and tried to lay him out flat on the sofa. He arched his back in pain, his willowy frame beginning to convulse furiously. Pressing down on his bare chest with one hand, she tried to hold his thrashing head still with the other and clear his airway. Suddenly motionless for the briefest of moments, the odious addict then let out a tearing, agonising scream of pain which splattered the police officer with blood and spittle. Repulsed, she staggered back and wiped her face clean.

  ‘Shit. Glover, I’ve got a real problem. Where are you?’

  Still no response from her partner. Jenkins began to convulse again. It was her duty to try and save his life, much as she knew it was barely worth saving. She leant over him, but by the time she’d decided what she needed to do, he’d already lost consciousness. Now he wasn’t moving at all.

  ‘Glover!’ she yelled again. Now that Jenkins was quiet she could hear more noises echoing around this squalid house. Her heart thumping, she stood up and walked towards the door. From the kitchen came a sudden crashing noise as a stack of plates and dishes fell to the ground and smashed. Brigid found Glover, Faye Smith and one of her three children lying motionless on the sticky linoleum, surrounded by broken crockery. The three of them were dead. By the time she returned to Jenkins, he was dead too. Upstairs, she found two more corpses. One of the boys was in the bathroom, wedged between the base of the sink and the toilet pan as if he’d died hiding, the other was lying on the carpet next to his bed. Both of the distressingly thin children were white-faced but with traces of dark crimson, almost black blood dribbling from their open mouths.

  Brigid reached for her radio again and called for assistance. The familiar sound of hissing static cut through the silence, reassuring her momentarily.

  But no one answered.

  PETER GUEST

  I keep going over the conversation in my head again and again, and every time I see Joe’s face it hurts me more. I’ve come close to screwing things up before but I know I’ve really done it this time. I’ve made a huge mistake.

  What happened at home this morning had been brewing for weeks, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped and I don’t have any control. I’m trying to do my best for everyone but no one can see it, and at the same time everyone blames me whenever anything goes wrong. I’m starting to think that whichever way I turn and whatever I do I’ll end up pissing someone off. It’s always me that pays the price.

  I can’t stop looking a
t the clock. It’s almost eight. Jenny will have Joe ready for school now. He kept telling me it didn’t matter but I know it did. He kept telling me it was all right and that there’d be another time but there’s no escaping the fact that I’ve let my son down again. The trouble is, how can I justify sitting in a school hall watching a class assembly when I should be at the office, closing a deal that’s taken months of effort to bring to the table? I know that in financial terms there’s no competition and the office has to take precedence, but I also know that on just about every other level I should be putting work at the bottom of the pile. But it’s hard. The directors are putting me under unbearable pressure, but that pales into insignificance in comparison to this gnawing, nagging emptiness I’m feeling in the pit of my stomach right now. I think I might have just paid a price that can’t be measured in pounds and pence.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if this was the first time. It wouldn’t even be that bad if it was only the second or third time either. Truth is, because of work I seem to have missed just about every notable event in Joe’s short life so far. I missed his first day at playgroup because of an off-site meeting and I missed his first morning at nursery because I was in Hong Kong on a business trip. I missed his first day at school. I missed his first nativity play and his first proper birthday party with his friends. And why did I miss all of those things? I did it all for Jenny and Joe. I just want the best for them, and if that means I have to work long hours and be dedicated to my job, then so be it.

  Jenny doesn’t see it that way.

  She really laid into me last night when I took the call and told her I was going to need to be at the office early. She started hurling all kinds of threats around, telling me we were getting close to the point where I was going to have to make a choice between my career and my family. She’s said things like that before, but it felt different last night. I could tell that she meant every word. I tried to explain I’m only doing this for her and Joe but she wasn’t listening. She asked me if I could imagine a time when I didn’t work for the company and I told her I could. It might be a long way off, but I know I won’t be there forever. Then she asked if I could imagine being without her and Joe. I said I couldn’t and that I didn’t even want to think about it. She said that was the choice I was going to have to make. She said if my family was more important to me than work, why did I keep choosing work over them?

  Bloody hell, I know she’s right and I know I should be stronger, but the company’s got me by the balls.

  #

  Traffic’s really bad this morning. God, that’d be ironic, missing the meeting because of traffic delays after all this grief. It’s been bumper to bumper since I left home. It’s not unusual: this is the main route into town. A lot of commuters will turn off for the motorway soon, leaving the last mile or so to the office relatively clear.

  I’m finally at the last major intersection. I might be sitting at these lights for the next ten minutes but, once I’m through, I’ll be at the office in no time. I’ll get this meeting done and I’ll see if I can’t get away a little earlier tonight. I’ll find a way of making it up to Joe and Jen. If we get the deal closed this morning we all stand to pocket a decent pay-out next month. I’ll take them out for dinner tonight and put it on the credit card. I’ll take them for a pizza or a burger, Joe’ll love that. Maybe we could go to the cinema if he’s not too tired? Perhaps I’ll wait until the weekend. Maybe I’ll just get them both something from town at lunchtime. But I don’t want it to seem like I’m just trying to pay for—

  Bloody hell, what was that? As I pulled away from the lights just then I saw a car going out of control on its way down the bypass. There’s no way I can turn back. There are plenty of other people about and there’s probably nothing I could do anyway. The police watch all these roads on CCTV and they’ll be on the scene before anyone—

  —Jesus Christ! I’ve just seen two cars plough into each other at the top of the slip road I’m heading down to get into the Heapford tunnel. It happened so fast I didn’t see what happened. There was a blue-grey estate and it veered off and smacked into the side of another car. They both went spinning across the carriageway. Thank God I missed it. I hope everyone involved is okay and I don’t want to sound completely uncaring, but I can’t afford to be delayed today. A minute or so later and I would have been stuck in the tailback and chaos that rush-hour crashes always leave in their wake.

  The light becomes electric and the sounds change as I drive deeper into the tunnel. The signal on the radio disappears and the sounds of the city get muffled, snuffed out by the noise of car engines echoing off the close walls. The road ahead bends away to the left and I can see the bright red glow of brake lights up ahead. Drivers are always having to brake hard at the end of this tunnel. They don’t anticipate the filter system. Everyone drives too fast down here without thinking and… and there are a stack of cars backing up now. Christ, I hope it is just the filter and nothing more serious. I’m cutting it fine as it is. To be stuck this close to the office would be unbelievable.

  The noises around me are starting to change again. Brakes squealing. Engines straining. Hang on, the traffic’s stopping, grinding to a halt. There must have been another accident up ahead. Christ, three in one morning, and all in the space of less than a mile… what are the chances of that?

  Shit, what the hell is going on here? It’s a bloody pileup. A load of cars have smashed into each other at the mouth of the tunnel. They’re wedged together and… and I’ve got to stop before I hit them. I slam on my brakes but I’m going too fast to stop in time. The car behind me isn’t slowing down, and neither is the one to my right. The guy on my right hasn’t even got his hands on the wheel. What the hell’s wrong with him…? I’m going to hit something or something’s going to hit me. I try to keep hold of the steering wheel and find a path through the chaos but I’m just—

  #

  Less than a minute later, Peter Guest woke up. The world around him was completely silent. Disorientated, he gently pushed himself upright in his seat and gagged as blood trickled down the back of this throat from his broken nose. The first thing he thought was that he was going to be late for his vital meeting, and he struggled to get out of his seat, unbuckling his belt and disentangling himself from the now deflated airbag. He had to get out of here and get to the office. He had to let them know what had happened. Surely they’d understand if they knew he’d been in an accident…

  Peter slowly focused on his dull surroundings. The end of the tunnel up ahead allowed a certain degree of grey morning light to seep across the scene. The yellow-orange strip lights in the ceiling above provided a little more illumination, enough to see that his car was wedged between the tunnel wall on his left and the wreck of a black taxi cab to his right. He tried to open his door but could move it no more than an inch or two. He lifted up his aching body, clambered over the dash, and crawled out through what was left of the shattered windscreen. He rolled over onto his back on his car’s crumpled bonnet and just lay there, looking up. The effort required to move just that short distance had been immense and he had to psych himself up before moving again. He waited a moment or two longer to let a sudden debilitating wave of nausea subside, then stood upright on his car and leant against the grubby tunnel wall for support.

  For as far as Peter could see both ahead and behind, the tunnel was filled with an unprecedented tangle of crashed traffic. Some vehicles had been forced up into the air by violent impacts. A few cars behind where Peter was standing, a once pristine bright red, two-seater sports car lay on its roof, straddled widthways across two other vehicles, its driver and her passenger crushed.

  Apart from him, he realised that nothing and no one else was moving.

  Peter began to edge forwards, clambering over wreck after wreck, using them like stepping stones to get him out of the tunnel. He was in pain but he had to keep moving. He needed daylight and fresh air. He needed help.

  After dragging himself over the boot,
the roof and then the bonnet of another car, Peter was faced with a short jump onto the boot of another. Pausing to compose himself and bracing for impact, he jumped onto the second vehicle and lost his footing, slipping down onto a small triangular patch of clear road. He fell awkwardly against another car door, causing the body of a woman to slump over to one side. Her head thumped the window with a heavy, sickening noise, and he realised he hadn’t thought about the other drivers. Struggling with his own situation, he’d only been concerned with his safety and trying to get out of the tunnel as quickly as possible. But now he’d stopped to think about the others, they were suddenly all he could see. He scrambled to try and help the nearest person but it was no use, the poor bastard was already dead. The woman in the van beside him was the same, as was the next one he found, and the next, and the next. He kept looking, refusing to accept the illogical truth that he was the only one left alive.

  Everywhere Peter looked now he saw bodies: battered and bloodied faces smashed against windows, limp corpses hanging out of half-open doors. And the longer he stared, the more he saw. In the low gloom he saw broken bones, pools of dripping, crimson-black blood, ruptured skin, gouged eyes, twisted limbs and smashed faces. Shock numbed his pain and he began to move again, adrenalin driving him forward until he was finally out in the open air.

  But the carnage and devastation wasn’t limited to inside the tunnel. All around him now it continued, endless and inexplicable.

  Peter walked along silent streets, finally reaching his office almost an hour later. There, amongst the corpses of the colleagues and business associates with whom he should have been meeting and negotiating, he sat and tried to make sense of the nightmare his world had suddenly become.