Risk Street4

The wind came suddenly, churning the leaves on the trees, with squalls of heavy drenching rain, duelling with the sound of sirens which brought some semblance of sense to the invading army of adolescents, their makeshift weapons bloodied in the hysterical melee that followed the upper story fire, at the house in Risk Street. Berto couldn’t remember what had happened. He’d been pushed through the hole in the fence at the Duntocher Road end. A neighbour’s wee boy, Harry Thorpe, his red hair matted with blood, had been flung against the iron bars of the fence and was sitting in the long grass crying, ‘mummm, mummmm, mummmm.’ Nobody knew why, nobody stopped to help him. Everyone was stampeding away.

There was something on Berto’s hands. He’d tunnel vision and had to stop and focus on what it was. It was sticky and looked like blood, but couldn’t be. He wiped it on the backside of his Levis and forgot about it as he stumbled from the pavement into the path of an oncoming car. The brakes squealed, like in a movie and he could smell the burning rubber as it tried to stop. Only when it hit him did he realize that it was a two tone Panda Police Car, with the noise and the lights, it was like getting hit by a fast moving disco unit. It didn’t seem to hurt Berto. He rolled off the hood like a stunt man, ambled across to the safety of the other side of Duntocher Road and kept going, his feet finding the way home.

Sergeant Jenkins, left his police hat in the back seat of the car and was first to reach Berto, grabbing at his arm and pulling him round to face him.

‘He’s out of his face. Drink,’ but he couldn’t smell alcohol, only the bitter burning smell of smoke dyed clothes. ‘Glue,’ said Sergeant Jenkins, looking at his dilated pupils. ‘He’s out of his face on glue.’

‘You better get him an ambulance,’ he turned and spoke to PC King who had followed him out of the police car, his police radio crackling with the latest, up- to- date information.

‘You want me to cuff him Sarge?’ PC Gooch was already fingering the metal cuffs, ratcheting them up and ready to snap them on.

Sergeant Jenkins let go of Berto’s Wrangler Jacket and he shrunk down, as if he’d been hit and then took a few unhurried steps away from them as if nothing had happened.

‘Cuff him,’ said Jenkins, ‘He looks ok. We’ll get him checked over back at the station.’

PC Gooch sprang forward and grabbed the back of Berto’s denim collar and pulled him backwards, hauling him off his feet. ‘Seems fine to me,’ he said, half turning to look at Sergeant Jenkins.

He put the bracelet of the cuffs on Berto’s thin wrists and squeezed them as tight as possible. Berto looked up at him with a glacial stare. PC Gooch pulled the cuffs even tighter, pulling him up off his feet. He heard a click and wasn’t sure if it was the ulna bone snapping or the bracelet clicking to a closer setting. He hadn’t noticed it, at first, the stickiness of blood on his hand, because it had been so dark. He panicked, his heart racing ahead, his mind flash flooding one excuse after another to play out on his tongue.

‘You enjoy pain and that will be the undoing of you,’ the young boy spoke mechanically, as if the words had been learned by rote.

‘Sarge, he’s bleeding,’ said PC Gooch.

The walkie-talkie PC King wore like a poppy bloom on the lapel of his jacket burst through the static. Sarge was first to react translating the burst of machine gun language into words, ‘Jesus, they’ve found a body.’

‘Thou shalt not take Thy Lord Thy God’s name in vain.’ Berto pulled at his handcuffs and pulled all 15 stone of PC Gooch up and towards him, so that the officer fell sideways, twisting and bringing the boy down with him. Berto’s teeth sunk into his ear, biting down hard.

PC King tried pulling the boy off, as Gooch scrambled about below the boy like a snake nailed by a ferret. Sarge used his police torch like a rubber truncheon, sweeping it upwards separating gristle, teeth and bone.

Berto laughed maniacally, dancing in the streetlight, ‘I killed him. I killed him, but it was his own fault. He shouldn’t have said what he said. He shouldn’t have said that I touched my wee sister in that way. He shouldn’t have said that. I’m glad he’s dead. It serves him right.’

‘You,’ said Jenkins, ‘there’s an ambulance up at the entrance to Risk Street. Get them to take you to hospital.’

PC Gooch held the flap of his ear as he walked away from them.

‘And you,’ said Jenkins, ‘put him in the back of the car and keep an eye on him. We’ll take him to hospital. It will give us a chance to question him. Make sure that we go the long route.’

Gooch checked that the handcuffs were properly secured. Instinctively, he pushed the boy’s head down, so that he wouldn’t bang it on the roof, as he pushed him into the back of the car that had knocked him down. He took off his police hat and sat in the back, his fingers drumming on his knees, as the boy looked out the window, as if they were on a day trip.
Then his eyes closed and he seemed to be asleep.

Sergeant Jenkins missed a gear change and flooded the engine when Berto began to speak, because it was like a different person, a different voice from the one that they’d heard, the voice of a little lost boy:

‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’

Jenkins carefully parked the car at the side of the pavement, across from the school playground. He squinted in the mirror. The boy seemed to be asleep and he turned slowly as if any sudden moves would awaken him.

‘Kill who?’ said Jenkins.

The boy voice grew stronger, more confident as he spoke:

‘Summy, John Summerville.’

PC King knee touched against the boy and he pulled away as if he’d been solicited. Sergeant Jenkins domed forehead and thick lips shaped into a scowl, but the boy’s eyes still remained closed, as if he was feigning sleep.

‘I didn’t mean to kill him, but he shouldn’t have said what he said about touching my wee sister.’

‘About you molesting her,’ whispered Jenkins.

‘Yes.’

‘And did you?’

‘Yes. NO. I don’t know.’

‘He’s cold Sarge,’ Gooch flinched as if he’d been struck, ‘he’s having some kind of fit.’

But it was something they had never seen before, like a snake shedding its skin. The boy’s body undulated, his head, swayed from side to side. His eyes snapped open, pinning Jenkin’s, keeping him there, frozen in the moment, as his jaw clicked and teeth sawed. There was a choking sound, a splutter then a harsh laugh as Berto spat in PC Gooch’s face.

Gooch pushed up and out of the back seat and sat clutching his hands together to try and stop them from shaking, blood dripping from his face, looking at the pavement outside the Panda car.

Jenkins picked up the receiver of the car radio, holding it in his big hand like a paper hanky before gently squeezing the release button. He thought with twenty years service nothing could ever surprise him, but he shook his head in disbelief. ‘We need an ambulance,’ he said. They’d only moved about fifty yards from Risk Street, but he looked out the window, just to check, just to get his bearings.

The car radio crackled into its coded Tango- Foxtrot life. But Jenkins spoke soberly, ‘Jesus, he’s bit off his tongue.’