For the second time that night, Henry dragged his first-aid training knowledge and skills out of the deep recesses of his mind. He knelt down at her head, tilted it back and blew. The only difference with this casualty was that he did not think there was a hope in hell of success this time round. He and the sergeant worked on her for ten minutes. Constantly. It was exhausting work. Henry sweated, drops of perspiration blobbing down onto the girl’s lifeless face. He glanced up once during the procedure, his vision reeling, head full of air, temples thumping. A group of onlookers had gathered, cops drawn to the spectacle like moths to a flame. In among them was Jane Roscoe, an expression of grave concern on her face. Their eyes met for a brief instant, then Henry resumed his task. It was like being in a different world, as if it was happening to someone else. It was a world of slow-moving disorientation where nothing was real except the fight for life.
He opened his lips and re-formed the airtight seal around the girl’s lips. Suddenly she convulsed and coughed upwards into his mouth. Disgusted, retching, Henry spun away, spitting and coughing, emptying his mouth of whatever it was she had coughed up. It tasted like slimy gravel. But looking back at her, the disgust left him. She was wracked in a fit of choking and alive.
He wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve and nodded triumphantly at the sergeant who had kept going with him. They had done it. They had brought a seemingly dead person back to life. Persistence had paid off. The sergeant held out a hand. Henry shook it. A few watchers clapped and shouted ‘Well done!’
The paramedics arrived just as they turned the girl on her side into the recovery position.
So sucked in by the emotional drama of it all was he that Henry found himself accompanying the girl as she was stretchered away through the narrow twisting cell corridors to the ambulance waiting in the police garage. He held her hand all the way, squeezing, patting, leaning over her and clucking soft, reassuring words of comfort.
Her eyes rolled like a pair of doll’s eyes, fluttered open showing bloodshot whites. They never seemed to focus on him or anything until they reached the ambulance. Then she became more lucid and tried to sit up. Henry gently pushed her back down. ‘It’s OK. . don’t move. . you’ll be fine.’
Underneath the transparent oxygen mask, her swollen, cracked lips moved, trying to say something. Henry could not hear the words. He bent over her.
‘Shouldn’t,’ she said, her voice just a whisper.
‘What?’ He did not understand and shook his head. Her lips moved again. He put his ear an inch above the mask.
‘Afraid. . afraid. .’ she said. Tears streamed out of the corner of her eyes. ‘One of yours.’ The effort of speaking drained her, but at least Henry thought he had made some sense of her words, though not all of them. He recalled the fear she had expressed when he had talked to her in the celclass="underline" the fear of retribution — that if she said what she knew, something terrible would happen. Was this enough for her to try and take her own life? To do such a thing, she must have been terrified. . so what did she know?
He had no further time to think about it as the paramedics slid her into the ambulance. One went to the front of the vehicle to drive, the other stepped in beside her. ‘You sendin’ anyone up with her?’ he asked Henry.
‘Christ — yes.’ He clicked his fingers, thinking fast. She needed protection and, technically, as she was still in police custody, someone had to stay with her.
Everyone had slithered back into the station, all onlookers gone now that the drama had ended, except for the constable who had been in the report-writing room earlier. Henry turned to him decisively before he too could skulk away. ‘John, you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hop in and go with this lass to the Blackpool Victoria Hospital and look after her while I decide what needs doing, OK?’
PC Taylor looked decidedly unenthusiastic. His shoulders sagged at the prospect of a nannying job. ‘I’ve just been told to walk the town centre,’ he bleated.
‘And now I’m telling you to get in the ambulance, OK?’ Henry cocked a slightly annoyed thumb at the open door. ‘Now,’ he said firmly.
The officer removed his helmet and climbed in wearily. The paramedic gave Henry a thumbs-up and closed the door. The vehicle moved off.
Henry watched it go, hands thrust deep into his pockets. When it was out of sight a huge lion-like yawn crept up on him from somewhere. Very long, very wide. It went on forever. He shook his head when it had finished and turned — straight into Jane Roscoe. She had been standing behind him.
‘Just how I feel.’ She smiled.
‘What are you still doing here?’
‘Love the place so much, can’t bear to leave it.’
‘Me too.’ He smirked.
She considered the lie for a moment. ‘Beats Barbados, hands down.’
‘Better than the Maldives, I’d say.’
‘And the town. Blackpool has the allure of the Left Bank in Paris, all the pavement cafes. It’s somewhere you just want to chill out in and watch the chic world go past.’
‘I think the allure is more akin to a pair of a Blackburn hooker’s panties.’
‘Oh, Henry,’ Roscoe gasped, ‘you say the most wonderful, evocative things.’
‘It’s a gift,’ he said modestly.
‘But you did spoil my dreams a little.’ She punched him lightly on the arm and at that moment both realised there was something between them. Undefined as yet, but definitely there. A split second of silence passed.
‘Well done — again — by the way,’ Roscoe said. ‘The old mouth to mouth. Bit of an expert now. You and your lips.’
‘Another of my many talents. . Superman, eat your heart out, Inspector Christie’s on the prowl.’
‘More Inspector Gadget, I’d say,’ Roscoe said cheekily.
‘Now you’ve spoiled my moment.’
‘Doesn’t do to get too far removed from reality.’
‘Not much chance in this place. . how’s Dave Seymour?’
‘Very poorly.’
‘Likely to improve?’
‘Well,’ Roscoe folded her arms, ‘if we are talking reality Dave is overweight, drinks like a fish, eats like an elephant, y’know, twenty hours a day grazing, smokes like a factory — and not one of those things helps his cause. Even if he was the fittest guy in the world, it’d be touch and go.’ Her voice trailed off miserably. She sighed and admitted, ‘I want to cry. . but I’ll get home first.’ She walked past him and touched his arm. ‘By the way, thanks for getting us out of that shop.’
‘Superman.’ He winked.
‘Yeah, you could be right. Bye.’
He watched her walk away. He had wanted to dislike her but had found out that she was OK. Nothing ever seems to work out as planned, he thought. What he disliked was the way in which the job itself had put them both into a position where they had wanted to dislike each other.
PC Taylor stayed with Geri Peters from her reception at A amp;E, all through her treatment at the hands of skilled casualty doctors and nurses, and then remained with her in a tiny curtained cubicle while efforts were made to admit her to a ward. They wanted to keep her in for observations. Taylor was bored rigid with the deployment. He had watched disinterestedly as the staff had poked and prodded her but had actually done very little because there wasn’t much they could do. What was wrong with Geri Peters was more in her head than anywhere else.
It was hardly a riveting episode of ER. Come to that, Taylor thought, it was hardly an episode of Casualty either. The doctors, nurses, porters and paramedics were exceptionally polite to each other, and no one seemed to be having an affair. It was all very dull.
In the cubicle, Taylor became restless. The thought of a cup of coffee from the machine down the corridor was a good one. He checked the prisoner: sleeping now, drugged up to the eyeballs with a hell of a concoction. She was going nowhere fast. He placed his helmet on the bedside cabinet and pushed his way out through the curtains.