her hair.
Jeers. Laughter.
More shouts, more threats.
The two young women-girls-who'd been at the heart of the fighting had broken apart when Lynn pushed her way through.
Fifteen, she guessed, sixteen at best.
The one closest to her-thin white face, head close-shaven like a boy's, leather jacket, black-and-white scarf, skintight black jeans-was bleeding from a cut high on her left cheek, a slow trickle of blood running down. There was another cut on her arm. Her adversary, facing Lynn, was most likely mixed race, dark hair tied back, denim jacket and jeans, a short-bladed knife in her hand.
Lynn took a step forward, focussing on the girl's eyes.
'Okay, put the knife down.'
Two steps more, then three. Slow, measured, as assured as she could be. Somewhere in the middle distance, the sound of a police siren coming closer. Overhead, the streetlights seemed to be getting brighter with each second.
'Put it down.'
The girl's eyes were bright, taunting, only the merest flicker of fear. Of doubt.
The crowd almost silent, scarcely moving.
'Down.'
Another half-step and the expression on the girl's face changed, her shoulders seeming to relax as she shifted her hold on the knife and lowered it to her side.
'On the ground,' Lynn said quietly. 'Put it on the ground.'
The girl began to bend as if to obey, Lynn reading too late the widening of her eyes, too slow to counter the movement, lithe, as she sprang past, the blade slashing at the right side of the other girl's face and opening it like a ripe plum.
The girl screamed.
Lynn pivoted on her left foot, seizing the attacker by the sleeve and swinging her hard round, one knee coming up into the small of her back, her fist chopping down on the girl's elbow and the knife tumbling to the kerb, the girl continuing to struggle all the same.
The police siren was closer still, the sound of an ambulance in its wake.
Lynn had forced the girl's right arm high behind her back when, from the corner of her vision, she saw the youth step forward from the retreating crowd, arm raised. Time enough, as she swung towards him, to note the black-and-white bandana wound tight around his head, the pistol held almost steady in his hand, the contempt in his eyes. The force of her movement took the girl round with her, propelling her forward, the first shot striking Lynn in the chest and seeming to lift her off her feet before sending her stumbling back, legs folding beneath her, falling away even as the girl, still standing, free hand outstretched as if to ward off what was to come, took the second bullet in her neck, immediately above the gold chain she wore with her lover's name engraved, a wash of blood arcing over the mottled ground and into Lynn's mouth and eyes.
Two
Early evening. ER at the Queen's Medical Centre housed the usual miscellany: elderly ladies who had lost their footing on slippery, uneven pavements and taken a tumble, bruising a coccyx or fracturing, for the second time, an already-pinned hip; disorientated men of uncertain years with voices like rusted industrial saws, whose clothes stank of stale urine and hostel disinfectant; distraught mothers with babies who would simply not stop crying or fractious toddlers with badly grazed heads and gashed knees; a scaffolder who had stepped, helmetless, out into the air from the roof of a four-storey building; a trainee chef with the first two joints of his middle finger safe in a plastic bag of slowly melting ice; a young Muslim girl of twelve who had just started her first period; a cyclist who had been sent somersaulting high into the road by the outflung door of a Cherokee Jeep; a charmless fourteen-year-old boy, alarmed and obese, who had been taunted into swallowing the dregs of a bottle of toilet cleaner: each and every one waiting.
Later, when the clubs had spilled out onto the streets and the pubs had finally called last orders, there would be the usual motley collection of barely walking wounded, drunk many of them, drugged, loud and angry and all too ready to strike out in frustration, bleeding from encounters with brick walls or nightclub bouncers, or injured in scuffles that had set off for no better reason than an ill-judged look, a nudged shoulder, a drink sent flying; and this being Valentine's Night, there would be a slow procession of discarded lovers, for whom the occasion had led to bitter accusations, confessions of infidelity, sudden realisations, overdoses, stabbings, attempted suicides, broken relationships that would be mended tearfully, some of them, there amongst the crowded chairs with dawn approaching.
The triage nurse barely looked up as Resnick approached, tall, bulky, his shirt crumpled, jacket unfastened.
'Lynn Kellogg,' Resnick said. 'She was brought in twenty minutes ago. Half hour at most.'
The name rang no obvious bells.
'She's a police officer,' Resnick persevered. 'She was shot.'
The nurse looked up then, little more than a glance, enough to read the anxiety in his eyes. 'And you're what? The father?'
Resnick bridled, reining back his anger. 'No, I'm-We live together.'
'Right.' She looked at him again. One of the buttons on his jacket, she noticed, was hanging by just a thread.
'Look.' Resnick fumbled in his wallet. 'I'm a police officer, too. Detective Inspector.'
The nurse handed him back his warrant card. 'Go down that corridor, third cubicle on the left.' And went back to her list.
Lynn was lying on a narrow bed, pillows at her head and back, wearing a flimsy hospital gown. Her own clothes were neatly folded on a plastic chair.
He had been standing there for some moments before she opened her eyes.
'Hello, Charlie.'
Her voice was faint, like something passing on the wind.
'How you feeling?' he asked, reaching for her hand.
She made an effort to smile. 'Like I've walked into a ten-ton truck.'
'She's a little woozy.' The doctor appeared at Resnick's shoulder. 'Something we've given her for the pain.'
He was young, late twenties Resnick reckoned, little more, and spoke with an Australian accent, not too strong. Australia or New Zealand, he could never be sure.
'How is she?' Resnick asked.
'I'm fine,' Lynn whispered from the bed.
'A lot of bruising around the point of impact,' the doctor said. 'Tender, certainly. Could be a fractured rib or two. We're going to run her down to X-ray, get that checked.'
'Nothing more?' Resnick asked. 'Internal?'
'Not as far as we can tell. I've had a good listen to the lungs, and they seem to be functioning properly.'
Resnick was still holding Lynn's hand, and he gave it a squeeze.
'Up and around in no time,' the doctor said cheerfully. 'Chasing down the bad guys.'
Lynn said something neither of them could properly hear.
'Back in two shakes,' the doctor said, leaving them alone.
Resnick lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, careful of her legs.
'I'm sorry,' Lynn said.
'What for?'
'Dinner. We were meant to be having dinner.'
