Death Row

Yates gestured with his free hand, sweeping it around. ‘All this, Wendy. That’s what I’m talking about. Paying for all this. I’m talking about my work.’

‘What’s that got to do with—’

‘Nothing. All right? Nothing. Forget I ever said anything.’ He took another gulp of his whisky and choked a little.

‘Roger.’

‘No.’ Yates waved a finger at her. ‘I’m going to read my book.’

He walked into the downstairs study to the right and slammed the door behind him.

Wendy stood looking at the door, bemused, for a moment or two and then sighed. ‘Hi, honey,’ she said. ‘I’m home.’

*

‘Puta!’

Kate Walker held out her hand and smiled disarmingly; the man was speaking in Spanish but she knew the language very well herself. Her fingers were splayed and stiff, warning the wiry and red-faced Mexican standing in front of her to keep his distance. He was smaller than her, five foot six, somewhere in his early thirties, she figured, and he was already at simmering point, ready to boil over again. Kate did her best to keep her voice level, trying to pacify him.

‘Just stay calm, and keep your distance – let’s not make matters any worse for you.’ She replied to him in his own language.

Not that he had much room to manoeuvre. The small bedsit with kitchen off was probably no more than ten metres square in total. It housed a bed, a sofa, an old television and a battered wardrobe with peeling blue vinyl panels on the door.

‘Yeah, calm it down, Chico.’ Bob Wilkinson stepped up beside Kate, not really helping the situation.

‘And fuck you too, you son of a bitch.’

‘What did he say to me?’ the sergeant asked Kate.

Kate crossed to the woman sitting on the threadbare sofa. She had her head in her hands and was bent forward at the waist. Long luxurious dark curls spilling around her hands to the floor, she was taking in gulping breaths of air and sobbing. Kate guessed her to be somewhere in her mid-twenties, with beautifully unblemished ivory skin and a delicate, elegant bone structure. For some reason she couldn’t quite place, the woman reminded Kate of some delicate exotic bird. She looked back up at Bob. ‘He’s commenting on modern policing techniques,’ she said.

‘He can comment on my boot up his arse he doesn’t watch himself.’

The Mexican snarled challengingly at Bob. He didn’t speak English but he could recognise the tone in his words. ‘You old man,’ he spat in guttural Spanish. ‘Save your brave words for your bitch of a whore, you pussy!’

Kate put a reassuring hand on the woman’s knee. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. We don’t need you here. Please to go.’ The woman half spoke, half sobbed the words, her tiny hands still covering her face.

Kate spoke soothingly. ‘We received complaints. Fighting. Shouting. A woman screaming. Your neigh-bours called us. They were scared for you. We want to help.’

‘Please, you go now.’

Kate gently lifted the woman’s hands away. The woman was younger than she’d first guessed, beauty still there somewhere in the frightened, despairing eyes and despite the ugly bruise that marred the right side of her face with puffy swollen tissue. Kate looked at her for a moment, the anger inside her simmering. ‘Did he do this to you?’

‘No. I tripped up. I hit my head on the door.’

Kate looked across at the door to the small room. There was no handle, just a simple Yale lock. Put your key in and push. She already knew the woman was lying but that confirmed it for her – you couldn’t get the kind of injury she had sustained from a flat door. The skull was designed that way to protect the eyes. She took the woman’s hand. ‘We can help you, Maria. We can protect you.’

The woman’s eyes flicked nervously to her boyfriend and she shook her head. ‘I hit the door, is all. These neighbours, they should mind their own businesses.’

‘You heard her, puta! Time for you to leave.’

Kate sighed and stood up. It wasn’t the first time she had reached this kind of impasse in a domestic-abuse situation. She was getting pretty sick and tired of not being able to help people because they weren’t able to help themselves. A vicious circle of fear, abuse and misery that all to often ended in tragedy, people only coming to their senses when all reason had been knocked out of them, and by then it was too late. She took a business card from her pocket and gave it to the woman. ‘Come and see me in the surgery tomorrow. I’ll treat you for that eye.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ The woman held the card out but Kate shook her head.

‘You keep it. Call me any time you need anything. Any time.’

‘You heard her – she don’t need your fucking card. What are you, some pussy-eating lesbian ain’t got no man to do her right? Maybe you should come back one night, just you and me. I’ll sort you out.’

Kate turned round and looked at the Mexican stepping closer, watching his nostrils flare, watching the jaunty jut of his chin, the cockerel breath swelling his thin chest. She knew exactly what he was capable of, exactly what would happen when she left, and she pretty much decided there and then that this was one time she wouldn’t walk away. She looked at the man and spat on the floor. ‘What are you, some homo with balls the size of peanuts? You think you’re a man hitting a woman, I think you’re a faggot pansy who can’t get it up and takes it out