Free Suffer the Children by Adam Creed Page A

the crowd takes a step back as he puts a foot on the youth’s chest.
    The teenage girl comes out of the fried chicken shop, shouting , ‘He’s been lookin’ for a fight, that copper. Been in the Rag tryin’ to start on my boyfriend, he was.’ In the near distance a police siren winds up its wail and Staffe takes a deep breath, holds his wrist as tight as he can. He anticipates the allegations , the audience with Pennington and all the paperwork. He wishes he had gone to Bilbao and can practically smell the sea air as he watches the blood pool around his feet. He feels fainter and fainter as the adrenalin begins to abate.

Tuesday Evening
     
     
    ‘You should go to the hospital with this, sir,’ says Josie, tying the bandage around Staffe’s wrist.
    ‘How did you get on with tracking Leanne’s ex down?’
    ‘Rob Boxall? He’s doing two years in Bellmarsh for dealing MDMA and C meth. Been in since May, so he’s off the hook.’
    ‘You’d better get someone to pay him a visit, see if he knows Ross Denness?’
    ‘Sure, sir.’ Josie is examining Staffe’s arm. Still holding his hand, she says, ‘That youth outside the Rag …’
    ‘What about him?’
    ‘He’s saying you went at him with the knife. His mates are backing him up. And so’s that girl.’
    ‘Have we got an ID on him?’
    ‘We’ve got a couple.’ Josie sits down on the opposite side of his desk and leans forward with her elbows on the desk, her face resting on the backs of her hands. She raises her eyebrows and says, ‘He said to say, “Jadus knows”.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    Josie leans back in the chair. She looks at him long, hard, quizzical.
    ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘You should be on a beach or up a mountain and here you are with your arm all bandaged up and some gangland fatwa out on you. Let me buy you a drink.’
    ‘I can’t do that.’
    ‘It’s a case of you “won’t” do it, not “can’t”.’
    ‘Thanks for the lecture.’
    ‘Don’t mention it,’ she says, standing up and walking out of the office. As she gets to the door she leans back into the room, says, ‘If anybody ever needed a drink …’ and she laughs.
    Staffe gestures for Josie to close the door behind her; as she does, he dials Johnson’s home number. ‘Rick?’ he says.
    ‘Just going out for the takeaway, sir.’
    ‘You can do me a favour,’ says Staffe.
    ‘Ahaa,’ says Johnson.
    ‘I want you to go down to Peckham, scare the living shit out of a lowlife called Paolo Di Venuto.’
    ‘For doing what?’
    ‘For being a bastard.’
    ‘Can you be more precise?’
    ‘He’s seeing my sister. Scare him off with anything and everything you can think of: benefit fraud, immigration, dealing or possession. You’ll get the drift when you see him. And see how he responds to an allegation of ABH. Just say you’ve had an anonymous complaint.’
    ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point asking why I’m doing this?’
    ‘26d St John’s Road,’ says Staffe, hanging up, punching in Debra Bowker’s number in Tenerife. As it rings, he writes himself a note to get the ‘see justice done’ photograph remastered, to investigate its every detail, to get the Tech’s take on the hood’s material, any labelling on the clothes and match the hair in the photo to any samples taken from the scene and from Leanne Colquhoun.
    A woman answers the phone.
    ‘Mrs Bowker? Debra Bowker?’ says Staffe.
    ‘Miss.’
    ‘I’m DI Wagstaffe from Leadengate CID.’
    ‘I spoke to one of your colleagues.’
    Staffe leans back in his chair, puts his feet up on the bottom drawer of his desk. On the other end of the line, he can hear children playing. ‘I just wanted to be sure about your movements over the past few weeks.’
    ‘I told your colleague.’ She sighs. ‘Look. If I was you, I’d have me at the top of your list but I can assure you, I had nothing to do with it. Much as it would have pleased me to see the bastard suffer.’
    ‘What do you