Right now we should have been laughing and congratulating each other, boosted by the adrenaline thrill of success. We should have been waiting for the cops to show up and cart off a very surprised and down-trodden mugger. One who wasn't expecting his victims to fight back.
Instead I was waiting for the paramedics to come and tell me with their serious eyes and their sober stance that there was nothing they could do . . .
The sound of running footsteps shook my foggy mind aware. I glanced up and saw Ailsa and one of the other residents hurrying down the drive towards us. The other woman took one look at the scene illuminated in the Mini's headlights, then reeled away and threw up onto the edge of the lawn.
Fortunately, Ailsa had a slightly stronger stomach. She came forwards like someone approaching the loose edge of a chalky cliff, her hand squeezing my shoulder in silent support.
More footsteps made us both turn. Tris came jogging out of the house, pulling on his old parka jacket and carrying a couple of blankets. “Help's on the way,” he said in a hushed voice when he reached us. “Is she . . .?”
I grimaced up at him and shrugged.
Joy's eyes snapped open again at that moment, making the pair of them jerk backwards, cursing. With a sharp movement she gripped tight onto my wrist, desperation lending unearthly strength. She tried to mouth words her destroyed voice box couldn't begin to form.
Blood bubbled between her lips, speckled with saliva, then she went limp. I swear in that moment I watched the light dim in her eyes, like the last flicker of a torch with an exhausted battery.
In the distance, came the faint wail of sirens.
***
It was well after midnight when I wearily climbed the stairs to the flat and let myself in. The half-cleared debris of the interior seemed even more depressing as I flicked on the lights.
I put the kettle on for coffee as a reflex rather than out of any real desire for caffeine. I was too wired to sleep, too tired to do much else. My mind couldn't stop turning things uselessly over and over.
I stripped out of my ruined jogging pants and threw the sweatshirt straight into the rubbish, pulling on fresh clothes. I suppose I could have soaked the blood out of them in a bucket of cold water, but I didn't have much of an inclination to try.
The pants had been pale grey and looked worse than the shirt, which was green. Blood goes black on a green background. I remember my father telling me that was why surgeons wore it. Saves making the relatives faint when they came straight out of the operating theatre splattered with the stuff.
I checked the answering machine for messages. There were a couple of pupils letting me know about classes they couldn't make, and one from Sam, asking me to get in touch. The last message was from Marc.
“Just calling to check you're OK,” said that rich voice, perfectly at ease talking to a machine. “You sounded slightly off-line the other day. Call me, Charlie. Any time – I mean it.”
I half-smiled. People who say things like that on answerphone messages so often don't really expect you to take them up on it. Like the ones who say, “you're always welcome” or “see you soon”. They'd be horrified if you actually turned up on their doorstep at two the following morning.
On an impulse, I picked up the phone and dialled Marc's mobile number. I nearly changed my mind in the time it took to connect, but once it had started ringing out I held my nerve.
“Yeah?” His laconic greeting wasn't quite what I expected. For a moment I couldn't think what to say that didn't sound foolish, or inconsequential. “If that's you, Zachary, you better have a good excuse for ducking out of work tonight! Hello? Talk to me.”
I rushed into speech. “Hi Marc, it's me. You said call any time, so – I'm calling.”
A fractional pause. “Charlie! How lovely.” There was genuine warmth in his voice. “It's late. Are you all right?”
“Er, yes – no. I don't know,” I faltered. There was the heavy beat of music in the background at his end of the line. He must still be at the club. Busy.
“Want to tell me about it?” he suggested without impatience. The gentleness in his voice was nearly my undoing. I'd been fine all through the impersonal information-gathering of the police who'd turned up at the Lodge. Now I was in danger of losing it big time.
Victoria had gone to pieces so badly that a woman constable had driven her home in the battered Mini, after the medics had given her a sedative. It was the only effective thing they'd been able to do. By the time they arrived Joy was past even their best-trained ministrations.
“A friend of mine has just died,” I said. It sounded so lame, such an inadequate way of describing the events of the past few hours.
“Oh Charlie, I'm sorry,” he said politely. “Was it sudden?”
“You could say that. She had her throat cut. I was with her.” The surface tension broke and the tears spilled over. “I watched her die, Marc, and there was nothing I could do.”
There was another pause, longer this time, tense. “Would you like me to come over?”
I pulled myself together. “N-no,” I said. “I'll be OK.” I caught sight of the hand that gripped the phone receiver and stretched the other one out in front of me. They were both ingrained with dried blood, sunk deep into my pores and laced under my nails. I grimaced at the sight of it. “Besides,” I added with the semblance of a smile, “I look a mess.”
He laughed softly. “How very female,” he murmured, then, “Hold on a moment, would you?” I heard him take the phone away from his mouth. There was the mutter of voices in the background.
I took advantage of his absence to sniff loudly and tell myself to get it together. I suppose I should have been grateful that I hadn't gone off the rails quite as badly as Victoria. Maybe I was just getting used to bloodied corpses...
“I'm sorry,” I apologised when he came back on the line. “You're obviously busy and the last thing you want is me blubbering at you.”
“Don't be stupid. You're hardly blubbering,” he said. “It's been a relatively quiet night, but Len's just been having fun and games with a couple of rowdy punters. We're a bit short-handed.”
“I would have thought all you'd have to do is let Angelo off his leash and stand by with a mop and bucket to clear up the aftermath.”
“We probably would have done, but he wasn't in tonight,” Marc said with a hint of annoyance. “He called in sick. In fact, that's who I thought was calling me now. I tried him earlier and couldn't get a reply. He's either too sick to answer the phone, or he's not sick enough and he's gone out somewhere.”
“He's probably too busy beating up his girlfriend,” I muttered, recalling suddenly the way Victoria's eyebrow rings had been torn out of her face. It made me wince to think about it. I didn't even have my ears pierced. Still, that was nothing compared to the level of violence that had been shown towards Joy . . .
“Sorry, Charlie the line just crackled. What did you say?” Marc asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “Look, I'm sorry Marc, I'm still all mixed up and my brain just seems to be going off at a tangent half the time.”
“Are you sure you don't want me to come round? I can be there in less than twenty minutes.”
“Yes I'm quite sure,” I said more firmly. “Thanks anyway Marc. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow.”
“OK. I'll call you,” he promised. “And if there's anything I can do, Charlie, you know you only have to say.” I heard the sincerity in his voice, knew he meant it.