Then – February 2016
Ella didn’t want to go to the pub but somehow she’d been dragged along to a down-at-heel place a few streets away from the Garton campus, not the sort of establishment she was used to from back home or the kind she’d gone to while she was away at Cambridge. Not what she’d had in mind for her time in London either. This was a relic of the London of last century, filthy patterned carpet she’d bet had every blood type in existence ground into it. Photos of darts players and winning greyhounds on hunter-green painted walls. A big-screen TV, of course, half a dozen fruit machines and a full-size pool table where a couple of other recruits were already playing, going up against a pair of men she clocked right off as potential trouble. Late thirties, all slouch and swagger, a bit too much gold on them and a lot too much laughter, which was as fake as the leather covering the banquette her friends noisily filled while she went to the bar.
Somehow she was getting the first round in. Because they’d all pegged her for money within the first few days and, no matter how much she tried to convince them she was in the same boat they were, it was obviously a lie. Wrong accent, wrong university. What was a girl from Durham doing training alongside graduates from Aberystwyth and Sunderland? Why wasn’t she at law school, if she was so smart and dedicated to the pursuit of justice?
The barman came over and chucked his chin up at her.
‘What’ll it be, love?’
‘Four Beck’s,’ she said. ‘Bottles, please.’
He nodded, took his time getting down to the fridge, having to steady himself with his fist pressed to the bare concrete floor back there. He was old and overweight, had the look of an ex-copper about him, Ella thought. Maybe that was why he’d bought the place near Garton, always full of raw recruits. A nostalgia trip.
She paid for the drinks and took them over to her friends, irritated that she had to sit with her back to the pool table on an uneven three-legged stool.
Paola and Kat were huddled over on their phones, swiping and laughing, totally lost in whatever they were looking at. Laurel was watching the game unfolding, her eyes on Aaron as he cued up a shot and sent one of the striped balls riffling into a corner pocket. They’d been going out for a couple of weeks, screwing noisily in her room at the house Ella shared with Laurel and two other girls. He never stayed the night and Ella wondered if he was going on to another girl after he was done with Laurel. It was his style, she thought.
No wonder him and Pearce had buddied up. Aaron had the looks, Pearce had the mouth and the aggro to get his mate out of trouble when he stepped over the line with some other bloke’s girlfriend.
Ella had seen the pair of them at work, on evenings when Laurel hadn’t come along and during classes she didn’t attend. She’d seen Aaron flirt with female instructors and the women who worked in the canteen, years older than him some of them, but it didn’t seem to matter. All while Pearce stood back, watching and waiting, and it occurred to Ella that Aaron’s performance was perhaps more for Pearce’s benefit than the women he was charming.
When Aaron popped the eight ball into the same pocket, Laurel jumped up and cheered, earning her sneers of derision from the blokes they were playing.
‘Double or nothing?’ one asked.
‘Not going to take any more cash off you, bro,’ Pearce said. ‘Don’t look like you can afford to lose it.’
The man laughed, gestured at his friend who was already rechalking his cue. ‘Boy here’s questioning my means.’
‘And your skills,’ his mate said. ‘Be fair, though, I was sinking everything on our side. Should be me and him double or nothing.’
‘Nah.’ The man took out his wallet, slapped a twenty on the table. ‘Me and you, blondie, rack up.’
Pearce shrugged. ‘Can’t say I never warned you.’
It was a blatant hustle and Ella wondered where Pearce had been before he got to Garton to not see what was happening. All that attitude with no experience to back it up. Maybe that was why there was so much attitude. Plain old inadequacy.
Almost six weeks in and he’d not made a move on any of the girls. There was some gossip that he was gay, but Ella knew better; she’d felt his hard-on digging into her side when he took her down during a personal-defence class. He held her pinned to the mat for longer than necessary, smiled at her like an invitation, his knee between her legs. The instructor was barking at someone at the other end of the room and Pearce didn’t move.
‘You feel that?’ he’d asked. ‘That’s chemistry.’
Ella drove her knee up into his balls and he rolled screaming on to his back, red-faced, tears streaming down his cheeks.
That was when she got her first warning. Dragged into Gould’s office and told that violent conduct would not be tolerated under any circumstances. ‘You do not hit a man in his tackle, Riordan!’ Never mind that Pearce started it. She couldn’t prove what he did to her, while his injury was all too obvious.
The next class they were put together again. The instructor telling her, with a smile, to play nice. Ella had been suspicious right away, but she wasn’t going to back down and ask to be moved. Pearce might be bigger than her and stronger, but he was unschooled and too arrogant to protect his vulnerable points. He didn’t even seem to realise where most of them were.
Wrist, she’d thought. The arch of his foot and back of his knee. Three strikes, maximum damage inflicted without it looking too aggressive. Just like her father had taught her.
But she hadn’t got the chance.
First move, Pearce made a blocking motion he later claimed to have misjudged, and hit her in the throat.
Four days ago now but still it hurt every time she swallowed and a hoarse note remained in her voice. Gould bought Pearce’s story, backed up by the instructor, and she was supposed to think about whether she was really equipped to deal with the physical intensity of a life in the police force. Whether she had the correct temperament for it.
As if she was the one acting out of line.
Across the table Laurel was talking about Aaron, some club he wanted to take her to at the weekend, some hipster place, she said, her eyes widening like it was an exotic suggestion. She was from Taunton, so maybe it was.
‘You should come,’ she said, fizzing with enthusiasm. ‘It could be like a double date.’
‘Who with?’ Ella asked, already knowing she meant Pearce, but surprised she was stupid enough to suggest it.
‘Come on, you know how much he likes you.’ Laurel gave her a teasing grin. ‘Aaron says he’s always talking about you. He’s just too shy to ask you out. He thinks you’ll shoot him down.’
‘I’d shoot him in the face if I could.’
Laurel tutted, but lightly, because she thought it was a joke rather than something Ella found herself fantasising about more and more often.
‘Give him a chance, he’s actually really good company. I mean, he’s hilarious. And look at him, Ella. That body!’
Behind her the sound of balls striking and Pearce swore as he missed his shot. She could feel his presence moving around the table, allowing the other man space to take his turn. She heard his soft but heavy footfalls stopping very close by and noticed Laurel flick a glance towards him before she lowered her voice, leaning in.
‘Just come out with us,’ she said. ‘One date, see if you click.’
Ella leaned in too, felt her bruised windpipe protest. ‘He punched me in the throat. You think we’re going to click after that?’
‘It was an accident,’ Laurel said pityingly. ‘He’s totally gutted about hurting you. I saw him when it happened, he was mortified. Seriously. And he apologised straight away, didn’t he?’
‘Of course he did; an apology’s the most effective way of doing whatever the hell you want to people with no repercussions,’ Ella told her. ‘If they’re stupid enough to buy it.’
Laurel’s face hardened but she still looked like a naïve little country girl, Ella thought, all big blue eyes and freckles on her cheeks. She wasn’t tough enough for this job. Or smart enough. If she couldn’t see Pearce for what he was, she would be eaten up and spat out by the criminals she’d eventually find herself squaring up to.
‘He’s prepared to forgive you for kneeing him in the balls – don’t you think you owe him the same chance?’
Another mis-strike behind her and Pearce moved away. Once again Laurel’s gaze strayed towards him for a second.
‘It’s not like you’re going to get a better offer, Ella.’ She mugged a concerned frown. ‘I mean, no offence, but he’s way out of your league.’
‘If you fancy him so much why don’t you go out with him?’ Ella snapped, louder than she meant to. ‘I bet him and Aaron would love to go twos on you. I bet they talk about that all the time, too. Who gets the good end and who has to look at your face.’
‘You sad bitch,’ Laurel said, trying to be cool but she was angry now and Ella was too, shaking with rage that had crept up on her, this conversation tipping her beyond the point of self-control. She dug her fingertips into the edge of the padded stool.
‘Me? I’m not the— fuck!’
Her hand went to her spine. The pain immediate and intense, on the point of the bone. She saw a striped red ball land by her foot. Saw Pearce smiling, straightening up from the shot he’d just chipped at her.
‘My bad, Ellie.’ He gave a big, open-chested shrug, palms up. ‘I know you’d prefer my balls on your chin than your back.’
A gale of laughter, Pearce the loudest, but they were all against her. He fist-bumped Aaron, who repeated his joke like an idiot.
‘That’s a foul,’ Pearce’s opponent said, pointing at him across the table with his cue. ‘And you should buy the lady a drink to apologise.’
Ella heard their debate as if at a distance, blood rushing in her ears, heart rate climbing. Every movement she made felt heavy and deliberate and slowed to half speed; she reached to retrieve the ball from the floor, feeling how snugly it fitted in her palm. She stood, fully focused on Pearce, who was coming towards her with his hand out.
‘Need my ball back, if you can stand to part with it.’
Four metres away. The pool table separating them.
She smiled and it felt manic on her face, but he didn’t see it. He didn’t care about what women wanted enough to bother reading their reactions or studying them for nuance. Another vulnerability that would get him in trouble.
Three metres and they were drawing together at the corner of the table.
Ella’s fingers flexed around the ball and then loosened as she let it roll from her palm into the curve of her knuckles.
She saw Pearce’s mouth open, didn’t hear what he said. Felt more laughter ripple the air around her. She told herself to keep breathing.
Pearce turned towards Aaron, showing her his exposed cheek.
Ella whipped her arm over and threw the ball at his head, expecting to miss, intending it as a warning. But it connected with a sickening crack and he bent double, blood rushing out of his mouth as he looked up at her, his eyes full of adrenaline-fuelled rage.
She couldn’t move.
She saw it coming but her legs were frozen, knees locked in place, and she didn’t even manage to get her hands up to defend herself before he launched himself at her. He caught her around the midsection, driving the wind out of her lungs, and slammed her down on to the floor. Ella threw her hands over her face, felt his full weight press down on her torso but only for a moment as he snapped back to his feet and then his big boot came down on her ribs.
A scream broke out of her. She turned on to her side and tried to crawl away, but his foot crashed down on her again. It was as if he was trying to stamp right through her body and grind his heel into the carpet she could taste now, on her lips, feel its coarseness and greasy slick against her cheek. She could hear shouting, a man snarling his name, girls screaming.
She was going to die. Here. Like this. After everything. All the hard work. All the sacrifice. She was going to be killed by a man who should have been her comrade, his big boot stamping her ribs to splinters.
No.
No.
She rolled on to her back. Her vision was blurred but she could see him. The smudge of his legs coming towards her again. She kicked out and connected with air, the action sending bolts of pain ricocheting around her ribcage.
He leaned over her and she managed to strike at his face. Too slow. He caught her hand, placed it gently on the floor and held it there, moved in closer, inches away from her face, before she could see him clearly enough to realise it wasn’t Pearce but the landlord.
‘You’re alright, girl, don’t move. Ambulance is on the way.’