Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [22]
‘You don’t get involved?’
‘People get possessive about trouble, so they only want help on their own terms. And if they don’t want it fixed, getting in the middle of it is dangerous, even if it looks safe. That’s another problem: it can seem like nothing, but then—’ He walked his fingers from his side of the line to the other, then rubbed his hand across the wall in a small circle. ‘The line’s gone and you’re fucked.’
Ratty pushed himself away from the wall, swinging his skinny body round until he faced Goodhew squarely. ‘So I look, but I don’t touch. I don’t let it seep over me.’
He didn’t seem high, he emanated nothing but stale tobacco and paranoia. ‘Touch it and it stains you, Gary. Remember that.’
Getting Ratty to make a statement was clearly not something to look forward to. Goodhew wondered if he could persuade Marks to drop the whole idea; this was unlikely to be the witness to swing a court case in any direction it wasn’t already headed. He sighed, but Ratty didn’t seem to notice.
What path had the younger version of Ratty stumbled down to end up in such a bleak cul-de-sac? Goodhew looked away from him, and the first person he saw was a distant cyclist, standing up out of the saddle, pedalling furiously towards him. He saw a flash of orange swing from behind his back and realized it was the paper boy from the bus station. The kid was short; he’d noticed him on other mornings, struggling with his sack and the high seat of his adult bike. Had that been Ratty once, striving to get somewhere in life?
Ratty was still talking, but Goodhew ceased to listen. The boy’s sack swung wildly as his shoulders swayed from left to right in an effort to move faster still. He was about a hundred yards away and his face burnt red from under his mop of blond hair. His mouth was moving. Shouting something, or just gulping air?
Goodhew made a single instinctive step in the cyclist’s direction, hairs rising on the back of his neck: he knew something was wrong.
At fifty yards, he heard the breathy squawk of the boy’s voice, all the words but one mangled to nothing in the gap between them. ‘Quick!’ was the one word he recognised.
At twenty yards, the boy became more clear. ‘There’s a body.’
He lurched to a halt next to Goodhew, wobbled as his foot reached for the pavement. Goodhew grabbed his arm as he toppled from his bike and held the boy upright until he’d disentangled his other foot from the frame. It clattered to the ground and lay with the back wheel spinning in the weak sunshine.
Sweat pinned a veil of hair flat across his forehead, while the rest stuck up at all angles. He waved his hand back excitedly in the direction he’d come, clinging to Goodhew’s jacket with the other hand as he fought to catch his breath. ‘I recognise you, you’re police, aren’t you? Up there,’ he gasped. ‘Up there, on Midsummer Common.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘This end.’
‘Hang on.’ Goodhew spun round to see Ratty retreating back towards the city centre. ‘I need a statement,’ he called after him.
Ratty turned and walked back several steps. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he shouted.
Goodhew turned his attention back to the boy, whose right arm was still partly raised in the act of pointing. The most obvious sign of distress was his trembling hands; beyond that he didn’t look too bad. Goodhew peered into his face: not quite ready to pass out from shock, he decided. ‘Can you show me yourself?’ he asked gently.
The boy shut his eyes for a moment, then nodded. ‘I touched her,’ he whispered.
Goodhew righted the bike and they walked with it between them. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get it sorted out.’
He quickly radioed in to the station.
‘They’re sending a car, want us to meet them there.’
‘I heard.’
Goodhew nodded. ‘Sorry, of course you did. What’s your name?