Case One Read Free

on then, let’s get a fucking move on before the cops think about looking to see who’s around.”
    And with that he shoved his hands in his pockets and quickened their pace towards the entrance to the tower block.

4.
    GATEMEAD ROAD
19:16 HRS
    The paramedics had arrived two or three minutes ago and, doing as she’d been told, Holly continued to hold the wound dressing in place on the girl’s arm while they did their job. One of the paramedics – a woman in her thirties called Blanche – was carefully fitting a neck support to stabilise the girl’s head. The other, named Sancho, was monitoring the girl’s stats with a stethoscope in his ears.
    â€œBP’s one-twenty over sixty,” he said. “Pulse weak – you on apprenticeship then?” He glanced over at Holly so she’d know he was talking to her.
    â€œA trainee, yeah,” Holly nodded. Like all the other TPOs she hated being called an apprentice. She thought it made them sound less official, but the label had stuck when the TPO scheme was announced and that was how most people thought of them: apprentice coppers.
    â€œShallow breath sounds on the right. Query pneumothorax,” Sancho said to Blanche. Then: “First RTC?”
    â€œWhat? Oh. First serious one, yeah,” Holly said. It still struck her as odd, the way all emergency service personnel jumped in and out of banter mode, no matter how serious the situation.
    Sancho nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This isn’t so bad. If she’d gone under the wheels you’d be on shovel duty by now.”
    â€œKnock it off, Sancho,” Blanche said, gruffly. She had finished fixing the neck support and was straightening up. “Ignore him, love,” she said to Holly. “Everyone knows we don’t use shovels.”
    â€œRight,” Holly said.
    â€œNah – it’s wallpaper scrapers.”
    Sancho chuckled at the gag and Holly knew she’d have to let that one go. TPOs were fair game as far as the police regs were concerned, and now that seemed to extend to the paramedics as well.
    When Blanche went off to get a spinal board, Sancho changed position. “Let me have a look at her arm,” he said.
    Holly moved her hand from the wound dressing and Sancho gently peeled it off. The flesh of the upper arm was sliced down to the yellow of the bone, but there was remarkably little blood: just a bit of oozing now that the pressure had been released.
    â€œNot too bad,” Sancho said. “She’ll have a nice scar. But that’ll be the least of her worries.”
    â€œIs—” Holly hesitated. “Will she be okay?” It was the question she’d been waiting to ask since the paramedics had arrived.
    Sancho seemed to register the fact that Holly was genuine in her concern and treated it seriously.
    â€œOnce we get her stabilised she’ll be fine,” he said, strangely definite in his words.
    He took a fresh dressing from the kit beside him and leaned a little closer to Holly, lowering his voice. “Best to remember there’s always a chance the victim still knows what’s going on around them,” he said. “Even like this. Best to stay positive.”
    Holly nodded, matching his whisper. “So she isn’t…?”
    â€œShe could have a fractured skull, and her vitals aren’t great. We’ll see. You want to check her pockets, see if she’s got any ID?”
    â€œIs that okay?”
    â€œYeah, go ahead.”
    The only pockets Holly could find were in the cardigan the girl was wearing. In the left-hand one she found a small leather purse, but before she could open it Blanche returned with the spinal board, and when the two paramedics started the procedure to move the girl Holly stood up and backed out of the way.
    For the first time since she’d arrived, Holly looked round. Apart from Oz and Sergeant Stafford there were two more