You Are Dead Read Free

issues.
    She had one on the line right now. A young man, crying.
    â€œI’m going to kill myself.”
    His hysterical voice was barely audible above the crackling roar of wind.
    â€œCan you tell me where you are?” He was phoning from a mobile phone, and the location of the cell tower receiving and transmitting his signal showed up on her screen. It was in the town of Hastings and he could have been in any of a dozen streets.
    â€œI don’t think you can help me,” he said. “I’ve got problems in my head.”
    â€œWhere are you?” she asked him calmly and pleasantly.
    â€œRigger Road,” he said and began blubbing. “No one understands me, yeah?”
    As she spoke she was typing out a running incident log and instructions to a radio dispatcher.
    â€œCan you tell me your name?”
    There was a long silence. She heard what sounded like Dan. “Is your name Dan?”
    â€œNo, Ben.”
    The whole tone of his voice was worrying her. She completed her instructions with Grade One, which meant immediate response—and to be there within a maximum of fifteen minutes.
    â€œSo what’s been happening this week to make you feel like this, Ben?”
    â€œI’ve just never fitted in. I can’t tell my mum what’s wrong. I’m from Senegal. Came when I was ten. I’ve just never fitted in. People treat me different. I’ve got a knife, I’m going to cut my throat now.”
    â€œPlease stay on the line for me, Ben, I have someone on their way to you. I’m staying on the line with you until they get to you.”
    A reply flashed back on her screen with the call sign of a police response car that had been allocated. She could see on the map the pink symbol of the police car, no more than half a mile from Rigger Road. The car suddenly jumped two blocks nearer.
    â€œWhy do people treat me different?” He began crying hysterically. “Please help me.”
    â€œOfficers are very close, Ben. I’ll stay on the line until they get to you.” She could see the pink symbol entering Rigger Road. “Can you see a police car? Can you see a police car, Ben?”
    â€œYrrrr.”
    â€œWill you wave at it?”
    She heard voices. Then the message she was relieved to see flashed up: Officers at scene.
    Job done, she ended the call. It was always hard to tell whether would-be suicide calls were real or a cry for help, and neither she, nor any of the others here, would ever take a risk on a call like this one. A week ago she’d taken a call from a man who said he had a rope round his neck and was going to jump through his loft hatch. Just as the police entered his house, she heard him gurgling, and then the chilling sound of the officers shouting to each other for a knife.
    Amy looked at her watch. 5:45. Not halfway through her twelve-hour shift yet, but time to grab a cuppa, and see how many others in the department fancied ordering in a curry tonight from a local, rather good balti house, which was fast turning into their latest canteen. But before she could remove her headset and stand up, her phone rang.
    â€œSussex Police emergency, how can I help?” she answered, and immediately looked at the number and approximate location that showed on the screen. It was in the Crawley area, close to Gatwick Airport. She guessed from the traffic noise the caller was on a motorway. An RTC, she anticipated—most calls from motorways were either reporting debris lying in one of the lanes, or else road traffic collisions.
    As was so often the case, at first the young man seemed to have problems getting his words out. From her long experience, Amy knew that for most people the mere act of phoning 999 was nerve-wracking, let alone the effect that the emergency they were phoning to report was having on them. Half the people who called were in some kind of “red mist” of nerves and confusion.
    She could barely hear the