Chapter 32
The police station in Beech Street is sandwiched between the job centre and the magistrates’ court, and Jamie wonders if the location is intentional, designed for those who spend their lives bouncing between the three institutions.
He takes a numbered ticket from the machine by the door and stands by a poster condemning modern-day slavery.
The seats are all full. There’s a distinct smell of unwashed bodies, but Jamie can’t identify the source.
Perhaps it’s always present, this cloying, throat-catching scent of feet and fluids.
Jamie feels sorry for the woman on the front desk, and not only because of the smell – in the twenty minutes he’s been waiting she has been called a bitch; been blamed for a missing bicycle, a delayed solicitor and a parking ticket; and had two separate people remind her they paid her wages.
‘Seventy-eight?’ She calls Jamie’s number without looking up.
‘I’d like to report a crime, please.’ The counter is around Jamie’s shoulder height, the floor behind it raised so that the woman is looking down on him.
‘Is it happening at the present time and is there a threat to life to either yourself or a third party?’ She rattles it off so fast Jamie takes a second to process it.
‘Er, no. It happened . . . actually, I’m not sure when it happened.’ Chris had just said the other night. ‘In the past week, I think.’
‘Name?’
‘Mine?’ Jamie hesitates. Would the police tell Alan and Chris who had grassed them up? They know he works with Carrie; it would be easy enough for them to wait for him to leave work, follow him and then . . . ‘Um. Richard Smith.’ He feels himself redden, but she isn’t looking at him.
‘Details of the crime?’
‘Two men urinated on a homeless man.’ Another wave of revulsion washes over him. He wishes he could be there to see the police confront Chris and Alan.
‘Contact details of victim?’
‘I don’t know, sorry.’
‘What’s his name?’ She raises her voice a touch, as though Jamie is a bit slow.
‘I don’t know him. I just . . . I heard about it from the people who did it.’
‘And what are their names?’ Jamie can sense her irritation now, sees her take in the packed room behind him.
‘Alan and Chris.’
‘Last names?’
‘I don’t know. And I don’t have their addresses, either.
’ Jamie gets in there before she can ask.
‘But they drink in the Two Princes. Alan’s in his fifties, he teaches ICT at a secondary school – I’m not sure which one.
And Chris is early thirties, I think. Gold earring.
I think he said he worked in a car factory.
They’re both involved in today’s protest against the new immigration centre, and this assault was definitely racially motivated.
They keep a list of what I think are potentially targets and my—’ Jamie just stops himself saying my partner’s employer.
‘There are local businesses on it. Echelon Warehousing is one of them.’
‘Where did this assault happen, exactly?’
‘They said it was in the entrance to a shopping centre.’ The shopping centre, Chris had said, but Jamie had looked on Google Maps and found four of varying sizes within striking distance of the pub. And that’s assuming it was the Two Princes they’d been drinking in that evening.
‘Nothing’s been reported.’ The woman’s looking at her computer screen, long nails tapping at the keys.
‘I’m reporting it.’
‘I’ve made a note. Thanks.’ She presses a button to her right. ‘Seventy-nine?’
‘Is that it? Don’t you want a statement?’
‘Someone will be in touch if the victim comes forward. Seventy-nine!’
‘But they admitted it! Surely it’s an assault to piss on—’
‘Unfortunately, someone mouthing off in a pub isn’t evidence. We need a victim or a witness – ideally both.’ She presses the button next to her and calls out the next number. ‘Eighty!’
Jamie crumples his ticket into the overflowing bin and pushes open the heavy door, letting it bang behind him.
What a waste of time! He’s under no illusions the police will bother tracking down Alan and Chris; Jamie could probably frogmarch the pair of them into the station with signed confessions and the police would still say there isn’t enough evidence to proceed.
Can’t they get evidence? Ask shopping centres for CCTV, speak to the homeless community to see if anyone heard about what happened?
Isn’t that what the police are supposed to do?
Jamie pushes his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he makes his way back to work.
He can’t stop thinking about Chris and his crude mime, his face contorted in laughter, as it no doubt had been during the assault itself.
Had their victim tried to get away? Had he sworn at Alan and Chris?
Kicked at their shins? Or had he simply curled into a ball and taken the humiliating attack, knowing the odds were already stacked against him?
Anger surges inside him. Men like Alan and Chris, who target the most vulnerable people in society, are cowards. Their victims are easy targets, unwilling to draw attention to themselves, unable to go to the police. And so the perpetrators get away scot-free.
Jamie calls Carrie. If the police want evidence, he’ll get them evidence. He’ll coax more details of the assault out of Alan and Chris; he’ll find out from Carrie what happens to the company names she passes on. He’ll get the name of the organization they’re working for.
Then he’ll give everything to the police.
‘Hey!’ Carrie sounds delighted to hear from him. ‘Are you on your way?’
Jamie speaks quickly, before he can change his mind.
‘Listen, I’m really sorry, I can’t make the march – family crisis.
But what Alan said, about joining a group of like-minded people .
. .’ Jamie stands by the crossing, waiting for the lights to change.
He takes a deep breath, the noise of the traffic drowned out by the thunder of blood in his ears. ‘I’m in.’