Bright Spark by Gavin Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

urban
underclass were being goaded into flurries of rage and repentance by a man who
truly, passionately wanted to understand their pain, but was there to lay it on
the line and give them hard facts and home truths and then offer them a team of
counsellors to wave a magic wand over life’s horrid complexities.
    His
phone chirped, its battery waning. He should text Hayley, but that might wear
the battery down and he couldn’t remember where he’d left his charger. In any
case, the volumes left unsaid would eclipse whatever thoughts his fat thumbs
could squeeze into crude shorthand.
    Sugar
was always an answer. He pushed some change into another machine, dialled a
number and saw his own reflection, like a lion watching a crippled zebra, as
the Mars bar uncoiled from its row, inched forward slowly, tilted to drop and
deliver its rush of glucose goodness, then hung there, wedged.
    He
could stand the expense of walking away or buying another. He could see the
sense of the notice warning against trying to shake items loose from a
top-heavy hunk of glass and metal. But that was his Mars bar, he needed it and
this machine really should know better. The pressure spiked behind his forehead
and he shoulder-charged the machine, felt it rock backwards, heard something
drop, felt it rock towards him, flung his shoulder into it again, swore and
spat and made it stop moving.
    He
was panting, spent, calm. He crouched to retrieve the Mars bar and some other
items he’d liberated. As he stood to leave the contraband on top for other
gannets to take, he traced a crack running the length of the machine's glass
casing. He glimpsed his own reflection again, his face in two ragged halves. He
glanced at his watch, peered down the corridor and listened, hearing nothing
but the TV where fingers were jabbing and chairs flying to a fugue of righteous
hatred, threats and self-pity.
     
Harness pocketed the free snacks, took a clean tea-towel, wiped clean any part
of the machine he might have gripped, butted or tackled in an unusual way,
replaced the towel on the tea urn and sauntered back to the office, seeing
nobody. He resisted the urge to whistle.
    Chewing
the Mars bar in delicious figures of eight like a candy floss machine, he tried
and failed to log on to the computer. According to the password protection
protocol, he was either an expired user or he should have changed ‘Hayley’
before today. Prepared to believe either explanation, he logged on using
Slowey’s details, and was gratified to find that he was still using child
number three, ‘Jemima’, as his password.
    He
brought up the incident log entitled, ‘Fire – Persons Reported’, scrolled
through twenty pages of machine code, situation reports and resource
allocations, found room to type and used his two fastest fingers to give his
instructions in five hundred words of scrappy prose. As his words solidified on
the screen, an almost identical text appeared from DCI Brennan.
    Harkness
hadn’t seen any trace of him in the office and supposed he must be observing
all from HQ. He liberated his radio from a locked drawer and switched it on,
expecting to be summoned by the channel he was least likely to be using.
    The
‘nominals’ tab was flashing on the screen. He clicked on it and was surprised
to find the names and dates of birth of every occupant of 13 Marne Close, along
with one of their neighbours. Then some of the lines of numbers began to make
sense; the incident handling system had linked all previous police call outs to
the address.  Harkness drew himself over the screen like a preying mantis, and
busied himself scribbling notes, opening new screens and printing out reams of
data.
    Symmetrical
green digits resolved themselves into jagged, human shapes.  A dozen late night
phone calls from Suzanne Murphy reported violence from Dale, actual or
threatened. Half a dozen weary reports by uniform showed that they’d attended
domestic disputes and found all quiet on arrival