He froze for a second. It was his first domestic since the incident. The familiar images from his nightmares rushed him – the girl in the white dress staggering towards him, the maroon blood spreading through the pristine material. The mother and son lying together in a scene of carnage, but always worst of all – the tiny figure of the girl no more than six years old, lying still and peaceful, her eyes wide open in death with barely a mark on her body. His radio blared again and brought him back to the present.
‘Can you deal, 42? Control over.’
‘Yes,’ King answered, his voice almost too weak to hear. ‘Yes,’ he repeated more strongly. ‘Show me as dealing. I’m with 274.’
‘Thanks,’ the voice acknowledged. ‘I’ll show yourself and 274 as assigned.’
‘You all right?’ Renita asked.
‘I’m fine,’ he lied as they began to walk to the location of the domestic.
‘Is this your first domestic since … you know?’
‘Yeah,’ he answered. ‘Can’t avoid domestics for the rest of my career. I’ll be fine.’
‘I can handle it on my own if you’d rather,’ she offered. ‘No one need know.’
‘No,’ he snapped at her slightly before gathering himself. ‘No. I want to deal. I have to.’
As they approached the scene of the reported domestic, King was relieved to hear the normal sounds associated with such an occurrence – a man and woman screaming at each other – dispelling his fear that he was about to walk into another silent trap of horror.
‘Sounds like things are in full swing,’ Renita joked before they had to dive head first into other people’s misery and anger.
‘Great,’ he replied through gritted teeth as they approached the front door and found it already open – the sounds of exchanged profanities spilling out onto the communal walkway. King knocked on the door once, called inside, ‘Police’, and then entered without waiting to be invited, quickly taking in his surroundings – looking for any immediate dangers, obvious or hidden. Other than the duelling couple he saw none, although he was surprised by the size and clever open-plan design of the kitchen and living area of the maisonette, noting that it was clean and ordered, with no shortage of decent mod-cons, least of all the oversized LED TV dominating the space. He was relieved the fight was taking place in the living area and not the kitchen where deadly weapons always lurked close to hand, denying the attacker time to think – time to take stock before they committed a serious armed assault or worse.
‘Someone call the police?’ he added to get everyone’s attention.
The man looked in his direction and grimaced before continuing to shout at the woman standing only inches in front of him. ‘Why did you have to go and call this fucking lot?’
‘Because you’re a drunken arsehole – that’s why,’ the woman King assumed to be Debbie Royston answered him.
‘All right,’ King said calmly as he moved towards them. ‘That’s enough. Who called us?’
‘Me,’ Royston answered, ‘and I want this fucking drunk out of my house.’
‘You Debbie Royston?’ he asked.
‘I ain’t going fucking anywhere,’ the man interrupted.
‘You,’ King pointed a finger into the man’s chest, ‘be quiet and don’t interrupt me again.’
‘Yeah, I’m Debbie Royston,’ she now answered, ‘and this is my house and I want him out of it.’
‘I’ll get to that,’ King assured her, ‘but right now we need to know if anyone else is in the house?’
‘My kids,’ she answered, still shouting everything she said. ‘Hiding upstairs scared half to fucking death because of this bastard.’
‘Shut up, you stupid slag,’ the man began again.
‘One more word,’ King warned him. ‘One more word.’ He took a breath before continuing, but suddenly paused as he felt a strong presence for the first time since entering the home. It was strangely powerful and alluring, but dangerous too. He turned his head towards the source of whatever it was that had been strong enough to distract him from the couple who’d already started screaming at each other again and saw a teenage girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen. Intelligence and sexuality blazed from her almond-shaped eyes that were so brown they appeared quite black. Her strikingly angular face was covered with flawless olive skin and framed by long deep brown curls. Her tight jeans and top showed off her curved hips and full, shapely breasts. Despite the complete lack of style or subtlety in her appearance, she was undeniably beautiful.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked the screaming woman, before realizing his virtual whisper was being drowned out. ‘I said, who’s this?’ he shouted loud enough to match them as he continued to stare at the girl standing halfway up the stairs. She looked straight into his eyes, a slight smile of seduction on her lips as she seemed to ignore everything in the house but him.
The couple momentarily stopped shouting and looked in the direction he was facing. ‘That’s my eldest,’ Royston told him. ‘Kelly.’ She looked to King and then back to Kelly before bellowing at the girl. ‘I thought I told you to stay upstairs and watch your brother and sister.’ Kelly casually shrugged and began to climb the stairs, looking back over her shoulder as she did so, her eyes never leaving his as she seemed to float from step to step with the grace of an old movie star.
‘How old is she?’ he asked Royston once the girl was out of sight.
‘Why d’you want to know?’ she asked, suspicious.
‘For my report,’ he told her, not even sure if he was lying or not.
‘She’s seventeen,’ Royston finally answered. ‘Be eighteen in a couple of months.’
‘And the other children in the house?’ he asked, recovering from the distraction of Kelly.
‘Jason’s thirteen and Sharmane’s eleven,’ she told him, before re-igniting the battle with her boyfriend. ‘Not that it’s got anything to do with the fact that I want him out of my house.’ She stabbed an index finger at the man’s chest.
‘I ain’t going nowhere,’ he shouted back as King and Renita got in between them, easing them further apart. ‘I paid for everything in here, so why the fuck should I go anywhere?’
‘’Cause it’s a council house and it’s registered in my name,’ she screamed back with an ugly smile.
‘All right,’ King spoke loudly enough to be heard and silence the bickering couple. ‘You,’ he talked to the man. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Chris O’Connell,’ he answered truthfully. King could smell the alcohol on his breath.
‘Is the house registered in your name?’ King continued.
‘No,’ O’Connell admitted.
‘No, it bloody isn’t,’ Royston refused to remain silent for long. ‘I told you – it’s in my name.’
‘So fucking what?’ O’Connell called to her over King’s shoulder.
‘Do you want this man to leave?’ King went through the procedural questions he needed to ask.
‘Course I want him to bloody leave,’ she confirmed loudly.
‘Then, Mr O’Connell,’ he told him, ‘you have to leave.’
‘I