Page 107 of Little Children

Sixty-Eight

‘Sorry to drag you along to this, mate,’ Roy said, screeching out of the car park. ‘Procedure says at least two people have to attend a possible suicide, and the rest of the team ain’t close enough. I’m not taking a woman, and your other guy looks a bit shifty to me.’

Bryant held on to his seat as Roy drove as erratically as though he had a blue light on his roof.

‘What’s the report?’ Bryant asked, wondering if he’d trust Roy to talk to anyone considering suicide.

‘A guy in his thirties top of Sainsbury’s car park. Called in by a concerned member of the public. Keeps walking close to the edge.’

Bryant knew the supermarket was only a few miles away from the station, but since Roy knew all the shortcuts, the man was in and out of side streets like a boy racer. Bryant was swinging all over the place.

‘Sorry about the ride, bud, but you know how it is when you’ve got the chance to save someone.’

As Roy turned onto Talbot Street, Bryant’s phone began to ring.

‘No time to take that, pal,’ he said, screeching through the car park entrance. ‘Imagine if our guy jumped cos you were talking to the missus. Your team knows where you are cos I told them on my way out.’

Bryant realised they were about to go looking for a potential suicide. He couldn’t get out of the car already talking on the phone.

Roy pulled the car to a halt at the bottom of the ramp leading up to the roof level.

‘Come on – we’ll get out here and walk. We don’t want to spook him with the noise of the car.’

Bryant shut the passenger door and followed.

The roof of Sainsbury’s looked like most other rooftop car parks. A vast open space with a few cars dotted here and there.

There was no sign of any movement.

‘Over there,’ Roy said, pointing to the plant room buildings. ‘That’s always a favourite spot.’

He didn’t wait before sprinting in that direction.

Bryant followed, having to jump a small fence to get behind the brick building.

He turned the corner to find… nothing. Just Roy, standing there with his arms folded and an unpleasant smirk on his face.

‘Ah, fuck. Looks like they must have changed their mind.’

Sixty-Nine

‘Hang on. Slow down,’ Red said, holding up his hands.

After Bryant had failed to answer his phone, Kim had called Red, who had luckily been pulling into the car park after receiving a call to return for a final handover.

In the long minutes it had taken for him and Adil to reach the office, Penn and Stacey had been blowing up both Bryant’s and Roy’s phones to no avail, while Kim had been making a big decision.

Despite the fact that Red’s tentacles seemed to have touched every area of their investigation, she was forced to confide in him.

She knew she couldn’t find her colleague without him.

Right now, she didn’t know if she could trust him, but she had no choice but to trust him with this.

‘You’re saying that Roy and Bryant have gone out on a call?’

‘There was no call,’ Kim snapped with exasperation. She really wished he’d catch up without her having to explain it to him.

‘There was no call from dispatch,’ she said again. ‘Roy pretended there was to get him out of here under false pretences.’