Perfect Silence. Helen Fields

polis,’ was the response.

      ‘Did any of you happen to witness the incident?’ Lively continued unabashed. ‘Only there’s a man having his face stitched back together as we speak, and he’s not the first. We’d be grateful for any help you can give us.’

      ‘Like you’ll fuckin’ do anything about it,’ one of them muttered.

      ‘Got any money?’ another asked.

      Salter looked across the park at a nearby row of cafes. Most were closed, but one was catering for the evening student crowd and still serving hot food. ‘Tell you what. See if you can remember anything that might help, and I’ll buy each of you a hot meal, waitress service and all. Your choice of coffee or tea, but no booze.’

      A general muttering followed, then one of the huddle of men spoke up.

      ‘Paddy had taken that zombie shit. He’d been standing up, just staring, away with the fairies for about two hours. Stupid prick. Couldnae even speak his own name by that point.’ The man drew a bottle of unidentified clear liquid from his sleeve and took a long swig. The odour Salter caught from it was more reminiscent of a hardware store than an off-licence. ‘Then he started walking round in circles, all the way round the edge of the playground. Must have done twenty laps. Walked into that bin over there every friggin’ time. Could we have the cash instead of the meal?’

      ‘No, you cheeky git, you can’t,’ Salter said. ‘Did you actually see Paddy get attacked?’

      ‘We heard it,’ another of the men said. ‘Sounded like someone had cut his balls off. I never heard a man scream like that in my life, poor bastard. Didn’t make him run or nothing though. He just staggered out from behind those trees looking like someone had run his face through a shredder. I nearly puked.’

      ‘You must have checked around to see what had happened,’ Salter said. There was a shuffling between the men and a long pause. ‘Come on,’ Salter said. ‘You saw something. Now really isn’t the time to get huffy about sharing information with the police.’

      ‘Give it to her, Stonk,’ one of the men said, elbowing his companion sharply in the ribs.

      ‘Fuck’s sake,’ the one known as Stonk replied. ‘Give me a minute.’ He got slowly to his feet and began the painful process of lifting one layer of clothing after another, checking through endless pockets and cursing intermittently when he came up empty. ‘Where did I put the wee bastard?’ he muttered to himself.

      ‘What exactly is it you’re looking for?’ Salter asked.

      ‘The key,’ he said, letting the vowel sound extend as he gleefully presented it, dangling from his fingertips.

      Salter watched DS Lively drift across the play area to a small copse of trees, where uniformed officers were pointing at something on the ground. His timing wasn’t coincidental. Now that Stonk had actually produced what might prove to be relevant information, Salter would have to take a formal statement from him, and that meant spending at least an hour writing it out, checking it through with him and sitting in the vicinity of fumes that would haunt her clothing until they next made it through the wash. She sighed.

      ‘All right. Where did you get the key and why is it relevant to the attack on Paddy?’

      ‘We saw three blokes running away. One of them dropped it,’ Stonk said. ‘I went over to pick it up.’

      ‘How far away were they from you?’ Salter asked.

      ‘They were taking off down that path, just to the right of the trees, where your man is now,’ said another, pointing.

      Salter stared and tried to estimate the distance. It was at least thirty metres away. ‘Are you telling me you saw an object this small fall from a man’s pocket as he was running in the semi-dark? Forgive me, but that seems unlikely.’ There was a lack of reply and an uncomfortable ducking of Stonk’s head into his multiple hoods. ‘I see,’ Salter said, the picture clearer as she imagined how the scene must have played out. ‘Paddy screams, you all listen to see what’s happening and then you hear the joyful sound of metal falling onto the concrete. How quickly did you manage to get up to see if it was a coin that had been dropped?’

      ‘That’s not nice,’ Stonk said. ‘I’m helping you.’

      ‘And I appreciate it, but an accurate picture would be more helpful than the one you’re giving me. So you didn’t actually see it fall then, you just heard a metal object hit the floor and this was what you found?’

      ‘Aye, maybe,’ Stonk said. ‘But it was in the right place at the right time. That’s got to count for something.’

      Salter rubbed a tired hand over her eyes. ‘You three stay here,’ she said. ‘I’ll need a statement from each of you. Do you want dinner before that or after?’ Predictably, there was a chorus response in favour of before. She called a uniformed officer over to stand guard so that none of her witnesses could disappear before she returned from the cafe with their food, not that they were likely to get difficult until after their bellies were full. Still, a deal was a deal.

      ‘Sarge,’ she shouted, holding out a gloved hand for Stonk to give her the key. She walked over to find Lively staring at a patch of ground that even in the dark she could see was crimson.

      ‘They cut deep this time, much deeper than with Mikey Parsons. That’s a lot of blood right there,’ Lively said.

      ‘Apparently three men ran from the scene. This was picked up afterwards, over here, and it was heard hitting the floor at the same time as the men ran. It needs logging as evidence.’ She dropped it into a bag that Lively produced from his pocket.

      ‘Could have been from anyone,’ Lively said. ‘They might just have kicked it when they ran.’

      ‘I know, but it’s enough that I’ve to buy them all dinner,’ Salter said.

      ‘Right you are. I’ll have one of the uniforms go and start taking statements. Bloody mess this is. Two attacks days apart, same Z mark on the face. What sort of animal does that to a bunch of men already down on their luck?’

      ‘The sort that don’t want to run any risk at all of a victim fighting back or being able to identify them,’ Salter said. ‘Cowards.’ She wandered off towards the lights of the cafe, hands shoved deep into her pockets, head down.

      Ava inspected the key. ‘How good are the descriptions they gave of the men running away?’ she asked Lively and Salter.

      ‘Three figures that looked male, all wearing dark clothing with hoods up. Can’t accurately state height. Average weights, not obese, too tall to be young kids. Didn’t see any faces. That’s the best we can do,’ Lively replied.

      ‘And the witnesses themselves? If one is very poor and ten is perfect, how are we rating their reliability in terms of them being made to look absolutely ridiculous by a defence lawyer?’ Ava asked.

      ‘It really depends if you regard being drunk, potentially stoned and possibly with some mental health issues as affecting credibility,’ Lively said.

      ‘It’s a one, ma’am,’ Salter added.

      ‘Great,’ Ava replied. ‘Prognosis for this victim?’

      ‘He’ll live. Lost a lot of blood though. Might easily have died from shock alone. We phoned the hospital when we got back. He’s out of surgery but has lost an eye. They say his vital signs indicated severe amounts of drugs in his system, so to be frank, he’ll be sod-all use in terms of identifying his attackers,’ Lively said.

      ‘Right, let’s process the key for prints, DNA and any useful fibres. It has a tiny fob on it. Have you checked that out yet?’ She peered closer at the key, turning the bag over in her hands.

      ‘Not yet. We came straight to see you,’ Salter said. ‘Quite a large area of the Meadows had to be sealed off and by the time we left there were journalists grilling the officers at the cordon. It seemed likely