Page 30 of Her Lips Are Sealed

She jumped back down. Ben reached into his pocket and pulling out a wad of tissues he passed them to her.

She held them to her nose. ‘Is it broken?’

‘I’m scared to look,’ he said.

Sirens in the distance got louder until a van screeched to a halt at the entrance to the alley. Ben jogged down towards the officers to tell them where their suspect was.

‘Arrest him for police assault, but he’s going to need to go to A&E first. He’s inside the building site, fell off the wall.’

The two officers grinned at Ben who shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with us, although he kicked Morgan in the face, so Karma is a bitch and all that.’

‘Yes, boss, we’ll go around to the entrance. Should be a security guard on site, there usually is.’

Morgan’s nose was on fire, but she caught up to Ben.

‘We’ll jump in the van with you two.’ Her voice was thick and nasally because of the damage to her nose, which hopefully wasn’t broken just busted.

Ben tugged open the sliding door and helped her inside. He sat opposite her and suddenly started to laugh.

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Sorry, it’s not even funny.’

‘Then why are you laughing at me?’

‘I don’t know, I think it might be relief that you didn’t follow that goon over the wall because…’

‘Because I’m an idiot?’

He shook his head. ‘Because you’re a selfless, brave idiot.’

Morgan gave him the middle finger as the van jerked to a halt throwing her forward. Ben caught her before she headbutted the seat opposite her, which would have completely ruined her nose for all of eternity. The gates to the building site were wide open for them, and a security guard pointed towards the wall at the far end.

‘Steve’s gone to see if he can help that guy. We called an ambulance but one’s already on the way.’

‘Cheers, pal,’ said Mac, the officer driving. He tucked the van into the side so the ambulance could still get past.

‘Do you want to wait here?’

‘No, I’m good.’

Ben wouldn’t dare to argue with her, she was in no mood, and she got out of the van striding towards the security guard and the two cops from the van who were staring down into the hole.

‘Get me the fuck out of here.’

‘It’s okay, Paul, you know we’re going to have to stop meeting like this. It’s not the first time you’ve legged it from an officer, is it? There’s an ambulance on the way. We can’t move you until they get here.’

‘Said who?’

‘Said the rulebook.’ Mac was standing over him; arms folded over his chest. ‘We might even need mountain rescue, pal; that’s a deep hole you landed yourself in.’

Morgan looked down at the guy.

He realised it was her and muttered, ‘Oh, shit. I’m sorry about your face, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to get you off my foot. I wasn’t aiming for your nose on purpose.’

‘Yeah, well, I bet you wish you’d let me hang on to it now, Paul. You’re in a worse state than I am.’

Mac and the security guard laughed a little too loud, and Paul told them all to, ‘Fuck right off.’ Then continued writhing in pain.