In the Village of Pepperstock Green – Chapter (046) – MLK

 January

 

When Marnie Louise Knight got into her car on a cold crisp January morning in Pepperstock Green she was feeling unusually positive, and it was the first time for several years she had felt that way, in fact it was the first time really since her divorce.   

She moved to the village after getting married as her ex-husband was a local and being introduced to the village was the only good thing to come out of her marriage.

Marnie was headed into Pipershaven with her new-found positivity and the reason for her positive frame of mind was actually a misunderstanding and stemmed from the moment when she viewed her Twitter feed and saw that #MLKday was trending.

“MLK? That’s me” she said triumphantly and went off to shower.

Had she clicked on the hashtag she would have discovered that it was actually Martin Luthor King day, and not Marnie Louise Knight day, but she hadn’t so she took it as a sign.

In truth it didn’t really matter what made her positive, what was important was that she liked the feeling and she was determined not to relinquish the feeling, and she managed to get as far as the edge of Pipershaven when the incident that dented her positivity occurred.

She had just got off the Finchbottom Expressway onto the slip road when a BMW undercut her and, in the process, sideswiped her into the crash barrier.

The airbag deployed the moment she made impact, and she closed her eyes and stamped on the brakes as her momentum carried her almost sixty yards before she came to a halt, and she was dazed and bleeding from a head wound as she saw the BMW drive away and then she passed out. 

  

When the ambulance arrived at the Pepperstock and District Hospital they took her straight into the emergency department and she was immediately attended to by Doctor Lauren Lewis and Nurse Mia Lawson.

 

PC Koenig sat down next to Marnie’s bed while Mia Lawson, a skinny freckly nurse with her straw-coloured hair tied in a bun stitched the cut on her scalp.

“Do you know who ran you off the road?” Morten Koenig asked

“No” She replied

“Can you describe the car?” he asked

“Silver”

“Make? Model?”

“No” she said shaking her head

“Keep still hon” Nurse Lawson said

“Dash cam” Marnie replied

“Excuse me?” PC Koenig responded

“I had a dash cam, forward and rear facing” she said and winced

“Well, that will definitely help” he said “I’ll come back this evening and get a proper statement.

“Ok” she replied with closed eyes

As PC Koenig walked away Mia leant in close and whispered

“He’s a dish” And squeezed Marnie’s hand as she added “and he’s coming back to see you later”

 

Marnie had a mild concussion, a broken wrist, bruised ribs, and a number of cuts and contusions so they admitted her overnight for observation, and it was upstairs on a ward where PC Koenig went to take her statement and left his partner PC Jamie Osborne in the ED where nurse Mia Lawson flirted with him.

 

PC Morten Koenig was a tall man in his late twenties, with a good physique beneath an unflattering uniform.

And as if being six feet four inches tall didn’t make him stand out enough, nature had also endowed him with prematurely grey hair.

But Marnie cheered up when she saw him approaching, she’d been a bit miserable since they took her up to the ward, she’d overheard the porters talking earlier and one of them mentioned Martin Luthor King Day.

“Duh” she said to herself “so much for being a sign”

So, she’d spent the afternoon feeling sorry for herself but when she saw him, she realized Mia was right, he was a dish, and she had always had a weakness for grey hair.

 

It didn’t take long to take Marnie’s statement as she was very together and very precise, which was a blessing and a curse because he rather liked her and although the way she gave her statement made it easier for him to transcribe later it meant the interview would be over far too quickly.

He thought it was a shame he was on duty as he would have asked her out under any other circumstances.

When he had finished, he handed her the statement for her to sign, and after she had scrawled her Monica, she noticed his own signature and printed beneath it was PC M.L.Koenig.

“MLK” she thought to herself “maybe it was a sign after all”

Marnie handed the statement back to him and blurted out

“Can I call you? …. in case I think of anything else”

“Yes” he said “and perhaps I should have your number in case I have any more questions for you”

“What a good idea” she said and handed him her phone, and he smiled as he entered his number.