by Ken McCoy
‘Sep!’ she screamed, cradling his bloodied head.
‘Looks ter me like he’s had it,’ said one spectator, dolefully. Winnie looked up and glared at him, knowing that there’s always someone hoping for the worst on these occasions.
‘I’ve rung for an ambulance,’ said a more helpful one. ‘I told them they need to be quick. They reckon ten minutes ETA.’
‘He’ll never last ten minutes,’ said the doleful spectator.
‘You won’t last ten bloody seconds if you don’t shut up!’ screamed Winnie.
A queue of traffic was forming with many impatient horns sounding but Winnie had no awareness of this. She was only aware that Sep was showing no sign of life. She tried to find a pulse but she had never been any good at that. Still cradling his bleeding head in her arms she spoke to him.
‘Sep Black, don’t you die on me now, don’t you dare die on me, Sep Black. I love you, Sep. If you can, you need to speak to me. Show me you’re alive. Any sign at all. Please, Sep.’
But Sep said nothing, did nothing. He just laid there, lifeless. A passing police car stopped. Officers got out. One of them knelt beside Winnie.
‘Do you know who he is?’
‘It’s S … Sep Black …’ was all she could say.
‘DI Sep Black?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hit-and-run,’ someone called out. ‘There’s an ambulance on its way.’
The other officer was asking for witnesses. He rang it into the station: ‘We’ve got an RTA on Warbuoys Road. The victim is DI Black … yes, our DI Black. An ambulance has been summoned, but double-check that please. It looks very urgent. It’s a hit-and-run. Could be attempted murder. Small, dark blue unmarked van is all I’ve got. Headed off down Rathbone Terrace, possibly heading for Wakefield Road. It happened five minutes ago so it’s still in the area. We need to alert all available units.’
‘Is DI Black still alive?’
‘My partner can’t find a pulse. It’s touch and go. He’s in a bad way. The hospital needs to be alerted.’
Three hours later the man in the van was no longer in the van, because the van was now a compressed metal cube in a Rotherham scrapyard. He was a large, heavy-featured and heavy-lidded man with gnarled teeth and a pock-marked complexion. He called himself Mr Wolf after a character in the film Pulp Fiction. He considered it was more intimidating than his real name – Stanley Butterbowl.
Wolf had returned from Rotherham by train and was watching the evening news on the TV in a hotel room. It said the man in the road accident was seriously injured but still alive. This meant Wolf’s payday would be delayed until the man was dead. Either that or he’d need to finish the job. If it was the latter he’d demand an extra grand – no, two grand. The man was a cop. A second attempt would be so much more dangerous than the first. In fact, it occurred to him to go in heavy with Redman and demand to be paid his three grand now for work in progress. The idea had been to scare Sep Black into not investigating Santiago’s death. Wolf figured he’d already done that. Even if Black hadn’t been scared off he wouldn’t be in a fit state to investigate anything. Wolf had hit him good and hard and had seen him bounce on the road through his mirror. If Black lived, he’d most likely be in wheelchair for the rest of his life. That should be good enough for Carl bloody Redman.
NINE
Fiona and Winnie sat side-by-side outside the Intensive Care Unit in St James’s Hospital. Fiona looked at her watch. ‘His daughter and her mother should be here soon. I hope we get some encouraging news before they get here. You know, it’s not fair on them, putting them to all this worry.’
‘This isn’t really Sep’s fault,’ Winnie said. ‘He was talking about giving up on this case before he got knocked down. Trouble is, knowing Sep, if he recovers, he’s bound to go after whoever did this to him.’
‘Well, I don’t wish him ill,’ said Fiona, ‘but it’ll be a miracle if he makes a full recovery.’
‘Fiona, this is Lazarus Black we’re talking about.’
Fiona gave a wan smile, appreciating Winnie’s optimism. ‘Yes, he has truly magical powers of reincarnation.’
‘I’m guessing you’ve said a prayer for him.’
‘I have indeed. I’ve asked the Lord to forgive him his trespasses and to balance them against all the good work he’s done down here.’
‘Do you think one balances out the other?’ Winnie asked.
‘Only if you don’t include all the aggravation he’s caused me over the years.’
‘And me,’ said Winnie. ‘I forgive him, though.’
‘That’s the problem with Black. He’s such an easy bugger to forgive. If he gets well, you must insist on him marrying you and taking a desk job.’
‘I must insist on Sep marrying me? Yeah, that’s gonna work. We’re supposed to be engaged but he keeps forgetting. I think his first marriage put him off the idea.’
‘Winnie, he should never have married her. Marrying you is his only chance of survival into old age. What he needs is a desk job. All this running around after villains is taking its toll of him.’
‘Maybe, but you must admit he’s had some good results in the past.’
‘Not for a while.’
A registrar appeared, still wearing a green surgical gown. Fiona and Winnie examined her face for optimism. Was he alive or was he dead?
She chopped off their doubts with one sentence.
‘Miraculously, he’s still with us.’
‘Is he going to make it?’ Fiona asked.
‘Too early to say I’m afraid. We brought an orthopaedic surgeon over from Leeds Infirmary to do the bone work – best man in his field. I knew he’d worked on Mr Black before so I rang him on the off-chance. He’s certainly given your friend the best chance he’ll ever have of getting his bones back in working order. Anyway, he’ll be out in a minute to speak to you. His name’s Callaghan.’
Two minutes later the surgeon appeared, having removed his scrubs. ‘Hi, my name’s Peter Callaghan, I’ve been working on your friend, I believe. Does he have any relatives here?’
‘He has an ex-wife and a daughter. I can’t imagine what’s keeping them,’ said Winnie. ‘I’m his fiancée.’
‘Ah, you’ll do then. Erm, as far as we can tell he was knocked clean over the vehicle and landed on his left side, with his left shoulder taking the brunt of the fall which was as well, as it cushioned the effect such a fall would have had on his skull, which is fractured but not disastrously. He may well develop a subdural haematoma but we have an excellent neurosurgeon who’ll keep an eye on that.’
‘Will he be paralysed in any way?’ Winnie asked.
‘Well, our first job is to keep him alive but, having mended him before, I know Mr Black has an extraordinary determination to stay alive. I keep coming across pieces of my old work. I’ve completely rebuilt his left shoulder which should work OK once it’s all healed, although it may well give him arthritis in his old age.’
‘We’re hoping he has an old age to have arthritis in,’ said Winnie.
‘Quite. Tomorrow I’m going to work on his leg and his ribs where the vehicle impact was, but before that another surgeon will need to fix his internal damage. As far as paralysis is concerned none of his vertebrae were damaged.’
‘So he should walk again?’ Winnie asked.
Rachel, Sep’s ex-wife appeared, very flustered, along with Phoebe, his daughter.
‘Is he all right? I’ve had a devil of a job getting here. Only found out half an hour ago.’
‘Is Daddy awake?’ Phoebe asked the surgeon.
‘No, he’s still under anaesthetic and we’ll keep him asleep until all the work is done, which will be tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Rachel persisted. ‘I’m his ex-wife. This is Phoebe, our daughter.’
‘All I can say is that the odds are in his favour.’
‘That means he’ll be OK, Mum,’ said Phoebe. ‘Daddy always beats the odds.’
&nbs
p; Rachel remembered Winnie’s last question, still unanswered and asked it herself. ‘Will he be able to walk again?’
Winnie looked at Rachel and suspected she still had feelings for her ex. She couldn’t fault her for that. He was the father of her daughter, which surely counted for something, but Rachel had been a poor wife; betraying him with a cruel lie and taking a lover when he needed her support the most. Winnie would never be a poor wife. Her love for him was real … unquenchable.
‘All I can say,’ said Callaghan, ‘is that I see no reason why not … at the moment. Just as long as he doesn’t take a turn for the worse.’
‘Daddy never takes a turn for the worse.’
The surgeon smiled at the young girl’s optimism. ‘Even if all goes well it’ll be several weeks before he’s up and about again. He has severe bruising all down his right leg where the vehicle hit him. That alone will keep him off his feet for a few weeks.’
He took Rachel and Phoebe into a small room to repeat everything he’d just told Winnie and Fiona, both of whom sat there in a daze, still not sure if Sep would live or die.
‘He’s been in some bad situations,’ said Winnie, ‘but never as broken up as this. God, he must be in a thousand pieces!’
‘Winnie, under all this anaesthetic there’ll be an awareness inside DI Black. He’ll have no intention of dying and if Sep Black doesn’t want to die, he won’t die.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He told me about it once. He plays it like a game of life, but it’s a game he reckons he knows how to win.’
‘Did you believe him?’
‘Not sure. I’ve been under anaesthetic a few times and I don’t remember dreaming, so I’ve got no idea how it works, but there again, who knows how Sep Black’s mind works. I know he’s not ready to die just yet.’
The registrar appeared again. ‘Has Mr Callaghan been to see you?’
‘Yes, he’s in that room talking to Sep’s ex-wife and daughter. Is everything OK?’
‘Well, yes – other than Mr Black woke up out of his anaesthetic which shouldn’t have happened. He woke up, grinned, winked and me, then he went off again. He shouldn’t even know where he is or what happened to him, so why is he grinning and winking?’
‘It’s what he does to good-looking women,’ said Fiona.
‘What? Me dressed like this?’
‘According to Sep the prettiest thing a woman can wear is a smile. I’m guessing you smiled at him.’
The registrar reddened slightly. ‘Oh … I, er … I need to tell Mr Callaghan.’
‘Yes, I think you should,’ put in Winnie. ‘It’ll cheer his daughter up, if nothing else.’
As the registrar left, Fiona turned to Winnie with a grin on her face, ‘Looks like he’s decided not to die today.’
Winnie shook her head, not believing this hocus-pocus. She’d believe it tomorrow when Sep was better mended; alive, conscious, talking sense and not winking at pretty registrars.
Fiona knocked on Mrs Santiago’s door quite tentatively. Not a policeman’s knock at all. In fact, when she came to the door Mrs Santiago took a very close look at Fiona’s warrant card to confirm she was who she said he was.
‘You don’t look like a police detective.’
‘Thank you, that’s very much to my advantage.’
‘Yes, I suppose it must be. I heard about Sep Black. How’s he doing?’
‘He has his own unique life force, has DI Black. What would kill a normal human being is little more than an inconvenience to him.’
‘So he’s going to be all right, is he?’
‘He’ll live, yes, but this was more than an inconvenience. He’ll be laid up for quite a few weeks.’
‘Well, I’m glad to hear he’s going to be OK. He seemed a decent sort to me. I assume it’s his accident you’re here to talk about, is it?’
‘It was no accident, Mrs Santiago.’
‘I know that, I meant—’
Fiona cut her off. ‘We haven’t got many leads as to who might do this to him and I’m hoping you might point me in the right direction.’
‘I’ll help if I can, but I’m not sure how.’
Fiona followed her through into the sumptuous room in which she’d spoken to Sep. In fact, she sat in the same velvet chair.
‘My theory is,’ she said, ‘that someone doesn’t want your husband’s murder investigated and I’m obviously wondering who that might be.’
‘In other words, you want me to tell you who Charles’s enemies were.’
‘Something like that, yes. Perhaps business rivals or something more personal.’
‘You mean a jealous husband?’
‘Is there such a person in the picture?’
‘Possibly, possibly not. My husband had several affairs, the latest being a woman called Magda Feinstein. I know her husband knew about it, because I told him.’
Fiona looked at her notes. ‘Ah yes, Jacob Feinstein. We had him investigated and he had a solid alibi. I’m wondering about any previous affairs he might have had.’
‘Well, he was with her for over a year. I imagine any other husband’s anger might have cooled by then.’
‘Possibly.’ Fiona studied her. ‘It seems to me that you tolerated these affairs of your husband.’
‘We had what you might call an open marriage.’
‘An open marriage might well enrage a lover’s spouse into murder.’
‘Possibly, but not in our case.’ She examined Fiona for a few seconds then added, ‘There is one name you might want to investigate. His name is Graham Feather. He was the company accountant for many years until he was locked up for embezzling the firm. He was released about a month before Charles died. He served three years.’
‘Really?’ said Fiona, looking at her notes. ‘I’m wondering why we didn’t follow that up.’
‘Because I didn’t realize he was out until quite recently and nor did the police, apparently.’
‘If that’s the case, it was very remiss of us.’
‘Yes, it was. Your Inspector Wood doesn’t inspire confidence. I hear Graham still bears a grudge – his story is that Charles took the money and set him up for it.’
‘And what’s your take on that?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean do you think your husband might have done such a thing? It’d certainly have provided a motive for revenge.’
‘True. I struggled to believe Graham would embezzle us for a few thousand pounds. He came from a wealthy family and he wasn’t short of a money. He only worked for us to occupy his time.’
‘Why would your husband do such a thing?’
‘Because the missing money had found its way into Charles’s account and he found a devious way to place the blame on Graham than admit to it himself. There are few minor shareholders in Santiago TechSys who wouldn’t have looked too kindly on Charles embezzling company money.’
‘Where can I find this Graham Feather?’
‘I believe he’s living in Leeds. His wife divorced him and ended up with a big house and their two children – she got married again, so I hear. She used his prison record against him in the family court so he’s got very restricted access to his children.’
‘Is he working?’
‘Doubt it. As I say he wasn’t short of money. I think he’s bought a decent place for himself. He’ll be in his late forties now. I suspect he’ll be looking forward to a very lonely old age.’
‘Hmm,’ said Fiona. ‘A man like that would hold a lot of bitterness if he’d been set up for a crime he didn’t commit. Is he a man capable of murder, would you say?’
‘I don’t know what a man like that would be capable of. I know he’d have money to pay someone else to do his dirty work for him.’
‘How would he know such people?’
‘He’s been in prison, hasn’t he?’
TEN
St James Hospital Leeds
‘Good grief, sir!’ said Fiona, ‘You’re bandaged
up like the invisible man!’
The reply came through a hole in the head bandage. ‘So how do you know it’s me?’
‘It’s written above your bed and whoever wrote it knows you of old.’
‘Why, what’s it say?’
‘Septimus Black. Treat with caution.’
‘Ah, they like their little jokes, these nurses.’
‘How many times have you been brought into Casualty over the years?’
‘Seventeen, according to their records, mind you, five of them were when I was a boy. So, what news from the world of crime detection?’
‘Ah, I’ve got myself seconded to the Cold Case Unit, pending your return,’ Fiona told him. ‘The super’s given me your job to do.’
‘Well, you know everything that I know, except for one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You need to know how to keep your head down.’
‘Well, I’ll take no advice from you on that. The super’s let it be known around the station that the Santiago case is being put on hold because of your injuries. I’ve been told not to mention to anyone that I’m working on it. As far as the station’s concerned I’ve joined the Cold Case team to help out in your absence.’
‘Was it Hawkins who told you not to touch the Santiago case?’
‘Yes and no, sir. She wants me to stay on it, but not tell anyone.’
‘I wonder who she’s worried about down there?’
‘Sir?’
‘The super obviously thinks that the way to get the word out to the bad guys is to tell the station that the case has been put on hold, so the bad guys drop their guard. She thinks there’s a leak.’
‘She never mentioned anything like that to me.’
‘No, but she’ll have done it to protect you. I think Cock Robin might be the hot favourite.’
Fiona smiled at Sep’s use of Wood’s new nickname, as Sep added, ‘I think he’s already been got at, which is why he had the case dropped before it ever got started.’
‘I think we have a hot favourite for the killings, sir, his name is Graham Feather. He used to be Charlie Santiago’s accountant until he got sent down for embezzling three grand from the firm. He claims Charlie framed him and took the money himself. He was released a month before Santiago was murdered.’