by Jo Bannister
‘It’s Hazel,’ she said quietly. ‘Hazel Best – you know, Fred Best’s daughter? You’re in Norbold, you’re in hospital, and you’re going to be fine. You’ve had a knock on the head, that’s all. Pete was here a little while ago, but he had to go back to Byrfield. TB testing. He’ll be back to see you tomorrow. I’m going to phone him tonight. What shall I tell him?’
She waited then, watching to see if he’d make any response. But nothing changed in Sperrin’s inward-turning, self-absorbed expression. Perhaps his eyebrows drew momentarily a little closer together, but the cuts and bruises made it hard to be sure.
Hazel sighed. Perhaps it was asking too much, that he might go directly from hours of unconsciousness to holding an intelligent conversation. ‘Oh well, never mind. Maybe you’ll feel more like talking later.’
She went to the window. There was a deeply uninspiring view over the car park to the ring road, and it was raining again. She was beginning to think it would never stop. She was beginning to think Ash should buy a boat rather than a new car. She grinned privately to herself. She’d take him to visit some dealerships on her next day off, get him to make a shortlist. The challenge would be to stop him coming home with a slightly less elderly Volvo estate, in that same odd shade between beige and brown, simply because that was what he was familiar with.
She turned back to the bed, and David Sperrin was looking directly at her. She caught her breath. ‘David?’ And when he didn’t reply she added inanely: ‘Are you in there?’
She couldn’t tell how aware he was of his surroundings. He wasn’t looking round him, and although his eyes were still on her she saw no recognition in them, wasn’t sure he was actually seeing her at all. She sat down again and, after a moment, took his good hand, the one that wasn’t in plaster, with her own and squeezed gently, reassuringly. ‘Take your time,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll wait right here.’
His eyes fell shut again.
The nurse Hazel had seen before looked in again. ‘Not up to making a signed statement just yet then?’ She didn’t sound particularly concerned. Perhaps she couldn’t afford to be.
‘I thought he was waking up a minute ago. But then he seemed to nod off again. Is that normal?’
‘Insofar as there is a normal with head injuries, there’s often a bit of coming and going before people are ready for the real world again. But everyone’s different. There’s no point trying to hurry things.’
‘How soon will we know if there’s any lasting damage?’
‘You should really be talking to the doctor.’ But when she looked around, there wasn’t one in sight and she relented a little. ‘Probably not immediately. You do see people who bounce back as if nothing had happened, but often there’s a degree of confusion. We’d only really get concerned if there was no sign of that starting to dissipate over the next day or so.’
‘Would you expect him to remember what happened to him?’
The nurse raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t count on it. There’s commonly some memory loss around the concussive event – before, after or both. Not always. We had a rider in here a couple of months ago who woke up after two days and knew exactly what had happened, including which side of the horse she’d fallen off. Brains are funny. No two brain injuries are exactly the same, and no two patients recover from them in exactly the same way.’
‘And the ones who don’t recover?’
She was making the nurse uneasy. ‘I really shouldn’t be talking to you about this.’
Hazel followed her out to the nurses’ station. ‘I’m not a member of his family,’ she pointed out, which was accurate if disingenuous, ‘I’m a police officer investigating a crime. We can talk generalities if that’s less of a problem. I just want to have some idea about what we can reasonably expect.’
After a moment the nurse nodded. ‘Generalities: all right. Except in extreme cases, the technology – the X-rays, the CT scans, the EEGs – can be misleading both ways. They can be overly pessimistic or unduly encouraging. You really only know the patient’s in serious trouble when they’ve had time to wake up properly and haven’t done. The memory loss may be extensive, even total. There may be loss of cognitive function, or motor function, or both.’
Seeing Hazel’s eyes glazing she translated. ‘They may have trouble thinking or moving. They may be left in a persistent vegetative state, never more than half awake, for years. Or they may appear to make a reasonable recovery, but the person who returns is not the person who left – the personality is profoundly altered. The only thing you can say for sure about brain injuries is that they’re unpredictable.’
At that point she seemed to notice how the colour had left Hazel’s cheek, and think that perhaps she should have kept the lecture for other medics, not a rather new detective who also – she’d noticed Hazel’s hand on Sperrin’s – seemed to have a personal relationship with the patient. She smiled brightly. ‘But those are pretty much worst-case scenarios. And usually they follow protracted periods of unconsciousness. When it comes to concussion, being out to lunch for half a day is fairly small beer. I’ve known patients make good recoveries after weeks of unconsciousness.’
Which was certainly more encouraging. ‘I’ll get back to him. I ought to be there if he is going to wake up. He just might have something useful to say.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the nurse, plainly unconvinced.
When Hazel returned to his bedside, David Sperrin was making another assault on the gates of the world. His eyes were open again, and this time there was a suggestion of intelligence, of someone looking out of them. He was trying to focus on the vase of flowers. A whisper of a word escaped him. ‘Roses …’
It wasn’t the Gettysburg Address, it wasn’t Henry V’s speech before Harfleur, but it was a start: it was a recognisable word in an appropriate context. Yes, his grasp of botany left something to be desired, but possibly it always had. Hazel found herself smiling with a relief that might still be premature but was at least semi-justified.
She sat down beside him again, took his good hand in hers, and watched as his gaze moved slowly round from the vase to her face. ‘David, it’s Hazel. How are you feeling now?’
He gave it some thought. ‘I hurt,’ he whispered.
‘I bet you do. Your wrist’s broken, you’ve sprung a couple of ribs and you’ve had a knock on the head. But you’re going to be fine. Do you know where you are?’
Perhaps he’d been listening earlier; perhaps the white sheets and the flowers were a clue. ‘Hospital?’
Every word he managed – every word he said that made sense – lifted Hazel’s heart. ‘Yes. In Norbold. David, can you tell me why you came to Norbold?’
His voice was a breathy echo. Already he was tiring. ‘Norbold?’
‘That’s right. What are you doing here? Were you looking for me? Had you another reason to come here?’
Again the lengthy pause while he considered. Then he said, ‘Where the fuck’s Norbold?’
‘Not an unreasonable question,’ admitted Ash. ‘I mean, even those of us who live here wouldn’t claim it’s the centre of the civilised world.’
‘Not really the point, though, Gabriel,’ said Hazel impatiently. ‘If the very name of Norbold means nothing to him, what was he doing here?’
‘Did you ask him?’
‘I was going to ask him. He nodded off again before I got the chance. I’ll go back in the morning. By then he may be able to stay awake long enough to answer.’
‘On the plus side, he seems to be making sense. Surely that’s a good sign.’
‘Yes, I think so. The staff seemed satisfied, anyway. They reckon he’ll be clearer tomorrow.’
‘Any sign of his car yet?’
Hazel shook her head. ‘It’s beginning to look as if whoever beat him up, took it and kept driving until they found somewhere safe to dump it. A gravel pit, something like that. No witnesses, no cameras. It’s on the registration number watchlist, so if it was still driving around, the
automatic number-plate recognition system should have picked it up by now.’
That made sense. So far, it was about the only thing that did.
Hazel called Byrfield. ‘It’s good news, Pete. He’s been awake and talking – not long and not much, but enough that his doctors are pretty happy with him. He didn’t know what he was doing in Norbold, but that was this afternoon. By tomorrow he may remember more.’
‘I’ll be finished with the vet by lunchtime,’ said Byrfield. ‘I’ll be with you around three.’
‘I don’t think there’s much to worry about now,’ said Hazel. ‘There’s no need to break the speed limit.’
She’d barely ended the call when, halfway to her pocket, her phone rang. It was DCI Gorman. ‘We’ve found Sperrin’s car.’
‘Where?’ She expected him to say a gravel pit, a derelict factory, something like that.
But he didn’t. ‘It’s parked beside a standing stone on a farm lane between Royston and Biggleswade.’
‘Where?’ It was clear from the tone of her voice that she suspected him of making it up.
‘South-east of Bedford,’ said Gorman. ‘Otherwise known as The Back of Beyond.’
‘Who found it? And how?’
‘The farmer complained that it was in his way. When the local plods ran the number plate, they came up with our BOLO.’ Busy policemen love a good acronym: this one, describing a general request to Be On the Look-Out, saved the DCI from saying four extra words.
Hazel had thought – they all had – that finding the Land Rover would make things clearer. But then, none of them had expected to find it up a farm lane fifty miles from Norbold. ‘Could the farmer say how long it had been there?’
‘That’s the best bit,’ said Gorman, with a kind of grim satisfaction. ‘Since yesterday afternoon.’
For a moment, Hazel thought she’d actually misheard. Then she thought, and dismissed the idea immediately, that he was pulling her leg. Detective chief inspectors do not waste their time making fools of their new detective constables, a task which the new DCs can safely be left to accomplish by themselves. Finally she said, ‘That’s not possible.’
‘He seemed pretty clear on the subject. He had to squeeze past it at three o’clock yesterday afternoon. He shouted for the owner but no one showed up. When he was still having to squeeze past it this morning, he phoned the local lads to complain. I’ve said we’ll pick it up first thing tomorrow. Take Sergeant Wilson with you – nobody reads a crime scene better.’
‘You want me to go?’ She couldn’t decide if it was an honour or a punishment, didn’t think she deserved either. ‘I was planning to see David again in the morning.’
‘I can send someone else.’
‘No, that’s all right.’ Hazel thought there was more to be learned from talking to Sperrin than by examining his car, but clearly she couldn’t be in two places at once.
Nor was it just a matter of turning up with a low-loader. There would be liaising to do with the Bedford police, paperwork to formalise the transfer of the vehicle. There had already been some debate over which CID team should lead the investigation, an argument which DCI Gorman seemed to have won for Meadowvale on the basis that an assault victim in Norbold trumped an abandoned Land Rover in Bedfordshire. Even so, there would be ruffled feathers to smooth and she would likely be there much of the day.
When Gorman rang off, Hazel turned to Ash. She filled in the details he hadn’t been able to infer from her end of the phone-call, then asked if he’d mind shutting the shop for an hour the following afternoon. ‘I was going to meet Pete at the hospital at three, and take him for a bit of tea after he’s seen David. It’s a long old drive, to come here from Byrfield and head straight back again. Would you mind standing in for me? You can tell him where I am, and I’ll call him after I get back.’
‘Yes, all right.’ One of the advantages of self-employment was that Ash could shut the bookshop any time he liked. One of the advantages of running at a minimal profit was that this didn’t usually cost him money.
‘The chief’s going to send someone to take a statement from David. If they turn up while you’re there, you might make sure they don’t press him too hard. You know, if he isn’t up to it.’
Ash raised a doubtful eyebrow. ‘How do you propose I do that?’
‘You’ll think of something.’
Hazel was about to leave and go home. But Ash was hovering in a way that suggested he had another matter to broach but wasn’t sure how to start. She waited patiently. When that didn’t work she said, ‘Was there something else?’
Ash took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’ve started divorce proceedings.’
She caught herself staring, made herself blink. ‘Have you?’ she said levelly.
‘You remember, we talked about it …’
Actually they’d argued about it. She’d told him it was time he moved on with his life, severed the last remaining link with a woman who’d almost destroyed him, and Ash had reacted as if she was intruding in his personal affairs. Which she was, but that’s what friends are for.
‘I do,’ said Hazel. ‘Has your solicitor said how long it’ll take?’
‘I don’t think he’s sure himself. Somewhere between long and very long. The fact that Cathy’s the subject of a red Interpol notice might speed it up a little. The court might take the view that, however much we advertise, we’re not going to find her, and she wouldn’t be in a position to defend the action if we did. Either way we’re talking years – somewhere between two and five.’
‘A bit soon to order the cake, then.’
Sometimes Hazel’s caustic side took Ash by surprise. This was one of those times. It was six years since he and Cathy had had a life together. Then she disappeared with their sons, and he’d believed that they were dead and it was his fault. That was when the foundations of his sanity shook. Four years later he’d discovered that they were in fact living comfortably in Cambridge on the proceeds of her crimes. She was wanted for murder and conspiracy.
Ash hadn’t wanted to believe it. She had left him no choice. Even so, it had taken him until now to take the steps necessary to bring the marriage to an end. He knew Hazel thought him weak. He could usually count on her natural kindness to prevent her from saying so out loud. But she had always taken a somewhat robust attitude towards Cathy.
‘I just thought you ought to know,’ he said, rather formally.
‘Yes. Fine.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Don’t forget about Pete, will you?’
FOUR
Sergeant Wilson was a legend at Meadowvale Police Station.
He’d been an amiable and reasonably competent police officer for the first half of his career, but no one who had known him then would have expected him to become the Olympian figure he had. At a time when policemen were valued more for their stature than their intellect, he’d been of barely acceptable height and more – sometimes significantly more – than acceptable weight, and he drew more than his fair share of desk duty since it was universally acknowledged that the only criminals he was ever going to chase down were those whose walking frames had a flat tyre.
But what Sergeant Wilson could do better than anyone at Meadowvale, possibly better than anyone in England, was read a crime scene. Detectives grown old and cynical on the job stood in amazed admiration when Sergeant Wilson looked at a room, or a garage, or perhaps a street corner, and absorbed by some kind of osmosis the myriad details of how things had fallen, or how they had been thrown or thrust aside, and calmly related an account of what had happened. These details would often lead to apprehending a suspect who would sulkily confirm them.
When the powers-that-be decided that scenes of crime officers should no longer be police but civilian staff, Sergeant Wilson calmly tendered his resignation, collected his pension, applied for his old job and was back where he belonged without taking so much as a long weekend first. The eagle-eyed observer might have noticed that he no longer turned up in un
iform, but since he did all his best work clad in a hooded, top-to-toe white plastic garment that did nothing whatever to flatter his figure, most people didn’t realise there’d been a change but kept addressing him as they always had.
Never one to squander an opportunity, Hazel spent most of the drive quizzing him about his speciality. And he was happy to indulge her, even though he’d sooner have been talking football with the young man from the police garage who had come with them to recover the Land Rover.
They found the lane with some difficulty, followed it for half a mile deep into the dormant winter landscape, past a farmyard and up to an open gate. The standing stone was in the middle of the field, but even a Land Rover would have struggled with the churned-up mud of the gateway. This one had been pulled into the hedge on one side by a driver who must have proceeded from there on foot.
Sergeant Wilson approached the vehicle first, carefully, looking around it before he looked into it. He kept the others at a respectful distance until he was quite sure he’d seen, measured and photographed everything he could. Then he beckoned Hazel over. In view of the conditions underfoot he didn’t insist on her covering her boots with plastic bags, but he did silently hand her plastic gloves before proceeding.
‘In short,’ he said, the scalpel-sharp precision of his words contrasting with the nasal burr of his Midlands accent, ‘and with the proviso that this is an initial assessment not a final report, nothing happened here.’
Hazel stared at him. ‘What do you mean, nothing?’
‘Nothing,’ he said again, pontifically. ‘Not a fight, not an attack, no incident of any kind. The keys are in the ignition, the engine was turned off, Sperrin’s coat is on the seat, his wallet and his phone are in the pockets. I’ve got one set of footprints walking away and not coming back, and another, in wellies, coming up the lane, turning round and going back down the lane. That’ll be the farmer. Over there’ – he pointed to a bit of mud which seemed to Hazel indistinguishable from the rest of the mud – ‘is where he stopped his tractor.’