by Adam Croft
‘Thanks. If we had other family closer, we’d... Well, you know.’
‘Don’t worry about it. They seem like good people, your neighbours. You’re lucky. Most people don’t even know who their neighbours are.’
‘Yeah. Well I just don’t want the kids seeing Tanya like this. It’s not fair on them.’
Wendy agreed. Seeing Tanya’s battered and bruised body, her head partially shaved, all manner of wires and tubes sticking out of her — that wasn’t something even an adult should see, let alone a small child. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked him.
‘Uh, yeah, a few hours ago probably.’
‘Why don’t you head down to the café and grab yourself something? You need to eat.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ he replied.
‘But you need to eat. It’s not going to do you any good to just sit here and look at her. It’ll only take a few minutes. If there’s any change, I promise I’ll come and get you myself.’
‘I’m fine. Honestly.’
Wendy could see there was very little point in arguing with him while he was so tired and in that frame of mind, so instead she smiled, rose, and headed for the nurse’s station. When she got there, she was fortunate enough to be able to steal some time with the ward nurse, who was kind enough to offer Wendy fifteen minutes of her own lunch break.
‘Has there been any news since we last spoke?’ Wendy asked her.
‘No, everything’s still pretty stable. That’s generally a good sign, although we’d obviously want to see signs of improvement. She seems to be coping well, though.’
‘Well enough to be able to do it on her own?’ Wendy asked, knowing that the only way they were going to make a real breakthrough on this case was if Tanya regained consciousness and was able to tell them who might have done this to her.
The nurse raised her eyebrows momentarily. ‘It’s entirely possible. You never know. The brain’s a funny old thing. To be honest, the levels of intracranial pressure were on the high side of normal when she came in, but they haven’t risen at all since then. If anything, they’ve dropped slightly.’
‘That’s a good sign, surely?’ Wendy asked, wanting at least something to hold onto, at least some good news to tell Culverhouse.
‘Yeah, absolutely. It’s only one thing, though. There are a number of things we look at when we decide whether or not to induce a coma or to end an induced coma.’
‘And, in your opinion, do you think she’s close to being brought out of it?’
‘In my opinion, yeah. I probably would’ve brought her out of it by now. Actually, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have induced it in the first place.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I mean, obviously it’s got its risks — any medical procedure does — but on top of that, I wouldn’t have said she was quite at that critical level. Then again, different doctors and different consultants have different views on these things. Some think you’re better safe than sorry, and others like to allow the body to do its own thing. Medicine’s a rich tapestry.’
Wendy smiled and nodded. ‘A bit like policing, then.’
‘I should imagine there are a lot of similarities,’ the nurse replied, beaming. There was always an odd sense of inter-service camaraderie between the different areas of the public sector. Almost a unifying, defiant knowledge of what the other had to go through in order to simply do their job in modern times.
The door opened and the friendly face of Julian Mills, the consultant, peered round it. ‘Alright if I come in?’ he asked.
‘Of course, no problem,’ Wendy replied. ‘We were just talking about Tanya Henderson. And about how long she’s likely to be in the induced coma.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Mills said. ‘Well, it’s always a very delicate balancing act when we’re talking about brain trauma. Personally, I like to make sure things are stabilised for a bit longer than usual before we take any drastic measures. A lot of the brain’s healing is done over long periods of time, some of it years after the patient leaves the hospital. There’s quite a bit of evidence to suggest that their long-term recovery can be sped up by a slightly increased period of medically induced coma. It’s a bit like that extra half an hour in bed in the morning; it can give you a good couple of hours of extra time at the end of the day.’
‘When you say slightly increased,’ Wendy asked, ‘how long are we actually talking?’
‘Impossible to say,’ the consultant replied. ‘Sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear.’
‘But she’s stable at the moment, yes?’
‘Yes, at the moment she is. Things can still change very quickly, though. Don’t forget it’s been barely thirty-six hours since the original trauma. There’s still a lot of instability under the surface. Things might be stable while she’s in a medically induced coma, but bringing her out too early could reverse all the good that’s been done.’
Wendy sighed and looked at the nurse, who took her unspoken cue to leave the room.
‘The thing is,’ Wendy continued, once she’d gone, ‘we need to find out who did this. An innocent woman being attacked on her own front doorstep, with her four-year-old daughter watching.’ She could see the empathy in Julian Mills’s eyes. ‘Do you have children?’
‘Yes, two,’ he replied.
‘The problem we have is that the only direction we have to go in right now is that of Tanya’s own witness testimony. Everything else leads us to a dead end. Without being able to speak to her to find out what she knows, I’m afraid it’s looking extremely unlikely that we’ll ever discover who did this. And bearing in mind there’s a very high chance that Tanya’s life and the lives of her children will be changed forever, and a half-decent chance that she might not recover at all... Well, would you want your kids to have to go through that? Never knowing why it happened or who did it?’ Wendy stared at Julian’s crestfallen face, knowing that she’d hit the right spot.
‘Listen, there are always compromises that can be made. Like I said, it’s still early days. But if she stays stable for the next few hours, I’m happy to look at starting to reduce the levels of barbiturates. If we see signs of deterioration, though, we’ll have to increase the dose again. I want to help you as much as I can, of course, but I do need to put my patient’s safety first.’
Wendy smiled. ‘Thanks, doc.’
23
Jack Culverhouse closed the door to Charles Hawes’s office behind him and walked back down the corridor. The Chief Constable was, to all intents and purposes, generally on his side, but it was hard not to feel the increasing weight of pressure on him, knowing that it was going to be all but impossible to find out who had attacked Tanya Henderson — not without her own witness testimony, at least, and there was a distinct and growing possibility that her testimony was something they were never going to get.
He didn’t have too long to ponder the possibilities, however, as he was soon fishing his ringing mobile phone out of his jacket pocket. The display showed him it was Antonio García, calling from Spain. He swiped the screen to answer the call.
‘Antonio,’ he said, flatly.
‘Jack. Why so cheery? Shit weather again?’
‘Yeah, something like that,’ Culverhouse replied, for once too exhausted to engage in the usual banter.
‘Well, let’s see. I’ve been doing a bit more work for you. You can buy me a few beers later. I think we’re up to around one hundred,’ García said, laughing. ‘A guy I used to work with, Leandro Martín, now works privately. Cheating husbands, social security cheats, all that sort of thing. He owes me a favour too, so I mentioned you to him.’
‘Oh, right,’ Culverhouse replied, not quite sure how to take this.
‘Jack, he’s good. He has contacts. He had a tip-off from someone about a woman and her daughter in Redován. It’s a town about twenty, twenty-five kilometres inland from Torrevieja. Listen. You mentioned a while back that your daughter Emily has a birthmark on the back of her neck, yes?’
&n
bsp; Culverhouse swallowed. ‘Yeah. Just behind her left ear. Why?’
‘Because the girl Leandro’s been watching has one too. We can’t say anything for certain at the moment but, in Leandro’s words, she certainly doesn’t look Spanish. She has blonde hair.’
Culverhouse could feel his heart racing. Whenever he looked back and thought of Emily, it was her bright blonde hair he first saw, the light glistening off it as she played in the garden without a care in the world. Surely there were a number of blonde girls in Spain, so there was nothing yet to say this was Emily, but even the fact that there was the smallest chance it could be her — that kept him hanging on. It was the closest he’d come to finding her since she left. After the best part of a decade without any information, this was music to his ears.
‘What about Helen? Is she with her?’
‘There is a woman sometimes, yes. Her mother, it seems. That’s what Leandro thinks, anyway. She has darker hair, cropped short. Wears glasses.’
It was possible it could be Helen. It didn’t seem to match how she’d looked recently, but that didn’t mean much. She only wore glasses occasionally, but it was entirely possible she’d wear them all the time now. And as for the hair, it would only have taken her an hour to get a new hairdo. That was perfectly feasible, particularly if she was looking to start a new life. The girl, on the other hand, sounded just like Emily.
‘I need to tell you, Jack, it is very early days. Leandro has been trying to keep his distance, but has also been keeping an eye on them. That’s not as easy as you might think, particularly not in this place where they’re staying. But he has been doing his best. He sent me a photo. I’ll email it to you now,’ he said.
A few seconds later, Culverhouse’s mobile pinged and vibrated in his ear.
‘One sec,’ he said, taking the phone from his ear and navigating through to his email inbox. After what seemed like an age, the email and the photo loaded. It had been taken from quite some distance, and the people in the image could have been anyone, but that was no bad thing as far as Jack was concerned. It meant it could also be Helen and Emily. The older woman’s face was obscured, but it was feasible it was Helen. As for the younger girl, Emily had been so young when he last saw her that he wondered if he would even recognise her walking down the street.
‘What do you think?’ García’s voice said, tinny and distant as it came through the phone’s earpiece.
Culverhouse put the phone back to his ear. ‘I dunno. It’s possible,’ he said. ‘I’ll need a better picture before I can say for sure.’
‘He’s working on it,’ García said. ‘But it’s not easy. Redován is a small place. You can’t get up close and take a picture very easily. He can’t even park too close to the house as everybody in the area will know if there is a strange car. He has to park on the adjacent street and use a long lens. It’s difficult to get closer. We don’t want to spook her.’
Culverhouse agreed. The last thing he wanted was for Helen and Emily to figure out what was going on and disappear into the ether again. ‘Listen, send me the address,’ he said.
‘Jack, are you sure? It’s—’
‘Just send me the address. If it’s them, it’s best that I get out there and see them for myself. If I turn up, she’s hardly likely to just run. She’s come back twice already, so she’s obviously open to speaking to me. But if she reckons your guys are government officials or police, we’ve lost them, particularly if she’s been living off-radar all this time.’
‘And if it’s not them?’
‘Then it won’t make a blind bit of difference, will it? A strange Englishman turning up on their doorstep and saying “Sorry, wrong house”? What’s the worst that can happen?’
García sighed. ‘You tell me, Jack. You tell me.’
24
‘Now, this is interesting...’ Ryan said, when only Wendy was in earshot.
Wendy had only just returned from the hospital after speaking with Julian Mills, and had been hoping for a few minutes alone with a mug of coffee. ‘What’s that?’ she replied, trying to sound as friendly and accommodating as possible.
‘I’ve been reading up more on the past articles Tanya Henderson wrote, all these scandals and things she’d been investigating. The footballer, Callum Woods, the one she exposed for his addiction to prostitutes? Get this. There’s a quote from him in a news article here: “When asked for his response, Woods had no comment to make on the allegations, only saying, ‘This has ruined my family and affected my career. People never think of these things. How would this so-called journalist appreciate her whole life being ruined?’ The footballer, who scored two goals in the...” And it goes on. You get the picture. But what about that, eh?’
‘Interesting,’ Wendy said. ‘What, you reckon it was a direct threat?’
‘I dunno. Sounds to me like the paper called him up for a comment and he was too livid to even realise what he was saying. It’s an old CIA technique from the States. Get them cornered and flustered, and they’ll say all sorts. They’re too busy worrying about what could go wrong to even think about what they’re saying at the time. And that’s when the real person comes out.’
Wendy pursed her lips. ‘Could be something in it. But what are we saying? That this Callum Woods attacked Tanya?’
Ryan winked at Wendy. ‘I’m not saying anything. Only that it might be worth speaking to him and finding out a bit more. I mean, think about it. This guy’s earning tens of thousands a week. He’s married with kids, and he’s going around having his wicked way with sex workers. His wife’s not going to be keen on that. His teammates probably aren’t going to respond all that well, either.’
‘Oh come on,’ Wendy said. ‘You think they’re not all at it?’
‘Possibly. But then there’s the crowds, too. The supporters. Footballers are role models these days. Callum Woods was being touted for an England call up just a few days before that story broke. That was a year ago, and he’s still not played for them. His whole career seems to have been put on pause. It’s only recently that he’s started picking up form on the pitch again, apparently.’
‘But why wait a year? Why do something stupid like this now, when things are just starting to pick up again for him? If he was going to attack her, wouldn’t he have done it months ago? When the pain was still fresh?’
Ryan shrugged. ‘Who knows? Footballers are hardly known for their brains, are they? Got to be worth speaking to him at least.’
‘We’ll need to get Culverhouse’s approval. Where is he?’
‘No idea,’ Ryan replied.
‘Anyone seen the guv?’ Wendy called to the rest of the room.
‘I think he went to see the Chief Constable,’ Steve Wing said. ‘I wouldn’t want to disturb them if I were you. I’d probably give it an hour after he gets out, too. Make sure all the steam’s gone out of his ears first.’
Wendy turned back to Ryan. ‘Where’s this Callum Woods live?’
‘Not sure. I’d imagine somewhere in the East Midlands, looking at who he plays for. I can give the club a ring and see if they’ll give us his home address. Either that or get the local force to find it for us. But that might be a bit official.’
Wendy agreed. ‘True. Last thing we want is to give the guy any more bad publicity, especially if he’s innocent. I tell you what. Find out who his agent is and get in touch with him. That’s got to be the best way. It’ll be in the agent’s best interest that he cooperates with us for the sake of his client, and he’ll want to keep it on the hush-hush too, for obvious reasons.’
‘Good idea. I’ll get onto it.’
‘Here we are,’ Frank Vine said, as he put down the phone. ‘Confirmation from the science bods. The weapon used was a crowbar, they reckon. One of the new stainless steel ones. They reckon if it was one of the old powder-coated ones there’d be traces of paint or something.’
‘Good. Nice one, Frank. Now we need to get onto local retail outlets and see if we can find out who bought a cr
owbar there recently. In the last month, perhaps.’
‘Seriously?’ Frank asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘I mean, I’m not being funny but what does a crowbar cost? A fiver? Tenner? Whoever it was will’ve paid in cash.’
‘Then with any luck they’ll be on CCTV somewhere. Most shops will have itemised tills, so they’ll be able to drill down to when any crowbars were sold. Maybe get onto the online retailers and the big chains, too, see if any were ordered for home delivery within a twenty-mile radius over the past month.’
‘Might want to check Callum Woods’s garage, too,’ Ryan quipped.
Frank made a quiet snort of derision. ‘That useless twat couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo, never mind a woman’s head with a crowbar.’
Turning to Ryan, Wendy lowered her voice. ‘Depending on how Callum Woods appears when we speak to him, we might want to take a closer look at his records, too. Bank and credit card statements, phone bills, all that sort of thing. Even if he’s involved, it’s highly unlikely he’ll have done it himself. Actually,’ she said, turning back to the others, ‘do we have any news on Tanya Henderson’s call logs?’
‘Nope, just the silent call a minute or so before she was attacked. Came from an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile, in the vicinity of the IP’s house. Never been switched on or used before then.’
‘Nothing in the texts or other phone calls?’
‘Nothing of interest, no. Just calls to and from the office.’
Wendy sighed. The likelihood was that Tanya Henderson had all her conversations in person, one-to-one. Everything was kept off the record.
Being security-conscious was one thing, but in Tanya Henderson’s case it had proven to be more of a hindrance than a help.
25
Culverhouse hated airports at the best of times. They were always either full of people happy to be going on holiday, or miserable at having to go away for work or return home for a family funeral. He certainly wasn’t going on holiday, but he didn’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of miserable bastards either.