Vengeance

by Donald Phillips

Chapter 14

  MacAllister watched his wife as she sat at the table and stared into her untasted cup of tea. It had been like this since he had told her what had happened on the night of Kirsty's injury. She had naturally asked him how he had happened to be there when it had happened. He had explained about the stolen car they had been following that had driven up onto the pavement and hit Kirsty and the others. She had not at first understood what he was saying to her and he had repeated it, telling how they had received a message to be on the lookout for the stolen Focus and how it had stopped next to them at the top of Park Street. She had looked at him strangely and then had said something that puzzled him.

  “You have a lot to answer for, John.”

  He thought she had misunderstood what he had told her and had started to explain again, but she had only shook her head and gone to the bedroom. Since then she had spoken hardly a word to him. Several of his colleagues had rung him to express their sympathy and several had asked how Jeanie was. The truth was he didn't know. He felt she was blaming him for much of what had happened, but didn't know why. To him it was like blaming the makers of aspirin because someone had overdosed. She would only nod or shake her head when asked something and the only time he had received a full sentence was when she told him the hospital had called while he was down to the local corner shop for some bread and milk.

  That was where they were going this morning. To learn if their daughter had any sort of future or if she would have to remain on a life support system for the rest of her life. She had not regained consciousness since the accident and although the hospital had now operated on her twice they had not been encouraging about the probable result. Severe brain damage was not something they could do very much about. He stirred himself and made the effort that was required.

  “Come on, Jeanie its time to go to the hospital. Best get yourself ready.”

  She rose without looking at him and went and put her on her coat.

  MacAllister found a vacant spot in the car park quite close to the main entrance and reversed the old Vauxhall Vectra back into it. Getting out of the car and locking his door he went around to the passenger side and opened the door for his wife. It was ten o'clock on Saturday morning and his daughter had been unconscious for nearly eight days.

  “We are here, Jeanie. Come on, lass, let’s go and see what they have to tell us. We have got to hear it sooner or later.”

  He put his hand under her elbow and helped her out of the car. Once out she stood looking not at him, but straight through him as if he wasn't there and made no move to go anywhere. He closed and locked her door and gently linking his arm through hers led her towards the main door of the hospital, as if they were strolling lovers instead of a man leading his wife to an appointment they did not want to keep. Her reaction to the situation was worrying him to the extent that he had taken leave to be with her since the injury to Kirsty. He couldn't think of it as an accident, not under the circumstances in which it had happened.

  Jean had joined him within minutes at the hospital on that fateful night, fetched by an unusually thoughtful Marcus Lomax who had realised that his boss was in no condition to make any meaningful decisions. MacAllister himself would have preferred not to call Jean until he knew the extent of his daughters injuries, but Lomax had known his own collision with death when his sister had been killed on the back of a motorcycle some years ago and so had a better understanding of such situations. In the event MacAllister was glad to see her when she arrived. They had waited together throughout the night in the knowledge that Kirsty was not expected to live until morning, but not wanting her to die alone. At ten the next day, when their daughter had been brought back from surgery still alive, but plugged into a life support system, they had finally been persuaded to go home for a few hours. She may have been still alive, but it was with serious problems. The neurosurgeon had not pulled his punches. He told them it would be several days before they would know the exact extent of the damage, but that even if she survived the prognosis was not good.

  Since then Jean had hardly spoken a word to anyone and had deliberately walked away from friends and neighbours who had come to offer help and sympathy. She had continued to lay Kirsty's place at mealtimes and had told the vicar, the only person to whom she had spoken in the past ten days, that he must postpone the wedding and that she would tell him when Kirsty was again ready for him to perform the ceremony. Worse still she would not even visit the hospital again until they could tell her what was wrong with her daughter and when she would be coming home. This last had frightened MacAllister so badly that he had called in the family doctor, but Jean had locked herself in the bedroom until he had given up and gone away, leaving MacAllister with some sedative that he had been putting in her evening Cocoa each night.

  They went in through the double doors of the main entrance and up to the reception desk. The receptionist was just putting down the phone and turned to smile at them.

  “Mr and Mrs MacAllister to see Mr Wilkinson.”

  The girl checked her list and picked up the house phone.

  “Hello, Cathy. The MacAllister's are here for Mr Wilkinson. Shall I send them up?”

  She listened for a moment and then replaced the receiver.

  “Mr Wilkinson's assistant will be down to fetch you if you would like to take a seat for a moment.”

  MacAllister steered Jean towards some plastic covered benches on which they had just settled when a grave young woman in her early twenties, wearing enormous gold framed glasses that made her look like a rather pretty blonde owl, approached them.

  “Are you the McAllisters?”

  MacAllister nodded and allowed her a small smile on account of her soft Scottish accent.

  “I'm Cindy Barrett the assistant neurologist. If you would come with me Mr Wilkinson will see you straight away.”

  She led the way to the lifts and let them enter first before joining them and pressing the button for the third floor. MacAllister was relieved that she didn't try to engage them in small talk, but just stood quietly looking efficient and very grave. He wondered, like Clive Sayers had in this same hospital the night before, what made them do this job.

  The lift stopped with a small jerk and the door hissed open. As they left the lift a group of trainees nurses were entering, chattering away like the group of schoolgirls that they recently had been. MacAllister wondered if it would affect them for more than a moment to know he had a daughter here who was probably dying. No more than it had affected him to see Trevor Morton lying on the pavement in a pool of his own blood, was the probable answer. Not your problem except in how it affected your workload. With their arms still linked they left the lift and followed Cindy Barrett down the corridor and through another set of doors with the legend “Neurology Department” painted on them. Inside they took the first door on the left and entered without knocking.

  Simon Wilkinson was in his early forties, but was one of those men whose age was difficult to guess. He had only a small fringe of hair left around the sides of his head and his skin was pink and shiny like a cherubs. He reminded MacAllister of a gay uncle he'd had. He had been sixty-two when he died, but he had looked no older, laid out in his coffin, than he had when he was forty-two. His last twenty years had been almost ageless.

  Wilkinson turned from the X-rays he had been examining on the wall-mounted light box and greeted them gravely. MacAllister instantly knew the news would not be good, but forced himself to let the consultant tell it in his own time. Wilkinson waved them through into his inner sanctum where he switched on another smaller, wall-mounted light box and picked up another X-ray from his desk, which he slotted into it. He beckoned them over.

  “This is the X-ray we took of Kirsty's injury when she was first brought in.”

  He pointed to an area on the side of the skull where the smooth shape was disrupted and darkened. It looked rough and broken.

  “These small white pieces are splinters of bone. You can see that some of t
hem have been driven right inside the skull and are lodged inside the brain. We have now operated twice but these pieces here and here are too deeply embedded to remove without causing more damage.”

  He pointed again to the small white pieces of what looked like broken matchstick before turning back to them.

  “Now this area here around the edge of the brain,” he used Cindy Barrett as a live model and with his finger drew a line from behind one temple around the front of the head to the other, “is where we believe the intelligence to live. The rest of the brain has many functions, but this is where we believe the spirit and intellect reside.”

  MacAllister looked up at the X-ray on its light box and felt hope die. The broken matchsticks were squarely in the area Wilkinson was indicating.

  “As far as we can ascertain those parts of the brain that keep Cindy clinically alive are only slightly damaged. Her body can still accept and take sustenance and her basic bodily functions are still working, the abilities to absorb food and get rid of waste, for instance.”

  He paused.

  “However, she will always need a machine to help her to breath and it is our considered opinion that her intelligence function has been irredeemably destroyed.”

  He waited a few moments to let that sink in before continuing.

  “Doctor Barrett and I are of the opinion that Kirsty will never wake up again. She may well live for one or even twenty one more years, but she will not know about it and you will never again hear her voice.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  He lifted his hands palm upwards and then let them fall back to his sides in a gesture of helplessness.

  Well, MacAllister thought dully, you can't say the good doctor doesn't tell it like it is. He felt light headed and unattached to the floor and had great difficulty in believing he wasn't in some nightmare. In the silence that surrounded them all that could be heard was the sound of their breathing, until Jean's voice broke the quietness, startling him after her days of almost complete silence.

  “Can we see her please? Can we see our little girl?”

  Cindy Barrett nodded and took her arm.

  “Of course you can. Come with me.”

  The curtains were closed and the room was in semi-darkness, but the large bulk of the life support machine could be seen as a general outline. Cindy Barrett switched on a small dim light and detail sprang out. Kirsty was lying on her back inside the machine with only her head showing. This was swathed in bandages, mercifully hiding where the beautiful red hair had been shorn away to permit surgery. Her eyes were closed. Jean leaned forward and gently kissed her on one and then the other of her eyelids and then she straightened up and felt backwards for MacAllister's hand. She took it in a tight grip and turned to face the young neurologist.

  “Kirsty has gone now, she left us on that Friday night when the car hit her. That is only a body lying there. Our girl has left us. Please switch it off.”

  She let go of MacAllister's hand and fled from the room. He paused just long enough to nod confirmation to Cindy Barrett’s look of inquiry and then hurried after her. As he left he saw from the corner of his eye the sleeping form of Graham Simpson, Kirsty's intended husband, sprawled in an armchair behind the door obviously totally exhausted by his vigil. He didn't pause. He was sorry for the lad, but he didn't think he could deal with both his and Jean's anguish at the same time. He hurried after his wife. Cindy Barrett caught up with them in the corridor and produced a clipboard with a form on it.

  “I will need both of your signatures on this and one of you will need to come back tomorrow to complete the rest of the formalities.”

  Jean grabbed the proffered pen and scribbled her name before thrusting the pen into MacAllister's hand and turning away. He signed alongside of the second of the two pencilled crosses at the bottom of the form and then rushed after his wife although part of his mind registered that they had had the form already and waiting for them before they arrived. When caught up with her she was waiting by the lift, but she turned and studied the notice board on the wall next to the lift doors, deliberately ignoring him. He didn't push it, but stood in silence, his thoughts with the daughter they had just written off and the distress that Graham Simpson would feel when he found out. He knew that they had made the right decision, but he also knew there would be times in the future when doubt would rise up and make him feel like a murderer.

  The lift doors opened and mercifully it was empty. They got in and rode it down to the ground floor, still in silence. As they reached the foyer he saw Clive Sayers just about to enter the building. He hoped Clive wouldn't see them, as he wanted to get his own emotions and thoughts in order before he faced the world again, but Clive raised his hand to show that he had seen him. Jean turned to him.

  “They have to find out sometime, John. Give me the keys and I will wait in the car. Best let him know now and then you won't have everybody asking you how Kirsty is when you next see them. Clive will make sure everyone knows and then they won't ask stupid questions.”

  She held her hand out and he rummaged in his jacket pocket until he found the keys.

  “I won't be long, love.”

  She pushed through the door that Sayers held open for her with out meeting his eyes, just giving a nod of the head as she passed and started across the car park to the car. Sayers watched her go and then turned to face his boss. His face was wary and MacAllister could see that he wanted to ask, but was afraid of the reaction he might get. He put him out of his misery.

  “Its all over, Clive. She had massive brain damage and no hope of any meaningful recovery. It is just a body being kept alive by a machine now so we agreed they should switch it of and let her sleep in peace. She wasn't our Kirsty any more. Kirsty died in the early hours of the Saturday morning when that bastard ran her down.”

  Sayers nodded, struggling to find some comfort to give the man, but failing.

  “I am really sorry, Guvnor. How is Jean taking it?”

  MacAllister thought about that for a few moments and then decided he didn't really know. His eyes came back to Sayers.

  “To tell the truth Clive, I don't know. You know Jean. She doesn't give a lot away. When she first found out Kirsty had been hurt she arrived at the hospital in tears, but when Graham Simpson arrived she stopped crying and started to comfort him. I don't mind telling you I was relieved she had someone else to worry about. Since then she hasn't cried at all.”

  For some reason he didn't want to tell Clive that Jean had refused to visit their daughter in the hospital until she could be told what the future held.

  “Perhaps she will cry now, Guv, now its over.”

  “Aye, maybe, maybe.” He switched back to being a police detective. “What are you doing here?”

  “Assault with a deadly weapon, malicious wounding. Some guy got stabbed through the bollocks with a knife.”

  MacAllister closed his eyes and shuddered.

  “Now that's what I call malicious wounding, anyone we know?”

  “We know both of them, Guv. The girl wielding the knife we believe was our friend Alison Jenson and the bloke on the other end of it was our other old friend, George “Rasta” Fairbrother.”

  “You mean the rape case girl. How on earth did he let her get close enough to do a thing like that?”

  “From what he managed to tell the doctor who examined him, we think he was feeling her tits at the time when she stabbed him in the balls. We found a blonde wig on the floor in the corridor where it happened, so it looks as if she gave him the randy little groupie routine and then took a hack at his privates when he took her up on it. It’s very dark in the corridor at the back of the dance hall where it happened. Anyway, we will soon know. I'm going up to get his statement now. I couldn't get to see him for twenty-four hours, as he needed to have one of his testicles surgically removed. It seems the boning knife she used went straight through it.”

  MacAllister shuddered again.

  “Jesus Christ and she is
n't sixteen yet. I'm glad I'm not responsible for her.”

  He started as he realised what he had said and felt a rush of guilt that his interest in what his colleague was doing had made him forget already for a few moments that his own daughter was probably dead by now. He moved towards the door.

  “I have to get back to Jean, Clive. I will be back in a couple of days when the first shock of all this is over.”

  He turned to walk away but Clive stopped him.

  “There is something I ought to tell you Guvnor, but I wasn't sure if you were ready for it yet.”

  MacAllister never blinked, but the eyes went hooded and fierce.

  “About what happened to Kirsty?”

  Sayers lifted his hands as though he was preparing to hold him off.

  “We can't be sure yet, but last night one of the Panda patrols stopped a kid who was reported as acting suspiciously in the car park down behind the Watershed Exhibition Centre. A pedestrian waved them down and told them there was a man trying the doors of all the cars. When they arrested him he had a ring with two hundred keys on it so they took him down the station and so far he has admitted to sixteen counts of taking and driving away. Naturally he was asked where he was on last Friday night. He gave us a cock and bull story about going out to the disco on his own, but we can't find anyone who saw him there. He says he didn't speak to anyone in the three hours he was there, except to ask a couple of girls he had never met before to dance. His parents confirm he came home by taxi at two o'clock, not that proves anything one way or the other.”

  He looked out at an ambulance approaching with its lights flashing before he continued.

  “We found the car that hit Kirsty twenty four hours after the event. It had been driven into the river Severn halfway down the Portway to the dock areas, but whoever had done it had forgotten, or didn't know, how tidal the river is. When the tide went out it was found fairly quickly. Forensic are going over it at the moment and I think there is a fair chance they may turn up something that might tie this kid in.”

  “Kid? How old is he? Where is he now, still down the Nick?”

  The questions came pouring out. Sayers put his hand on his arm to calm him down. When he had his attention he continued in a gentle and even voice.

  “His name is Jason Howlett and he is the sixteen year old son of Rex Howlett of Rex Motors Ltd. That's the big Ford agents up at Fishponds. That's how come he had all the keys. Pinched them from his daddy's garage. At the moment he is out on bail released on the guarantee of his father. He appears before the Magistrates on next Friday so we still have a few days to put the pressure on, although his father has now hired a very, very expensive brief.”

  “I will be in on Monday morning, Clive. I can't sit at home forever or this will drive me mad. I will try and persuade Jean to go back to the hospital.” His wife was a clerk in the Registrars Office. “But I don't know if she will listen. See you then.”

  He strode off across the car park with more spring in his stride than when he had arrived. Sayers looked after him for a few moments and then went in to get his statement. He hadn't had a chance to tell MacAllister about Mitael Khorta. The lab test had showed positive on the firearms test and they'd thought they had got him, but his car had disappeared by the time they sent Frank Lintsey for it and nothing had been found in his apartment that would tie him to the Swindon job. Then that little weasel of a bookie, Dave Pike, had sworn that Khorta had been firing a target pistol on the private range in his cellar the day before.

  Khorta's solicitor had then got very heavy and after the statutory forty-eight hours they had had to let him go. That and the fact that some of the money had been found spread all over the scene of a car bomb on the M5 had really got Khorta off the hook and his girl friend wasn't around to be interviewed to see if she would back up his story of a trip to Heathrow airport on the day of the Swindon bank job. They just didn't have a case. Perhaps it was just as well he hadn't told MacAllister. The Guvnor had enough on his plate at the moment.