Innocent

by Kinsley, Erin

  ‘Gemma! Hurry up! You’ll miss the bus.’

  She hears her daughter on the stairs, and when she comes into the kitchen, Laura’s relieved to see she’s looking fairly normal, without the vastly overdone make-up she sometimes tries to get away with.

  Gemma drops her book-bag on the floor, and sits down on a bar stool as far away as possible from Josh.

  Laura puts the pineapple and yoghurt in front of her, and though Gemma pulls a teenage face, she picks up a spoon and begins to eat.

  ‘Have you got your homework?’ asks Laura, and immediately regrets it.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum. I’m not a child.’

  Laura turns away so Gemma doesn’t see her eyebrows lift. Piers Morgan’s offering his disdainful thanks to the woman in the suit, and the next item begins.

  A picture of Tristan’s face fills the screen. Laura grabs the remote and turns up the volume.

  ‘Police are no nearer to making an arrest . . .’

  Both Gemma and Josh stop eating. Laura switches off the kettle, which is becoming noisy as it reaches a boil.

  ‘. . . apparently motiveless attack on the forty-nine-year-old star, whose condition is given in a press release as serious but stable. I’m joined now by Dr Ahmed Khan, a specialist in head injuries from King’s College Hospital here in London. Dr Khan, what can you tell us about the kind of treatment Tristan’s likely to be receiving?’

  Gemma finishes her breakfast and climbs down from her stool. As she goes to rinse her bowl at the sink, Laura asks, ‘Shall I make you some toast? You’ll be so hungry by lunchtime. There’s peanut butter, or Marmite.’

  Gemma picks up her bag. ‘I’m fine. I might get something from the newsagent’s.’

  ‘. . . It’s likely that his convalescence will be lengthy. In the worst-case scenarios, these patients . . .’

  ‘Not . . .’

  ‘I know, not chocolate or crisps.’

  Laura touches her daughter on the shoulder and kisses her cheek, smelling the peach shampoo Gemma’s loved since childhood. By her ear is a spot she’s missed with her too-tan foundation, and Laura thinks how pale her skin is. As soon as the holidays start, they must get out more, get some fresh air.

  ‘. . . and of course we all wish Tristan a speedy recovery. Get well soon, mate.’

  ‘See you later,’ says Laura. ‘Have a good day.’

  ‘Bye, Mum.’

  Through the window, Laura watches her daughter walk away down the drive, head bowed as though the weight of the world is on her shoulders.

  The pain of young love. She could murder Darren Ferris. What’s Rosie Stainforth got that Gemma hasn’t? If she’s honest, the answer is big boobs.

  She turns down the volume on the TV.

  Josh has finished his cereal and is rinsing his bowl at the sink.

  ‘Can I have toast?’ he asks.

  ‘Sorry, sweetie, no time.’

  ‘Mum, is Tristan going to be OK?’

  Laura realises she doesn’t know.

  ‘I hope so,’ she says. ‘I’ll ask Izzy for an update later on.’ A car horn sounds outside. ‘Come on, get your shoes on, quick. That’s Ollie’s mum outside.’

  Twelve

  The consultant is a stooping, slender giant whose wire-framed glasses make him reassuringly professorial, dressed in the trousers of a suit and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows, as if in readiness for any emergency. He picks up the chart from the end of Tris’s bed, and frowns as he studies it.

  ‘Not Tristan Hart after all,’ he says, looking at Izzy for an explanation.

  ‘His legal name is Tristan Savage. Hart’s a professional name.’

  ‘A stage name?’

  ‘I don’t think they call it that any more, and he’s never been an actor. But yes, a stage name if you like.’

  The consultant offers his hand.

  ‘So you’re his partner?’

  ‘I’m his wife, Izzy.’

  His hand is warm and he has long fingers, like a piano player. A craftsman’s hand.

  ‘Ian Talbot. I lead the head injuries unit here at the hospital. You know you hear people saying, it’s not brain surgery? What I do, actually is.’

  Mr Talbot seems nice, and Izzy smiles.

  ‘I’ve never met a brain surgeon before.’

  ‘I like to think you’d find me socially acceptable, but in a professional capacity, to be honest I’m not someone you want to have to deal with. No one wants to be under my care, but here we are. And I don’t think I need to say we’re doing all we can for Tristan. I wonder if you and I might take a little walk?’

  The relatives’ room is unchanged except for the pamphlets on the table. The one about bereavement is gone, replaced by a new one on tracheostomy.

  ‘Have a seat,’ says Mr Talbot. His legs are too long for the low chairs. He rests his elbows on his knees, touching his lips as he makes a steeple of his fingers.

  ‘So.’ His smile has a touch of sadness, and Izzy can’t decide if it’s for her personally or whether it’s perpetual, brought on by being a specialist no one wants to see, or sorrow for all those he can’t help. ‘We’ve had a good look at Tristan’s scans and, as we suspected, we’re seeing some things we’d prefer, quite honestly, were not there.’

  He pauses, waiting for Izzy to process this overture to what she’s sensing is going to be bad news.

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you Tristan is in a coma. The scans show the blow to his head has caused his brain to swell, and in simple terms it’s that pressure which has shut down his ability to function. As things stand, he’s at what we would determine as the deepest level of coma, and in an ideal world as his brain heals and the swelling reduces, he’ll travel back along the spectrum, gradually working towards regaining consciousness and waking up. That’s what we’re all hoping for.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  A distant look comes into Mr Talbot’s eyes, as if he’s gazing into the future, though Izzy knows it’s far more likely he’s taking care to choose the right words.

  ‘The thing is, Izzy, the prognosis for this kind of injury is highly variable. In some patients, we might see significant improvement in only a few days, or a couple of weeks. In others, the damage heals much more slowly, over a period as long as two or three months. I have to be honest with you, and say in a patient of Tristan’s age, if we haven’t seen major improvement within twelve weeks, the outlook is not awfully promising. We start to have issues with feeding and breathing tubes, and at that point we would need to consider our options. But for the time being, you should remain positive. Talking to him, playing him music, those kinds of things can all help.’

  ‘Can he hear me, then?’ asks Izzy. ‘Does he understand what I say?’

  Mr Talbot tries to smile.

  ‘At the moment,’ he says, ‘Tristan’s far away, and the truth is, I don’t know.’

  Thirteen

  Twenty years ago, DS Nate Golding was on his way to the top, there when the arrest was made in the Dinah Steel murder, and a key member of the team responsible for the biggest drugs bust the force had ever made.

  There were those who said he didn’t fulfil his promise, and it’s true he never passed his inspector’s exams, nor did he find favour with the new management team when they came in – all young, fit men who couldn’t hide their disdain for someone growing slow as he gained weight, who’d lost the necessary speed to make a collar.

  Golding doesn’t care too much that other members of the team moved on, and up. He still has his own set of talents which investigators value: a dogged attention to detail, an eye for anomalies and an encyclopaedic memory from which he can pluck out details of pretty much any case you’d care to mention since the day he put on his first uniform.

  Anyone at Burnt Common police station needs quick answers on
the who, when and where, Nate’s the man to ask.

  Officially, these days, he’s on light duties. After his weight issue ballooned into obesity and his suit sizes went up – from a 44-inch to a 52-inch waist – he ignored warnings from his doctor that he was in the danger zone until a TIA – a mini-stroke – put him in A&E, with a lecture on discharge emphasising what the GP had already said.

  He could have been invalided out, but his skillset saved him.

  When Golding arrives on Monday morning, breathing heavily from having taken the stairs, Muir immediately calls him over.

  ‘How’s things?’ asks Muir. ‘How’s Chrissie doing?’

  Golding shrugs. ‘She’s up and down,’ he says in his Welsh lilt. ‘You know how it is. We had a bit of a ride out over the weekend, thought we might go and see the sea, but the weather was so fantastic you couldn’t move for traffic. So we just found ourselves a pub in the end, had ourselves a bit of lunch. I think she enjoyed it, but she gets so tired.’

  ‘You do a great job with her, Nate.’

  ‘It’s what you do, isn’t it? She’d do the same for me if the tables were turned.’

  ‘I’ve got something for you, anyway,’ says Muir, and hands him the data stick he’s got from Craig Dalton, the hotel manager. ‘See if you can find any trace of Tristan Hart on there.’

  ‘This the wedding, then?’

  ‘Hotel front car park. That’s all they’ve got. It’s the only way in, so he must be on there somewhere, but the question is, beyond his arrival, does he show up again? It’s a long shot, to be honest. Just for context, the call for assistance from the hotel came in at 21:38, so he was already injured by then. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t anything of interest beyond that point, only that it’s not likely to be him in person.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’ asks Golding. ‘Is he still unconscious?’

  ‘Kirstie’s at the hospital finding out, but needless to say the press are all over it, so we’re treating it as a serious assault until we find out otherwise. With him being who he is, if he’d broken a fingernail we’d be handling it as a priority. What it is to be in the spotlight, eh?’

  Golding finds space on his desk for his pint mug of tea, hangs his suit jacket over the back of his oversized chair and plugs the data stick into his laptop. When the system locates it, he finds the video for the right day and presses play. Fast-forwarding to where the wedding guests begin to arrive, he uses an hour and a half before that as his start point, at 2.30 p.m. Folding his arms over his belly, he settles down to watch the show.

  Golding’s blessed with that rare and invaluable mindset which is fascinated by the mundane. He plays the video slowly as he sips his tea, watching the hotel car park slowly fill, freeze-framing to note down registration numbers when he has a clear view of them and noting too the type and colour of car they’re on. Cars are one of Golding’s specialist subjects, and he can tell a 2017 model from a 2019 by the tail-lights, a sport hatchback from a regular saloon by its alloy wheels. As the wedding guests leave their vehicles and head inside, as staff turn up for work and delivery drivers come and go, Golding’s watching them for indicators of their moods and demeanours, noticing those who seem happy to be there, and especially those who don’t.

  He takes a break to make more tea, dropping in three Canderel sweeteners before he stirs it.

  Back at his desk, the video runs on. A taxi arrives, drops passengers, leaves and arrives again twenty minutes later. A Mini Cooper driven by a young girl puts a dent in a Toyota as she tries to park, then hurries away to a different area of the car park with no acknowledgement.

  At 16:09, a metallic white Range Rover Sport pulls into one of the last available parking spaces. Golding admires the car, which is almost new and definitely expensive. Tristan Hart is in the driving seat. He and his gorgeous wife – lucky bastard – climb out, and Tristan helps a very pretty little girl in a bridesmaid’s dress from the back. As they walk inside, the wife’s holding the little girl’s hand, and Tristan’s affectionately touching his wife’s shoulder.

  They look very much in love.

  But Golding knows looks can be deceiving.

  Fourteen

  Outside the closed gate at Foxcote Lodge a single reporter remains, a young man left behind on the off-chance he might get lucky with a photo or some unanticipated development in the Tristan Hart story.

  He’s sitting on a wall under a cherry tree, playing on his phone. Though Bridget doesn’t mind him being there, it’s her job to keep Flora out of the public eye, and the reporter’s got a camera. If he sees her coming through the gate, chances are he’ll try for a shot.

  Bridget won’t give him that opportunity. At the end of the garden where the vegetables used to grow is a place where it’s easy to squeeze through the hedge, emerging on to a lane which leads eventually into Sterndale.

  Flora’s got over her upset at Izzy leaving her, and has enjoyed picking out her outfit for the day: a dress covered in sunflowers which Izzy bought at Harrods’, yellow sandals and sunglasses with star-shaped frames, even though Bridget has pointed out the lack of sunshine. As for herself, Bridget never wears anything but black, but in deference to summer she’s chosen a long skirt rather than jeans or jeggings, and a black T-shirt with a white slogan: Even the genius asks questions.

  Flora’s insisting she wants to walk, but that won’t last as far as the hotel. Bridget’s got firm hold of one of her hands, and with the other she’s pushing the pink car Flora likes to ride in when her legs are tired.

  By the time they reach the high street, Flora’s installed in the little car, turning the steering wheel as if she has some control. Bridget’s in no hurry. Except for collecting the Fiat, this is an entertainment mission, fresh air and exercise for them both, with no brief but to do what they fancy. Flora’s been talking about ice cream, but Bridget’s thinking of coffee somewhere with cheese-on-toast for Flora’s early lunch.

  It’s market day, and the high street is busy. The annual carnival is only two weeks away, and Flora rides along with her head back, admiring the blue-and-white bunting stretched between the lamp posts. The livestock market is already over, and the slow-moving traffic is dominated by vehicles pulling trailers of traded cattle and sheep, the stink of the animals heavy in the warm air. As she steers Flora between the pedestrians, Bridget senses they’re generating a frisson of interest, catching concerned glances in Flora’s direction and heads bent to whisper about them as they go by. Passing the newsagent’s, Bridget thinks she’ll pick up a couple of magazines, but for Flora’s sake changes her mind when she sees the newspapers’ front pages. Almost every one of them features Tris’s face.

  Outside the baker’s, the pavement narrows, and she manoeuvres the pink car close up to the wall to allow a young girl to pass.

  But the girl stops, brushing back silky, blonde strands of waist-length hair – exactly the hair Bridget’s always wanted, but with her dark Irish curls could never have.

  ‘Hello, Flora,’ says the girl, and Flora shyly turns away. ‘She doesn’t remember me. I’m Debbie, from the hairdresser’s. I do Izzy’s hair. I just want to say how shocked I am – well, we all are – about Tristan. Is he OK?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ says Bridget. ‘Apparently it’s too early to say.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ A woman comes out of the baker’s with a French stick under her arm, and Debbie steps into the gutter to let her go by. ‘I thought you’d say he’s already home and just nursing a headache. Is it serious, then?’

  ‘Pretty serious.’

  ‘Oh my God. We were there at the wedding, we didn’t even know anything had happened until yesterday. I can’t believe it! And him such a lovely guy. When Izzy was having her hair done last Christmas he came in with mulled wine and mince pies, and he stayed for ages talking to everybody in the salon. You should have seen the old ladies all over him! But who on earth would do
that, you know, just bash him over the head? You just don’t expect it, do you, in a place like this? Do they think maybe someone was trying to rob him? Listen, Izzy’s got an appointment on Thursday, but tell her not to worry about it. If she comes in, great, if not, tell her she can re-book for another time. But send her and Tristan our love, won’t you? Tell them we’re all thinking about them.’

  At the hospital’s main reception, the woman’s pinned-on tag gives her name as Peggy. It’s an old-fashioned name, the same as Weld’s maternal grandmother’s, though Nanny Peg – unlike this plump Peggy – was a dour, scrawny woman without a maternal bone in her body, as far as Weld recalls. This Peggy is far more like Weld’s own mother, who – in mitigation of her frugal childhood – devoted her life to the culinary arts, and put her skills towards what she saw as their best possible use by cooking at a care home for the elderly, where – as she said – the food she put on their plates gave them something to look forward to.

  Unfortunately, the main reason for Nanny Peg’s disinterest in food – apart from straightforward bitterness at the hand life had dealt her, and a malicious refusal to make it sweeter for her children – was the strength of her addiction to tobacco, and doctors declared passive smoking from Nanny Peg’s forty-a-day habit to be the most likely cause of the tumour which took root in Weld’s mother’s lung. Once established, its growth was exponential, and at only forty-seven, her mother lost the fight. Through all that awfulness, Weld spent a lot of time in a place almost identical to this, first backwards and forwards for scans and tests, then holding Mum’s hand through treatments which robbed her of her hair but not her humour. Before all that, Weld was indifferent to hospitals. Now, they have a tendency to make her feel sad.