Left You Dead

by James, Peter

  The pilot’s calm voice crackled through their speakers. ‘Shoreham, Helimed Six Zero, five hundred foot Portslade, inbound Hove, major road accident.’

  The crisp reply from Shoreham Air Traffic Control came back. ‘Acknowledged. Surface wind at Shoreham two four zero at ten knots. We have IFR traffic, a King Air inbound 1,500 feet Devil’s Dyke.’

  ‘Thanks Shoreham, will call again lifting.’

  For tight landings like this, both medics acted as crew, peering out of the windows for hazards and, in particular here, cables. As their speed of descent slowed, he could see flashing blue lights on the roofs of several police vehicles, each marked with their call signs. A white-and-blue BMW i8 had slewed at an angle. A short distance behind it several people stood or knelt around a crumpled figure lying on the road. A police officer in a fluorescent jacket was acting as batman, signalling them in.

  Turner knew this long and very wide road well – as a child he had lived in one of the quiet, tree-lined streets that ran south from it down to the seafront. With its mix of detached houses, many now occupied by medical practices, elegant Victorian semis and terraces and low-rise flats, this whole area, being so close to the beaches, was a popular and much sought-after residential neighbourhood.

  The pilot manoeuvred the helicopter by hover-taxiing just a couple of hundred yards in front of the BMW, a little to the right, then left, before it touched down almost imperceptibly and settled on its wheels. The pilot, keeping the rotors turning, said, ‘Go!’

  Turner pulled off his helmet, grabbed his bag, pushed open the door and jumped down, followed a few seconds later by the paramedic. She stopped when she was clear of the rotor blades to turn back and give the pilot a thumbs-up.

  38

  Tuesday 3 September

  Turner ran up to the BMW and stopped for a brief moment to assess it. Damage to a vehicle would tell him a great deal about the likely injuries sustained by the pedestrian.

  Also, with older and cheaper vehicles, skid marks would be a good indicator of speed, but not on a wet road, and in any case this modern BMW’s braking system eliminated those. The Collision Investigation Unit would calculate the car’s speed later, using the BMW’s onboard computer and any local CCTV, by creating a computer-aided mock-up of the accident.

  Looking at the front of the car, he saw that part of the number plate was broken off and there was a severe dent in the bumper, indicating it had struck the boy in the legs, likely breaking both of them but hopefully not shattering his knees, which could impact on his future mobility, if he survived.

  In any frontal collision between a motor vehicle and a pedestrian, there were three possibilities. The first was that the victim had gone underneath the vehicle. The second was that they’d been thrown sideways. The third was that they’d gone over the top, which looked to be the case here.

  The round bullseye break in the centre of the windscreen indicated that the boy had struck it with some force. The only part of the boy’s body hard enough to have created that, in toughened glass, would have been his skull. He looked at the spiderweb crack more closely to see if he could spot any strands of hair, which he could, and fragments of skin and blood from the scalp, which he saw were also present.

  Next he looked at the roof and saw the marks where the boy must have struck it before bouncing off and into the road.

  Not good.

  He and Dunwoody ran past the car. A woman, a member of the public, was supporting the boy’s neck, and looked like she knew what she was doing. First-aid trained, he thought. Good. Two police officers were also kneeling beside him.

  Dunwoody whispered into Turner’s ear. The classic gallows humour that helped keep them sane at times, when dealing with situations that might otherwise make them weep. ‘Is it a stay-and-play or scoop-and-run?’

  ‘The latter,’ he whispered back.

  The colour of the boy’s bloodstained face was alabaster. Turner knelt beside him and immediately felt for his pulse.

  It was alarmingly weak.

  39

  Tuesday 3 September

  An hour and a half after the morning briefing meeting had ended, Roy Grace stood outside Cassian Pewe’s office. He’d long got used to this game the ACC played of making him wait, often for up to an hour, for no other reason Grace knew than he could. Power play. Childish, but he’d enjoyed keeping him waiting in turn. It had just gone 10.30 a.m. when he’d eventually arrived at his office, and now he’d been waiting close to half an hour.

  Finally, just as Pewe’s staff officer came out of his own office and said, ‘The ACC says to go in,’ Grace’s job phone rang. He ignored it. Moments later, as he entered, his personal phone rang. Barely glancing at it, he hit the decline button.

  Mr Immaculate sat behind his desk, studying something on his screen. There was no welcoming smile. Just, without looking up, a sharp, ‘So? You’d better have something good for me, Roy.’

  ‘I have – sir.’

  And more than you bloody know. Clearly, the nuke hadn’t hit him yet. But it would be any day soon.

  Closing the door behind him, he walked over and stood in front of Pewe. As he had anticipated, he was not invited to sit at either of the chairs in front of the large, shiny desk, but he sat down anyway.

  ‘Perhaps you’d care to update me?’ Pewe said, still apparently focused on his screen on something more important than his visitor.

  To his joy, Pewe’s aggressive – and dismissive – demeanour faded fast as he recounted the events of the past twenty-four hours, and the evidence that had come to light. Saving the best to last.

  Grace’s job phone rang again, and once more he rejected it.

  ‘I hope you’re not just virtue signalling, Roy,’ Pewe said when he had finished, using the corporate newspeak that constantly left Roy baffled – and wondering if Pewe had any idea what it meant, either. ‘This does change the optics.’

  ‘I had my eyes tested a couple of months ago,’ Roy retorted facetiously. His phone pinged with the voicemail tone.

  Pewe stared at him for some moments. ‘I suppose you think that’s funny? You seem to be quite the comedian recently.’

  ‘I don’t find anything funny about murder – sir.’

  ‘Which is what you think we have here?’

  Keeping his patience, Grace answered, ‘That’s how the evidence is pointing. Unless you have a better theory – something you feel I’ve missed, perhaps?’

  Pewe, riled by Grace’s attitude and perhaps, Grace thought, by his own misjudgement of the situation, waved a dismissive hand. ‘Go, get on with it.’ The ACC tapped his keyboard and leaned forward dismissively, absorbed once more in whatever was on his screen.

  Interview over.

  As Roy Grace left the room, closing the door behind him and stepping onto the landing, he was anxious to check his phones and see who had been trying to contact him so persistently. With the offices of the Chief Constable, the Deputy CC and the two other ACCs around him, as well as those of Pewe’s shared staff officer and his PA, he was conscious of his total lack of privacy. Pulling out his job phone, he was about to press the voicemail button when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Two uniformed officers, wearing the white caps of the Road Policing Unit, appeared with grave expressions. He recognized both of them. PCs Trundle and Edwards.

  ‘Sir,’ Trundle said. ‘We were told we’d find you here.’

  Always friendly and respectful on the previous occasions they’d met, their demeanour now made his stomach churn with anxiety as if a barrel of icy water had been tipped over inside him. It was an old police saw that two officers in white caps, knocking on your door in the middle of the night, was never going to be good news. Nor in the middle of the morning.

  ‘Richard,’ he said, his voice trembling uncharacteristically. ‘Hi.’

  Oh God, had something happened to Cleo on her way to work?

  ‘Pip – what – what brings you guys to these hallowed halls?’

&n
bsp; ‘We need to speak to you, sir,’ Trundle said. ‘Can we go somewhere private – downstairs perhaps?’

  ‘Yes – yes. Of course.’

  He followed them back down the stairs and they stopped in the hallway. Closed doors lined the corridor along it.

  Something was badly wrong.

  Please God let Cleo be all right.

  ‘Sir,’ Trundle said. ‘I’m sorry to tell you – your son, Bruno, has been involved in a road traffic collision.’

  It took some moments for the words to sink in.

  ‘What? I dropped him off at school. I saw him go in. You must be mistaken – I mean – there’s no way – he’s in class all day.’

  ‘He was identified at the scene, sir. We asked one of the teachers – we knew he was from the school because of his uniform.’

  Roy leaned against a wall, feeling hollowed out. ‘Identified? At the scene? Teacher? What – is – I – what do you mean?’

  ‘It’s all very sketchy at the moment, sir.’

  Grace choked on his words. ‘How – how – how is he?’

  ‘He was unconscious, sir, and has been taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital.’

  ‘How the hell did he get out of school?’

  ‘I’m sorry – we don’t know. Inspector Biggs has been trying to contact you urgently. We’ve been trying to find you and your staff said you were at a meeting here.’

  ‘Bruno? You’re sure it’s him?’ Grace said, his voice barely a whisper, knowing the futility of that question.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid he’s not good, sir, it looks very serious,’ Trundle said gently.

  ‘You said he was unconscious?’

  Trundle and Edwards nodded. ‘That’s right,’ Trundle said. ‘The Air Ambulance attended and flew him to the hospital – that would have been just under an hour ago. We don’t know the extent of injuries, but we have been told it’s a life-threatening situation and we should take you to him urgently.’

  Roy Grace felt like a drain plug had been pulled inside him. ‘What – what happened?’

  ‘All we know is that the driver was breathalysed and was negative. He is currently being interviewed by the RPU. Inspector Biggs has authorized us to blue-light you to the hospital. And your wife, if she is able to come, too?’

  All his usual composure gone, Grace was shaking. He nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said weakly.

  ‘We have a car outside.’

  He followed them numbly along the corridor and out into the light drizzle. Edwards opened the rear door of the car and Grace climbed in. The officer helped him with his belt, then they drove down the ramp to the barrier. As it lifted, with Trundle driving, Edwards switched on the blue lights and siren.

  ‘Do you have any more info on what happened, guys?’ Grace asked.

  Pip Edwards turned to face him. A highly intelligent officer who had been an engineer before joining the police, he said, ‘It’s too early, sir. Apparently, one witness said he’d seen him looking at his mobile phone and stepping into the road. But eye-witness reports at RTCs are often unreliable, as I’m sure you know.’

  Grace nodded, feeling his eyes welling up. He called Cleo, hoping to hell it wouldn’t go to voicemail as it normally did when she was busy. But, to his relief, she answered on the second ring.

  As he ended the call, he asked Trundle to swing by the mortuary to collect her.

  40

  Tuesday 3 September

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Larry Olson asked, standing shocked and bewildered among the mass of emergency service vehicles. His customer, having thrown up on the road, was now sitting in the back of a police car. Nearby, a shocked-looking woman was talking to an officer with a body-worn camera. She looked like she was giving an account of some kind.

  It was a single vehicle accident with one pedestrian casualty. The Forensic Collision Unit Team were busy measuring and taking photographs to secure evidence, including a drone to obtain a perspective of the scene. The prime objective was to collect the evidence quickly and efficiently because, with the location being right outside the school, they wanted to clear the area before parents and children started to gather, mid-afternoon.

  There were police cars and motorbikes everywhere, a fire engine, a Collision Investigation Unit van and a cordon of blue-and-white tape all around, with a large bunch of rubber-necking public outside it, phone cameras held aloft. It felt like being in the VIP area of an event he really did not want to be attending. Olson noticed a local news reporter talking to bystanders and taking photographs of the police activity.

  The Road Policing Unit officer, who had introduced himself as Inspector James Biggs, said, ‘I’m afraid it’s standard procedure, sir.’

  ‘You’re impounding my car?’

  ‘We are, sir. It’s what happens to any vehicle involved in a potentially fatal accident.’

  ‘I – I need it – I need it for my business to survive. When – when do I get it back?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that at the moment. It will be a month or so at best – maybe two – until we have completed our enquiries.’

  ‘Two months?’ Olson’s voice rose several octaves in desperation. ‘Two months? My customer wasn’t to blame, two witnesses said he was driving within the limit – the little boy just stepped out in front of us – he was looking at his damn phone. I was in the car. My customer was driving sensibly, keeping strictly to the 30 mph limit. There wasn’t anything he could do.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Inspector Biggs said. ‘I can’t comment on any witness accounts.’

  ‘Why on earth would you need the car for that long?’

  ‘We may have to release it to the insurance company. There’s quite a bit of damage on the vehicle. They will probably make a decision on whether to repair it or write it off.’

  ‘Write it off?’ Olson calculated the poor value he would get from an insurance company. No way. ‘I can get that fixed at a local body shop.’

  ‘That will have to be a discussion with you and the insurers, sir.’

  Olson stared around, bewildered. A police officer with a broom was sweeping broken glass into a dustpan. Two other officers were taking measurements with a laser device.

  ‘We will do what we can to get the car released as quickly as possible, sir, but I’m afraid we’re going to need to establish whether there was anything defective such as the vehicle’s brakes or steering,’ Biggs said.

  Olson shook his head. ‘This is ridiculous. The car was in perfect condition – all my cars are fully checked out before we put them on the forecourt. I can’t afford for you to have this car for two months.’

  ‘That’s not really the issue here, sir,’ the Inspector said patiently. ‘There’s a human life involved. A child. At this moment, he’s my primary concern.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that, but I still have to keep my business alive.’

  ‘Frankly, sir,’ James Biggs said, ‘right now all I care about is doing my best to establish what happened. A small boy has been airlifted to hospital on life support. Forgive me for borrowing your terminology, sir, but we are concentrating very hard on keeping him alive.’

  41

  Tuesday 3 September

  On the journey to the mortuary to collect Cleo, Roy Grace sat tense in the rear seat of the speeding police car, desperately worried for Bruno. His phone rang and he answered instantly.

  ‘Boss,’ said Branson, ‘I’ve heard the news and we’re all gutted – and hoping he’ll be OK. Kids are resilient, you know.’

  ‘Yep,’ Grace replied bleakly. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘Don’t worry about anything here, I’ll take care of it all – do whatever you want to, take whatever time you need, and just know that we’re all here for you.’

  ‘Thanks, I appreciate it. Let’s quickly run through the actions for today so that you can deal with anything that comes up.’

  ‘You sure you want to?’

  ‘We have to, Glenn. Let’s just talk over everything so you hav
e all you need.’ Grace just managed to keep his focus despite the enormity of what he might now be facing with his son. ‘That last piece of information that came in this morning from Chris Gee at the Paternosters’ house – what do you make of it?’

  Gee had delivered an interesting development. The forensic team had discovered two sacks of cat litter behind a large bag of barbecue charcoal in the cupboard in the utility room.

  ‘Would you forget you had two sacks of cat litter in your house, boss?’

  ‘I don’t think so – if I had a cat.’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t think I would either. I guess it could happen but maybe Niall Paternoster thought we wouldn’t find it?’

  ‘We’ve already figured Niall Paternoster’s not the brightest flame in the bonfire. He told us that he and his wife’ – it took Grace, with his distracted mind, a moment to recall her name – ‘Eden, had argued because they needed cat litter, which is what he claims she went into the store to get. On the face of it, Gee’s discovery certainly casts some doubt on that story, don’t you think?’

  ‘Just a little, in my humble opinion.’

  ‘We have just under twenty-four hours left to keep Paternoster in custody. When Exton and Potting lob the cat litter in, see how he reacts. I’m unlikely to be back in the office for a while, but please ring me with an update and leave a voicemail if I don’t pick up.’

  ‘Will do, boss.’

  They were just driving in through the mortuary entrance. ‘OK, thanks, just about to collect Cleo, then on to the hospital. I’ll call you later when I get a chance.’