Left You Dead

by James, Peter

  ‘Better check where she got the prawns,’ Branson said with a dark grin.

  ‘I bloody well will!’

  ‘If Lorna’s team doesn’t find any human remains tonight,’ Branson continued, ‘then I think our other two options might be better. We could go for a further extension to give us ninety-six hours of detention, and see what else comes out of the woodwork. But the option I personally favour is releasing him on police bail tomorrow morning before the 9.45 a.m. deadline, and seeing if I can get approval to put surveillance on him. Before we do that, I’d like you to continue to interview him, make the challenges and see how he reacts to the discovery of the two sacks of cat litter in his house – but leave out our activity in the forest. He’ll probably pick it up in the media but if we tell him we’re looking there, he definitely won’t return.’

  Norman Potting frowned, then made a strange, rapid movement of his lips, which he often did when he was thinking. It looked as if he was swilling mouthwash. ‘What about all the other evidence?’

  ‘Let’s keep some of it in our back pocket for now, Norman. Niall Paternoster’s hung his whole story on his wife needing cat litter. Focus on that, and challenge him over the other evidence found in the house to see how he reacts, prior to his release before the deadline. Then what I’m thinking is a press conference, where I will make an appeal for any sightings of Eden or any information that will assist the investigation.’

  Both detectives looked at him for some moments. ‘That could be a smart move,’ DS Exton said. ‘You’re thinking about a possible girlfriend – the assignation on Sunday evening?’

  Branson said, ‘I’ll be running my thoughts past the boss later to make sure he’s up to speed and on board. I want to nail this. If Paternoster has somehow managed to disappear his wife’s body, we’ll need to establish a motive for murder that’s a bit stronger than an argument over cat litter. An affair would be a pretty good one.’

  ‘I’ve never had to murder any of my exes,’ Potting said.

  ‘Really, Norman?’ Branson said. ‘How come?’

  ‘Because,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘they always dumped me first.’

  51

  Tuesday 3 September

  As soon as Exton and Potting had left his office, Branson called Roy Grace and updated him. He told him interviews with Paternoster would continue that evening and again in the morning, and they would be challenging him on the evidence they had established. Then he told him of the plan to release Niall Paternoster in the morning, assuming no remains of his wife were found before then, and to make a public appeal via a press conference for information on Eden.

  ‘I’d like you to stand in for me and take that conference, Glenn.’

  ‘Of course, boss.’

  ‘You’ll have to update ACC Pewe – with his ego he’ll probably want to muscle in and get his mugshot in the Argus and the Brighton and Hove Independent, and on Latest TV and all the other news.’

  ‘I can handle him.’

  ‘I know you can.’

  There was a brief moment of silence, then Branson said, ‘Just know we’re all here for you. Especially me. If you want to bell me any time, day or night, that’s fine, yeah?’

  Grace was too emotional to reply.

  Cleo had gone home to pack an overnight bag for them both to sleep here in the hospital. As he sat alone in the Relatives’ Room, along with everything else he was dealing with right now, he was thinking of that hapless expression on poor Norman Potting’s face yesterday. For much of the time that he’d known him, with his portly figure and terrible comb-over – before he’d gone for a more modern shaven head – Norman had to have been one of the world’s most unlikely – and most unsuccessful – philanderers. And yet the man, who was still one of the best detectives Grace had ever encountered, had somehow charmed one of the brightest members of his team, and had been on the verge of marrying her before her tragic death trying to save a little girl from a fire.

  He felt the tugging in his heart for Bruno. The terrible anxiety eating away at his insides like acid. With his brain roiling with fear for the boy, he was on autopilot, barely able to concentrate.

  In need of some air, he left the hospital, grateful for the fresh evening breeze, even if it was laced with traffic fumes. He took a short stroll and sat for a while on a low wall. When he went back inside, he paused to squirt sanitizer on his hands, then followed behind a doctor in scrubs towards the Intensive Care Unit.

  As he reached it, he glanced through the window of the secured doors towards Bruno’s bed.

  It was empty. All the machines had been switched off and were silent, the displays blank.

  Christ.

  For an instant he stood, feeling like his blood had turned to ice.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  Grace turned and saw the doctor again, a handsome-looking Asian man in his late twenties. His badge gave his name, Amil, and underneath the words ICU Registrar.

  Bewildered and terrified, he stuttered, ‘My – my son – I just came back to see how he was.’

  ‘Bruno?’ the man asked, calm and with a reassuring air.

  Grace nodded. ‘Where – where is he?’ Terrified of the answer.

  ‘He’s been taken for an MRI scan, he should be back shortly, sir. Perhaps you’d like to wait in the Relatives’ Room and someone will be along to let you know when your son is back. I’ll take you there.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know where it is, my wife and I are staying in there.’

  Numbly, he walked back out of the ward, into the same windowless room, and sat back down. A few minutes later the door opened and the stocky ICU consultant he and Cleo had spoken with earlier, Adrian Burton, came in. He had a strange, unsettling look on his face.

  ‘You’re working a long shift today,’ Grace said, trying to sound jovial and not succeeding.

  Burton smiled thinly and said, in his warm Brummy accent, ‘I felt I owed it to you and your wife to stay on and make sure we’re all doing the very best for your lad that we can.’

  Standing up, Grace thanked him, then asked, ‘How is he? Can I see him?’

  ‘I’ll take you in to see him in a minute, but I’d like to talk to you first, please?’

  Grace felt another cold flush deep inside him. ‘Sure,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Roy, normally we’d wait twenty-four hours before doing an MRI scan on a trauma victim, but Bruno hasn’t been maintaining his blood pressure or pulse, so the team needed to see what was going on. If I can explain in layman’s terms, as the brain swells from a trauma it cones. Basically, it gets pushed down into the base of the skull – the technical term is foramen magnum. Bruno doesn’t have any skull fracture, which, ironically, is unhelpful in this situation, because a fractured skull could absorb some of this increasing pressure.’

  ‘Clearly a tough nut, like his dad,’ Grace said, attempting a smile.

  Burton gave a kindly smile back. ‘Clearly.’ Then his face clouded. ‘But the pressure has caused a real problem for him.’

  ‘How – how serious a problem?’ Grace asked, aware his voice was faltering.

  ‘I’m afraid it is extremely serious,’ Adrian Burton said. ‘The next step tonight is for Bruno to be taken into theatre again – the leading neurosurgeon in Sussex is on his way, and he’ll insert an intracranial bolt to monitor the pressure.’

  ‘What will that do?’

  ‘Shall we sit?’ the consultant said.

  Reluctantly, he sat back down and Burton joined him. ‘Basically, as I just said, as the pressure rises, the brain gets pushed down, further out of the skull, putting increasing pressure on the brainstem, which is essentially the basic life support. As the pressure on the brainstem continues to increase, it causes the loss of ability to maintain the brainstem’s functions. This in turn causes loss of pulse, blood pressure and temperature regulation, which are the very basic functions of the brainstem. So even though your lad’s had the bleeding treated, at this moment the team still
can’t get his blood pressure and everything related stable.’

  ‘I think I follow,’ Grace said. ‘What – what does that mean for his prognosis?’

  Burton looked at him, their faces just inches apart now. Grace could feel the warmth of the consultant’s breath with a faint, not unpleasant, tinge of garlic. ‘How honest and explicit do you want me to be?’

  ‘I’d prefer you to be totally honest and not dress anything up.’ He stared back at the consultant levelly, with an inkling of what might be coming, however much he dreaded what he was about to hear.

  Burton gave an uncomfortable smile. ‘I know you coppers cope with some of your worst horrors through gallows humour. So do us medics. Some of us call the MRI scanner the “doughnut of death”. Apologies if that’s offensive.’

  Grace shook his head. ‘I get it.’

  ‘What it showed with Bruno is a tight brain with widespread contusions – both bruising and ischaemia – where his low blood pressure has further impaired his brain functions. And now a brain that’s swelling and pushing down, out of the skull. I wish I could give you better news but I can’t.’

  They were interrupted at that moment by Cleo returning, with a small holdall. She sat down and Burton quickly recapped for her. Then he said, ‘I don’t want to mislead you or give you false hope. I’m afraid to say we’re rapidly approaching the point at which there will be nothing more we can do for him.’

  Grace stared back at the consultant. ‘Nothing? What do you mean, nothing? There’s always something, surely? There must be some doctor – neurologist – neurosurgeon – somewhere in the world – who could help him? I don’t care what it costs. I’ll do anything. Anything at all.’

  Burton sat in silence for some moments, his eyes fixed on the couple. Then he said, ‘Believe me, if there was anything we could do, anything that would give a chance, however small, that Bruno could be saved – other than by a miracle – I would suggest it. But he wouldn’t survive a move from here to any hospital, anywhere – and we really do have top consultants, please believe me on that. I know from some of our staff that you’ve been critical of this hospital in the past, but we’ve made huge strides. The neurosurgeon who’s on his way is world class.’

  Grace looked back at him through misted eyes. Memories of being at his father’s bedside as he lay dying, then his mother’s, came flooding back, overwhelming him. ‘Isn’t there anyone – don’t they have brilliant neurosurgeons in America at some of their teaching hospitals? Germany? Russia? Is there anyone at all?’

  ‘If there was even a one per cent chance, I would suggest it.’

  ‘What about this intracranial bolt – can’t that possibly help?’

  ‘It won’t treat the injury, it will just monitor the pressure inside the brain,’ Burton replied.

  ‘So what’s the point in doing that?’ Grace said, his anxiety rising even further.

  ‘I’m afraid its main purpose, normally, is to confirm brainstem death. If Bruno has avoided that and does, by a miracle, pull through, it is very likely he will have permanent brain damage.’

  ‘How serious? I mean – how impaired would he be? Would he be able to function normally? Go back to school?’ Cleo was struggling to keep her voice down.

  Burton stared at her levelly. ‘We’ll know more later, after the neurosurgeon, Mr Hoyle-Gilchrist, has seen him.’

  Grace folded his body, resting his head in his arms, as he fought off tears. He lost track of the time as he sat, before finally straightening up again and gratefully accepting a tissue the consultant passed him from a box.

  ‘You both need to remain strong,’ Burton said gently. ‘We’ll keep you informed every step of the way, but I would urge you to prepare yourself for the worst.’

  52

  Tuesday 3 September

  Two hours later, finally and reluctantly dragging himself from Bruno’s bedside after talking to him incessantly, with no response, before he had been taken off to theatre, Roy Grace left the ward and peered into the Relatives’ Room. Cleo was dozing in a chair and looked up as he entered.

  ‘A guy – a porter, I think – has gone to get us two camp beds.’

  He smiled. ‘Good. If I can sleep. Be back in a few minutes.’ He closed the door quietly and walked a short distance along the deserted corridor, checking his phone in case there was any message from Lorna. But there was nothing. Then he hunted for the mobile phone number of the Road Policing Unit Inspector, James Biggs, unsure if he had it. To his relief, he did. It rang several times, and just when he was convinced it was going to voicemail, he answered with a curt, ‘Inspector Biggs.’

  ‘James?’

  The tone of the Inspector’s voice changed instantly. ‘Sir?’

  ‘I apologize for calling so late.’

  ‘Call me any time, sir, twenty-four-seven. I’m so very sorry about your son. How is he?’

  ‘I’m at the hospital now and it’s not looking good, I’m afraid. Bruno—’ Grace had to stop for a moment to compose himself. ‘He has serious brain damage. At the moment his prognosis is pretty poor, to be honest.’

  ‘I’m extremely sorry to hear that, sir. I’m afraid it looked to me, from the damage to the vehicle, that his head had taken quite an impact. We’ve made enquiries at the school and it happened during break time, when all the kids were outside. Bruno somehow managed to find his way out of the grounds.’

  There was a brief awkward pause. Then James Biggs said, ‘Is there any information I can help you with, sir?’

  ‘Yes, there is, please. I’m struggling to understand what exactly happened – I mean – what was he doing crossing the road? I dropped him off at school this morning myself. He was in a strange mood, but that wasn’t unusual for him. He should have been in class all morning – I’m curious about what he was doing out of school and crossing the road.’

  ‘We’re still gathering information – seeing what CCTV from the surrounding properties will give us, if anything. I’ve also put out an appeal for any motorists with dashcams who might have been in the area at the time, as well as to any cyclists with GoPros or similar. At this stage we’re talking to independent witnesses. Our best so far is an elderly lady who my officer Tom Van der Wee spoke to at the scene. He said she was out doing her morning constitutional with her dog – a Westie – and noticed a St Christopher’s boy looking down at his phone as he walked along the pavement.’

  ‘What was he doing out of school?’ Grace quizzed again.

  ‘We don’t know that yet. She’d spotted him from some distance by his red jacket. According to her account, she saw him walk out straight into the path of a sports car. She described him being struck by the car and landing on the road. Tom said the lady was pretty shaken by the experience but managed to give him a fairly clear account.’

  Grace absorbed this before replying. ‘Is she saying that he hadn’t seen the car?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, sir. It was a BMW i8 sports car that was up for sale. It was being driven by an interested potential customer, with the owner of the company, Sussex Sporting E-Cars, beside him. From the measurements my team have taken so far, all the indications are that the car was being driven at a speed right on the legal limit. But we have, of course, impounded it.’

  Grace took some moments to process this. ‘What do you think actually happened?’

  ‘Too early to say, Roy. I need input from the Collision Investigation Unit, which will take some days. But at the moment, it looks like Bruno was distracted by his phone when he stepped off the pavement. We will carry out cognitive witness interviews with this lady and any others who come forward and see if we can learn more. I’ll keep you updated on any information that comes in from our public appeal.’

  ‘Thanks, James, I’d really appreciate that.’

  ‘I’ll keep everything crossed for your lad making a full recovery.’

  Grace thanked him and hung up, blinking away tears.

  53

  Tuesday 3 September

&nb
sp; Feeling completely hollowed out, Roy and Cleo sat in the Relatives’ Room eating some kind of pasta with plastic forks. Macaroni, linguine, fettuccine, penne, whatever. Although they’d not eaten for hours, neither of them had any appetite.

  ‘I just can’t believe it. He’s that bad . . . this is awful, darling.’ Cleo’s voice was breaking up and she started crying again.

  He hugged her tight.

  She bowed her head for some moments, then looked up at him, sniffing and wiping her tears. ‘Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this, not tonight anyway, but maybe you should hear it before you see it for yourself.’ She fell silent.

  ‘See what?’

  She shook her head. ‘Forget it, I shouldn’t tell you. Now isn’t the time.’

  He looked hard at her. ‘You can’t leave me dangling. What is it? Tell me?’

  She shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t have raised it, not tonight.’

  ‘Well you have,’ he said, his anxiety rising again. ‘So what is it? Tell me, please?’

  ‘Bruno’s two favourite hens, Fraulein Andrea and Fraulein Julia.’ She looked at him flatly.

  ‘Yes, what about them?’

  Hesitating again, she said, ‘I went out this morning to let them out. But I couldn’t find them anywhere. So I looked inside the hen house thinking they might be broody and sitting in nesting boxes. They were in there.’ She looked at him with a strange expression.

  After some moments, Roy Grace said, ‘Broody, as you thought?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Roy. They were dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Poor things. It said in that book you got that sometimes they die suddenly and young – often when an egg gets stuck. Is that what happened – they got egg-bound?’

  She gave him a resigned look. ‘I wish I could say it was.’ She shook her head again. ‘But I don’t think getting an egg stuck would do that to Andrea and Julia.’