by Rob McCarthy
‘Fucking police,’ Harry said. ‘He was bad enough before they shot him.’
‘I’m sure they were just doing their job,’ said Lahiri. Harry thought he looked a bit like a father, disappointed because one of his sons was in trouble again.
‘No,’ Harry said. ‘They fucked up. He’d taken hostages in a fried chicken place, they had it surrounded. There was some loud bang from outside, the police thought he’d opened fire and they took him out.’
Lahiri scoffed and finally looked up at Harry. ‘What, you were there, were you?’
‘I was, actually.’
Lahiri paused again, bread stuck between his teeth.
‘You’re shitting me?’
‘I’m serious,’ said Harry. ‘I’m a police surgeon now.’
Lahiri smirked, shaking his head.
‘Harry Kent, urban youth, all cops are bastards, works for the police?’
Harry nodded. Granted, his upbringing had included a couple of run-ins with the Met which had evolved into a chip on the shoulder he’d carried through university, and perhaps vocalised once or twice after a couple of pints. But he had his reasons for doing the work, and they went beyond the fairly generous pay. And he had no intention of discussing them with Lahiri.
‘You were there when they shot him?’ Lahiri said.
Harry felt the tension begin to build in his chest. The shrinks called it rising anxiety, a symptom of a couple of disorders Harry was sure he didn’t have.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They’d sent me in to treat him. He was sitting there, talking to me. Next thing I know, there’s a gunshot from outside the shop, the place is full of coppers, the first one in the door drops him, and he’s on the floor bleeding out.’
‘Christ,’ Lahiri whispered. ‘Are you OK?’
Harry picked up on the subtext of that one and tried to ignore it. James Lahiri knew exactly what situations like that one felt like, and worse. Harry’s nightmare had been over in seconds. Two coppers through the door, one shot, a kid with a bullet in his abdomen. Lahiri had gone through a few ordeals like that, one of which had involved putting two tubes into Harry’s chest. For a brief second Harry saw Solomon Idris’s eyes, staring back at him from behind a vinyl-topped table in the freezing-cold Chicken Hut.
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
Neither of them spoke for about a minute. Lahiri finished his sandwich. Harry went to the computer and checked if Idris’s bloods were back yet. Fuck this, he thought. Lahiri had come up, broken their unspoken detente, just to sit in a room and say nothing and eat a sandwich. The air hung heavy, leaden.
‘Sol,’ said Lahiri.
Harry looked up. Lahiri’s mouth was opening and closing as he stumbled for the words. The man looked shattered. It was a fearful thought that he had four or five hours left to work before his shift in A&E ended. Harry wondered whether he had a clinic tomorrow, too.
‘I feel like I’ve failed,’ Lahiri said. ‘We were doing so well. The whole point of the programme is to stop these things from happening.’
Harry shrugged, and Lahiri shook his head, threw his lunch bag into the bin and opened the door. Harry followed him out, and they walked, heads bowed, along the central corridor of the ICU, with the noises, chimes and ventilator cycles emerging from the silence.
‘Do me a favour, yeah?’ Lahiri said as they reached the T-junction that led to the ward exit. ‘Let me know if anything changes, OK? Would you do that for me?’
‘Sure,’ said Harry.
Lahiri nodded.
‘Thank you.’
He began to turn away before Harry spoke.
‘James,’ he said. ‘It was good to, umm. Well, I mean – it was good to work with you again. Just like the old days.’
Lahiri’s eyes closed and he looked tired.
‘Fuck off, Harry,’ he said under his breath, and walked away.
That shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it still hurt. Just like the old days, he thought. Just as some of their patients couldn’t be fixed, despite everyone’s best efforts, some relationships were broken beyond repair, too. Of course Lahiri had to have been working tonight.
But that didn’t matter, and this did. Harry looked down at Solomon Idris, his lips blue, naked under only a blanket, lines and tubes, blood starting to crust over his skin. Listened to a barely functioning chest, but a strong heart. Shone a light into eyes fixed with a hypnotised stare, and remembered the look they’d had when he’d first seen them. Wondered what they’d seen, and heard Idris’s voice. They killed Keisha, and the feds didn’t give a shit. Harry wondered if the police would give a shit about Solomon, either. Even if he made it out of hospital, he would be inside for a long time, long enough to destroy any recovery his shitty life had threatened to make.
Harry realised he was almost falling asleep when he heard someone repeating his name.
‘Sorry,’ he said. It was Angela Valdez, the ICU’s nurse-in-charge.
‘Solomon Idris’s family are here,’ said Valdez. ‘The police liaison officer told them it probably isn’t a good idea for them to see him until the morning, what with his condition. But Rashid was hoping—’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Harry. ‘Relatives’ room?’
Valdez nodded.
‘You coming, too?’ Harry said.
‘If you’ll have me.’
Harry nodded his assent, went back to the console to remind himself of the notes – his standard ritual before talking to relatives – and then shook his head.
‘How do you take your coffee, Harry?’ Valdez asked.
‘Strong and white,’ said Harry. ‘Give me three of the little Kenco cups. Christ, Angie, you’re a godsend.’
He finished reading the notes and realised that he still didn’t have a fucking clue what he was going to say to Solomon’s relatives. The complicated stuff, the HIV infection, the pneumonia, could wait until the morning. We stopped the bleeding, but he’s still critical. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. If in doubt, fall back on the clichés.
Valdez returned with coffee and Harry thanked her again.
‘So what’s the deal with you and James Lahiri, then?’ Valdez said. Evidently their parting words hadn’t been quiet enough to escape nearby ears.
‘He’s an old friend of mine,’ Harry said. ‘We lived together in medical school, and then we served together in the forces.’
‘Yeah, I knew that. Everyone knows that. But there’s a deal with you two, isn’t there? Frosty, not talking, none of the usual doctor banter. Everyone’s been talking about it.’
Harry turned away and sipped his coffee, burning his lips. Valdez was a serious woman, probably one of the best critical care nurses Harry had ever worked with. But she was still a nurse, and nurses gossiped, after all.
‘You really want to know?’ he said. He hadn’t ever pictured having this conversation at twenty to one on a Monday morning.
‘Not if you don’t want to tell,’ said Valdez. ‘But I did get you that coffee just now.’
Harry laughed.
‘Well, I guess none of it matters any more,’ he said. ‘Long story short, I slept with his wife.’
These days, he could say it without even reacting. Valdez looked up at Harry, her face a mixture of disgust and confusion.
‘Sorry I asked,’ she said.
Harry sat down in the relatives’ room with Valdez, joining the three people already there. The police family liaison officer was easy to spot, a motherly-looking woman in a knitted jumper, who could easily have been a social worker or one of the volunteers who read to elderly inpatients long since abandoned by their own families. The woman whom Harry took to be Solomon Idris’s mother was wearing a winter coat from a charity shop, given that half of the price sticker that said ‘Cancer Research UK’ was still stuck on the lapel. Idris’s younger brother, the resemblance striking, had his hands in the pockets of his puffa jacket and was staring at the floor.
They were separated by a mahogany table, two boxes o
f tissues, and a jar of dying flowers.
Harry addressed the mother. ‘I’m Dr Kent. I’m one of the intensive care doctors. And this is Angela. She’s the nurse in charge of this unit.’
No one said anything. Harry knew what the book said to do. At 1.15 in the morning in a windowless room in South London, ask the mother who for the second, maybe third time in as many years is preparing for the loss of her teenage son an open, non-confrontational question.
‘What would you like me to call you, Mrs Idris?’
‘Joy.’
Unlike Solomon, whose accent had been straight off the SE5 estates he’d grown up on, Joy Idris still retained the broad vowels and happy intonation of West Africa, which along with her name doubled the weight of the irony Harry was fighting to hold off.
‘OK, Joy. What do you know already?’
‘That Solomon got shot. The police shot my son. And he needed an operation.’
A tragedy in three acts. Joy Idris sat in one of the chairs, the most comfortable in the hospital, ramrod straight, her hands folded over one knee, like a woman giving evidence in court. No tears yet dropping from her misted-over eyes.
‘Where is he now?’ she asked.
‘He’s here in the surgical intensive care unit,’ said Harry. ‘In bed number eighteen. There’s a nurse who’s going to be looking after him personally, and Angela will introduce you to her after we’ve had this conversation.’
‘Will he die this time?’
The last two words hit Harry’s chest and the pain came again.
‘Solomon is in a critical condition. We have all the resources here we could possibly need to get him better. You should absolutely hope for the best, but you may also need to prepare for the worst. He’ll go for another operation tomorrow, and after that we’ll know more. I’m sorry.’
‘They told me that last time, and he survived,’ said Joy. ‘God took him through. And God will take him through again.’
Harry saw the police liaison officer shift uncomfortably on her seat. He got the impression that she’d been dealing with the religion for most of the evening. It was easy to judge, but in Harry’s experience people who had nothing turned to faith far more readily than those in more comfortable surroundings.
‘Are you Dr Kent?’ said Joy.
‘I am.’
Valdez looked across at him, and Harry returned her subtle glance of confusion with one of his own.
‘Then you were the doctor who talked to him on Camberwell Road.’
‘Yes. That was me.’
‘I don’t know if I should thank you or curse you,’ said Joy.
Harry said nothing.
‘Can we see him now?’ said Joy.
‘I don’t have any problem with that,’ said Harry. ‘But you should be aware that it’s going to look very frightening. Your son still has a surgical opening in his tummy, which looks far worse than it is.’
Valdez cut in. ‘I’ll take you there. But as Dr Kent said, it’s quite scary. Solomon won’t be able to talk to you, because he’s on very strong drugs that put him to sleep. And there’s a machine breathing for him. But you can hold his hand and speak to him if you want. I’d suggest that at the start, maybe you go by yourself, and then your other son can join you after a few minutes.’
‘Junior,’ said Joy. ‘His name is Junior.’
Junior Idris was still staring at the floor. Harry kept his eyes on the boy, hands in his coat pockets, moving around. Couldn’t be older than fourteen. Either playing with a phone or something, or just fidgeting around.
‘Have you got any other questions?’ said Harry. There were details about the operation that could wait, and he had no intention of broaching the topic of Solomon’s HIV status in the wee hours of the morning. The likelihood was that Solomon was HIV-positive, by one means or another, but nothing in his medical records suggested any doctor had ever seen him about it. Discreet enquiries could be made in the morning, not just before his mother was about to see him in a hospital bed, with a tube in his mouth and a plastic window in his abdomen.
‘He’s a good boy,’ said Joy Idris. ‘He’s an angel.’
And then Junior Idris started to move, first a silent retch, at which the police liaison officer jumped back, expecting vomit to hit the floor. When it didn’t, Junior jerked again and then extended back his head in a long howl, one which pierced the skin and went deep into Harry’s chest, where it echoed around the space inside. Then the tears came and the boy was held by his mother. When the police liaison tried to offer a tissue, Joy Idris batted her away with a flailing arm, screaming insults as her son sobbed against her shoulder.
‘Get away from my son, you devil! Don’t you dare touch him! You people tried to murder my son! I hope you burn, you devil! You burn! Burn, you devil!’
When Joy stopped screaming, Valdez picked up one of the tissue boxes and offered it forward.
‘Take your time, Joy,’ she said. ‘We have as much time as you need.’
When they left the relatives’ room, Valdez led Joy and Junior Idris towards Solomon’s bed in the ICU, and Harry headed for the exit. The police liaison officer was shaking her head at her mobile phone and scratching at her neck when she turned around and came up to him.
‘Someone to see you, Dr Kent,’ she said.
The someone was waiting outside the ward for him. He was small and barrel chested, dressed in a suit at least one size too small for him and a beige trenchcoat that cut around his waist, and as he shook hands with Harry, he came so close they almost touched cheeks.
‘Marcus Fairweather. I head up a team from the Directorate of Professional Standards.’
Metspeak for internal affairs.
‘You guys investigating yourselves again?’ Harry said.
Fairweather didn’t smile. ‘There’s an IPCC team at the scene right now. We’re conducting a joint investigation into what happened earlier today. I’m just here to arrange a time for you to come and speak to us. Would tomorrow morning be OK? We’re using the incident room at Walworth – you know it?’
‘What time? I have to be at work for half-eight.’
‘Shall we say seven, then?’ said Fairweather, coming closer again, as though he had no concept of personal space. He handed Harry a business card, which gave his title as detective chief inspector. Harry placed Fairweather’s age as early to mid-thirties, around the same as himself, and wondered what was responsible for the man in front of him holding a rank usually held by officers at least ten years his senior. Maybe he was one of the fast-track graduates, maybe he had a unique combination of ambition and political acumen. If Harry was feeling particularly cynical, though, he might suggest that placing DCI Fairweather in charge of professional standards meant the Met could put a young black man on the press conference lectern to explain how they’d shot another young black man. Harry had only spent six months with the police, but little would surprise him any more.
‘Hope you have a safe journey home, Doctor,’ said Fairweather. ‘And I’d like to thank you on behalf of the service for your courage today.’
Definitely press conferences, Harry decided. ‘And I’d like to thank the service for shooting my patient in the abdomen. It made my job a whole lot easier.’
Harry turned on his heel before Fairweather could hit him with another soundbite. He thought about home but knew the course his evening would take: A3 down to the south edge of Richmond Park, then all the way to Kingston-upon-Thames.
‘Dr Kent!’
Fairweather’s voice cut through the corridor like a monitor alarm. Harry turned. The detective bore a smug grin, dangling a set of keys from an outstretched hand.
‘I’m assuming the black Audi at the scene is your car, Dr Kent. Want a lift?’
Harry walked up to Fairweather and snatched the keys from his grasp, throwing them into the pocket of his scrubs. The detective stepped forward, invading Harry’s bubble by just an inch too far.
‘Thank you,’ said Harry. ‘I’ll take a c
ab.’
Harry didn’t take a cab, he walked. It was only about twenty minutes, and the cold night air woke him up a bit. He felt exhausted, but awake. This happened when he came off night shifts, the body clock simply disintegrated.
When Harry got back to Wyndham Road, the cordoned area was surrounded by police officers, some still toting guns, older detectives in suits and technicians in white zip-up jumpsuits. There was a small crowd, ten or twelve young men hanging around one of the police vans, shouting and filming things on their phones, but no real threat of disorder. He snuck in and spotted DI Noble, a white forensic jumpsuit over her leather jacket, accompanying a crime-scene analyst with the sourest face Harry had ever seen on a police officer. Fortunately, he managed to get out unnoticed.
The roads south-west were clear and empty, the shitty weather – it was now pounding with rain – making them quiet even for the late hour. On Kennington Park Road, he passed the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s and a sudden hunger pang gripped him, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten all day. He parked and went up to the kiosk, returning with a brown paper bag and a large coffee in a plastic cup, which he balanced on the passenger seat. He ate in the car park, his mind wandering around the caverns of a dying teenager’s self-hatred and a vague recollection of a dream about the girl with pink hair, trying to speak to him. Searched for something inoffensive on his iPod, and found Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. Good driving music, especially at night.
Skirting the southern edge of Richmond Park, the grey area between the city and suburbia, Harry felt a hard jolt and braked sharply. He had driven the route so many times he could do it on autopilot, and at this time the roads were empty enough anyway, so maybe he hadn’t really been concentrating. He put his hazards on and looked behind him. There was enough of a straight that whoever was behind would see him and overtake.
Harry got out of the car, the rain bouncing off his shoulders and running down his face, the cold making his hair stand on end.
He had killed a fox. Its bushy orange tail was protruding from his front right wheel arch, viscera and blood spread over the road and the undercarriage of the car. The head and thorax were left intact on the tarmac. Harry looked down at its eyes and saw them unseeing, lost. He had seen that look in people so many times it had lost its impact, but somehow it was different in an animal. He thought of Solomon Idris’s eyes in the Chicken Hut, how they had looked through his own. They had been lost, too, but in a different way, as if the teenager had decided everything was lost already.
