Innocent

by Kinsley, Erin

This Peggy has a large packet of Walker’s open under the ledge over her desk. Her smile is warm and genuine, and Weld wonders how she keeps it up, given the unrelenting stream of people lining up to ask questions. But when Weld asks where she’ll find Tristan Hart the smile fades, and doesn’t come back even when she produces her warrant card and refers to him by what she’s recently learned is his legal surname. Peggy picks up a phone, and covers her mouth as she speaks to someone. When she’s put on hold, she takes the opportunity to eat a crisp, swallowing it quickly when she hears a voice responding. A few words are exchanged. Peggy hangs up, looks round to be sure no one is listening, and directs Weld to the ICU on the third floor.

  One hospital is indeed very much alike another: the maze of corridors, the rumble of trolleys, the pensive looks on people’s faces. And the absurdly long wait for the lifts. When one finally arrives it’s the size of a freight elevator and shudders as if it’s developed a terminal fault.

  Regardless, Weld crams herself in with the other visitors and outpatients, alongside a female doctor in scrubs and white clogs, who glances impatiently up at the ceiling as if praying for people to hurry. Then, just as the doors are closing, a bony hand reaches in to stop them, and an emaciated woman in a dressing-gown shuffles in, pushing the drip feeding the cannula in the back of her hand ahead of her. Her face is creased and jaundiced from decades of smoking, and as she pushes her way into the crowded lift, the stink of fag smoke coming off her takes Weld back to the cheerless, sunless home of Nanny Peg.

  At the door of the ICU, she presses the buzzer and waits. A couple of minutes pass before a nurse opens the door a crack, and asks if she can help.

  Weld shows her warrant card.

  ‘I’m part of the team looking into Tristan’s assault,’ she says, and the nurse appears interested. ‘I need to speak to his wife – I think she’s probably here – and if possible to one of the medical staff in charge of his care. We need to understand the severity of his injuries.’

  ‘Can you hold on a second?’ The nurse disappears behind the closing door, and Weld waits, but not for long. The nurse returns, and this time holds the door open, admitting Weld to the inner sanctum.

  The unit hums and bleeps with machinery supporting the slow-beating hearts of patients unnaturally sleeping, suspended between life and death. Despite the warmth, Weld shivers.

  ‘This way.’ The nurse ushers her into a side-room – a kitchen with a table and four chairs, a microwave and a kettle, and a single porcelain mug on the draining board waiting to be put away. ‘Have a seat. Mr Talbot will be in to see you in a moment.’

  Weld sits, and tries not to listen to the uncanny silence swelling beneath the sounds of human activity. There are soft footsteps in the corridor, and a man appears in the doorway, looks questioningly at her, and when she stands to greet him, comes in and offers his hand.

  ‘Ian Talbot. What can I do for you?’

  Weld shows him her warrant card, and rather than take it at face value, Mr Talbot takes it from her and scrutinises it closely.

  ‘Without wanting to be in any way offensive,’ he says, ‘I’ll need to make a phone call to check your credentials. May I borrow this?’

  Weld shrugs. ‘Be my guest.’

  He’s gone for fifteen minutes. A woman who looks as if she hasn’t slept for days comes in to make coffee; while the kettle boils, she helps herself to biscuits from a tin, offering it to Weld as an afterthought, though Weld declines. The woman eats her biscuits robotically, without pleasure, and Weld doubts she’s tasting anything but sweetness as she stokes her system with calories, necessary but low-grade fuel. When the woman leaves with her coffee, Weld smiles, but the woman’s outside the zone of social pleasantries and doesn’t respond.

  When Mr Talbot returns, his attitude is softened.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ He hands back Weld’s warrant card and sits down. ‘In cases like this, we exercise extreme caution. Members of the press can be totally unscrupulous, and a scoop on Tristan’s condition – do they still use that word, or am I showing my age? – could be worth good money. Anyway, tell me what I can do to help.’

  ‘It’s straightforward, really,’ says Weld. ‘We just need an assessment of Tristan’s condition, the severity of his injuries.’

  ‘So you can grade the offence?’

  Weld nods. ‘To be honest, yes, that’s about it. I know it sounds cold, but there’s a significant difference in our world between a couple of stitches and home tomorrow and might never walk again. I need to know where we are on that scale. Approximately. I’m not asking you to sign your life away on your assessment.’

  Mr Talbot smiles, summoning lines around his eyes which make her think he’s older than she first thought.

  ‘That’s something, at least. I’m a neurologist, so my involvement in Tristan’s care relates to his brain injury rather than keeping him hydrated and breathing, which is the work of our intensivists.’

  Weld’s eyebrows raise.

  ‘Are you saying you’re an actual brain surgeon?’

  Mr Talbot smiles again, and Weld decides she likes him.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Wow. That puts my job in perspective.’

  ‘I need hardly say what I tell you now is in the strictest confidence. Tristan is very unwell. He has swelling on the brain which could lead to permanent impairment of day-to-day brain function, by which I mean could affect his speech or his ability to walk, or might render him blind. In short, this could be a life-changing injury for him. He is currently in a deep coma, which from Mother Nature’s point of view is where he needs to be while the swelling reduces. It’s at that point we’ll know what the impact has been. There’s not much else I can tell you, until he wakes up. If he wakes up.’

  ‘If?’ Weld is shocked. Tristan’s a household name, and it seems impossible that for him, it might all be over.

  ‘There are no certainties in the neurological world. Some patients in these situations do really well, others for no obvious reasons do not. We must hope Tristan falls into the first group.’

  ‘Are the family aware of his situation? I’ll be speaking to his wife and I don’t want to put my foot in it.’

  Mr Talbot hesitates.

  ‘I have told them only what I believe is necessary at this stage.’

  ‘So in your opinion, how should his injury be classified? How serious a blow was it, in medical terms? What I’m getting at is, has he just responded badly to an injury someone else might have walked away from?’

  The surgeon shakes his head emphatically.

  ‘Whoever hit him, hit him hard. What was the weapon used, by the way?’

  ‘A champagne bottle. You think they meant him serious harm?’

  ‘A champagne bottle is unlikely to deliver a mere tap on the head, so I would think so, yes. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘So this could be attempted murder?’

  ‘In my opinion, most definitely.’

  Fifteen

  As Debbie the hairdresser joins the queue in the baker’s, Flora’s eye has been caught by a market trader juggling fruit. Bridget’s happy to stand and watch, and even happier when the trader presents beaming Flora with an apple.

  As they’re about to move on, a grey-haired man touches Bridget’s shoulder.

  ‘We haven’t met,’ he says, dithering over whether to offer a formal handshake, deciding in the end to put his hands in his suit trouser pockets. ‘I’m sorry to intrude but someone pointed you out to me. I believe you work for Mr and Mrs Hart? I’m Roger Evison, vice-chair of the Town Council. I won’t keep you, but I would like to pass on to the family – on behalf of the Council – our best wishes for Mr Hart’s speedy recovery. We’re most appreciative for all he does for the local community, most appreciative. If you could give them that message, I’d be much obliged.’

  When Ian Talbot leaves Weld, he tell
s her he’ll ask someone to find Tristan’s wife. Weld asks one of the nurses if there’s somewhere private where she can talk to Mrs Savage, and is pointed to the relatives’ room.

  She’s not surprised to have a further wait. Talking to the police can hardly be a priority while her husband’s so unwell.

  She’s checking messages on her phone when the door finally opens. Judging by what she’s seen of Tristan on TV, the woman who comes in must be considerably younger than him, and despite the pallor of disturbed sleep is still hugely attractive, wearing this calamity with an enviable air of Gothic tragedy.

  Weld gets to her feet and offers her hand, which the woman touches briefly.

  ‘Isobel Savage.’

  ‘DS Kirstie Weld, from West Mercia police. We spoke on the phone yesterday. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It’s a shock to everyone that this could happen to someone like him. How’s he doing?’

  Izzy sits down on a chair that is becoming too familiar. ‘Not good, obviously.’

  ‘I’ll try and keep my intrusion to the minimum, but there are questions we have to ask at this stage. If we could just go through those, then I’ll let you get back to where you need to be. Some of it’s basic background and the rest relates specifically to Saturday’s events. Are you OK with that?’

  Izzy looks at her with steady eyes and nods. Weld finds a clean page in her notebook, writes the date, location and time, and takes down Izzy’s address and contact numbers.

  ‘How long have you and Tristan been married?’

  ‘Just over four years. Maybe nearer five.’

  ‘Forgive my asking, but was he married before?’

  ‘Yes. He’d been divorced a while when I met him. I don’t know anything about her, really. He doesn’t like to talk about the past. He has a very positive outlook, always looking forwards. That’s his life’s mantra, forwards not back.’

  Doesn’t like to talk about the past, thinks Weld. Could mean there’s stuff there he doesn’t want this shiny new wife to know.

  ‘Any children?’

  ‘We have a daughter, Flora. She’s three.’

  ‘Does he have any children from his previous marriage?’

  Izzy’s face becomes stony.

  ‘Is this relevant? Surely you should be restricting your questions to people who were at the wedding? I can assure you Tristan’s son has absolutely nothing to do with this.’

  Sore point. Weld makes a note.

  ‘Why don’t you just take me through what happened on Saturday? What time did you arrive at the hotel?’

  Izzy looks doubtful.

  ‘I don’t really know. I don’t wear a watch. If I want to know the time, I look at my phone, but it didn’t seem to matter. We went to the ceremony at the church, which started at three, so probably about an hour after that.’

  ‘We’ll say four, then. What happened next?’

  ‘We had the meal. That took forever. The food was good but the service was slow, I suppose because they had to get round so many people. Then they cut the cake, all the usual stuff. By that time Flora was getting tired and fractious, so Tris rang Bridget to come and collect her.’

  ‘Bridget?’

  ‘Bridget Feahny, our nanny.’

  ‘I’ll need her details.’

  ‘You can find her at the house.’

  ‘And what time did Bridget arrive?’

  Izzy shakes her head.

  ‘I don’t know. Tris took Flora and he seemed to be gone ages.’

  ‘When you say ages, how long do you mean?’

  ‘I think it would have been over an hour. They started the music, and I danced a bit. When Flora wasn’t there any more I had a couple of drinks, and time goes a bit fuzzy when you’re drinking, doesn’t it? When I started to get worried, I asked Aidan to go and look for him, and he was gone a long time, too. When he came back, he said you – the police, I mean – were looking for me, so I went with him and Laura to the pool, and there he was . . .’

  ‘Aidan and Laura, who are they?’

  ‘Laura’s a friend, and Aidan’s her husband. He has a bike shop just outside town, proper bikes, you know, racing bikes, mountain bikes. You might know him, actually. He used to be a policeman.’

  ‘What’s his last name?’

  ‘Ridley. Aidan Ridley.’

  Weld smiles.

  ‘Oh yes, I know Aidan. A bike shop, is it? No surprise there. Do you have contact details for them?’

  Izzy takes out her phone and reads them out.

  ‘Just a few more questions,’ says Weld. ‘Was there anyone at the wedding Tristan had issues with or who might have had issues with him, anyone he wasn’t very pleased to see?’

  Izzy shakes her head vehemently.

  ‘Everyone loves Tris. He’s really popular in the town.’

  ‘What about outside the town?’

  ‘People approach him like he’s a personal friend.’ Unbidden, the memory of finding the second phone flashes into Izzy’s mind, and Weld notices a nanosecond of hesitation before she goes on. ‘How you see him on TV, that’s just how he is in real life.’

  Weld decides not to push it. ‘Has he been bothered by anyone recently? Famous people sometimes attract the wrong kind of attention, stalkers, online trolls – anything like that?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. He doesn’t do social media. He says life’s too short.’

  ‘Had he been drinking? People can get themselves in trouble when they’ve had a couple of drinks.’

  ‘Tris doesn’t drink, he’s teetotal.’

  ‘So you’re not aware of anyone who would wish him any harm?’

  ‘No one. I just don’t understand it. Who would do such a thing to him?’

  ‘That’s exactly what we’re going to find out,’ says Weld. ‘We’ve recovered the weapon used . . .’

  ‘Have you? What was it?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Weld, ‘I thought you would have been told at the scene. He was hit with a champagne bottle. Are you sure your husband wasn’t drinking?’

  ‘Positive. I’ve never known him drink in all the time I’ve known him. Have you found any fingerprints on the bottle, anything like that?’

  ‘I believe the bottle itself was smashed, but forensics are looking at it. Another thing which could be helpful would be for us to have a look at his bank accounts, see if we can find anything there.’

  Izzy frowns. ‘That seems very intrusive. Why would you need to do that?’

  ‘That kind of data often shows up useful leads. It’s all in the strictest confidence.’

  ‘I don’t see why that’s necessary when he’s the victim. Tris is very protective of everything in his personal life. I’m sure you can understand that.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The real problem for me,’ says Izzy, ‘is that I’d hate for him to wake up and be mad at me for giving permission he wouldn’t have given himself.’

  ‘It’s certainly not our intention to put you in a difficult position with him. If you don’t feel comfortable, we can apply to the courts for a production order, then it’s not your fault if he doesn’t like it. I know it might feel as if we’re being pushy, but the faster we move, the quicker we’ll get a result.’

  Izzy sighs, seeming to breathe out all her self-assurance. ‘Do whatever you need to do. I don’t mean to be obstructive, but everything seems so surreal, talking to you, being in this place with Tris so unwell. It’s like living in a bad dream I can’t wake up from.’

  ‘We appreciate what a difficult time this is for you,’ says Weld. ‘Here, let me give you my card. If you’ve any questions you’ve forgotten to ask, or if you think of anything you think we should know, even the smallest thing, please, call me. In an investigation like this, those tiny, seemingly irrelevant details can make all the difference.’
>
  Sixteen

  Bridget sees Philly before Philly sees her, and is almost quick enough to dive down the alley leading alongside the White Lion into Carter’s Yard, where there’s a chocolatier she’d usually avoid as Flora will get upset when she’s refused one of their white chocolate rabbits. But the little pink car is awkward to turn round, and by the time she’s pointing in the right direction, Philly is at her side.

  ‘Hello, Bridget, how are you? How are you holding up? I just can’t believe what’s happened.’ Philly’s dressed as she always is, in effortless summer chic: chinos, Italian sandals, a plain but plainly expensive white T-shirt and a string of bright wooden beads which look like they came from a toyshop but probably cost more than Bridget earns in a week. She bends and chucks Flora under the chin, in the way Bridget’s grandmother’s friends always used to as they remarked how much she’d grown. ‘Doesn’t she look gorgeous? Such a pretty dress! Is it from Caramel? I’m sure it must be. Izzy always knows just where to shop. How’s she doing? Is there any news?’

  ‘Not in front of the children, Philly,’ says Bridget, and makes as if to head down the alley, since turning round again will only cause a delay she doesn’t want.

  ‘I’m just going for coffee.’ Philly talks on as if Bridget hasn’t spoken. ‘The Blue Moon looks really busy, so I thought I’d try that place on Boongate, what do they call it, Darjeeling Unlimited? People say it’s quite good but I’m not keen on the woman who owns it, I think her husband’s something to do with the Lib Dems. Still, that shouldn’t affect the coffee, should it? Will you join me? It’ll just be a quick one. Jerry wants to run a couple of errands, but I asked him to wait in case the farrier arrives, and I told him I wouldn’t be long. You’d like a drink, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?’ She bends down again to Flora. ‘Or maybe Auntie Philly could buy you an ice cream.’

  ‘No ice cream for us today, thanks,’ says Bridget, but the damage is already done, and Flora’s face is crumpling at the thought of being denied.

  Bridget acts fast, producing a fruit roll-up from her pocket and handing it to Flora.

  ‘I did try to ring,’ Philly goes on. ‘I didn’t want to call Izzy’s mobile – you just don’t know what might be going on at the hospital, do you? – but I left a message on the house phone. I thought she might call me back when she was home, but I suppose she can’t spend all her time talking to well-wishers.’