Authors: Peter Lovesey
Wigfull’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t recommend a visit, Peter. The two lads I have at the scene are still wearing face-masks, helping the pathologist find all the bits.’
‘Quite a baptism for them.’
‘Yes.’
‘The shotgun?’
‘At his feet. He was in a chair.’
It was apparent that Wigfull was playing this down for all he was worth. He answered the questions honestly because his sense of duty wouldn’t allow him to lie. But he hadn’t revealed what induced him to go out to Tormarton in person. There was something else about the case, and Diamond was too proud to ask precisely what it was.
Before leaving work that night, he asked Julie Hargreaves, his second-in-command, and the one person he could depend upon, to keep an ear open in the canteen. Wigfull wouldn’t give anything away, but his officers might. Something about this business offended the nostrils and it wasn’t only the dead farmer.
Mrs Thornton was a sweetie. She was well over seventy, tall, upright and so thin that she must have been suffering from chronic osteoporosis. Yet her thoughts were all of her husband David, an Alzheimer’s patient. ‘I don’t know what’s in his mind, if anything, poor darling,’ she told Rose in an accent redolent of a privileged upbringing more than half a century ago. ‘It’s very distressing. He rambles dreadfully. It’s hard to believe that he once commanded an aircraft carrier.’
Rose explained that her own brain was impaired, but temporarily, she hoped. ‘I’m trying desperately to find something that will get the memory working. Would you mind terribly if we walked over to the car park where you found me?’
They had to move slowly. Once or twice Mrs Thornton had to be steadied. This walk to the car park was an imposition, and it was clear why Dr Whitfield had been reluctant to encourage it. ‘In case you’ re wondering,’ the old lady remarked, ‘I don’t drive. I come in twice a day -afternoon and evening - on one of the minibuses. It stops outside my house in Lansdown Crescent. The drivers are so thoughtful. They always help me on and off. I get off at the gate and walk to David’s ward. It takes me through the car park, which is where I found you the other evening.’
‘Lying on the ground?’
‘Yes, over there, by the lamp-post. If I hadn’t spotted you, I’m sure someone else would have done. The car park was completely full. It always is in the evening.’
‘Was anyone about?’
‘I expect so. That’s what I was saying.’
‘But did you notice anyone in particular?’
‘Hereabouts? No. I’m afraid not, or I would certainly have told them. Someone better on his pins than I am could have got help quicker. This is the spot.’
They had reached a point between two parked cars under an old-fashioned wrought-iron lamp-post with a tub of flowers under it. The small area in front was painted with yellow lines to discourage parking. In fact, there wasn’t space for a car, but you could have left a motorcycle there.
‘When I saw you lying there, I thought you might be asleep. With all the homeless young people there are, you can come across them sleeping almost anywhere in broad daylight sometimes. Only when I got closer, it was obvious to me that you weren’t in a proper sleeping position. I can’t say why exactly, but it looked extremely uncomfortable. I thought you might be dead. I was profoundly relieved to discover that you were breathing.’
‘I suppose I was dumped there.’
‘That’s the way it looked.’
‘Thank God they left me here and not in the path of the cars where I could have been run over.’
‘Yes, it shows some concern for your safety,’ said Mrs Thornton.
‘And after you found me you came up to the ward and told someone?’
‘That’s right. The first person I saw was one of the nurses I know and she soon got organised. They’re very efficient here.’
‘What time was it?’
‘When I got help? Some time after seven for sure. At least ten minutes past. My bus gets in at five past the hour, which suits me perfectly. Visiting is open here, but they tell you they prefer you to come after the evening meal, which is from six to seven. I think most visitors co-operate.’
Rose stood and stared at the place where she’d lain unconscious. ‘It’s fairly conspicuous.’
‘It is.’
‘I mean, you’d think somebody else must have noticed, if people were driving in for the seven o’ clock visit.’
‘Well, you would,’ Mrs Thornton agreed.
‘I can only suppose I wasn’t there very long.’
Mrs Thornton said, ‘Can we go back to the ward now? I don’t suppose David knows if I’m there or not, but I like to be with him and I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you, my dear.’
Rose couldn’t think of anything else to ask. She felt guilty she’d brought the old lady out here for so little result. ‘Of course. Let’s go back.’
Mrs Thornton offered to let Rose walk ahead, allowing her to follow at her own slow pace, but Rose insisted on taking her arm. In the last few minutes the light had faded. ‘You want to be careful,’ Rose advised. She’d become fond of the old lady. ‘You won’t be all that easy to see in your dark clothes. They don’t all drive under the speed limit, especially if they’re late.’
‘Don’t I know it!’ said Mrs Thornton. ‘The other evening I was almost knocked down by some people in a white car just as I came through the main gate. I’d only just left the bus. I had to dodge out of the way like a bullfighter. Perhaps I was partly to blame for not being alert, but you don’t expect anyone to be driving so quickly in hospital grounds, unless it’s an ambulance.’
‘When was this?’ Rose asked eagerly.
‘Two or three nights ago.’
‘Could it have been the night you found me?’
‘Don’t ask. I come every evening,’ Mrs Thornton said with exasperating uncertainty.
‘Would you try and remember?’
‘One day is very like another to me.’
‘Please.’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t last night, and I don’t think it was the night before, because I met someone on the bus who came in with me, the wife of one of the patients. It must have been Monday, mustn’t it?’
‘This white car. Was it coming into the hospital?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Thornton. ‘That was why I was caught off guard. The car was on the way out. You don’t expect a car to be leaving when everyone is arriving.’
‘You know why I’m asking?’ said Rose. ‘It may have been the car that brought me here. I can’t have been lying here very long, or someone else would have noticed me before you did. If this car was being driven away in a hurry, you may have seen the people who dumped me here. You did say there were some people in the car. More than just the driver.’
‘Well, I think so, my dear. I got the impression of a man and a woman.’
‘Anything you remember about them? Young? Middle-aged?’
‘My dear, everyone looks young to me. I think I’m right in saying that the man was thin on top - well, bald -so he was probably middle-aged. I didn’t see much of the woman, except to register that she was female. Dark-haired, I think. They simply raced through the gate and away. You could hear the car’s noise long after it vanished up the street. Do you know, it didn’t occur to me until this minute that they might have had something to do with you.’
‘Do you remember anything else about them? Or about the car? You said it was white. White all over?’
‘I think so. I’m sorry. A car is a car to me. I can’t tell you the make or anything and I certainly didn’t notice the number.’
‘Was it large? You mentioned the engine-note.’
‘I suppose it must have been.’
‘A sports car? Like, em …’ Rose cast around the rows of parked cars, ‘… like the green one over there, in shape, I mean?’
‘No, nothing like that. It was higher off the ground than that. More substantial, somehow.’ Now Mrs Thornton took stock. ‘Not particularly modern, but elegant. Have you ever seen
Inspector Morse
on television?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘His car—’
‘Yes! A Jag. Was it like that?’
‘No, dear. His car is red, isn’t it? Well, maroon.’
‘But the shape was similar?’
‘Not in the least. What I’m trying to say is that on the front of Inspector Morse’s car there’s a sort of emblem.’
‘The jaguar, yes.’
‘Well, this one had something mounted on the bonnet, but it wasn’t an animal.’
‘The figure of a woman?’
‘Oh, no. Definitely not a woman. A fish.’
43
‘A fish?’
Rose could think of no motor manufacturer who used a fish as a trademark. ‘Are you sure?’
‘That’s what it appeared to be. I only caught a glimpse.’
‘What kind of fish?’
‘I’m sure I couldn’t tell you. I’m no expert on the subject. A fish is just a fish to me.’
This was infuriating. ‘Like a shark? A dolphin?’
‘I don’t think so. Not so exotic as those.’
‘What colour?’
‘Silver, I fancy. But don’t hold me to that, will you?’
‘You couldn’t have confused it with something else?’
‘Quite possibly,’ Mrs Thornton blithely said. ‘I’m just an old woman who knows nothing at all about cars or fish.’
‘It’s so bloody frustrating, Ada,’ Rose told her companion on the way to the bus-stop. ‘There’s a fair chance that this white car was the one I was driven to the hospital in, but she can’t tell me anything about it except that she thinks it had a fish mounted on the bonnet. A
fish.’
‘What’s wrong with that, petal? A fish on a car is pretty unusual.’
‘I’d say it is. Have you ever seen one?’
‘Since you ask, no.’
‘She’s very vague about it and she only caught a glimpse, anyway.’
‘Look on the bright side, ducky,’ said Ada. ‘Suppose she’d been a car expert and told you she saw a BMW five-series. You’d be no wiser, really. You could find hundreds of cars like that. If we can find a white car with a fish on it, we’re really getting warm.’
Back at the hostel a message was handed to Rose. She was to phone Dr Whitfield as soon as possible.
‘There you go,’ said Ada with a told-you-so smile. ‘Somebody cares. Just when you were saying that goddam hospital was only too pleased to be shot of you …’
‘You
said that.’
Rose used the payphone in the hall.
‘How are you?’ Dr Whitfield asked.
‘No different. There’s no change.’
‘All in good time. Listen, I don’t know if this is significant, but someone was asking after you this afternoon. A woman. She phoned the clinic. She wanted to know if you’d recovered consciousness.’
Rose’s skin prickled. ‘Did she mention my name?’
‘No. She simply referred to you as the patient who was brought in unconscious on Monday evening.’
‘Who is she?’
‘She didn’t identify herself. The call was taken by one of our least experienced staff, unfortunately.’
Biting back the rebuke that was imminent, Rose asked, ‘What else was said?’
‘The girl at our end told her you’d been discharged and were being cared for by the social services.’
‘Did she tell this woman where to find me?’
The doctor said in a shocked tone, ‘We wouldn’t do that, particularly without knowing who the call was from. I’m afraid all we can tell you is that the voice sounded local. There was some of the West Country in it. It’s odd that she didn’t leave her name. None of this makes any sense, I suppose?’
‘No sense at all,’ Rose said, incensed that such a chance had been allowed to slip.
‘The caller may well get on to the Social Services and trace you that way. I wanted you to be informed, just in case. How did you get on with Mrs Thornton?’
She controlled herself enough to tell him about the white car with the fish emblem. He said he hadn’t any knowledge of such a vehicle.
‘I wouldn’t get too excited. Old people can get things wrong,’ he told her. ‘She could easily have made a mistake about the fish.’
When Rose replaced the phone her hand was red from gripping it. Through someone’s incompetence a real chance had been lost. They should have traced that call. Dr Whitfield knew it and was covering up for the hospital. He was a right ruddy diplomat. How could she believe anything he said? All these promises about her memory being swiftly restored: how much were they worth from a man who told you what he thought you wanted to hear?
Up in their room she told Ada about the call. ‘I want to strangle someone,’ she said finally.
‘Terrific,’ said Ada. ‘Just what I need to hear from the person I share my room with.’
Rose couldn’t even raise a smile.
Ada asked, ‘Who do you think she is, this woman who called the hospital?’
‘That’s the bind. I’ll never know, will I, unless she gets in touch again? She could be one of my family, or a friend, or someone I work with.’
Ada shook her head. ‘Think it through, petal. How could your nearest and dearest know you were in the Hinton Clinic? The only people who know you were in there are those pillocks who dumped you in the car park.’
Rose stared at her. Such was her anger that this simple point had not dawned on her.
Ada continued, ‘It’s my belief that this call was from the woman Mrs Thornton saw, the dark-haired dame in the car. She and Mr thin-on-top have you on their conscience. They needed to find out if you were dead.’
She had come to respect Ada’s logic. ‘You’re saying the call was from the people who knocked me down?’
‘Unless you can think of something better.’
‘Bloody hell, it’s so frustrating. And now they know I survived, will I hear from them?’
‘No chance. What does every motor insurance company advise you to do after an accident? Admit nothing.’
Rose sank her face into her hands. ‘Oh, shit a brick. What’s to be done, Ada? Where do I turn for help?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Ada.
She looked up. ‘You’re not giving up? I need your brain, Ada. Mine’s seized up completely.’
‘And I know why.’
‘Yes?’
‘You haven’t eaten for hours. You can’t think any more on an empty stomach. Me, too. Why don’t we go down to Sainsbury’s and liberate some fillet steaks?’
Rose stared at her in horror. ‘I can’t do that. I’m not a shoplifter.’
Ada’s eyes glittered wickedly. ‘How do you know?’