Not Dead Enough

119

The silence seemed to go on for an eternity. Grace, gulping down air, was momentarily dazzled by a flashlight beam. More warm, sticky fluid struck his face. The beam moved away from his eyes and now he could see what looked like a narrow, round length of grey hosepipe jetting red paint at him.

Then he realized it was not red paint. It was blood. And it wasn’t a pipe, it was Norman Jecks’s right arm. The man’s hand had been severed.

Grace scrambled on to his knees. Jecks was lying, shaking, moaning, in shock. He had to stop the bleeding, he knew, had to staunch it immediately or the man would bleed to death in minutes.

The guard was alongside him. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Jesus. Oh, Jesus.’ Two police officers joined him.

‘Call an ambulance!’ Grace said. He saw faces pressed up against the windows of the stopped train. ‘Maybe see if anyone on the train is a doctor!’

The guard was staring down at Jecks, unable to take his eyes off him.

‘SOMEONE RADIO FOR AN AMBULANCE!’ Grace yelled at the police officers.

The guard ran off towards a phone on a signal post.

‘Already done,’ one of the constables said. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

Grace nodded, still breathing hard, concentrating on finding something for a tourniquet. ‘Make sure someone’s gone to help Cleo Morey, at Unit 5, Gardener’s Yard,’ he said. His hands went to his jacket, but then he realized it was on the floor somewhere in Cleo’s house. ‘Gimme your jacket!’ he yelled to the guard.

Too surprised to query him, the guard ran back over and let Grace pull the jacket from him, then ran off again. Grace stood up and, holding both sleeves, tore it apart. One sleeve he wound as tightly as he could around Jecks’s arm, a short distance above where it was severed. The other he balled and jammed against the end as a plug.

Then the guard ran back, panting. ‘I’ve asked them to switch off the power. It should only take a few seconds,’ he said.

Then suddenly the night erupted into a cacophony of wails. It sounded as if every emergency vehicle’s siren in the whole of the city of Brighton and Hove had been switched on together.

Five minutes later, Grace was travelling, at his absolute insistence, in the back of the ambulance with Jecks, determined to see the bastard securely into a hospital room, with no chance of escaping.

Not that there seemed much danger of that at this moment. Jecks was strapped down, cannulated and barely conscious. The paramedic, who was monitoring him carefully, told Grace that although the man had suffered heavy blood loss, his life was not in immediate danger. But the ambulance was travelling urgently fast, siren wailing, the ride rocky and uncomfortable. And Grace was not taking any chances: there was a police car escort in front and behind them.

Borrowing the paramedic’s mobile phone, Grace called both Cleo’s numbers but got no answer. Then the paramedic radioed for him, putting him on to the controller. An ambulance was on site at Gardener’s Yard, the woman told Grace. Two paramedics were attending superficial wounds to Cleo Morey, who was reluctant to go to hospital, wanting to remain at home.

Grace then got himself patched through to a patrol car that was also outside Cleo’s house and told the two constables to remain there until he returned, and also to get hold of a glazier to secure the window as quickly as possible.

By the time he had finished giving instructions, the ambulance was already turning sharply left, up the hill to the Accident and Emergency entrance to the hospital.

As Grace climbed out of the back, not taking his eye off Jecks for an instant, even though the man now seemed completely unconscious, a second police car wailed up behind them and stopped. A young constable climbed out, green-faced and looking very close to vomiting, and hurried over towards them, holding something inside a heavily bloodstained handkerchief. ‘Sir!’ he said to Grace.

‘What have you got?’

‘The man’s hand, sir. They may be able to sew it back on. But some of the fingers are missing. It must have gone under the wheels a couple of times. We couldn’t find the fingers.’

Grace had to struggle to restrain himself from telling him that by time he had finished with Norman Jecks, he probably wouldn’t have much use for it again. Instead, he said grimly, ‘Good thinking.’

It was shortly after midnight when Jecks came out of the operating theatre. The hospital had not been able to contact the one local orthopaedic surgeon who had had some success in reattaching severed limbs, and the general surgeon who was in the hospital, and had just finished patching up a motorcycle rider, decided the hand looked too badly damaged.

It was the hand with the hospital dressing on, Grace noticed, and requested it be kept in a refrigerator, to preserve it forensically if nothing else. Then he ensured that Jecks was in a private room, on the fourth floor, with a tiny window and no fire escape, and organized a rota of two police constables to guard him around the clock.

Finally, no longer exhausted but wide awake, wired, relieved and exhilarated, he drove back to Cleo’s house, his ankle hurting like hell every time he depressed the clutch. He was pleased to see the empty police car in the street outside and that the window had already been repaired. As he limped up to the front door, he heard the roar of a vacuum cleaner. Then he rang the bell.

Cleo answered. She had a sticking plaster on the side of her forehead and the surround of one eye was black and swollen. The two constables were sitting on a sofa, drinking coffee, and the Hoover lay on its side on the floor.

She gave him a wan smile, then looked shocked. ‘Roy, darling, you’re injured.’

He realized he was still covered in Jecks’s blood. ‘It’s OK – I’m not injured, I just need to get my clothes off.’

Behind her, the two officers grinned. But for the next moments he was oblivious of them. He stared back at her, so desperately grateful that she was OK. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her on the lips, then hugged her, holding her tightly, so tightly, never, ever wanting to let go.

‘God, I love you,’ he whispered. ‘I love you so much.’

‘I love you too.’ Her voice was hoarse and small; she sounded like a child.

‘I was so scared,’ he said. ‘So scared that something had—’

‘Did you get him?’

‘Most of him.’