Another One Goes Tonight

19

There was a voicemail on Diamond’s phone.

Unusual.

He never encouraged the team to call him and Paloma was the only other person who had his number-or so he believed.

This was Georgina. “Peter, it would help if you kept me informed where you are when you’re out of the building. Contact me as a matter of urgency.”

Every summons from the ACC was a matter of urgency. One day she would ask him to call her in his own good time and he would be so shocked he’d be on the line at once. He deleted the message and then noticed there was another.

Georgina again, but speaking through clenched teeth by the sound of it. “Didn’t you get my earlier message? It’s vital that you get in touch immediately.”

It had been a demanding day so far. He’d diverted to Kingsmead Square and treated himself to coffee and lemon drizzle cake in the Boston Tea Party. Immediately? Immediately after he’d finished his cappuccino.

“Where have you been?” she demanded when he finally got through. “I almost sent out a search party.”

“The Techie Brekkie.”

“The what?”

He repeated it and added archly, “Networking with some of my IT contacts. How can I help?”

She was muttering inaudible things. When she became coherent she said, “We heard from the hospital early this morning. Mr. Pellegrini, the accident victim, opened his eyes.”

“Get away!”

A real matter of urgency.

“One of the night nurses reported it. They’re thrilled. It’s the first sign of life that hasn’t been induced. He closed the eyes again almost at once, but there are now grounds for hope that he’ll emerge from the coma.”

“Great.” His mind was racing.

“It is and it isn’t,” Georgina said. “Marvellous that he seems to have survived, but what will he have to say to the IPCC people? I’m worried that he may be critical of our driver.”

“He may not remember much. Do Drawham and Quarter know about this?”

“Who?”

“The IPCC.”

She clicked her tongue. “Really. Mr. Dragham and Miss Stretch. No, they weren’t in this morning when the hospital got in touch, but they could arrive any time. Peter, stop whatever you’re doing and get to the RUH as soon as possible. I’m not suggesting you bring any influence to bear on Mr. Pellegrini if he’s able to talk.”

But you are, Diamond thought. That’s exactly what you’re suggesting. “I’m on my way.”

In the car he reminded himself how little Georgina knew about Pellegrini. There was so much else to be clarified than the minor matter of whether Aaron Green had been driving without due care and attention.

His ally, the Critical Care sister, was in her office entering something on the computer.

“I would have put money on them sending you,” she said. “Couldn’t you have got here earlier?”

“I was only just informed. Do you have a kit for me?”

“Kit?”

“The sterile clothing.”

“There’s a stack outside the door. I thought for a moment you were speaking of kitties.” No prize for guessing her next question. “How is he getting on?”

Until he’d met this woman he’d believed himself to be the world’s least convincing liar. He was getting a conscience about Hornby, but owning up wasn’t an option.

“The last I heard was good.” He moved to the more realistic matter. “What’s happening here? It sounds promising.”

“We’re encouraged, but don’t expect him to sit up and talk. They don’t snap out of a coma just like that.”

“Any more signs of improvement?”

“He opened his eyes again briefly twenty minutes ago. There’s also some flexing of the limbs. He’s still in a vegetative state and it’s quite usual for the eyes to open. He may soon begin responding to sounds. Try talking to him when you go in, simple, undemanding stuff. Hold his hand and see if he responds, but don’t distress him.”

In the private room where Pellegrini was, a nurse was changing one of the bags of fluid hanging from a drip stand. “Are you family?”

He shook his head. “He doesn’t have any left.”

“Poor old Ivor. Good thing he’s got friends.”

Friends?

He didn’t go into why he was really there. It was obvious from the mask, tabard and gloves that he was an approved visitor. “Was it you who first saw him open his eyes?”

“That was the night nurse some hours ago. It’s in his notes. I was here when it happened the second time. He didn’t move his head or focus or anything, but it shows there’s life in him.”

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking the opposite. The patient looked ready for the undertaker.

Diamond found the chair he’d used before and moved it closer to the bed. He could see how much the facial hair had grown since his last visit, already more like the start of a beard than five o’clock shadow.

“Talk to him if you want,” the nurse said. “Don’t mind me. I’ll be out of here in a minute.”

His previous one-sided conversation with Pellegrini hadn’t made much difference. “I’ll have to think what to say.”

“The first thing that comes into your head. We do.” She laughed. “It’s funny. You can find yourself saying really personal, intimate things to patients in comas because you know they won’t answer back, and then when they recover you feel really embarrassed and wonder if any of it sank in.”

“I’m shy. I won’t be telling my secrets.”

She laughed. “Who are you kidding?”

“Not to him, anyway, and not you.”

“Shame. Hold his hand and talk to him about old times, then, things you have in common, and be sure to keep on using his name. That’s the main buzzword: Ivor.” She picked up a bag she’d been filling with discarded items. “I’ll leave you to it. Press the button if you need me.”

Tentatively he reached for Pellegrini’s left hand, palm down on the bed, and slipped his own underneath.

Clammy. Limp. Swollen joints. Not easy to touch.

“Me again, Ivor,” he said. “The same bloke who found you. Hope you understand some of this, even if you can’t say so. You’re showing definite signs of improvement, and we’re hoping for more. There’s a lot I’d like to ask you, but let’s just try the word game. How about locomotive?”

No reaction.

“Squeeze my hand if I’m getting through to you. I know the things that interest you. Like steam engines.”

The hand remained inert.

“Great Western Railway.”

Above the bed, the delta waves patterned the screen in the same regular formation.

“You wouldn’t believe how much of this I’ve had to mug up on. Your personal name-plate, County of Somerset.”

Personal it may have been, but it made no impact on Pellegrini’s brain or heart rate. A monitor on Diamond’s own would have shown big fluctuations. He’d never been a patient man. How did I come to this, he asked himself, pandering to a serial killer?

“A place you visited recently: Hampton Row Halt.”

The hand resting on his could have been an uncooked fillet of cod.

“Did you get that, Ivor? I hope you’re listening. The one-time railway station. Hampton Row Halt.”

Pause for inspiration. There’s only so much you can say that’s simple and undemanding. After some time he tried a fresh approach, letting the words flow more, as the nurse had suggested.

“I was there myself, standing on the iron bridge looking along the track where the HOPS are coming. Yes, it took some working out, but I know all about the HOPS now. Saw them for myself only the other night.” He’d scarcely begun before he ground to another halt. Aimless chat didn’t come naturally to him.

He looked up at the screens and stands and tubes, all functioning efficiently while he was failing lamentably to make any difference.

“You know what they should do?” he told Ivor when he started up again. “Fix you up with earphones, put on a tape of steam railway sounds and see what that does for you. I’m sure there are plenty of recordings. Then you wouldn’t need idiots like me talking about it. They play music to coma patients. I’ve heard of miracle cures with Beethoven and Brahms, so why not the Flying Scotsman? Oops, that would never do. Got to go GWR, not north. The Cornish Riviera Express, London to Penzance. About six hours’ worth of clackety-clack. Cure anyone, that would.”

The only good thing about the lack of any response was that Dragham and Stretch were going to have to wait just as long as he was for the victim’s account of the collision. There would be no sudden breakthrough. They don’t snap out of a coma, the sister had said.

“Okay. The railway stuff leaves you cold. I’m going to try some names, like your cleaning lady, Mrs. Halliday.”

He waited.

“She doesn’t do anything for you? There’s a woman from the church who brings you meals on wheels and I’m trying to recall her name. She arrived with a quiche when I was at your house asking about you and I thought I’d got lucky, but she insisted on saving it for someone more needy than I was. Blake. Elspeth Blake.”

He might as well have named William Blake, or Blake’s 7.

He knew of other names more likely to trigger brain activity, but that would be crossing a line. The sister had said not to distress the patient.

Bugger that, he told himself. The sister doesn’t know she has a killer in her care.

Go for broke.

“Max Filiput? Your friend Max?”

Friend or foe, it made no difference.

“Cyril Hardstaff?”

He might as well have said Joe Bloggs.

“Your late wife, Trixie?”

One of Pellegrini’s fingertips tensed and pressed against Diamond’s palm. Unmistakably. Trixie’s name had worked.

A miracle.

The touch was soft, but to Peter Diamond it felt like a thousand volts.

Fizzing with the force of it, he squeezed back. “Good man. We got there, thanks to Trixie.”

Another twitch confirmed it.

Communication at last.

A small but sensational triumph.

Nothing else happened. Pellegrini didn’t open his eyes and say, “You’ve got me bang to rights, officer, I’m ready to confess.” Something may have registered in the vital signs but Diamond missed it, too surprised to look up at the monitor.

He was thrilled beyond description.

Impossible to overestimate his sense of relief. The raw emotions of that morning on the embankment came flooding back: fear that he would get the compressions wrong and destroy a life he could have saved, revulsion at the mouth-to-mouth, exasperation with the discipline of counting, but above all the will to succeed-and all brought to a halt by the anti-climax of the paramedics taking over. From that moment until now, any hope had been put on hold.

The immediate effect on Diamond was dramatic.

The drip, drip of suspicion accumulated over the past week drained away. None of it had any part in this moment. He felt only the closeness of a shared experience, an irresistible warmth towards the helpless man who had freed him from uncertainty with no more than a touch.

He had to tell someone and he’d taken Paloma for an evening meal at one of their regular haunts, the White Hart at the bottom of Widcombe Hill. Church pew seats, but cushioned, white walls and wood floors. Real ale, too.

“It was uncanny,” he said, after a long first gulp. “I almost gave up, and then this. He may be a thief and a murderer. God knows I’ve found enough evidence to arrest him, but when I felt that tiny movement of his finger and knew he’d understood me, I melted. We were sharing in something intensely personal. If there hadn’t been so many tubes and wires I’d have hugged him. It’s unprofessional. It’s all about some primitive drive to connect.”

“That’s understandable,” Paloma said. “You saved his life. You have a stake in his future.”

“It goes deeper than that. I’m doing something a cop should never do-taking sides. In the face of all the evidence I’m now trying to think of reasons why he might be innocent.”

“He has a right to be understood, whatever he’s done.”

“My heart is ruling my head.”

“It’s allowed,” she said.

“Not in my job.”

“Perhaps he is innocent. You said all the deaths were signed off by doctors as natural. The doctors may be right.”

“How I wish!”

“Well, you haven’t explained to me how the doctors could be mistaken.”

“Actually, there’s a long history of doctors getting it wrong. They’re not trained to spot the signs of criminality. Some killers are so confident they call in their GP to examine the corpse and certify death.”

“Confident of fooling them?”

“The stuff he downloaded from the Internet was nothing else but clever ways of killing people.”

“Doesn’t mean he put it into practice.”

“That’s my hope.”

She sat back and took a sip of wine. “You’ll know before long, so why agonise over it? He’ll get his head straight and you’ll be able to question him.”

“That’s if he makes a full recovery. It’s not guaranteed. Parts of his brain may have been permanently damaged. He reacted to his wife’s name, and that’s a positive sign.”

Paloma smiled. “A lot more positive than reacting to a steam train. There’s hope for him, whatever he’s guilty of. If I were you I’d soft-pedal until he’s well enough to give his own account.”

Good advice, he decided.

“How’s your back now?” she asked.

“Much improved. Another massage might see it right.”

She gave him a wide-eyed look that didn’t commit to anything.

“Your place or mine?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t think they’d welcome it here.”

T he best-laid plans… I made my preparations and knew what ought to work, but the current one behaved out of character. People, being people, have minds of their own. I mustn’t let it get to me. I can’t bail out this time, because this one knows far too much and he has to go. Knows I’m coming? Possibly. It’s a new challenge for me. I simply have to be equal to it.

Cool is the rule.