Left You Dead

52

Two hours later, finally and reluctantly dragging himself from Bruno’s bedside after talking to him incessantly, with no response, before he had been taken off to theatre, Roy Grace left the ward and peered into the Relatives’ Room. Cleo was dozing in a chair and looked up as he entered.

‘A guy — a porter, I think — has gone to get us two camp beds.’

He smiled. ‘Good. If I can sleep. Be back in a few minutes.’ He closed the door quietly and walked a short distance along the deserted corridor, checking his phone in case there was any message from Lorna. But there was nothing. Then he hunted for the mobile phone number of the Road Policing Unit Inspector, James Biggs, unsure if he had it. To his relief, he did. It rang several times, and just when he was convinced it was going to voicemail, he answered with a curt, ‘Inspector Biggs.’

‘James?’

The tone of the Inspector’s voice changed instantly. ‘Sir?’

‘I apologize for calling so late.’

‘Call me any time, sir, twenty-four-seven. I’m so very sorry about your son. How is he?’

‘I’m at the hospital now and it’s not looking good, I’m afraid. Bruno—’ Grace had to stop for a moment to compose himself. ‘He has serious brain damage. At the moment his prognosis is pretty poor, to be honest.’

‘I’m extremely sorry to hear that, sir. I’m afraid it looked to me, from the damage to the vehicle, that his head had taken quite an impact. We’ve made enquiries at the school and it happened during break time, when all the kids were outside. Bruno somehow managed to find his way out of the grounds.’

There was a brief awkward pause. Then James Biggs said, ‘Is there any information I can help you with, sir?’

‘Yes, there is, please. I’m struggling to understand what exactly happened — I mean — what was he doing crossing the road? I dropped him off at school this morning myself. He was in a strange mood, but that wasn’t unusual for him. He should have been in class all morning — I’m curious about what he was doing out of school and crossing the road.’

‘We’re still gathering information — seeing what CCTV from the surrounding properties will give us, if anything. I’ve also put out an appeal for any motorists with dashcams who might have been in the area at the time, as well as to any cyclists with GoPros or similar. At this stage we’re talking to independent witnesses. Our best so far is an elderly lady who my officer Tom Van der Wee spoke to at the scene. He said she was out doing her morning constitutional with her dog — a Westie — and noticed a St Christopher’s boy looking down at his phone as he walked along the pavement.’

‘What was he doing out of school?’ Grace quizzed again.

‘We don’t know that yet. She’d spotted him from some distance by his red jacket. According to her account, she saw him walk out straight into the path of a sports car. She described him being struck by the car and landing on the road. Tom said the lady was pretty shaken by the experience but managed to give him a fairly clear account.’

Grace absorbed this before replying. ‘Is she saying that he hadn’t seen the car?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry, sir. It was a BMW i8 sports car that was up for sale. It was being driven by an interested potential customer, with the owner of the company, Sussex Sporting E-Cars, beside him. From the measurements my team have taken so far, all the indications are that the car was being driven at a speed right on the legal limit. But we have, of course, impounded it.’

Grace took some moments to process this. ‘What do you think actually happened?’

‘Too early to say, Roy. I need input from the Collision Investigation Unit, which will take some days. But at the moment, it looks like Bruno was distracted by his phone when he stepped off the pavement. We will carry out cognitive witness interviews with this lady and any others who come forward and see if we can learn more. I’ll keep you updated on any information that comes in from our public appeal.’

‘Thanks, James, I’d really appreciate that.’

‘I’ll keep everything crossed for your lad making a full recovery.’

Grace thanked him and hung up, blinking away tears.