Love You Dead

67 Sunday 8 March

The unconscious American in bed 14 had been brought in to the Intensive Care Unit of the Royal Sussex County Hospital on Friday afternoon. He was in a bad way, with an MRI scan showing a brain contusion from a small, hairline skull fracture, as well as two broken ribs and severe bruising to his right leg. The two cyclists, who had been racing each other along the cycle lane, were both taken to the hospital as well; one with a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, the other with a shattered knee.

The American had been identified from his driving licence as John Daniels, with an address in New York City. He had a bar receipt in his wallet for the Waterfront Hotel in Brighton. The hospital had checked with the hotel, but they said they had no record of any John Daniels, though they did have a large group of Americans staying for a conference in the city. A request had been sent by Brighton Police to the New York Police Department for the contact details of the man’s next of kin, but so far nothing had come back.

Now, this afternoon, the duty nurse in charge of him had called the registrar, excitedly, to say that he was showing signs of coming round.

‘Welcome back, Mr Daniels!’

Tooth blinked. The man was a fuzzy outline. As his focus slowly returned he saw a man in his early thirties, with close-cropped fair hair, dressed in blue surgical scrubs and holding a clipboard. Beside him stood an Arabic woman, similarly attired, and another man in dark trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt, who looked authoritative.

Tooth stared at them blankly. Was he in Iraq? ‘Back?’ he asked. ‘Back?’

‘I’m Dr Martin, this is Mr Buxton, our consultant neurosurgeon, and our registrar — you’re at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.’

‘Hospital?’

All Tooth could think was that he was in hospital in Iraq. Had he been shot? He remembered a shadow looming over him. That was all. ‘Hospital?’ he repeated blankly. ‘Doc Marten. Boots?’

The man in the white shirt, with the faintest trace of a smile, said, ‘Very good.’

Tooth squinted at him. Was the man CIA?

‘Wolverine,’ Tooth rambled. ‘One Thousand Mile Boots.’

The man in the white shirt smiled again. ‘Very good!’

‘How are you feeling, Mr Daniels?’ the one with the short hair, in scrubs, asked.

He’d been trained to keep silent if ever captured. So, staring at the blue curtains all around him and the monitor showing his vital signs, he said nothing.

He was in some kind of military hospital. American, he hoped.

He closed his eyes and drifted off.

The medical team remained around him for some moments, then stepped away and out through the curtains, safely out of earshot.

‘He’ll be confused for a while yet,’ the neurosurgeon said. ‘There are no abnormalities showing on his brain scan. There are a number of contusions consistent with this kind of accident, which will take a while to subside. I’ll come back and see him in a couple of days. If there’s any dramatic change in his condition either way please let me know immediately. The biggest danger is a cerebral haemorrhage from damaged blood vessels, and that’s something we cannot see from the current scans.’

As they walked away across the ward, Tooth grappled with his mind. It felt like he was trying to grip a wriggling fish with a greasy hand.

It slipped free.

Everything went blank again.