Revenger

59

Keane and Walcott went straight to the room where Miklosko was being treated. A doctor was just emerging.

‘How is she?’ Keane asked.

‘Still very shaken,’ the doctor replied. ‘She’s suffered from an extremely acute stress reaction.’

‘Can she answer questions?’

‘If you mean, “Is she coherent?” Yes. But her memory is still very patchy, and I must ask you not to push her to recall things that her mind has chosen to keep buried. There’s a reason why we forget. Sometimes remembering can be more than we can bear.’

‘I’ll go easy, I promise. She’s an innocent victim in all this. I have no desire to victimize her any more.’

‘Good. And please, make it quick, all right? Five minutes. Tops. And only one of you, I’m afraid.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Keane. She looked across at Walcott. ‘Sergeant, why don’t you call forensics, the bomb people and the incident room? Get me a summary of where we are on all this.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Keane went into the room. Miklosko’s face was heavily bruised, and the swellings looked all the more brutal because the bones of her face were so elegant and fine. She was a slender, bird-like woman, and for a second Keane found herself envying her delicate proportions and then being cross with herself for allowing such selfish, inappropriate thoughts to cross her mind. Telling herself to get back to business, she sat down beside the bed — still feeling enormous — and began: ‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?’

Miklosko gave a wan half-smile. ‘No… no, that’s all right.’

‘I just want to ask you about the riot.’

Miklosko flinched.

‘Can you remember anything about what happened to you?’

A shake of the head. ‘Not really, not much…’

‘All right, well, let’s start at the beginning, anyway. Why had you gone to Netherton Street?’

Miklosko seemed relieved by such a simple, harmless question. ‘I was driving home from work.’

‘So what do you remember about the drive?’

‘I was listening to the radio. That politician was on, making his speech…’

‘Mark Adams?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Well, I was listening to that, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, there was an explosion on the road in front of me, and I was really frightened, so I started driving as fast as I could to get out. But there was a huge truck in front of me, right across the road, blocking the way.’

Miklosko had been perfectly calm up to now, but Keane saw that her hands had started grabbing at her hospital blanket, her fingers gathering up the fabric and then clenching until her knuckles showed pale beneath her skin.

‘It’s all right,’ said Keane, trying to sound as soothing as possible. ‘Just take it nice and slowly. If it gets too hard, we’ll stop. You said you saw a truck…’

Miklosko nodded. ‘Yes, so I braked as hard as I could and turned the wheel to try to miss it, but the car started skidding and I ended up right next to it, kind of side to side. And that was when… these men all crowded round the car, and there were so many of them. And I tried to lock the doors, but they just smashed their way in — through the windows, I suppose… I was so scared…’

Keane could sense what an effort it took for Miklosko to bring back these memories. She wondered whether it was fair to continue the interview. But Miklosko seemed determined to complete her story.

‘I could feel their hands all over me,’ she went on, ‘grabbing me and pulling me out of the car. They started hitting me all over. I thought I was going to die. I mean, there was no way I could fight back or get away, and then suddenly I saw these men coming towards me.’

‘Men,’ Keane noted, trying not to show any reaction as Miklosko kept telling her story.

‘At first I thought it was more people coming to attack me, but then one of them got out a knife and started slashing at the people all around me… And the other one was hitting them with a stick and punching and kicking them…’ Miklosko’s voice died away.

‘Are you all right?’ Keane asked.

‘Yes… it’s just that it’s all gone a bit blurry, if you know what I mean. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but it felt like all the people round me ran away… all except one, and I think he had a gun.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘I think so. I mean, it all seems like a nightmare now, like it wasn’t real at all, but, yes, I am sure, because I remember one of the men picking it up later.’

There it was again: ‘one of the men’. Keane was very close now to getting the first details about the Second Man, but she had to resist the temptation to charge right in.

‘So what happened to the man with the gun? The one by the car?’

‘He killed him… with the knife,’ said Miklosko.

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Keane. She knew what Miklosko meant, but she needed it in unambiguous form. ‘There were two

men who came to rescue you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And one of them had a knife?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he killed the man with the gun?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘I don’t know. I remember the other man holding me and telling me it was going to be all right…’

‘This is the second rescuer?’

‘That’s right…’

‘Can you describe him?’

Miklosko made a visible effort to conjure up a picture in her mind of the man who had held her, but then sighed and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. He was bigger than me, obviously, and I think he had dark hair. But apart from that it all goes blank, really, and there are just a few images, as I say, like trying to remember a dream the next morning. The next thing I really knew was waking up here, in hospital.’

‘But there were two men who came to rescue you?’

‘Yes, definitely. There were two.’

Keane smiled with entirely unfeigned gratitude. ‘Thank you, Mrs Miklosko,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’

Outside in the corridor, Walcott was studying his smartphone with a look of boyish glee on his face. He saw Keane and his grin became even wider. ‘I know who Snoopy was,’ he said, triumphantly.

‘That’s great, how did you find out?’

‘Well, the pathologist said he had a Royal Marines crest tattooed on his left shoulder, and Chrystal Prentice told us his nickname was Snoopy. So I tried calling the Ministry of Defence and the Marines and no one there was going to be able to check out the records till tomorrow. So then I thought, Sod it, and Googled “Snoopy” and “Marines”, and there he was, from a local newspaper story a couple of years ago, running an assault-course day for underprivileged kids.’

‘So who is he?’

‘Norman Derek Schultz. He was a company sergeant major in the Royal Marines. Only left about a year ago. And I’ll tell you something else. That event he was doing for the kiddies, it was in Poole, Dorset. And that’s where the SBS are based. What if he and the other bloke, his mate, were both in the special forces? That would explain why they were able to take on a whole bloody riot, just the two of them.’

‘Yes, it would,’ Keane agreed. She yawned and then closed her eyes for a few seconds. ‘Sorry,’ she said, coming back to life. ‘I’m very tired. Must be getting old. Still, there soon won’t be any need for people like you and me to stay up all night trying to solve murder cases.’

‘Why not?’ Walcott asked.

‘Because they’ll be able to work the whole thing out on Google.’