The Finisher

20

“So how did you get out of the mine?” Paloma asked.

“Quarry,” he said.

He was in bed in a side ward of the trauma and orthopaedic unit at the Royal United Hospital and somewhat sedated, but not enough to let mistaken terms get by. His right foot was cocooned by a metal blanket support that made a large hump in the bedding.

“Have it your way,” Paloma said. “Ingeborg called it a stone mine when she phoned me.”

“She doesn’t live on Combe Down.”

“Stop being so grouchy and tell me what happened.”

“Grouchy I am not. The last person who called me that got kicked off my team.”

“You won’t be kicking anybody in your present state.”

He managed a grin. “What did you ask me?”

“How you got out.”

“The lad who was with me. I don’t know how he coped. We had no chance of getting help from above ground. Phones wouldn’t work. We had to get back to where we started. Young Stanley dragged me most of the way. I used my good foot and my hands as much I could, but it was basically down to him that I got back to the shaft where we started. I’m no lightweight, as you know.”

“Then — when you reached the shaft — you still had to get to the surface.”

“Right. There was no way I could get up a rope ladder. Stanley knew what to do. He went to the top and used his phone to call 999. Don’t ever let me complain about modern youth. That kid is a hero, a bloody hero.”

“Have you paid him yet?”

“Jesus — I haven’t.” He clapped a hand to his head and raised a flurry of limestone dust.

“How much is he owed?” Paloma asked when she’d wiped the worst of it off his forehead.

“Twenty. Make it fifty. Would you tell Keith Halliwell? He’ll make sure it’s done.”

“How did they get you out?”

“The air ambulance came. It was after dark and the entrance to the shaft was in the middle of a wood, so they landed the helicopter in the nearest field. I don’t know how they knew where to come.”

“Stanley, I expect.”

“It would be, yes. You wouldn’t know it, talking to him, but he’s a bright lad. He will have used GPS to tell them where to come.”

“Good thing you weren’t on your own. You’d never have known what to do. So they lifted you?”

“Bosun’s chair. Two paramedics brought it down the shaft. They gave me a painkiller, made me as comfortable as they could and hoisted me up like Patch the dog.”

Paloma frowned. “Did you say a dog was down there or are you feeling woozy?”

“Another time, another story.”

“And what’s the prognosis?”

“Several broken bones. Do you know how many bones there are in a human foot?”

“Tell me then.”

“I was told, but I can’t remember. They had to cut the boot off to get at the foot, it was so swollen.”

“I expect the boot was some protection.”

“That’s for sure. The foot would have been mincemeat without it. They X-rayed me, of course, and I’m going for surgery later. Then I could be wearing a cast for up to three months, like a character out of a Charlie Chaplin film. What’s funny about men with their legs in plaster?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” she said, “but I’m creased up picturing it.”

“Traitor.”

“Careful what you say. You’re going to need help from me.”

“What with?”

“Driving.”

“I thought you were here to cheer the patient up. Hadn’t thought of that. What a drag.”

“Don’t fret. I’ll make sure you get to work. You won’t want to stay at home.”

“Speaking of home, could you look in and see Raffles? I’ll be here overnight and maybe longer.”

“I already fed him.”

“You’re an angel.”

Paloma smiled. “I don’t know what they gave you, but it’s having some unusual effects.”

“I’ll be more like my old self when it wears off.”

“I’ll stay well clear, then. And to think all this happened because you wanted to get one over Georgina.”

“Untrue.”

“It isn’t. You had high hopes of succeeding while the drone didn’t.”

“They didn’t find anything, did they?”

“I’ve no idea. Your CID people will know.”

He turned his head to look at the door. “Why haven’t they been to see me? Are they waiting outside?”

“Peter, it’s nearly midnight. Get some rest now and catch up with everything after the operation.”

After a night in a cell at Reading Police station, Spiro had worked out what must have happened. No one here spoke Albanian, of course, and much time had been used the evening before trying to question him in English. He’d answered in Albanian and there wasn’t much overlap except that they kept using a word that sounded worryingly like the Albanian imigrim. They searched him and took away the little money he had left and his backpack. They went through some formal procedure, reading from a printed card. He was photographed, fingerprinted and had a DNA sample taken from his mouth. But at least they didn’t beat him up. In fact, they removed the handcuffs and gave him coffee.

The explanation became more clear when he had time to himself to go over events. The mugger hadn’t been a mugger at all but a policeman in plain clothes. The police had been suspicious of the kids in possession of a valuable Claud Butler bike. They’d checked the stolen property index and found it had been reported stolen from outside Bath station. To save their skins, the kids had cooperated and agreed to help a detective track down the thief. Once the police had the description of an unshaven man in shabby clothes who spoke in sign language, it didn’t require much detective work to deduce that he was a foreigner, a down-and-out and possibly an illegal immigrant. The obvious place to find such a man was the converted pub, so they’d put it under observation.

The rest was obvious.

Quite early in the morning, he was given more coffee and a surprisingly large breakfast of eggs, bacon, beans and a sausage before being taken to an interview room where an Albanian-speaking interpreter was seated beside a man he introduced as an immigration officer. Spiro refused to say how he had entered the UK or where he had been living. He was told he’d committed several offences including theft and evading arrest, and he was believed to be an illegal immigrant and would be taken to Campsfield House, an immigration detention centre in Oxfordshire.

His world imploded.

Diamond slept well for five hours and then had some worrying dreams of being underground again, but alone. He was relieved when some of the early activity in the corridor outside woke him up. He was hungry. He hadn’t eaten for about fourteen hours.

“How are you today?” a young nurse said when she came in with a face flannel.

“Ready for breakfast,” he said. “Is it the full English?”

“No such luck,” she said. “You’re the first op this morning. No food or liquids.”

“So they’ll give me an anaesthetic?”

“You wouldn’t enjoy it without.”

“Will I enjoy it at all?”

“You’d better speak to the anaesthetist about that. She’ll be along presently to discuss the options with you.”

More strange thoughts buzzed around his head while he was recovering consciousness. Uncertain at first where he was, or where the questions were coming from, he understood enough to confirm that he could feel no pain before drifting off again, reliving the rides in the bosun’s chair and the helicopter and wanting, for some reason, to tell these well-meaning people that he hadn’t completed his mission underground and needed to go back. There was unfinished business down in the tunnels and nobody believed him.

If he concentrated better, he could go below ground again. It was a matter of willpower, finding the shaft and reaching down as far as possible with his foot. But his leg wouldn’t seem to function.

“How are you now, Peter?”

That voice again.

“You’re in the recovery room. We’ll soon have you back in the ward. Is there any discomfort?”

Only in my brain, he thought. I should be below ground, not here.

“Still rather dizzy?”

What do you expect, when I’ve been hauled up spinning from a hole in the ground and loaded into a helicopter?

“You’ll soon come round. It doesn’t take long.”

He had a strong sense that coming round, as she put it, would be a mistake. He was leaving something behind, something that mattered hugely.

“Where’s Stanley?”

His words weren’t heard. The owner of the voice had gone away. And his grip on events underground was going away as well. He needed desperately to hang on.

“Peter, you’re shouting. Are you hurting?”

“I can’t stay here. Got to go back.”

“Can you open your eyes?”

“No.” He squeezed them in case she tried to force them open to check whether he was bluffing.

The steps went away again.

All this mental effort to reach the shaft entrance and he was stuck above ground, unable to move his bloody leg.

“I’m going to give you some oxygen, Peter. You’ll feel so much better.”

Would that give him back some movement? Unlikely.

He felt the pressure of the mask against his face.

“There. Eyes open.”

Defeated, he obeyed.

The light was dazzling. He blinked.

“Well done. You’ll be pleased to hear that your operation was a success.”

Back in the side ward, he was made comfortable, as they put it, with a drip feed through a catheter taped to his hand. He was told there was a bowl within reach in case he needed to vomit. Where have you been all my life? he was tempted to ask the nurse, but she might not have appreciated sarcasm and anyway the words refused to come.

The depressing reality of his situation closed in. Stuck in bed with his leg fastened in some way he couldn’t see but could feel, he wouldn’t be going anywhere without assistance.

Pinpricks of sensation returned to the injured foot. The next few hours wouldn’t be a joyride. But he could move his hands and they’d given him a buzzer to call the nurse if necessary.

He should be thankful to these health professionals for what they were doing.

He pressed the buzzer.

The same nurse returned and she had an expression that said she hadn’t expected the call to come this soon. Certain patients take advantage and Diamond already fitted the profile.

“Yes?”

“Am I allowed visitors?”

“When you’re well enough, yes. You’ll want to get your head clear before you start seeing people.”

“It’s clear already.”

“The anaesthetic won’t wear off for a while. You don’t want your nearest and dearest seeing you in pain.”

“I’m not asking for my nearest and dearest. I need to see some people from work.”

“You won’t be capable of holding a staff meeting, if that’s what you mean.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“It says Peter on the notes, but to me you’re the right foot in side ward two.”

“I’m the head.”

She laughed. “Oh no, definitely the foot.”

“Head of CID.”

“Head or foot, we treat every patient the same.”

“It’s imperative that I speak to some of my team. I have vital information to share with them.”

“You may think so, Peter, but you could be mistaken. Anaesthetics can do strange things to the brain. My advice is to wait a while. For the next few hours you’ll be in no state to receive visitors. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Tomorrow is too late. Have you got my phone?”

“The hospital doesn’t allow phones on the wards. There are certain areas where it’s allowed, but not here.”

“How do I get there?”

“Get where, Peter?”

“To those certain areas?”

“You’re not going anywhere. Relax and get some rest.”

She moved off.

The pinpricks were becoming needle pains. If he asked for help, they’d give him extra medication that would make him even more helpless. He needed to think clearly. Was it a drug-induced fantasy, the vital development he wanted to pass on to the team? He didn’t think so. He had a clear image in his brain of what he’d witnessed underground.

He pressed the buzzer.

She was back, and she wasn’t smiling. “This had better be serious. I have other patients in my care.”

“If I was dying—” he began.

She closed him down. “That’s absurd. You’re a foot case. You’re not dying.”

“I’m saying I’d be allowed visitors if I was dying. I’m expected to recover, so there’s even more reason to invite visitors.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“I know. I’m talking about my friend Paloma, who was here the other night.”

“All in good time.”

“Do you have her phone number? She’s the nearest I’ve got to next of kin. Well, I have a sister, but she lives in Liverpool.”

“You’re recovering. You’re not dying.”

“Would you ask Paloma to visit?”

“If she calls to enquire about you, we’ll ask her to come in as soon as visiting is permitted. Does that put your mind at rest?”

“Not really, if I’m honest. When vomiting ends, visiting starts. Is that it?”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“Except this is a sick bowl.”

She shook her head and marched out.

He’d tried everything he could think of. Charm, wit, invention.

Soon the pain in his foot took over from everything else. When another nurse came to take his blood pressure, he asked for something to ease the soreness. And two hours passed like two minutes. They woke him up to get him to exercise the ankle joint. It reduced the risk of clotting, they said.

After that, he slept again.

The anaesthetist came by and so did the consultant.

“You may be slow to heal, Mr. Diamond.”

“Why is that?”

“The nature of the injury. Several bones were severely damaged. I did the best I could. Be patient, wear the post-operative shoe, do the physiotherapy, and we’ll see how you are in a few weeks. Oh, and stay out of dangerous caves.”

“Quarries.”

“It was a quarry? I stand corrected.” The consultant turned to the sister beside him. “I don’t think he heard that. Look, he’s drifted off again.”