Best of British Crime 3 E-Book Bundle. Paul Finch

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       Chapter 25

      When the two Greater Manchester Police detectives emerged from the private room attached to the recovery ward, they had a young doctor with them, though it was only the white coat and stethoscope that revealed the doctor’s profession. Aside from that, he wore jeans and an open collar shirt, and thanks to the long hours he’d worked, his jaw was covered in stubble. By contrast, the two detectives were fastidiously neat. The detective superintendent, whose name was Smethurst, was a stone-faced, early middle-aged man with cropped, iron-grey hair and a clipped grey moustache. He wore a shirt and tie under his jacket, none of which were even creased despite the lateness of the hour. His compatriot, Detective Inspector Jarvis, was a woman about ten years his junior. She wore flat shoes, a trouser suit, and carried a shoulder-bag. Her hair, which was mouse-brown, was cut almost as severely as that of her boss.

      She beckoned to the two uniformed constables – PCs Hallam and Belshaw – who were waiting on the other side of the passage. They were both young men, not long in the job, still probationers in fact, and they came over smartly; after weeks of checking town centre properties and handing out parking tickets, they were eager to get involved with some ‘real’ policework.

      ‘So what are the chances of us interviewing him tomorrow?’ Detective Superintendent Smethurst asked, glancing back into the room, where a blanketed shape lay flat on an orthopaedic bed. One of the patient’s arms was attached to a drip, the other to a bank of bleeping monitors.

      The doctor shrugged. ‘Give it a try … why not?’

      ‘So he’ll be fit?’

      ‘Possibly, but he suffered quite a beating. Apparently he said something to a nurse about one of your lot being responsible …?’

      ‘That’s one of the things we want to speak to him about. We didn’t manage to get much out of him earlier on. Nothing that made sense, anyway.’

      The doctor half-smiled. ‘I’m not sure what you expected, given the state he was in.’

      Smethurst remained po-faced. ‘This is a murder enquiry, Doctor. So all I need from you is a straight answer. Will he be fit to be interviewed tomorrow – yes or no?’

      The doctor shrugged again. ‘It’s hard to say, but I think it’s worth your while calling around at some point. The sedatives will have worn off by then.’

      Apparently pleased to have been as ambiguous as he possibly could without actually obstructing them, the young doctor sauntered away. Smethurst gazed sourly after him, before moving back into the room to look long and hard at the unconscious patient.

      DI Jarvis turned to the waiting PCs. ‘What time you two on ’til?’ she asked.

      ‘Ten officially, boss,’ Belshaw said. ‘But we’ve got overtime ’til three. Nights are taking over then.’

      ‘No nodding off, eh?’

      ‘No problem, boss.’

      ‘I mean it, lads. This bloke may just have come out of surgery, but he played his part in a vicious bar-fight yesterday which was the prelude to one of the nastiest murders I’ve ever seen. So we’re watching him around the clock until he’s fit to be interviewed. We don’t want anyone coming in to have a word with him, and we certainly don’t want him leaving here. You nod off and something happens, you’ll be on the dole this time next week … clear?’

      They nodded, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

      ‘There’s a coffee machine down there.’ She pointed along the otherwise deserted passage. ‘Sup plenty. I don’t care if you’re pissing for England by morning.’

      Again, they nodded.

      ‘I’ll say it one more time, lads, this bloke could end up being a crucial witness. So no one gets in to see him unless it’s one of the nurses or doctors. That’s no visitors, no cleaners … not even any bobbies unless you know for sure who they are. In fact, even if you are sure, you get on the blower and speak to us first. Whatever time it is.’

      Detective СКАЧАТЬ