“‘Who was he?’ may be the right question.”
“No, no. I’m getting regular updates from the resuscitation bay. He’s clinging on to life.”
He perked up. “He survived my CPR?”
“Your prompt action may have saved his life. If he does come through this, he’ll owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“I don’t want anyone owing me anything, thanks.”
“Don’t be so modest, Peter. I gather you found him on a piece of wasteland where nobody else had thought to check.”
“They would have got round to it,” he said. “Pure chance on my part. I was thinking a fox or a deer may have jumped down and caused the crash. There’s an iron fence all the way along the top of the bank, so that’s unlikely.”
“Getting back to my earlier question, what do we know about him?”
“Very little. My working theory is that he caused the crash. A witness says he was riding unsteadily.”
“Someone saw?”
“No, ma’am. They only saw the old man going in that direction.”
“Did they know him?”
“No.”
“Wasn’t he carrying any form of identity?”
“I was too busy pounding his chest to go through his pockets.”
“The hospital doesn’t seem to have found anything.”
“He’s a Sherlock Holmes impersonator, going by what he was wearing,” he said. “Someone will know. People like him get noticed.”
“The worst of it is that this brings a serious new dimension to your investigation,” Georgina said. “Deeply alarming.”
“You’re wishing I hadn’t found him?”
“I’m happy for his sake, not for ours. It was bad enough that one of our officers lost his life. With a member of the public critically injured it’s almost certain to be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.”
“Does that mean I’m free to return to normal duties?”
“Quite the reverse. You must devote every minute of your time to finding out what really happened. We’re going to find ourselves under scrutiny. At the earliest opportunity you must get a statement from the driver.”
“Difficult. He’s dead.”
She dismissed her mistake with an impatient, angry sigh. “The other one, then.”
“Lew Morgan is still in intensive care.”
“I know. I called the hospital in the last twenty minutes. But at some stage he’ll be able to talk.”
“We can hope.”
“See that you’re the first in. Did you meet the collision investigator?”
“Dessie? Yes.”
“Make sure he’s on side. We don’t want conflicting versions.”
“That’s unlikely to happen. Dessie is dealing with the mechanical stuff, recording everything. Scene plans, vehicle components, that sort of thing. He’s very young.”
She saw danger in the last remark. “Don’t underrate him. I have it on good authority that he misses nothing.”
Diamond thought of the crashed tricycle and its rider lying unnoticed for three hours but kept the thought to himself.
“He’s a civilian, of course,” Georgina added, “so don’t be tempted to pull rank with him. He’s with the top forensic road collision investigation company and they have the highest opinion of him.”
“We’ll sort things out between us,” he said.
“What will you do next?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“How soon Lew Morgan is fit to talk.”
4
Diamond slept fitfully, troubled by recurring images of the old man’s grey, lifeless face.
In the morning, he drove-with even more care than usual-to the Royal United Hospital instead of straight to work. After much badgering of the ward sister responsible for Lew Morgan’s care, he was told he might be allowed a short visit after the consultant had seen the patient.
It wasn’t so simple.
Extra treatment-whatever that meant-was prescribed, meaning a wait of at least an hour. Instead of sitting outside and staring at a wall he had the good idea of checking on the progress, if any, of the tricyclist. He located the Critical Care unit quickly, not far from the room where Lew Morgan was being treated. Understandably, he wasn’t allowed inside, even with his police ID.
“What are his chances?” he asked the one nurse willing to be questioned.
She held her hand palm downwards and made a quivering movement.
“Not the best, then?”
“He’s old. He must be over seventy, quite well nourished, but the trauma he’s been through would test someone half his age. Apparently-don’t ask me why-he was lying unconscious for some hours before he was brought in. There are other injuries from the fall and we haven’t concluded how serious they are.”
“He’s still with us. That’s something.”
She didn’t comment, just widened her eyes a fraction.
He took this to mean the patient was clinically alive thanks to the treatment he was getting. Whether he showed vital signs of his own was less certain.
Of course it would aid the investigation if the old boy pulled through, but at this minute Diamond wasn’t thinking about the investigation. He passionately wanted the man to survive.
“Did you discover his name?” he asked the nurse. “I was wondering if you found a wallet or a card-case in his pockets.”
“There wasn’t anything like that,” she said. “Some money and a set of keys that Sister has put in the safe. No, he’s our mystery patient until somebody misses him and comes looking.”
He went outside and called CID. Ingeborg was in.
“I’ve been given a statement from the control room, guv,” she said. “It’s a log of all their exchanges with Delta Three on the night of the crash.”
“Good. I asked for that. Anything of special interest?”
“Not really but it gives a picture of the areas they visited. They arrested two men from Swindon stealing lead from a church roof in Julian Road and brought them in to the custody suite. They were still here when the call came in about the naked man. It was almost the end of their turn.”
She also had a list from Dessie of the items found in the handlebar bag: binoculars, digital camera, a few tools for the trike, an Ordnance Survey map of Bath, a vacuum flask containing the dregs of some tea and a plastic sandwich box but with only some cake crumbs and a banana skin inside. And a plastic vase.
“A what?”
“A vase about a foot high, with a lid. Dessie thought it might have contained ashes.”
“Oh?”
“He said it was typical of the temporary containers provided by crematoria but there was nothing inside.”
“Like an urn? How weird.”
“Very.”
“You mentioned a camera. Have they checked it?”
“Damaged, I’m sorry to say.”
“How damaged? It would be good to know if he took any pictures.”
“The vacuum flask split and everything was soaked in tea. They’re sending the memory card to a data recovery expert but they don’t hold out much hope.”
“What’s a data recovery expert for if he can’t recover data?”
“Am I supposed to answer that, guv?” Ingeborg said.
“No need. I was having my usual rant. We’ve got a few clues now.”
“Have we?”
“Come on, Inge. Is this the result of all the hours I’ve devoted to teaching you the art of detection?”
He heard a nervous laugh. “Sorry, guv, I must have missed something.”
“First, there’s the obvious clue of the banana.”
“But there isn’t a banana.”
“That’s the obvious clue.” She’d walked into that like a latter-day Dr. Watson. “He’d eaten it.”
“He’d eaten the cake as well.”
“Better. What do you deduce from that?”
“He’d got hungry at some point.”
“More importantly, he hadn’t just started out. He must have been out some time already.”
“Okay, that’s worth knowing, I agree.”
“Now let’s turn to the clue of the binoculars,” he said.