Hold on, he told himself. This is the man whose life I fought for. He and I are linked by the intensity of those desperate moments. I was alone with him, willing him to survive, mouth to mouth, forcing my breath into his lungs, an intimacy you can’t forget. Nothing in my world mattered more than his precious life.
A few sheets printed out from the Internet debating methods of murder don’t make anyone a killer.
The truth probably lies elsewhere.
How frustrating that the man himself is alive yet unable to speak. No use relying on an improvement in his condition. Even if he does recover, there’s no certainty he’ll speak sense. He talked bollocks about rabbits. Lew Morgan, an experienced cop well used to dealing with tall stories, decided the man was a nutcase.
But was all the crazy talk just a front, an attempt to distract from a more likely reason for his night ride: the illegal scattering of ashes along the railway? Illegal, but not unworthy. He definitely lied when he said the cremation urn contained his late wife’s ashes. The talk of bringing her on the ride must have been his cover story. Maybe the rabbits are no more than an extra touch of idiocy to convince the two policemen he was gaga, and basically harmless.
Or could there be a germ of truth in the story?
Lew Morgan ought to be able to throw more light. He was the last to speak to Pellegrini. That weird conversation in the small hours of the morning could be the key to understanding whether the man was criminal, crazy or misunderstood. The version Lew gave was spoken in snatches when he was still in shock and under sedation.
He had to be given his chance to talk some sense.
The monitoring equipment took up so much room that when Diamond arrived at the ward next morning he had to slot a chair into a space between bags of fluid hanging from drip stands. This time he hadn’t been required to dress in the sterile clothes. Lew Morgan was out of intensive care and in a private room, fully conscious and propped up on the adjustable bed. No restrictions had been placed on the visit, even though it was little over a day since the patient’s left leg had been amputated above the knee.
He started to introduce himself again as “Peter Diamond from the nick”-without mention of rank-hoping Lew would open up and fill in some of that crucial extra detail. After everything the poor guy had been through, he was unlikely to have any memory of the previous visit and its abrupt, abusive end.
But Lew interrupted him. “I know who you are. You were here a couple of days ago asking questions.”
“You were heavily sedated.”
“So what’s new?”
“You sound brighter.”
“High as a fucking kite. Haven’t the faintest idea what they’re pumping into me except blood and I need plenty of that. Is this still about Aaron’s driving? He did nothing wrong, poor sod.”
“Glad to hear it. There was nothing at the crash site to suggest any different.”
“So what’s your problem? I can speak up for Aaron.”
“But you told me you didn’t see the crash because your eyes were closed.”
“That’s a fact. When I opened them we were out of control and turning over. He screamed out ‘Jeez’ and now I know why: that old git on the trike.”
“You remember him, then?”
Lew’s hands gripped the bedding as he spoke of the still-vivid experience. “He comes out of nowhere. Aaron swings the wheel and takes us up the bank and we swerve across the street on two wheels and hit the wall.” He added through gritted teeth, “They tell me the old fuck is on life support. Let me anywhere near and I’ll switch him off even if I have to hop there on my one leg.”
“It can’t have been deliberate,” Diamond said.
“How do you bloody know? You weren’t there.”
“I’ve been to the scene. There were stationary vehicles. Aaron was unsighted, and so was the tricyclist probably.”
“He was an accident waiting to happen. Unsteady.”
“How do you know that if your eyes were closed?”
Lew hesitated and screwed up his face in thought. “We stopped him earlier. Fucking demented. He shouldn’t have been out.”
“I want to ask you about that, Lew. We touched on it when I saw you last but you weren’t able to say much. Where was he when you first pulled him over?”
“Out Bathampton way. This was early in the shift, around two-thirty. Bathampton Lane, in fact. He was the only thing on the road but he didn’t have a crash helmet, so we stopped to have a word. Well, I did. Aaron stayed in the car.”
“What exactly was said?”
“Straight off I could tell he was going to give me lip. The posh voice, calling me officer.”
“Patronising?”
“That’s the word. I tell him he shouldn’t be driving a motorised vehicle without a helmet and he says, cool as you like, he’s legal on account of it being an EAPC.”
“What’s that?”
“Electrically assisted pedal cycle.”
“And was he right?”
Lew nodded. “Smug bastard.”
“So at that stage he was talking sense?”
“Every fucking thing he said sounded sense the way he spoke it, like I was a peasant, if you know what I mean. He said he had the government guidance about EAPCs on a piece of paper and I reckon he did, but I didn’t give him the chance to show me because it was getting to be a battle of wills.”
“I can understand.”
“I asked about the contents of his saddlebag and he listed every fucking thing as calm as if he was reading the football results. Mostly it was stuff you’d use to look at wildlife, like binoculars, camera and so on. And his food. Banana, slice of cake, flask of tea. Nothing alcoholic. And Trixie.”
“His wife.”
Lew’s eyes widened. “You know about this? Did I tell you before? It was when it became obvious he was nuts. He was talking about Trixie’s ashes. He’d brought the urn with him in the saddlebag, so she could join him on the trip.”
“Weird.”
“I was already wishing I hadn’t started with him. Next I asked where he was going and he said he wouldn’t know until he got there because they were always on the move.”
A warning light flashed in Diamond’s brain. He wasn’t sure if it was wise to go down the crazy route again. “Who were?”
“He didn’t actually say but I took it to be rabbits because he said they covered about a mile each night, using hops. That’s got to be rabbits or hares, hasn’t it?” Lew seemed to want to discuss this rationally.
“Frogs? Fleas?”
“You’re joking, I hope. He wouldn’t want binoculars to look at fucking fleas.”
“A mile a night? Do rabbits go that far?”
“Hares might. They get up speed, don’t they? Hares, rabbits, kangaroos, take your pick. It’s all horseshit, anyway. He said they were heading for Bath.”
“I find that impossible to believe,” Diamond said.
“You’re not the only one. And when I asked how he knew where to look for them, he said, as straight-faced as I’m speaking to you now, he could hear them digging their holes. That was when I decided enough was enough. Either he was taking the piss or he was round the twist.”
“So you returned to the car?”
“After telling him to keep off the main roads. He said he always did and I told him other traffic might not see him coming. He said a full moon helped. I remember thinking you can say that again, you fucking loony. We watched him start up and ride away and I thought that was the end of it. Shows how wrong you can be, doesn’t it?”
“You didn’t breathalyse him?”
“No point. As far as the law was concerned he was riding a pushbike. Anyway I’d have spotted the signs if he was over the limit. I’m not new in the job.”
“Unsteady, you said.”
“I meant his riding, kind of wobbly, due to age, not alcohol. If I’d thought a charge would stick, I’d have done him.”