“Mechanical failure?” Ingeborg said.
“How often does that happen? Police cars are well maintained.”
“We can’t rule it out.”
“Can’t rule out all the other possible causes he was rabbiting on about. We simply have to stop guessing and get some evidence. Now that we’ve done the tour with Dessie, I want to walk through his points of bloody interest myself. You two had better talk with the gawpers. A few have collected by the tapes. See if they can offer anything helpful.”
He crossed the road again to point of interest number two, the place where they’d been shown the tyre tracks. The bank Dessie had called the soft shoulder was much more than that, more than head-high in places. At the top was a long strip of scrubland with well-established trees planted to screen the stark grey walls of the railway embankment beyond. A London-bound train had just thundered past at the level of the rooftops.
He didn’t need to study the grooves in the mud. He could understand how the car had been thrown off course and turned over. He was more interested in what had happened immediately prior to that. A higher viewpoint might help. He reached for an overhanging branch, hauled himself up the bank and found he could see much more. The work of hosing away foam and oil continued around the wreck of Delta Three. A flatbed truck was being backed towards it. Difficult to picture the scene before the accident.
The possibility of an animal, a fox or a deer, making a dash across the road from the wild area and causing the driver to slam on his brakes had made sense until now. Unlikely. The railway company had installed railings all the way along, not obvious from below. The bushes hid much of this iron barrier from view. There was only a narrow strip of ground to stand on.
Diamond was forced to think again.
He edged a short way along for a better angle, gripping branches and railings to keep his balance. A fire engine was parked immediately below him and he couldn’t see past it.
He hadn’t gone far when he was forced to stop for a tangle of metal heaped against the railing. At first he thought some piece of the police car must have broken off in the crash and been flung up here, but it became obvious this wasn’t a car part. Chrome tubing, twisted cable and a circular grooved object that looked like a chain wheel were half-buried in the long grass. He crouched for a closer look. None of it was rusted. The metal had been scraped bare on one piece, gleaming as if it had just happened.
Then he found a bicycle saddle.
This could change everything.
He stood up and looked for Halliwell and Ingeborg. Too far off to get their attention.
And now he noticed that a whole section of the railing a little further on had come off its support and was angled inwards, as if it had been struck hard by the bike. In fact, there was an entire, undamaged bicycle wheel just below it on the grass, the tyre intact. He groped his way towards it.
Had someone been riding this thing? If so, where was he?
The damage to the railing had left a v-shaped gap that Diamond squeezed through.
Tall, coarse grass. Nettles and brambles everywhere.
He cupped his mouth and shouted, “Anyone about?”
No response.
He took out his phone.
Halliwell’s voice said, “Guv?” From below, still at the level of the road.
“You’d better join me, both of you, up on the wild bit behind the fire engine. I found something.”
He hadn’t even pocketed the mobile when he saw a shoe.
Then a leg.
The familiar shock-horror adrenalin surge.
Someone face down in the grass, dead-still.
A corpse?
Diamond squatted, caught his breath, composed himself, tugged at a shoulder.
The pale, wrinkled face of a grey-haired old man, eyes closed, mouth gaping, with dried blood at the edge of the lips. Gently, he turned him on his back.
Dead, apparently, but was he?
What right did he have to decide such a thing?
Do the drill, Diamond told himself. Feel for a pulse. Press two fingers to the side of the neck, in the hollow part beside the Adam’s apple.
If there was anything, it was faint and feeble. Could have been the blood circulating through his own fingertips.
No other hint of life. And no obvious injuries other than the blood at the mouth. A cut tongue may have caused that.
He tried opening one of the eyelids. The pale blue eye was motionless, unseeing.
The airways were clear. What else could he do?
CPR.
Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of an old person, very likely dead, isn’t for the squeamish. The urgency of the situation overrode the reluctance. Gently he rotated the body, tipped the chin upwards, leaned over, made contact with the slack, cold lips and breathed into the mouth, enough to cause a slight rise of the chest.
Didn’t mean there was life.
He tried a second breath and then started chest compressions, linking his fingers and flattening his palms against the old man’s shirt.
Thirty, wasn’t it? Thirty compressions followed by two breaths. And you do it as if you mean it, with brute force, regardless that this is a frail old body. Work that ribcage, using the weight from your own upper body and don’t even think about his brittle bones splintering. You’re the only chance he has, so do all you can to get the blood pulsing around his body.
He’d already lost count, and that was careless. He pumped five more and stopped.
The grey face framed by the grey hair showed nothing.
He stooped lower for more mouth-to-mouth. The first instinctive revulsion had gone. He cared, he really cared. Hot lips against cold. Two lungfuls of air.
Then back to the compressions. Already he felt the emotional bond that lifesaving creates. He couldn’t allow himself to think this might already be a corpse. He and his mate here were not letting go. There had to be life. Come on, old friend, he urged as he worked his aching shoulders, you and I can do this. He was trying to keep counting, but it was next to impossible. Maybe some inner clock was controlling him.
He heard a shout.
Halliwell had scrambled up the bank and was running towards him.
Diamond shouted, “Call an ambulance. There may be a chance.”
Paramedics must have attended the crash but they’d long since left with the known casualties. All the attention in the first critical hours had been on the men trapped in the car. No one had thought to climb up here.
He remained on his aching knees beside the unconscious man, working the chest and speaking occasional words of encouragement. So much of him was invested in this rescue bid that he’d actually felt a spasm of anger at Halliwell’s interruption. He and his helpless old man were on a mission and nobody had better unsettle them.
Halliwell had put through the call. “They’re on the way. Want me to take over?”
“I’m managing. I think there was a pulse.”
“He’s not looking great.”
Ingeborg joined them and had the good idea of wrapping coats around the lower half of the body for warmth. She and Halliwell unzipped their padded jackets.
“Is that the remains of his bike?”
“Must be,” Halliwell said. “He was hit by the car and thrown up here.”
“What was he doing, an old guy on the road at six in the morning?”
Nobody had an answer. Diamond continued with his task as if it was his only chance of keeping alive. He was counting aloud now, almost shouting the numbers to inform his two colleagues that they’d better shut up asking pointless questions that were only a distraction.
Halliwell heard the ambulance siren first and went to meet the paramedics. Diamond continued resolutely with the CPR. There had been no change.
The flashing blue lights drew close and lit up the scene, giving the accident victim an even more deathly look.
The roof of the ambulance was on the same level as the top of the bank. Two paramedics scrambled up.