“I thought there was a faint pulse,” Diamond told them between counting.
“You did good,” one said as he pulled open the shirt and stuck defibrillator pads to the motionless white chest. “Got to be positive. We’ll give him a jerk with this and some more compressions and then get him to the resus bay and see if he was born lucky.”
After the ambulance had powered away, siren screaming, massive anti-climax set in. Diamond felt shattered, exhausted, mentally bereft. The people he’d worked with daily for years were like strangers at this minute. The frail old man being rushed to hospital was the only reality. And yet he had to accept that his part in the rescue effort was over.
Recriminations wouldn’t be long in following. Someone else should have checked the wild part long before they had got there. The fact that it was across the street from the crash and well above eye level was no excuse.
And now Dessie had been drawn here by all the activity. He stood gazing at the mangled bicycle parts lying in the long grass. If he felt he should shoulder some blame for missing the hidden victim he wasn’t admitting it.
“So here’s another point of interest,” Ingeborg said acidly.
He gave her a sharp glance. “Arguably, yes.”
Nothing more was said for a time. Then Halliwell commented, “Funny sort of pushbike.”
“I was thinking the same,” Ingeborg said. “Isn’t that a third wheel?”
“It’s a tricycle,” Dessie said. “An adult trike, with a small electric motor.” He indicated with his foot. His hands remained in his pockets as if he hadn’t yet accepted that this piece of wreckage was part of his remit.
Halliwell squatted and tugged back the grass for a closer look. “There’s some kind of bag attached to the handlebars.”
“Don’t touch,” Dessie said. “All the pieces will have to be photographed in situ and then taken to our investigation bay. Was he dressed?”
Halliwell and Ingeborg exchanged puzzled glances.
“I get you now,” Ingeborg said to Dessie. “You’re thinking of the naked man. Sorry to disappoint. He was clothed.”
“Rather eccentrically,” Halliwell said, “in an old-fashioned Norfolk overcoat and trousers with gaiters.”
“And a deerstalker,” Ingeborg added. She’d found one a few yards off in the long grass.
“So what’s your expert opinion, Dessie?” Diamond asked. It was taking a huge effort to force himself back to the demands of the job.
“About this? I’ll wait for more evidence.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Halliwell said. “Poor old geezer out for an early-morning ride gets hit by the patrol car and is thrown up here on impact.”
“I’ll need to see all the technical evidence. There are so many factors-the speed, the visibility, the weather, the skid patterns… We always make a computer-aided simulation.”
“Which will tell you they swerved to avoid him and mounted the bank and went out of control,” Diamond said.
Halliwell said, “I see the patrol car travelling at speed towards the two parked cars, pulling out to pass them and suddenly being faced with the trike. It’s early morning, still dark. They won’t have seen him coming. They’re used to reacting to headlights, not the little lights you get on a bike. Split-second decision. The driver jams on the brakes, pulls the car sharp right and up the verge and still hits the trike.”
“Wouldn’t he be thrown inwards, towards the centre of the road?” Ingeborg said. “He wouldn’t end up here.”
“Don’t count on it,” Diamond said. “If he hit the side of the car swinging towards him at an angle, he’d be bounced this way.”
Maybe Dessie had a point. The accident wasn’t so straightforward as it had first appeared.
“And he wasn’t wearing a helmet,” Ingeborg added.
“Crazy,” Halliwell said, speaking for all of them.
Dessie went off to fetch a police photographer.
Diamond said to the others, “It’s okay trading theories with Dessie. There’s some overlap with what we’re trying to find out. But let’s be clear that he’s dealing with the mechanics of the crash. We’re concerned with the officers and how professional they were, and suddenly there’s a worrying new dimension to it.”
“A civilian casualty,” Halliwell said.
“Who may have been killed,” Ingeborg added. “And as an ex-journo I know what the papers will make of that.”
“Let’s not lose time talking about what may or may not happen,” Diamond said. The emotional aftermath was still churning him up. “Did you learn anything from the rubbernecks down there?”
They shook their heads. “It happened before anyone was about,” Ingeborg said.
“I’m not taking that for granted. One witness could transform this case. We need to knock on doors now. Every door. One thing they’ll be able to tell us is if our guys were using blues and twos.”
“I doubt if they would have had the siren on,” Ingeborg said. “A quiet residential road so early in the morning. Lights, yes, as they were going at speed.”
“Even so, we want confirmation, so we ask. And from now on our main priority has to be the tricyclist, a member of the public who was hit by a police car and seriously injured, may have lost his life, in fact. We all know how that will go down.”
“Riding a trike at night is asking to be hit,” Halliwell said.
Ingeborg turned on him, “Fascist.”
“What do you mean? It’s crazy.”
“It won’t be seen that way,” Diamond said. “But we need everything we can get on this man. Was he right in the head, sober, capable of riding a bike? If he’s local, somebody will know who he is.”
“And the naked man?” Halliwell said. “We ought to ask about him. Who’s the local fruitcake who likes to get his kit off?”
They started at the houses closest to the crash. Diamond didn’t need to knock at the bungalow with the smashed garden wall. The occupant was just emerging with a tray loaded with tea and biscuits. “Would you like one, my darling?” she asked him. She was about eighty, with hair almost as sparse as his.
“That’s kind. I haven’t been here long,” he said. “Give me the tray and I’ll pass it to someone who needs it more.” He handed it to the nearest fire and rescue man and then turned back to the old lady. “Bit of a shock for you, waking up to this.”
“I don’t mind,” she said. “I grew up in London in the war. You never knew what each new day would bring. I’m sorry for the poor men in that police car. Is it true that one was killed?”
He showed his card and asked if they could speak inside the house. She was only too pleased to cooperate but it didn’t take long to discover she knew nothing. The first she had learned of the incident was when she parted her curtains and saw what the patrol car had done to her wall. By then the rescue team was already at work.
“Didn’t you hear the crash?”
She shook her head. “I don’t wear my hearing aids in bed, my dear.”
When asked if she’d ever seen a man on a tricycle riding past, she shook her head. “I’m not much help, am I?”
“Then perhaps you can tell me if any of your neighbours behave strangely. There was a report of a man in the street with no clothes.”
“Really? Disgusting.” Her eyes lit up. “And to think I missed it.”
He tried the next house and was kept on the doorstep by an elderly Asian woman who didn’t speak any English. Communication was only achieved with gestures and sound effects. He was thankful his team didn’t hear his “Nee Naa Nee Naa Nee Naa” or watch him clap his hands to simulate the car hitting the wall. That was the easy part. The man on the trike was a bigger challenge and the nude neighbour almost impossible to convey without causing offence. All his efforts were rewarded only with disbelieving eyes and a shake of the head.
Finally at the house facing the parked cars, he got a result. The owner, a large, muscled man in a black singlet and combat trousers, had heard the collision while at breakfast and been one of the first on the scene. He’d called the emergency number on his mobile and tried speaking to the two officers in the smashed patrol car, but neither had shown any sign of life until the paramedics arrived. He worked nights at a petrol station on the Warminster Road and hadn’t long been home. The white Toyota belonged to him. He was certain the police siren hadn’t been used. When asked about the tricyclist, he said he was sure he’d seen an elderly man on a trike.