The Intensive Care Unit was manned by specially trained nurses, who moved around his bedside. There was so much equipment, Sickert could barely be seen. The oxygen pumped away, making loud hissing noises. Anna looked through the window into the room, Langton by her side.
‘Can you see him?’ Langton demanded.
‘Not really.’
‘For Chrissakes, is it him?’
‘I don’t know — I can’t see him,’ she said tetchily.
Langton signalled to a nurse for Anna to be gowned up and taken into the room. He was still waiting for the moment when they could question Sickert and, judging by the amount of concerned activity in the room, it was not looking likely to be any time soon.
Anna was led to the bedside. She shook her head; it was impossible for her to say if this was the man she had met for that brief moment at Gail’s bungalow. He had been muscular, with dreadlocks. Now all she saw was this wizened creature, whose frame was like a skeleton and whose face was obscured by an oxygen mask.
Anna rejoined Langton. ‘I can’t say if it’s him.’
‘Shit! Well, whoever it is has sickle cell blood disease, and it’s killing him. He gave his name as Joseph Sickert. He must have been walking around without medication, deteriorating until he crawled into Casualty. You want to take another look?’
‘I’ve told you, that man is rake thin and shaven-headed. The man I saw was huge and muscular, with dreadlocks.’
‘This disease wastes muscles. It can affect the heart, lungs and kidneys; his blood count is almost zero and his heart is only just holding out, so whether you can ID him or not, I’m going in. If he’s been living rough for all the bloody weeks we’ve been searching for him, then he might have lost some fucking weight.’ Langton took off to talk to the same, very nervous doctor.
Lewis and Anna were handed a plastic bag containing the patient’s clothes. Sitting on hard-backed chairs, they checked for anything that could help identify him. There was a small blue teddy bear, chewed and worn, almost bald, stuffed into the pocket of an old denim jacket. They also found a screwed-up five-pound note, some loose change, bus tickets, a broken pencil and, folded over and over until the cracks in the photograph almost made it fall apart as it was opened, a picture of two small black children and a woman wearing a wraparound cotton dress. Nothing was written on the back; neither Lewis nor Anna recognized the people in the photograph.
‘Not a lot, if this was all he had,’ said Lewis, placing the items into a plastic evidence bag. Anna continued to search through his clothing: she patted the filthy jeans, turning the pockets inside out. Lewis did the same with a flowered shirt; it stank of body odour and was torn almost to shreds. There were socks, equally stinking, and a pair of filthy trainers. They smelt disgusting but Anna felt inside them, almost pulling them apart. They were a big size, at least twelve; she frowned and then looked again at the denim jacket.
‘It’s huge, so are the trousers; do we know how tall the patient is? Sickert was at least six foot three. I mean, if he’s been sick for weeks…’
At that point, Langton approached to say he was being allowed to go in.
Anna showed him the photograph. ‘We don’t recognize them though.’
Lewis felt his mobile jangle in his pocket; all around the corridor were notices forbidding their use. He got up and walked a short distance away. Langton took the photograph in its plastic bag and went over to a nurse, who was waiting with a gown and mask.
Lewis huddled in a corner, listening to Harry Blunt. Forensic had unearthed some more information from the white Range Rover. Tests on the wheels of the vehicle were proving very positive: there were small traces of manure and mud. Each sample had been sent to a special laboratory for analysis; they had confirmed that, at some stage, the vehicle had been at the bungalow. They were still carrying out further tests on hairs and fibres, and would have more results that afternoon.
Anna had remained sitting on the hard-backed chair outside the ICU; Lewis updated her, then looked through the window.
‘He talking yet?’
‘Not that I can tell; Langton’s only been in there five minutes.’
‘Christ. What if, after all this, it isn’t him?’
The patient’s clothes had all been packed into plastic containers and put on the seat next to Anna. She picked them up, so Mike could sit next to her. On the top, in a plastic bag, was the small, moth-eaten teddy bear.
Anna stared at it and tried to recall the child in the swing at the bungalow. It had all been so long ago, but she concentrated.
‘You okay?’ Mike asked, as she sat very still, her eyes shut.
She sat up. ‘I am not one hundred per cent certain, but I think this was at the bungalow; the little girl Tina had it in her mouth. I think it’s the same toy, but I just can’t be sure.’
‘Well, they’ll get DNA off it.’
Inside the unit, Langton stared into the face of the dying man, trying to recall if he had been at the halfway house. Spittle had formed in globules around the patient’s thick pallid lips. His eyes were like dead purple flowers; his fingers were swollen, the nails a strange milky white.
The more Langton stared, the more he was certain it was not the man who had cut him down.
He carefully unfolded the photograph and held it close. ‘You need to let them know where you are.’
No response.
‘I can contact them for you — get them to come and see you,’ he whispered.
No response.
‘Two little children — are they yours? And this lovely woman — is she your wife?’
No response.
As Langton folded the picture back up, one of the bulbous fingers lifted, as if to stop him putting it away.
‘Do you want it?’
No response.
Langton began to unfold the photograph; he saw tears filling the washed-out eyes.
‘I need to talk to you. Are you Joseph Sickert?’
He nodded. It was such a small movement, but at last Langton had the confirmation that the dying man was Joseph Sickert.
‘Gail’s kids are safe now,’ Langton whispered, saying that he knew Sickert had helped them.
This also elicited a response, another small nod of his head.
‘Did you have them with you? Did you take the children from Gail?’
No response.
The heart monitor was jumping; Langton could almost hear the dying man’s lungs filling with fluid. The staff were getting agitated; Langton knew that any moment now, they would kick him out.
Langton stood up and leaned over him, his voice like the hiss of the machines. ‘Gail was found in the yard, mutilated, her body fed to the pigs; is that what you want to die with? It’ll haunt you; you’ll lie with the devil, you bastard! Talk to me, talk to me!’
The doctor entered the room; the nurses looked to him in a panic. He was about to ask Langton to leave, but Sickert lifted his thick, bulbous hand and tried to reach out to Langton. The word, ‘No…’ sounded out loud. Langton leaned over him, trying to catch the words that Sickert spewed out between terrible guttural gasps, as the phlegm in his lungs moved up into his throat.
Anna and Lewis were astonished to see that Sickert was talking; they could not tell what he was saying, as Langton’s arched body hid him from their sight. It felt like a long time, but it was no more than two minutes at the most before Langton was ushered out. He didn’t seem in any way emotionally moved by what had taken place; he merely ripped off his mask and gown, tossing them aside.
‘Let’s go,’ he grunted, heading down the corridor, and they hurried after him, carrying the evidence bags.
As they left the building, Mike informed Langton that the Range Rover had been at the piggery. He just nodded his head and looked at his wristwatch; time was against them, and they had one hell of an afternoon ahead.