The young man seemed ill at ease, sitting right on the edge of his chair and biting his lower lip. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘it might be a bit silly. In fact I didn’t know what to do at the time. I mean we’d been told about it at the course. But I suppose I didn’t want to seem pushy
…’
‘Woah!’ exclaimed Lorimer. ‘Facts, please. Just tell me what you did, constable and we’ll take it from there, okay?’
The young man nodded then took a deep breath. ‘I get thirsty a lot. I find the patrol cars awfully hot so I carry bottled water with me,’ he began. ‘So when we arrived at the fire I thought I’d do what they’d shown us on the course.’
‘Go on,’ Lorimer said.
‘Well, we’d been told that vapours from a fire might be lost into the atmosphere quite quickly so I threw the contents of my water bottle into the fire and I also had one of these.’ He fished in his tunic pocket and brought out a tiny glass bottle, a bijou bottle, used by police officers for taking samples of drink from neds on street corners.
‘I let the vapours fill the one I was carrying,’ he said.
‘And what happened to that bottle?’ Lorimer asked, thinking that he knew exactly how the officer was going to respond.
‘It’s still in my locker, sir,’ Dodgson replied, his voice high with anxiety.
Lorimer sat still for a moment. Then he asked, ‘Why? Didn’t you think this might be evidence that could be crucial to the investigation?’
Dodgson immediately coloured up and Lorimer saw for the first time how young he really was.
‘Thought they’d laugh at me, sir,’ he muttered at last, hanging his head so he didn’t have to look the SIO in the eye.
Lorimer chewed his lip thoughtfully. Dodgson had shown enough initiative to ask his supervisor to let him be seconded to CID. But not enough to bring out this wee bottle from his locker. What would Lorimer have done in this youngster’s place? Would he have been too shy to have come forward with such evidence at the original inquiry? Fearing the derision of his more senior officers, perhaps? And which officers in particular? a little voice nudged his thoughts. Was it worth digging into that can of worms as well? Whatever else it might provide, this might well be some tangible evidence in an investigation that had been sadly lacking in such things.
‘Thank you, constable. If you would like to put it into an evidence bag it can be sent to forensics. Make sure it goes to the senior forensic officer. And don’t forget to put a date on it, will you?’ Lorimer neither smiled nor showed any sort of annoyance that this particular piece of evidence had been sidelined. Lorimer’s matter-of-fact manner took the young man by surprise as he stood and mumbled his thanks.
‘Don’t mention it, Dodgson. Perhaps I’ll be thanking you before the week is out,’ Lorimer told him, eliciting a grin of relief on the constable’s boyish face.
Alone once more, Lorimer pondered that little scene. He must have gained this lad’s confidence and that was hugely heartening at this stage of the proceedings. But was it also indicative of some wariness on the part of youngsters like Dodgson in their relations with more senior officers? To be afraid to come forward with evidence like that from a scene of a crime showed either the lad’s own inadequacy or a reluctance on the part of some of the others in the team to listen to their younger colleagues. Fresh out of college they might be, but such officers were often more clued up in the latest techniques and were eager to tick all the relevant boxes. It was the same with young doctors, Lorimer thought. They soaked up all the information necessary during their medical studies, much of it cutting-edge stuff that older practitioners might have no time to read up on.
Thinking of this, his mind turned for a moment to his mother-in-law. What had her second day in the Southern General brought for her?
Mrs Finlay felt the chill from an open doorway as she was wheeled along, a single cellular blanket over her thin nightdress. She couldn’t see the orderly who was pushing her bed along and so it seemed as if she were being propelled like some sort of strange shuttle through the brightly lit hospital corridor. They stopped by a lift and she waited, knowing that there was a figure behind her, scanning the lights to see when the doors would sigh open, but he didn’t seem to want to communicate with her and she was too afraid of what would come out if she attempted to speak. She was just another job to the orderly, that was all; another live body to be shunted into its rightful place. The lift gave a twang as it opened and she felt the bed being rolled into the square space. In a matter of minutes they were out again and moving forward towards another corridor.
Just as she had expected, they stopped at the nurses’ station and the man came forward to hand over her bags to the staff nurse behind the desk.
‘Ward fifty-six, Jim,’ the nurse told the orderly. ‘Right, Mrs Finlay, we’ll have you tucked up again in no time,’ she added, turning a smile on to the patient. She was a small plump girl, thought Alice Finlay, the sort you’d pass in the supermarket and never give another glance. But here, in her own world, the nurse had something about her that made Alice ponder. Was it that quality of caring in her tone? Or the way she gently touched the back of Alice’s hand? It was not a gesture that was over-familiar, more a small caress to reassure the older woman.
The noise hit Alice as soon as they passed through the swing doors: the sound of a television set blaring out above a babble of voices. Passing one patient after another, their aged faces turned towards her with a semblance of curiosity, Alice could see that she had been taken into what was surely a geriatric ward. One old lady whose back was bent from some spinal disorder, her mouth hanging open slackly, stared at Alice as though there was nothing much going on behind her eyes.
Dear God, she breathed silently, listening to the racket within the ward. What have I come to?
For a few minutes she had the privacy of curtains around her bed, screening her off from prying eyes as the same kind nurse took her temperature and blood pressure, then busied herself putting things into a bedside locker. But once these matters were attended to, the curtains were whisked back and Alice found herself looking out into a room full of women whose faces were turned to see this newcomer in their midst.
She did the only thing that she could think of to separate herself from these old women: she closed her eyes, tightly, feigning a sleep that she suddenly and fervently desired.
Maggie closed the book on her desk as soon as the final bell rang then marched swiftly to the door to let out her Second years. One or two of them dawdled as they left, grinning at her in such a friendly manner that she didn’t have the heart to shoo them out into the corridor. But if she were to make it to the hospital tonight, she would have to hurry. The parking was murder and she had to figure out how long it was going to take so she would be there in time for the ward door opening. The phone call at the end of lunchtime had at least let her know what ward Mum was in now, she told herself, speeding down the stairs towards the main door. Comfortable, the voice on the other end had told her when she’d asked how her mum was feeling today. Maggie had bit her lip at that. It was like the kids saying Fine to their parents at home whenever they were asked how school had been that day: the sort of response that really told her nothing at all. She wanted to know more, much much more. Like what was going to happen to her mum. Would she recover from the stroke? What sort of remedial help would she have and, if they were honest, would she be able to cope on her own once discharged from hospital? Settling herself into the driver’s seat, Maggie turned on the ignition and headed for home, pondering what the future might hold for her. Would she have to give up her job to look after her mum? Or would the social services provide a carer of some sort? Suddenly Maggie realised how hazy she was on such details despite the topic of conversation coming up from time to time among her colleagues in the staffroom.