Nick Oldham - Bad Tidings

As they entered the A amp;E wards, he bumped into the consultant again. A busy man.

‘This is Janine Cromer, the patient’s niece. Can she see him, please?’

The doctor looked at her. ‘We met last week. I’m very sorry about your uncle, but yes you can see him.’ To Henry he said, ‘You know where he is.’ To both he said, ‘We’re going to have to take him to Preston Royal Infirmary. They have the surgical facilities and expertise for this kind of thing. .’

‘What kind of thing exactly?’ Janine demanded crossly. ‘I’ve only got part of the picture here. . The police haven’t been very helpful, to be honest,’ she said with feeling and gave Henry that hostile look again. ‘But that’s not surprising as they hate and harass my family.’

‘OK, look, I’ll tell you what,’ the doctor suggested, sensing the aggression, ‘let this officer take you to see your uncle first. I’m afraid you won’t be able to touch him, or anything like that, but you can speak to him if you so wish. He’s been seriously wounded, he’s in a coma and critically poorly. When you’re ready, come up to the office and I’ll tell you everything I can. And I’m sure that Mr Christie’ — he looked pointedly at Henry — ‘will tell you all he can.’

Henry nodded helpfully.

Henry then led her to the single treatment room, in which Freddy lay spreadeagled on the bed. His clothes had been unceremoniously cut from him and a single folded sheet was laid across his lower stomach and upper legs. A machine was helping him to breathe steadily, making a sucking noise, and he was attached to two drips running into the veins in the back of each of his hands. He was connected to a monitor that showed the weak blip of his heartbeat and his dangerously low blood pressure. The head wound was covered by a dressing and bandage and although the area around it had been shaved, cleaned and disinfected, there were still streaks of dried blood down his cheek and neck.

He was a huge, hairy man, Henry saw. A massive barrel of a chest, enormous biceps and thick legs. Although Henry knew that Freddy had mental problems, he wondered why he’d allowed Terry to dominate him so. Terry was a big, tough guy, but he didn’t have Freddy’s physical presence. Henry knew the answer was psychology not brute strength. A powerful, evil personality was all that was required to cow others into submission, and Terry had certainly had that. Until now.

Janine’s hand went to her mouth, stifling a squeal of shock. ‘My God,’ she said into her palm. ‘My God.’

Henry, standing behind her, managed to catch her before she pivoted forwards and hit the hard tiled floor.

‘Seriously, I’m OK,’ Janine said, waving off the attention and taking a sip of water from the glass Henry had provided for her.

Henry had caught her and dragged her gently to a chair in the corridor before lifting her onto it, again gently. The nurse who had been attending to Freddy swooped across to assist and it was established that Janine had simply gone woozy and lightheaded, not actually passed out, although Henry had seen the whites of her eyes as her eyeballs rolled right back into their sockets.

She sat with her head well forward, breathed and fanned herself. The nurse had checked her blood pressure, which was low but OK.

‘It’s just this whole week, what’s been going on, then this morning. . Dad, Uncle Freddy. . just too much to bear,’ Janine explained. ‘But I feel all right now.’ She smiled feebly at Henry. Her face was the colour of ash, but a healthier-looking tinge was creeping slowly upwards.

The consultant came out of Freddy’s room and bent down in front of Janine, checking her pulse and eyes, nodding as everything seemed to be in order.

‘Do you want to come up to the office?’ he asked. ‘I’ll tell you what I know.’

‘Please.’

He helped her to her feet and the three of them went to the office further down the corridor. Henry stood to one side whilst the doctor explained Freddy’s wound to Janine, using the X-rays, laying out the possibilities for recovery (slim, but miracles did happen) and what would be happening to Freddy in the immediate future. The air ambulance had been requested, he said, would be on site within an hour and Freddy was going to be flown to the trauma clinic at Preston Royal Infirmary.

There was a little shock in Janine’s face that Henry didn’t quite understand. She said, ‘So quickly?’

‘Within an hour and a half he should be being operated on,’ the doctor claimed. ‘I will accompany him, of course, and assist in the procedure.’

Janine shook her head at the news. ‘I just thought that if someone shoots themselves in the head, they’d die.’ She sounded a tad disappointed.

‘Every gunshot wound is different, every body different,’ the doctor explained. ‘It all depends on angles and the condition of the weapon used and the ammunition. From the X-ray, as you can see, the bullet entered his head at a very acute angle and was not fired directly into the brain. Had that been the case, the injury would certainly have been fatal and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But we are. Mr Cromer is still alive, we’ll do our very best to save him. Maybe he will live and talk again.’

‘Thank you, thank you, doctor,’ Janine said. Henry thought that rather than being elated or hopeful, she looked mortified by the news that he might survive.

‘For the moment we need to concentrate on keeping him stable and preparing for the arrival of the helicopter, which is based in Preston. I need to do that now.’ He rose from his chair, gave Henry a glance and left.

Janine blew her nose on a tissue she found in her shoulder bag. She wiped her red-raw eyes. Henry perched on the corner of the doctor’s desk.

‘How you doing?’

‘Not good.’ She looked up at him. ‘Are you going to tell me what you know?’

‘As much as I can.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘It means as much as I can.’

After giving him another antagonistic gaze, Janine relented. ‘OK — fire away.’

Due to his conditioning as an SIO — and the fact that informing the relatives of murder victims was always fraught with difficulty — Henry kept it as brief as possible. Not least because there was always the chance that the ‘live’ relative might also have killed the ‘dead’ one.

He wasn’t to know, yet, if Janine had killed her father and put a bullet into her uncle’s head. It was always possible. Not that he thought this was the case here, but he always had to keep it in mind. There was a lot of work still to be done at the scene to piece together exactly what had happened.

First glance gave the impression that Freddy had killed Terry, who had been hiding out in the factory unit, and then turned the gun on himself in a fit of remorse. Henry didn’t phrase it in those terms for Janine, though. All he did was state facts.

He was interested in her conclusions, though. And he had a lot of questions to ask her, but they would have to come later. The first priority was to get Freddy treated and until the result of the surgery at Preston was known, Henry doubted if he could morally pin her down. He did wonder where Freddy’s mother was. Janine said she had gone to the Canary Islands to get away from all the ‘shite’ that was going on and that she, Janine, would speak to her later.

Janine snuffled and wiped her eyes. ‘So it looks as though Freddy killed my dad,’ she said, catching a choke in her throat, ‘and then shot himself. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I’m not really saying anything just yet, Janine. The scene needs very careful analysis before we reach any conclusions and that may take a while. And, hopefully, Freddy will recover enough to be able to tell us exactly what did happen.’