Peter Turnbull - Deep Cover

‘Distress them?’

‘You’ll see what I mean. Please come this way.’ Sister Jewell came out from behind the nursing station and, with Swannell in her wake, walked silently down the ward on rubber-soled shoes. ‘We get one or two patients like this each year. It is the East End policing itself.’ Sister Jewell spoke sniffily. ‘I mean, as if the Health Service hasn’t enough to do. . and isn’t collapsing under bankruptcy. I confess, avoidable injuries and violence annoy me.’ She progressed along the ward which had been arranged in the traditional ‘Nightingale’ style, with beds at equal intervals and abutting the walls on both sides at ninety degrees. A few patients had visitors. ‘Open visiting hours,’ Sister Jewell explained, as if reading Swannell’s thoughts. ‘It is a recently introduced system, a new development. I confess, freely so, that I prefer the old system of strictly enforced visiting hours but then I am now old enough to dislike any form of change, and I really do believe that things were better in the old days.’ Swannell remained silent. He had long since learned not to argue with taxi drivers and nursing sisters, and his opinion of Sister Jewell as being a tyrant towards junior nurses was being reinforced by the second.

‘In here.’ Sister Jewell stopped outside the door of a private room, with painted wooden walls up to waist height and frosted glass up to a height of ten feet thereafter. The room had no ceiling. ‘He was brought in last evening.’ Sister Jewell continued to speak but with a lowered voice. The room offered privacy of vision but not sound. ‘He was found on the pavement near here. There is not one square inch of flesh that is not bruised, and I mean one square inch. . from the soles of his feet to his scalp, yet not one bone in his body is broken and his teeth have been left intact. I confess that he could be mistaken for a gentleman of the subcontinent, but he is as Northern European as you and me.’

‘I see.’

‘Hence not wanting to distress the other patients. They get upset when they find out that such injury is caused by premeditated violence, rather than accident.’

‘Yes. . I can understand that.’ Swannell nodded. ‘I did wonder but now I fully appreciate why you have isolated him.’

‘Thank you. Well, as I said, I have seen the like. He was numb last night, wasn’t feeling very much at all according to the nursing notes, but he woke in discomfort this morning. He refused breakfast and I confess that I doubt he’ll partake of lunch. He will get more uncomfortable over the next few days, then the pain will stabilize, but it will remain for a long time. We’ll put him on painkillers but he will still feel something.’

‘How long before he is recovered?’

‘Physically. . a few months, but mentally. . never. . the mental scars will never heal, they just don’t ever heal.’

‘Months!’

‘Oh, yes. . months. He won’t be here for that length of time, the pressure on beds won’t permit it, but I have known such bruising to take six months to fade completely. He was probably the victim of a sustained assault which lasted a full day.’ Sister Jewell shrugged. ‘That’s the East End. Some of the trainees can’t hack it and transfer to the west London hospitals. It’s not the injury itself you see — it’s the cause that upsets them.’

‘Yes.’

‘Now he is brown all over, that will turn into the mottled mix of blue-and-black bruising, then he’ll turn yellow as if he is badly jaundiced, but once the bruising turns yellow, then at least he is on the healing side of things. But that will still take months. He’s in for a very uncomfortable summer. . So that’s gangland London, but you know that as much as me — the East End policing itself, like I said. He said he wanted to talk to a Mr Brunnie.’

‘He’s busy. I am his senior officer.’

‘Very well.’ Sister Jewell opened the door and led Swannell into the room. Victor Swannell baulked at the sight which greeted him, and he saw then that Sister Jewell was not exaggerating when she said that even though he was Northern European, Clive ‘The Pox’ Sherwin could be mistaken for an Asian, such was the depth and extent of the bruising. His eyes were swollen shut.

‘Police to see you, Mr Sherwin.’ Sister Jewell spoke softly yet efficiently. There was no sympathy in her voice. ‘One gentleman, I have seen his identity card.’

‘Mr Brunnie?’ Sherwin asked weakly. ‘I can’t see nothing. . I can’t. . nothing. I can make out it’s day-time. . but nothing else.’

‘No, it’s Mr Swannell, Mr Brunnie is busy. He can’t come but you can talk to me.’

‘Well, I will leave you.’ Sister Jewell turned and walked out of the room, closing the door silently behind her.

‘I talked to Mr Brunnie.’

‘Yes, I know, I read the recording of the chat you had. He made you an offer.’

‘Yes, witness protection.’

‘Indeed. The offer is still on the table.’ Swannell drew up a chair and sat beside the bed.

‘Yes. . Yates did this to me. I never said nothing, and he goes and does this. I’m seen as a grass now. No one gets a slap like this if they don’t deserve it, so no one will believe me when I say I never grassed.’ He choked. ‘I’m finished. . finished. . I can’t go nowhere now so I need that protection offer.’ He drew his breath deeply. ‘Blimey. . and they tell me this isn’t it; they tell me the pain will get worse before it gets better. . that this is only the start of it.’

‘Sister told me the same thing.’

‘She’s a hard old girl. Met her for the first time this morning when she came on duty. She said, “People who have had a heart attack need this bed”, then walked out. I won’t be leaving her a box of chocolates when I go.’

‘So what do you want to tell me? What can you tell me? Witness protection comes at a price.’

‘Everything. . everything I know about Curtis Yates and that cow Gail Bowling, she’s the boss, not Yates — but they are partners. . he’s a little bit junior to her. . and that import and export business — furniture! Do me a favour, it’s ecstasy pills out and humans in. . girls mainly from Eastern Europe on their way to the massage parlours.’

‘We thought as much.’ Swannell took his notepad from his jacket pocket and pressed the top of his ballpoint. ‘I’ll get an overview to start with — all the details will come out later.’

‘OK. . and I can tell you where the bodies are buried. I put them there.’

‘Did you actually murder anyone, Clive?’

‘No, but I was one of Yates’s and Bowling’s undertakers; I got rid of the bodies. Sometimes in cement in the basement of a renovated house in Kilburn, sometimes under a tree. .’

‘A tree?’

‘A cherry tree; Yates likes them. He had his own take on “green burials” before they became fashionable with the save-the-planet brigade.’ He winced with pain. ‘I’ll tell you everything. . everything. . but I need the full package. . new name, new address and a plod outside that door. Once Yates knows I’m grassing him up, my life’s in danger.’

‘Well, if you can tell us what you say you can tell us. . then that is guaranteed, Clive.’

‘Clive.’ The man winced again. ‘Clive “The Pox” Sherwin. . that name belongs to the past. . well in the past. . ancient history.’

‘OK, but for now I’ll still call you Clive.’ Swannell leaned slightly forward and spoke in a soft, gentle tone. ‘The new name will come later.’

‘Alright. . understand, dare say it took longer than a day to build Rome.’

‘Is a good way of looking at it, Clive.’ Swannell nodded. ‘It is a good way to look at it.’

‘Mind you, I’ll keep Clive. . I just need a new surname.’