Peter James: Dead Man's Grip

He halted the brightly marked BMW estate car at an angle across the road, the first step to sealing off the scene, and radioed for backup, hoping to hell that it would arrive quickly – he needed about twenty different pairs of hands all at once. Then, tugging on his cap and his fluorescent jacket he grabbed an Accident Report pad and jumped out of the car. Then he tried to make a quick assessment of the scene, remembering all the elements that had been drummed into him from his initial training, his refresher courses and his own considerable experience.

A rain-drenched young man in a tracksuit ran over to him. ‘Officer, there was a van, a white van, that went through a red light, hit him and drove off.’

‘Did you get the van’s licence number?’

He shook his head. ‘No – sorry – it all happened so fast.’

‘What can you tell me about the van?’

‘It was a Ford, I think. One of those Transit things. I don’t think it had any writing on it.’

Pattenden made a note, then looked back at the young man. Witnesses often disappeared quickly, especially in rain like this. ‘I’ll need your name and phone number, please,’ he said, writing the information in his pad. ‘Could you jump in the car and wait?’

The young man nodded.

At least he might stay around if he was warm and dry, Pattenden reasoned. He passed the information to the Control Room, then sprinted over to the lorry, clocking a severed leg lying in the road but ignoring it for the moment, and knelt beside the paramedics. He looked briefly at the mangled, unconscious cyclist and the coiled intestines on the road, and the blood, but was too wrapped up in all he had to deal with to be affected by it at this moment.

‘What can you tell me?’ he said, although he barely needed to ask the question.

The male paramedic, whom he recognized, shook his head. ‘Not looking good. We’re losing him.’

That was the only information the police constable required at this moment. All road fatalities were viewed as potential homicides, rather than accidents, until proved otherwise. As the only officer present, his first duty was to secure the area around the collision as a crime scene. His next was to try to ensure that no vehicles were moved and to stop witnesses from leaving. To his relief, he could now hear the distant wail of sirens as, hopefully, more vehicles approached.

He ran back to his car, calling out at everyone he passed, ‘Please, if you witnessed the incident come over to my car and give me your names and phone numbers.’

He opened the tailgate and dragged out a folding POLICE ROAD CLOSED sign, which he erected a short distance behind his car. At the same time he shouted into his radio that there was a potential hit and run and he needed the fire brigade, the Collision Investigation Unit, the inspector and backup PCSOs and uniformed officers.

Then he grabbed a roll of blue and white POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape, tied one end around a lamp post and ran across the road, securing the other end around a parking sign on the pavement. As he was finishing he saw two more officers from his unit running towards him. He instructed them to tape off the road on the far side of the lorry and grab names and phone numbers from anyone else who might be witnesses.

Then, inside the taped cordon, he pulled off his reflective jacket and threw it over the severed leg, wanting both to spare people the horror of it and to stop one particular ghoul in a raincoat taking any more photographs of it.

‘Get the other side of the tape!’ he shouted at him. ‘If you’re a witness, go to my car. If not, move along please!’

More emergency vehicles were arriving. He saw a second ambulance and a paramedic car which would be bringing a specialist trauma doctor. But his main focus now was on identifying the drivers of the lorry and the Audi from the mass of rubberneckers and potential witnesses.

He saw a smartly dressed woman with rain-bedraggled hair standing near the open driver’s door of the Audi. She was staring, transfixed, at the lorry.

Hurrying over to her, he asked, panting, ‘Are you the driver of this car?’

She nodded, eyes vacant, still staring over his shoulder.

‘Are you injured? Do you need medical assistance?’

‘He just came out of nowhere, came out of that side street, straight at me. I had to swerve, otherwise I’d have hit him.’

‘Who?’ Surreptitiously he leaned forward, close enough to smell her breath. There was a faint reek of stale alcohol.

‘The cyclist,’ she said numbly.

‘Were there any other vehicles involved?’

‘A white van was right behind me, tailgating me.’

He had a quick look at the Audi. Although the bonnet was crumpled and the airbags had deployed, the interior of the car looked intact.

‘OK, madam, would you mind getting back into your car for a few minutes?’

He gently took her shoulders and turned her round, away from the lorry. He knew that if drivers of vehicles involved in an accident stared at a serious casualty for too long, they would become traumatized. This woman was already partway there. He steered her over to the Audi and waited as she climbed in, then with some difficulty pushed the door, which seemed to have a bent hinge, closed.

As he did so, he saw a PCSO running over towards him. ‘Any more of you around?’ Pattenden asked him.

‘Yes, sir.’ The man pointed at two more Police Community Support Officers approaching, a short distance away along the pavement.

‘OK, good. I want you to stay here and make sure this lady does not leave her vehicle.’

Then he ran towards the two PCSOs, delegating each of them to scene-guard at either end of the crash site and to log anyone crossing the police line.

At this point, to his relief, he saw the reassuring sight of his inspector, James Biggs, accompanied by his duty sergeant, Paul Wood, coming, grim-faced, through the rain towards him, both men holding a reel of police tape and a police traffic cone under each arm.

At least now the buck no longer stopped with him.

Carly sat numbly in her car, grateful for the rain which coated the windscreen and the side windows like frosted glass, at least making her invisible and giving her some privacy. She was aware of the dark figure of the PCSO standing like a sentry outside. Her chest was pounding. The radio was on, tuned as it always was to the local news and chat station, BBC Radio Sussex. She could hear the lively voice of Neil Pringle, but wasn’t taking in anything he said.

The image of what was going on underneath the lorry behind her was going round and round inside her head. Suddenly Pringle’s voice was interrupted by a traffic announcement that Portland Road in Hove was closed due to a serious accident.

Her accident.

The car clock said 9.21.

Shit. She dialled her office and spoke to her cheery secretary, Suzanne. Halfway through telling her that she did not know when she would be in and asking her to phone the chiropodist, she broke down in tears.

She hung up, debating whether to phone her mother next or her best friend, Sarah Ellis. Sarah, who worked at a law firm in Crawley, had been her rock after Kes’s death five years ago in an avalanche while skiing in Canada. She dialled her number, then listened to the phone ringing, hoping desperately she was free.

To her relief, Sarah answered on the fifth ring. But before Carly could get any words out, she started sobbing again.

Then she heard a tap on her window. A moment later, her car door opened and the police officer she had seen earlier, the one who had told her to wait in her car, peered in. He was a sturdy-looking man in his mid-thirties, with a serious face beneath his white cap, and was holding a small device that resembled some kind of meter.