Peter James - Not Dead Enough

One of his favourite young officers, DC Emma-Jane Boutwood, had been badly injured trying to stop a van in the same operation in which Glenn Branson had been shot. She had been crushed between the van and a parked car, and suffered massive internal damage, including losing her spleen, as well as multiple bone fractures. The twenty-five-year-old had been in a coma on life support for over a week, and when she came round, doctors had been worried she might never walk again. But in recent weeks she had made a dramatic improvement, was able to stand unaided and had already been talking eagerly about when she could get back to work.

Grace really liked her. She was a terrific detective and he reckoned she had a great future ahead of her in the force. But at this moment, seeing her lying there, smiling palely at him, she looked like a lost, bewildered child. Always thin, she now looked emaciated inside her loose hospital gown, and the orange tag was almost hanging off her wrist. Her blonde hair, which had lost its lustre and looked like dried straw, was clipped up untidily, with a few stray wisps falling down. On the table next to her bed lay a crowded riot of cards, flowers and fruit.

Her eyes said it all before they even spoke, and something snapped inside him.

‘How are you?’ he asked, holding on to the flowers for the moment.

‘Never better!’ she said, making an effort to perk up for him. ‘I told my dad yesterday that I was going to beat him at tennis before the end of the summer. Mind you, that should be easy. He’s a crap player!’

Grace grinned, then asked gently, ‘What the hell are you doing in this ward?’

She shrugged. ‘They moved me about three days ago. Said they needed the bed in the other ward.’

‘Did they, hell. You want to stay here?’

‘Not really.’

Grace stepped back and scanned the ward, looking for a free nurse, then walked over to a young Asian girl in nursing uniform who was removing a bedpan. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for whoever is in charge here.’

The nurse turned around, then pointed to a harassed-looking nurse of about forty, with pinned-up hair and a bookish face behind large glasses, who was entering the ward, holding a clipboard.

In a few quick, determined paces, Grace cut her off, blocking her path. The badge hanging from her blue top read Angela Morris, Ward Manager.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘can I have a word with you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she replied, in a brittle, distinctly hostile and haughty voice. ‘I’m dealing with a problem.’

‘Well, you have another one right now,’ he said, almost shaking with anger, pulling out his warrant card and holding it up to her face.

She looked alarmed. ‘What – what is this about?’ Her voice had suddenly dropped several decibels.

Grace pointed at Emma-Jane. ‘You have exactly five minutes to get that young woman out of this stinking hell-hole and into either a private ward or a women-only one. Do you understand?’

Haughty again, the Ward Manager said, ‘Perhaps you should try to understand some of the problems we have in this hospital, Detective Superintendent.’

Raising his voice almost to a shout, Grace said, ‘This young woman is a heroine. She was injured performing an act of supreme bravery in the line of duty. She helped save this city from a monster, who is now behind bars awaiting trial, and to save the lives of two innocent people. She nearly damn well sacrificed her life! And her reward is to get put in a mixed, geriatric ward, in a bed next to a man with his dick hanging out. She’s not spending one more hour in this ward. Do you understand me?’

Looking around edgily, the nurse said, ‘I will see what I can do, later.’

Raising his voice even more, Grace said, ‘I don’t think you heard me properly. There’s no later about this. You’re going to do this now. Because I’m going to stay here, in your face, until she’s moved into a bed in a ward that I’m happy about.’ Then he held up the phone and showed it to the woman. ‘Unless you’d like me to email the photos I’ve just taken of Brighton heroine DC Boutwood being stripped of all dignity by you cruel incompetents to the Argus and every damn newspaper in the land, you’re going to do this right now.’

‘You are not allowed to use mobile phones in here. And you’ve no right to take photographs.’

‘You’ve no right to treat my officer like this. Get me the hospital manager. NOW!’

78

Thirty minutes later, Emma-Jane Boutwood was wheeled along a network of corridors, into a much more modern section of the hospital.

Grace waited until the young DC was installed in her sunny, private room, with a view out across the rooftops to the English Channel, then gave her the flowers and left, after receiving a promise from the hospital’s Mr Big, down a phone line from his ivory tower, that she would remain in this room until she was discharged.

Following the directions he had been given back to the front entrance, he stopped at an elevator and hit the button. After a lengthy wait, he was about to give up and walk down when suddenly the doors slid open. He stepped in and nodded at a tired-looking young Indian man, who was taking a bite on an energy snack bar.

Dressed in green medical pyjamas, with a stethoscope hanging from his neck, the man was wearing a name tag which read Dr Raj Singh, A&E. As the doors closed, Grace suddenly felt stifling heat; it was like being in an oven. He noticed the doctor was staring at him curiously.

‘Hot day,’ Grace said politely.

‘Yes, a little too hot,’ the man replied in a cultured English accent, then he frowned. ‘Excuse me asking, but you look familiar. Have we met?’

Grace had always had a good memory for faces – almost photographic at times. But this man’s did not ring any bells. ‘I don’t think so,’ he replied.

The lift stopped and Grace stepped out. The doctor followed him. ‘In the Argus today, is it your photograph?’

Grace nodded.

‘That explains it! I was just reading it, a few minutes ago. Actually, I had been thinking of contacting your inquiry team.’

Grace, distractedly anxious to get on and back to the office, was only giving Dr Singh half an ear now. ‘Really?’

‘Look, it’s probably nothing, but the paper says you’ve asked people to be vigilant and report anything suspicious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well – I have to be careful about patient confidentiality, but I saw a man in here yesterday and he really made me feel uncomfortable.’

‘In what way?’

The doctor glanced around the empty corridor, looked sternly at a fire hydrant, then turned back to check the lift doors were closed. ‘Well, his behaviour was very erratic. He shouted at the receptionist, for instance.’

Nothing erratic about that , Grace thought privately. He was sure plenty of people got shouted at in here regularly, with good reason.

‘When I saw him,’ the doctor continued, ‘he seemed extremely agitated. Don’t get me wrong, I see plenty of people with psychiatric problems, but this man just seemed to be in a state of high anxiety about something.’

‘What was his injury?’

‘Here’s the thing. It was an infected wound in his hand.’

Suddenly Grace was paying a lot more attention. ‘From what?’

‘Well, he said he had shut it in a door, but it didn’t look like that to me.’

‘Shut it in a door?’ Grace queried, thinking hard about Bishop’s explanation for his injury – that he had bashed it getting into a taxi.

‘Yes.’

‘So what did it look like to you?’

‘A bite. I would say a human bite quite possibly. You see, there were marks on both sides of the hand – on the wrist, then on the underside just below the thumb.’