“Who?”
“The IPCC.”
She clicked her tongue. “Really. Mr. Dragham and Miss Stretch. No, they weren’t in this morning when the hospital got in touch, but they could arrive any time. Peter, stop whatever you’re doing and get to the RUH as soon as possible. I’m not suggesting you bring any influence to bear on Mr. Pellegrini if he’s able to talk.”
But you are, Diamond thought. That’s exactly what you’re suggesting. “I’m on my way.”
In the car he reminded himself how little Georgina knew about Pellegrini. There was so much else to be clarified than the minor matter of whether Aaron Green had been driving without due care and attention.
His ally, the Critical Care sister, was in her office entering something on the computer.
“I would have put money on them sending you,” she said. “Couldn’t you have got here earlier?”
“I was only just informed. Do you have a kit for me?”
“Kit?”
“The sterile clothing.”
“There’s a stack outside the door. I thought for a moment you were speaking of kitties.” No prize for guessing her next question. “How is he getting on?”
Until he’d met this woman he’d believed himself to be the world’s least convincing liar. He was getting a conscience about Hornby, but owning up wasn’t an option.
“The last I heard was good.” He moved to the more realistic matter. “What’s happening here? It sounds promising.”
“We’re encouraged, but don’t expect him to sit up and talk. They don’t snap out of a coma just like that.”
“Any more signs of improvement?”
“He opened his eyes again briefly twenty minutes ago. There’s also some flexing of the limbs. He’s still in a vegetative state and it’s quite usual for the eyes to open. He may soon begin responding to sounds. Try talking to him when you go in, simple, undemanding stuff. Hold his hand and see if he responds, but don’t distress him.”
In the private room where Pellegrini was, a nurse was changing one of the bags of fluid hanging from a drip stand. “Are you family?”
He shook his head. “He doesn’t have any left.”
“Poor old Ivor. Good thing he’s got friends.”
Friends?
He didn’t go into why he was really there. It was obvious from the mask, tabard and gloves that he was an approved visitor. “Was it you who first saw him open his eyes?”
“That was the night nurse some hours ago. It’s in his notes. I was here when it happened the second time. He didn’t move his head or focus or anything, but it shows there’s life in him.”
Anyone could be forgiven for thinking the opposite. The patient looked ready for the undertaker.
Diamond found the chair he’d used before and moved it closer to the bed. He could see how much the facial hair had grown since his last visit, already more like the start of a beard than five o’clock shadow.
“Talk to him if you want,” the nurse said. “Don’t mind me. I’ll be out of here in a minute.”
His previous one-sided conversation with Pellegrini hadn’t made much difference. “I’ll have to think what to say.”
“The first thing that comes into your head. We do.” She laughed. “It’s funny. You can find yourself saying really personal, intimate things to patients in comas because you know they won’t answer back, and then when they recover you feel really embarrassed and wonder if any of it sank in.”
“I’m shy. I won’t be telling my secrets.”
She laughed. “Who are you kidding?”
“Not to him, anyway, and not you.”
“Shame. Hold his hand and talk to him about old times, then, things you have in common, and be sure to keep on using his name. That’s the main buzzword: Ivor.” She picked up a bag she’d been filling with discarded items. “I’ll leave you to it. Press the button if you need me.”
Tentatively he reached for Pellegrini’s left hand, palm down on the bed, and slipped his own underneath.
Clammy. Limp. Swollen joints. Not easy to touch.
“Me again, Ivor,” he said. “The same bloke who found you. Hope you understand some of this, even if you can’t say so. You’re showing definite signs of improvement, and we’re hoping for more. There’s a lot I’d like to ask you, but let’s just try the word game. How about locomotive?”
No reaction.
“Squeeze my hand if I’m getting through to you. I know the things that interest you. Like steam engines.”
The hand remained inert.
“Great Western Railway.”
Above the bed, the delta waves patterned the screen in the same regular formation.
“You wouldn’t believe how much of this I’ve had to mug up on. Your personal name-plate, County of Somerset.”
Personal it may have been, but it made no impact on Pellegrini’s brain or heart rate. A monitor on Diamond’s own would have shown big fluctuations. He’d never been a patient man. How did I come to this, he asked himself, pandering to a serial killer?
“A place you visited recently: Hampton Row Halt.”
The hand resting on his could have been an uncooked fillet of cod.
“Did you get that, Ivor? I hope you’re listening. The one-time railway station. Hampton Row Halt.”
Pause for inspiration. There’s only so much you can say that’s simple and undemanding. After some time he tried a fresh approach, letting the words flow more, as the nurse had suggested.
“I was there myself, standing on the iron bridge looking along the track where the HOPS are coming. Yes, it took some working out, but I know all about the HOPS now. Saw them for myself only the other night.” He’d scarcely begun before he ground to another halt. Aimless chat didn’t come naturally to him.
He looked up at the screens and stands and tubes, all functioning efficiently while he was failing lamentably to make any difference.
“You know what they should do?” he told Ivor when he started up again. “Fix you up with earphones, put on a tape of steam railway sounds and see what that does for you. I’m sure there are plenty of recordings. Then you wouldn’t need idiots like me talking about it. They play music to coma patients. I’ve heard of miracle cures with Beethoven and Brahms, so why not the Flying Scotsman? Oops, that would never do. Got to go GWR, not north. The Cornish Riviera Express, London to Penzance. About six hours’ worth of clackety-clack. Cure anyone, that would.”
The only good thing about the lack of any response was that Dragham and Stretch were going to have to wait just as long as he was for the victim’s account of the collision. There would be no sudden breakthrough. They don’t snap out of a coma, the sister had said.
“Okay. The railway stuff leaves you cold. I’m going to try some names, like your cleaning lady, Mrs. Halliday.”
He waited.
“She doesn’t do anything for you? There’s a woman from the church who brings you meals on wheels and I’m trying to recall her name. She arrived with a quiche when I was at your house asking about you and I thought I’d got lucky, but she insisted on saving it for someone more needy than I was. Blake. Elspeth Blake.”
He might as well have named William Blake, or Blake’s 7.
He knew of other names more likely to trigger brain activity, but that would be crossing a line. The sister had said not to distress the patient.
Bugger that, he told himself. The sister doesn’t know she has a killer in her care.
Go for broke.
“Max Filiput? Your friend Max?”
Friend or foe, it made no difference.
“Cyril Hardstaff?”
He might as well have said Joe Bloggs.
“Your late wife, Trixie?”
One of Pellegrini’s fingertips tensed and pressed against Diamond’s palm. Unmistakably. Trixie’s name had worked.
A miracle.
The touch was soft, but to Peter Diamond it felt like a thousand volts.
Fizzing with the force of it, he squeezed back. “Good man. We got there, thanks to Trixie.”