“Look, what’s this about?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. Should I?”
“A man was attacked.”
“In here?”
“Outside. Between eleven and one.”
“Whereabouts outside?”
“He’s in critical condition.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Toilet across the street.”
Griffin relaxed a little on his stool. “Not here then, is it. I mean, it’s nothing to do with us. It didn’t happen in here.”
“We think there’s a good chance he’d been in just before, for a drink.”
“Somebody see him?”
“You tell me.” The photograph of Karl Dougherty had been supplied by his parents and photocopied. It had been taken five years earlier and showed a half-way good-looking young man smiling into a friend’s camera. There were palm trees in the background and Karl was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts that finished just above his knees. It was the most recent picture they had. Griffin lifted it towards his face, stared at it for several seconds and set it back down. “No,” he said.
On the level above them, Rosie was polishing tables.
“No, you didn’t see him last night, or no, you don’t know him at all?”
“Either. Both.”
“You’re sure?”
“Certain.”
“Don’t tell him a thing,” Rosie said, “it’ll get twisted arse-uppards and used against you. Though you’re lucky, you got me as a witness.”
“How many d’you reckon were in here yesterday?” Resnick asked. “Give or take.”
“Three hundred, maybe more. Not all at one time, of course.”
“None of them wearing hats.”
“What?”
“Skip it.”
“This bloke,” Griffin said. “What happened to him? I mean, exactly.”
Resnick told him briefly, not quite exactly. It was still enough to make Griffin cross his legs and for sweat marks to dampen his shirt. If his bow-tie could have drooped, probably it would.
“The staff on last night,” Resnick said. “Any of them in today? Lunchtime?”
“Maura. None of the others.”
“Tonight?”
“All except one.”
“Better get me the list,” Resnick said. “Mark on it when they’re here, days and times. Home numbers if you know them. We’ll need to talk to them as soon as we can.”
Griffin nodded and crossed towards the bar. “The customers,” he said, turning back towards Resnick. “You’re not going to be in here, bothering them as well?”
“Oh, yes,” said Resnick. “I should think so. But don’t worry, anyone I send, I’ll make sure they’re properly dressed.”
Once or twice, when he’d been younger, fifteen, sixteen, Kevin Naylor had been beset by panic: once in the middle of a crowded street, another time in the Broad Marsh Center, Saturday afternoon. Everyone hurrying around him, scurrying past, purposeful, busy, knowing exactly what they were looking for, where they were going. Naylor had stood where he was, quite still, scared, unable to move, and they had continued to stream past him, these people, not seeing him, not even knocking into him: as if he weren’t there.
He had experienced much the same sensation at training college, a large role-play exercise, civil unrest, riot shields and batons. Other trainee officers in jeans and jumpers, pretending to be students, strikers, loving it. The chance to scream and yell and charge. So easy to pretend emotion, feign feelings, hate. Call slogans till you were red in the face.
Wearing protective clothing, engaged in strategic retreat, Naylor had become separated, targeted. Stranded amidst all that simulated anger, faces, limbs and bodies flying past. Shatter of glass on the tarmacked ground. Flash of flame. He had stood exactly as he was while the fire sought to claim him. Awake and asleep: immovable till they had dragged him clear.
There had been a session with a counselor after that, talk of nervous failure, unsuitability; only the diligence of his written work had prevented him from being back-classed.
Nothing as dramatic had recurred since then. Out on the job, first in uniform and now plain clothes, in most situations you simply responded, did what it was clear you had to do. Only occasionally did events threaten to overwhelm him and the possibility of panic return; rarely for more than moments at a time. There had been a cup match at Forest with several thousand United supporters locked out; eighty or so youths racing down the Forest towards Hyson Green in the half-light; now.
Two sets of nurses were moving between shifts, handing over; shouts for assistance, trolleys, bells; screens pulled around one, then another; at the nurses’ station the telephone that never seemed to stop ringing and never seemed to be answered. Underpinning all of this, Naylor was aware of the near-mute chatter from a dozen television screens, the same banalities being mouthed, adultery and another slice of cake between the commercial breaks.
He had to check with the sister that it was okay to begin interviewing staff on duty; Lynn Kellogg was waiting to see those going off as they left. Helen Minton took hold of him firmly by the elbow and propelled him towards her office. “I know this is important,” she said, “but I’d appreciate it if this takes as little time as possible. What we’re doing is important too.”
Vainly waiting for the chance to question Dougherty, Patel had found a copy of yesterday’s Mail and was stuck on 13 Across: Vital to sustain life (9). He was still struggling over it when Karl Dougherty’s blood pressure sank to 90/40 and they decided that a further transfusion would not be enough. Chances are he was bleeding internally. Patel sat there and watched as they wheeled Dougherty towards the theatre for more surgery.
Lifeblood.
He filled in the squares and thought about the next clue.
Nineteen
No more than a couple of hundred yards to Central Station, Resnick slid the Manhattan’s staff list across to Fenby, five names, all of them needing to be checked.
“This one,” Resnick said. “Maura Tranter. She’s working this lunch time. I’ll nip back over, see her myself.”
Fenby nodded slowly, the same speed at which he did everything. A Lincolnshire man with thick hair and a ruddy complexion, Fenby had grown up boot-deep in mud, face to face with the easterlies that came scudding in off the North Sea and cut through the Wolds like a rusty scythe.
“Report direct to you, then?” Fenby said.
Sir, Resnick thought. “Yes,” he said.
Divine, with the help of two uniforms, was checking out any taxi drivers using the rank near where the incident had occurred, staff who would have been working at the other clubs and pubs in the area, restaurants and car parks, the toilets themselves.
NURSE FIGHTS FOR LIFE was the headline in the local paper. Victim of an apparently motiveless attack … It could have been worse. The last thing Resnick wanted to read were panic stones about some Midlands Slasher, intent upon carving up the NHS more speedily than Kenneth Clarke.
He took the escalator up beside Miss Selfridge and entered the market via the meat and fish. No time for an espresso, he paused at the first of the Polish delicatessens and allowed himself a small treat, deciding between the three kinds of cheesecake always a problem.
“This business last night,” said the man running the stall, “that’s for you to sort out?”
Pointing at the middle tray, Resnick nodded.
“I’m surprised you’ve time even to think of eating.”
Resnick lifted the white paper bag from the glass counter and hurried between the flower stalls, heading for the far exit, the second escalator that would carry him down again, landing him close to the entrance to Manhattan’s.
It was busy already, plenty of people with time to drink as well as eat, the money to make it possible. There was a spare stool towards the end of the bar and Resnick maneuvered towards it and sat down. He was always surprised when he went into a place like this, especially in the middle of the day, how many men and women under thirty could afford, not simply to be there but to be in fashion, able to pay the rising cost of keeping up appearances.