With the assistance of another nurse, the curtains were drawn around the bed to give them privacy. Then Bella Moy sat down. ‘Ricky Moore?’ she asked, to confirm.
He gave her a suspicious frown, but said nothing.
Her first impression of the man was that he was the very double of the television actor Dennis Waterman, former co-star of Minder and now of New Tricks.
She held up her warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Moy of Sussex CID – are you up to answering a few questions?’
He winced, painfully forcing one word out at a time. ‘If – you – want – the – capital – of – Peru – it’s – Lima.’
She smiled. ‘Very witty.’
He winced again.
‘I understand you were assaulted last Friday night, Ricky? Okay if I call you that?’
He stared at her for some moments. Then he nodded.
‘Do you know the people who did it?’
He shook his head.
‘Are you sure about that?’
He fell silent.
‘So, Ricky, you’re in the antiques business, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You look in pain – does it hurt you to speak?’
He nodded.
‘I’ll be brief. Someone hurt you quite badly – is that right?’
He stared into space.
‘How badly, Ricky?’
He continued staring into space.
‘I don’t get it, Ricky,’ she said. ‘So why did they hurt you?’
Nothing.
‘The doctors say you’ve suffered very serious internal damage. You have a perforated bowel, and permanently damaged nerves. How do you feel about that?’
Again he was silent.
‘I’d be pretty upset if that had happened to me. Are you upset?’
Again he said nothing.
She looked at the greetings card. ‘That from your wife?’
‘Girlfriend.’
‘Does it worry you that you might not be able to make love to her again? And that you might be incontinent for the rest of your life.’
He gave her a sullen glare.
‘You’ve been the victim of a very brutal attack. I understand you have severe rectal burns. Is that right?’
‘I never – touched – the – old – lady,’ he said. His voice was low and pained.
‘Is that why this happened to you?’
He did not reply.
‘Would you like to tell me who hurt the old lady? And who hurt you?’
‘No one hurt me.’
‘I’m told something very hot was pushed up your anus. With your perforated bowel you’re lucky not to be dead from septicaemia. Was someone torturing you?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah, I was doing some electrical repairs. I just sat down on my soldering iron. Dunno how I did it.’
‘You were doing electrical repairs in the nude, were you?’
He closed his eyes.
‘Is there anything you would like to tell me?’
He remained silent.
After ten minutes a doctor and a nurse opened the curtain and told Bella that Moore needed to sleep now.
As she walked out of the hospital, Bella dialled Roy Grace’s number.
36
‘You know the worst thing?’ Glenn Branson said through his tears, cradling his second pint in the booth at the rear of the pub a short distance down the road from the Royal Sussex County Hospital.
‘Tell me,’ Roy Grace said, one arm around his mate’s shoulder, his glass of a single Glenfiddich on the rocks on the table in front of them. He should not be drinking on duty, he knew, and he still had work to do tonight. But for the moment he was making an exception. He was deeply shaken by Glenn’s news.
‘It’s knowing Ari’ll be having a post-mortem in the morning.’ He stared, heavy-lidded at Roy Grace. ‘We both know what that means.’
All Grace could do was nod.
‘They’re going to cut her open. They’re going to saw off her skull cap, and lift out her brains. Then they’re going to slice open her chest and then . . .’
He broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.
‘Don’t go there, mate,’ Grace said.
‘But they will, won’t they?’ Branson said, helplessly. ‘We’re talking about the woman I loved. The mother of my kids. I can’t bear that, Roy.’
‘They have to know what happened,’ Grace said, and immediately regretted it.
‘I know what happened. She was cycling along the cycle lane on the seafront. Someone, not looking where they were going, stepped out in front of her. She came off the bike, broke her arm in three places and dislocated her shoulder.’
Grace frowned. ‘Was she wearing a helmet?’
‘Always wore one. Made the kids, too.’
‘But she must have had a head injury, surely, to have died?’
‘No. They took her to the hospital, where she had to have corrective surgery on her arm – it needed metal pins putting in – and they had to reset her shoulder. They put her under anaesthetic and she had an allergic reaction to it – called something like malignant hyperthermia. Apparently it happens; one in a hundred thousand or a million or some statistic.’
Grace was silent for a moment. Then he touched his friend’s arm, and squeezed gently. ‘I’ve heard of things like that happening – allergic reactions to anaesthetics – but I never – you know. God, poor you, poor kids.’
‘How am I going to explain to them that their mummy’s never coming home again?’
‘Maybe you need some advice from a child counsellor. Take a few days off – compassionate leave.’
He shrugged. ‘Thanks, but I’ll see.’
‘You’ll have a lot of stuff to sort out.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, pensively.
He looked so helpless, Grace thought. Even when Ari had kicked him out, Glenn had coped, but he was all at sea now, overwhelmed.
‘It really is unbelievable,’ Grace said. ‘Talk about shit happens. She comes off her bike, the kind of accident every cyclist has, then dies in hospital from the anaesthetic. I – I know you weren’t together, but I’m sorry.’
Branson shrugged. ‘Yeah. I wish – you know – me and her – I wish we could at least have stopped disliking each other – that we could have been – at least – ’ he choked. ‘Friends, yeah?’
Grace had no answer.
‘Stupid woman who walked onto the lane in front of her probably won’t even get a fine. And I get to bury my wife, and the mother of my kids.’
‘You need to be strong for your kids,’ Grace said, trying to find a positive for his friend out of the tragedy. Glenn’s relationship with his tricky, demanding wife had hit the rocks nearly a year ago. Privately, Grace had never liked her. The DS had moved out and had been lodging at his house ever since. Meantime, to Glenn Branson’s chagrin, Ari’s new man had moved into their marital home.
Branson gulped down some of his pint and nodded bleakly.
‘What’s happening with the children?’
‘Ari’s sister’s staying over.’
‘What about the boyfriend?’
‘He’s packed up and gone. Out of there. Shows his moral fibre, right?’
‘Already?’
‘Speedy Gonzales.’
Grace shook his head. ‘They’re going to need their father. Have you seen them yet?’
‘No.’
‘I think you should go round there right now. It’s your house, your home. You need to take charge, mate.’
‘She’s poisoned them against me.’
Grace shook his head. He was out of his depth in a situation like this, he knew. But all his instincts told him that Glenn had to take charge. ‘I’ll drive you there.’