Both Potting and Exton grinned. Exton looked queasy. ‘Actually, Dawn is cooking me a prawn curry.’
‘Better check where she got the prawns,’ Branson said with a dark grin.
‘I bloody well will!’
‘If Lorna’s team doesn’t find any human remains tonight,’ Branson continued, ‘then I think our other two options might be better. We could go for a further extension to give us ninety-six hours of detention, and see what else comes out of the woodwork. But the option I personally favour is releasing him on police bail tomorrow morning before the 9.45 a.m. deadline, and seeing if I can get approval to put surveillance on him. Before we do that, I’d like you to continue to interview him, make the challenges and see how he reacts to the discovery of the two sacks of cat litter in his house — but leave out our activity in the forest. He’ll probably pick it up in the media but if we tell him we’re looking there, he definitely won’t return.’
Norman Potting frowned, then made a strange, rapid movement of his lips, which he often did when he was thinking. It looked as if he was swilling mouthwash. ‘What about all the other evidence?’
‘Let’s keep some of it in our back pocket for now, Norman. Niall Paternoster’s hung his whole story on his wife needing cat litter. Focus on that, and challenge him over the other evidence found in the house to see how he reacts, prior to his release before the deadline. Then what I’m thinking is a press conference, where I will make an appeal for any sightings of Eden or any information that will assist the investigation.’
Both detectives looked at him for some moments. ‘That could be a smart move,’ DS Exton said. ‘You’re thinking about a possible girlfriend — the assignation on Sunday evening?’
Branson said, ‘I’ll be running my thoughts past the boss later to make sure he’s up to speed and on board. I want to nail this. If Paternoster has somehow managed to disappear his wife’s body, we’ll need to establish a motive for murder that’s a bit stronger than an argument over cat litter. An affair would be a pretty good one.’
‘I’ve never had to murder any of my exes,’ Potting said.
‘Really, Norman?’ Branson said. ‘How come?’
‘Because,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘they always dumped me first.’
51
As soon as Exton and Potting had left his office, Branson called Roy Grace and updated him. He told him interviews with Paternoster would continue that evening and again in the morning, and they would be challenging him on the evidence they had established. Then he told him of the plan to release Niall Paternoster in the morning, assuming no remains of his wife were found before then, and to make a public appeal via a press conference for information on Eden.
‘I’d like you to stand in for me and take that conference, Glenn.’
‘Of course, boss.’
‘You’ll have to update ACC Pewe — with his ego he’ll probably want to muscle in and get his mugshot in the Argus and the Brighton and Hove Independent, and on Latest TV and all the other news.’
‘I can handle him.’
‘I know you can.’
There was a brief moment of silence, then Branson said, ‘Just know we’re all here for you. Especially me. If you want to bell me any time, day or night, that’s fine, yeah?’
Grace was too emotional to reply.
Cleo had gone home to pack an overnight bag for them both to sleep here in the hospital. As he sat alone in the Relatives’ Room, along with everything else he was dealing with right now, he was thinking of that hapless expression on poor Norman Potting’s face yesterday. For much of the time that he’d known him, with his portly figure and terrible comb-over — before he’d gone for a more modern shaven head — Norman had to have been one of the world’s most unlikely — and most unsuccessful — philanderers. And yet the man, who was still one of the best detectives Grace had ever encountered, had somehow charmed one of the brightest members of his team, and had been on the verge of marrying her before her tragic death trying to save a little girl from a fire.
He felt the tugging in his heart for Bruno. The terrible anxiety eating away at his insides like acid. With his brain roiling with fear for the boy, he was on autopilot, barely able to concentrate.
In need of some air, he left the hospital, grateful for the fresh evening breeze, even if it was laced with traffic fumes. He took a short stroll and sat for a while on a low wall. When he went back inside, he paused to squirt sanitizer on his hands, then followed behind a doctor in scrubs towards the Intensive Care Unit.
As he reached it, he glanced through the window of the secured doors towards Bruno’s bed.
It was empty. All the machines had been switched off and were silent, the displays blank.
Christ.
For an instant he stood, feeling like his blood had turned to ice.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
Grace turned and saw the doctor again, a handsome-looking Asian man in his late twenties. His badge gave his name, Amil, and underneath the words ICU Registrar.
Bewildered and terrified, he stuttered, ‘My... my son... I just came back to see how he was.’
‘Bruno?’ the man asked, calm and with a reassuring air.
Grace nodded. ‘Where... where is he?’ Terrified of the answer.
‘He’s been taken for an MRI scan, he should be back shortly, sir. Perhaps you’d like to wait in the Relatives’ Room and someone will be along to let you know when your son is back. I’ll take you there.’
‘Don’t worry, I know where it is, my wife and I are staying in there.’
Numbly, he walked back out of the ward, into the same windowless room, and sat back down. A few minutes later the door opened and the stocky ICU consultant he and Cleo had spoken with earlier, Adrian Burton, came in. He had a strange, unsettling look on his face.
‘You’re working a long shift today,’ Grace said, trying to sound jovial and not succeeding.
Burton smiled thinly and said, in his warm Brummy accent, ‘I felt I owed it to you and your wife to stay on and make sure we’re all doing the very best for your lad that we can.’
Standing up, Grace thanked him, then asked, ‘How is he? Can I see him?’
‘I’ll take you in to see him in a minute, but I’d like to talk to you first, please?’
Grace felt another cold flush deep inside him. ‘Sure,’ he said flatly.
‘Roy, normally we’d wait twenty-four hours before doing an MRI scan on a trauma victim, but Bruno hasn’t been maintaining his blood pressure or pulse, so the team needed to see what was going on. If I can explain in layman’s terms, as the brain swells from a trauma it cones. Basically, it gets pushed down into the base of the skull — the technical term is foramen magnum. Bruno doesn’t have any skull fracture, which, ironically, is unhelpful in this situation, because a fractured skull could absorb some of this increasing pressure.’
‘Clearly a tough nut, like his dad,’ Grace said, attempting a smile.
Burton gave a kindly smile back. ‘Clearly.’ Then his face clouded. ‘But the pressure has caused a real problem for him.’
‘How... how serious a problem?’ Grace asked, aware his voice was faltering.
‘I’m afraid it is extremely serious,’ Adrian Burton said. ‘The next step tonight is for Bruno to be taken into theatre again — the leading neurosurgeon in Sussex is on his way, and he’ll insert an intracranial bolt to monitor the pressure.’
‘What will that do?’
‘Shall we sit?’ the consultant said.
Reluctantly, he sat back down and Burton joined him. ‘Basically, as I just said, as the pressure rises, the brain gets pushed down, further out of the skull, putting increasing pressure on the brainstem, which is essentially the basic life support. As the pressure on the brainstem continues to increase, it causes the loss of ability to maintain the brainstem’s functions. This in turn causes loss of pulse, blood pressure and temperature regulation, which are the very basic functions of the brainstem. So even though your lad’s had the bleeding treated, at this moment the team still can’t get his blood pressure and everything related stable.’