He turned to Cleo. ‘Let’s go get some air — find a cafe and get away from the hospital for an hour or so — there’s nothing we can do here at the moment.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, good idea. But call Glenn back if you need to, it might be urgent.’
‘Nothing’s as urgent as this. I’m thinking I’ll go in once we’ve had some breakfast, to see the team, if you’re OK with that. I’ll make sure I’m back at the hospital with you straight afterwards,’ he replied.
‘Makes sense. I’ll go back and stay with Bruno.’
They left the front entrance of the hospital and walked out into the early morning light. ‘There’s a decent place, I seem to remember, if we go down to St James’s Street,’ she said. ‘Not far away.’
They walked in silence. All he wanted to focus on was the dilemma facing them over Bruno and what decision to make.
A few minutes later they entered a large modern-feeling cafe. Johnny Nash’s ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ was playing quietly. Grace wished he could see clearly himself. Several people were seated having breakfast, but they spotted an empty sofa with a coffee table in a far corner, which looked out of earshot to anyone else. They ordered a double espresso for him and a peppermint tea for Cleo, then sat down next to each other on the squishy leather.
Cleo looked pale and very distressed. ‘God, my darling,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t believe we are in this situation.’
‘Yep.’ He looked down at the oak table and said nothing more for some moments.
‘What are your thoughts?’ she asked.
‘I... I guess I’m still trying to take it all in. This time yesterday I was dropping him at school. Now I—’ He stopped and closed his eyes tightly, trying to hold it together.
‘One double espresso and one mint tea,’ a voice said brightly.
Grace heard Cleo thank the server. He opened his eyes again. ‘Shit, there’s a lot of stuff in life you don’t have a clue about until it hits you, isn’t there?’
She smiled back.
They sat for some while without speaking. Grace sipped his coffee, grateful for its strength.
‘What I think,’ Cleo said, ‘is that you shouldn’t rush a decision.’
‘What about the organs deteriorating, or is that just their sales spiel?’
‘I don’t think a few hours will make any difference.’
‘Is there anything we’re missing? Is there something we could do? Some surgeon, somewhere in the world, who could save Bruno?’ he asked.
‘You know, darling, we’re hoping for a miracle that isn’t going to happen. If we lose the transplant window, no one gets helped by his death.’
‘You’re right.’ He sipped some more coffee in silence.
‘What I’m going to suggest, my love, is that because you’ve been thinking of nothing else throughout the night, you need some time away to think clearly. I’ve found so often in life that when we’re in a difficult place, the right decision finds us. Make time to go for a walk on your own, and I’ll do the same. Then let’s speak around lunchtime and see where we’re at.’
They hugged, with tears rolling down their cheeks.
As they left the cafe, Roy noticed a text had come in from Glenn Branson.
Bell me urgently, if you can, boss.
He hit the DI’s speed-dial button.
‘What’s up, Glenn, what’s urgent?’
‘I thought you would want to know right away. There’s been a credible sighting of Eden Paternoster.’
60
Roy Grace, curious about the reported sighting of Eden Paternoster, and highly dubious, was tempted to call back Glenn Branson as he drove to the Sussex Police HQ. But he wanted to use the twenty minutes or so the journey would take to keep his focus on Bruno.
His mind kept admonishing him shoutily. Miracles happen — wait for one. Bruno will suddenly start speaking. He’ll defy those bloody doctors. Another voice in his head was telling him not to be stupid, that he needed to start grieving.
Somehow, when he arrived back at work, he managed to avoid bumping into anyone, entered the sanctuary of his office and shut the door. As soon as he sat at his desk, he called Glenn Branson.
A couple of minutes later, the DI was seated opposite him, in his favoured position with the chair the wrong way round. ‘How is he?’ he asked.
‘I’ll come to it, but I want to hear first about this credible sighting of Eden Paternoster.’
‘You don’t need to be here, Roy — you look terrible — I mean it in the nicest way.’
Grace nodded. ‘I need to be, my mind is all over the place, I need something else to focus on, to keep sane, OK?’
Branson smiled. ‘Understood,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve actually got quite a bit more to report. But yeah, this sighting: a prison officer, who works at Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight, saw the article and Eden Paternoster’s photo in the West Sussex Gazette. She is positive she saw Eden Paternoster on the Isle of Wight Hovercraft ferry on the evening of Sunday September the first.’
Grace frowned. ‘The same day Eden’s husband claimed he’d dropped her at the Tesco store and she’d vanished? Which Aiden Gilbert has discredited?’
‘The same day, boss, yes. But what makes this sighting particularly interesting is that Eden Paternoster has Isle of Wight family connections — her grandfather worked in a hotel in Seaview and she has a number of cousins there.’
Grace had spent several childhood holidays on the Isle of Wight. A few miles south of the coast of Hampshire, it was the second smallest county in England, with a population of around 140,000. One of its claims to fame was that it housed Parkhurst prison, once one of the country’s highest-security jails, which had hosted, at various times, the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, the Kray Twins and Moors Murderer Ian Brady among many of the nation’s most notorious and repellent criminals. But in recent years, he recalled, following a number of high-profile escapes, it had been downgraded from a Category A to a B.
‘OK,’ Grace said. ‘What information can you get from the Isle of Wight Hovertravel company? Do we have a name the ticket was booked under?’
Branson shook his head. ‘They don’t take names — it’s only an eight-minute ride. I’ve spoken to the boss, Neil Chapman, a very helpful man. You can buy tickets for cash at the terminal or online or by card. I’ve sent DC Hall down there to have a trawl through the online name and credit-card bookings for Sunday afternoon and evening, then he’s going over to the island to talk to the prison officer.’
‘Tell him to bring back a tube of Alum Bay sand,’ Grace said.
Branson frowned. ‘Alan Bay?’
‘Alum Bay. Used to love it as a kid — it’s famous for its cliffs of multicoloured sand. You can buy tubes of it, all different colours.’
Branson gave Grace a strange look. ‘How many tubes do you want, boss?’
‘Just reminiscing, I always wanted to take Bruno there—’ He tailed off.
‘Ah, right. OK.’
‘Get all the names of Eden Paternoster’s relatives on the Isle of Wight. And there must be CCTV?’ Grace said, snapping back into professional mode.
‘There is, yes. They have it at the hovercraft terminal in Southsea and at Ryde on the Isle of Wight. There are also onboard cameras.’
‘Have you got the footage?’
Branson shook his head. ‘Not yet, thanks to GDPR.’
General Data Protection Regulation was one of the banes of modern life that even the police, regardless of the urgency of an enquiry, had to abide by.
‘I’ve done the application for the DP2 form to the Hovertravel GDPR officer. I’m hoping to hear back from them shortly. The good news is that they keep all CCTV for thirty days. So long as we don’t get a jobsworth, they’ll burn off a copy to a USB stick, which Kevin Hall can bring back.’