Sleepyhead

'She might be ready-'

'And she's able. I've seen it. She indicated to me that she was in pain, that she was tired. She… greets me, Steve.'

Clark opened the door. He was eager to be on his way.

'Maybe she's not comfortable with the pressure of… performing.'

Later, when she felt calmer, Anne would realise that he'd been trying to be genuinely sympathetic. At that moment she was angry and frustrated, for herself and for Alison. 'She isn't a performer and these are not cheap theatrics…'

But that's exactly what it felt like.

As Holland steered the unmarked Rover into a quiet tree lined street in Battersea, he took a deceptively vicious speed bump just fast enough to take several layers off the underside of the car and to awaken his boss somewhat rudely.

'Jesus, Holland…'

'Sorry sir…'

'I know it's only a company car, but for Christ's sake!'

The sunshine was dazzling and Thorne felt every one of the twenty-eight hours since he'd last slept. Holland actually held the car door open for him! Thorne felt that it wasn't so much in deference to his rank as a subtle reminder that the fifteen years he had on the younger man were starting to show.

Jeremy Bishop lived in an elegant three-storey house with a small but well-maintained front garden. Probably four bedrooms. Probably tastefully decorated Thorne guessed, and crammed with what the slimier estate agents, if you could quantify slime, would refer to as 'periods'. Probably worth a piffling half a million. All this, and a nice Volvo parked outside. Clearly Bishop was not struggling. Holland rang the bell. Thorne looked up at the windows. The curtains were still drawn. After a minute or two the door was opened, Holland made the introductions and he and Thorne were ushered into the house by a sleepy looking Jeremy Bishop.

While Holland stood efficiently with his notebook at the ready, Thorne slumped into a chair, gratefully accepted a cup of coffee and racked his brain as to why Jeremy Bishop looked so familiar. He was, Thorne guessed, in his mid-to late-forties and, despite the stubble and redness round the eyes, looked ten years younger. He was tall, six two or three, and he reminded Thorne of Dr Richard Kimble, the character played by Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. There was plenty of grey in the short hair, but along with the wire-rimmed glasses, it served only to make him look 'distinguished'. This irritated Thorne enormously: his own grey hair simply made him look 'old'. Bugger probably didn't even have grey pubes. Bishop would, without question, be a regular performer in student nurse fantasies 'Oh, Doctor! Here in the sluice room!?' He thought about Anne Coburn. He tried not to think about her stripping in the sluice room. Weren't doctors ugly any more? He remembered the rancid old GP he'd been dragged to see regularly as a boy: a hideous crone with a man's haircut and moustache, who smelt of cheese and always had a Craven A dangling from the corner of her mouth as she mumbled in an incomprehensible eastern-European accent. No such worries with Jeremy Bishop. His modulated tones would have calmed a thrashing epileptic in an instant.

'I presume this is about Alison Willetts,' he said.

Holland looked at Thorne, who sipped his coffee. Let the constable handle it.

'And why would you presume that, sir?'

Thorne stared at Holland through the steam from his coffee-cup. Nice start: sarcasm, superiority, and a hint of aggression. Make your subject feel at ease. Bishop wasn't fazed at all. 'Alison Willetts was attacked and seriously injured. I treated her, and they don't send detective inspectors round when you haven't paid your par-king fines.' He smiled at Holland who could do little else but move on to item two in the do-it-yourself guide to interviews.

'We are investigating a very serious crime, which-'

'Has he done it again?'

Thorne almost spilt his coffee as he sat bolt upright in his chair. Holland looked across at him, thoroughly non plussed.

Bishop's amusement at the look on Holland's face was not lost on Thorne. He guessed that Bishop had seen that look many times as a junior doctor found themselves suddenly out of their depth and sought reassurance, or preferably hands-on assistance, from a senior colleague. Thorne decided that the hands-on approach was best.

'Done what again, sir?'

'Look, I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to know about the other victims. As far as I'm concerned it's simply a question of putting my patient's condition in context. I was informed that there had been other attacks. Anne Coburn and I are very old friends, Inspector, as I'm sure you're well aware.'

Thorne was very well aware that, despite Frank Keable's best intentions, the lid was not going to stay on this case for very long. Not that he ever really thought of cases as having lids.., saucepans had lids.., cases had… what?.., locks?.., well, only open and shut ones. Mind you, was there any point in a case that didn't open and shut. God he was fired…

'I'm sorry if we got you out of bed, sir.'

Bishop spread his arms across the back of the sofa. 'Oh, well, I obviously look as rough as you, Inspector.' Thorne raised an eyebrow. 'I spend a lot of time with people who don't get much sleep for one reason or another. The eyes give it away instantly. I've been on call all night. What's your excuse?' His laugh was somewhere between a chuckle and a snort.

Thorne laughed back at him through a good impression of a yawn. 'Yep… busy night. What about you, sir?'

Bishop stared at him. 'Oh… no, not really. Went in to treat an overdose at about three o'clock and got home about five thirty. But even when you're not called in, it's hard to relax when you're bleeper-watching. Thank God for cable TV.'

'Anything good on?'

'I'm a confirmed channel-hopper, I'm afraid. A lot of old sitcoms, the odd black-and-white film and a fair bit of smut.' He looked up and grinned in disbelief at Holland.

'Are you actually writing all that down, Constable?'

Thorne had been asking himself the same question.

'Only the bit about smut. Detective Constable Holland's life lacks excitement.' Thorne was astonished to see Holland actually blush.

Bishop stood up and stretched. 'I'm going to get another coffee. Anybody else?'

Thorne followed him into the kitchen and they chatted over the growing grumble of the kettle.

'So what time did you go in the night you treated Alison Willetts?'

'I was bleeped at about three o'clock, I think. One sugar, wasn't it?' Thorne nodded and waited for Bishop to continue.

'The patient was found outside by a service entrance… I'm sure you know all this.., and brought straight into A and E.'

'Did you call in when you were bleeped?'

'No need. It was a message saying red trauma. You just go. Sometimes you might get an extension number to ring, or sometimes it's just a message to phone in, but with a trauma call you just get in the car.'

'And when Alison Willetts was brought in, you were the first person to treat her?'

'That's correct. I checked her pupils – they were reacting. I bagged and masked her, intubated her, Midazolam to sedate her, ordered a CT of her head and an ECG, and handed it over to the junior anaesthetist.' Bishop took a sip of his coffee. 'Sorry, I must sound like an episode of Casualty.'

Thorne smiled. 'More like ER. On Casualty it's usually a cup of sweet tea and a couple of aspirin.'

Bishop laughed. 'Absolutely right. And the nursing staff aren't quite so attractive.'

'So if you were bleeped at three o'clock you got there, what, about half past?'

'Something like that, I suppose.'

'And Alison, the patient, was brought in about quarter to four?' Bishop sipped and nodded. 'So why were you bleeped in the first place?'

'I really couldn't tell you, I'm afraid. It isn't unusual sometimes you can spend ages trying to find out why you've been called in. I've been bleeped before when I shouldn't have been. As for that particular night, I've never really thought about it. I mean, if I'd known exactly what had happened – or, rather, what we'd later discover – I might have a better grasp of the sequence of events that night. It was just a routine emergency at the time. Sorry.'