‘Where are you taking him?’ I asked the one who slammed shut the back doors of the ambulance and ran forward to drive.
‘The nearest emergency department is at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.’
I knew it well.
‘Will he live?’ I asked him quietly so Amanda wouldn’t hear.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, shooting me a forlorn glance. ‘But we’ll do our best.’
He gunned the engine and they were away, the siren again blaring loudly.
And at that point, to further complicate matters, the police finally arrived.
Chapter 35
I think it was fair to say that the police were less than impressed concerning the contamination of a crime scene, not least because, even as Darren was being wheeled out to the ambulance and driven away, Georgina was already starting to clean his blood off the sitting-room floor with a mop and bucket.
‘Before it seeps through the cracks between the floorboards, and into the underfloor insulation,’ she insisted.
My wife was nothing if not practical.
Needless to say, she was immediately stopped from cleaning up any more, and we were all ushered out of the sitting room by the two uniformed policemen who had arrived first. Indeed, we were required to leave the house altogether — until the detectives arrived — although not before I was able to collect another polo shirt from my wardrobe.
As we waited outside the front door, our neighbours, Victoria and Brian Perry, walked up the drive.
Alerted by the ambulance siren, they had come to see if everyone was all right. At least, that’s what they claimed, although I believed it was more because they wanted to know what had happened so that they could be the first to inform the rest of the village, but that might have been slightly unfair on my part.
Fortunately, the two police officers politely told them to go back home and stay there, leaving just my family of four, plus Patrick Hogg, standing on the gravel of the driveway.
It was Detective Sergeant Christine Royle who arrived next, in an unmarked car, along with her sidekick, DC Abbot.
‘We meet again, Mr Newton,’ she said without any warmth. ‘What’s been going on here then?’
Patrick stepped forward.
‘Officer,’ he said. ‘My name is Patrick Hogg. I’m a barrister. A King’s Counsel. I am here at the invitation of Mr Newton, as an observer. And I have a video on my phone of everything that happened, up to and including the stabbing of the young man.’
‘Do you, indeed?’ said the DS. ‘Then I had better see it. Please come and sit in my car.’
Patrick and the two detectives walked to the car and climbed in.
I would have much preferred it if Patrick did not show the detectives the first part of the meeting but, as he’d said, I had asked him to come as an observer, and it was a bit late now not to want his observations, including his video.
‘What’s going to happen now?’ Amanda asked. ‘I’m really worried.’
‘We’ll just have to wait to see how Darren recovers,’ I said.
‘It’s not just Darren. What about me?’
There was not much I could say, so I said nothing.
James, meanwhile, still seemed somewhat distant.
‘Where would Gary go?’ I asked him.
‘What do you mean?’ He stared blankly at me.
‘I mean, where would he be going right now?’
He shook his head. ‘No idea.’
‘How about Bristol?’ I said.
‘Why would he go there?’
‘How about for his passport? And for clothes? To get away.’
‘And some money,’ James said. ‘We have a bit stashed away.’
‘How much?’
‘A few grand. It’s in our flat, under my bed.’
I didn’t feel it was appropriate at that particular moment to ask how an impoverished university student had several thousand pounds of cash hidden under his bed. That would be a question for later.
I had the flat address on my phone. It was where I had sent James’s passport only the previous Friday.
I walked down to the police car and tapped on the window.
DC Abbot climbed out.
‘My son and I think it’s possible that Gary Shipman may have gone back to Bristol, to a student flat they share. He might be trying to collect his passport and some cash they have there.’
I gave him the address of the flat.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said DC Abbot. ‘I’ll get on to Avon and Somerset to send someone to check.’
‘Tell them he’s armed. He took the knife with him.’
‘I will, sir.’
The constable got back into the car.
What a mess, I thought. How on earth are we going to survive this as a family?
Finally, their film show being over, the two detectives, plus Patrick Hogg, emerged from the car and walked up towards us.
‘I should arrest you for wasting police time,’ said DS Royle sharply, pointing straight at Amanda.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Amanda said quietly, unsuccessfully trying to hold back the tears.
‘And your boyfriend too — that’s if he recovers. Reporting someone missing when you know they’re not is also a crime.’
‘But Darren didn’t know. He’s not involved in any of this. It was all planned by Gary and James. They made me do it.’
‘How did they make you do it?’ asked the DS with obvious cynicism.
‘Gary has a film of Darren selling some crack. He must have been set up. Gary threatened to give it to the police unless I went along with their plan. They said that all I had to do was quietly walk out of the party, drive myself to Pangbourne in Gary’s car, wait a bit, snort some ket powder, and then knock on someone’s door, claiming I couldn’t remember anything, just as Dad said earlier.’
‘How did you get the ketamine?’ asked the detective.
‘Gary gave it to me. In the Red Lion during the afternoon. That’s when he also made the needle mark on my neck. Out the back. I had to hide it from Darren. And it bloody hurt.’
No one expressed any sympathy towards her, not even her mother.
‘Gary promised it was all I had to do. But then James called me last week and said I had to go missing again, and to tell the van story, or Gary would send the film to the police.’
‘That sounds suspiciously like blackmail to me,’ said the DS. She turned her gaze towards James. ‘So what have you to say for yourself?’
James just stared at the ground. It was clear he had nothing to say for himself, or for anyone else.
‘And as for you, Mr Newton, you should have come to us rather than conducting your own Hercule Poirot impression. Then this stabbing could have been avoided.’
I couldn’t argue with that.
‘And don’t think you’re getting off scot-free either,’ she said, pointing at Georgina. ‘What possessed you to degrade a crime scene with a mop? Tampering with evidence can constitute perverting the course of justice. In fact, I have half a mind to arrest all of you.’
‘I’m not sure that would be sensible,’ Patrick Hogg stated calmly.
And mostly, good sense prevailed.
DS Royle and DC Abbot finally left our house at about half past ten, by which time everyone was exhausted.
Each of my family was asked in turn to give their own account of the events leading up to and including the stabbing.
‘Do I need legal representation?’ I asked.
‘That depends on whether you’ve done anything wrong,’ answered the detective.
How deep would she delve? I thought. As deep as the Thames under Goring Bridge?
I decided against the need for a solicitor, at least for myself for now. But I wondered if James should have one, and maybe Amanda as well.