Maiden said nothing.
‘Where you picked up a brass.’
‘Not quite right.’
‘And where you drank five Scotches and four pints. The barman remembers every one, lad, because he recognized you. Then you and the brass left, wi’ your hand up her jumper.’
‘No.’
‘You got in a minicab and you went to your flat. About an hour later, a witness saw you come out chasing t’brass. What were up, lad? Wouldn’t she take a credit card? By Christ, I always knew you weren’t up to much. I were bloody amazed when you made DI. Bloody amazed.’
‘Dad-’
‘I thought you’d maybe sorted yourself out at one time. When you married Elizabeth. Bonny lass. Woman wi’ a bit of go in her. Could you keep her? Could you buggery. You’re a dead loss, lad. A bloody dead loss.’
Norman took his weight off Maiden’s chest. Moved away, brushing at his jacket in case bits of his son had come off on him.
At the foot of the bed, he looked over his shoulder, Sporting Life and the farter both watching keenly.
‘You left your front door open, son,’ Norman said with a visible sneer. ‘But it’s all right. Nobody wanted to nick your pictures.’
The storeroom was full of boxes of paper towels and toilet rolls, cartons of soap, bleach, industrial cleaning fluids. All the non-human hospital smells began here.
Maiden stayed behind the door as someone went past with a trolley. He was sweating. His left side had shut down. The blue-white light from the fluorescent tube was squeezing his head like an accordion.
Sister Andy had told him, You won’t be walking a straight line for a wee while.
Take it slowly. This was the furthest he’d been; taken himself to the lavatory and that was it. He looked down at his trousers. No bloodstains, anyway. Somebody had given the suit a brush. There was a hole in his grey jacket below the breast pocket. It would do.
Normal thing would have been for the suit to go to forensic; always a small possibility of paint traces. Somebody obviously wasn’t trying very hard to find the car that ran him down.
He still needed a sweater or a shirt. The crash team had obviously torn his off in a hurry to get at his chest. Maybe he could find some kind of surgeon’s smock in here.
He had no watch. He opened the door a crack to look up at the clock at the end of the corridor. Five-thirty. Teatime. They’d be missing him soon. Checking out the toilets and the day rooms. Could have tried to sign himself out, but that would have led to arguments, drawn too much attention. Especially with the state he’d been in …
… when, not five minutes after Norman’s final exit, there’d been this sudden activity down the ward and the screens went up again round the old man’s bed, and there were murmurs, the ward darkening, the air clotting with death, a purple-grey cloud almost visible over that bed. Maiden’s stomach had gone cold with dread. He had to get out of here. Out of the hospital, out of the town, out of the grey, out of the cold. The need stifling him.
… take a breath before you jump in …
No. He’d found his suit in the locker, rolled it up into a ball around his shoes. Made his exit before they removed the body.
He found the T-shirts wrapped in Cellophane in a box marked Liquid Soap.
The T-shirts were white, all one size. He held one up. Across the chest, it said, ELHAM GENERAL HOSPITAL LEAGUE OF FRIENDS FUN RUN 1997.
Maiden put one on, his jacket over the top. Switched off the light and relished the darkness, until he realized he was going to sleep, even though he’d spent most of the bloody day asleep.
All you have to do, Bobby, is rest, rest and rest.
Wondering if he could ever really rest again.
Anybody to look after you at home? Girlfriend? Mother?
Liz would have known how to look after him. Would’ve known all about the care of head injuries. But he knew that if he’d still been with Liz she’d have sent him straight back to the hospital in a taxi. Then told Riggs. Liz liked there to be a framework, structure, hierarchy, organization, rules, discipline …
He clutched his head, suffocating. No wonder Norman liked her.
When the lift let him out in the reception area, his legs felt weak. The place was full of visitors and cleaners and auxiliaries. There was a small shop selling tea and coffee and snacks, a few tables and chairs, and he sat down for a moment, eyes going at once to a framed print on the cream wall opposite.
He knew the painting. Turner. Staffa: Fingal’s Cave. Skeletal ship in an angry, glowering maelstrom of sea and sky and rocks. Small, struggling sun. There was a sudden heaviness in his chest, a memory rolling around in there like an iron ball. It meant something, this picture. It had the essence of something. He felt its violence.
The picture was groaning with half-spent violence and the threat of more to come.
More to come. Maiden felt sick, as though he was on that ship among the black elements.
Couldn’t look at it any more. Stood up. Didn’t hang around, didn’t look to either side until he was in the hospital car park, on the hillside overlooking the town and the dying sun.
XII
‘Shit!’
Slamming the flat of his hand into his head.
An elderly man steered his wife away from the bus stop, throwing Maiden a glare of disgust. Bloody drunks, he’d be thinking. Bloody drunks on the street before seven o’clock, that’s what you get with all-day opening.
Maiden rocked on the kerb, hands pushing at his eyes. So he was making an exhibition of himself. So what?
He’d only left his wallet in the hospital safe.
So no money. Not even a few coins for a cup of tea with three sugars — he needed the sugar, he felt as though his brain was floating out of his skull like a balloon on a string.
Made himself take three deep breaths. Think.
OK. It wasn’t as if he was breaking gaol. It was only a hospital. He could go back and demand his wallet from the safe.
Except they’d probably know he was missing by now and, as he was a policeman, who would they tell?
Not worth the risk. He wanted to be well away before Riggs found out. Not that even Riggs could stop him; it wasn’t a police hospital. And, as he was hardly fit for work, he could do what he liked, go where he wanted.
Anybody to look after you at home? Girlfriend? Mother?
Girlfriend, no. Mother, no. Home. Get back to the flat. Must be some money there, a spare chequebook. Pack a suitcase, take a bus out of town — don’t even try to drive the car — find a hotel, sleep, sleep, sleep. Then consider stage two.
He wanted to worry Riggs, if that was possible. Make him lose some sleep about where Maiden might be, who he might be talking to. Worried people made mistakes. One day, Riggs would have to make a mistake; you could only hope somebody would be there to pick up on it.
Maiden started to walk, avoiding the town centre, slinking into the back streets like a vagrant, walking slowly, trying not to sway. Passing people were glancing sideways at him, as at some kind of downmarket street-theatre performer. The sneering sun hung like a cheap, copper medallion. He felt naked. He tried to run, but the pavement came up at him before he even realized he’d stumbled. Slow down; it was no more than half a mile to Old Church Street, he could manage that.
Oh no. Please, no. Fuck.
Now he was kicking a lamp-post. Again and again and again. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Because his pockets were empty: not only no wallet, but no bastard keys.