Steven rolled over and over until he came to a halt under a holly bush and turned to look back just as the Range Rover driver turned his headlights on to full beam and revved his engine. Steven felt like he was on some hellish floodlit stage as the Range Rover’s tyres squealed and its rear end twitched as the driver sent it hurtling across the car park directly at him. As he struggled to his feet there was only one decision to be made, whether to jump left or right. It was six of one, half a dozen of the other, he decided. Timing was going to be everything. He had to wait until the very last moment so that the driver would not have time to alter course. The blinding lights raced towards him as he stood there like a capeless matador until the moment of truth came and he threw himself to the left.
The Range Rover careered past him into the shrubbery and the pain of a thousand berberis thorns raked Steven’s face and hands as he landed in a dense clump of it. The right rear wheel of the Range Rover just caught the sleeve of his jacket as it hurtled past, ripping it away from his shoulder and reminding him how close he’d come to death. Now fuelled by panic, Steven struggled to free himself from the bush before the driver, who was now reversing the vehicle, could take another pot at him. The commotion, however, had caused lights to go on all over the building and people were coming outside to see what all the fuss was about. It was this that made the driver decide not to try again. Steven sank to his knees in exhaustion as he saw the Range Rover squeal round in a circle on the tarmac and head for the exit to disappear into the night.
THIRTEEN
Steven wiped away the blood coming from the scratches on his face with one hand and brought out his mobile phone with the other. He punched in the emergency number before hurrying over to where D’Arcy lay.
‘Ambulance,’ he snapped. ‘Beach Mansions, Ramsgate, man with serious gunshot wound.’
D’Arcy was unconscious and Steven could see from the puddle on the ground that he had lost a lot of blood but he still had a pulse so, under the gaze of the small huddle of people gathering in the car park, he set about stabilising him as best he could. D’Arcy had failed to drop to the ground in response to his warning shout — most people wouldn’t — but in turning to see where the call had come from, he had moved his body just enough to ensure that the bullet had not hit him full front in the chest. It had entered at a slight angle and travelled upwards to smash his left clavicle before making a large jagged exit wound.
‘I think you might need these,’ said a voice beside him. Steven turned to see an elderly woman, her face framed by a mass of grey hair, crouching down to proffer three rolls of clean white bandaging.
‘Yes, thank you,’ he replied.
‘I was a nurse,’ said the woman. ‘Perhaps I can help?’
‘Maybe you could organise some blankets to keep him warm and get me some light,’ said Steven. ‘I’ve got to stem the blood flow somehow or he’s going to bleed to death.’
‘Of course,’ said the woman. She went back to the small group of onlookers and Steven heard her say, ‘It’s Dr D’Arcy: he’s badly injured. We need blankets and a torch.’ She stemmed a chorus of, ‘What happened?’ by saying, ‘Quickly now!’
Blankets appeared and the nurse covered D’Arcy before directing a powerful torch beam on to the wound. Steven secured the pressure pad he’d fashioned from one of the bandage rolls over the gaping, jagged hole in D’Arcy’s shoulder but the thick white wadding turned red in a matter of seconds.
‘Won’t do,’ said Steven. ‘Pressure alone’s not working.’
‘How about a tourniquet?’ asked the nurse.
‘Nothing to tie it round,’ said Steven. ‘The blood’s not coming from his arm. Quick! I need paperclips and forceps… or tweezers,’ he said. ‘Tweezers would do.’
‘Quickly someone,’ said the nurse to the onlookers. ‘You heard the doctor.’
One of the ground floor residents brought out a box of paperclips and two more appeared with tweezers in their hands. Most of the group turned away in horror as Steven started fishing around inside D’Arcy’s wound with his bare hand. He glanced at the nurse’s face and read the criticism there. ‘If I don’t do this, he’s going to die,’ he muttered.
‘I was actually thinking of you,’ said the nurse quietly. She looked at Steven’s bare hands covered in blood.
Steven found the severed artery. It still spurted blood as he brought it to the surface between thumb and forefinger bringing gasps from the few onlookers who still dared to watch through fingers over their faces.
‘Paperclip,’ said Steven, holding out his palm. The nurse dropped one into it and after several abortive attempts punctuated by muffled curses, he managed to clip the end of the exposed artery. It was a slippery, messy business but the blood stopped spurting and Steven allowed himself a moment to recover before replacing the wadding over the wound and fixing it in place with yet more bandage which the nurse unrolled for him. ‘Thanks, you’re doing a great job,’ he said as a wail of sirens in the distance heralded the imminent and welcome arrival of the emergency services.
Steven knew the police would attend because of the mention of a gunshot wound he’d made. It was inevitable, as was the appearance of an armed response unit, which arrived just after the ambulance and two ordinary patrol cars. Two paramedics took over care of D’Arcy after Steven had briefed them on what he’d done already.
Steven stood up and rubbed the stiffness out of his knees before turning round to see a number of squad officers in full Kevlar armour and carrying automatic weapons clatter out of their van and start deploying round the car park.
‘No point,’ said Steven approaching the officer in charge. ‘The gunman’s gone.’ He held out his ID and said, ‘If you come to the hospital. I’ll tell you as much as I can.’
‘Now wait a minute,’ said the officer, a portly but erect man in his late forties with a small moustache — which only seemed to emphasise the roundness of his face — and an aura of self-importance about him. ‘You’re going nowhere. I don’t care who or what you are. You can’t just swan off from the scene of a serious crime.’
‘I’m going with the patient,’ said Steven. ‘I need to talk to him as soon as he comes round. For your information, three shots were fired, one at the victim two at me then the gunman made off in a blue Range Rover. You’ll find the shell cases in the car park. That’s all you’re going to come up with here.’
‘There are still procedures to be followed,’ said the policeman.
‘Then you follow them,’ said Steven, thinking that the policeman looked like a man who had dedicated his life to following procedures at the expense of imagination.
‘How is he?’ asked Steven, turning his attention back to D’Arcy as the two ambulance men loaded him carefully into the back of their vehicle.
‘Very weak,’ replied the black paramedic who climbed in to continue treating him. ‘By God, you did a good job for a GP.’
Steven smiled as he climbed in and the back doors were closed. ‘I’m not a GP,’ he said. He knew very well that trained paramedics were a lot more use at the scene of an accident than the average doctor although this was not a view the BMA — that most conservative of bodies — liked to encourage.
‘A&E?’ asked the man.
‘Army field medicine,’ said Steven.
‘Bloody hell,’ said the man. ‘This guy’s guardian angel was sure on the ball. What are the chances of a field medic being around when you stop a bullet in the street?’