There was silence on the phone. Hawthorn put it on speaker and set it down on the table. Child was going through the clothes, shaking his head. Charcoal suit, white shirt, tie, light raincoat, black shoes.
– There’s no phone here.
– No phone, Frank.
There was a pause, then a crackle.
– There’s one at the scene.
– Whose scene?
– Rivers is on his way. Lowry and Clarke are there now. Give me one of the numbers. The credit card.
Hawthorn leaned over the card and called out the numbers.
– Is he dead then?
– He’s gone to surgery.
– Right. Daniel Field. 16 Nestor Lane, N-E-S-T-O-R. L-A-N-E. November 4, 4 echo alpha. D.O.B. twenty-eight, nine, nineteen eighty-seven.
Hawthorn wrote. A nurse came back into the room.
– Where do you want us, Frank?
– No idea. Hang on.
The nurse started cleaning up. She ignored them. Child looked at her.
– Will he make it?
She shook her head.
– Don’t know. Depends what they find in him. How much blood he lost.
Hawthorn picked up his phone, took it off speaker, held it to his ear.
– Looked like he lost a lot.
– Nah. Internal bleeding will kill him, you know? But maybe. From the way he was talking, moving, that’s a good sign. He was not very weak.
Frank crackled back in his ear.
– You were at the … Mishazzo thing. You on that?
– Yeah.
– Hang on.
– How long will he be in there?
– I don’t know. A long time probably.
He looked at her hands.
– OK, Mishazzo is covered, said Frank. You stay there. Wait to hear from Rivers.
They went looking for the paramedics who had brought him in. They were mopping out the back of the ambulance.
– Did he say anything?
– He said ‘What the fuck happened?’ a couple of times. He kept on saying ‘I’ve been shot’ like he couldn’t believe it. And he mentioned a car.
– Did he say what kind of car?
– No. I asked ‘Who shot you?’ and he said ‘A car’.
– Nothing else?
– Nope.
– Do you think he’ll make it?
– Nope.
They went to the hospital café. It was too early apparently for anything hot to eat. They had cling-filmed sandwiches and risked the coffee. They sat against a wall, side by side, Child between tables with his legs crossed. He cleaned his glasses and watched Hawthorn.
– Sandwich is yesterday’s. Dry.
– Try the coffee.
Hawthorn tried the coffee.
– It’s all right.
Child took a sip and made a face.
– Café Out, he said.
– Yeah.
– Is that a gay thing?
– Yeah.
– So he’s gay?
– It’s a café. They do nice cakes. I wouldn’t assume.
– Well, did that look like gay cock to you?
Hawthorn looked at Child seriously for a moment, and said nothing. Child chewed and looked back.
– Who drives vintage cars? he asked, firing crumbs at the air. I’ll tell you who. Creepy old queens in cravats. Living in creepy old mansions in Hampstead. You know, with the dungeon.
Hawthorn smiled.
– Young Daniel’s broken someone’s heart, said Child.
– The dungeon?
– The dungeon.
Hawthorn shook his head.
They watched a man wipe tables. He wore his hair in a net.
– When he wakes up, Hawthorn said. He watched himself use his fork for emphasis.
If
he wakes up. We need to get a better description. We need to get an artist in. Do we have a car artist?
Child laughed.
– Do we have a car artist?
– Yeah.
– I don’t know. We’ll find that out. Tell Rivers we need a car artist.
Hawthorn yawned and his eyes filled up. He stopped. Stared at the table. He carefully closed his eyes. Opened them again. It was just the yawn. He thought. After a moment. He blinked a couple of times. Cleared his throat. Sipped the coffee. Child was talking.
– Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. An actor or something. Sixties pop star. I should have had juice. I feel like a bag of shit. You need to watch that eye rubbing thing. You already look like someone’s poked you with a pair of fingers. I want a bed. You think they have empty beds here somewhere? Unlikely, isn’t it? Unlikely.
*
Hawthorn called John Lowry.
– Do you have his phone?
– Yeah. What’s all this about a vintage car?
– Vintage car. It’s what he said. Old car. With running boards. Pulled up beside him. Shot him. That’s all he knows.
– Is he sober?
– He’s a banker. On his way to work. What’s it look like there?
Child was at the counter negotiating free coffee refills. Hawthorn watched him.
– Useless. It’s towards the end of the road, where it meets the main road. He’s been walking on the footpath, left hand side of the road, coming up to the crossroads, he’s passed the parked cars, into the clearway. There’s a bullet in the wall, they’re getting that now. Very small calibre, looks like. So we have … at least two shots. We have ear witnesses going up to five, but you know what that’s like. No eyes. He’s left a shoulder bag, with a computer and stuff in it. So, it’s no robbery. He’s dropped the phone as he fell, either out of his hand or his pocket. No weapon, no shell cases. Cold road. Looks light to me, apart from the bullet. A banker?
– Yeah.
– Well fuck knows then. CCTV is killing good policing. Rivers is here, talk later. Oh. Hang on.
Hawthorn looked at his phone. It was filthy, covered in a film of grease. Dirt clogged the sockets. A patch of some sticky unidentifiable substance adhered to its screen. Child was coming back to the table with two coffees.
– Hawthorn?
– Yes.
– Rivers.
– Morning, sir.
– He’s tripping, isn’t he?
– I don’t think so.
– He’s in surgery now?
– Yes, sir. No one seems to know if he’ll make it.
– Did he actually say
vintage
?
– He said old and
old-fashioned
. Child offered him
vintage
and he took it, like it was the word he’d been looking for. He was specific about running boards, unprompted.
Rivers was quiet for a moment.
– There’s that Chrysler thing. It has sort of fake running boards. Well. OK. If that’s what we’ve got then that’s what we’ve got. The Good Samaritan who stopped and called it in is a Mr Jetters. I’m sending him to Highbury. Go down there and get a statement from him. Stay in touch with the hospital though. There’s a uniform on the way for presence, but I want you back there as soon as he’s out of surgery.
Alan Jetters was a thin man in his forties with blood on his shirt. They found him in reception, pacing. He was in a hurry, he said. He needed to get to work. But he was full of
adrenaline
and really he wanted to talk. Hawthorn apologized for keeping him, shook his hand, introduced Child, offered him tea. He didn’t want tea. They found a room on the second floor. Child went off to the toilet. Hawthorn took off his jacket, glanced at the machine.
– We’ll just wait for Detective Child to get back.
– Does he get a lot of ribbing?
– What’s that?
– Child. Over his name.
– Oh, ribbing. A little. Yes. I suppose he does. I’ve stopped noticing really.
– That’s not good for a policeman.
– No.
– To stop noticing.
– No.
Hawthorn sat at the table writing things in his notebook.
Child came back. Hawthorn fiddled with the machine, then moved out of the way to let Child do it. The building was overheated. He thought about bullets and cold and Daniel Field’s red hands, pink hands, stuck in the air. He missed the cold.
– Is this going to take long? Jetters asked. I’m late for work.
– So is Daniel Field, said Child.
There was a silence, in which Child, turning away from the machine, shot Hawthorn a wink. Then they were all sitting, and the little lights were green.
– He died?
– No, not yet. He’s in surgery. His condition is very serious.
– I didn’t know his name. I asked him, but I couldn’t make out … Anyway. I’m happy to be of whatever help I can. Of course.
They got him to say his name, his address, his date of birth. They said their names.
– Can you just tell us, Hawthorn said, everything that happened, from the beginning?
He offered too much detail. He told them about his usual morning routine, about the slight differences there had been that morning. He told them his route to work, what was on the radio, what the weather was like, how he’d felt, what he was wearing. He was fascinated by the fact that he had guessed that the gunshot was a gunshot as soon as he’d heard it, even though he knew nothing about guns and had never been near one, apart from a go at clay pigeon shooting on a weekend away once, and he hadn’t liked that, because he was no good at it, and found those sorts of organized work outings quite awkward. And so on.
Hawthorn wrote things down.
He had been approaching the turn from Almond Road on to Hampley Road when he’d heard it. The first thing he saw when he turned the corner was Daniel Field on the ground. He had driven over to him, pulled in and gone to help.
– He was writhing. Half shouting. Half shouting and half crying. He seemed in terrible pain. He was clutching his stomach, he had his hands pressed to his stomach, but there was blood seeping through his fingers.
Hawthorn wrote down
seeping
. It occurred to him that it was the wrong word.
Jetters had taken off the scarf he’d been wearing and used it instead. Then he’d called 999.
– Did he say anything?
– He kept saying
fuck
. And not much more I’m afraid. A lot of groaning. He seemed to pass out for a moment – and when he opened his eyes he said
What happened?
but that was all.
– You talked to him.
– Yes. I jabbered. I don’t know what I said. A lot of
nonsense
I imagine.
You’ll be alright. Hold on. Ambulance is coming
. That kind of thing.
– Did he look at you?
– Yes. Yes he did. When I first arrived he looked me in the eye, and I think for a moment he wondered if I was … if I was there to do him harm. He looked scared of me. Perhaps he was just scared anyway. But when I made it clear that I was there to help he didn’t look at me so much.
– Can you tell us anything, any half words, anything that sounded like words, that he said? That you can remember.
– Well. I asked what had happened.
What happened?
And he said
car
. And I asked,
Someone in a car?
and he nodded. It was only then that I thought of the possibility of them coming back. I mean, it was, I was … it’s strange how the mind works. I had seen him, and I had known, somehow, that he had been shot, and I had stopped and gone to help without really thinking about it, and it was only when he said
car
that I thought
uh-oh,
and I realized that they might come back – that someone had actually shot him, someone had tried to
kill
him, and that they might still be around, and that I was possibly in some sort of danger.
He shifted in his seat slightly, cleared his throat.
– No one came back, though?
– No. No one. I started to look over my shoulder a little, after that. I asked him what type of car. He said
ochre
.
– Ochre?
– Ochre.
– Are you sure?
– Yes.
Hawthorn looked at Child. He was grinning.
– Do you think he might have said
old car
?
– Old car?
– Old car.
Jetters shrugged.
– Yes, I suppose so. Old car, ochre. Yes. It could have been old car.
Hawthorn wrote for a while but Child kept silent.
– What else?
– What else did he say? I don’t think he did say anything else, much. I’m not sure he was trying to say anything. Apart from the couple of questions I asked him, it was just groans and cries and squeals, if I can say that. Extreme pain I imagine. Lots of
Gods
and
Christs
. Though some of that may have been me. He was puffing and blowing. Shivering. He was terribly cold. It was cold there. Dark. Cold and damp and miserable really. I remember thinking that it would be a terrible place to die. I took off my jumper after a while. Partly to help with the pressure, but also because he was so cold.
– There are street lights there. Aren’t there?
– It’s shadowy, rather than dark, I suppose. There are lamp-posts, yes. He was about midway between lamp-posts. There are pools of light, pools of shadow.
Hawthorn wrote down
pools of light /pools of shadow
.
– When you turned into Hampley Road, did you see anything else?
Jetters coughed. Cleared his throat.
– There was a car. I didn’t mention it earlier. It went out of my mind for some reason. And it’s very vague now. It was at the junction with Plume Road, leaving Hampley Road. It was there, and I saw it, but I didn’t really look at it, if you see what I mean. My attention was on him. On Mr Field. I saw lights I think. Brake lights perhaps, as if it paused at the junction, and then it was gone.
– Which way?
– I’m not entirely certain. I couldn’t swear on it, but I have the impression now, I’m not sure why, that it turned to the right into Plume Road.
– North.
– Is it? Yes, you’re right. North.
– How would you describe it?
– The car?
– The car, yes.
– Just a shape really. The back of a car. You know. The idea of a car. I think there were brake lights. But you know I’m not even sure of that. But some kind of light or lights. Tail lights or a registration plate light or something. Some kind of shape around that.
– You couldn’t see a registration?
– No no. Nothing like that. Nothing so clear. I’m guessing. I don’t really know. It was the suggestion of a car, you know. The idea of a car.