In Too Deep (Knight & Culverhouse Book 5) (10 page)

F
rank Vine opened
the car door, stepped out and grimaced as he plunged his hand into his pocket, jangling a collection of loose change.

‘Bloody scandalous, this is. Three quid a pop just to do my own job.’

Using his thumb, he shoved four coins into the coin slot, then jabbed the green button on the parking ticket dispenser.

‘Put it on expenses,’ Wendy said, closing the passenger door behind her as she got out of the car.

‘If you think I’m going to spend forty-five minutes filling out a bloody document just to get three quid back a month later, you’re having a laugh.’

Frank slapped the ticket on his dashboard, slammed the car door shut, and started to march towards the hospital, Wendy trying her best to keep up with him.

Inside, they made their way to the specialist brain injury unit, where they were met by Julian Mills, who took them into a side room.

‘Right. The good news is Tanya’s regained consciousness. From a medical point of view, that is. I think it’s fair to say she’s not up and dancing about just yet, but as far as medicine is concerned, she’s fully conscious.’

‘Is she talking?’ Frank asked.

‘To a degree, yes. She’s finding speech difficult, but that’s to be expected.’

‘And is that because of the injury?’ Wendy said.

‘Difficult to say at this stage. It could be to do with the injury, or it could just be because of the amount of time she’s been unconscious. The drugs could play a part, too. She’s been through a hell of a lot these past couple of days. We’re going to do some more tests throughout the day, which’ll include testing her nerve responses and motor skills. We’ll know more then.’

‘What are we looking at?’ Frank asked. ‘Worst case scenario, I mean.’

The consultant sighed. ‘Well, I think we all know what the worst case scenario is; just because she’s conscious and communicating now doesn’t mean that’ll always be the case. You never know with the brain. All we can do is start to approach an increasing degree of certainty as more time passes. Long-term, we could be looking at impaired movement and balance, development of dyspraxia or apraxia, sensory deficits, behavioural changes, cognitive issues... The list really does go on and on.’

‘What kind of behavioural changes?’ Wendy asked.

The consultant smiled. ‘Like I say, you never know with the brain. It’s a very delicate but quite extraordinary piece of machinery. I’ve seen people with horrendous brain injuries go on to live perfectly normal lives, much as they did before their injury. And I’ve seen people with relatively minor injuries have their lives completely turned upside down.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, anything from complete physical paralysis to what might seem to be a completely new personality. Different parts of the brain switch off or activate as they or other parts are irreparably injured. We think that even the brain repairing itself can sometimes cause short circuits, if you like, which can lead to some strange things happening. I remember one case,’ he said, sitting down on the arm of a sofa, ‘in which one young man — he can’t have been more than twenty — was in a motorbike accident. He was wearing a helmet, and the accident was pretty minor, really. But the effect on his life was incredible. Within a week he’d left his partner and their young son, quit his job and turned to heavy drugs. Before that he’d been a doting young father coming to the end of his apprenticeship. All that because of a relatively minor bump on the head.’ He shrugged, as though he were saying “that’s life”.

Wendy didn’t quite know what to say to this. It was the unpredictability of the whole situation that depressed her — the not knowing. In her job she was used to often being one step behind, having to play constant catch-up with whoever they were seeking, but this time it was different. There was nothing they could do until they knew what Tanya Henderson’s situation was going to be.

‘Now, in my expert opinion, I would say it looks as though Tanya’s quite confused,’ Mills said. ‘That’s to be expected, though, after what she’s been through. Her brain is still trying to repair itself. One minute she was sitting at her desk, and the next she’s waking up in hospital two days later, surrounded by police. The brain will do all sorts of things to make sense of that. After I had the nurse call you, I spoke to Tanya some more. Nothing official, and no specific tests as such, but just to get an idea of how her mind was working and to observe how she was doing. There were one or two things that gave me some cause for concern, but nothing too major.’

‘Like what?’ Frank asked.

‘I really wouldn’t worry too much,’ the consultant replied, waving his hand. ‘It’s quite a common thing. I had one patient a few months back, who for the first week and a half he was here swore blind he was Elvis, risen from the dead. I’m sure it’ll pass.’

Wendy’s heart sank. Even if Tanya Henderson were to remember something — or to think she remembered something — how reliable would that information actually be? The likelihood of any of it standing up in court would be extremely low, particularly if no hard, incontrovertible evidence was there to accompany it.

There had been a police presence on the ward ever since Tanya Henderson had been admitted — that much had been decreed by Culverhouse when it became clear she would likely still be a target for whoever had attacked her in the first place. Wendy was satisfied that Tanya Henderson was safe — for now, at least — but what would happen if she were to be in a fit enough state to be discharged from hospital? And what if she was unable to provide them with any further information? Not only would they not be able to get any closer to finding whoever had done this to her, but they’d also find it far more difficult to protect her from that person.

Wendy knew that time was against them. But she didn’t know how little time they had left.

C
ulverhouse struggled
to regain his breath as he clambered into the taxi and put on his seatbelt.

His head was a mess. Half an hour earlier he’d been ready to board a flight to Alicante to see his daughter for the first time in nine years. A couple of hours before that he’d been sitting in the Chief Constable’s office. And now he was in the back of a cab, on his way back to Mildenheath CID, a broken and confused man.

He couldn’t make any sense of his thoughts. He’d had no choice: he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. But he couldn’t help that overriding feeling of guilt, the realisation that he’d done it again. As always, the job had got in the way. And, as always, he’d sat back and succumbed to the job, letting Emily down yet again. This time, she wouldn’t even know it. He wondered how much she really
did
know. Whether she even knew his name.

That was the hardest part of it all. Jack liked to plan head, to always keep a few steps ahead of the game, but in this situation he was no longer in control. He never
had
been in control. And that was a problem — a big one.

He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket, unlocked the screen, and immediately forgot what he was about to do. Clenching his teeth, he pummelled the heel of his hand into the side of his head three times before he remembered. Going into his contacts list, he tapped Antonio García’s name.

The phone seemed to take an age to connect, the lonely silence making him feel more and more agitated until the cross-border connection was finally made and the low ringing sound started in his ear.

‘Jack! Where are you? Was your flight delayed?’ came the answer once the call had connected.

Culverhouse exhaled. He wanted to cry. ‘Something like that. Listen, I won’t be coming out today. Something’s come up. Something important.’

‘More important?’ García asked.

Culverhouse never realised how quickly he could go from wanting to cry to wanting to rip someone’s head off. He found himself struggling for words. He wanted to tell Antonio that no, nothing was more important to him than his daughter. He wanted to tell him that he had no choice, that he was wedded to the job. He wanted to tell him that he’d done a stupid, terrible thing and that he should be on that plane right now and fuck the lot of them. But no words came.

‘Jack? What’s happened?’

He paused for a moment. ‘Nothing. Probably nothing. Can you just... Can you ask your man to hold tight? Keep an eye on them. See what you can find out. I’ll be there. I will. Just not today.’

He could almost hear García smiling at the other end of the phone. ‘Of course. Don’t worry.’

‘I mean, I’ll cover their costs. I’ll pay them. Whatever it is, I’ll pay it. Just... I can’t be there right now.’

‘Jack, don’t worry,’ García repeated. ‘And there is no cost. They owe me a favour, I told you. They owe me more than a favour, actually, but that’s another story for another day. Listen, I understand. There are hundreds of flights to Alicante. We won’t be going anywhere. When you are able to come out, come out.’

‘Thanks,’ Culverhouse replied, unable to say any more. He terminated the call.

The buildings and parked cars whizzed past the window as he gazed out, focusing on nothing much at all. He wasn’t thinking of much at all, either.

He gladly let his mind wander into nothingness, the noise of his thoughts fading into the background as he tried to let everything go.

I
’ve got a headache
. And that’s putting it lightly. The doctors say the painkillers will be taking the worst of it away, but it feels like it’s not even touching the sides. The medication just makes me feel drowsy. I don’t know how much of that is down to the barbiturates they had me on to keep me comatose, but all I know is I don’t feel like me.

I still feel detached, spaced out. Almost as if I’m watching this rather than taking part in it. It’s a very odd sensation, and not one I can accurately describe.

The doctors keep coming in and asking me odd questions. I can see what they’re doing — they’re testing my long-term and short-term memory. They’ll come in and ask me something, then have a chat, then ask me the same question again. They’ll ask me who the prime minister is, what year I was born, what their own names are. They’ll ask me to work out maths problems and to read charts of letters like they have at the optician’s.

That’s the hardest part for me. The letter charts. My vision’s still incredibly blurred. The doctors say there’s some swelling on the back of my brain, around the optic nerve. Papilledema, they call it. See. I remembered that.

There are definitely holes, though. Fortunately they’ve not been able to find them yet. I hope to keep it like that, so they’ll let me go home sooner rather than later.

John, for example. He’s here, next to me, most of the time. I hear his voice, and I can see him there, but not distinctly. My vision’s still too blurred. But the most disturbing thing is that I can’t remember his face.

When I first realised that, my heart sank. What if I never regain my vision? The doctors tell me I will. They assure me it’s just down to the swelling. The papilledema. But the fact that I can’t even visualise my own husband’s face from memory frightens the hell out of me. I remember the day we met, the day we married, the day our children were born. But I can’t remember his face. In every image, every memory reel I have in my mind, his face is the same indistinct blur of colour I see in front of me now. That terrifies me.

To be honest, this whole place scares me. I feel distinctly uncomfortable here, but I can’t put my finger on why. It’s probably because I’ve never liked hospitals. Horrible places. Who likes being in hospital? No-one. I want to get out, get back home, get back to work.

Work. There’s a word. It’s a huge, missing chunk. In my mind, I can visualise my study at home, the room where I do most of my work. At least I think I can visualise it. I can visualise most of my house, but there are bits missing. Then there are rooms that I’m certain exist but that don’t seem to fit in with the floor plan I remember. I know, for example, that I don’t have two living rooms. I know that instinctively, yet in my mind I see two, as clear as day.

My vision of my study is much clearer. Clearer than any other room. I can see it quite distinctly. The shelves of books, the filing cabinet, the desk. And I know I was working on something important. I’m always working on something important. What I do is important.

But that’s as far as I get.

The more I try to think of it, the fuzzier everything becomes. It’s like telling a naughty child to stop tapping their pencil on the side of the table. The more you tell them not to do it, the more they’re going to do it.

I try to let my brain relax. Try to think of other things. My children. Archie and Lola. I can see their faces as clear as day, smiling and beaming. I’ll never forget those faces. They’re everything. It seems as though I can remember every single day of their lives. It’s all there, crystal clear, brighter than anything.

Pevensey Park.

Those two words flash into my head like a bolt of lightning. I see them at the same time as I remember them, the words appearing in front of my eyes, as if on a computer screen. And then they disappear again.

In that moment, I realise their significance. I know how important they are. I know they’re the key to this whole thing. I just don’t know how or why.

Pevensey Park.

I try to say the words, but I don’t know if they’re leaving my lips. I can’t hear them.

Pevensey Park.

The confusion starts to swamp me again. I feel my heart racing, my breath quickening. I groan as I try to sit up in bed. I feel a hand on my arm, holding me back. I want to call out, want to scream but I can’t. I’m panicking.

My vision becomes more blurred. Colours appear, bright colours, flashes of light.

I don’t know how much time has passed.

I hear voices.

More voices. The words become more indistinct.

I hear a humming.

Everything fades to blue.