Lieutenant Gold was already at the crime scene when Captain Ben Callan, Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch, parked his red Golf GTI in the car park at Blackdown Barracks. Climbing out of the driver’s seat, he stood – too quickly – swayed and grabbed the top of the door to steady himself. Fuck. He still felt sick and shaky, as if he was coming down off a drinking spree, which he wasn’t. A hangover would, though, provide a plausible excuse for his wrecked physical and mental state. Nothing unexpected in soldiers getting drunk off-duty; it was virtually compulsory.
He’d had some warning of the fit this time: the car in front of him in the fast lane on the A3 starting to jump around as if it was on springs, the central reservation fuzzy, as though his windscreen was suddenly frosted glass. Swerving straight across both lanes, he cut on to the hard shoulder, narrowly missing an elderly couple in an ancient Nissan Micra; the glimpse he’d had of the driver’s whitened face and wide eyes in his rear-view mirror still etched in his mind.
The ground fell away steeply from the hard shoulder into a deep ditch of tangled undergrowth and he slithered down it, making it only halfway before his knees buckled. Falling, rolling, he reached blindly for something to slow his descent, felt reed grass slice through his fingers. His body was writhing, slamming from side to side, legs cycling in the muddy soil and he was freezing cold, shaking uncontrollably, his brain feeling as if it would explode from the pressure inside his skull. Slowly, the fit receded. He lay on the damp ground, sweating and shaking, feeling the muddy ditch water seeping through his clothing, chilling his skin. Pushing himself on to his knees, he reached for the trunk of a sapling, hauled himself to his feet, wincing as the cuts on his fingers met the rough bark. On unsteady legs, he made his way slowly back up the embankment. A Surrey Police patrol car was parked behind his Golf, flashing blue lights washing the uniformed traffic officer standing in front of it neon blue.
‘You do know that it is illegal to stop on the hard shoulder for any reason other than an emergency, don’t you, sir?’
Sir. The policeman’s tone entirely at odds with his words. Just what I need right now. Reaching into his back pocket, Callan fished out his military police ID, held it up. The traffic cop studied it, his gaze narrowing.
‘What were you doing, sir?’
Which story was the more convincing? Having a piss? Answering a vital phone call? The truth, not an option. As an epileptic, he shouldn’t hold a driving licence, but if his condition was made public, losing his licence would be the least of his problems. He would lose his job, his livelihood, his future. His tenuous clutch on normality.
‘I was answering a call on my mobile. There’s been a suspicious death at an Army training base near Camberley. I’m on my way there now.’
The policeman’s gaze tracked from Callan’s face to his feet, taking in the sweaty, greyish-pale complexion, the hands jammed in his pockets to stop them from trembling, the mud caked on his white shirt and jeans.
‘If you weren’t an MP, I’d breathalyse you.’
‘I’m not over the limit, Constable.’
‘You don’t look great, sir.’
‘I don’t feel great, but it’s not alcohol. It’s lack of sleep, too much work … You know how it is.’ Callan lifted his shoulders, looking the constable straight in the eye, the lie sliding smoothly off his tongue.
Silence, which Callan had the confidence not to break. He maintained eye contact, an easy smile on his face, posture relaxed, hoping the constable didn’t notice that his legs were shaking.
‘Drive slowly, mate. My shift ends in two hours and I don’t fancy spending it scraping anybody off the central reservation. Even a bloody MP.’
Callan held out his hand; the constable didn’t take it.
‘You’ve had your one favour,’ he muttered. ‘Next time, I throw the book at you.’
Callan stood by his Golf and watched the patrol car pull back into the flow of traffic and accelerate away. Twisting sideways, he retched on the grass. Retched and retched until only his stomach lining remained.
Squeezing her Mini on to the grass verge, the only spare inch of space available in the hospital car park, ignoring the dirty looks thrown her way by people in huge four-by-fours who were still circling, trying to find a space, Jessie jogged down the stone stairs and across the service road to A & E. Holding her breath as she ducked through the cigarette smoke fogging the entrance, she found Marilyn waiting for her inside. He was propping up the wall by the reception desk, one sole tapping impatiently against the skirting, thumbs skipping across the keys of his mobile. At the sound of her footsteps, he glanced up, his lined face creasing into a smile.
‘Thank you for coming, Jessie.’ A glance towards the packed A & E waiting room. ‘To the asylum.’
‘I won’t say that it’s a pleasure, but Gideon didn’t leave me much choice. For some reason your request shot straight to the top of my day’s admittedly short to-do list.’
‘I must have forgotten to tell you that Gideon and I play golf together every Sunday.’
Her gaze tracked from the black bed-hair to the sallow, ravaged face that made Mick Jagger look a picture of clean living, to those disconcerting eyes hiding the sharp, enquiring mind she’d got to know. He had bowed to pressure from above and replaced his beloved black biker jacket with a black suit which hung from his scarecrow frame, only the suit’s drainpipe trousers hinting that he was anything more than a straight-off-the-production-line policeman.
‘Funnily enough, I don’t see you in checked plus-fours.’
He grinned. ‘Masons?’
‘Ditto.
‘Yacht club?’
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘Shall we get started? I need to be back at Bradley Court by lunchtime. I have work to do. Proper work.’
As they walked side by side down the corridor that cut from A & E to the main hospital, their rubber soles whispering in unison as they gripped and released the lino, Marilyn brought her up to date.
‘We’re not sure how long the baby has been here, but we know that he was left some time before midnight.’
‘Midnight? As in midnight ten hours—’
He held up a hand, cutting her off. ‘Don’t get me started.’
‘He was left by his father?’
‘That’s our working theory. DS Workman and a couple of constables are going through last night’s CCTV footage of the A & E entrance to confirm.’
‘Why would a father abandon his baby?’
‘He abandoned him in a hospital, safe.’
Jessie frowned. ‘A busy A & E department, all sorts coming and going? It’s hardly secure. The fact that the poor kid wasn’t noticed for … what …’ She glanced at her watch, mentally calculating. ‘Seven hours minimum suggests to me that it’s not the first place a caring parent in their right mind would look to deposit their baby for safekeeping.’
‘Right. So the rest of our working theory is that he wasn’t entirely compos mentis at the time.’
Jessie glanced over. ‘Why do you think that?’
They swung left into another corridor, identical to the first. Laying a hand on Jessie’s arm, Marilyn pulled her to a stop outside a door labelled ‘Family Room’. Tilting towards her, he lowered his voice.
‘There’s