‘I’ll be back in a minute, Workman. Keep trying the dad and if we can’t get next of kin by midday, call Children’s Services. We’ll get the kid into a temporary foster home.’
Exiting the hospital building, he crossed the service road, skirting around an ambulance that was disgorging a gargantuan man on a stretcher, the ambulance crew scarlet with strain. Grateful for the fresh air, he leant back against the brick wall and rolled a cigarette. The sky was a relentless clear blue, wispy cotton wool streaks of cirrus lacing it, the sun a hot yellow ball which, even with his dark glasses on, made his one azure eye tear up. Shuffling sideways, he hunkered down in the patch of shade thrown by a bus shelter and lit his roll-up. Back across the service road, patients in hospital gowns crowded next to the A & E doorway, sucking on cigarettes, a few clutching the stem of wheeled metal drip stands, tubes running, via needles, into their bandaged arms. The cloud of smoke partially obscured the sign behind them that read, Strictly a Smoke-Free Zone. Jesus! Janet was right. He needed to give up smoking, drinking, drugs, the works and pronto. Put a stop to the relentless downward slide that was his health before he ended up swelling their ranks in a flapping, backless hospital gown.
DS Workman was crossing the service road towards him. In her beige flats, matching beige shift dress, the hem skimming her solid calves, brown hair cut into a low-maintenance chin-length bob, she could have come straight from the hospital admin department. She looked as diligent and efficient as she was, but her appearance also belied a quiet, cynical sense of humour that ensured their minds connected on a level beyond the mundane, and, anyway, where the hell would he be without her to back him up, dot the i’s, cross the t’s?
‘I managed to reach the little boy’s grandmother. She’ll be here in an hour or so.’
‘An hour? Can’t she get here more quickly than that?’
‘She lives in Farnborough and doesn’t have a car.’
‘Can’t she jump in a cab?’
‘I got the sense that taxis were out of her price range, sir.’ Flipping open her notebook, she ploughed on before he could make any more facetious remarks. ‘She said that the baby, Harry, he’s called, lives with his father, her son. She said that he, the father, Malcolm, has been off work for a year with depression.’
Marilyn nodded.
‘She sounded upset, very upset. I tried to reassure her, but she’s convinced that something terrible has happened to him.’
‘Where’s the baby’s mum?’
‘I gather she’s no longer in the picture.’
‘Surname?’
‘Lawson.’
‘Lawson?’ Flicking his roll-up into the gutter, Marilyn looked across and met Workman’s gaze, his forehead creasing in query. ‘Is it a coincidence that his name rings a bell?’
Workman shook her head. ‘Daniel Lawson, sir.’
He racked his brains. Nothing.
‘Danny,’ she prompted. ‘Private Danny Lawson.’
It still took him a moment. Private Danny Lawson. ‘Oh God, of course.’ Tugging off his sunglasses, Marilyn rubbed a hand across his eyes. Christ, Malcolm Lawson. That was all he needed. He’d had considerably more than he could stomach of the man six months ago.
‘I think we should have a counsellor here when Harry’s grandmother arrives, sir.’
‘With Malcolm Lawson in the picture, I need a bloody counsellor, Workman,’ Marilyn muttered.
With an upwards roll of her eyes that he wasn’t supposed to have noticed, Workman pressed on: ‘Doctor Butter is on annual leave and time is obviously too short to find a counsellor from a neighbouring force.’
Marilyn sighed. Why was he being so obnoxious? No explanation, except for the fact that everything about this hospital was putting him in a bad mood. The detritus of human life washed up on its shores. Something about his own mortality staring him square in the face.
And the baby?
When DS Workman had first telephoned him about a baby abandoned at Royal Surrey County Hospital, he’d acidly asked her if she had a couple of lost puppies he could reunite with their owners or a kitten stuck in a tree he could shin up and rescue. But now, something about this abandoned baby – Harry Lawson – and the history attached to that child’s surname, was giving him a creeping sense of unease.
‘Leave it with me, Sergeant. We do have a tenuous Army connection, so I’ll call Doctor Flynn. I’m sure she’s back from the Middle East this week.’
Malcolm Lawson.
He thought he’d well and truly buried that name six months ago. Buried that family. Buried the whole sorry saga. He forced a laugh, full of fake cheer.
‘Those Army types spend ninety per cent of their time sitting around with their thumbs up their arses, so I’m sure Jessie could spare an hour. Find us a nice quiet room where we can chat to Granny.’
The sun was a blinding ball in an unseasonally cloudless, royal-blue sky when Jessie gunned her daffodil-yellow Mini to life, pleasantly surprised that, after so long un-driven, it started first time. She’d popped in to see Ahmose, had been persuaded to stay for a cup of kahwa, strong Egyptian coffee – a terrible idea in retrospect, layered on top of the two cups she’d already downed at home, the time zone change and the jet lag. She felt as if a hive of hyperactive bees had set up residence in her head. Negotiating a slow three-point turn in the narrow lane, she pressed her foot gingerly on the accelerator, the speedo sliding slowly, jerkily – God, have I forgotten how to change gears? – to twenty, no higher. She’d had a near miss with the farmer and his herd of prize milking Friesians last summer while speeding down the lane towards home after a long day at Bradley Court, windows down, James Blunt full volume, and his threats of death and destruction to her prized Mini at the hands of his tractor had been an effective speed limiter ever since.
Fifteen minutes later, she slowed and turned off the public road into Bradley Court Army Rehabilitation Centre. Holding her pass out to the gate guards, she waited, engine idling, while the ornate metal gates were swung open. The last time she had driven along this drive, in the opposite direction, the stately brick-and-stone outline of Bradley Court receding in her rear-view mirror, it had been mid-December, mind-numbingly cold, slushy sleet invading the sweep of manicured lawns like wedding confetti, the trees bleak skeletons puncturing a slate-grey sky. Early April, and the lawn on either side of the quarter-mile drive was littered with red and blue crocuses, the copper beeches that lined the tarmac ribbon unfurling new leaves, hot- yellow daffodils clustered around their bases. Someone had set a table and chairs out on the lawn in front of an open patio door and a group of young men were sitting around it playing cards. Two others on crutches, each with a thigh-high amputation, were making their way along a gravel path towards the lake, both coatless, their shirt sleeves rolled up.
Parking, she made her way up to the first floor where the Defence Psychology Service was located, sticking her head into office doors as she passed, saying her hellos.
‘The nomad returns. Welcome back, Doctor Flynn.’
Gideon