clearly overwhelmed him? Or was there something more profound brewing inside his deaf son, a violence that he'd never detected before? In truth, Faraday hadn't got a clue. All he knew for sure was that these same events, plus everything else, were beginning to swamp his own little boat.
The manager in charge of the Critical Care unit told him that Mr.
Hayder had been stabilised. Fully conscious, he was now breathing for himself and there were no indications of post-ventilator chest infection. It would be a while before he began to recover any kind of reliable memory of recent events, and there was a chance that Tuesday night had gone forever, but thankfully there was no sign of lasting neurological damage.
When Faraday enquired about the pelvic injury, the prognosis was less cheerful. Within a day or so, Nick would be transferred to an orthopaedic ward. An external metal frame would be surgically attached to stabilise the wreckage of his pelvis, and the bones would take at least three months to knit. The process, she said, was extremely painful, and it would be a while before Mr. Hayder was on his feet again.
With the care team still busy around Nick's bed, Faraday wandered down the corridor. A windowless, rather depressing room at the end had been specially set aside for relatives, and he slipped inside. Chairs faced each other across a low table. The table was littered with empty plastic cups, and there was a nest of panda bears heaped in a far corner. Faraday studied the bears for a moment or two, his mind quite blank, then turned his attention to one of the Edward Hopper prints on the wall.
'Joe?'
A slim, blonde woman was standing at the open door. It was Maggie, Nick Hayder's partner.
Faraday stepped across and gave her a hug. The last time he'd seen her was at least a month back, and even then the strain of the relationship had been beginning to show. There were worse things in life than getting involved with a serving DI, he thought. But not many.
'How is he?'
'Pretty well, considering. I've been amazed.'
'All that running.'
'You're right. That what the doctors say.'
He gazed at her a moment. She had a round, dimpled face, a lightly freckled complexion, and eyes the colour of cornflowers. He'd once seen her at aCID midsummer ball just weeks after she'd first met Nick, and she'd turned every head in the room.
She mumbled something about a heavy day at school and sank into one of the chairs. Faraday offered to fetch her a coffee from the machine outside but she shook her head.
'You think he's up to reading?' Faraday nodded at the Tesco bag she'd left beside the chair. Amongst the grapes and a bunch of bananas, was a Scott Turow thriller.
'He says he is, but you know Nick. He'd tell me anything if he thought it would make me happy.' She was gazing up at Faraday and something in her face told him she wanted to talk. He closed the door and sat down beside her.
'So how's it been?'
'You want the truth? It's been a bit of a relief. That sounds terrible, doesn't it, but at least I know where he is.'
'Meaning you didn't before?'
'Oh no.' She shook her head. 'I always knew where to find him, that dreadful place he had, and most nights when he had any time he'd come round anyway, but that wasn't the point. He just wasn't there. He just wasn't the bloke I thought I knew. Something had gone, Joe. It was like meeting a stranger. Even Euan noticed.'
Euan was Maggie's boy, a studious, bespectacled fourteen-year-old whose flirtation with soft drugs had helped drive a wedge between Nick and his mum.
'How is he?'
'Glad to get his house back. Nick couldn't cope with him.' She offered Faraday a weary smile. 'As you probably know.'
'It must be tough.'
'It was.'
'But for Nick, too.'
'Yeah?'
The question hung in the air between them. For the first time, Faraday realised she was no longer wearing the ring Nick had bought her, a big opal mounted on a simple silver band they'd found in a back street jeweller's on Corfu.
Faraday got to his feet and began to clear up the mess on the table. He wanted to enter a plea in Nick's defence, tell her just a little about the kind of pressures the job had brought to bear, somehow convince her that there were reasons for the gap that had opened between them, but another glance at her face told him there'd be no point. In a sense, Maggie was right. If you were after a decent relationship then you'd be better off finding someone who'd know where to draw the line when it came to monsters like Tumbril. She wanted someone warm and funny in her life, the old Nick she'd met on a blind date, not the haunted ten-miler who ended every impossible day by chasing his own demons.
The door opened. It was the unit manager Faraday had met earlier. The doctors had finished with Mr. Hayder and they were welcome to come down to the ward.
Faraday looked at Maggie. She shook her head.
'You go, Joe. I'm sure he's seen enough of me.'
Hayder spotted Faraday the moment he appeared at the end of the ward.
Lacerations down his cheek and jaw had scabbed, giving his smile an awkward, lopsided look. He lifted an arm in salute and tried to struggle upright in bed. Faraday eased him back onto the pillow, then took the proffered hand and gave it a squeeze. For a long moment, Hayder wouldn't let go.
'Geoff Willard, isn't it?' He was frowning in concentration. 'How's life at the top?'
For a moment, Faraday thought the worst. Then he realised Hayder was spoofing.
'Very funny,' he said. 'How are you?'
'How am I?' Hayder gestured vaguely at the cardiac monitors attached to his chest and the loops of plastic tubing dripping fluids into both arms. Damage to his jaw had slowed his speech to a mumble but he was still game for a conversation. 'I'm trussed up like a bloody turkey.'
He paused for breath. 'Apart from that, I've never been better.
You?'
Faraday was grinning. It said a great deal about a copper's day, he thought, when only a visit to Critical Care could put a smile on your face.
'I'm fine,' he said. 'Maggie's outside.'
'Ask her in. Make it a party.'
'She's being discreet. Thinks we need time alone. She's brought you some grapes, too, which makes me a bit of a sad bugger.'
'No flowers?'
'Afraid not.'
'Thank Christ for that. When I first came round, I thought I'd had it.
This place looks like a funeral parlour, all those bouquets.'
The thought provoked a wince. Laughing evidently hurt. Faraday took his hand again.
'You look better than I expected,' he said.
'Bollocks, Joe. I look shit.'
'Do you feel shit? Seriously?'
'Seriously…?' His face screwed up again, another spasm of pain.
Nick Hayder had never carried an ounce of spare flesh but now he looked thinner than ever. At length, he managed to catch his breath. 'You know what I do to pass the time in this place?'
'Tell me.'
'I go for runs in my head. They all think I'm having a little doze.
This morning I did a six-miler, out to the Hayling ferry.'
Faraday gave his hand another squeeze. He could feel the bones between his fingers.
