looked across at the undergrowth beneath the tree and something caught her eye. She moved a little nearer, tentatively, and bent down to have a closer look. When she saw what it was, Valerie Manners, who had been a nurse for more years than she remembered, who had always despised those trainees who fainted or screamed at the sight of blood and injury, screamed, backed against the tree, all colour drained from her face, and fainted.
Sally Cartwright spun the wheel, kicking up loose bits of gravel, and parked her car next door to a brand-new Land Rover Discovery. She turned to Delaney. 'You got any coins, sir?'
Delaney looked across at her puzzled. 'What for?'
'The parking meter.'
Delaney shook his head in disbelief and opened her glovebox and pulled out an
'Anybody clamps this car, Constable, and they'll have their bollocks as Adam's apples.'
'Yes, sir.'
Sally smiled and opened the door, looking up at the neo-Gothic splendour of the grand entrance to the South Hampstead Hospital. Delaney followed her glance, taking in the familiar sight. One thing the Victorians were good at. Hospitals and cemeteries.
They walked in through the main reception and headed towards the intensive care unit, or ICU; just like the acronyms with the Met, Delaney had trouble keeping up. Why they couldn't just stick with what people knew and what made sense, was a puzzle beyond the capabilities of his detective brain. Too many middle managers in unnecessary jobs, he suspected.
Sally followed him as he walked up the long sweeping staircase at the end of the corridor. The floor was cool, tiled and clean, but the smell of the place was just as every bit unpleasant to Delaney as it always had been. Even as a kid he had hated the smell of hospitals, the particular ethyl odours hanging in the air like an anaesthetist's gas. As a child it had reminded him of boring hours at sick relatives' bedsides, and of operations he had had, once for a broken wrist and another when a kidney was removed. But as an adult the smell reminded him of just one thing: the death of his wife. He strode forward purposefully as he reached the top of the staircase and turned left to the intensive care unit. At least now, maybe, if Norris survived, he could learn something about why his wife had had to die four years ago on that cold station forecourt in Pinner Green. He could finally learn who did it. And, more importantly, with that knowledge he could visit retribution on those responsible. It wouldn't ease the guilt he still felt over her death, nothing would do that, but the need to root out and hurt the people who had cut short her life was as powerful in him as the need for his lungs to draw breath and his heart to pump blood.
Since his mid-teens Kevin Norrell had been a larger-than-life character. Now, however, as Delaney looked down at his massive frame he looked as harmless as a beached and rotting whale. He nodded at the armed and uniformed police officer who stood on guard outside the intensive care room and turned to the young doctor who was adjusting a drip that protruded, like a number of others, from the comatose Norrell's arm. 'What's the prognosis?'
The junior doctor shrugged. 'He lost a lot of blood from the stabbing. He had to be resuscitated on the way into hospital and again on the operating table.'
Sally looked down at the grotesque figure on the bed. 'What does that mean?'
Delaney answered. 'It means his brain was deprived of oxygen for a while, he could be brain-damaged.' He turned back to the young doctor. 'How bad is it?'
The junior doctor shrugged again. 'We'll wait and see. If he doesn't come round we'll do some more tests. Check his brain activity.'
'When will you know?'
'Check back later in the day.'
