His super turned out to be Detective Superintendent Aldridge of the Metropolitan Police who arrived with another plain-clothes officer in tow. They showed me their warrant cards.
‘Thank you, constable,’ said the Super, dismissing our uniformed friend.
‘I’ll go and check on your car, sir,’ he said to me. ‘What’s the registration?’
‘It’s probably been towed away by now.’ But I gave him the registration anyway, and the keys.
The Superintendent wanted a blow-by-blow account of everything both Rosie and I had done all day. It was tedious and my mind was elsewhere.
‘I’m going to find out how Marina’s doing?’ I said finally with exasperation.
‘All in good time, Mr Halley,’ said the Super.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Now.’
I stood up and walked to the door.
‘Please sit down, sir.’ He said it with a degree of stiffness in his tone.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m going to see my fiancee.’ The term was beginning to grow on me.
I didn’t really blame the police. All too often the villain of the piece is the husband or the wife, the boyfriend or the girlfriend. It always seemed to me that to do one of those tear-jerking press conferences appealing for the murderer of a loved one to give themselves up was tantamount to holding up a banner with ‘I DID IT’ blazoned across it.
If he wanted to arrest me, let him. I had a cast-iron alibi in the sandwich man. And I wanted to see my girl.
But that wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped.
I went to the reception desk and asked if Dr Osborne was available.
Sorry, he’s busy.
Could they tell me where Marina van der Meer was? Or how she was?
Sorry, she’s no longer in this department.
Could they tell me how to get to the Intensive Care Unit?
Sorry, ask at the main reception desk.
There was a large notice pinned to a board above the desk. It read: ‘Our staff have the right to work free of verbal or physical abuse from the public.’ I understood the anger that can be present in such places. It is anger born out of fear, frustration and hurt.
I swallowed my own anger and left the A amp; E Department in search of the main reception desk. I found that I had acquired a shadow in the form of the Superintendent’s sidekick.
‘Making sure you don’t leave the hospital, sir,’ he said.
‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘You lot must know where Marina is. Do me a favour and get on your blower to find out.’
He punched numbers into his mobile phone and talked briefly.
‘Can you turn that phone off, please,’ said a man in the corridor. ‘Mobile phones are not permitted in the hospital.’
‘I’m a policeman,’ said the officer.
‘And I’m a doctor,’ said the man. ‘Mobile phones can interfere with medical equipment so turn it off.’
‘OK,’ said my shadow but he listened for a few moments longer.
‘She’s still in the operating theatre,’ he said to me. ‘We have a guard outside.’
Marina needed a guard inside, I thought, a guardian angel.
‘I’m going to the Intensive Care Unit to wait for her.’
My shadow nodded and we went together to the main reception desk to get directions.
I sat on one of the chairs outside the door to the Intensive Care Unit, opposite the lifts. My shadow sat alongside me and time passed very slowly.
I looked at my watch. Unbelievably it had been only fifty-five minutes since Rosie had rung me in the sandwich bar. It felt like hours.
I thought about Marina’s parents. I had only met them a few times. They had stayed with us in London last year at Easter, and we had been over to stay with them in Holland during August so Marina could show me where she was brought up. I should give them a call. I ought to let them know that their daughter was fighting for her life. I hoped she was still fighting. But it would have to wait. I didn’t have their number with me and I wasn’t leaving to get it.
Who else should I call?
Perhaps I should tell Charles. I’d welcome his support.
Charles! For God’s sake! If they, whoever ‘they’ might be, were trying to pressurise me into stopping my investigation by shooting Marina, they might try and shoot Charles, too. Marina was shot a little over an hour ago. Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Aynsford takes about an hour and a half by car, maybe less by a traffic-weaving motorbike.
‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ I said to the policeman. ‘Now! It’s urgent!’
There was a big ‘No Mobile Phones’ sign on the door to the unit.
Too bad, I thought, this is an emergency.
I moved down to the end of the corridor next to the window and switched on my mobile. Come on, come on. SIM not ready.
At last it was and I dialled Charles’s number. Thankfully he answered at the fourth ring.
‘Charles,’ I said, ‘this is Sid. Marina’s been shot and I’m frightened that you might be next. Get out of the house. Take Mrs Cross with you and then call me.’
‘Right, on our way,’ he said. ‘Call you in five minutes.’
Thank goodness for military training. But it was not the first time I’d had to do that and, on the previous occasion, I had been right to warn him. I remembered and, apparently, so had Charles.
I waited near the window and the five minutes seemed to be an eternity.
He called.
‘We’re safely in the car and well away from the house,’ he said. ‘Is Marina…?’ He couldn’t finish.
‘I’m at St Thomas’s Hospital,’ I said. ‘It’s touch and go. She’s in theatre but it’s not too good.’
‘I’ll drop Mrs Cross and then come on.’
‘Thanks, I’d like that.’
‘I think I’ll call my local bobby and get him to watch the house.’
I didn’t think anyone had a local bobby any more.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’m in the Intensive Care Unit waiting for Marina to come out of the operating theatre. It says ICU on the hospital notice boards.’
‘I’ll find it,’ said Charles, and I was sure he would.
I went back to sitting with my shadow.
Where had Marina got to? She should have been here by now. Had something gone wrong with the operation? Was she not coming to Intensive Care because she was already dead? Should I go to the morgue? Oh God, what should I do?
I played things over and over in my mind. I was becoming convinced that she had died. What was I doing, sitting here on a chair next to a policeman?
One of the lifts opened. I jumped up but it wasn’t Marina. It was Superintendent Aldridge and Rosie. The poor girl looked about half her normal tiny self and absolutely exhausted.
‘I’ve spoken to the hospital,’ the Super said to me. ‘Miss Meer is still in surgery but she should be coming here shortly. I was told to tell you that nothing’s changed.’
I was hugely relieved.
My shadow had stood up on the arrival of his boss, and Aldridge sat down next to me on one side with Rosie on the other.
‘Now, Mr Halley, I know all about you.’
I looked at him quizzically.
‘There’s not a copper alive who doesn’t, not a detective anyway.’
I wasn’t sure whether it was flattery or not. Every detective also knew all about the Kray twins.
