He was going to be using swaged – or atraumatic – needles. These basically came prepacked with the required length of thread attached.
Cribbins used a technique known as the ‘simple interrupted stitch’. Its name is derived from the fact that the surgical thread is cut – interrupted – after each individual stitch. Cribbins had mastered this over the years, although he had never actually practiced it on anyone who was still alive.
Cribbins had surprisingly nimble fingers and he worked with great dexterity. The sutures were placed in position by mounting the swaged needle onto a pincer-like needle holder. The needle point was then pressed into Winston’s flesh on one side of the wound until it emerged again on the other side and the trailing thread was promptly tied with a surgeon’s knot. Starting at the bottom, he methodically worked his way upwards, humming contentedly as he worked.
Winston’s face quickly contorted with pain, but true to his word, he managed to suffer his way through the procedure in silence.
“Not too much longer now, Mr Winston,” Cribbins said cheerfully.
Winston nodded gratefully.
When he had finally finished, Cribbins tidied up and applied a new dressing. “I’ll leave you to bandage the patient,” he told Angela.
Standing up to take his leave, Cribbins paused for a moment. Then, for no apparent reason, he reached down and touched the tip of Winston’s nose with the back of his hand.
Winston swatted it away. “What the fuck you doing?” he snarled, his patience now completely at an end.
“Just checking to see if your nose is moist,” Cribbins said, staring pointedly at Angela. There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye, and she had to look away to avoid smiling.
Winston was clearly at a loss. “My nose is what? I thought that’s what vets did with animals?”
Horrified, Garston grabbed hold of Cribbins’
arm and virtually frog-marched him out of the room. “Shall we discuss your fee outside?” he said, glancing nervously back over his shoulder at Winston, half expecting him to be reaching for the revolver.
Chapter 24
Wednesday 12th January 2000
The TSG carrier pulled up outside Arbour Square at exactly one minute past midnight. Another carrier was already parked in front of it, along with a marked station van and an IRV. The carrier’s crew, six PCs and a PS, all rushed out and hot-footed it into the building.
“If we’re late for the briefing, Reevo, it’ll be your fault for lumbering us with that useless stop in Commercial Street,” PC Ron Stedman complained. He hated the idea of entering a briefing that was already underway and having every set of eyes in the room turn on them scornfully.
“Sorry,” PC Patrick Reeve said, “but you have to admit it looked like a good stop when I put it up.”
They had just stopped a beat-up car full of scruffily dressed teenagers on their way to the briefing because the occupants were brazenly passing around what PC Reeve thought was a giant spliff, only to find that it was nothing more sinister than an oversized roll up.
“Everything looks like a good stop to you these days,” Stedman said, contemptuously. “You need to get your eyes tested. I reckon all that wanking’s sending you blind.”
Reeve came to an abrupt stop. “What did you say?” he bristled.
Reeve sported a Poncho Villa style moustache that drooped miserably over the sides of his mouth. Whenever he was annoyed, like now, he tended to compress his lips and grate his teeth from side to side, which made his facial hair ripple like something alive was moving around inside.
“It’s obviously affecting your ears too,” Stedman said sarcastically.
“Get a wiggle on, the pair of you,” their leader, Sergeant Bob Beach, shouted from behind.
When they finally reached the conference room, they found the assembled officers standing around chatting, and they were able to slip in without the embarrassment of having a string of people looking at their watches and tutting disapprovingly.
“Talk about cutting it close,” PS Martin Brent said, appearing out of nowhere to join them. Brent was the skipper of the other TSG carrier. “Lucky for you, there’s been a five minute delay or you would have looked like a right bunch of knob-heads.”
“Would’ve been here much earlier if Seventies Cop hadn’t put up a rubbish stop,” Beach said. Everyone on the unit called Patrick Reeve Seventies Cop as he had joined the job in 1979 and all his mannerisms belonged to that era.
At that moment, Tyler, Dillon and Carol Keating entered the room. Locked in conversation, they walked over to Susie Sergeant who was trying – and failing – to reproduce an accurate copy of a road layout on the whiteboard. Holding a red board marker in her right hand and a photocopy of a map in the other, she was desperately trying to get the diagram ready in time for the meeting.
As soon as Beach caught sight of Carol Keating, his face split into a wide grin and he rushed over to say hello.
“Oooh Matron,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder.
Keating’s face blossomed with affection when she realised who had addressed her. “Little Bobby Beach!” she exclaimed, and immediately wrapped her arms around him and gave him a crushing hug. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” she said when she finally released him.
“You haven’t changed one bit,” he told her. “If anything, you look more like Hattie Jacques than ever.”
“Jack, this is Bobby Beach. He used to be on the crime squad with me when I was a DS over at Edmonton, and he’s the bugger who started all this ‘Oooh Matron’ malarkey off.”
Tyler arched an eyebrow. So, this was the culprit. “You’ve got a lot to answer for,” he said ruefully.
Beach belly laughed at that. “I didn’t think it would catch on the way it did,” he confessed.
“Listen, I hate to be a party pooper but I’m afraid I’m going to have to drag Carol away from you so we can get started.”
“No worries, boss,” Beach said. He gave her a
