The Veteran Read online

  ‘There’s a missing wallet, Jack,’ said the uniformed inspector who had already spoken to Mr Patel. ‘And one of the assailants had his nose bloodied. He was holding the hem of his T-shirt to his face as he ran off. May have sprayed blood on the floor.’

  Burns nodded. While the POLSA searchers scoured the smelly passages of the concrete blocks on hands and knees and the uniformed men tried to find another eyewitness, Jack Burns entered the shop of Mr Veejay Patel.

  ‘I am Detective Inspector Burns,’ he said, offering his warrant card, ‘and this is DS Skinner. I gather you were the one who made the 999 call?’

  Mr Patel surprised Jack Burns, who came from Devon and had been three years with the Met, the whole time at Dover nick. In his native county he was accustomed to citizens helping the police where, when and as they could, but north-east London had been a shock. Mr Patel reminded him of Devon. He really wanted to help. He was clear, concise and precise. In a lengthy statement taken down by DS Skinner, he explained exactly what he had seen, and gave clear descriptions of the assailants. Jack Burns warmed to him. If only all cases included a witness like Veejay Patel of Entebbe and Edmonton. Dusk was settling over Meadowdene Grove when he signed DS Skinner’s handwritten statement.

  ‘I would like you to come down to the station and look at some photographs, if you would, sir,’ said Burns at last. ‘You might be able to spot these two men. It would save an awful lot of time if we knew who we were looking for exactly.’

  Mr Patel was apologetic.

  ‘Not tonight, if you please. I am alone in the shop. I close at ten. But tomorrow my brother returns. He has been on holiday, you see. August. I could get away in the morning.’

  Burns thought. Court appearance at ten thirty. Formal remand. He would have to leave it to Skinner.

  ‘Eleven o’clock? You know the Dover Street station? Just ask for me at the front desk.’

  ‘Not often you meet that sort,’ said Skinner as they crossed the road to their car.

  ‘I like him,’ said Burns. ‘When we get those bastards, I think we might have a result.’

  On the drive back to Dover Street DI Burns discovered by radio where the injured man had been taken and which constable was watching over him. Five minutes later they were in contact.

  ‘I want everything he possessed – clothes, effects, the lot – bagged and brought to the nick,’ he told the young officer. ‘And an ID. We still don’t know who he is. When you’ve got it all, call up and we’ll send a replacement for you.’

  Mr Carl Bateman was not concerned either for the name and address of the man on the trolley, or yet who had done these things to him. His concern was keeping him alive. From the docking bay, the trolley had come straight through to the resuscitation room where the A and E team went to work. Mr Bateman was sure there were multiple injuries inflicted here, but the rules were clear: life-threatening first, the rest can wait. So he went through the ABCD procedure.

  A is for airway. The paramedic had done a good job. Airway was clear, despite a slight wheezing. The neck was immobilized.

  B is for breathing. The consultant had the jacket and shirt torn open, then went over the chest area both front and back with a stethoscope.

  He detected a couple of cracked ribs but they, like the mashed knuckles of the left hand and the broken teeth in the mouth, were not life-threatening and could wait. Despite the ribs, the patient was still breathing regularly. There is little point in performing spectacular orthopaedic surgery if the patient decides to stop breathing. The pulse worried him; it had left the normal 80 mark and climbed above 100. Too fast: a probable sign of inner trauma.

  C is for circulation. In less than a minute, Mr Bateman had two intravenous catheters in place. One drained off 20 millilitres of blood for immediate analysis; then, while the rest of the examination proceeded, a litre of crystalloid fluid went into each arm.

  D is for disability. This was not good. The face and head were hardly recognizable as belonging to a human being and the Glasgow Scale showed the man was now 6 over 15 and fading dangerously. There was serious cerebral damage here, and not for the first time Carl Bateman thanked the unknown paramedic who had spent a few extra minutes getting the man to the Royal and its neuro unit.

  He called up the scanner unit and told them he would have his patient there in five minutes. Then the consultant called his colleague Mr Paul Willis, the senior neurosurgeon.

  ‘I think I must have a major intra-cranial haematoma here, Paul. Glasgow is now at five and still dropping.’

  ‘Get him in as soon as you have a scan for me,’ said the neurosurgeon.

  When he was knocked down the man had been wearing socks and shoes, underpants, shirt – open at the neck, trousers held up by a belt, jacket and a light raincoat. Everything below the waist was not a problem and had simply been pulled down. To prevent jolting of the neck and head, the raincoat, jacket and shirt were just cut off. Then everything was bagged, pocket contents still in place, and given to the delighted constable waiting outside. He was soon replaced and able to take his trophies back to Dover Street and an expectant Jack Burns.

  The scanner confirmed Carl Bateman’s worst fears. The man was haemorrhaging into the brain cavity. The blood was pressing upon the brain itself with a force that would soon prove lethal or irreversible.

  At eight fifteen the patient entered brain surgery. Mr Willis, guided by the scans that showed exactly where the intra-cranial pressure was being exerted, could reach the haematoma with a single insertion. Three small holes were drilled in the skull, then linked with saw-cuts to create a perfect triangle, the standard operation.

  With this triangle of bone removed, the haematoma was drained of the blood causing the pressure, and the damaged arteries leaking into the brain cavity were tied off. With the blood sacs gone, the pressure was eased and the brain was able to expand back into the full space that had been its natural area.

  The triangle of bone was replaced and the flap of scalp stitched over it. Heavy bandaging would keep both in place until nature could take its course and heal. Despite the damage, Mr Willis was hopeful that he had been in time.

  The body is a weird contraption. It can die from bee stings or recover from massive trauma. When a haematoma is removed and the brain allowed to expand back to its full cavity size, patients can simply recover consciousness and perform quite lucidly within days. No-one would know for twenty-four hours, until the anaesthesia wore off. By day two, without recovery, there would be cause for concern. Mr Willis scrubbed off, changed and went home to St John’s Wood.

  ‘Bugger all,’ said Jack Burns, staring at the clothes and personal effects. The latter included a half-smoked pack of cigarettes, half a box of matches, assorted coins, a soiled handkerchief and a single key on a ribbon, apparently for a house door somewhere. These had come from the trousers. From the jacket, nothing. Whatever else the man had carried, the wallet must have contained it all.

  ‘A neat man,’ said Skinner, who had been examining the clothes. ‘Shoes, cheap and patched, but an effort has been made at a shine. Trousers, cheap, worn, but a crease down each front leg, made by an iron. Shirt, frayed at neck and cuffs, but also ironed. A man with no money, but trying to keep up appearances.’

  ‘Well, I wish he’d kept a credit card or a letter addressed to himself in a back trouser pocket,’ said Burns, who was still plodding through the endless form-filling required of today’s policeman. ‘I’ll have to log him as a UAM for the moment.’

  The Americans would call him a John Doe. The London Met refers to an Unidentified Adult Male. It was still warm, but the night was pitch-black when the two detectives locked away the paperwork and saw they had time for a quick pint before going home.

  A mileaway, the neat man lay face up in the intensive care unit of the Royal London, breathing shallow but regular, pulse still too high, checked every now and then by the night sister.

  Jack Burns took a long draught of his beer.

  ‘Who the h
ell is he?’ he complained to no-one in particular.

  ‘Don’t worry, guv, we’ll find out soon enough,’ said Luke Skinner. But he was wrong.

  DAY TWO – WEDNESDAY

  For DI Jack Burns it was a brutally busy day. It brought two triumphs, two disappointments and a host of still unanswered questions. But that was par for the course. Rarely is a detective blessed with a case wrapped up like a Christmas parcel simply being delivered to his desk.

  His first success was with Mr Patel. The shopkeeper was at the front desk on the dot of eleven, as eager to help as ever.

  ‘I would like you to look at some photographs,’ said Burns when they were seated in front of what looked like a TV screen. In his younger days the Criminal Records Office photos, known throughout the force as the mug shots, were contained in a large album, or several such, shielded behind plastic sheeting. Burns still preferred the old way, for the witness could flip forward and back until he had made his choice. But the process was now electronic, and the faces flashed up on the screen.

  There were 100 to start with, and they covered some of the ‘hard cases’ known to the police in the immediate north-east quadrant of London. Not that 100 was the limit, not by a long way, but Burns began with a selection all known to the Dover nick. Mr Veejay Patel turned out to be a detective’s dream.

  As number 28 flashed up he said, ‘That one.’

  They were staring at a brutish face combining considerable stupidity with equal malevolence. Beefy, shorn skull, earring.

  ‘You are sure? Never seen him before? Never been in your shop, for example?’

  ‘No, not this one. But he was the one who took the blow to the nose.’

  Mark Price, said the caption, and there was an identification number. At 77, Mr Patel got his second, the one with a long sallow face and lank hair falling to the ear lobes on each side. Harry Cornish. He had no doubt on either face and had not even paused for more than a second or two for any of the other faces. Burns closed the machine down. The CRO would come up with the full files on each man.

  ‘When I have traced and arrested these men, I shall ask you to attend an identification parade,’ said Burns. The shopkeeper nodded. He was willing. When he had gone, Luke Skinner remarked, ‘Strewth, guv, we could do with a few more like him.’

  While waiting for the CRO computer to come up with the full files on Price and Cornish, Jack Burns put his head round the corner of the CID squad room. The man he wanted was poring over a desk. More form-filling.

  ‘Charlie, got a minute?’

  Charlie Coulter was still a detective sergeant, but older than Burns, and he had been on the plot at Dover nick for fifteen years. When it came to local villains he knew them all.

  ‘Those two?’ he snorted. ‘Right animals, Jack. Bags of form. Not local; moved in about three years ago. Mostly small, low-intelligence stuff. Bag-snatching, mugging, pilfering, brawling, football hooligans. Plus some actual bodily harm. Both done time. Why?’

  ‘This time it’s grievous bodily harm,’ said Burns. ‘Kicked some old man into a coma yesterday. Got an address for them?’

  ‘Not offhand,’ said Coulter. ‘The last I heard they shared a squat somewhere off the High Road.’

  ‘Not on the Grove?’

  ‘Don’t think so. That’s not normally their patch. They must have been visiting, on the off chance.’

  ‘Do they run with a gang?’

  ‘Nope. Loners. They just hang around with each other.’

  ‘Gay?’

  ‘No record of it. Probably not. Cornish was done for an indecent assault. On a woman. It fell through. She changed her mind. Probably frightened off by Price.’

  ‘Druggies?’

  ‘Not known for it. Boozers, more like it. Pub brawls a speciality.’

  At that point Coulter’s phone rang and Burns left him alone. The CRO files came through and gave an address. Burns went to see his Chief Super, Alan Parfitt, and got permission for what he wanted. By two p.m. a magistrate had signed a search warrant for the named premises, two licensed officers had drawn sidearms from the armoury. Burns, Skinner and six others, one toting a door-rammer, made up the team of ten.

  The raid was at three. The house was old and scrofulous, destined for demolition once the developer had acquired the entire row; in the interim, it was boarded up and services had been cut off.

  The peeling door sustained one very perfunctory knock, then the rammer splintered the lock and they were running up the stairs. The two thugs lived on the first floor up, in a pair of rooms that had never been much but were now a tip of considerable squalor. Neither man was at home. The two Armed Response officers holstered their guns and the search began.

  The rummage team were looking for anything and everything. A wallet, former contents thereof, clothing, boots . . . They were not especially gentle. If the place had been a tawdry squat when they arrived, it was hardly home-sweet-home when they left. But they came up with only one trophy. Rolled up and tossed behind a shabby old sofa was a grubby T-shirt, its front crusted with blood. It was bagged and tagged. All other items of clothing went the same way. If forensic could find fibres on anything that must have come from the victim’s clothing, that match would put the thugs on the spot, at the time, and in physical contact with the limping man.

  While the searchers did their business, Burns and Skinner quartered the street. Most neighbours knew the two thugs by sight, none spoke favourably of them, mainly because of their habit of rolling home drunk and noisy in the small hours, and no-one knew where they were or might be in the middle of an August afternoon.

  Back at the station Jack Burns started on the telephone. He asked for an ‘all points’ on the missing men, made one quick call with a simple enquiry to Mr Carl Bateman, the A and E surgeon at the Royal London, and then rang around the A and E departments at three other hospitals. A junior doctor at the St Anne’s Road hospital came up trumps.

  ‘Gotcha,’ shouted Burns as he put the phone down. There is a hunter instinct in a good detective, the knowledge of a nice adrenalin rush when the evidence is coming together. He turned to DS Skinner.

  ‘Get down to St Anne’s. Find a Dr Melrose in A and E. Get a full signed statement. Take a photo of Mark Price for identification. Get a photocopy of the accident log for the whole of yesterday afternoon. Then bring it all back here.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Skinner, catching the mood.

  ‘A man answering to Price’s description wandered in there yesterday with a sore nose. Dr Melrose discovered it was broken in two places. When we find him, that hooter will be reset and heavily strapped. And Melrose will give us a firm ID.’

  ‘When was this, guv?’

  ‘Guess. Just on five p.m. yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Three hours after the punch in Paradise Way. We’re going to get a result on this one.’

  ‘Yes, lad, I think we are. Now get over there.’

  While Skinner was away, Burns took a call from the sergeant who had led the POLSA team. It was disappointing. Before sundown the previous day they had scoured every inch of that estate on hands and knees. They had crawled into every nook and cranny, examined every passage and alley, culled every patch of weary grass and every slick gutter. They had removed and emptied the only five public garbage cans they could find.

  They had a collection of used condoms, dirty syringes and greasy food wrappings typical of such a place. But they had no blood and no wallet.

  Cornish must have stuffed the stolen wallet into one of his own pockets until he could examine the prize at his leisure. Cash he would have taken and spent, the rest he would have thrown away somewhere, but not on the Meadowdene Grove estate. And he lived half a mile away. That was a big area, too many trash cans, too many alleys, too many builders’ skips. It could be anywhere. It could, O blessed joy, still be in one of his pockets. Neither he nor Price would ever be contestants on Mastermind.

  As for Price, stuffing his T-shirt over his bleeding nose must have kep
t the blood from falling to the pavement until he was well clear of the estate. Still, one superb eyewitness and the evidence of the broken nose at St Anne’s just three hours after the punch was not bad for a day’s work.

  His next call was from Mr Bateman. That, too, was a slight disappointment, but not disastrous. His last call was a beauty. It came from DS Coulter, who had more snouts out in the territory than anyone else. A whisper down the line had told him Cornish and Price were playing pool at a hall in Dalston.

  Luke Skinner was entering the front lobby as Burns came down the stairs. He had a complete statement from Dr Melrose, positive ID and a copy of the treatment log in which Price had identified himself under his true name. Burns told him to lock up the evidence and join him in the car.

  The two thugs were still playing pool when the police arrived. Burns kept it short and businesslike. He had back-up in the form of a police van with six uniformed men who now protected all the doors. The other pool players just watched with the engaged curiosity of those not in trouble observing someone who is.

  Price glared at Burns with piggy eyes flanking a broad band of plaster over the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Mark Price, I am arresting you on suspicion of grievous bodily harm on an unidentified adult male at or about two twenty p.m. yesterday afternoon at Paradise Way, Edmonton. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  Price shot a panicky glance at Cornish, who evidently passed for the brains of the outfit. Cornish gave a slight shake of his head.

  ‘Piss off, filth,’ said Price. He was spun around, cuffed and marched out. Two minutes later Cornish followed. Both went into the van with the six constables and the small cavalcade returned to Dover nick.

  Procedures, always procedures. In the car on the way back, Burns asked for the FMO (force medical officer) to be summoned as a matter of emergency. The last thing he needed was a later claim that police brutality had in any way contributed to that nose. Also, he needed a blood sample to compare with the blood on the T-shirt. If there was any of the victim’s blood on that shirt, that would do it.