New Directions (18)

It was almost midnight when I arrived home. Chucking my clothes in a bloodstained heap near the toilet bowl I climbed into bed naked and dirty too tired to care. After sending a reply to Karen’s twenty frantic i-Messages© promising I was still in one piece, I pretty much passed out.

*

When they’d loaded me in the ambulance there was a discussion between the drivers and Andy my paramedic friend, about whether I should go to the community hospital in Thatcham or The Royal Berkshire in Reading. The drivers didn’t want to drive all the way to Reading arguing my injuries were superficial. Andy insisted on protocol and I needed emergency treatment. He got his way. I didn’t want to go to Reading. I knew I’d be there forever, but it turned out to be a better for me and Dev.

As I expected a doctor who didn’t look old enough to drive a car gave me a once over while I was still in the back of the ambulance and disappeared. Five minutes later a middle aged woman in a blue uniform brought a wheel chair and parked me in a corridor with brightly coloured murals on the walls and disappeared. Fifteen minutes later a pretty girlish looking woman dressed in white deposited me on a bed inside a tent like cubical and stuck something on the end of my finger and a blood pressure bandage on my arm – both plugged into a monitor which beeped a lot. She disappeared.

Alone and bored I read all the info notices on the only solid wall of my tent. I found one very useful when it confirmed I could use a mobile phone to contact family members while in A&E, but cautioned if I was taken to a ward use of said phone was not allowed. I called Dev.

*

Anybody who knows a bit about me might be surprised to learn I have no experience of being interviewed by the law. All I was sure of was: they’re suspicious bastards and the most stupid thing to do would be telling easily sussed-out lies. Doing that would be like putting a gift wrapped steak in front of a Rottweiler.

I realised, regardless of frustration from handing everything over to the coppers, the safest thing to do was to come clean (well 97%) about why Dev and I were at Celia’s place.

‘Hi Dev, where are you? Can you talk?’

‘Terence! How are you?’

‘I’m right as rain, mate. Can you talk?

‘I suppose so, I’m sitting in your car. The police told me I had to wait outside after someone they called a CSM and the forensics team arrive. It’s very cold here.’

‘Listen I think you should tell them everything about the scam, but don’t say we think we know who this Paul guy is. We were looking into it, that’s all. It’s bloody frustrating, but we should just let the police get on with everything and stay right out of it . . . for the time being at least.’

‘Oh I’m so glad you think that, I was having serious concerns about what to tell them.’

‘Great. Did you find the truncheon?’ Dev laughed.

‘You won’t believe it, when I went back to the car I found it in the grass. I remember one of the robbers threw something when he got in the van, I was too far away to see what it was.’

‘Thank f— wipe it down, there’s some tissues in the glove box. Put it back with the wipes.’ Tell the law I was there yesterday because you were busy. You were worried about Celia’s health because she’d missed two payments. I agreed to look in on her while in the area looking for houses. I was doing you a favour.’ At that moment the boy doctor swept in. ‘Gotta go now, docs here. Don’t worry I’m fine – call you later’ I shut down the phone.

*

The young doctor was very thorough. He began by asking my name and address. My reply seemed to convince him I was fully aware. He checked my wounded eyebrow.

‘Nasty,’ he said while he poked it. ’Might be an idea to stick some stitches on that. The butterflies will hold, but you could have a scar. I’ll fix that now before we do the checks for concussion.’

‘Concussion? I’m fine.’

‘I understand you were unconscious for quite a while. We have to run tests for brain trauma. . . . Quite painless.’

He disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a kidney bowl made from the same stuff as egg-boxes containing a curved needle, black twine and a syringe. I only felt the syringe going in. The needlework took two minutes. Packing up his gear he disappeared. Ten minutes later he returned carrying a small briefcase and a laptop. Once he’d set it up he asked me to sit on the side of the bed with about ten electrodes stuck to my head. He ran a series of, I suppose, tests which caused coloured patterns dancing across the laptop screen. I had to repeat “Mary had a little lamb” and “the quick brown fox” while he scanned the laptop.

‘You’re fine, Terence, but a little stressed. I’ll get someone to take you to the rest area, you’ll need to stay there for an hour. I’ll check on you then and no doubt you will be able to go.’

After an hour of listening to low volume pop-musak the doc arrived and dazzled me for several minutes shining a light into my eyes. ‘You can go Terence. If you start to feel dizzy later rest immedietly and call your doctor. A nurse will come in a sec with a letter for your GP. . . . Oh there’s a policeman waiting in reception he wants to take a statement. If you don’t feel up to it I’ll send him away and you can do it at a police station near your home.’

‘No send him up, I don’t know where the police station is where I live.’ In truth I preferred the local cops in my county didn’t know of my existence if they didn’t have to.

I was in luck. The copper had been hanging around in reception for hours. Clearly pissed off and anxious to finish his shift he rattled through the questions he need to ask. I kept my answers as short as possible which he noted and didn’t make a single comment or reply to them. Although friendly to me he couldn’t wait to get away and left leaving us both satisfied. Him to go home and me with the scant details I’d given.

*

I called Dev. He’d already given his statement and was on the way to the hospital. He wasn’t very happy ‘cos the cops told him he couldn’t access the cottage while they continued the investigations. The earliest would probably be the weekend.

We met up in reception. Before we left the hospital we enquired about Celia. They couldn’t let us visit due to her injuries and extensive bruising. She was heavily sedated. We made arrangements to visit her the next afternoon if they felt she was up to it.

We drove to Dev’s place and over a cup or two of coffee we went over the info we gave the law. Happy we’d not given conflicting statements we agreed to leave it at that and just let the police do what police do. The only thing now was to give Celia as much support and help we could. I left Dev at about 11.00pm and drove home.

There was, however, a visit to a certain Barry Stokes which needed some careful planning.

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