Seven Bridges Page 18

  “There’s no accounting for taste.”

  Phillips let out a harrumph and followed him towards the service entrance.

  * * *

  They descended into the bowels of the hospital basement and followed a long, stifling corridor towards a set of security doors operated by a digital keypad entry system. Ryan stopped to type in the passcode and swore when he realised it was out of date.

  “Do you remember what the new code is?”

  Phillips tugged on his lower lip and screwed up his face in an ostentatious manner, before shaking his head.

  “Not a clue, son.”

  “Right,” Ryan muttered, and raised a fist to bang on the double doors. Sometimes, the old-fashioned methods worked best.

  A moment later, Doctor Jeffrey Pinter’s long face appeared around the doorway.

  “Forget the code, did you?” he exclaimed.

  “Obviously,” Phillips muttered, a bit irritably. He didn’t mind Pinter so much, these days, but he had an unfortunate manner that was prone to rub him up the wrong way.

  They followed the pathologist inside the open-plan mortuary and scribbled their names in the log book before fastening themselves into a couple of visitors’ lab coats. They looked around the room at the line of metal gurneys and then back into Pinter’s expectant face.

  “Where are they?” Ryan asked.

  “Given the unique circumstances in which they were found, I took the decision to assign each victim to a private autopsy room,” he explained. “I’ve got my best people working on them.”

  “Give us an overview, Jeff.”

  Pinter tucked his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and rocked back on his heels, as though preparing to deliver a speech.

  “Well, as you know, there are four in total. The first three—two men and a woman—were found on the bridge, I understand, while the fourth body of a woman was recovered from the water about an hour later. Dreadful business,” he said.

  “Cause of death?” Ryan asked, though it seemed an obvious question.

  “Naturally, we haven’t had nearly enough time to complete full post-mortem examinations and the cause may be slightly different in each case. However, given the nature of their injuries, I’ll venture to say that each victim suffered massive cardiac arrest and cerebral aneurysm following multiple injuries to major arteries and organs including the heart, liver and lungs.”

  He paused to look at each of them in turn.

  “I must warn you before we go in that their bodies have been, quite literally, torn apart by nails and other jagged metal objects. It does not make for pleasant viewing.”

  “We didn’t come down here for the laughs,” Ryan pointed out, while Phillips shuffled his feet. All his years as a murder detective hadn’t made him any less squeamish when it came to viewing cadavers.

  “I’m sure we can handle it,” Ryan was saying. “It’s important to see what we’re dealing with.”

  Phillips made a weak sound of agreement and followed the two taller men towards a side-wing of the mortuary, keeping his eyes straight ahead and focused on the white-washed wall at the other end of the room.

  * * *

  “This man has been identified as John Edward Walsh,” Pinter said, as they entered the chilly interior of Examination Room A and came to stand around the shrouded figure of a man of average height and build.

  “Dental records?” Ryan queried.

  “Yes, we were able to do a fairly quick match. He’s a barrister, originally from Middlesbrough. There’s an address on file, so it should be straightforward informing his next of kin.”

  He made it sound so clinical, Ryan thought. But then, that was the man’s vocation. He supposed it was necessary to maintain a degree of professional detachment to get the job done.

  “There’ve been hundreds of calls coming in already from relatives wanting to know if their loved ones are safe,” Ryan said. “Most will have heard from them, by now, but there’s bound to be somebody we’ll need to call back.”

  Informing the next of kin was an unenviable task, one he dreaded and felt obligated to perform in equal measure.

  “John suffered the most trauma to his back, as is the case with most of these victims, because he was facing away from the blast when it happened,” Pinter told them. “Shall we take a look?”

  Before Phillips could steady himself, the paper blanket was peeled back to reveal a man covered in a series of serrated tears. It was a hard sight to behold but, remarkably, the man’s face had escaped unharmed.

  Ryan looked down at his serene expression and felt immeasurable sorrow for a man who could not have been much older than himself—somewhere in his mid or late thirties—and wore a wedding ring. Anger followed swiftly as he thought of whoever had snatched away this man’s life, before he had even truly lived. He would not grow to be an old man and look back upon his youth with the wisdom of age. That privilege had been stolen away by a person who put their own desires above all else, and consigned the lives of those who got in the way to the scrap heap.

  “Show me the rest,” he said.

  * * *

  It was half an hour before they reached the final examination room and, when they stepped inside, they found a mortuary technician already working on the body of a woman somewhere in her mid-twenties.

  “This is the only one we haven’t been able to identify through online dental records,” Pinter told them. “It may be that she hasn’t been registered in a while, or it could be a glitch on the system, but we’ll keep trying.”

  Ryan nodded. “No ID or mobile phone found on the body?”

  Pinter shook his head. “We didn’t find anything in her pockets, so my best guess is she had a handbag that hasn’t been recovered yet.”

  “Let me know when the dental records come through,” Ryan said, coming to stand beside her bloated body while Phillips chose to remain at a respectable distance. It was a wise man who knew himself and his own limitations, and Frank Phillips was a very wise man indeed.

  “As you can plainly see, this young lady suffered the worst damage of all,” Pinter said. He took out a retractable pointer and used the tip to show them a series of burns, heavy contusions and lacerations to her face, neck and torso. The wounds were deep, slicing through her body like bullet holes.

  “It looks as though she was directly in the blast zone,” Ryan remarked.

  Pinter nodded.

  “I’d say so, judging from the extent of her injuries. She’s also the only victim to really suffer serious damage to her face and torso, whereas the others sustained injuries consistent with an entrance wound through the back, or the kidney region.”

  “It would explain how she fell in the water,” Phillips added. “The force of the blast near the centre of the bridge would have been enough to throw her back and over the barrier.”

  Ryan agreed.

  “Any word on the CCTV in the area?”

  Phillips nodded.

  “The head of security at the courthouse is sending the footage directly to me by the end of the day, as are several local businesses. Haven’t had much joy getting hold of the security person at the Baltic Art Gallery but I’ll chase them up. The Council bloke is already feeding me through everything from the past few days, so he says he’ll get straight on to the cameras beside the Millennium Bridge as soon as he can.”

  Ryan turned back to look down into the ravaged face of the young woman lying stiffly before them and remembered something.

  “Pinter, what was she wearing when she came in?”

  He crossed the room to bring up a computer record on the screen.

  “The clothes have been transferred to Faulkner’s team for testing but I’ve got pictures of them on file, here,” he said.

  Ryan leaned across to look at the images and his eye was drawn immediately to a water-damaged and heavily torn red wool coat.

  “I think this could be the woman that Carole—one of the survivors—was telling me about,” Ryan said. “She
may be able to tell us more about this Jane Doe.”

  “I can tell you one other thing,” Pinter said, sadly. “She was pregnant. About six weeks gone, I’d say.”

  “Poor lass,” Phillips muttered.

  “She may be the key,” Ryan said, channelling his emotions into action, as he so often did. He wasn’t sure he’d cope with the work that they did, otherwise.

  “Why do you say that?” Pinter asked.

  “Because she had a routine. If a bomber wanted to kill somebody specific, they would need to know if the target had a regular routine to maximise the chances of an attack being successful. She’s the only one, so far as we know, who had a routine like clockwork.”

  Ryan took one final look at the woman, committing her face to memory, before turning back to the other two men in the room.

  “So we don’t have any of the woman’s personal effects?”

  “As Jeff said, there was no phone or purse found in her pockets,” Phillips replied. “Nothing found at the scene we can tie to her either.”

  “Guess we’ll have to do some proper detecting, Frank.”

  “’Bout time,” Phillips joked. “I’m gettin’ too old for running from one bridge to the next, carrying folk off trains…”

  “Keeps you fit,” Pinter said.

  “Aye, so does a quality night in with the soon-to-be Mrs Phillips.”

  On that note, Ryan made a hasty beeline for the door.

  CHAPTER 28

  Since they were already at the hospital, Ryan and Phillips made a detour to the Accident and Emergency Ward which was a department they had come to know very well over the years. As they stepped inside its familiar entrance, they recognised the sights and smells of illness that were as familiar to the doctors and nurses of the hospital as the scent of tuna casserole was to the officers of Northumbria CID.

  “Hello,” Ryan said, as they reached the reception desk. “I wonder if you could tell me if a patient has been admitted by the name of Carole Fentiman. She has her daughter with her, Amelia.”

  He showed her his warrant card, which she took the trouble to read.

  “Just give me a moment, Chief Inspector, and I’ll see where she’s been taken.”

  She tapped a few keys and then directed them to one of the observation rooms, down a corridor to their left.

  They thanked her and followed the corridor around until they reached the right door. After a brief knock, they heard Carole calling out for them to enter.

  “Hello again,” she said, and Ryan was pleased to see her looking considerably better than she had done in the back of the ambulance.

  Her husband rose to his feet and crossed the room to greet them.

  “Euan Fentiman,” he introduced himself and ran an eye over their warrant cards. Ryan could hardly blame him; in the space of a morning, he’d almost lost his wife and daughter.

  “Where’s Amelia?” Ryan asked.

  “They’re checking her over in the Paediatric Department,” Carole explained. “They did an x-ray and found there was still a fragment of nail lodged in her hip area, so they may have to operate to get it out.”

  Ryan watched her battle tears.

  “She’s sleeping at the moment,” her father added. “I’m going to head up to see her again in a little while.”

  “She’s a very brave little girl,” Ryan said, and was sorry he hadn’t had a chance to find a new satchel for her. Instead, he’d made a quick stop by the gift shop on their way across and had managed to find a colouring pad and pencils featuring a variety of Disney characters.

  He held out the carrier bag to the girl’s father, feeling awkward.

  “I—ah, I got these for Amelia,” he said. “I hope she likes them. Tell her we wanted to say, ‘thank you’ for all her help, earlier today.”

  Her parents smiled while Phillips looked at him as though he’d sprouted three heads.

  “That’s so kind of you to think of her,” Carole said. “It’ll distract her from the pain in her legs.”

  Ryan stuck his hands in his pockets and dragged himself back to the point.

  “I hope you don’t mind but I need to ask you some more questions, if you’re feeling up to it?”

  “She’s very tired,” Euan began, but Carole reached across to take his hand.

  “I’m alright for a little while longer,” she said, giving his hand a quick squeeze to remind him she was all there, in one piece.

  She turned back to the two detectives.

  “I’m one of the lucky ones,” she said quietly. “But I know that there were others who didn’t come out alive. How many were there?”

  The media had already reported there were four victims, so Ryan felt able to confirm that much.

  “Four people lost their lives today,” he said quietly.

  Carole’s eyes welled up.

  “Was the woman in the red coat one of them?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “We believe so, yes.”

  Carole continued to grip her husband’s hand and he covered her fingers with his own in an instinctive, protective gesture.

  “May I ask how you knew her? Did you happen to know her name?” Ryan had already asked her the same question before, but she’d been traumatised after a recent shock, so it was always worth asking again.

  “No, I never knew her name, but I saw her every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the past five months. Those are the days I drop Amelia off at pre-school,” she explained. “I think she worked at the courthouse, though, because I seem to remember seeing her walking up the steps there once or twice after crossing the bridge.”

  Ryan’s spirits lifted. Here was something they could use.

  “That’s great,” he said, encouragingly. “Just carry on telling me anything you can remember.”

  “Alright,” Carole said, and reached across to take a sip of water while she thought back to the young woman she’d seen almost daily. “She always wore that coat or a light beige anorak, if the weather wasn’t so bad. Both of them looked designer, to me, and she was always very smartly turned out. I remember feeling like such a mumsy frump, by comparison,” she confessed.

  Her husband lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  “A few months ago, she wore her hair in a much longer style,” she continued, getting into the swing of things. “But recently, I’d say in the past two or three months, she had it styled shorter and it was coloured blonde. I thought it suited her; fun but professional, you know? She looked as though she worked in an office somewhere and, as I say, I’d seen her going into the courthouse once or twice.”

  “Did you always see her around the same time?” Phillips asked.

  Carole nodded.

  “Yes, I tended to be at the bridge for around eight-fifteen because by the time I walk the rest of the way to Amelia’s nursery I’m right on time and don’t need to wait around outside with her. I always saw the woman in the red coat on the bridge or just walking towards it around then, too.”

  “Was anyone ever with her?” Ryan asked.

  “Not that I remember,” Carole said, doubtfully. “But I can’t be sure about that because I wasn’t really looking out for it, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do. Don’t worry,” Ryan reassured her. “You’re being very helpful. Did you ever happen to see anyone acting strangely around her, or do you remember seeing her arguing with anyone?”

  It was a long shot, but he had to ask.

  “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I only ever saw her walking over the bridge and sometimes stopping to chuck her coffee cup in the bin.”

  Their ears pricked up.

  “The bin in the middle of the bridge?”

  “Yes, she often seemed to carry a takeaway coffee as she was crossing,” Carole said.

  “Starbucks, Nero?”

  “No, it didn’t have a logo, so I guess it might have come from one of those little artisan places.”

  “Another one,” Phillips muttered, and wondered if the pl
ace sold quinoa salads, too.

  “You’ve been a real help,” Ryan told them. “Thank you both and, Carole, take care of yourself.”

  “I just keep wondering why it wasn’t me,” she said, huskily. “I feel so guilty walking away from that, when others didn’t.”

  “You have nothing to feel guilty about,” Ryan told her. “Don’t question why, just be happy that things have turned out the way they did. You have a beautiful daughter and a lovely family. Thanks to whatever lucky star, you’ll be going home with them very soon. That’s exactly as it should be.”

  Her husband rose from his chair and shook their hands.

  “I hope you find whoever did this,” he said.

  “Never fear,” Ryan told him. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  * * *

  Before they left, Ryan made another minor detour to the Intensive Care Unit, where he knew Ben Potter had been admitted following emergency bypass surgery. They spoke to the consultant on the ward, who told them Potter had a strong chance of survival, and they were satisfied that was the best news they could hope for.

  When they stepped back outside into the chilly February afternoon, the sun was already slipping back into the horizon, leaving a blazing trail of amber-red light in its wake. They paused to watch the sunset for a moment, rubbing their hands together for warmth while they thought of all the misdeeds and tragedies that went undetected beneath the moon and stars.

  “Helps, doesn’t it?” Phillips said, as the first star popped into the cardinal blue sky above their heads.

  “To watch the stars? Yeah, it gives a bit of perspective.”

  “We’re all nothing, really, in the grand scheme of things,” Phillips mused. “Not in comparison with the stars and planets. But, all the same, I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier.”

  “Which bit?”

  “The bit about the girl in the red coat being the only one to have a regular routine. When we were in there chatting to Carole and Euan Fentiman, it struck me that she’s another one who had a regular routine, isn’t she?”

  Ryan had thought of that.

  “Yes, she is. And if, for whatever reason, she was a target, then our bomber will be angry that he missed the mark.”