“Lowe.”

“Getting somewhere c and when was this?”

“When was what?”

“The hit-and-run or are we making the whole bloody thing up—sir?”

“I’m not making anything up. Why would I do that?”

“Oh, you’d be amazed. When are we looking at? Date and time. If you can manage that.”

“When it happened or when I saw him?”

Graham Whiteside passed a hand over his brow and mopped off imaginary drops of sweat.

“I saw him at the fair. He’d left me for dead, you know, and they say you don’t remember anything after you’ve taken a bash on the head but I do. Not everything, mind, but I remember a bit. Enough to know where I was and that someone blinded me with light and then clouted me on the back of the head here and left me for dead. I came round in hospital, splitting skull, load of bruises. All I remembered was being blinded. At first. Still don’t remember much more.”

“If you don’t remember anything you’re wasting my time, sunshine.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t remember everything. I was on the old airfield, in one of the hangars c I’ve been dossing a bit, lost my way. It’s all right out there. Better than shop doorways.”

Drugs? Probably. The sergeant tapped the side of his foot against the table leg. “Get on with it.”

The man sipped his tea. “Hospital got me a place, hostel on Biggins Road. You know it?”

“I know it.”

“Not bad. Could be worse. Could be better. So. So I got on my feet and walked a bit. Took me time. Skull splitting, leg aching. Two weeks is a long time, your muscles go. I could have walked ten miles before it happened. Often have done. But I got going. So I thought I’d have a wander out to that fair.”

“What’s the Jug Fair got to do with your hit-and-run?”

“Right. Nice night, got a quid or two. Thought I’d have a wander and I did, but the lights and the noise got to me, made my skull split again. I wasn’t as fit as I thought so I decided to make back.”

“I’m seeing stars, Matty, my head’s spinning.”

“Tell me about it.”

“When were you run over?”

“Didn’t say I was.”

“Listen up, you answer straight or I’ll have you for wasting the time of a senior officer.”

“You?”

“Me. Now, from the beginning.”

“I was in the hangar. I was having a sleep quiet like in a corner and he come over, shining the torch in my eyes, and I got up and he shone the torch about a bit and I turned round and he hit me. Got it?”

“So this was the accident.”

“Terrible that. Couple of weeks in hospital and it was all a bit hazy, then I was in the hostel and I thought I needed some air, you go mad cooped up in a place like that when you’ve been used to living outside. So there I am. Only the fair was packed, world and his wife, and it’s all flashing lights and noise, made my skull split even worse. Bad idea. So I thought, I’ll get back. But thinking I’d get back and getting back was two different things. Never seen anything like it. Couldn’t move. I was right at the far end of the thing. Push a bit here, push a bit there, worm your way in and out. My skull was splitting, I tell you. And it was then I saw him.”

“Saw?”

“Him. And there wasn’t any doubt. It was like a bit of a jigsaw slotting in, a bit more of the memory coming back. Like a light going on. When I saw him. The minute I saw him. Lots of it’s still not back, there’s like a black fuzzy edge all round, but that bit came up clear as clear.”

He was pushing his cup round and round and focusing intently, as if trying to see the picture again in his mind.

“I know I got a knock but I’m not seeing things. I know it was half dark but he had a torch and that was it! The torch. When I saw him again at the fair, there was a light from somewhere, one of them rides or stalls that have bulbs all round, he was standing by one. It was him.”

Matty Lowe looked at Whiteside in triumph.

“I need a name, I need a description. You could maybe come back in and look through some photographs, see if you recognise him.”

“Don’t need “em.”

“So you know him?”

“No, I don’t know him.”

“You know his name?”

“Nope. Only I can tell you what he is. When I saw him.”

Graham Whiteside sighed. “Get on with it then.”

Matty Lowe got on with it. It didn’t take long.

When he’d finished, Whiteside took his empty cup from him, chucked it in the bin, and saw him out of the station.

*

The DS went up the concrete stairs two at a time, grinning to himself. By the time he was back in CID he was laughing out loud. He needed a laugh around here just now. He was almost grateful to the dosser for having come in with his daft story. As if they didn’t have enough on.

Sixty-seven

“This is tough,” Judith said, “tough on you.”

Her crutches were leaning against the wall and her leg in its unwieldy plaster rested against the sink. She was peeling carrots, looking out of the window of the farmhouse onto the autumn leaves which were spinning down onto the drive. The beef was cut, the onions chopped, stock made. “Do you have any thyme and a bay leaf?”

“In the bed opposite the kitchen door. I’ll get it.”

“There is always a window of wonderful weather around now—quiet weather.” Judith took the bunch of thyme from Cat, and lifted her hand to smell its muskiness on the stalk. “If he wants to stay here at home, he should,” she said. “You know I’ll help you as much as I can. And Richard of course.”

“I couldn’t manage without you. It’s the children c”

“Don’t try and hide everything from them.”

“I know.”

“Sorry, Cat—that was patronising. Any parsley?”

“I’ll get it.”

Mephisto followed her, padding carefully between the rows and pushing his face against her outstretched hand.

“Having the nurses twice a day is brilliant, though they treat me like Chris’s GP not his wife. I don’t want to be his doctor, Judith. I want to talk to him as a husband and see him as a husband who is dying, not as a patient. I know I can do medical stuff if I have to, especially in the middle of the night, but I’m struggling to get them not to think of me as the doc.”

“He doesn’t though.”

“True. You’re very good at seeing things in perspective, did you know that?”

Judith laughed.

“You’re very good for Dad too.”

“Thanks,” Judith said, pleasantly but in a tone that Cat recognised as one barring further discussion. Well, that was fine. She wasn’t about to start probing. Judith was happy, the relationship seemed good, her father was less uptight. She didn’t need to know any more.

They stood for a few moments—Judith leaning awkwardly against the sink, Cat in the open doorway—looking at the spinning leaves as they caught the sun.

“I want this to be over,” Cat said. “I can say it to you. I want it to be over for Chris because it’s terrible but I want it to be over for me. I never understood this before—patients whose family said it. They couldn’t bear them to die and they couldn’t wait for them to die. I understand it now. The other thing is I can’t say any prayers about this—it’s what I’ve always done and suddenly I can’t.”

“Doesn’t matter. Let the rest of us do that for you. I think it’s probably quite normal.”

“I don’t know what you believe c It’s not something one asks, is it?”

“What, you mean is it isn’t PC?”

“Sort of.”

“I’m a Catholic. Not a very conscientious Catholic but I am one. I get a bit fed up with the Pope. Still, the Pope isn’t God, whatever he may believe to the contrary. Now, I need to finish this casserole.”

As Cat helped Judith to sit at the kitchen table, Chris was calling and Felix had woken from his sleep.

“Give me Felix, you go to Chris,” Judith said, covering the casserole against Mephisto.

As Cat went into the bedroom she knew. Chris was lying on his side facing her, his eyes closed, but when she touched him he opened them and said, “I’m so cold.”