Steps to Heaven: A Sgt Major Crane Novel (17 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

By the time they emerged from the hospital it was dark. Sodium lights cast a harsh glare around the entrance to A&E and a stationary ambulance stood with the doors open, having already discharged its human cargo. Crane pulled out a packet of cigarettes and put one in his mouth as Anderson touched him on the arm and pointed to a large sign, forbidding smoking in any hospital buildings, grounds or car parks.

“For
fuck’s sake,” grumbled Crane, “what’s this country coming to? Never mind, I’ll have one in the car.”

“Um,
the car, sir,” called Kim.

Crane
turned to find Kim looking at an empty space. Where his car should be.

“For
fuck’s sake,” said Crane again, louder this time, as Kim and Anderson tried to suppress their laughter.

“Anderson,”
he said menacingly, “I just don’t need this right now. Okay?”

“Okay,
Crane, let me see what I can do.” As Anderson pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned his back on them to make his phone call, Crane could see the policeman’s shoulders were still shaking. Lighting up in defiance, he pulled out his own phone and called Tina.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Tina, it’s me.”

“Tom.”
Flat voice. No inflection.

Crane
ploughed on regardless. “Sorry, love, good news and bad news. The good news is that we’ve found the Padre.”

“Oh,
Tom, that is good news,” said Tina, her voice softening just a touch. “What’s the bad news?” Hardening again.

“I’ve
had my car towed away from Frimley Park Hospital.”

“Right.”
Tina elongated the word.

“So
I’m going to be a bit late back.”

“A
bit late, Tom, you’re already a bit late.”

“Yeah,
sorry. But I did let you know. You got my message?” Crane drew on his cigarette and began wandering in circles around the pavement.

“Yes,
I got it.”

“Good,
look, um….”

“Well,
I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” she cut in. Obviously she wasn’t quite ready to forgive him yet. “I’ll probably be asleep by the time you get back.”

“Oh,
yes, sure.”

“Night
then and, Tom?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“Love
you,” Crane finished the conversation with their usual endearment, but Tina had already put the phone down. Looking up he saw Anderson striding over.

“Found
your car, Crane.”

“Thank
God for that. Where is it?”

“On
its way to the police pound. Got towed away for illegal parking. I’ve told the lads not to book it in and that we’re on our way. Come on I’ll give you a lift down there and we can catch up on the way.”

As
they drove through the quiet back roads from Frimley Park Hospital, through Ash and then onto Aldershot, Anderson told Crane how they widened the search to old and abandoned buildings as he had suggested. A policeman making a tour of the industrial estates had been rather more vigilant that day, because of the information included in the daily briefing and noticed a broken piece of fence. After gingerly climbing through the gap, he found a door ajar that led into a large warehouse and saw what he first thought was a pile of rags in the corner. Not wanting to touch the rags for fear of some disease or other, he poked the pile with his feet. Thankfully not too hard, as it turned out to be a person.

He
immediately called in the find without touching anything, apart from the Padre’s neck, where he couldn’t feel a pulse. However, the ambulance paramedics were better trained and found the Padre had a thin irregular pulse and immediately called the hospital, arranging to have an emergency team ready to receive him.

Anderson
told Kim and Crane that his forensics team had gone over the site and found nothing but a few footprints in the dust. They assumed the Padre must have been transported in a car but couldn’t find any tyre tracks or any forensic evidence. The Padre’s clothes had been taken for evaluation, but Anderson didn’t hold out much hope of finding anything useful.

“So
it looks like Zechariah left the Padre for dead,” said Crane.

“Why
do you think it was Zechariah? What have you got?”

Then
it was Crane’s turn to tell Anderson about their interview with Mrs Fisher. He explained that, due to his restraint, Mrs Fisher came up with the name on her own, without prompting.

“Okay,
that’s all very well, but had she ever met him? Did you get a description?”

Kim
joined in the conversation from the back seat. “No, sir, she hasn’t met him, never even been to the Church herself. It was strictly something Fisher did on his own, or with his son.”

“So,
all we’ve got at the moment is the name of a visiting preacher who came to Aldershot called Zechariah and a preacher in Catterick also called Zechariah. No description, nothing. It could have been him who attacked the Padre, but the Padre can’t give us any information,” finished Crane.

“That
sounds about right,” Anderson agreed with the assessment.

As
they drew up at the police pound, Crane could see his car parked by the gates. “Can we meet up tomorrow morning?” he asked, climbing out of Anderson’s car.

“Yes,
about 10ish?”

“That’s
fine it’ll give me time to brief Captain Edwards first. And thanks for sorting out the car,” Crane called, as a young constable approached them and after a nod from Anderson put the keys into Crane’s outstretched hand. It was very late when Crane finally got home, after dropping Kim off at the barracks and as he expected, the house was still and quiet. Taking a cold beer from the fridge and falling into a kitchen chair, Crane savoured the drink before going upstairs to bed.

Tina
stirred in her sleep as he got into bed, but doesn’t wake up, or if she did, pretended not to. Crane had no idea either way. He would have to wait until the morning to talk to her. he shrill of the alarm woke Crane from his fitful sleep. He quickly reached out and turned it off. Turning to embrace Tina’s back, his hands begin to caress her as she slowly awoke.

***

“Tom,” she mumbled.

“Morning,
Tina,” he said, against her back and then started kissing the side of her neck.

“I’ve
got to get up,” she said and began to struggle against him weakly.

“Soon,”
replied Crane continuing with his kisses and caresses. When she stopped struggling he murmured, “I want to say sorry first.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Crane’s meeting with his Captain wasn’t going well. Sitting behind his desk with the files open in front of him, Captain Edwards said he was relieved the Padre had been found, but pointed out rather snootily that Detective Inspector Anderson’s men found the Padre, not Crane. As he couldn’t be bothered to score points and remind the Captain that the RMP and SIB had no jurisdiction in the town of Aldershot, and that it was Crane himself who insisted empty warehouses be searched, he merely turned to outlining the evidence they had so far.

“So, you’ve got nothing then,” Captain Edwards said as Crane finished.

“Sorry,
sir?”

Shrugging,
Edwards explained. “No physical evidence, no description. You don’t even know if this Zechariah person attacked you and the Padre.”

“No,
sir,” Crane admitted.

“What
about the other garrisons?” Edwards leaned forward to point at the files.

“What
about them sir?”

“Any
evidence from them about a mysterious preacher?”

“Well,
obviously I want Catterick to make enquiries of their Church about a preacher called Zechariah, after the interview last night with Mrs Fisher, and the same with Colchester.”

“Well,
what are you doing here then? Get on with it, Sergeant Major. Dismissed.”

Crane
collected his files and left the office swearing under his breath. On the way out he instructed Kim and Billy to do the follow up calls to Colchester and Catterick and then went to his meeting with DI Anderson.

***

He was searching for a parking space when he caught sight of Anderson running after the car, his coat tails flying in sync with his hair and his hands waving in the air. Turning his vehicle around Crane pulled up next to the now puffing DI and wound down the window.

“Did
you want me?” he asked smiling at the bedraggled Anderson.

“No,
I was running to catch a bloody bus. Of course I do,” Anderson reached for the door handle and got into the car. “Just heard from the hospital. Padre Symonds had a good night and is conscious, thank God. So I thought we should get over there, if you promise not to smoke in the car.”

“No
problem,” Crane said as he pumped the accelerator and dropped the clutch, rapidly leaving the car park.

Once
at the hospital, Crane parked in the car park this time. He used the overflow car park due to the large numbers of cars parked in every available space, as if their owners were desperate not to have to walk any further than was absolutely necessary. Grumbling at the amount of money demanded by the health authority for the privilege of parking there, he retrieved his ticket from the machine and put it on his windscreen. As they took the long walk through the car park to the hospital itself, Crane lit up, once again ignoring the no smoking signs. Anderson challenged him, but Crane explained he had no idea what damage his smoke could do to someone in an acre of car park with only sky above them. And anyway he hadn’t smoked in the car. Conceding the point Anderson led the way to the ICU.

This
time they were buzzed onto the ward straight away and met at the central desk by the young doctor from the night before, who by now looked ill himself, exhaustion hooding his red rimmed eyes.

“Oh
hello, Inspector, Sergeant Major. Glad you arrived before I left the ward. Padre Symonds had a good night and the pressure on his brain is easing, meaning he regained consciousness this morning. Obviously we’re continuing to monitor him closely but it looks like we won’t have to operate and we should be able to transfer him to ITU this afternoon.”

“ITU?”
asked Crane.

“Oh
sorry, Intensive Therapy Unit. It’s actually the other half of the Intensive Care Unit. What we have in ICU is a nurse assigned to each patient, but in ITU it’s a nurse to between two and four patients. So as a patient recovers and needs less individual constant attention, we are able to move them to free up a much needed ICU bed.”

“How
long do you think he’ll be here?” Anderson asked.

“Well
that’s a bit more difficult, but I would say if he continues to make good progress, we should have him on a general ward in a few days. Obviously we still need to monitor the head injury, make sure he’s hydrated and get him eating.”

“Can
we see him?” was what Crane really wanted.

“Yes,
of course, but only for a few moments, you understand.” The doctor pointed to the Padre’s bed and then returned to his paperwork.

Crane
couldn’t see much difference in the Padre’s condition from the night before. He was lying very still with his eyes closed, with IV tubes still connected and beeping monitors at the head of his bed. Crane took the Padre’s hand and squeezed it. This time there was a response and the Padre opened his eyes.

Crane
was relieved to see a smile of recognition. “Hello, Crane,” the Padre croaked.

“Hello,
sir, glad to see you awake.”

“Mmm,
head hurts.”

“It
seems you had a bad blow to the head, Padre. Can you remember anything about what happened?” Crane hated to push, but knew they only had a few minutes.

“Not
really,” was the slow reply. “In my office, tidying up, someone hit me.” The Padre closed his eyes again.

“Did
you see him? Padre?”

“Not
really. Black, all black.”

“The
person who hit you was dressed in black?”

But
the Padre’s hand went limp in Crane’s.

“Crane,”
Anderson indicated they should leave with a jerk of his head.

Having
to admit there wasn’t going to be any further conversation, Crane followed Anderson out to the central desk. Anderson asked if it would be okay for them to visit again that evening, but the nurse told them to ring first for permission.

With
no choice but to agree, the two men left.

“So,
at least we know the Padre was attacked in his office, as we suspected,” Crane said to Anderson, as the two men leaned over the top of Crane’s car on opposite sides.

“And
by someone dressed in black.”

“But
nothing to say who it was, or even if it was a man or a woman.”

“No.
Looks like we’ll have to wait a while for more information. If the Padre knows anymore that is.”

Crane
climbed into the car, taking Anderson back to Aldershot Police Station and then driving on to the garrison. Crane’s relief at the Padre’s recovery was tempered with frustration and he was none too happy when he arrived in his barracks.

“Oh,
sir, glad you’re back,” called Kim. “Looks like we’ve had a breakthrough. The computer techies have found something on Solomon’s computer.”