Trauma (11 page)

'Maybe some blankets and a torch?' suggested Lafferty.

'Of course.'

The man's wife was quick to come up with a pair of blankets from the airing cupboard in the hall while he himself fetched a torch from the garage.

'Take this one; it's got a powerful beam,' he said. 'Want me to come with you?'

'No, you stay here and tell the ambulance people where to come. I'll be down on the path on the east side of the bridge.'

'Will do,' said the man.

The police were the first on the scene, two officers from a Panda car that happened to be in the vicinity when the call went out. Lafferty felt relieved that his uneasy wait was coming to an end. For the past few minutes the only thing that moved had been the tiny pulse in McKirrop's neck that he kept searching for. He still couldn’t believe that anyone with such a horrific head injury could be clinging on to life.

'We'll take over now Father,' said the elder of the two constables when they arrived on the bank; the other one looked like a boy. Lafferty straightened up and felt the stiffness in his back from having been in the one position for so long. The policeman knelt down to examine the bodies with his torch and Lafferty heard him whisper, 'Sweet Jesus Christ.' He turned and said, 'Take a look at this.' His colleague joined him in a squatting position and groaned before turning his head to the side to avoid looking any more.

'I thought you said one of them was still alive Father?' said the first policeman as the wail of an ambulance announced its imminent arrival.

'The man is,' replied Lafferty. 'He doesn't look it but he is. I found a pulse in his neck.'

Lafferty watched as the policeman took off his glove and put his hand to McKirrop's neck. 'There's nothing there now,' he said. Lafferty's motionless face reflected the moonlit ripples from the canal as he looked down at the scene, his eyes a mixture of sadness and bemusement. The policeman looked away again but remained on his knees with his fingers still resting lightly on McKirrop's neck as if in deference to Lafferty's assertion that the man was still alive. 'God! I felt something,' he exclaimed. 'You were right. It's very weak but it's there all right.'

Voices and the sound of running feet came from up on the bridge. The new arrivals were a paramedic team and more policemen from a second car. The two paramedics, dressed in green overalls and carrying cases packed with emergency equipment arrived on the bank and got to work on McKirrop while Lafferty was invited by the newly arrived police inspector to tell him what he had discovered.

'Did you move the bodies at all Father?'

'I had to move the man's body to reach the woman,' Lafferty confessed.

The policeman shrugged and said, 'Well I don't suppose it's going to matter much anyway. Looks like a straightforward case of a couple of winos knocking hell out each other but we'll go through the motions anyway. Where the hell are forensics?'

Lafferty felt himself drift into the background as yet more policemen arrived, this time from a white Bedford van. They wore overalls and wellington boots. More light was cast on the scene as a lighting generator arrived and was coaxed into life; it provided almost as much noise as it did light. The relevant area was marked out with plastic tape bearing the legend, POLICE and canvas screens were erected round where the bodies lay. When he got the chance, Lafferty asked the inspector, 'I don't quite see who hit who if you understand my meaning?'

The policeman seemed preoccupied with other thoughts.

'If you are working on the proposition that McKirrop drowned Bella . . .'

'You know these people Father?' asked the policeman, turning round to look at him directly for the first time.

'In a way,' replied Lafferty. 'I was actually out looking for McKirrop to ask him a few things about Simon Main, the boy whose body was stolen from the cemetery. McKirrop was the man who was living rough in the cemetery at the time of the child's disinterment.'

'Was he now?' asked the policeman thoughtfully.

Lafferty pursued his original question. 'If McKirrop drowned Bella, he could hardly have done it after sustaining such a head injury and if he did it before, how did he get the head injury?'

The inspector, looking down at the scene as the paramedics prepared to move McKirrop gently on to a stretcher, replied, 'It looks to me as if the pair of them had some kind of argument; McKirrop hit the woman - that's what smashed her cheek in. In turn, she hit him with the bottle - probably a reflex action - before she herself passed out and fell with her head in the water.'

'I see,' said Lafferty in a voice that was filled with doubt. 'I hadn't thought of it that way.' Some activity on the bank interrupted them. Lafferty went over to follow the paramedics as they lifted McKirrop up on to a stretcher and prepared to climb up to the bridge. He said, 'I'd like to travel with him if that's all right? He may die before you get there.'

'Very well Father,' said the leading paramedic.

As they started up the steep path to the bridge, Lafferty looked back to tell the inspector where he was going but the man was engaged in instructing a photographer and members of the forensic team that had just arrived. He looked back again from the bridge parapet at the illuminated scene below. There was a gap in the canvas screen. Bella's eyes were still staring at the heavens, oblivious to all that was going on around her.

The ambulance gathered speed, its siren clearing the road ahead as they sped towards the infirmary. Lafferty held on to a grab-handle on the side of the vehicle and watched Lafferty's body respond to the unevenness of the road, despite the securing straps. A plastic airway protruded from his mouth and one of the paramedics constantly monitored his vital signs. Lafferty mused that it must have been a long time since John McKirrop had received so much attention from society. 'How is he?' he asked the kneeling attendant.

'The man shrugged and replied, 'Touch and go. You've already given him last rites?'

Lafferty said that he had. As the journey continued, he wondered if what he was witnessing was innate human goodness. Could the experience be used to help bolster his flagging faith? Or at least to counteract the despair he felt on finding McKirrop and Bella and seeing what they had done to each other. All the stops were now being pulled out to save the life of a man who had turned his back on society. Surely this was a sign of a compassionate, caring and loving community? Or did everything run on automatic pilot? Police, ambulance, medical services. Was the reality that the patient would be passed along the line then find himself back out on the street again if he recovered and without anyone ever really giving him a personal thought at all?

Maybe it didn't matter too much in this case. It was unlikely that McKirrop would recover from his injuries and even if he did, society would not be finished with him for some time to come. Bella's death had to be accounted for.

The ambulance slowed and turned sharply to the right; they had arrived at the Infirmary. Almost before the vehicle had come to a halt, the rear doors were flung open and McKirrop's stretcher was slid out on to an Accident and Emergency trolley to be taken away indoors. The paramedic who had sat with McKirrop throughout the journey reeled off facts and figures to the A&E team as they disappeared inside leaving Lafferty feeling anonymous and alone.

The driver of the ambulance closed up the doors of the vehicle and said, 'He's still holding on then?'

Lafferty nodded.

'Sometimes it's bloody amazing how people can cling on to life,' said the man.

'Bloody,' agreed Lafferty as he started to walk towards the doors of A&E.

The receptionist affected a smile when she saw Lafferty's collar; she seemed oblivious to the state of the rest of his clothes. 'How can I help you, Father?' she asked.

'The man who has just been brought in, his name is John McKirrop. He has no fixed abode. I'd like to wait and hear how he is if that's all right.'

'Perfectly all right Father. If you'd like to take a seat through there I'm sure one of the doctors will speak to you soon.'

Lafferty was joined within minutes by two of the policeman who had been down on the canal bank. When they had finished telling the receptionist their business they came over to speak to Lafferty.

'I didn't realise we had a police escort,' said Lafferty.

'We drew the short straw,' said one of them. 'We've to wait for a statement.'

Lafferty drew in breath. 'Could be some time,' he said.

'That's what we're afraid of,' replied the policeman. 'How about you?'

Lafferty shrugged and said, 'I suppose I'm here for the same reason. I wanted to talk to McKirrop too. I'm waiting to hear what my chances are.'

'Strikes me, if he'd just die it would save us all a lot of trouble,' said the second policeman. 'If a couple of wasters decide to do each other in, it's fine by me and anyone else with any common sense.'

'Kevin is a bit touchy about having his leave cancelled,' explained the first policeman with a sensitivity that obviously wasn't shared by his colleague.

'Really,' answered Lafferty dryly.

'Well what's the point?' "Kevin" grumbled on. 'All this time, trouble and expense over some drunken sod who, when he leaves here, will get smashed out of his mind and do the same thing all over again or worse next time. What's the point?'

Lafferty's philosophical roller coaster started out on a downward slope again.

As time went by, the policeman drifted away from Lafferty as they all ran out of things to say to each other. The hospital had segregated waiting areas for patients and their relatives. The policeman had access to both as 'part of the scenery' in a large A&E department but Lafferty felt obliged to remain with the relatives, not wishing to get in the way of the medical staff and knowing that there was very little he could do in a practical way. He tried reading one of the old magazines that were supplied on a table by the door but the lighting was so poor in the room that he gave up as he felt a headache threaten.

There were several other people waiting in the room. A mother and daughter who huddled together for comfort and kept up a constant whisper of reassurance to each other, creating their own private island in a sea of adversity. There were two teenagers who drank from cans of Cola which they got from the drinks machine in the hallway. They didn't say much to each other and constantly flicked through the pages of magazines without apparently reading anything. An elderly man in a raincoat sat with his hands in his pockets staring at the floor as if deep in thought. A group of four people, three men and a woman, who looked as if they came from the rougher side of town, kept muttering to each other about 'getting their story straight'. One man did most of the talking. He was in his forties and wore a light blue shell suit with yellow diamonds on the sleeves and sides of the trousers. His black hair was slicked back like a rock star of the fifties and his teeth had several gaps in the front. On his feet he had a pair of white trainers with fluorescent green laces.

The man got off his seat to kneel down in front of the other three and lecture them with the aid of a nicotine stained index finger. Lafferty heard him say in a stage whisper, 'If we all tell the same story there's nothing they can do. Nothing. We've just got to stick together. Right?' The two men nodded but the woman looked frightened and doubtful. Lafferty reckoned that she was probably no older than thirty but the lankness of her hair and her sallow complexion made her look much older. He sometimes wondered why no research had been done on poverty-induced aging. In his experience half the women living in the tower block flats suffered from it. So many beautiful brides became hollow-cheeked hags by the time they were thirty. 'Right?' the man repeated for the woman's benefit. She nodded nervously but didn't argue.

The man looked up and caught Lafferty looking at him. He gave a slight smile and pretended to look past him before sitting back down again in his seat. Occasionally he would glance over his shoulder to see if he was still being watched. Lafferty did not attract any smiles or nods from the others, not that he sensed any hostility however, just the feeling that his collar was out of place. Those present did not expect him to be waiting there like an ordinary member of the public. He was part of the establishment. He should be 'doing' not 'waiting'.

A nurse appeared in the doorway and looked down at the clip-board she held in her hand. 'Mrs Simmonds?' she inquired.

The mother and daughter duo responded and the nurse approached them with some news. When she’d finished, Lafferty saw the mother break into tears, her shoulders silently heaving. He got up and walked towards them. 'Is there anything I can do?' he asked the daughter quietly.

'No, thank you,' replied the daughter sharply. She wrapped her arm further round her mother as if shielding her from Lafferty.

Lafferty retired gracefully and sat down again. His head was full of broken glass.

An Indian doctor came into the room, white coat flapping open and stethoscope protruding from his right hand pocket. He looked around, saw Lafferty and came towards him. He exuded a faint aura of sweat. 'I understand you are waiting for news of McKirrop,' he said.