A Traitor to Memory

Despite the hour, rain made the casualty ward a busy place. Someone called out, “Another ambulance coming from Earl's Court,” which suggested what the next five minutes were going to be like in the immediate vicinity, and Hillier took Lynley by the arm, leading him beyond Casualty, down several corridors, and up several flights of stairs. He said nothing till they were in a private waiting area that served the families of those undergoing surgery in the operating theatre. No one else was there.

Lynley said, “Where's Frances? She's not—”

“Randie phoned us,” Hillier cut in. “Round one-fifteen.”

“Miranda? What happened?”

“Frances phoned her in Cambridge. Malcolm wasn't home. Frances'd gone to bed and she woke up with the dog barking outside in a frenzy. She found him in the front garden with the lead on his collar, but Malcolm not with him. She panicked, phoned Randie. Randie phoned us. By the time we got to Frances, the hospital had him in Casualty and had rung her. Frances thought he'd had a heart attack while walking the dog. She still doesn't know …” Hillier blew out a breath. “We couldn't get her out of the house. We got her to the door, even had it open, Laura on one arm and myself on the other. But the night air hit her and that was it. She got hysterical. The bloody dog went mad.” Hillier took out a handkerchief and passed it over his face. Lynley realised that this moment constituted the first time he'd seen the assistant commissioner even slightly undone.

He said, “How bad is it?”

“They've gone into his brain to clear out a clot from beneath the skull fracture. There's swelling, so they're dealing with that as well. They're doing something with a monitor … I don't remember what. It's about the pressure. They do something with a monitor to keep note of the pressure. Do they put it in his brain? I don't know.” He shoved his handkerchief away, clearing his throat roughly. “God,” he said, and stared in front of him.

Lynley said, “Sir … can I get you a coffee?” and felt all the awkwardness of the offer as he spoke it. There were gallons of bad blood between himself and the assistant commissioner. Hillier had never made an effort to hide his antipathy for Lynley, and Lynley himself had never seen fit to disguise the disdain he felt for Hillier's rapacious pursuit of promotion. Seeing him like this, however, in an instance of vulnerability as Hillier confronted what had happened to his brother-in-law and friend of more than twenty-five years, painted Hillier in a different shade than previously. But Lynley wasn't sure what to do with the picture.

“They've said they're probably going to have to take out most of his spleen,” Hillier said. “They think they can save the liver, perhaps half of it. But they don't know yet.”

“Is he still—”

“Uncle David!” Miranda Webberly's arrival broke into Lynley's question. She flew through the door to the waiting area, wearing a baggy track suit with her curly hair pulled back and held in place with a knotted scarf. She was bare of foot and white in the face. She had a set of car keys clutched in her hand. She made a beeline for her uncle's arms.

“You got someone to drive you?” he asked her.

“I borrowed a car from one of the girls. I drove myself.”

“Randie, I told you—”

“Uncle David.” And to Lynley, “Have you seen him, Inspector?” And then back to her uncle without waiting for an answer, “How is he? Where's Mum? She's not …? Oh, God. She wouldn't come, would she?” Miranda's eyes were bright liquid as she went on bitterly, saying, “Of course not, of course not,” in a broken voice.

“Your aunt Laura's with her,” Hillier said. “Come over here, Randie. Sit down. Where're your shoes?”

Miranda looked down at her feet blankly. “God, I've come without them, Uncle David. How is he?”

Hillier told her what he'd told Lynley, everything except the fact that the accident was a hit-and-run. He was just reaching the part about attempting to save the superintendent's liver, when a doctor in surgical garb pushed through the doorway, saying “Webberly?” He surveyed all three of them with the bloodshot eyes of a man who wasn't bearing good news.

Hillier identified himself, introduced Randie and Lynley, put his arm round his niece, and said, “What's happened?”

The surgeon said Webberly was in recovery and he'd go from there straight to intensive care where he would be kept in a chemically induced coma to rest the brain. Steroids would be used to ease the swelling there, barbiturates to render him unconscious. He'd be paralysed with muscle anaesthetics to keep him immobile until his brain recovered.

Randie seized upon the final word. “So he'll be all right? Dad'll be all right?”

They didn't know, the surgeon told her. His condition was critical. With cerebral oedema, it was always touch-and-go. One had to be vigilant with the swelling, to keep the brain from pushing down on its stem.

“What about the liver and the spleen?” Hillier asked.

“We've saved what we could. There're several fractures as well, but those are secondary in comparison to the rest.”

“May I see him?” Randie asked.

“You're …?”

“His daughter. He's my dad. May I see him?”

“No other next of kin?” This the doctor asked Hillier.