‘But Woakes is. And there are still a lot of officers like him out there.’
She thought about protesting but there was an element of truth in what Hawley said. She’d experienced the worst kind of institutionalised bigotry and poor policing when she’d investigated the Woodsman case a few months ago.
‘And here we are travelling to Cheltenham,’ Hawley continued, ‘because you still have that little worry. That grain of doubt I’m somehow involved.’
‘I am not Sergeant Woakes,’ she said, surprising herself again by the firmness with which she delivered it.
He took his time before responding. ‘I’d like to believe that, Inspector. Truly, I would’
‘It’s Anna.’
‘OK, Anna.’
‘Then believe it.’
Hawley let a beat go by. ‘Is that a Welsh accent I’m hearing, by the way?’
She felt her defences come up. Other people had asked her this question. Men in bars, on courses, people with opinions she didn’t want to hear. But this time it was different.
It’s called having a normal bloody conversation, Anna.
‘It is.’
‘Wales is a small country. This is probably the point at which I’m supposed to ask if you knew my aunt in Sully.’ He laughed.
‘Never been to Sully until three days ago.’
‘So, what’s your story, Anna?’
‘My story is very boring.’
‘Not fair. You have my file. You know all about me. This is me wanting a little payback for cooperating.’
‘Not much to tell.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe that, Anna. Not for one minute.’
He was easy to talk to. Damaged, clearly, but still a normal guy. Anna couldn’t find a good reason for not opening up.
‘What can I tell you? I grew up in a Welsh valley in post-industrial decline. My sister and I were the schoolteacher’s daughters. We got some stick for that. My dad insisted we live in the middle of the community. He was principled in that way. Until the burglaries in the street got too much for him to stomach and we moved out to a semi-rural semi-detached.’
‘It sounds rough.’
‘It was, looking back. But you accepted all the teenage pregnancies and made damned sure one of them wasn’t you.’
‘Your sister – older or younger?’
‘Younger and from a different planet. You’d like her. Pretty, sociable, life and soul.’
Hawley’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not the same planet as you, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Definitely not. Let’s just say she adapted to the situation better than I did.’
‘And why the police? As a career choice, I mean.’
She told him about her three years at Goldsmiths and her criminology degree, and about how the challenge, the constant problem-solving, had appealed to her. He, in turn, told her about his normal upbringing in Devon and his training in London and the many stops and hops a junior doctor had to make before ending up in Bristol. But as they got closer to Cheltenham, conversation died away and he became increasingly subdued.
‘Is this the first time you’ve been back here, Ben?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything will have changed.’
‘Not everything.’
Anna took the motorway exit. She didn’t know it well but she’d visited more than once and was close enough a neighbour of the Gloucestershire constabulary to know what went on under the surface. The plummy, Cheltenham Ladies College, Regency Spa veneer still worked for the busloads of tourists. Over the last twenty years, yummies and yuppies slowly infiltrated the town, piggybacking in on the back of lucrative jobs from the software companies. But with money comes drugs, and the nice middle-class Chelters retirees had a reputation for Nimbyism – the not-in-my-backyard brigade – that bordered sometimes on out-and-out racism.
The centre of town possessed a character all its own. On its periphery, the hospital looked over the college and new bits had been added on to the sandstone facade. She’d rung ahead, and the receptionist in A and E made them wait while she contacted an administrator. Only half the seats in the reception area were occupied. The General, it seemed, was meeting its waiting times target.
The administrator, when she arrived, looked even younger than Holder. She took them through and introduced them to an efficient but harassed-looking charge nurse in navy scrubs who listened to Anna explain what she needed.
‘Well, there’s never a quiet moment.’
‘We’ll try not to get in the way,’ Anna said.
The charge nurse did not know Hawley and shook his hand when Anna made the introduction.
‘Could do with the help once you’ve finished,’ he joked.
Hawley smiled, but Anna sensed the anxiety fluttering beneath the surface.
‘You remember the layout?’ the charge nurse asked.
Hawley nodded and pointed to a central station with desks and screens separated from the treatment areas by etched glass. ‘Computer stations.’ He turned to his left. ‘Resus and major trauma.’ He turned back the other way. ‘Treatment cubicles and minor injuries and side rooms.’ He smiled and cocked an eyebrow. ‘That’s it. Now I’m trying to think who’s still here? Oh, wait, do you remember Coleen Bridges?’
Hawley nodded, his expression softening. ‘Of course.’
‘She’s a junior sister now and you’re in luck. She’s on duty. Let me find her.’
The charge nurse disappeared, leaving Anna and Hawley alone while all around them the unit buzzed with noise and people getting on with it.
‘You OK?’ Anna asked.
‘Yeah. Slightly weirded out maybe.’
‘This nurse Bridges, are you OK with her?’
‘Yes. She was on with me the day I saw Rosie.’
‘Ben?’ said a voice from behind them.
Anna turned. A thirty-something heavy-set woman, dressed in navy scrubs and with her dark hair piled on the top of her head, walked up to Hawley and gave him a hug. Hawley turned a nice shade of pink and reciprocated.
The charge nurse nodded. ‘Right, I’ll leave you three to it.’
‘My God, Ben, how have you been?’ Coleen looked him up and down.
‘OK. I’m fine. You?’
‘Same old. Can’t believe I’m still here, what is it, nearly ten years on? Tried Australia, didn’t like it. So back I came. Where are you now?’
‘Locum stuff. Bristol mainly.’
Coleen sighed. ‘Is this still about…?’
‘Yes, it is. Coleen, this is Inspector Gwynne.’
Anna shook Coleen’s hand. ‘Thanks for sparing us some time.’
‘There’s never enough of it, so I’ve stopped beating myself up. I don’t get paid for getting an ulcer.’
‘Ben has agreed to help me understand what happened the day he saw Rosie Dawson.’
‘That’s easy. She came in with a sore eye.’
‘I’m familiar with all those details. I wanted to get a sense of place. A feel for the day.’
‘It was summer. They’d been out for the day as I remember.’
‘You had to give a statement, too. I’ve read it,’ Anna said.
Coleen nodded. ‘We brought her in to the minor side. Sat her and her mum in a cubicle.’ They followed as Coleen walked past someone sitting in a chair, obviously out of breath, along a bank of blue chequered curtains, all drawn. She pulled one back and made a face before closing it again.
‘This is the one, I seem to remember. It’s occupied, I’m afraid. Hand injury.’
Anna nodded, looking around. ‘Once she was in here, she’d be out of sight of everyone in the waiting room?’
‘Totally,’ Coleen said. ‘She was triaged in here. We tried washing out her eye, but she wasn’t cooperative enough. So, I called in the cavalry.’
Hawley took over. ‘I came over, assessed her, no joy on the exam. I fetched some Oxybuprocaine drops from the eye room.’
‘Eye room?’
Coleen walked a few steps further on. Three rooms at the end of the corridor in an L-shaped arrangement. The last one opened into what was nothing more than a large cubicle full of machines. Coleen pressed a switch, and a light box on one wall lit up showing an illuminated set of letters.
‘Acuity test,’ she said.