The police car pulled up outside the Accident and Emergency department at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, coming to a sharp stop near the door. It didn’t quite screech to a halt, but it wasn’t far off it. Before PC Turner had even undone his seatbelt, I was out of the car. The automatic glass doors crawled open as I ran up to them, so I ignored the sign taped to them asking people not to force them open and did just that. I ran into the waiting area and stopped, looking around to get my bearings. It was years since I’d been here. I tried to stay away from hospitals as much as I could as in my experience bad things happened in them.
I made my way through the waiting area to the reception desk, ignoring the curious looks of a drunk bloke with a filthy bandage wrapped around his hand. He said something as I walked past him, but I didn’t hear what he said or bother replying. The receptionist looked up at me when I got to the desk. She was maybe in her mid-thirties, no real distinguishing features as far as I could see, but then again, I wasn’t looking for any. She smiled, showing off a set of perfect white teeth that contrasted against her light olive skin as she did so.
“Can I help—” she started speaking, but I cut her off and her smile faltered.
“My wife,” I said. “My wife’s in here, she’s been in an accident.” I knew I was babbling, but I didn’t care. “Please, you’ve got to tell me where she is.”
“What’s her name, sir?” the receptionist said. I was about to reply when I heard a male voice behind me.
“It’s the young lady in resus, Jessica.” It was PC Turner. The receptionist looked at me again, her hands poised above the keyboard. Her smile disappeared, and her mouth formed a small ‘oh’ shape. “I’ll take him through to the relatives’ room. Could you get somebody to come and speak to him?” PC Turner continued. The woman nodded and hurried through a door in the back of the reception area. I turned to the policeman, feeling helpless. He put one hand on my shoulder. “If you come with me, Gareth, I’m sure one of the doctors or nurses will be free to speak to you soon.” I nodded, speechless.
The relatives’ room was a windowless cubicle off the staff corridor. There were some nondescript prints on the wall, IKEA furniture, and a half-used box of tissues on the coffee table. I sat down but jumped to my feet a few seconds later, far too wired to just sit there. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Should I phone Andy? Let him know Jennifer was hurt? Or should I wait and see what happened next? Questions bounced around inside my head, too many of them for me to answer.
“You want me to see if I can rustle you up a cup of tea, Gareth?” PC Turner asked.
“Yes, please,” I croaked.
After what seemed like hours, PC Turner came back into the relatives’ room with a mug of tea in his hand. He was followed by the other policeman, and a young man dressed in what looked like green pyjamas. PC Turner handed me the mug of tea, gesturing to the sofa as he did so.
“Have a seat, Gareth,” he said, sitting on the other sofa. “This is the doctor.” I sat down and looked at the man in the pyjamas. Embroidered across his breast pocket were the words Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Accident and Emergency Department, and he had a lanyard around his neck with some identification cards attached. He was thin, tired looking, and didn’t seem old enough to be a doctor.
“Mr Dawson? My name is Dr Raout and I am one of the emergency department doctors working tonight,” the man in the green pyjamas said in a quiet voice. He looked Indian but spoke with a much more cultured British accent than I did. “I’ll take you through to see your wife in a moment.” I took a deep breath as my heart thudded so hard I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. If they were taking me through to see her, then she must be okay. Thank God for that. “But I have to warn you,” Dr Raout continued. “She has been very seriously injured and we need to take her to the operating theatre for emergency surgery in the next few minutes. There is a chance she may not survive the operation.” I swallowed, suddenly nauseous again. I had never felt as out of control of a situation as I felt then.
Doctor Raout’s mouth was still opening and closing, but the only thing I could hear were the words “might not survive” echoing in my head. I looked at PC Turner, imploring him to help me. He looked back at me with a blank face. I shook my head to try to clear it and concentrate on whatever the doctor was saying. It didn’t work. There must have been a mistake, I told myself. This couldn’t be happening to Jennifer, to me. To us. It must all be a horrible mistake.
The door opened, and I saw a young woman with a shock of blonde hair peer into the room. She was wearing the same pyjamas as Doctor Raout, but I had no idea who she was. Nurse? Doctor? Not a clue, nor did I care.
“Dr Raout?” the woman said. “We need to go soon.” She looked at me and smiled, but it was a sad smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Do you want to come with me?” she asked. Even though I didn’t know who she was, she obviously knew who I was and why I was there. I got to my feet, knocking over the cup of tea which spread a wet brown stain across the carpet. I looked down at it and then at the tissues on the coffee table.
“Don’t worry about that, Gareth,” PC Turner said. “I’ll sort it out.”
“It’s Gareth, is it?” the woman asked. “I’m Bridget, the senior nurse on duty tonight.” I noticed a faint Irish accent. “Did Dr Raout tell you about your wife’s injuries?” I sat back down and looked across at the doctor before replying.
“He did, kind of,” I said, “but Jennifer will be okay, won’t she?” The nurse shot the doctor a withering look.
“Your wife has suffered some quite serious head injuries, and she needs to have an operation to try to fix some of the damage,” Bridget said. I felt the colour drain from my face, glad I was sitting down. Hearing this woman say the same thing as the doctor had made it a bit more real. Head injuries? What did she mean by that? “Now she’s been put under an anaesthetic, so she’s not in any pain, but you might be quite shocked when you see her. She’s connected to lots of tubes and different pieces of equipment. They’re all there to help and to keep her comfortable, so just try to ignore them if you can.”
The nurse turned and opened the door. I stumbled to my feet without a word and followed her out into the corridor. When we reached a set of double doors, she paused and turned to me. She smiled again, the same sad smile as before, and reached out her hand.
“Are you ready?” I felt her cool fingers on my forearm. I nodded in reply, unable to speak. She pushed the door open and walked into the resuscitation room. I followed her, looking around. It was just like something off the television. In one corner of the room was a hospital trolley with more people in green pyjamas gathered around it. Bridget walked towards them, announcing my arrival. The pyjamas all looked at me as I approached, stepping away as I reached the side of the trolley.
The figure who lay on the trolley looked nothing like Jennifer, and as I stood there I couldn’t help but hope again that there had been a mistake. That this was some other poor woman who’d been knocked over who had head injuries. Thick bandages came down to just above her eyes, covering her eyebrows. Her eyes were taped shut over ugly bruises below each one, and a green tube came out of her mouth. It wasn’t until I looked at the woman’s nose and saw the familiar freckles that I realised it was Jennifer. My Jennifer. Any hopes I had about it all being a case of mistaken identity disappeared in an instant, and in that moment of realisation, my life changed forever.
As I watched, a machine to the side of the trolley hissed and Jennifer’s chest rose before falling back again. There was a horrible smell in the air, a mixture of lots of different things. The only one which I could identify was the metallic, coppery smell of blood. I looked down at Jennifer’s body, covered in an inflatable sheet. Ugly looking tubes snaked underneath the sheet, connected to a variety of bottles hanging on a metal stand attached to the side of the trolley. The machine hissed again, breathing life into Jennifer. Did that mean she couldn’t breathe for herself? Was she so badly hurt she couldn’t even breathe?
“Gareth?” I heard Bridget whisper beside me. “We really need to go to the operating theatre now.” I felt my throat tighten and tears in my eyes. I’d not cried for the best part of twenty years, and I’d never cried in front of strangers, even as a child. Not once. The nurse was asking me to say goodbye to Jennifer, and I didn’t know if I would ever see her again.
“Can I kiss her?” I asked, barely able to speak. “Please?”
“Of course you can,” Bridget said. I leaned forward, my hands gripping the safety bars on the side of the trolley. As I kissed Jennifer on the cheek, one of my tears dropped onto her face. I wiped it away with the back of my hand. Her skin was freezing, like ice. I felt Bridget’s hand on my forearm again and I stepped back from the trolley. The medical team folded back around the trolley, and I saw Dr Raout pick up a phone.
“We’re on our way,” he said to whoever it was on the other end of the line. “Two minutes.” I glanced around the room. There was a chart of some sort on a table, lots of different coloured lines all over it. I had no idea what they were, but I could see all the lines were pointing downwards. I watched as the team manoeuvred the trolley with Jennifer on it and all the equipment she was plugged into, through another set of double doors at the end of the room.
Back in the relatives’ room, PC Turner had made me a fresh mug of tea and done a decent job of cleaning up the previous one. We exchanged small talk for a while, and he explained that he was waiting for the Detective Inspector who was in charge to get to the hospital. After a few minutes, we fell silent. I wondered how Jennifer was getting on, but they would have only just started the operation. I didn’t even know what the operation was for. She had head injuries, but what that actually meant I didn’t know.
I was standing outside the hospital entrance smoking a cigarette I’d cadged off the drunk man with the bandaged hand when a police car pulled up. The same young policeman from earlier was driving, and when he saw me he nodded in my direction, saying something to the man sitting next to him.
“Mr Dawson? Gareth?” the passenger asked as he got out of the car.
“Yep, that’s me,” I replied. He walked toward me, hand extended.
“I’m Detective Inspector Griffiths. The senior officer in charge this evening.” He had a firm handshake, confident but brusque. “Please, call me Malcolm.” Under any other circumstances, I would have grinned at his name, but not tonight. He wore a suit, with a shirt and tie I recognised from Next. I’d almost bought exactly the same set for my wedding, but decided against it at the last minute.
We walked back into the hospital, and Malcolm led the way back to the relatives’ room. I followed him, wondering how often he had to do this sort of thing. He was quite a big man, not quite as tall as me but well built. The same physique as Tommy had, but the policeman was in much better shape. Malcolm opened the door to the room, and PC Turner stood up as he walked in.
“Sir, good to see you.” From the look on his face, he meant it.
“John, thanks for holding the fort up here,” Malcolm replied. “You couldn’t do me a massive favour, could you?”
“Tea?” PC Turner asked. “No problem. I’ve found out where the nurses hide the decent tea bags.” He hurried off, looking almost pleased to have something to do.
Malcolm sat down and I sat opposite, getting a good look at him for the first time. He had quite a craggy face, acne scarred from the look of his cheeks. I was sure none of the other kids took the piss out of him when he was younger, though. He looked like a serious bloke.
“So, what happened?” I asked, unable to hold back. Malcolm opened a small notebook and read for a moment.
“This is what we know so far,” he said, looking at me with tired eyes. “Your wife,” he glanced back down at his notebook. “Jennifer,” he nodded. “Jennifer left The Old Buck just after closing time. Her friend, er Lucy, wanted to go to a nightclub, but Jennifer was keen to get home and was walking to a taxi rank. No one saw what actually happened, but she was crossing the road and was hit by a car travelling down the Yarmouth Road, sustaining what the doctors have described as ‘life-threatening’ injuries.”
I looked at him intently, waiting for him to continue, but he said nothing for a minute or two. Finally, he continued.
“We’ve got a forensic team down there now, examining the scene, but the weather was horrendous at the time of the accident. There’s not a great deal for them to go on in terms of evidence. It was pouring with rain when the accident happened.” I remembered the thunder from earlier. I also remembered waking up. Had that been the time of the accident? Malcolm continued in a low voice. “We have arrested the driver of the car, though.” I should bloody well hope so, I thought. Some maniac mows down my wife, that’s the least they should do. Hopefully, he’ll get a good old-fashioned kicking in the cells by the coppers, but I doubted it. Malcolm said something else that I didn’t quite catch.
“Sorry, what was that?” I asked.
“The driver was over the limit,” Malcolm replied. “He’s been arrested for drink driving.” My fists tightened at this, knuckles whitening. I hoped he’d be put away for a long time. A very long time. Either in a hospital or a prison. Or even better, both. Malcolm looked at me closely, as if he was trying to decide whether to tell me something. “There’s more, though,” he said, deciding that he should.
“What?” I asked, clenching and unclenching my fists to try to ease the tension in my hands.
“According to Jennifer’s friend, the driver of the car knows your wife.”
“What?” I repeated. “How does he know her? Who was the driver?” Malcolm looked down at his notes one more time and then his gaze met mine.
“His name’s Robert Wainwright.”
My heart thudded in my chest, and I could feel my back teeth clench together as I absorbed this news. Robert. Robert fucking Wainwright. I could picture him hunched behind the wheel of his BMW, waiting for Jennifer to leave the pub. How had he known that she was in there? Jennifer had mentioned a couple of times that he was still hanging around, but I’d not done anything about it because she hadn’t wanted me to. She figured that he’d get the message and drop it, but obviously, he hadn’t.
“What did you say you’d arrested him for?” I asked Malcolm. “Drink driving?” Malcolm sat back on the sofa, looking spent.
“That’s what we’ve got him for at the moment, yes. He claims she ran out in front of him without looking and that there was nothing he could do. Before he realised she was there, he’d hit her.” I could tell from the look on Malcolm’s face he was thinking what I was. That story was bollocks. Malcolm looked at his notes again. “An unfortunate coincidence. That was the phrase he used when I interviewed him.” My teeth really started to hurt. “I’ve been a copper for too long to believe in coincidences,” Malcolm said. He paused for a second before continuing. “We’ll have him, don’t worry about that.”
“If you don’t, I will. I swear to God I will,” I replied almost in a whisper.
“Please, Gareth. Whatever happens, leave it to us,” he said, but with no real conviction in his voice. I figured he was just saying that because he was Old Bill and I glanced down at his wedding ring. What would he do if it was his wife in the operating theatre, I wondered? I stood up, shaking my head, trying to clear it.
“I’m going for a smoke,” I said. The drunk bloke in the waiting room had disappeared, so I ended up going to a corner shop and buying a packet. It was going to be a long night. As I stood outside the hospital smoking, I tried calling both Andy and Jacob, but neither of them answered.
When I came back inside, PC Turner had returned with two mugs of tea and was sitting on the sofa like a spare part before Malcolm dismissed him. We sat in silence, sipping our tea, waiting. About two hours and numerous smoking breaks later, there was a tentative knock at the door. Malcolm got to his feet and opened it, stepping back to let Dr Raout and Bridget into the room. Their faces were inscrutable, and I couldn’t read them at all. We sat, Malcolm shuffling to let Dr Raout sit next to him while Bridget sat next to me.
“Gareth,” Bridget said. I looked at her and a hammer hit me in the chest. I knew exactly what she was about to say. My heart thumped and bile rose in my throat as she continued.
“I’m afraid we’ve got some really bad news for you.”
With that simple phrase, my world tilted on its axis until it was upside down.