I was picked up by a patrol car at nine the next morning and whisked to Ashworth House as if we were in pursuit of some joy riders. I didn’t like to admit it but I was still feeling decidedly queasy, and was rather relieved when Sheila showed me to a ground floor room at the back of the house. It was comfortable, with a couple of easy chairs, a coffee table supporting a vase filled with fresh flowers, a small television and a single bed against the wall. And, would you believe, a telephone.
“It isn’t plugged in yet,” Sheila said when she returned with a coffee and spotted me trying it. “It’ll only take a sec. But do you think you’re being wise, Angie? Paul gave me strict instructions you were to have peace and quiet, and I don’t really think he included telephones in that, do you?”
I sat on the bed, suddenly feeling weary. “No. I guess you’re right, Sheila. It might be useful later on, though; you know, when I’m feeling up to it.”
“So, when you’re feeling up to it then I’ll connect it for you. But, for now, you put your feet up, drink your coffee, and rest. Right?”
She left me alone resting quietly on the bed. The next thing I knew someone was asking me if I would fancy some lunch. When I opened my eyes I realised it was Connie. She was holding a tray with a plate of hot and what smelt like delicious food on it. It felt as if I hadn’t eaten for a week; in fact, it had been two days, and I was famished.
“Hi, Connie. Is it that time? I must have slept all morning. God, that smells good,” I said, pulling myself up in the bed.
“It’s two o’clock, Angie. We weren’t sure about waking you, but Sheila reckons the stomach’s just as important as sleep.” She set the tray down on the coffee table and then helped me from the bed.
“You’ve had a lot of phone calls today,” she informed me. “Let’s see...” and she began ticking them off on her fingers. “DCI Robbins – he said he would visit you later; a Detective Sergeant Conway – just checking in, he said; oh, and someone called Emma rang, asking after you. Sheila said someone also rang you from Manchester, but she didn’t catch his name.”
“That would be Frank,” I said; “DI Kewell. Did he leave a message?”
“Only to say something about wasting his time up there, but you’ll have to ask Sheila, Angie; she took the message. Now,” she went on, unfurling a napkin, “lunch is served, Madam. I’ll leave you in peace for now.”
“Hey,” I said as she was leaving, “shouldn’t you be in college today?”
“No, Angela dear. No lectures today. Besides, it’s Friday, if you remember, and we always finish early anyway. Catch you later.”
She shot off before I could question her further, leaving me to enjoy the meal, followed by yet another nap. All my objections at the hospital about taking it easy were pretty redundant when I thought about it; I really did not have the strength to begin involving myself in work at the moment. In fact, I was positively debilitated: all I wanted to do was sleep.
Connie told me later that I had been sleeping when Jim called round that same evening, and it was the middle of the following day before I started to feel something like normal again. The good thing, though, was that my head was clearer, and although my vision was a little fuzzy I didn’t think it was much to worry about. Sheila had very kindly left me a dressing gown to wear, which reminded me I had to arrange for someone to collect some clothes from my flat. I couldn’t remain in a state of undress all week.
That afternoon I was able to treat myself to a long soak in the bath – something I’d been looking forward to for days. When I eventually returned to my room I found my clothes laid out on the bed; it occurred to me then that Jim, bless him, must have left them for me the previous night. I chuckled to myself at the thoughts of the sniggers that priceless gem would have raised had it got out at the station – although we would be naïve if we really thought our relationship was still a secret. Finally, feeling more civilised, I made my way to Paul’s office. It was empty, but that didn’t stop me from settling myself down at the spare computer console and using his password to access it.
I was still preoccupied with Arnold Brownlaw and knee surgery. So I started at the place I had recently stayed as a guest, Birmingham General Hospital, and began the process of accessing their records department. They didn’t have one. But, better still, they routed me through to the West Midlands Health Department of Records, where records of all the hospitals in the area were held centrally.
I decided to follow the same procedure that Frank had with the vehicle check. Omit the age groups, the wrong sex, the wrong knee (i.e. it had to be the right knee), and search all orthopaedic records from 1982, the year when Brownlaw was discharged from Smethwick. Emma was right; there were hundreds of them, even with the modified criteria. I sat at the computer for ages, waiting for some divine inspiration. Nothing came, so I wandered into the kitchen to make myself a coffee.
Sheila was busily preparing the evening meal. She turned when she heard me come in. “Well, you’re looking much better than the last time I saw you. How you feeling, Angie?”
“I’m fine thanks. And I wasn’t really in any condition to thank you before for all you’ve done for me. I truly am grateful.”
She shrugged her shoulders, somewhat embarrassed. “It’s my pleasure, especially after what you’ve done for young Connie. I think you’ve brought her alive. Now, can I get you something? Coffee, tea, some biscuits? I’m doing a goulash for tea – you need building up after your ordeal.” She put the kettle on automatically, then placed a large casserole dish in the oven.
“Yes,” I admitted, “I was very lucky.”
She smiled knowingly. “Well, they got you to the hospital quick enough, didn’t they? And they’re very good at Solihull General. My mother was in there last year for varicose veins. Not major surgery, I know, but she had to wait nearly 18 months for her operation. It’s like they told her at the time: ‘You have to be almost dying to get treated urgently these days.’ Not that you were, Angie – dying, I mean. But it was pretty serious, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I guess,” I said, not really hearing her. She had set my mind racing. Of course: waiting lists. That would knock a couple of years off the dates I had inputted into the computer. And if I could narrow it down even more by limiting the search to men between the ages of, say, 23 and 30, that should help considerably. It was only then that I realised my stupidity; why didn’t I simply ask the records department for any patient details they had on an Arnold Brownlaw from Edgbaston? I had his old address and date of birth, so it should be a relatively straightforward enquiry. So I got on with it, blaming my stupidity on the knock on the head.
And there it was! Arnold Brownlaw, etc.; correct address and DOB, but unfortunately no record of knee surgery. He had had his tonsils removed when he was seven – pity, I thought, they hadn’t removed his dick at the same time! Appendicitis when he was 12 – and then nothing. “Oh, shit! Don’t tell me I’ve got it wrong again.” I so desperately wanted him to be our man I had almost blocked out any other possibility. I sat there once again, trying to will the computer to surrender up the information I wanted. It wasn’t at all cooperative.
Then, in one of those flashes of inspiration, the question of hospital waiting lists came into my head again. What if…? Yes; what if he had gone privately? Surely, if he was suffering from a painful knee that required surgery, then – with his mother’s money available to him – why wait? The question then was: where would he have had it done? So, applying logic again, I obtained a list of the private hospitals in or around Birmingham, and from the 20 or so that came up I selected two that were situated either near or in Edgbaston itself.
So I contacted the first hospital in that area. No record of Arnold Brownlaw. The next one on the list was a BUPA hospital – a much larger hospital than the first one I had tried. And – bingo! There he was: Arnold Brownlaw, surgery on right knee for the repair of cruciate ligament damage, January 1983. He spent three days as an inpatient, after which he was discharged with crutches, accompanied with the recommendation that he should have intensive physiotherapy for a period of four weeks. There was a footnote to his records which, if I needed it, clinched it for me: “The extent of his injury is serious enough to suggest that he will not achieve a complete recovery, and that it is likely his mobility will be permanently impaired.” Exactly as the footprint indicated.
“Gotcha!” I said aloud, hardly able to contain my excitement. It was the final piece of the jigsaw we needed. Put that with Paul’s profile and we had now identified the prime suspect. I felt a tremendous sense of elation that I’d been right all along about Brownlaw being our man. But, in a way, that was the easy part; finding him was something altogether different, given that he had literally disappeared off the face of the earth. I ran off the medical record on the printer and then rang Jim on his mobile.
“If that’s Angela Crossley, I do not want to talk to you!”
“Hi,” I said in my meekest voice. “Jim, listen – no, don’t cut me off; this is important.”
“You’re supposed to be resting, not working. And you promised me, remember?”
“I am resting, honest. I’ve only been up an hour, and I’m feeling so much better. And all I’ve done is spend a bit of time on the computer following up one of my crazy ideas. You can’t blame me for that, Jim, surely? Besides, I’d go out of my mind with boredom if I did absolutely nothing. And if you were honest you’d admit you would do the same. Am I right?”
I heard a typical release of breath, which usually meant he had given up the argument.
“So, what have you phoned to tell me? And it had better not take long or I will cut you off.”
“Arnold Brownlaw. You remember him?”
“From Edgbaston – my part of the world? Yes, I remember him. Go on.”
“Well, I told you I had an idea about Emma’s forensic test showing our man had had surgery on his right knee. So, I did some checking through the computer a little while ago” – it was only a white lie! – “and I discovered that Brownlaw had surgery on his right knee in January of ’83. I pulled his medical records from the BUPA hospital in Edgbaston, and listen to this: ‘His mobility is likely to be impaired in the future.’ In other words, Jim, he walks with a slight limp – as Emma suggested. I’m convinced he’s our man.”
There was silence for a while. No doubt Jim was digesting this latest development. Finally, he said, “You’re a damned good copper, Angie. Not many of us would have thought of that. Can you fax me his medical records from there?”
“Sure. I’ve already printed them off. And then, I promise, I’m going back to bed. Just one thing, though, before I do go. How do we pierce the veil of his anonymity?”
“Bloody hell, love; there’s no need to get carried away! We can talk about that later when we’ve had more time to think it through. I can tell you one thing though - it’s not going to be easy. With computers these days, apparently you can become virtually anyone you like - completely reinvent yourself if you wanted, even to the extent of creating and registering a new valid birth certificate, driving licence, the works. In other words, Ange, we now know everything we need to know about him except his current identity; and that’s something we all need to apply our minds to.
“Look, you’ve done remarkably well, my darling” – it was the first time he had called me that –“and at least you’ve now provided us with a meaningful label to pursue. But we mustn’t get carried away with this one. We’ve still got a lot of solid police work to put in before we catch him. And, talking of work, you’ve done more than enough of that today, young lady. So, back to bed like you promised. I’ll give this some more thought and I’ll call round to see you early this evening. And – well done!”
With that he broke the connection, leaving me somewhat deflated after my moment of euphoria. He was also right: I was feeling quite exhausted; so I followed his instructions and took myself off to bed, deciding I would give lunch a miss.