He changes tack. Letting his uniform do the talking.
“All right, that’s enough now. I’m going to have to ask you both to get back in your vehicle, please.” He ushers Mike over toward the car, his arms wide like a shepherd’s.
“Okay, Chris. Okay,” Zara reluctantly acquiesces.
“I’m going to have to ask that you both remain within your vehicle until the medical crew arrives.”
Zara slips into the car’s leather interior shaking her head. “Unbelievable…”
An ambulance flashes into sight through the hedgerows.
“Sir.” Officer Poole gestures again to Mike Redman. “Sir, if you could also get in the vehicle.” The photographer looks through the windshield to Zara. She nods. A police caution wouldn’t sit well at the paper.
Mike strolls toward the car as the ambulance roars into the lot, flashing and whirring like a fairground ride. Officer Poole depresses his radio button. “Graceford, this is Poole. Ambulance has arrived at access point. Stand by. Over.” Poole sets off at a jog to meet the first paramedic as he dismounts from the passenger side. The female driver cuts the siren.
“This is Graceford. Received. Pulse still stable. No change here. Over.”
“Hypothermia? And shock, yes?” the paramedic asks Poole. He grabs his kit bag and slams the passenger door in one fluid motion.
“Yes, both. He could have other injuries; we didn’t want to move him. He’s currently stable but unconscious. It’s this way.” Poole and the male paramedic set off back toward the beach. The female paramedic follows with a stretcher under her arm.
Zara leans back into the warm leather of her car seat and sips her hazelnut latte. She slips her mobile phone out of her bag and scrolls through her contacts. She taps out a message and presses send. Mike, still standing outside the car, leans in through the open passenger window.
“You know him, Zara, is it worth popping over and grabbing a few more photos, or will he kick off?”
Zara thinks for a second. “Best not. He’s a bit crabby at the mo. Just grab some iPhone wobble-cam footage. We can pass it off as a member of the public’s footage if we use it. Don’t be too obvious, though, Mike, okay?” She smiles. “I don’t want a divorce. It’s not even a year yet.”
She watches Mike wander back toward the beach, making his way through the tall grasses on the dunes. Apparently, Mike used to work freelance for the News of the World. When it existed. He only moved back to Norfolk because his mum got sick. She watches his receding back and thinks, There’s always been something slightly off about Mike, but at least he gets the job done.
Her phone starts to vibrate in her hand. She checks the number and answers.
“Yeah, so, what we’ve got so far is an unidentified male washed up on the beach. No ID. Witness confirmed. An old guy, we caught him before he left, got a statement. Yeah, I’ve got some story ideas. I’m thinking a Brexit angle. Illegal immigrant washes up, or broken-Britain Middle Englander failed suicide? Either way…” She stops and listens.
“No. No. We don’t know yet. That’s the point, if he speaks English we’ll go, you know, no job, la la la. If he’s foreign we’ll do the immigration angle. It’s fine whichever….Okay, great, that’s great. Listen, I’ll get more and put something together, get it over to you by five. See how you feel, if you want it it’s yours.” She takes another slurp of coffee. “Yeah, sure, but don’t contact me through the office, I’m going to go freelance on this one. Mobile. Great. Okay, Len, I appreciate it.” She presses end call and looks out at the swaying grasses of the dune. Mike is nowhere to be seen.
The wind slicing through the open window sends a shiver down her spine. She clicks on her heated seat and the stereo, letting the soothing sound of music drift out from the walnut dash. She closes her eyes. And drifts, suspended for a moment, lost in her thoughts.
A scream rips long and horrifying through the wind and the low mumble of the radio.
Zara sits bolt upright in her leather seat. Out of her field of vision, on a grassy dune that slopes down to the beach, Mike Redman rises slowly from his crouch to stand, his camera phone raised and still filming.
On the beach the fallen man’s screams fly up into the sky. He has regained consciousness with strange hands on him. All over him.
Midair, his legs gripped firmly by the paramedics, he twists, spine arching, writhing with every ounce of strength he has left, his legs kicking out, arms lashing, scratching. He screams. As if he’s trapped. As if he’s being tortured.
Officers Poole and Graceford stand lost for words for a microsecond before diving in to assist.
Graceford, dropping to her knees in the wet sand, restrains the man’s arms, pinning them to his chest, securing the upper body. Poole places his hands down firmly on the man’s flailing shins.
“Sedative,” the male paramedic directs to the other.
“Got it,” she replies as Poole nods to her: he has the legs secured. She nods back. Retrieving a small pre-prepped syringe from a Velcroed drug roll, she rips at the paper and plastic.
“Vein,” she calls out.
The male paramedic has already rolled up the left sleeve of the man’s wet black top, securing the elbow crease in place. “Ready,” he replies.
As the female paramedic leans in, the man screams louder.
In the distance Zara’s head, then shoulders, then body rise into view. She stops in her tracks as another scream rips through the air.
She pulls her coat tight around her as she stares out across the open expanse of sand to the huddled figures in the distance.
“Sweet Jesus,” she whispers to herself.
And suddenly the screaming stops.
6
DR. EMMA LEWIS
DAY 6—PETER CHORLEY
Peter Chorley looks exactly as I’d imagined. A reassuring mixture of tweed, butter, and library dust. A kind but sharply intelligent face. Peter is a comfortably dressed Cambridge professor in his sixties. He greets me with a smile, his eyebrows raised mock-conspiratorially at the unusual nature of our first meeting; his handshake is firm and surprisingly warm considering the bitter January cold he’s come in from. I notice his cheeks are flushed and he’s slightly out of breath from his brisk walk from King’s Cross station to the hospital.
Thankfully, Peter Chorley doesn’t fancy the hospital canteen, so we head back out into the bitter chill of the London streets. I suggest the Wellcome Collection Café, just next door, to get us out of the cold quickly. It’s a medical museum that boasts the tagline “a museum for the incurably curious,” but they also do great coffee and a nice line in homemade pastries, which hits all my major sweet spots. I’ve been coming in here since I moved to London to start medical school. These days I tend to pop in and do admin on my laptop, when I get one of my increasingly rare breaks.