“How? What exactly did he say to him?” Poole asks, frowning.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Trevor puffs, pausing on the half-flight landing to catch his breath. “I’ve been hearing some pretty mixed things from witnesses. I think your best bet witness-wise is a nurse called Rhoda, I’ll point her out to you once we’re up there. She was with your guy when it happened, so if anyone should know…” He shrugs and sets off again, leading them up.
“We’ll need to talk to the patient too, the man from the beach. Is he still on the ward or has he been moved?” Graceford asks.
“Er, well…here’s the thing. You can’t really talk to him.” Trevor gives a wry chuckle as he opens the Level 2 doors. “See, he’s not saying anything.”
“What do you mean, he’s not saying anything?” Poole asks sharply. “You mean he’s still not talking?”
“No. The officers from King’s Lynn tried. The nurses tried. Nothing.”
“Wait, Trevor, he’s not talking about the incident, or he’s not talking at all?” Graceford persists, her brow furrowed. “Like, he’s mute? You’ve got to be kidding me, Trev. You seriously think he’s mute?”
“Or maybe he’s not all there,” Trevor says. “I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. Maybe he’s done something and he’s just keeping schtum. How would I know? Or he’s foreign, he might not even speak the language. Might not understand what we’re saying. Immigrant or something.”
“Okay, well. Let’s not jump to any conclusions. The last thing we want is an immigration officer down here. We all know how much everyone loves those guys.” Graceford looks back to Poole. “Where’s the nearest detention center, Chris? Could he have come from there?”
“There’s Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Center in Bedford. Or maybe Fulton Hall Removal Center in Lincoln— but that’s too far. You think it’s likely, that he’s illegal?”
Graceford shrugs. “I hope not, for everyone’s sake. And I don’t know why he’d be on a beach up here. Unless there’s some new North Sea crossing route we don’t know about yet? I suppose he could have just paid for passage on a fishing boat. The Norwegians get pretty close to the coast here.”
“Surely we’d have found a life vest or something on the beach. There’s no way he could have made it in without one.”
Graceford nods in agreement; neither of them are convinced. Besides, the man they found didn’t look like a refugee, at least not like their ideas of one. But why would he be silent? Perhaps he has a reason to stay quiet.
A nurse looks up as they enter the ward, scanning their uniforms and expressions with weary eyes. She rises to greet them with a tentative smile. “How can I be of help, Officers?”
Rhoda leads them to one of the ward’s single-occupancy rooms, where the patient is lying in bed, his head turned away toward the window.
“Hello, stranger,” Rhoda says, tapping at the open door.
The patient pulls his gaze away from the overcast sky and seems unfazed as the two uniformed officers fill the small room.
“I’ve brought some nice people to talk to you.” Rhoda’s tone is soothing. “Nothing too stressful, I promise. This is Beth,” she says, indicating Officer Graceford, “and Chris. They’d like to ask you a few questions. They are the police officers who found you this morning. You feeling up to that now?”
The man in the bed regards them placidly. He gives Rhoda the smallest of nods, then shifts himself carefully up onto his elbows, resting back against the pillows.
The officers pull up chairs and take a seat. When Graceford speaks her tone is kind. “How are you feeling now? You’re looking much better.” It’s true he’s almost unrecognizable from earlier that morning. There’s color in his cheeks, an air of self-possession about him. Graceford wonders if they’ve given him something, a sedative perhaps. She’ll need to ask about that later.
The man gives a restrained smile in answer, eyes shifting back to Rhoda. Graceford throws a quick glance to Poole. “They mentioned to us you weren’t speaking,” she says. “Is there any particular reason for that, sir? Can you understand what I’m saying?”
The patient’s brows knit slightly but otherwise his expression remains serene. He stays silent.
Either this man genuinely doesn’t understand what she’s saying or he’s a bloody good actor, she thinks. Poole and Graceford get lied to every day and people aren’t usually this good at it.
“Do you understand any of what I’m saying to you, sir?” Graceford asks, louder now. The man looks back to Rhoda again, who nods him on encouragingly. He holds her gaze and shakes his head slowly; he doesn’t want to do this anymore.
Poole tries now. “Sir, can you tell us what your name is?”
The man moves his head to look at Poole. Poole points a finger at his own chest. “Officer Poole,” he says in a labored and heavily accented voice. Graceford has to look down into her lap to stop herself from exploding with laughter. Poole is now pointing toward the patient, who watches him with intelligent eyes. “You?” Poole asks.
The patient nods. He understands. He’s been asked his name. He looks away from the police and the nurse and out at the murky sky. When he turns back he shakes his head, but this shake is different.
He can’t answer their question because he doesn’t know the answer.
16
DR. EMMA LEWIS
DAY 8—TEAMWORK
When I enter the empty conference room, Nick Dunning, the chief executive officer of the Princess Margaret Hospital and until recently its chief of strategic management, is dumping packets of sugar into a steaming coffee, spilling most of it on the table as he, distracted, taps away at his phone. According to Peter, it’s Nick I’ll be liaising with at the hospital. But at the moment he’s mid-email, head bobbed down over his phone. He looks up briefly as I round the conference table and take a seat, and flashes me a friendly harassed smile before plunging back into whatever crisis is playing out in the palm of his hand.
I pull my laptop and notes from my bag. And busy myself with them, fishing out my proposed action plan of tests and diagnostic methods. I study his face as he scrolls.
He’s a lot younger than I thought he’d be, dressed casually, a brushed-cotton collar peeking out from under a chic gray sweater. Stubble, fashionable horn-rimmed glasses that perfectly match the golden brown of his eyes. He’s very attractive.
After a moment he looks up again. “Sorry. Sorry, Emma. Nick.” He stretches his hand across the table and shakes mine warmly. “Rushed off my feet. It’s been a bit crazy around here the last couple of days.” He tips his phone by way of explanation. “I’ve been putting out a lot of fires, as you can imagine.”