Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Friday Night

‘Last orders!’ called out the bar tender across the crowded room.

Simon drained his glass and set it down on the table in front of him. He had been chairing an informal planning meeting for a project to provide rugby training to youngsters from the Blackbird Leys estate during the school summer holidays, which would be starting in a few weeks’ time.

‘One for the road?’ he asked, looking round at his friends sitting around a small table at the side of the room. ‘I’m getting them.’

‘Not for me,’ Wayne answered, shaking his head. ‘I’d better be heading back.’

He got to his feet, picking up his jacket from off the back of his chair and shrugging it on over his broad shoulders.

‘We’ll give you a lift.’ Simon’s wife, June, pushed away her empty orange juice glass to make room on the table for her handbag, and started searching for her car key.

‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine on the bus.’ Wayne raised his hand in a gesture of farewell and turned to go.

‘I’d better be making tracks too,’ said Gary, the fourth member of their little committee. ‘Janice won’t let me out to play with you again if I’m not back on time!’

‘Oh yes!’ Simon joked. ‘I forgot. You turn into a pumpkin a midnight, if you don’t get back to the little woman on time!’

All three got up and started making their way towards the exit, weaving between the many small tables and dodging other customers who were either intent on getting in one final drink before closing time or else preparing to leave themselves. Ahead of them, Wayne’s muscular figure in its distinctive green jacket disappeared through the door.

‘Wayne seems like a nice boy,’ June murmured to her husband. ‘And I’d never have known if you hadn’t told me. He seems completely normal …’

‘Well, what did you expect?’ Gary asked tersely. ‘Did you think he was going to be some sort of alien from outer space?

‘No of course not! I’ve just never met one before and I didn’t know what to expect.’ June blushed and chattered on in an attempt to hide her embarrassment. ‘What’s that caption on the back of his jacket? I couldn’t get the words.’

‘Design Ability,’ her husband told her. ‘It’s his company name.’

‘You remember I told you he’s got an engineering degree?’ Gary added. ‘He started this business with one of the other students on his course.’

‘You mean his rich daddy set them up in it,’ Simon declared. ‘That’s how these Oxbridge types get on.’

‘They seem to be making a go of it,’ Gary defended his friend. ‘Wayne tells me they’re looking to hire more staff for this new Oxford office.’

Once outside the building, they stepped to one side of the path while June continued to ferret in her handbag for her keys. Looking towards the street, Gary saw the light from a streetlamp picking out the words on the back of his friend’s jacket as Wayne prepared to cross the road to the bus stop.

He continued to watch as the young man strode purposefully across. Then, just as he reached the opposite kerb, everything started happening very quickly. An engine roared and a silver car sped out of a side road and hurtled towards them. Gary stared in dismayed disbelief as it mounted the kerb and ploughed into Wayne, hurling him across the pavement. As if in slow motion, his body described an arc in the air before colliding with the corner of the bus shelter. The car swerved to regain the road, its rear wing grating against a cast-iron litterbin. Then it accelerated away.

‘Stop!’ Gary shouted futilely, running out into the centre of the road to get a better view of the car’s registration plate. ‘Stop you bastards!’

The car disappeared round a bend in the road. Gary turned and hurried over to the crumpled heap that was Wayne’s body. Someone else was already there, kneeling over him and peering down intensely. Gary crouched down too and the other man looked up. He was dark-skinned with hair in dreadlocks and a cigarette in his mouth. When their eyes met, he removed it and stubbed it out on the pavement.

‘He’s out cold,’ he told Gary. ‘Better call an ambulance.’

Gary put out his hand and touched Wayne’s shoulder, but the other man pushed it away.

‘Better not move him. Wait for the paramedics.’

‘They’re on their way.’ Gary turned at the sound of Simon’s voice from behind him. ‘June’s called 999.’

As if on cue, a police patrol car appeared, its blue light flashing. It pulled up and a large uniformed officer got out.

PC Gavin Hughes looked around, quickly sizing up the situation. Then he took off his jacket, folded it to form a makeshift pillow and crouched down to place it gently under Wayne’s head. His radio crackled and he spoke into it with calm urgency, asking for more police officers and checking that an ambulance was on its way. He gently checked Wayne’s pulse and breathing, and then looked round at the small crowd of onlookers.

‘I got a message this was a hit-and-run,’ he said. ‘Did any of you see what happened?’

‘It was a silver BMW,’ Gary answered eagerly. ‘New: 18-reg. I couldn’t get the whole number, but it was definitely 18 and I think it ended with a K. It headed off towards the ring road.’

‘Thanks.’ Gavin imparted this information to his colleagues via the radio. ‘Now, can you tell me who this is?’ He looked down at Wayne, who was still lying motionless and unresponsive. ‘Any of you his mates?’

‘His name’s Wayne Major,’ Simon volunteered. ‘We’d all been – that’s me and my wife and Gary here – in the Blackbird having a few drinks. Wayne was going to get the bus back. He’d just got across the road when this maniac slammed into him.’

‘Thank you. Can you give me the name of his next-of-kin? Is there someone who’ll be expecting him home?’

‘That’d be his parents, I suppose,’ June began, ‘but he doesn’t live with-’

‘No,’ Gary cut in. ‘The person you need to contact is his partner. I can give you the name and address. They live in Cowley.’

Gavin took out his notebook and carefully noted down the details. Then, seeing Wayne stirring, he gently placed his hand on his shoulder to restrain him.

‘Just lie still there,’ he said gently. ‘The ambulance will be here any moment.’

Wayne’s eyes flickered and an expression of puzzlement passed over his face briefly before he lost consciousness again.

A siren and more blue lights announced the arrival of the ambulance, closely followed by a second police car. After exchanging a few words with the paramedics, Gavin went over to brief his colleagues.

Malcolm Appleton, still nervously sporting his recently-acquired sergeant’s stripes, had been showing the ropes to a new recruit when they got the call to assist at this crime scene. He was relieved to see that the first officer on the scene was a reliable PC with plenty of experience but no desire for promotion. Gavin would know what to do without being told, and would not attempt to score points over a rookie sergeant.

On a routine patrol on the Eastern By-Pass, PCs John Gamble and Louise Otterbourne received a call to intercept a car, which was reported to have gone through a red light at the junction with Horspath Road. The powerful silver car had left the northbound side of the ring road, travelling at speed and narrowly avoiding a collision with an oil tanker coming in the opposite direction. A member of the public had rung the police, saying that it had continued at a dangerous pace through the small industrial estate near the junction and on out into the open country beyond.

Louise and John gave chase, past the sports ground and cricket club and on into the village of Horspath itself. They slowed to take a sharp bend near the pub and general stores; then the road straightened out and they could see the distant tail-lights of a vehicle ahead. Louise put her foot down in an attempt to catch up, but the car seemed, if anything, to be gaining ground. Then suddenly the lights jerked to the right and disappeared. What had happened? Had the car left the road?

They hurried on and then slowed down as they approached the point where they thought the lights had disappeared. They continued at a snail’s pace, peering to left and right in the hope of seeing some trace of the missing vehicle. When they reached the T-junction with Wheatley Road, they realised that they must have missed it. Louise turned the car round and they retraced their route, still looking out intently for any signs that a car had left the road.

‘There it is!’ John shouted at last, pointing to the left. ‘Look! There!’

Louise slowed to a stop and they both got out. John shone a torch on the number plate of the silver car that he had spotted with three wheels on the rutted track that led through an open field gate and the fourth dangling over the ditch, which, together with a thorn hedge, separated the field from the road. In their haste, the driver of the car had taken the corner too close.

‘It’s that hit-and-run car we’re supposed to be looking out for,’ Louise said, noting the registration year and the final character. ‘They said 18 and ending in K.’

While she radioed in this information, John prowled round looking for some indication of which way the occupants of the vehicle had gone. Unfortunately, the ground next to the driver’s door was grassy and there were no discernible footmarks. The muddy track was more promising, but in the dark, he could only make out tyre marks and what might be hoof-prints left by horses or cattle.

‘I’ve asked for backup,’ Louise reported a minute or two later. ‘We’re in luck. Mel’s not far away with Q.’

‘I’ll go in the ambulance to provide continuity of evidence,’ Malcolm told Gavin, as the paramedics prepared to set off for the hospital. ‘Can I leave you to inform the next-of-kin?’

‘Right you are.’

‘And Ben,’ Malcolm turned to his more junior colleague, ‘I want you to stay here to protect the scene of crime.’

PC Ben Timpson nodded and took up a position next to the litterbin, proud to be given such a responsible role, but a little nervous of being left on his own. Gavin looked round at the group of onlookers.

‘Thank you all for your help,’ he said. ‘We’ve got your names and addresses and you’ll probably get a visit from CID in the next few days to talk to you about what you saw. But now, it would be best if you all went off home.’

He stood, watching them. After a few moments, they started to drift away until the two police officers were alone.

‘I’d better be off to break the bad news to the victim’s family,’ Gavin told Ben. ‘You’re doing a great job,’ he added kindly, seeing the young man’s anxious expression. ‘And if there’s any trouble, don’t be behindhand with calling for backup.’

The end-terraced house where Wayne and his partner lived had cream-painted walls and white UPVC window-frames. Most of the small front garden had been paved to make a hard-standing for a green van, which was decorated with a logo based around a stylised wheelchair and bore the words Design Ability in large letters.

He parked outside and walked up to the front door. There were no lights visible and the curtains were drawn both upstairs and down. He pressed the bell, holding it down for several seconds, anticipating that Wayne’s partner might be asleep. Then he stepped back and waited patiently.

He was just beginning to wonder whether he ought to ring again when a light went on upstairs. A short while later another came on in the hall. A dark figure appeared behind the frosted glass in the door and there was the sound of a key being inserted into the lock. The door opened and a face looked out.

It was a young man. His dark brown hair was cut across in a long fringe at the front, which covered his eyebrows and threatened to obscure his deep brown eyes. Gavin could not decide whether this face reminded him most of an Old English Sheep Dog or a frightened deer. On seeing a police officer in uniform, his expression changed in an instant from exasperation to consternation.

‘I – I thought it must be Wayne forgotten his key,’ he stammered. ‘What’s happened? Is something wrong?’

‘Mr Dean O’Brien?’ Gavin asked calmly.

‘Yes.’ The young man’s eyes opened wider, definitely more startled deer than sheepdog now. ‘What is it? Is it Wayne? Has something happened to him?’

‘There’s been a road traffic accident,’ Gavin told him. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Dean flung open the door and stepped back to allow Gavin to enter the small hall. ‘Come though here.’

He led the way into a long room, with windows at the back and front of the house.

‘I think we’d better both sit down,’ Gavin said, looking towards a sofa and easy chairs grouped around a large television screen. ‘If that’s OK?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Dean perched on the edge of a chair, while Gavin settled himself on the sofa. ‘But tell me about Wayne? Is he badly hurt?’ He paused and looked at Gavin with his large liquid eyes wider than ever. ‘He’s not …?’

‘He was hit by a car, which mounted the pavement on Blackbird Leys Road.’ Gavin told him gently. ‘He struck his head and that rendered him unconscious.’

‘But how is he? I mean – will he get better?’ Dean pushed his a hair back from his eyes with his left hand and Gavin noticed a wide gold band on his ring finger. There had been a similar one on the victim’s hand, he remembered.

‘It’s too early to be sure, but the paramedics told me that, apart from being knocked out, his injuries seem fairly minor. He’s in good hands. He’ll be at the John Radcliffe[1] by now. I’m here to take you there to see him – if that’s what you’d like.’

‘Yes!’ Dean leapt up. Then he stood gazing down uncertainly at his pyjamas and bare feet.

‘You take your time,’ Gavin said reassuringly, getting to his feet and laying his hand gently on Dean’s shoulder. ‘I’m not in any rush. You go and get yourself ready, and I’ll be waiting for you down here.’

Dean disappeared upstairs, leaving Gavin standing thoughtfully in the sitting room. He looked around him. There was a piano against one wall with a row of photographs on top of it. Gavin wandered over to look more closely.

In the centre stood a large picture of two young men in grey suits with carnations in the buttonholes, standing next to each other, holding hands and smiling broadly. Gavin recognised the steps and distinctive yellow bricks of Oxford Register Office in the background. The smaller of the men was easily identified as Dean, by his conspicuous dark fringe. The other must be Wayne. The build as right, but the cheerful face looked very different from the bruised and grazed one that Gavin had looked down upon shortly before.

‘I hear you’ve got a hit-and-run driver you want us to find for you,’ PC Melanie Stanton called out to Louise as she climbed out of her van.

‘That’s right,’ Louise answered, looking up from where she had been examining the scratched paintwork on the nearside rear of the abandoned car. ‘Whoever it was looks to have made off across country. They can’t be far. It can’t have been more than five or ten minutes after they crashed that we called you.’

‘OK.’ Melanie went round to the back of the van where her two dogs were waiting in their cages, alert and eager to get to work. ‘Sorry Wesley,’ she said to the liver-and-white Springer Spaniel, which was pawing excitedly at the bars and whining to be allowed out. ‘This one isn’t for you, I’m afraid.’

She unfastened the other cage and quickly attached a long leash to the large German Shepherd bitch, who lay inside. Police Dog Q was an experienced general-purpose dog, who could be relied upon in a variety of policing situations. When it came to tracking down miscreants using her powerful sense of smell, she was second to none.

Louise came round and greeted Q warmly, fondling her head and patting her on the shoulder. She was a dog-lover herself and enjoyed any opportunity for fraternising with members of the Dog Section.

‘Hello there, Q! Do you remember me?’

Q wagged her tail and looked up at Louise with her tongue hanging out, ears pricked and eyes alert.

Holding tightly to Q’s collar, Melanie led her round to the open driver’s door of the abandoned car. Soon they were off, following an invisible trail diagonally across the field.

Louise watched, knowing that Melanie and Q would get on better without her and conscious of the need to remain with the car to ensure that any forensic evidence at the scene was preserved. Where had John got to? He had been trying to follow a set of indistinct footprints, which he had found a few feet from the field gate. He had disappeared into the darkness several minutes ago and was now nowhere to be seen.

Her question was answered almost immediately by a series of short barks from Q and an exasperated cry from Mel.

‘Why can’t you lot ever just stay put and wait for us to get here? How can you expect a dog to track down villains when you go wandering round the crime scene leaving scent trails all over the shop?’

Louise hurried after them.

‘John,’ she said, slightly breathless after her sprint across the field, ‘may I introduce PD Q and her chauffeur, Mel Stanton. Mel, this is PC John Gamble. He thought he’d found footprints leading from the car.’

‘They’re clearer here,’ John added in an attempt to justify his actions. He pointed downwards with his torch. ‘See! It looks like two sets of prints overlapping one another.’

‘OK. Let’s see what Q has to say about them,’ Mel responded.

She led the dog a little further along the trail of prints, beyond where she judged John’s own scent trail must end. Then she gave orders for Q to resume tracking. Q sniffed around obligingly, but without any sign of enthusiasm. She seemed confused and perhaps a little bored. She returned to her handler’s side and looked up with an expression that told Mel that they were on the wrong track.

‘Nothing doing here,’ Mel reported to the others. ‘Looks like these prints are old. Let’s get back to the car and start again. And this time,’ she added, giving John a hard look, will you both keep still and leave it to Q to do the tracking?’

It did not take Q long to find a new scent trail to follow. She set off confidently over the grass with Mel following behind, sometimes having to break into a run to keep up as the big dog plunged ahead through the darkness. She let out the lead to its maximum length.

A splash ahead of her warned her that Q had found water. She called out to her to stop and hurried to catch up, reeling in the lead as she did so. She found Q standing in a small stream, which formed the boundary between this field and the next. Mel shone her torch around, looking for a place where she could cross dry-shod. Soon they were both on the other side with Q looking eagerly up at Mel awaiting instructions.

‘Good girl! Track on!’

At once Q was away again, running across the wet grass. Mel could tell that the scent trail that she was following was recent and clear. Surely, this must be the way that the driver of the car – or at least one of the occupants – had come?

Q’s pace slowed as she approached a field boundary. Mel again reeled in the lead and used her torch to examine the obstruction. It was a hedge. There were plenty of places where Q would be able to push her way through – and where Mel, with more difficulty would be able to follow – but the danger was that there might be barbed wire concealed within the bushes, which could penetrate even Q’s thick fur, not to mention the damage it might do to Mel’s regulation uniform trousers.

Fortunately, the suspect that they were following appeared also to have been wary of pushing their way through the hedge. A little way to their right, Mel found a gate and Q confirmed that the trail continued on the other side. Immediately they were off again, racing across the uneven turf into the unknown.

‘I’m ready. Can we go now?’

Gavin turned to see Dean standing in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt.

‘Yes.’ Gavin followed Dean out into the hall. ‘You’d better put a coat or something on,’ he added, looking down at Dean’s bare arms. It’s getting chilly out.’

Dean reached out to a row of hooks on the wall of the hall and selected a green jacket its breast pocket decorated with another copy of the logo that Gavin had seen on the van outside. He put it on and then turned away from Gavin to open the door for them to leave the house, giving the burly police officer an opportunity to observe the words Design Ability, in a distinctive script, standing out white against the dark green.

Dean’s hands were shaking as he fumbled with his keys to lock the front door after they had gone through. Gavin placed his hand on his shoulder in a gesture of reassurance.

‘Try not to worry. Like I said, he’s in good hands.’

‘But you said he hit his head,’ Dean argued dismally as they made their way down the short path to the waiting police car. ‘And you said he was unconscious. I’ve seen people with brain injuries. One of them was paralysed all down one side, and another had to start learning to talk all over again.’

‘And I’ve seen men knocked out cold one evening and back on their feet and in work the morning after,’ Gavin insisted.

‘And Wayne’s always been so active,’ Dean persisted, as if he had not heard. ‘He’ll hate it if he can’t do his sport anymore.’

Melanie cautiously held up a strand of barbed wire, which spanned a narrow gap in the hedge, to allow Q to pass underneath and then carefully climbed over it herself. The ground gave way beneath her and she found herself sliding into a ditch. She scrambled out and looked around. The surface on that side felt much firmer under her feet. Shining her torch downwards, she saw that she was back on tarmac.

Suddenly everything became much brighter as a vehicle approached with its headlights on full-beam. Mel took hold of Q’s collar and instructed her to sit while they both waited for the car to pass.

It did not. Instead, it pulled up a few feet in front of them. The lights dimmed and became less dazzling. A uniformed figure got out from the driver’s side.

‘Hi Tracy!’ Mel called out, recognising Police Sergeant Tracy Burton. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was about to ask you the same thing. I’m looking for a place called Hoo Down Farmhouse. They’ve reported a car stolen and it looks as if it’s the same as one that knocked down a pedestrian outside the Blackbird three quarters of an hour ago.’

‘And the same as the one that Louise found abandoned half an hour ago. That’s where we’ve come from. Q’s been tracking the driver.’

Q looked up at the sound of her name. Then she stood up and strained to move off. Clearly, she still had a scent to follow and was keen to get back to work.

‘OK Q, track on!’ Mel commanded, releasing her collar but keeping her on a short leash.

The dog led them confidently along the road a short distance and then turned in at a driveway on their right. Mel ordered her to wait while the two police officers shone their torches around looking for a name or house-number to indicate where they were. The drive was flanked by two tall brick pillars from which hung a pair of wrought iron gates standing open.

‘There we are!’ Tracy said triumphantly, point up at a sign attached to one of the gateposts. ‘Hoo Down Farmhouse! Looks like we’ve found it.’

‘But if the car was stolen, how come the driver came back here after crashing it?’

‘Mmm. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it,’ Tracy agreed thoughtfully.

Gavin had visited the Accident and Emergency department at the hospital more times than he cared to remember in the course of his twenty-nine years as a police officer, and he knew his way round very well. Not even he, however, could arrange for Dean to see his partner immediately upon their arrival, because Wayne was on his way to the radiology department for a brain scan. The harassed-looking nurse, who briefly abandoned his heavy workload to speak to them, assured them that everything possible was being done and that a doctor would come to speak to them in due course.

Gavin gently steered a white-faced Dean, whose anxiety-levels had clearly increased at the mention of the CT scanner and the possibility of bleeding in the brain, into a quiet waiting area away from the chaos and noise of the Friday-night A&E Reception. Malcolm was sitting there waiting for news of the victim’s condition. He got up and came across to greet them.

Or rather, he greeted Gavin while giving nervous sidelong glances towards Dean. Like every officer in the force, he had been on an LGBT-Awareness course, supposedly to prepare him for dealing sensitively with members of the Gay Community. However, with no personal experience to draw on, this had only made him apprehensive lest he do or say the wrong thing and inadvertently cause offence.

‘He’s still unconscious,’ Malcolm told Gavin. ‘They’ve taken him down to radiology for a scan. I told them I’d wait for him to come back, but now you’re here …,’ he looked at his watch. ‘I could do with getting back and filing a report of the incident. Do you think you could …?’

‘No problem. I promised Dean I’d stay with him in any case.’

‘Dean? Oh yes, of course! You mean …?’ He forced himself to turn to address the young man, who had been listening wide-eyed to the police officers’ conversation. ‘I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m Sergeant Malcolm Appleton. I came in the ambulance with your friend. The doctors say he’s not badly injured, except that they’re not sure what damage the bang on his head may have done.’

Dean nodded in silence and gave a small involuntary gulp. Gavin placed his arm around his shoulders and propelled him gently towards two empty chairs in a corner of the room.

‘You sit down here, son, and I’ll go and get us both a nice cup of tea. I know hospitals: the wait is always longer than you expect.’ He turned to Malcolm. ‘OK Malc; you get off and write your report. We’ll be fine.’

‘Thanks.’ Malcolm turned to go. Then he hesitated and turned back. He approached Dean and looked down at him. He could feel his cheeks reddening as he spoke, rather hurriedly, conscious that his embarrassment must be palpable to the young man. ‘I’m really sorry about what happened. We’ll do everything we can to find whoever did it, I promise.’

Then he was off. By the time Dean raised his head to look bemusedly after him, he was striding purposefully through the door on his way back to the more familiar territory of crime reports and police files.

Dean looked just a little better when Gavin returned a few minutes later with two plastic cups of tea from a vending machine in the corridor outside. He looked up and managed a weak smile, taking the cup and cradling it in both hands.

‘I’ve rung Wayne’s mum and dad. They’re coming over right away.’

‘That’s good.’ Gavin sat down beside him, placing his own cup on the empty seat on the other side of him. ‘Do they have far to come?’

‘Bromsgrove. It usually takes a bit over an hour if you get a good run.’

‘They’re driving then?’ Gavin silently hoped that Gavin’s parents had not celebrated the end of the working week with the traditional “few pints”. Having his father-in-law arrested for drink-driving would not improve Dean’s state of mind.

‘Yes. I hope they’ll be OK. They only got back from visiting Wayne’s sister in Swansea a couple of hours ago, but Barbara says they went straight to bed and now they’re feeling fine.’

‘I expect she’s right.’ Gavin tried to be reassuring, despite his own misgivings. ‘It’s amazing how adrenalin can keep you going in this sort of situation. The exhaustion only kicks in later, when it’s all over.’

They sat in silence. Gavin vainly tried to think of something to say to keep the conversation going and to distract Dean from dwelling on his partner’s injuries, which, even if not life-threatening, had the potential to be life-changing.

‘I wish we’d never moved to Oxford,’ Dean said suddenly. ‘I’m sure Barbara and Graham didn’t want us to, but we got the opportunity to take a unit on the Science Park and Wayne said that an Oxford address would be good for the business. I’m sure he’s right about that,’ he added loyally, ‘but it must have looked a bit ungrateful after all they’ve done for us.’

‘You’ve got a business?’ Gavin tried to pick up on something positive to talk about. ‘What line of work is it?’

‘We design equipment to enable people with disabilities to be more independent.’

‘That sounds interesting,’ Gavin began, still working on his distraction routine. Then an idea struck him and several things started to drop into place in his mind. ‘You’re – you’re not the two lads who made DCI Porter’s wheelchair, are you?’

‘Yes. Do you know him?’

‘I could hardly not know him! He’s a legend in the force – and not just in Thames Valley either. But as it happens, I do know him personally too. I expect he’s forgotten all about it, but he was on the panel that interviewed me when I first applied to be a copper. He gave me a real grilling and I was surprised they didn’t turn me down.’

‘That’s how it all started – with Jonah Porter. Bernie – you must know Bernie too, I suppose – asked my tutor to find some students to make some gadgets to help him with things. That was when he was still on the rehab ward at Stoke Mandeville. He chose Wayne and me, and everything just snowballed from there. Wayne’s dad has his own engineering firm. Well, I suppose I ought to say had, because he’s sold most of it now. Anyway, he set us up as a subsidiary and bankrolled us for the first few years after we graduated. That’s why it seemed a bit ungrateful to move away from them just when he was retiring and we’d got things on an even keel. And now …!’ Dean’s voice cracked and he wiped his hand across his eyes.

‘Excuse me!’ A young woman in hospital uniform approached them some half an hour later. Gavin looked at her identity badge: Zena Gamble, Healthcare Assistant. ‘Are you waiting to see Wayne Major?’

‘Yes!’ Dean jumped to his feet. ‘Is he OK? Can I see him?’

‘He’s been transferred to the neurosciences ICU,’ Zena told him. ‘If you come with me, I’ll take you there.’

‘ICU?’ Dean queried anxiously. ‘That’s intensive care, isn’t it? Does that mean …? Is he …?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t answer your questions, but when we get to the unit there’ll be someone who can.’

‘But, he is going to be alright, isn’t he?’

Gavin put his hand on Dean’s shoulder again and gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘Let’s just go and see, shall we?’

A nurse came to meet them at the entrance to the ICU. ‘I’m Megan Gould,’ she told them. ‘I’m the named nurse responsible for Wayne Major during this shift. I’ll take you to see him in a minute, but first I need to explain a few things. Don’t worry,’ she added, seeing Dean’s expression of alarm at these words, ‘it’s nothing dreadful. You just need to understand what’s going on.’

Dean nodded eagerly. ‘Yes. Go on!’ he urged.

‘Wayne is currently in a medically-induced coma. The doctors have done that to help his brain to recover from the trauma that it experienced when he hit his head. That means that he won’t respond when you talk to him, but he probably can hear you, so you ought to be careful what you say. Don’t discuss his condition, for example; just let him know you’re there and you could maybe hold his hand or something like that.’

‘How long?’ Dean asked, his voice grating as his mouth suddenly became very dry. He swallowed twice and cleared his throat. ‘I mean, how long will he be kept like that?’

‘That depends on how he’s doing. The doctors will be monitoring the swelling in his brain and as soon as that responds to treatment, they’ll probably start bringing him out of the coma. It varies a lot, so I’m afraid I can’t give you a straight answer. It could be just a few hours or it could be quite a bit longer than that.’

Megan led the way inside the unit. Dean followed, looking round in a daze at all the complicated medical equipment.

‘You’ll find he’s connected up to lots of tubes and monitors,’ Megan warned him, noticing his wide-eyed anxiety. ‘I know it looks scary, but try not to let it worry you. It’s all just so that we can do our best for him.’

[1] The John Radcliffe Hospital is a large teaching hospital situated in the Headington district of Oxford.