No Good Reason (7 page)

“Yep. She’s out on the moors with SOCO.”

Sanne licked her dry lips, loath to ask anything else. Forewarned was forearmed, though. “Is she…?” She swallowed and tried again. “Did I—”

“Is she coming here to haul your arse over the coals?” Nelson offered. “No. And you did fine, so don’t look so bloody terrified.” He barely gave her time to process that before he continued. “I uploaded the photos and video from your mobile and sent them to SOCO and the boss. They looked good. You picked out some useful details. SOCO, EDSOP, and a team of uniforms are going over the immediate scene. The boss is planning to get volunteers involved, too, so we can widen the search.”

“The victim was held out there somewhere,” Sanne said. “The state she was in, she can’t have run far.”

“That’s one possibility. The other is an escape from a vehicle crossing the high routes or off-roading,” he countered. “Or, the perp got bored with her, took her out there, and chucked her off the ridge.”

Sanne felt a familiar exhilaration as she weighed up the theories. She and Nelson always worked well like this, bouncing ideas off each other. She had barely had a chance so far to think any of this through, but she loved these first, analytical hours of processing a new case.

“National Trust rangers and Mountain Rescue are helping to pinpoint the closest roads,” Nelson said. “Roads, and any areas with vehicular access.”

She nodded. If her original supposition was correct, the woman’s assailant would have struggled to get her onto the moors, unless she had been hiking out there at the time of her abduction. Which begged the question: was he an opportunist, or had he planned this in advance? Sanne wasn’t sure which was the more frightening answer. She frequently jogged alone up there and had never considered herself in danger from anything but the weather and the terrain. “Are the two lads okay?” she asked, changing the subject.

“They’re upset, understandably, but their parents met them at HQ, and they’ve both managed to give detailed statements.”

“Already?” She squinted at her watch. “God, is that the time?”

“Time for lunch. The boss said to get a statement off you, but I’m sure she meant to say that you were to eat something first.”

Sanne shook her head and tried not to grimace at the pain the motion caused. “No, I can’t do a statement yet. I want to stay at the hospital.” It came out more desperate than she had intended, but to his credit Nelson just nodded.

“How about two ibuprofen and a cup of tea?”

She smiled and leaned into him briefly. “Now you’re talking.”

*

If Meg had been a betting woman, she’d have just won herself a fiver. She found Sanne, as predicted, exactly where she had last seen her, pushed up against the shock room wall, waiting to continue her task, with more empty evidence bags at her feet. She had been scribbling in a notepad, but as the team returned, she lowered the pen and cast Meg an expectant glance.

“Not good,” Meg mouthed. Surrounded by colleagues, she was unable to break the news gently. “Give me a few minutes, okay?”

Ever the professional, Sanne nodded, her face betraying nothing, but her pen slipped unnoticed from her fingers and rolled beneath the bin. Meg turned away, quelling a sudden impulse to wrap Sanne in a blanket and march her into a cubicle for some much-needed TLC.

With perfect timing, someone thrust a Polystyrene box from the blood bank into her hands and motioned that she should sign for it.

“Thanks,” she muttered, crosschecking the contents and scrawling her name. “Max, you want a unit of this up now?”

“Lovely. Yes, please,” Max called back.

The scan results had made this Neuro’s show to run, and they were finalising arrangements to take the woman to theatre. Their plan was to cut into her skull to try to relieve the pressure from the intracranial bleed. They might remove a section of bone to create extra space for the brain or to suck out the clot that had formed, or they might open her up and realise their efforts were futile, that all they could do was try to make her comfortable. The skull was essentially a closed box. Either the swelling from her injury would subside, or it would squash her brain until her vital functions failed. For someone who had survived so much trauma already, such a death seemed particularly vindictive.

Meg took her fury out on the tangled IV tubing in her hands, snapping it taut and daring it not to fall into place. The woman’s arm was cold and slack beneath Meg’s fingers, as if her body was already coming to terms with her prognosis and beginning to shut down. The blood ran through the line when Meg opened it up, but there was no miraculous transformation as it hit the vein, no flush of healthy colour or twitch of movement—not that Meg had expected one.

“We’re good to go,” Max told her.

“Right.” She pulled the blanket back over the woman’s arm. “Anything else you need me to do?”

“No, thanks. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. I’ll give you a call when we’re done, okay?”

“Okay.” She didn’t move as the bed was wheeled from the room. Within a few minutes, most of the team drifted away to clean, restock, or write up retrospective notes. It was only when the last person had left that Sanne approached her.

“Hey,” Sanne said.

Meg let out a shaky breath. She felt weirdly disconnected. She knew she should be doing something but couldn’t figure out what. “Hey, yourself.”

Sanne’s fingers closed around hers. “Come on, love. I’ll make you a brew.”

*

Half a mug of tea and a shortbread finger consumed in the refuge of the staffroom had Meg feeling more like herself again. From behind the rim of her mug, she watched Sanne alternate between tea and biscuit, never using both hands.

“So, where are you hurt?”

In a series of guarded movements, Sanne set down her mug and brushed invisible crumbs from her knees. “Nowhere. What do you mean?” she mumbled, looking at the floor, her ears turning pink.

“Sanne Jensen, you’re a terrible liar. This is why Mr. Kincaid always used to give us detention, because you were bloody useless at telling a simple fib.”

Sanne paused mid-sweep. “I never wanted to take that shortcut! I loved running cross-country. You were the lazy arse who insisted we go across the turnip field.”

The memory made Meg grin. Unbeknownst to them, Kincaid had been lurking on the section of route they had bypassed, and he had rumbled their shortcut fair and square.

“Always such a swotty little thing.” She smoothed Sanne’s unruly hair from her forehead. “You want a hand taking your coat off?”

Sanne shook her head, excuses already tumbling from her lips. “I’m fine. I need to get back to work, start writing everything up. The boss will be wondering where I am. You’ll have to give a statement—I can ask Nelson to take it—and you’ll phone me as soon as you hear anything, won’t you?”

She tried to stand, but all her strength seemed to desert her. Her shoulders sagged, and tears brimmed in her eyes. She wiped her nose heedlessly on the sleeve of her borrowed coat.

“God, Meg, I thought she was going to die on me. It felt like forever out there before the chopper came, and I couldn’t do anything for her. All I could do was keep her fucking head still and tell her she’d be okay.” She ran out of breath and gave a single sob. “And she’s going to die, isn’t she? So I
can
tell a fucking lie after all, can’t I?”

She tensed when Meg reached for her, but then she pressed her face against Meg’s neck and let herself be held. Meg rocked her gently, the aimless motion calming them both. It was less than a minute, however, before the sound of voices in the corridor made Sanne pull away. She took the tissue Meg offered her and blew her nose.

“What did the scan show?” she asked, using the same tissue to dry her eyes.

“Multiple skull fractures.” Meg stroked the back of Sanne’s head, surreptitiously checking for bumps. “And a clot from a bleed. Maxwell—the neurosurgeon you saw in the shock room—he’s going to try to remove it, but it was pretty big, San. Even if he’s successful, it may have caused irreversible damage.”

Sanne sat up properly, pulled her knees beneath her chin, and wrapped her right arm around them. She was staring at her muddy trainers when she spoke again.

“Was she raped?”

“I don’t know.” Meg saw Sanne’s confused glance. “There wasn’t time for a rape kit. We’ll need to get someone over from St. Margaret’s to do that. The nurse who catheterised her didn’t note any signs of trauma to her genitals, though—no bleeding or discharge. None of the typical injuries you’d see in a sexual assault, either. No bite marks or bruising to her thighs or breasts.”

“I don’t get it,” Sanne said. “Why else would someone have taken her? Personal grudge? Ransom?”

“I’m glad it’s not my job to figure that out. I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I want to know. It’s the only way we’re going to catch this bastard. If she escaped from him before he was done, chances are he’s already looking for another victim. Shit, I need to speak to Nelson.” Sanne stood too abruptly and swayed on the spot, her flush of anger vanishing, leaving her face pallid and clammy. “Whoa, what the fuck?” she muttered, grabbing the hand that Meg flung out to brace her.

“Sit your arse back down.” Meg pushed her into the chair. “Apart from half a piece of shortbread, what’ve you eaten today?”

“Does a smoothie count?”

“Sort of. What else have you had?”

“Some water. That tea.”

“And how far had you run before you embarked on your impromptu rock climb?”

“About eight miles.” She peeked up at Meg. “Who told you about the rock climb?”

“Nelson.” Meg didn’t try to disguise her exasperation. “You’re probably dehydrated, and even an idiot could see you’ve hurt your arm. So, drink the rest of your tea and get that coat off.”

Sanne shuffled in the chair like a scolded child. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Tea or coat?”

“Coat. I think it’s stuck.”

“The zip?”

“No, the sleeve.”

Meg touched Sanne’s forehead, checking for warmth. “You, my darling, are not making much sense. Did you bump your head?”

“No, but I sort of bumped my arm.”

“You
bumped
it?”

“On the rocks.” She had the grace to look guilty. “It was more of a flaying, really, if you’re being picky.”

“Ah.” Meg nodded in sympathy. Raw skin and dry fabric did not make for a happy marriage. “Come on, then. Let’s find a nice secluded cubicle and a bucket of warm water.”

Sanne stood up, with more caution this time. “Can’t refuse an offer like that, can I?”

*

“Ow,” Sanne said, with a certain amount of understatement. She had never been one for making a fuss, and she had a commendable pain threshold, but the warm water burned like acid on her wounds. She swallowed repeatedly, trying to breathe through her nose, and when those tactics failed she closed her eyes and thought of nothing. Nothing, just blackness and silence. It was an old childhood trick, honed in the hours she used to spend hiding beneath her bed. It buried the sound of yelling, or crying, or flesh pounding into flesh, or a fist pounding against her mum, and it still worked. By the time Meg’s hand cupped her cheek, the coat was gone, and Meg had positioned her arm on a dry sheet.

“You okay there?” Meg asked carefully, as if rousing someone from hypnosis.

“Yep, I’m fine.”

Meg tapped the mattress, and Sanne swung her legs onto the bed. The pillow beneath her head felt luxuriously soft. She eyed the tweezers laid out on a tray beside a collection of dressings, but was too weary to care about what came next.

“Do your worst.”

“Might sting a bit. Sure you don’t want anything stronger than paracetamol?”

“I’m sure. Codeine wipes me out.” Sanne spoke with more confidence than she felt. Half of the Dark Peak appeared to be embedded in her upper arm, and Meg was not renowned for her bedside manner.

“Probably because you don’t drink.” Meg dug into Sanne’s arm without further ado and snared her first piece of grit. “Ooh, that’s a big one.”

Her wholly inappropriate enthusiasm made Sanne smile, even through her clenched teeth.

“Feels like the worst skinned knee in the world.”

“Wait till I add antiseptic to it,” Meg said. “I’ll kiss it better, though, if that’ll help.”

Sanne’s toes curled as another chunk came free. “Wouldn’t that violate some sort of doctor-patient rule?”

Meg grinned. “I’ve kissed you in far naughtier places than your elbow, Detective.”

“Jesus, Meg!” Using her good arm to cover her burning face, Sanne silently thanked the old woman next door for choosing that moment to tell the entire department that she needed a wee. “You’ll get me sacked. You’ll get yourself sacked.”

“Probably.” Meg didn’t sound at all troubled by the notion. “Not for kissing you, you berk, but I do still have a tendency to swear at patients.”

“I thought you’d agreed to work on that.”

“Yeah. It’s hard, though, sometimes. Some wanker will sneak in under my defences, and out it comes.”

As Sanne lowered her arm, a smell of sweet copper hit her, and she noticed the woman’s blood still caked beneath her fingernails. “Lot of wankers out there,” she said quietly.

Meg hesitated, the tweezers poised in mid-grab. “Yes, there are.” She patted the back of Sanne’s hand and resumed her task. “Let’s get you patched up so you can go and catch this one, eh?”

When a uniformed officer met Sanne in the police HQ car park and handed her her car keys, she could almost have kissed him. There were spare clothes in the boot of her car, which meant she wouldn’t have to walk through HQ in the ill-fitting pair of scrubs Meg had found for her. Her running gear and the soggy coat were currently folded up in one of her evidence bags.

“Nelson asked me to pick your car up from the reservoir,” the officer said. “I’ve left it over in A3.”

“Appreciate that. Thanks very much.”

The keys were hot against her palm, the sun still beating down, reflecting off the four-storey building that housed the main administrative infrastructure of the East Derbyshire police force. EDSOP had been relocated there during a recent modernisation process. They were secreted away at the rear of the building, but their technology was top of the range, the main office had a pleasant view of fields, and the female locker room was a purpose-built facility instead of a toilet cubicle next to the urinals. The little kitchen annex even came with a geyser, negating the need to boil a kettle. Fred Aspinall, one of the older detectives on the team, had welcomed that innovation with a wonder more suited to the discovery of life on Mars.