Chapter Twenty-Four
Connor came up out of sleep all at once when his flat’s buzzer went off, the way he always had since he was old enough to understand what late phone calls meant in his family.
He sat on the edge of the bed, scrubbing one hand down his face, and the buzzer went again in two short presses.
He reached for the joggers he’d left over the back of the chair and pulled them on as he walked.
The intercom screen showed two coppers on the front step. A woman in a high-vis stab vest and a younger lad behind her. His heart, which had been ticking along nicely, kicked up a gear.
Patrick.
He pressed the buzzer to let them through the front door and then he was out of the flat in his bare feet.
He took the stairs two at a time. By the time he hit the ground floor landing the female officer had pushed the inner door open and was standing in the hall with her radio crackling against her shoulder.
“Mr Evans?”
“Yeah.”
“Sir, before I say anything else, I want you to know that everyone’s all right.” She had her hands up in front of her chest, palms out, the universal copper’s gesture for slow down. “I want that clear before we go any further.”
Connor came down the last three steps and stopped in front of her. He was breathing harder than the stairs warranted. “Right. Right. Go on.”
“I’m PC Alder. This is PC Hartley. Are you a friend of a Mr Vidal Montcada?”
He hadn’t been expecting that name out of a copper. “Yeah. Yes, he lives upstairs. Top floor. What’s happened?”
“Mr Montcada was involved in a road traffic collision this evening on Park Lane. He’s been taken to the Royal London Hospital.
He’s in a stable condition, sir, I want to stress that, but he’s sustained a fracture to the right arm that’s going to need surgical attention, and he’ll be admitted for several days while they sort him out. ”
Connor slumped against the wall beside him and took a breath in through his nose.
“Park Lane?”
“Yes, sir. We understand he left his flat on foot some time after midnight. He was crossing the road near Hyde Park Corner when he was struck by a vehicle. The driver stopped at the scene, called it in, and stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. He hasn’t done anything wrong, sir, before you ask.
He just stepped out onto the road without looking. The driver isn’t being charged.”
“Right.”
“Your name came up as an emergency contact, sir. Mr Montcada provided your details when he was brought in. We’re not here to interview you — we’re just here to let you know what’s happened, and to give you the chance to put a bag together for him if you’d like to.
Pyjamas, toothbrush, that kind of thing. He’ll be in for several days.”
“Yeah.” Connor cleared his throat. “Yeah, course. I’ll do that. Royal London, you said?”
“Royal London, Whitechapel. The ward sister’s name is Mrs Donovan. If you ring ahead she’ll tell you what visiting hours look like in the morning.”
“Thank you. Honestly, thank you both, I appreciate you coming round.”
“No trouble at all, sir.” PC Alder gave him a considered nod. “Get yourself a cup of tea before you do anything else. It’s a shock, this kind of news at this hour.”
“Yeah. I will. Thanks again.”
He saw them out, then he turned and started back up the stairs.
He knocked on Vidal’s door with the side of his fist. Three measured raps, not loud enough to wake the neighbours or give Beauchamp a heart attack, but it had enough behind it to carry through to the second bedroom.
There was a pause. Then the soft thud of footsteps crossing parquet.
Beauchamp opened the door in a grey T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, his hair on one side flattened against his skull. He’d gone from asleep to upright in under three seconds.
“Connor.”
“Mate. Coppers were at the door just now. Vidal’s gone out on his own for a wander and he’s been hit by a car on Park Lane. He’s at the Royal London. They’ve told me he’s stable. But he’s got a badly fractured arm, and they’re going to need to operate and keep him in there for a few days.”
The collapse of Beauchamp’s composure ran through his body before it ever reached his face, his weight shifting into his braced arm against the doorframe as his legs tried to give out under him.
“He’s all right, Beauchamp. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.
He just stepped out onto the road, and the driver stopped to look after him.
He called it in all proper and stayed with Vidal the whole time.
” Connor put his hand on Beauchamp’s shoulder, and gave him a firm, bracing squeeze through the cotton of his T-shirt.
“Mate. Listen to me. We’ve got work to do. You with me?”
Beauchamp blinked. His focus settled on Connor’s face by degrees. “Yes.”
“Right. Mercè can’t come to the hospital.
We need to sort her out. I’ll take her, I’ve got her a nice spot set up in my flat, so she’ll be fine downstairs.
You pack him a bag. Pyjamas, his good toothbrush, that bloody candle he loves, whatever you reckon he’ll want when he wakes up.
Then you ring his mum. He’ll want his mum. ”
“His mum. Yes.”
“And his dad in Geneva, but mum first.”
“Yes.”
“Get dressed, Beauchamp. Come on.”
Beauchamp stepped back from the doorframe. He gave a nod, and when he turned down the corridor, his stride had the brisk economy of a man who’d been handed a job.
? ? ?
Connor came through the doors of the Royal’s private wing with Beauchamp half a step ahead of him, a canvas holdall over his own shoulder. The Major had been gripping it all the way down the corridor like a rifle on parade, and Connor had quietly relieved him of it at the lift.
A nurse in soft-soled shoes pointed them down the corridor without breaking stride. Mrs Donovan, the ward sister, met them outside the door with a clipboard.
“He’s sleeping. The morphine’s keeping him comfy, and he won’t be properly with us until the morning. You can sit with him as long as you keep it quiet.”
“Cheers, love.”
Beauchamp went through the door first. The Major had been holding himself together all the way over from Mayfair, and it only held right up until the moment he saw Vidal in the bed. Then his hand came out, in a movement so unguarded Connor knew the man hadn’t decided to do it.
His fingers settled on Vidal’s good forearm in a slow stroke from elbow to wrist. Then he stepped away from the bed and started unpacking the holdall on the far side of the room.
Beauchamp set the candle on the bedside table.
That fucking poncey French thing in its glass jar with the fig label, which Vidal had banged on about for half an hour the first time he’d lit one in front of Connor.
Connor had taken the piss for a fortnight after, and then quietly bought one for his own flat, because the truth was the bloody thing did smell nice.
The man laid out the rest of Vidal’s things. A pair of pyjamas in pale blue silk, a toothbrush, a small leather wash bag with his initials stamped out in gold, a paperback Connor had thrown into the bag after finding it on Vidal’s bedside table.
Connor came round to Vidal’s bedside and looked down at Vidal knocked out cold. They had him with his right arm bound up in a sling against his chest. There was a gauze pad taped at his temple where his head had met the tarmac, and a graze on the bridge of his nose that someone had cleaned up.
Connor bent down and laid a kiss on the crown of his dark head, smoothing his hair back off his forehead with the flat of his palm.
He smelled of antiseptic and the faint chemical sweetness of whatever they’d put through the cannula.
Vidal didn’t stir at the feel of his touch.
Connor straightened up and turned to find Beauchamp standing at the foot of the bed. The man looked wrecked.
“Right.” Connor jerked his chin at the chair on his side of the bed. “Park yourself before you fall down. You look like you could use a shot of what they’ve given him.”
Beauchamp didn’t move.
“He’s a little troublemaker, this one.” Connor laid the back of his fingers against Vidal’s good cheek.
“Wandering about Mayfair in his pyjamas at one in the morning like a Victorian ghost. Beauchamp, you and me are going to have words with him when he wakes up, do you hear me? I’ll get him the fifty quid olive oil instead of that liquid gold shit he dips everything in. ”
Connor combed his fingers slowly through the dark hair fanned across the pillow.
It really was the silkiest stuff he’d ever touched on a man.
“Tell you what, Beauchamp. Why don’t we give him a buzzcut while he’s out?
He’s so bloody vain about this hair. Imagine his face in the morning when he finds it gone. ”
Beauchamp’s mouth worked. For a second Connor thought he had him, but the first thing Beauchamp had said since they’d walked through the door to Vidal’s room was “This is my fault.”
Connor let out a breath through his nose. “Right. So you told him to lace up his boots, did you, and pop out for a refreshing midnight stroll along Park Lane? Pointed him at the traffic and gave him a friendly shove?”
Beauchamp’s eyes remained fixed on the wall, his expression impassive.
“Come on, Beauchamp. Vidal’s hardly the most biddable little fucker on the planet.
The bloke once argued with me for two solid hours because I had Marmite on my toast. He took it as a personal affront, mate.
Like I’d spread it on him. You couldn’t have made him stay in the flat with handcuffs and a length of chain.
So whatever you’re telling yourself standing there, you can pack it in. ”