Page 3 of Watching You

Dr Waterfall reappeared four hours later, her hair in a soft bob around her face, brown eyes shining warmly. He assumed she was a few years younger than him, albeit in rather better shape. Lively headed straight for the till to buy her a coffee. She sat gratefully as he handed it to her.

‘I’d ask if he made it but I’ve three decades of experience in reading faces,’ Lively said.

‘His chances weren’t good from the second he was brought in, but my motto is there’s always hope.

The surgical team fought to keep him alive, longer than we probably should’ve if I’m honest. I hate losing the fight.

My first thought was that I’d have to go and inform his family.

Took me a minute to realise I couldn’t and somehow that’s even worse.

’ She sipped her coffee, and Lively let her enjoy it in silence for a minute.

Beth Waterfall had a serene face that seemed at odds with the tenacity it took to do her job, with smile lines that radiated from the side of each eye like a child’s drawing of the sun, and a firm figure that reflected hours spent on her feet.

The difference between her s elf-care and his made his cheeks feel hot.

He reverted to work talk to cover his embarrassment.

‘What can you tell me about his injuries?’

‘I’m no pathologist, so please don’t rely on my expertise from a crime perspective,’ she said.

‘But from a medical point of view, there were three main puncture wounds, all about the same depth and the same width at the point of entry, plus some smaller ones that looked like attempts that got snagged on material, pockets et cetera. His clothing has been bagged and is being held for you to take. The doctor who first examined him said the weapon went through several layers, which might be what kept him alive for so long but it’s also what finally killed him.

A more shocking presentation might have come to someone’s notice sooner. ’

‘You sound pretty expert to me.’

‘I suspect a first-year medical student could have reached the same conclusion,’ Waterfall said.

Her voice was low-pitched and silken, and she smiled as she spoke.

Lively tried to look at his coffee cup instead of her mouth.

‘The wounds were probably bad enough to stop him from walking to get help, or even to have prevented him from calling out to passers-by depending on where he was, but they weren’t deep enough to cause an immediate bleed-out.

Instead he leaked blood internally over a period of hours. ’

Lively sighed. ‘Did you notice any other injuries, to his hands maybe?’

‘I didn’t look carefully, I’m afraid, but certainly none that needed surgical intervention.

He suffered one wound in a kidney and that was largely self-contained.

Another hit an omental vein beneath the fatty layer of the skin and that was our slow bleeder.

The problem for us in surgery was that the third wound perforated his bowel, causing peritonitis.

The infection alone made it unlikely he would survive.

I made sure my team handled his body as little as possible to preserve evidence for you, although obviously the area of the incisions had to be cleaned thoroughly as did needle entry points and his face, as that was exposed for the anaesthetist. If you can trace his next of kin, I’d like to talk to them myself.

It can be frustrating for family members not to have an opportunity to ask questions. ’

‘How long do you think it would have taken for him to bleed out?’ Lively asked.

Waterfall gave a slight shrug. ‘Hard to say. Several hours, but less than a whole day. In the end, cause of death was the massive haemorrhage that meant the patient suffered a cardiac arrest.’ Waterfall reached out a hand and laid it gently on top of Lively’s.

‘I hope you catch the person who did this. The homeless community accounts for far too many deaths. We could be doing much more to help.’

‘Aye, well, pay rises for politicians have to take priority,’ Lively murmured. ‘How else would they afford their summer holidays in the Maldives?’

‘I should go,’ Waterfall said, pulling her hand back slowly. ‘Thank you for the coffee, detective.’

Lively found he didn’t want her to go, which felt oddly like having a golf ball stuck in his throat. ‘Waterfall’s an unusual name. Where’s it from?’

‘My father was from Staffordshire. There’s a village there called Waterfall.

Goes back a way. My mother was from Portree.

They met on a trip to Paris as students.

They’d each entered a poetry competition and the trip was the prize for the winners.

Love at first sight, my father said. My mother claims she made him work a bit harder than that, but I believe his version. ’

Lively felt his cheeks burning again and he wondered if he might have caught some sort of virus since entering the hospital. He felt in his pocket for a card with his number on and handed h er a rather crumpled item of stationery. ‘In case you think of anything else,’ he said.

‘Do you have a pen?’ she asked. Lively handed her one and she wrote a number on a serviette. ‘Here, I’m guessing you’ll need to speak with me again to take a statement. That’d be our second date, of course, so I’ll be expecting flowers for that.’

‘I’m not sure I’m allowed to do that,’ Lively mumbled. ‘Police budgets don’t tend to stretch that far.’

‘That’s a shame,’ she grinned briefly and Lively instinctively sucked in his gut and tried to sit straighter. ‘Well, don’t be a stranger. Not under these circumstances again, though, preferably.’

Lively was still trying to figure out a response when she got to her feet and walked away.