Richardson didn’t converse with Mr Wilson on their drive to Bridgelands Cross. It was one of the things Richardson liked about Mr Wilson. If he didn’t feel like talking, Mr Wilson never forced him to talk. When he did feel like talking, he found Mr Wilson to be a good listener. Mr Wilson had once invited him to call him by his first name, though Richardson preferred to address him as Mr Wilson. He liked the sense of formality it implied.
Near the start of the journey, Mr Wilson had asked if Richardson wanted to listen to the radio. Richardson didn’t mind. Mr Wilson then switched the radio on, and it had played for the duration of their drive. The music and chatter passed Richardson by as he focussed on the rhythm of his breathing.
Slowly in.
Slowly out.
Inhale and release.
Inhale and release.
Richardson concentrated on his breathing exercises until the car came to rest in the medical centre car-park of a distant village. He’d never even heard of Bridgelands Cross before being invited to identify the body.
Mr Wilson put the handbrake on as the engine cooled. The car silent, he turned to face Richardson.
‘Are you sure you’re alright with this?’
Richardson nodded.
‘If you aren’t comfortable with it,’ Mr Wilson said, ‘you don’t have to do it.’
‘I’m fine.’
Richardson spoke quietly and avoided eye contact. Looking through the side window, he saw only one other car in the car-park. Judging by the frustration its owner was displaying, that car had broken down. Richardson watched as the man lashed out at the bodywork, leaving a sizeable dent in the side panel. Mr Wilson didn’t acknowledge the scene taking place before them, although Richardson knew he too could see it.
‘Are you ready?’ Mr Wilson asked.
‘I am,’ Richardson replied.
Both men got out of the car, with Richardson walking a few steps behind Mr Wilson as they approached the medical centre. Its main doors opened before they reached its entrance, ejecting a stout figure who moved towards them at speed.
‘Sure want to thank you gentlemen for coming all this way,’ the stout man said, his white moustache bristling slightly as he spoke. ‘Sergeant Max Sheehan.’
He extended his hand to Mr Wilson, then tipped his hat to Richardson, who was beyond his reach.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Sheehan continued, ‘I’m gonna have a word with this young buck-’
He motioned to the driver taking his exasperation out on his vehicle.
‘You two go right inside,’ he added. ‘PC Byers’ll look after you.’
Sheehan marched on to confront the temper-frayed driver, as Mr Wilson and Richardson covered the last stretch of tarmac. Meeting them at the door, PC Byers beckoned both men into an otherwise-empty reception. Though taller than Sheehan, Byers’s face displayed a boyish innocence destined to keep him forever playing second fiddle to his more cocksure superior.
Richardson watched Sheehan’s confrontation with the driver while Byers and Wilson exchanged introductions. Richardson had a feeling he knew who that driver was. He would only have been a teenager when Richardson last saw him, but the man outside was exactly how Richardson imagined the teenager he’d known might mature.
He was still trying to get a better look when he heard Mr Wilson talking to him. They could see the body now.
His concentration returning to his breathing exercises, Richardson followed Wilson and Byers through the institution’s corridors. While clinical, they still carried the faint air of neglect and appeared darker than the corridors of the city hospital he’d last attended.
Having ventured into the depths of the building, Byers stopped outside one of the doors and knocked. It was answered by a man whose grave countenance suggested he spent rather more time with the dead than with the living.
‘This is Dr Connors,’ Byers introduced.
Dr Connors nodded to both newcomers as they entered the room, then closed the door behind them. The room was almost bare apart from the trolley in the middle of the floor. Beneath its white sheet rested the body Richardson had been invited here to identify.
The pathologist asked Richardson to approach the gurney before addressing Byers.
‘Are we waiting for anyone?’
‘Max won’t be joining us,’ Byers replied.
The policeman moved over to Richardson and placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘Have you done this before?’ he asked.
Richardson shook his head.
‘Dr Connors is going to pull the sheet back,’ Byers said. ‘Then I’m going to ask you to look at the body and tell me if you recognise her. Now, you aren’t going to see any injuries on her, but if you recognise her it’s still going to come as a shock. That’s natural, and you don’t have to look any longer than you need. Just remember, I’m right here.’
He glanced over Richardson’s shoulder.
‘And Mr Wilson’s right here too.’
Leaning in closer, Byers lowered his voice.
‘If you’re sure you’re ready?’
Pursing his lips, Richardson nodded.
‘Okay Connors,’ Byers said.
The pathologist switched on a bulb above the table and dimmed the main lights. Then he peeled back the sheet obscuring the body.
Richardson looked down at the dead girl. It had been such a long time. Over fifteen years. In spite of those lost years, he still knew. His breathing exercises useless, he felt his panic rising.
He looked to Mr Wilson, who gestured to Byers. Mr Wilson led Richardson from the room, as Dr Connors replaced the sheet over the corpse.
‘Are you alright?’ Wilson asked.
Still shell-shocked, Richardson didn’t reply. The way she was lying, she could have been sleeping. Yet her sleep was eternal.
Byers joined them in the corridor. He shut the door behind him, closing off Connors’s laboratory of the afterlife.
‘I’m sorry you had to see that.’
‘It’s alright,’ Richardson whispered.
‘I have to ask you this,’ Byers continued, ‘but did you recognise her?’
Richardson stared straight ahead.
‘It wasn’t her.’
Byers noted something on his clipboard.
‘Not your daughter,’ he clarified. ‘And you’re absolutely sure of that?’
‘I am.’
‘If I could ask you to read this and sign at the bottom.’
Byers passed his clipboard to Richardson. Richardson signed where Byers indicated without reading the form.
‘I’m sorry to have asked you to come all this way,’ Byers said, ‘but I really appreciate you coming – we all do. Helps us in our investigation. Is there anything I can get you?’
‘Water,’ Richardson whispered. ‘A glass of cold water.’
Mr Wilson took Richardson back to the reception while Byers headed for the kitchen.
‘I hope that wasn’t too difficult for you.’
Lost in a world of his own, Richardson remained silent. Through the window he saw the car, broken-down and abandoned. Neither its driver nor Max Sheehan were anywhere to be seen. Their absence seemed to embarrass Byers when he returned. Muttering something about his superior taking the driver to the Forest View Lodge, he handed Richardson a glass of water.
The Forest View Lodge. That sounded like a nice place to stay. Richardson committed the name to memory but continued to stare at the deserted car. The pleasantries being exchanged between Mr Wilson and Byers faded into a blur of white noise as he thought about the driver who’d been venting his frustration on the car.
Richardson was convinced he’d seen him before. It may have been a long time, but Richardson was certain. The driver was called Ethan Cole. And Richardson needed to see him again.