The Veteran Read Free

knew who we were looking for exactly.” Mr. Patel was apologetic.
    “Not tonight, if you please. I am alone in the shop. I close at ten. But tomorrow my brother returns. He has been on holiday, you see. August. I could get away in the morning.” Burns thought. Court appearance at ten thirty. Formal remand. He would have to leave it to Skinner.
    “Eleven o’clock? You know the Dover Street station? Just ask for me at the front desk.”
    “Not often you meet that sort,” said Skinner as they crossed the road to their car.
    “I like him,” said Burns. “When we get those bastards, I think we might have a result.” On the drive back to Dover Street D I Burns discovered by radio where the injured man had been taken and which constable was watching over him. Five minutes later they were in contact.
    “I want everything he possessed—clothes, effects, the lot bagged and brought to the nick,” he told the young officer. “And an ID. We still don’t know who he is. When you’ve got it all, call up and we’ll send a replacement for you.”
    Mr. Carl Bateman was not concerned either for the name and address of the man on the trolley, or yet who had done these things to him. His concern was keeping him alive. From the docking bay, the trolley had come straight through to the resuscitation room where the A and E team went to work. Mr. Bateman was sure there were multiple injuries inflicted here, but the rules were clear: life-threatening first, the rest can wait.
    So he went through the ABCD procedure.
    A is for airway. The paramedic had done a good job. Airway was clear, despite a slight wheezing. The neck was immobilized.
    B is for breathing. The consultant had the jacket and shirt torn open, then went over the chest area both front and back with a stethoscope.
    He detected a couple of cracked ribs but they, like the mashed knuckles of the left hand and the broken teeth in the mouth, were not life-threatening and could wait. Despite the ribs, the patient was still breathing regularly. There is little point in performing spectacular orthopaedic surgery if the patient decides to stop breathing. The pulse worried him; it had left the normal eighty mark and climbed above a hundred. Too fast: a probable sign of inner trauma.
    C is for circulation. In less than a minute, Mr. Bateman had two intravenous catheters in place. One drained off twenty millilitres of blood for immediate analysis; then, while the rest of the examination proceeded, a litre of crystalloid fluid went into each arm.
    D is for disability. This was not good. The face and head were hardly recognizable as belonging to a human being and the Glasgow Scale showed the man was now six over fifteen and fading dangerously. There was serious cerebral damage here, and not for the first time Carl Bateman thanked the unknown paramedic who had spent a few extra minutes getting the man to the Royal and its neuro unit.
    He called up the scanner unit and told them he would have his patient there in five minutes. Then the consultant called his colleague Mr. Paul Willis, the senior neurosurgeon.
    “I think I must have a major intra-cranial haematoma here, Paul. Glasgow is now at five and still dropping.”
    “Get him in as soon as you have a scan for me,” said the neurosurgeon.
    When he was knocked down the man had been wearing socks and shoes, underpants, shirt—open at the neck, trousers held up by a belt, jacket and a light raincoat. Everything below the waist was not a problem and had simply been pulled down.
    To prevent jolting of the neck and head, the raincoat, jacket and shirt were just cut off. Then everything was bagged, pocket contents still in place, and given to the delighted constable waiting outside. He was soon replaced and able to take his trophies back to Dover Street and an expectant Jack Burns.
    The scanner confirmed Carl Bateman’s worst fears. The man was haemorrhaging into the brain cavity. The blood was pressing upon the brain itself with a force