Imposture (DI Gardener 6)

“We’re not sure what you mean, Mr Briggs,” replied Reilly.

“Which means you have.”

Gardener took Briggs through everything they had found to date, emphasising that Michael Foreman was connected to the night of the hit and run and the death of David and Ann Marie Hunter.

Briggs glanced at the report again. Reading through it he quoted from a couple of paragraphs before lifting his head to meet Gardener’s eyes.

“What kind of shape was Michael Foreman in?”

“He’d seen better days,” said Reilly.

“From what we saw,” said Gardener, “he was suffering. He had blistering red skin and there was a lot of swelling to his body.”

“Had he been beaten up?”

“Didn’t look that way to me. His tongue was swollen, so Fitz reckoned he would have had serious respiratory problems,

nose and sinus pain.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“No, all he managed was a scream. Fitz seemed to think that they would almost certainly find fluid in his lungs. There was no sign of diarrhoea or vomiting, though he would have had abdominal pain.”

“What were his movements like when you saw him?”

“Erratic,” replied Gardener. “His walking wasn’t coordinated. When he was on the ground his body was trembling.”

Briggs placed the report on his desk. “You know what’s coming now, don’t you? I have to ask this as a matter of form, did you at any point think to call it a Hazchem scene? Because it seems obvious to me that this man has been given something, and the first thing that springs to mind is a nerve agent. You realise how serious that could be?”

“I do, sir, but in my considered opinion it wasn’t a Hazchem scene. In Fitz’s opinion he’d been injected with something and despite the symptoms it wasn’t considered to be contagious.”

“Has Fitz confirmed that?”

“Not yet.”

“So it still could be,” said Briggs, sighing. He turned to Reilly. “What’s your opinion?”

“I’m with the boss on this one.”

“Christ,” sighed Briggs, “you two are like glue. I’m not asking if you’re siding with him. I’m not stupid enough to think you’d do any different. What I’m asking is, what’s your opinion on what he was given; you’ve probably had more experience than anyone in this field.”

“Judging by everything I saw, the staggering, the breathing problems, the obvious pain, it could have been any number of things but I don’t think anyone has anything to worry about. Besides which, we’ve heard nothing else.”

Gardener realised Reilly was also being economical with his summary because he hadn’t seen any of those things. His partner had arrived on the scene after Michael Foreman had died.

Gardener intervened. “If I’d thought that it was a Hazchem scene I’d have called it.”

“Okay,” said Briggs, signing off the policy report, “there’s no point labouring over it. I accept your decision. You seem to have it all in hand and you’ve got your team chasing up leads, but for God’s sake, keep me posted.” The senior ranking officer glanced up again and met Gardener’s eyes. “If anything develops from this it won’t just be your badge, we’ll all be signing on.”

“In all fairness,” said Gardener, “if anything was going to develop it would have done by now. We’d have had half the population of Leeds filling every hospital corridor, and it would be all over the TV.”

“Fair point,” said Briggs. “I did see something on the news last night but they were very vague.”

“That’s down to me,” said Gardener. “I made sure the press couldn’t see too much of the scene on Bond Street. You know what they’re like.”

Reilly took over. “If we’d let them lot see what was going on they’d have started an epidemic on their own. The marquee was up in record time, and the boss man here said very little at the press conference.”

Briggs’ expression was priceless, as his bottom jaw nearly hit the desk. “You held a press conference?”