Lewis fic: Love Knows Not Its Own Depth 2/5?
Story: Love Knows Not Its Own Depth
Author: wendymr
Characters: DI Robbie Lewis, DS James Hathaway, DCS Jean Innocent, Dr Laura Hobson, other canon and OC police officers etc
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Up to end of S5 (The Gift of Promise). No S6 spoilers
Summary: Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation (Kahlil Gibran)
With thanks to lindenharp for beta-reading. Warning: Work in progress, for those who prefer to wait until a story is finished.
Chapter 1: Missing Person
Chapter 2: Next of Kin
As his fingertips press against James’s face, Robbie jerks in shock, then turns his head to shout back at the officers waiting behind him.
“He’s still warm!”
“Sir, it’s been sunny all morning,” one of the constables calls.
“He’s been lying in the shade, you fool!” Robbie digs in his pocket, finding his keys. He rubs the largest one, his car-key, clean on his jacket, then holds it to James’s lips. After close to a minute, he takes it away, heart in his mouth.
It’s steamed up.
“Call an ambulance!” he yells immediately. “He’s still alive, you bloody useless idiots!”
James is still breathing. Just barely, but that’s enough. He’s not dead. But because those incompetent fools reported him dead and only called for SOCO and the pathologist, he could have fucking died while they all stood around like morons.
He checks Hathaway’s airway for obstructions. Nothing immediately obvious, so he gently moves him, just a little, into the recovery position so he might be able to breathe more easily. Laura - or the paramedics - will no doubt disapprove loudly of that too, arguing that James could have a neck or back injury, but surely helping him to get oxygen into his lungs is more important?
He’s alive. Robbie closes his eyes briefly, thanking a deity he’s not even sure James believes in any more, let alone himself, and lets the fear and dread flow out of him. Most of it, anyway. James might be alive, but he’s clearly not hale and hearty.
Heavy footsteps come up behind him after a moment. “They say they looked for a pulse and found none, sir,” Hooper says quietly.
Robbie smothers the words that spring to mind about stupid fucking useless pieces of lard who don’t deserve the uniforms they’re wearing. Instead, he gestures around. “This wasn’t an accident, either. He was attacked and left for dead.”
Hooper nods. “Looks like it, sir. He didn’t get those injuries from falling.”
There are sounds of activity behind him, but Robbie ignores it, keeping his finger on James’s pulse-point. He’s still breathing, but very faintly.
“Robbie!” It’s Laura, at last, in full scene-suit and carrying her case. He looks around, but before he can say anything she continues, her expression anguished. “They told me it’s James. I’m so very-”
“He’s alive, Laura!” he shouts. “Only just, but-”
She’s crouching next to him in an instant, her initial shock giving way to complete professionalism as she pushes him aside and makes a brief, practised examination. “Right. I’m not surprised the lads who found him thought he was dead, though. You’d need to be pretty experienced to feel a pulse that faint. I can’t do much for him here, though - and anyway, I haven’t had much recent practice with the living.”
“Ambulance is on its way, Doctor,” Hooper says.
Lewis drops to his knees again next to James as Laura raises his head slightly and pushes a folded sterile sheet underneath. “What the hell happened to you, lad?” he murmurs softly, as much for his own comfort as from the belief that if James is alive then he might be subconsciously aware that he’s not alone. “Have you in hospital soon. You’re gonna be fine.”
And if he tells James that often enough, he might even start to believe it himself.
***
While the paramedics do their work, Lewis keeps himself busy by giving Hooper instructions about the scene and the forensic work he wants. “I want that CCTV search focused on all possible routes in this direction. And get me the call records on Hathaway’s phones for the last two days - work, mobile, home. House-to-house search and questioning around here, see if anyone saw or heard anything. You know the drill.”
“Yes, sir.” Hooper turns to talk to the uniforms. Robbie stands, hands in his pockets, staring at the stretcher as Hathaway’s loaded into the ambulance.
Laura touches his arm. “Go with him. Go on.”
“I’ve got a job to do!”
Her hand lingers, her expression gentle. “You’ll be good for nothing else until you know he’s going to be all right.”
Hooper’s next to him again. “Plenty of us to take care of things, sir. An’ you know the whole team’ll want to help. Probably the whole station. He’s one of us.”
They’re right. As much as he wants to find the bastards who did this to James, he needs to be sure the lad’s going to be all right - needs to know the worst, too, so he can stop fearing it.
Hooper holds out his hand. “Give me your keys, sir.” Robbie nods and hands them over.
In the ambulance, Robbie stays out of the way of the paramedic who’s looking after James, keeping the head injury protected, monitoring his vital signs and getting fluids started. It’s not just the obvious common sense and professional courtesy. It’s also that, though he’s never in his life experienced any squeamishness around corpses and the severely injured - unlike Morse - it feels different when it’s someone he knows well. Someone he cares about.
And he’s suddenly finding that he doesn’t trust himself not to betray how much he cares.
What he wants to do is to reach over and examine James himself: to catalogue every bruise, every broken bone and blunt-force trauma, adding them all up as a supplement to the long list of charges he’s accumulating against the bastards who did this. There has to be more than one; there’s no way, unless he was incapacitated or drugged, that anyone could have done this to James without his putting up a bloody good fight in return, and most likely winning.
What he really wants to do is to hold James’s hand, or press a hand to his shoulder; to some uninjured part of him so that his sergeant - no, friend - will know that he’s not alone. And so that he - Robbie - can be reassured that the faint pulse he felt is still beating, is getting stronger.
He’s nothing more than a spare part as they arrive at the John Radcliffe’s A&E, feeling in the way as the paramedics unload the stretcher and rush inside. It actually takes him a second or two to remember to flash his warrant card at the charge nurse who’s about to treat him as a family member and direct him to Reception. He still has to deal with paperwork, getting James identified and registered, but at least his status gets him back into the treatment area to speak to someone afterwards.
James is in a treatment room by this point, and although he peers through the small window all he can see is a shrouded form on an operating table, only a fragment of James’s blond hair visible past the gowned medical staff and alarming array of equipment and machinery surrounding him.
Looks like it’s going to be a long wait.
***
Robbie’s outside A&E an hour or so later with his phone in his hand when it rings. Innocent. “I was just about to call you, Ma’am,” he says, not bothering with a greeting. It actually has the merit of being true.
“That’s what you always say, yet somehow I end up having to call you,” she answers dryly. “Robbie, how’s James? And why did I have to hear about this development from DC Hooper?”
“Couldn’t use a phone in the ambulance, Ma’am, or inside the hospital. James is... well, they’re still doing tests. There’s a head injury, and they’ll need a CT scan to see how bad it is. Besides that, they think a couple of broken ribs, broken wrist, probably some internal injuries, dehydration, and then whatever the blood tests show.” He pauses before outlining the worst of it. “He was barely breathing when I realised he was alive. They’re not sure whether his brain’s had enough oxygen, and they’ve lined up some other tests, but they won’t be able to tell the extent of any damage until he’s conscious.”
Cerebral hypoxia, they called it. Insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain, usually as a result of strangulation or choking, or smoke or carbon monoxide inhalation. James was strangled. It didn’t kill him, but his body - his brain - was starved of oxygen. On top of the CT scan, the doctor’s also requested an MRI and a couple of other three-letter-acronym tests. Ultimately, though, they need James conscious to be able to test his reactions and awareness fully.
“But he’ll be all right?” The anxiety in Innocent’s voice makes Robbie rush to answer.
“Depends. If the oxygen-deprivation’s not a problem, he’ll be fine in time. He’d be in hospital at least a few days, could be a week or two depending on what the tests find, and then off work for a week or more after that, at best.”
“And if there is brain damage?”
Robbie slumps back against the wall, his body abruptly weary. “We don’t know. Depends on how bad... Well.”
It’s unthinkable. Unbearable. James - clever, smartarse James - brain-damaged? His sharp mind and quick intellect impacted, perhaps gone forever? The very idea almost makes him want to weep. And who’d take care of the lad if it came to that, if the damage were bad enough that he was incapable of independent living?
Please, god, no. For him to survive being brutally attacked - for Robbie to find him miraculously alive, instead of dead as he’d feared - only to end up helpless, a shadow of his former self, would be so terribly cruel.
Even mild damage, the doctor explained, could leave James vulnerable to occasional involuntary movements or even seizures - conditions that would mean he’d have to transfer to a desk job or leave the police. No more detective work.
He exhales loudly, forcing the images from his mind. After all, the important thing is that James is alive. He so very nearly wasn’t. The doctor underlined that, based on his initial examination and Robbie’s description of where James was found and how long they suspected he may have been there. Much longer out there, barely breathing, and he would have died. No doubt about it.
“No point borrowin’ trouble, Ma’am. It’ll be hours before he’s conscious - maybe not until tomorrow if they have to keep him under because of the head injury.”
“Right.” He can hear Innocent drumming her fingers on her desk. “So we’ll just have to hope for the best.”
He swallows. “Yeah. I need you to order a round-the-clock police guard here. These bastards intended to kill him, and if they find out he’s alive they’ll be back for another go.”
He can hear Innocent tapping at her computer. “Makes sense. I’ll have the first shift with you in ten minutes. You’ll liaise with hospital security?”
“Already talked to them. I’ll be heading back to the station soon as I’ve briefed the uniforms and I can get a squad car to pick me up.” If he stays here, all he can do is wait and worry and pace. If he goes back, he can get on with finding out who the hell left his sergeant for dead, and throwing them in the cells where they belong. Something useful, in other words.
“But first there’s one more question I need to ask - James has never talked about his family and I’ve got the impression that either there’s none alive or they’re estranged. Who’s his emergency contact in employee records?”
He can hear the frown in Innocent’s voice as she answers. “There’s no-one on his NHS record?”
“No family, no.” There is a name on James’s NHS in case of emergencies record now: Detective Inspector Robert Lewis. He had no idea James had listed him - the lad never said a word. He’s not complaining - it means he’ll be kept informed about James’s condition without needing to throw the weight of his warrant card around. But it’s worrying. Saddening. Surely James has someone out there he belongs to? Someone who’ll care that he almost died?
Can it really be that he is the most important person in his sergeant’s life?
Robbie’s still torn between feeling touched that James chose him and distressed that James doesn’t have anyone at all in his life who matters to him, so much so that the only person he could name as an emergency contact is his boss. No close friends. No lovers, or ex-lovers he’s still in contact with. Just his governor.
No, that’s not fair. He isn’t just James’s governor, is he? Not after all this time and everything they’ve been through together. They’re in and out of each other’s flats all the time - James has an open invitation to have breakfast at his if he’s picking Robbie up, and the spare duvet and pillows now live permanently in the hall cupboard for nights when a couple of beers turn into too many for James to drive legally - or when he just doesn’t feel like going home.
They’re much more than colleagues, and it’s long past time he acknowledged that. Shame on him that it took James almost dying, and then discovering his name on James’s file, to realise it.
“Just a minute, Robbie. I’m looking.” He waits. It’s only a few seconds before Innocent speaks again. “The field’s blank. I have no idea why no-one questioned that - it’s regulations that every officer has to provide an emergency contact or next-of-kin.”
“Yeah, I know.” Damn it, why did he never ask James? All the lad ever said about his parents - well, his father; he never mentioned his mother - is that his dad was the estate manager at Crevecoeur and that they left the estate when he was twelve. Where did they go after that? How come he went from the child of an estate worker to a pupil at a posh public school, and then a Cambridge undergraduate? Where the hell are his parents, if they’re even alive?
“Well, we’ll need to trace his family,” Innocent adds crisply. “I’ll get someone onto it. If the electoral roll doesn’t yield anything, there are other methods. Do you know anything at all about his parents? First names, former addresses, approximate age?”
“Other than the fact that they lived at Crevecoeur until James was twelve, no. Thing is, though,” he adds awkwardly, “I’m not sure James would want us doing that.”
“We don’t have a choice, Robbie.” Her tone’s brisk. “He’s seriously injured, perhaps critical. Next of kin has to be informed.”
“Em... well, that’s the thing, Ma’am.” Awkwardly, he explains. “He’s listed me as his emergency contact on his NHS record. Seems to say he doesn’t want anyone else involved, and we have to respect that.”
“You say that, Robbie,” Innocent continues, now impatient. “But do you want to have to deal with angry relatives if all doesn’t go well? Do you want to be the one to have to explain why no-one got in touch with them? Imagine if it was your son who’d almost been killed and who could be left damaged for life.”
If it were his Mark... of course he’d want to know. But for all that Mark doesn’t stay in touch more than a phone call once or twice a year, they’re not estranged. He’d bet he’s not been removed from Mark’s emergency contacts.
But ultimately it’s Innocent’s call, as far as the police is concerned. He’s not James’s emergency contact in work records. “Whatever you say, Ma’am.” He ends the call and heads back inside for one more check on James before returning to the station.
***
The medical staff are still running tests on James and they’ve said it’ll be several hours before there’s anything new - and at least that before Robbie will be allowed anywhere near him. So he might as well go back to the station for now. They’ll phone him if there’s any news, or if he’s needed.
The incident room’s a hive of activity as he walks back in: two whiteboards covered in information and photographs, people on telephones or studying computer screens, and others poring over printouts. Hooper’s in the middle of the room, apparently giving instructions to some other DCs. Scanning the room, Robbie’s gaze falls on a desk near his and James’s office. DI Grainger.
“Nick?” He strides over, frowning. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Chief Super pulled me off my current investigation. It’s nothing that important anyway,” Grainger adds with a shrug. “Insurance fraud. I’ve left my bagman digging through the paperwork. I’m here to help in any way you need.”
Help? Or take over? Grainger’s obviously figured out what’s on his mind, because he immediately shakes his head. “Help, Robbie. Hathaway’s your sergeant. I know if it was Ngoti I’d be bloody determined to catch the bastards myself too. Innocent wasn’t sure when you’d be back, so she asked me to hold the fort until you got here, and then see what you want me to do.”
“Sorry.” He drags a chair over and drops into it. “Thought she’d probably decided I was too close to it.”
Nick meets his gaze. “Honest reaction? You probably are. Know I would be. But that still doesn’t mean you’re not the best person to lead the investigation. No-one around here knows Hathaway better than you do, and probably no-one’s got as much motivation to find the bastards who did this to him.” Nick pats his shoulder. “Now, stop us all wondering and tell us how Hathaway is.”
So he does, and then gets an update on progress. Not much so far; nothing yet on the CCTV, though officers are continuing to search. No sign of any disturbance or attempt to break into James’s flat or his car. James’s phone records have revealed something that could be a lead - a call on his work mobile from an as-yet-untraced mobile number. One of the DCs is liaising with the provider to identify the caller, but it’s one of the smaller providers and actually getting hold of someone who can give her the information is proving difficult.
SOCO’s still finishing up at the site, and so far have reported at least two unidentified footprints, but getting a cast won’t be easy - it’s been dry for several days, and one of the footprints is partially obscured by a paramedic’s bootprint. No fibres or other potential forensic evidence found yet, but there’s still a chance, the SOCO lead is saying.
Laura’s expert opinion, voiced while they were waiting for the paramedics, is that the worst of the assault on James took place where he was found. The amount of blood under his head was consistent, she said, with his having been hit and falling down there, on the spot. As for the bruising around his neck, he wouldn’t have been able to walk far given how much his windpipe had been constricted. Robbie’d speculated that he could have been carried there after the near-strangulation, but Laura had countered that in her estimation the blow to James’s head had been delivered when he was standing, not lying.
So James had gone with his captors to Binsey, had gone into the woods with them - or been chased by them, given the damage to vegetation - and then... what? There are defensive wounds to his hands, as well as the broken wrist, so he had tried to fight his attackers.
And what was wrapped around his neck? The bruising isn’t consistent with a hand, and certainly not with a wire or rope. Laura’s liaising with the medical team at the hospital to get photographs the forensic team can work with, and also to check for any fibres or other materials that could be caught in the skin or in James’s clothing. If there’s evidence there, it’ll be found.
***
“We’re gonna get who did this to you.”
It’s much later, almost nine o’clock at night, and Robbie only left the station half an hour ago. He’d have been back at the hospital sooner - has been phoning at least hourly - but the only news was that tests were still ongoing, or later that James was in surgery to set his broken wrist. It’s only in the last couple of hours that he’s been moved to this private room, standard practice for police officers injured in the line of duty, and the doctor he’s been liaising with at least some of the time said that visitors would only be allowed once all the monitors, feeding tubes and so on were in place.
So, for a second time, he’s sitting beside an unconscious James Hathaway, only this time the damage is much more than smoke inhalation, involuntary drugging and a cut cheek. There’s a monitor measuring brainwaves, and another monitoring his breathing. Wires everywhere: a feeding tube, a glucose drip and a tube with something else - Robbie can’t remember what. Drugs of some sort. The back of James’s head is bandaged, his throat’s still bruised and raw, his face is half the colours of the rainbow, and his left wrist’s in a cast.
But he’s alive and breathing on his own. That’s got to count for something.
“Course, it’d help if you could wake up an’ tell me how the hell you got out to Binsey last night. More importantly, who took you there.”
No chance of James waking up for now, though. Unlikely for a couple of days, he’s now been told. His body needs the rest to recover from the lack of oxygen and blow to the head, and so the cocktail of drugs that’s being fed to him through the tube is helping to keep him comatose.
Makes things easier, in a way. Robbie’s not completely sure that he’s ready to talk to a conscious James yet. Too much his brain’s still sorting through, including just how devastated he was when Hooper came to say James’s body had been found - and realising that, whatever it is he does actually feel for James Hathaway, James seems to have been way ahead of him in feeling it back.
It’d felt like losing Morse all over again. No, worse. Not quite as bad as losing Val - nothing could ever be that bad - but closer to that than Morse. Nick Grainger’d said he understood, that he’d feel the same if it was his bagman here in this bed, but Robbie knows it’s not the same. Grainger and Joe Ngoti get on well, he’s seen that for himself, but it’s more of a strong professional working relationship, with loyalty and liking on both sides. Fellow coppers who respect each other.
Him and James, they’re... he’s thinking mates, but it’s more than that. Who does he spend more time with than James? Who does he gravitate to when he needs company, wants a chat, or just doesn’t feel like eating alone? There’ve been times when it’s felt like James almost lives at his flat: turning up in time to have breakfast, following him home - when the lad’s not working late - to share a takeaway and a couple of beers, and either going home at bedtime or falling asleep on the sofa.
“Long past time I just got a flat with a second bedroom, isn’t it? You’re too tall to sleep on that sofa. You should’ve said something, man.”
Robbie shakes his head. Yeah, just as well James is unconscious. He’d never have said that to him otherwise.
Talking to him’s good, though. That’s what the doctor said. So much of the workings of the human brain are still a mystery to the experts. A familiar voice can work wonders at times like these.
“Still amazes me sometimes, y’know.” Robbie shakes his head. “You askin’ to work with me. Never could work out just what it was. Almost never happened at all, too. If you’d not been sent to meet me at Heathrow. If I’d not made you take me to Val’s grave. If you’d not got that callout while we were still there. If that idiot Chas Knox hadn’t had a few too many. If Grainger hadn’t been in court... any one thing different an’ we’d not have met at all, or just been fleeting acquaintances. Innocent would’ve had me pensioned off or put out to grass and that would’ve been that.”
His eyes drifting shut, he can almost see James’s slightly mocking expression in response. God moves in mysterious ways and all that mumbo-jumbo, sir.
Yeah, yeah.
“Thought you were an annoying god-botherer, I did. Even told someone that - that sleep clinic director. Remember her? Couldn’t make head or tail of you: what the bloody hell was an almost-priest doing working as a copper? But then I only saw what you wanted people to see. Upper-class, over-educated public schoolboy.” Lewis snorts lightly. “Hope you never turn to crime, lad. You’re a bloody tough nut to crack. Thought I’d managed it, but you keep surprisin’ me. Like this latest thing. Me, your emergency contact?”
He shifts position; these damn plastic chairs aren’t the most comfortable. Probably hospital policy, designed not to encourage visitors to overstay their welcome. Maybe if he leans forward... “Might’ve told me,” he continues, and lays his hand on top of the sheet, close to where James’s lies, with the drip set into the back of his right hand. “Wouldn’t’ve come as such a surprise then. What, did you think I’d have a problem with it? Should know me better after all this time, man.”
Robbie stares down at his hand, the index finger inches away from James’s.
Touch is important as well, the doctor told him.
Tentatively, he shifts his hand: a little, a little more, until his finger is brushing against James’s. Then, as if the initial contact has broken down an invisible barrier, he slides his hand under James’s fingers and grips - lightly, but securely.
“Dunno what I would’ve been these past years without you. Was only the job that was keepin’ me going, an’ sometimes even that didn’t help. People around treating me with kid gloves, as if they expected me to fall apart in front of them. Never realised at the time how much of what kept me sane was working with you. An’ that’s not countin’ you finding Val’s killer.” Robbie’s fingers clench around James’s for a moment. “Never even thanked you properly for that, did I? And all those times you stepped in when idiots we didn’t even know put their foot in it with me, getting too personal.”
He’ll never be fully over losing Val, not if he lives another twenty or thirty years. But she’s a fond memory now, not an aching, jagged gap in his heart - and, while time and Lyn and Laura and other things have contributed to him getting to where he is now, he couldn’t have got here without James’s solid, stalwart presence.
And yet in recent months it’s starting to feel as if James is the lonely one out of the two of them, the one consumed by some unexplained sadness or loss. He’s seen it - but he’s done nothing about it. Been missing his cue, hasn’t he? About time he was as good a friend to James as James was for him.
“Just wake up, lad. Wake up and be the James Hathaway we all know and moan about, and I’ll take you for a pint so we can get to the bottom of what’s been botherin’ you. All right?”
But the still form of his sergeant in the bed doesn’t move, doesn’t respond. Robbie lapses into silence, but doesn’t let go of James’s hand.
***
tbc in chapter 3
Author: wendymr
Characters: DI Robbie Lewis, DS James Hathaway, DCS Jean Innocent, Dr Laura Hobson, other canon and OC police officers etc
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Up to end of S5 (The Gift of Promise). No S6 spoilers
Summary: Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation (Kahlil Gibran)
With thanks to lindenharp for beta-reading. Warning: Work in progress, for those who prefer to wait until a story is finished.
Chapter 1: Missing Person
Chapter 2: Next of Kin
As his fingertips press against James’s face, Robbie jerks in shock, then turns his head to shout back at the officers waiting behind him.
“He’s still warm!”
“Sir, it’s been sunny all morning,” one of the constables calls.
“He’s been lying in the shade, you fool!” Robbie digs in his pocket, finding his keys. He rubs the largest one, his car-key, clean on his jacket, then holds it to James’s lips. After close to a minute, he takes it away, heart in his mouth.
It’s steamed up.
“Call an ambulance!” he yells immediately. “He’s still alive, you bloody useless idiots!”
James is still breathing. Just barely, but that’s enough. He’s not dead. But because those incompetent fools reported him dead and only called for SOCO and the pathologist, he could have fucking died while they all stood around like morons.
He checks Hathaway’s airway for obstructions. Nothing immediately obvious, so he gently moves him, just a little, into the recovery position so he might be able to breathe more easily. Laura - or the paramedics - will no doubt disapprove loudly of that too, arguing that James could have a neck or back injury, but surely helping him to get oxygen into his lungs is more important?
He’s alive. Robbie closes his eyes briefly, thanking a deity he’s not even sure James believes in any more, let alone himself, and lets the fear and dread flow out of him. Most of it, anyway. James might be alive, but he’s clearly not hale and hearty.
Heavy footsteps come up behind him after a moment. “They say they looked for a pulse and found none, sir,” Hooper says quietly.
Robbie smothers the words that spring to mind about stupid fucking useless pieces of lard who don’t deserve the uniforms they’re wearing. Instead, he gestures around. “This wasn’t an accident, either. He was attacked and left for dead.”
Hooper nods. “Looks like it, sir. He didn’t get those injuries from falling.”
There are sounds of activity behind him, but Robbie ignores it, keeping his finger on James’s pulse-point. He’s still breathing, but very faintly.
“Robbie!” It’s Laura, at last, in full scene-suit and carrying her case. He looks around, but before he can say anything she continues, her expression anguished. “They told me it’s James. I’m so very-”
“He’s alive, Laura!” he shouts. “Only just, but-”
She’s crouching next to him in an instant, her initial shock giving way to complete professionalism as she pushes him aside and makes a brief, practised examination. “Right. I’m not surprised the lads who found him thought he was dead, though. You’d need to be pretty experienced to feel a pulse that faint. I can’t do much for him here, though - and anyway, I haven’t had much recent practice with the living.”
“Ambulance is on its way, Doctor,” Hooper says.
Lewis drops to his knees again next to James as Laura raises his head slightly and pushes a folded sterile sheet underneath. “What the hell happened to you, lad?” he murmurs softly, as much for his own comfort as from the belief that if James is alive then he might be subconsciously aware that he’s not alone. “Have you in hospital soon. You’re gonna be fine.”
And if he tells James that often enough, he might even start to believe it himself.
***
While the paramedics do their work, Lewis keeps himself busy by giving Hooper instructions about the scene and the forensic work he wants. “I want that CCTV search focused on all possible routes in this direction. And get me the call records on Hathaway’s phones for the last two days - work, mobile, home. House-to-house search and questioning around here, see if anyone saw or heard anything. You know the drill.”
“Yes, sir.” Hooper turns to talk to the uniforms. Robbie stands, hands in his pockets, staring at the stretcher as Hathaway’s loaded into the ambulance.
Laura touches his arm. “Go with him. Go on.”
“I’ve got a job to do!”
Her hand lingers, her expression gentle. “You’ll be good for nothing else until you know he’s going to be all right.”
Hooper’s next to him again. “Plenty of us to take care of things, sir. An’ you know the whole team’ll want to help. Probably the whole station. He’s one of us.”
They’re right. As much as he wants to find the bastards who did this to James, he needs to be sure the lad’s going to be all right - needs to know the worst, too, so he can stop fearing it.
Hooper holds out his hand. “Give me your keys, sir.” Robbie nods and hands them over.
In the ambulance, Robbie stays out of the way of the paramedic who’s looking after James, keeping the head injury protected, monitoring his vital signs and getting fluids started. It’s not just the obvious common sense and professional courtesy. It’s also that, though he’s never in his life experienced any squeamishness around corpses and the severely injured - unlike Morse - it feels different when it’s someone he knows well. Someone he cares about.
And he’s suddenly finding that he doesn’t trust himself not to betray how much he cares.
What he wants to do is to reach over and examine James himself: to catalogue every bruise, every broken bone and blunt-force trauma, adding them all up as a supplement to the long list of charges he’s accumulating against the bastards who did this. There has to be more than one; there’s no way, unless he was incapacitated or drugged, that anyone could have done this to James without his putting up a bloody good fight in return, and most likely winning.
What he really wants to do is to hold James’s hand, or press a hand to his shoulder; to some uninjured part of him so that his sergeant - no, friend - will know that he’s not alone. And so that he - Robbie - can be reassured that the faint pulse he felt is still beating, is getting stronger.
He’s nothing more than a spare part as they arrive at the John Radcliffe’s A&E, feeling in the way as the paramedics unload the stretcher and rush inside. It actually takes him a second or two to remember to flash his warrant card at the charge nurse who’s about to treat him as a family member and direct him to Reception. He still has to deal with paperwork, getting James identified and registered, but at least his status gets him back into the treatment area to speak to someone afterwards.
James is in a treatment room by this point, and although he peers through the small window all he can see is a shrouded form on an operating table, only a fragment of James’s blond hair visible past the gowned medical staff and alarming array of equipment and machinery surrounding him.
Looks like it’s going to be a long wait.
***
Robbie’s outside A&E an hour or so later with his phone in his hand when it rings. Innocent. “I was just about to call you, Ma’am,” he says, not bothering with a greeting. It actually has the merit of being true.
“That’s what you always say, yet somehow I end up having to call you,” she answers dryly. “Robbie, how’s James? And why did I have to hear about this development from DC Hooper?”
“Couldn’t use a phone in the ambulance, Ma’am, or inside the hospital. James is... well, they’re still doing tests. There’s a head injury, and they’ll need a CT scan to see how bad it is. Besides that, they think a couple of broken ribs, broken wrist, probably some internal injuries, dehydration, and then whatever the blood tests show.” He pauses before outlining the worst of it. “He was barely breathing when I realised he was alive. They’re not sure whether his brain’s had enough oxygen, and they’ve lined up some other tests, but they won’t be able to tell the extent of any damage until he’s conscious.”
Cerebral hypoxia, they called it. Insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain, usually as a result of strangulation or choking, or smoke or carbon monoxide inhalation. James was strangled. It didn’t kill him, but his body - his brain - was starved of oxygen. On top of the CT scan, the doctor’s also requested an MRI and a couple of other three-letter-acronym tests. Ultimately, though, they need James conscious to be able to test his reactions and awareness fully.
“But he’ll be all right?” The anxiety in Innocent’s voice makes Robbie rush to answer.
“Depends. If the oxygen-deprivation’s not a problem, he’ll be fine in time. He’d be in hospital at least a few days, could be a week or two depending on what the tests find, and then off work for a week or more after that, at best.”
“And if there is brain damage?”
Robbie slumps back against the wall, his body abruptly weary. “We don’t know. Depends on how bad... Well.”
It’s unthinkable. Unbearable. James - clever, smartarse James - brain-damaged? His sharp mind and quick intellect impacted, perhaps gone forever? The very idea almost makes him want to weep. And who’d take care of the lad if it came to that, if the damage were bad enough that he was incapable of independent living?
Please, god, no. For him to survive being brutally attacked - for Robbie to find him miraculously alive, instead of dead as he’d feared - only to end up helpless, a shadow of his former self, would be so terribly cruel.
Even mild damage, the doctor explained, could leave James vulnerable to occasional involuntary movements or even seizures - conditions that would mean he’d have to transfer to a desk job or leave the police. No more detective work.
He exhales loudly, forcing the images from his mind. After all, the important thing is that James is alive. He so very nearly wasn’t. The doctor underlined that, based on his initial examination and Robbie’s description of where James was found and how long they suspected he may have been there. Much longer out there, barely breathing, and he would have died. No doubt about it.
“No point borrowin’ trouble, Ma’am. It’ll be hours before he’s conscious - maybe not until tomorrow if they have to keep him under because of the head injury.”
“Right.” He can hear Innocent drumming her fingers on her desk. “So we’ll just have to hope for the best.”
He swallows. “Yeah. I need you to order a round-the-clock police guard here. These bastards intended to kill him, and if they find out he’s alive they’ll be back for another go.”
He can hear Innocent tapping at her computer. “Makes sense. I’ll have the first shift with you in ten minutes. You’ll liaise with hospital security?”
“Already talked to them. I’ll be heading back to the station soon as I’ve briefed the uniforms and I can get a squad car to pick me up.” If he stays here, all he can do is wait and worry and pace. If he goes back, he can get on with finding out who the hell left his sergeant for dead, and throwing them in the cells where they belong. Something useful, in other words.
“But first there’s one more question I need to ask - James has never talked about his family and I’ve got the impression that either there’s none alive or they’re estranged. Who’s his emergency contact in employee records?”
He can hear the frown in Innocent’s voice as she answers. “There’s no-one on his NHS record?”
“No family, no.” There is a name on James’s NHS in case of emergencies record now: Detective Inspector Robert Lewis. He had no idea James had listed him - the lad never said a word. He’s not complaining - it means he’ll be kept informed about James’s condition without needing to throw the weight of his warrant card around. But it’s worrying. Saddening. Surely James has someone out there he belongs to? Someone who’ll care that he almost died?
Can it really be that he is the most important person in his sergeant’s life?
Robbie’s still torn between feeling touched that James chose him and distressed that James doesn’t have anyone at all in his life who matters to him, so much so that the only person he could name as an emergency contact is his boss. No close friends. No lovers, or ex-lovers he’s still in contact with. Just his governor.
No, that’s not fair. He isn’t just James’s governor, is he? Not after all this time and everything they’ve been through together. They’re in and out of each other’s flats all the time - James has an open invitation to have breakfast at his if he’s picking Robbie up, and the spare duvet and pillows now live permanently in the hall cupboard for nights when a couple of beers turn into too many for James to drive legally - or when he just doesn’t feel like going home.
They’re much more than colleagues, and it’s long past time he acknowledged that. Shame on him that it took James almost dying, and then discovering his name on James’s file, to realise it.
“Just a minute, Robbie. I’m looking.” He waits. It’s only a few seconds before Innocent speaks again. “The field’s blank. I have no idea why no-one questioned that - it’s regulations that every officer has to provide an emergency contact or next-of-kin.”
“Yeah, I know.” Damn it, why did he never ask James? All the lad ever said about his parents - well, his father; he never mentioned his mother - is that his dad was the estate manager at Crevecoeur and that they left the estate when he was twelve. Where did they go after that? How come he went from the child of an estate worker to a pupil at a posh public school, and then a Cambridge undergraduate? Where the hell are his parents, if they’re even alive?
“Well, we’ll need to trace his family,” Innocent adds crisply. “I’ll get someone onto it. If the electoral roll doesn’t yield anything, there are other methods. Do you know anything at all about his parents? First names, former addresses, approximate age?”
“Other than the fact that they lived at Crevecoeur until James was twelve, no. Thing is, though,” he adds awkwardly, “I’m not sure James would want us doing that.”
“We don’t have a choice, Robbie.” Her tone’s brisk. “He’s seriously injured, perhaps critical. Next of kin has to be informed.”
“Em... well, that’s the thing, Ma’am.” Awkwardly, he explains. “He’s listed me as his emergency contact on his NHS record. Seems to say he doesn’t want anyone else involved, and we have to respect that.”
“You say that, Robbie,” Innocent continues, now impatient. “But do you want to have to deal with angry relatives if all doesn’t go well? Do you want to be the one to have to explain why no-one got in touch with them? Imagine if it was your son who’d almost been killed and who could be left damaged for life.”
If it were his Mark... of course he’d want to know. But for all that Mark doesn’t stay in touch more than a phone call once or twice a year, they’re not estranged. He’d bet he’s not been removed from Mark’s emergency contacts.
But ultimately it’s Innocent’s call, as far as the police is concerned. He’s not James’s emergency contact in work records. “Whatever you say, Ma’am.” He ends the call and heads back inside for one more check on James before returning to the station.
***
The medical staff are still running tests on James and they’ve said it’ll be several hours before there’s anything new - and at least that before Robbie will be allowed anywhere near him. So he might as well go back to the station for now. They’ll phone him if there’s any news, or if he’s needed.
The incident room’s a hive of activity as he walks back in: two whiteboards covered in information and photographs, people on telephones or studying computer screens, and others poring over printouts. Hooper’s in the middle of the room, apparently giving instructions to some other DCs. Scanning the room, Robbie’s gaze falls on a desk near his and James’s office. DI Grainger.
“Nick?” He strides over, frowning. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Chief Super pulled me off my current investigation. It’s nothing that important anyway,” Grainger adds with a shrug. “Insurance fraud. I’ve left my bagman digging through the paperwork. I’m here to help in any way you need.”
Help? Or take over? Grainger’s obviously figured out what’s on his mind, because he immediately shakes his head. “Help, Robbie. Hathaway’s your sergeant. I know if it was Ngoti I’d be bloody determined to catch the bastards myself too. Innocent wasn’t sure when you’d be back, so she asked me to hold the fort until you got here, and then see what you want me to do.”
“Sorry.” He drags a chair over and drops into it. “Thought she’d probably decided I was too close to it.”
Nick meets his gaze. “Honest reaction? You probably are. Know I would be. But that still doesn’t mean you’re not the best person to lead the investigation. No-one around here knows Hathaway better than you do, and probably no-one’s got as much motivation to find the bastards who did this to him.” Nick pats his shoulder. “Now, stop us all wondering and tell us how Hathaway is.”
So he does, and then gets an update on progress. Not much so far; nothing yet on the CCTV, though officers are continuing to search. No sign of any disturbance or attempt to break into James’s flat or his car. James’s phone records have revealed something that could be a lead - a call on his work mobile from an as-yet-untraced mobile number. One of the DCs is liaising with the provider to identify the caller, but it’s one of the smaller providers and actually getting hold of someone who can give her the information is proving difficult.
SOCO’s still finishing up at the site, and so far have reported at least two unidentified footprints, but getting a cast won’t be easy - it’s been dry for several days, and one of the footprints is partially obscured by a paramedic’s bootprint. No fibres or other potential forensic evidence found yet, but there’s still a chance, the SOCO lead is saying.
Laura’s expert opinion, voiced while they were waiting for the paramedics, is that the worst of the assault on James took place where he was found. The amount of blood under his head was consistent, she said, with his having been hit and falling down there, on the spot. As for the bruising around his neck, he wouldn’t have been able to walk far given how much his windpipe had been constricted. Robbie’d speculated that he could have been carried there after the near-strangulation, but Laura had countered that in her estimation the blow to James’s head had been delivered when he was standing, not lying.
So James had gone with his captors to Binsey, had gone into the woods with them - or been chased by them, given the damage to vegetation - and then... what? There are defensive wounds to his hands, as well as the broken wrist, so he had tried to fight his attackers.
And what was wrapped around his neck? The bruising isn’t consistent with a hand, and certainly not with a wire or rope. Laura’s liaising with the medical team at the hospital to get photographs the forensic team can work with, and also to check for any fibres or other materials that could be caught in the skin or in James’s clothing. If there’s evidence there, it’ll be found.
***
“We’re gonna get who did this to you.”
It’s much later, almost nine o’clock at night, and Robbie only left the station half an hour ago. He’d have been back at the hospital sooner - has been phoning at least hourly - but the only news was that tests were still ongoing, or later that James was in surgery to set his broken wrist. It’s only in the last couple of hours that he’s been moved to this private room, standard practice for police officers injured in the line of duty, and the doctor he’s been liaising with at least some of the time said that visitors would only be allowed once all the monitors, feeding tubes and so on were in place.
So, for a second time, he’s sitting beside an unconscious James Hathaway, only this time the damage is much more than smoke inhalation, involuntary drugging and a cut cheek. There’s a monitor measuring brainwaves, and another monitoring his breathing. Wires everywhere: a feeding tube, a glucose drip and a tube with something else - Robbie can’t remember what. Drugs of some sort. The back of James’s head is bandaged, his throat’s still bruised and raw, his face is half the colours of the rainbow, and his left wrist’s in a cast.
But he’s alive and breathing on his own. That’s got to count for something.
“Course, it’d help if you could wake up an’ tell me how the hell you got out to Binsey last night. More importantly, who took you there.”
No chance of James waking up for now, though. Unlikely for a couple of days, he’s now been told. His body needs the rest to recover from the lack of oxygen and blow to the head, and so the cocktail of drugs that’s being fed to him through the tube is helping to keep him comatose.
Makes things easier, in a way. Robbie’s not completely sure that he’s ready to talk to a conscious James yet. Too much his brain’s still sorting through, including just how devastated he was when Hooper came to say James’s body had been found - and realising that, whatever it is he does actually feel for James Hathaway, James seems to have been way ahead of him in feeling it back.
It’d felt like losing Morse all over again. No, worse. Not quite as bad as losing Val - nothing could ever be that bad - but closer to that than Morse. Nick Grainger’d said he understood, that he’d feel the same if it was his bagman here in this bed, but Robbie knows it’s not the same. Grainger and Joe Ngoti get on well, he’s seen that for himself, but it’s more of a strong professional working relationship, with loyalty and liking on both sides. Fellow coppers who respect each other.
Him and James, they’re... he’s thinking mates, but it’s more than that. Who does he spend more time with than James? Who does he gravitate to when he needs company, wants a chat, or just doesn’t feel like eating alone? There’ve been times when it’s felt like James almost lives at his flat: turning up in time to have breakfast, following him home - when the lad’s not working late - to share a takeaway and a couple of beers, and either going home at bedtime or falling asleep on the sofa.
“Long past time I just got a flat with a second bedroom, isn’t it? You’re too tall to sleep on that sofa. You should’ve said something, man.”
Robbie shakes his head. Yeah, just as well James is unconscious. He’d never have said that to him otherwise.
Talking to him’s good, though. That’s what the doctor said. So much of the workings of the human brain are still a mystery to the experts. A familiar voice can work wonders at times like these.
“Still amazes me sometimes, y’know.” Robbie shakes his head. “You askin’ to work with me. Never could work out just what it was. Almost never happened at all, too. If you’d not been sent to meet me at Heathrow. If I’d not made you take me to Val’s grave. If you’d not got that callout while we were still there. If that idiot Chas Knox hadn’t had a few too many. If Grainger hadn’t been in court... any one thing different an’ we’d not have met at all, or just been fleeting acquaintances. Innocent would’ve had me pensioned off or put out to grass and that would’ve been that.”
His eyes drifting shut, he can almost see James’s slightly mocking expression in response. God moves in mysterious ways and all that mumbo-jumbo, sir.
Yeah, yeah.
“Thought you were an annoying god-botherer, I did. Even told someone that - that sleep clinic director. Remember her? Couldn’t make head or tail of you: what the bloody hell was an almost-priest doing working as a copper? But then I only saw what you wanted people to see. Upper-class, over-educated public schoolboy.” Lewis snorts lightly. “Hope you never turn to crime, lad. You’re a bloody tough nut to crack. Thought I’d managed it, but you keep surprisin’ me. Like this latest thing. Me, your emergency contact?”
He shifts position; these damn plastic chairs aren’t the most comfortable. Probably hospital policy, designed not to encourage visitors to overstay their welcome. Maybe if he leans forward... “Might’ve told me,” he continues, and lays his hand on top of the sheet, close to where James’s lies, with the drip set into the back of his right hand. “Wouldn’t’ve come as such a surprise then. What, did you think I’d have a problem with it? Should know me better after all this time, man.”
Robbie stares down at his hand, the index finger inches away from James’s.
Touch is important as well, the doctor told him.
Tentatively, he shifts his hand: a little, a little more, until his finger is brushing against James’s. Then, as if the initial contact has broken down an invisible barrier, he slides his hand under James’s fingers and grips - lightly, but securely.
“Dunno what I would’ve been these past years without you. Was only the job that was keepin’ me going, an’ sometimes even that didn’t help. People around treating me with kid gloves, as if they expected me to fall apart in front of them. Never realised at the time how much of what kept me sane was working with you. An’ that’s not countin’ you finding Val’s killer.” Robbie’s fingers clench around James’s for a moment. “Never even thanked you properly for that, did I? And all those times you stepped in when idiots we didn’t even know put their foot in it with me, getting too personal.”
He’ll never be fully over losing Val, not if he lives another twenty or thirty years. But she’s a fond memory now, not an aching, jagged gap in his heart - and, while time and Lyn and Laura and other things have contributed to him getting to where he is now, he couldn’t have got here without James’s solid, stalwart presence.
And yet in recent months it’s starting to feel as if James is the lonely one out of the two of them, the one consumed by some unexplained sadness or loss. He’s seen it - but he’s done nothing about it. Been missing his cue, hasn’t he? About time he was as good a friend to James as James was for him.
“Just wake up, lad. Wake up and be the James Hathaway we all know and moan about, and I’ll take you for a pint so we can get to the bottom of what’s been botherin’ you. All right?”
But the still form of his sergeant in the bed doesn’t move, doesn’t respond. Robbie lapses into silence, but doesn’t let go of James’s hand.
***
tbc in chapter 3