Back at the station Jack Burns started on the telephone. He asked for an ‘all points’ on the missing men, made one quick call with a simple enquiry to Mr Carl Bateman, the A and E surgeon at the Royal London, and then rang around the A and E departments at three other hospitals. A junior doctor at the St Anne’s Road hospital came up trumps.
‘Gotcha,’ shouted Burns as he put the phone down. There is a hunter instinct in a good detective, the knowledge of a nice adrenalin rush when the evidence is coming together. He turned to DS Skinner.
‘Get down to St Anne’s. Find a Dr Melrose in A and E. Get a full signed statement. Take a photo of Mark Price for identification. Get a photocopy of the accident log for the whole of yesterday afternoon. Then bring it all back here.’
‘What happened?’ asked Skinner, catching the mood.
‘A man answering to Price’s description wandered in there yesterday with a sore nose. Dr Melrose discovered it was broken in two places. When we find him, that hooter will be reset and heavily strapped. And Melrose will give us a firm ID.’
‘When was this, guv?’
‘Guess. Just on five p.m. yesterday afternoon.’
‘Three hours after the punch in Paradise Way. We’re going to get a result on this one.’
‘Yes, lad, I think we are. Now get over there.’
While Skinner was away, Burns took a call from the sergeant who had led the POLSA team. It was disappointing. Before sundown the previous day they had scoured every inch of that estate on hands and knees. They had crawled into every nook and cranny, examined every passage and alley, culled every patch of weary grass and every slick gutter. They had removed and emptied the only five public garbage cans they could find.
They had a collection of used condoms, dirty syringes and greasy food wrappings typical of such a place. But they had no blood and no wallet.
Cornish must have stuffed the stolen wallet into one of his own pockets until he could examine the prize at his leisure. Cash he would have taken and spent, the rest he would have thrown away somewhere, but not on the Meadowdene Grove estate. And he lived half a mile away. That was a big area, too many trash cans, too many alleys, too many builders’ skips. It could be anywhere. It could, O blessed joy, still be in one of his pockets. Neither he nor Price would ever be contestants on Mastermind.
As for Price, stuffing his T-shirt over his bleeding nose must have kep
t the blood from falling to the pavement until he was well clear of the estate. Still, one superb eyewitness and the evidence of the broken nose at St Anne’s just three hours after the punch was not bad for a day’s work.
His next call was from Mr Bateman. That, too, was a slight disappointment, but not disastrous. His last call was a beauty. It came from DS Coulter, who had more snouts out in the territory than anyone else. A whisper down the line had told him Cornish and Price were playing pool at a hall in Dalston.
Luke Skinner was entering the front lobby as Burns came down the stairs. He had a complete statement from Dr Melrose, positive ID and a copy of the treatment log in which Price had identified himself under his true name. Burns told him to lock up the evidence and join him in the car.
The two thugs were still playing pool when the police arrived. Burns kept it short and businesslike. He had back-up in the form of a police van with six uniformed men who now protected all the doors. The other pool players just watched with the engaged curiosity of those not in trouble observing someone who is.
Price glared at Burns with piggy eyes flanking a broad band of plaster over the bridge of his nose.
‘Mark Price, I am arresting you on suspicion of grievous bodily harm on an unidentified adult male at or about two twenty p.m. yesterday afternoon at Paradise Way, Edmonton. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Price shot a panicky glance at Cornish, who evidently passed for the brains of the outfit. Cornish gave a slight shake of his head.
‘Piss off, filth,’ said Price. He was spun around, cuffed and marched out. Two minutes later Cornish followed. Both went into the van with the six constables and the small cavalcade returned to Dover nick.
Procedures, always procedures. In the car on the way back, Burns asked for the FMO (force medical officer) to be summoned as a matter of emergency. The last thing he needed was a later claim that police brutality had in any way contributed to that nose. Also, he needed a blood sample to compare with the blood on the T-shirt. If there was any of the victim’s blood on that shirt, that would do it.
As he awaited the arrival of a blood sample from the man in the coma, he pondered the disappointing reply from Mr Bateman to his query concerning the right fist.
It was going to be a long night. Arrest had been at 7.15 p.m. That gave him twenty-four hours before either his chief superintendent gave him twelve further hours, or the local magistrates gave him a further twenty-four.
As arresting officer, he would have to fill out yet another report, signed and witnessed. He would need a sworn statement from the FMO that both men were fit enough to be questioned. He would need every stitch of their clothing and the contents of all pockets, plus blood samples for elimination.
Luke Skinner, watching like a hawk, had already made sure neither man jettisoned anything from their pockets as they were arrested and marched out of the pool hall and into the van. But no-one had been able to prevent Cornish telling the police constables that he wanted a lawyer, and fast. Until then, he was saying nothing. This message was not for the policemen; it was for his thick accomplice. And Price got the message, loud and clear.
The procedures took over an hour. Dusk was descending. The FMO departed, leaving behind his statement as to the fitness of both men to be questioned, and the state of Price’s nose at the time of arrest.
Both thugs were lodged in separate cells, both dressed in paper one-piece overalls. Both had had a cup of tea and would later receive a canteen fry-up. By the book, always by the book.
Burns looked in on Price.
‘I want a brief,’ said Price. ‘I ain’t saying nothing.’