Thicker Than Water

‘What I mean is, I just look at things from one angle. And your angle is going to be different because . . .’

‘Because?’

‘Because I’m a tough, hard-bitten, cynical London cop and you’re an angel of mercy.’

Nurse Ryall grinned at me. ‘You think they’ll give us our own TV series?’ she asked.

‘Bound to.’

‘Well, I only know what I saw when I was putting the dressings on, but I was thinking the angles are all weird. Did you think that?’

‘You first,’ I said, ‘then me. What do you mean by weird?’

She shrugged, looking away into the corner of the room as she consulted her memory.

‘I just mean . . . all over the place,’ she said. ‘Some of them low, some of them high. Left side, right side. Daft, really. They said he was in a car when he was attacked. You wouldn’t think there’d be room in a car for someone to, you know, come at him from all sides like that.’

I nodded encouragement, as though she was echoing my very thoughts. ‘Say he was struggling to get away, though,’ I suggested.

‘Trying to get out of his seat belt, maybe. He’d be squirming around, presenting different parts of his body to the attacker. Maybe it happened like that.

‘Maybe,’ Petra allowed, but she sounded doubtful. ‘I don’t know. There was something else, you know? Well, of course you know. If I’m talking rubbish, just tell me.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Well, some of these cuts were really two cuts. The razor had hit the same place twice. You can tell because there’s different lines - different incisions - that overlap each other.

So it’s more like he was being held still and the other bloke was going and going at him. Does that make sense?’

‘Perfect sense,’ I assured her. ‘Evidence, inference, conclusion. You’d make a good detective.’

She seemed to appreciate the compliment. ‘So are they connected?’ she asked, waggling her finger to indicate Kenny and the room’s other occupant.

I was momentarily thrown. ‘Why would you assume that?’ I asked, temporising.

My surprise must have shown on my face.

Petra hesitated for a moment, maybe wondering if she’d overstepped the bounds of forensic decorum. ‘Well, because of the address, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Same postcode. And two stabbings coming so close together. Not a razor, I know, but I thought it could still be . . .’

‘No, absolutely,’ I agreed as she faltered into silence. ‘We haven’t discounted that possibility at all. I’m just impressed that you made the connection.