Take the Next Road on your Left (15 and Epilogue)

He was slim, wiry and not very tall and yet he propelled himself out of trap three like a doctored whippet. He hit the gunman in the midriff and he fell sideways cracking his head off the basin and was knocked unconscious. As he fell he depressed the trigger and fired one shot which hit me in my good arm. There was a sting but I was in that much pain, I became more irritable that hurt.
I looked skywards opened my legs and screamed “Here, finish the job. Kick me in the nuts!”
Pathmanathan looked at me ruefully. He just saved my life. I could hardly spring to my heels and hug him but my annoyance was incomprehensible. He crouched down beside me and checked out my arm. “Flesh wound – you’ll be okay”
“Its okay doctor – it’s one of a matching pair”
“Are you hit anywhere else?”
“What’s left?”
He patted my head.
“Thank you” I said. “Is she okay” I gestured upwards with my eyes.
The doctor rose up and bent over the chair. When he leant back he was smiling. “She’s asleep”
“She’s what?”
“She’s sleeping peacefully”
“The dirty rotten bi…” and then I was sleeping peacefully too.

The good news, and it was all good news, was that the robbers were all caught. They had indeed been the occupants of the 4x4. The hero of the hour, the good doctor, had alerted the authorities. Although the incoming sirens warned the rest of the gang, their attempts to flee were not as flawless as the robbery. They reversed and became entangled with a Nissan Micra, which they then dragged out of the car park behind them. They were arrested before exiting the car park.
The contract killer was also under arrest. All five would serve lengthy custodial sentences.
Messrs Windsor and Tudor were okay. The contract killer had drugged their coffee. Turner was also drugged and found in the Janitor’s cupboard with the Janitor who’d been knocked out while cleaning the floor in Adeona’s ward.
Dr Saman Pathmanathan (Sam) was presented with a Police bravery award but when I read about his background he was already a hero.
Born in a shanty village in Sri Lanka he witnessed his parents eke out a living through laborious jobs for the sort of yearly income a bog standard life policy would pay me after the customer made their first payment. These days that sort of return would barely cover the petrol money.
But it wasn’t the poverty that really drove young Sam into his profession; money had never contaminated his vision. His desire was to become a doctor and return to help the people he grew up with. He knew that the village would never develop without healthy people. Yes, they needed jobs, but globalization would eventually serve all nations and Sri Lanka should be fit and healthy when it arrived.
He also took on the most menial and debilitating tasks and saved what he could as his loving parents could barely feed him. Over the years, and with the help of his government, he obtained a place at Kings College gaining his PHD in four years. Sparta General was his first appointment. It wasn’t a great hospital but again it was a challenge. He hoped to return home before he was thirty.
Sam had adapted well to British culture. He was witty and sophisticated. His dark seamless skin tone was enhanced by almost feminine features and subsequently attracted the attentions of both sexes although he stressed he was strictly ‘butter side up’ a phrase that amused him immensely.
What he couldn’t resist was Paella. He’d eaten one before he began his night duty which, unfortunately for him, but fortunate for me, gave him a mild but immediate dose of diarrhoea. Feeling that the floor below was unreachable he was going to beg the police to allow him access to this floor’s WC which happened to be located within Adeona’s wing. The absence of any security was secondary to the movement below his waist and he flew into the toilet and into trap three.
After relieving himself he attempted to lock the toilet door but the latch was missing. Yet it was nearly six in the morning and as the wing only had one occupant he relaxed. He had just dressed himself and had his hand on the flush when the wheelchair hit the door. He was about to shout “I’m in here” when I cried out “You’ve fucking killed us”
He let go the flush, closed the lavatory seat as quietly as possible and then stood on it. At first he thought it a domestic argument that had also wandered in here due to a lack of police protection. It was only my plea to make it quick that made him look out at all. What he saw was an anathema to him. It was the cruel part of the world preying on the defenceless and he had to stop it even if his life-long dream would perish by doing so.
“I could never go back to Sri Lanka and save a life knowing I had let others die”
He was a real man.

I spent some weeks myself in a private hospital. Adeona was also shipped out to a private ward but needed only minimum security. She wasn’t required as a witness and, I guess, to the criminal world, the robbers and their contract killer, made a right balls-up of a simple job and got what they deserved.
I wanted no publicity and to their credit Tom and Colin and their superiors never revealed my name. I just got better. Tom and Colin were less lucky. They were re-assigned traffic duty.
They came to see me just before they were sidelined. They were the same - sarcastically lame and told me that Adeona had asked to see me. It was the last, and only job concerning the case Chief Inspector would trust them with. I told them I’d see her in Hell, but then I’d already had.

Epilogue

Hardman welcomed me back with open arms. Mine were still healing so I didn’t reciprocate; I just stood there, a wincing, unwilling recipient of a corporate thug’s embrace. Sales, overall, had suffered and he was under pressure from the bullet boys above him.
“Charlie, Charlie – welcome home” he said gleefully as if I were Charles Foster Kane returning from Europe with a bride and a dozen statues in tow.
“Three months recuperating, I bet it’s the longest holiday you’ve ever given yourself”
So it’s my fault then is it. You’re the dozy idiot that had the same cheap brand of Sat Nav fitted in all the company cars to cut down on excessive mileage claims. That infernal device led me straight into an accident called Adeona and what a journey that had been.
“I don’t want you to worry Charlie” Hardman continued, his voice softened, “I’ve split your clients up between the rest of the group. Anything they pick up is yours – they understand – you’ve helped them all out in the past”
“Thanks” I muttered. I bet they haven’t written a single policy in my name. I wouldn’t have done it for them.
“Your desk is over there but I don’t want you to go anywhere near it”
“Sorry?”
“I want you to take a holiday – a real holiday, before starting back”
I was genuinely wrong-footed. I had rehearsed this conversation a dozen or so times over the preceding weeks; all the variations ended in “Okay I resign then”.
“You’re okay now to drive aren’t you” I nodded. “Good. It’s Thursday now. I have a little place in Devon; quiet, off the beaten track but not far from the coast. Drive down tomorrow and have a long weekend. Come in Monday afternoon. Recharge those underused batteries of yours. We’re going to earn some money, me and you”
It was almost as if Hardman had unwittingly manufactured the conversation from his surprising intro to my inevitable and practised conclusion I could taste the phrase on my tongue but what else was I going to do? So I agreed.

The motorway drive was uneventful. There was the usual Friday bunching but no tail-backs and I reached the exit I needed promptly. There’s nothing worse than a traffic jam to ruin a weekend. An hour or three sitting, like a mobile concubine, powerless, to dislodge those hated vehicles cramming the empty space in front, the route to the beach; a Lakeland or a hillside.
In ten minutes I would be among the Devonshire countryside lanes. I turned on the Sat Nav. It was a new one. I’d ripped the old one off the dashboard as soon as I had my car returned to me. I resisted the temptation for another but I hated map-reading without a navigator. I’d bought the device that morning but I made sure it was a different model.
I stopped and fed in the co-ordinates and the destination of Hardman’s cottage and drove off. The first junction was less than 50 yards and the instruction emanated forth on cue: “At the next junction, turn left”
I stopped the car so fast that a cyclist behind me had to swerve violently. “Fucking tourist” he cried at me as he swept past, “Why don’t you get one of those Sat Navs if you don’t know where you’re going?”
It was her, again – the self same voice. Eventually I turned left and found a spot to park up. I was genuinely afraid. What if it fucks up again? I sat until common sense filtered its way into my head to supplant archaic superstition. I took out the old road map I had in the glove compartment. I had marked the village location and true enough I would need to make the left turn. I left the map open on the passenger seat.
Gingerly I took to the open road again. For the next half dozen turns I checked her directions against the map. Everything was fine. Gradually the uneasiness dwindled. There must be thousands of these out there I considered. Her voice could be on any number of makes and models. I’m far too old to be spooking myself over a contraption.
After twenty minutes of negotiating one track roads, speeding up and braking hard and having to back up several times into passing places the beauty of the surrounding countryside was insufficient in offsetting the irritation of getting nowhere fast. The roads seemed to taper bit by bit the further I went. “I’ll end up in a cycle lane soon” I groaned.
Then, at last, a road sign with the village name on it; three miles to the left and sure enough my Sat Nav confirmed the visual information: “At the next junction turn left…no right!”
I swung the vehicle back to the right automatically again and hit the brakes as an old sky-blue Beetle loomed out of the small lane to the right. Both front bumpers touched but hardly enough to make one’s head nod, never mind a whiplash injury. Dust rose from the road and swum around both vehicles so that, despite the distance, I couldn’t see the driver. It was like a showdown in a western. I climbed out swatting at the dust as if it were a flight of wasps and looked down at the point of contact. There was no damage to either vehicle.
“Are you okay?” a voice cried from out of the sandstorm. But I didn’t walk toward the voice I walked back to my car looking alarmingly at the Sat Nav.
Once again the voice repeated “Are you okay?” I bent down toward the offensive instrument and assured myself it was silent. I looked back toward the Beetle. The sand dust was resettling and as I cleared I could make out the shape of a slim figure. In seconds its features cut their way through the murk. It was Adeona.
“Charlie!” she cried, recognizing me, “Charlie, what are you…?” But she could see I was, if not quite in clinical shock, traumatized. “Charlie, it’s me Adeona”
“Your voice” I slurred like an inebriate.
“Yeah, it came back; about a month ago”
“No…no, your voice…here” and I pointed to the Sat Nav.
She ambled up almost nonchalantly and peered into my car.
“Oh that? Is it me on there? Well I did try to tell you I’d done some voice-overs”
“It is you then?”
“Has it got precise diction and a colourful tone?” she laughed.
“And no sense of direction”
“Actually funny you should say that but I am kind of lost now”
“Me too”
“Even with that?”
“Especially with that; where are you going?”
“I was trying to find somewhere to eat”
“I’m suddenly hungry too”
“What are you hankering for then Charlie?”
“Something completely different”
“Do you want some company?”
“Why not?”
Adeona found a little niche in a hedge and popped her Beetle up against it.
“Shall we go in yours?”
“Why not?”
We both climbed in.
“May as well chuck this away” she said reaching toward the Sat Nav
“No; leave it”
“But if it’s no good…”
“I never said that, I said it has no sense of direction”
“Then”
“That’s exactly what I like about it”