'Harry, Leo' she greeted them both with a smile that betrayed genuine warmth, something that faltered when she turned to the third person standing in front of her and realised that this was a stranger. Nikki had heard her friends talk fondly of Sam Ryan and of course she'd read a lot of her papers over the years, but she knew that Harry and Leo hadn't really seen her since she'd left for Ireland and that they kept in touch only with the occasional email. Based on their facial expressions she would wager that they knew nothing of her being back in England until now. 'Long time no see'
'Indeed. The last time was...' Leo started, then faltered when he realised that the last time he'd seen Sam was when she'd dropped by to offer her condolences after Cassie and Teresa's deaths and he'd ended up bawling into her shoulder. There were some things that he preferred to forget and some memories that he didn't want Harry and Nikki knowing about.
'2005' she replied smoothly. He could see from her face that she remembered the incident too, and that she knew him well enough to know that he wasn't going to want to discuss it in this, or any other, setting. 'I hear you're living with Janet Mander. I worked with her on a couple of cases. She's very good'
'I'll let her know' he murmured, stepping aside and gesturing towards the car 'I'll let you see your crime scene' he added. He liked Sam and trusted her, but he knew that unless rules were being bent with her express permission she was a stickler for adhering to them. She was certainly not going to tolerate Harry being drunk at a crime scene so he decided that it would be in everybody's best interests to head that particular reunion off at the pass. 'Nikki, I can take the Volvo. Why don't you and Harry head off' he added, raising his eyebrows pointedly and gesturing with his head towards the cordon and their cars. For a moment he watched as she made to protest and then stopped, realising that he was protecting Harry. In recent months protecting Harry had been all that either of them had wanted to do and for that reason she set aside her own irritation and did as she was told. She caught Sam looking in askance at Leo but before he had the chance to offer some kind of inadequate explanation Harry chipped in with:
'I'm being benched for bad behaviour'
'Come on Harry' Nikki muttered, walking purposefully towards the cars, relieved when he followed her instead of continuing the conversation. He might have been in self destruct mode but he wasn't so far gone that he wanted to commit very public career suicide at a crime scene and lose his driving licence to boot. So far the only two people who'd noticed that he was drunk were his closest colleagues and his life would be immeasurably easier if it stayed that way.
They almost reached the cordon before Harry stopped in his tracks. For one hideous moment she thought that he was going to offer up some piece of profound wisdom that would make everybody in the vicinity realise that he had been drinking, but as he pointed he said nothing and as she followed his gaze she realised what he was looking at. As he started to run she ran after him because the fact remained that he was drunk and if there was a case to answer at the end of all this then any defence barrister worth his fat salary would use the fact that there was a drunk pathologist at the scene of the accident, albeit one who didn't actually touch any of the bodies, to get it thrown out of court.
'Somebody has been dragged' Harry gestured towards the thick streaks of blood across the tarmac that ended abruptly at the verge on the edge of the road. The sight of the blood had sobered him up instantly which came as a relief to Nikki because it reduced the chances of anybody else realising that he was drunk, even though she still wouldn't be letting him touch anything that mattered. 'A body has been dragged across the road from the Fiesta to the verge and then...' he trailed off, peered over the edge of the embankment that sloped steeply away to a field several feet below, then started to tramp down it, carefully picking his way through the undergrowth because he didn't know what he was about to find. Nikki followed him equally gingerly, and at the edge of the verge she was aware of Leo standing at watching, caught between calling off his inebriated colleague and letting them get on with it because he didn't want to draw attention to the situation that they were dealing with. '... Can we have some light down here? I think we've found something!'
'Young male in his late twenties' Nikki dropped to her knees and pressed her fingers against his neck, feeling her own heartbeat quicken as she felt the faint pulse beneath the thin, slightly stubbly skin. 'He's alive. Get a paramedic down here, now!' she added, finding herself swiftly bustled out of the way by paramedics.
'We think that there were two people in the car' DI Hardwick bellowed 'Can you see any sign of a second person down there?'
'No' she glanced around her, took a couple of steps to her left and then added 'There are footprints headed into the undergrowth but it's impossible to follow them far'
'So what are we dealing with?' Harwick asked, lowering his voice as he reluctantly tramped down the bank to have a look for himself and no longer needed to bellow, although he still spoke more loudly than was strictly necessary. 'Footprints dragged our man out of the wreckage? Or they both got down here under their own steam but our man lost too much blood and only got this far'
'I don't know' Nikki replied calmly 'It's impossible to tell at this stage. Forensic examination of the crime scene will tell us more and hopefully he'll wake up and be able to tell us exactly what happened'
'He and his mate left the scene of an accident. That's what happened' Hardwick replied, peering into the undergrowth as if the second person from the Ford was going to still be cowering there. They both knew that in reality the second person would be long gone. 'I'm beginning to wonder if these two aren't the source of our gunshots'
'We've yet to find any hard evidence of shots being fired' she pointed out 'Let's reserve judgement until we've completed our analysis and Professor Ryan has completed hers. For now I don't think that there's anything left for Dr Cunningham and I to do here so we're going to go'
'Fine' Hardwick replied with an air of a truculent child that seemed ludicrous on a man of over fifty. She would have stopped and told him as much but more than anything she wanted to get Harry away before is temporary lucidity wore off and the whiskey caught up with him. Giving Hardwick a weary smile she took Harry by the arm and walked purposefully up the embankment, pausing only to meet Leo's eye for a moment and take a last, curious glance at Sam Ryan.