Chapter 3
A girl screamed.
Tyres screeched.
A blue car stopped suddenly, barely avoiding another car.
"Shit!" a young man swore. He'd just seen an old guy hit by a car, then fly through the air, and land at his feet. Gagging, he felt the bile rise in his throat. Stepping backwards, he bumped into someone but they didn't care.
Shaking her head, Helen Chandler found herself in the arms of strange man. Why? She didn't know. All she knew was she had to get out of there. Fast. She had to run while she still had the chance. Terrified, she pushed herself away from the confused man, and then ran off, leaving her handbag where it fell.
No one noticed Helen run away. People were too stunned, not believing the man had risked his own life to save the woman.
"Wow! Did you see that, Mum?" An excited boy pointed at Boyd. "That man got hit by that car."
"Sshhhh, David. Let's go." The mother dragged her son away, not wishing for him to see any moreThe idiot did a heroic thing but look where it got him – he was lying hurt and bleeding in the gutter. Anyway, there were plenty of other witnesses for the police to talk to, and besides, she didn't want to be late.
"Call an ambulance." Reacting first, Teresa Adams, an off duty nurse, ordered to no one in particular.
Teresa bent down to help Boyd, who lay face down in the gutter, unconscious, blood flowing freely from a head wound, matting his greying hair, and then running down the side of his face. Not risking moving the man in case of spinal injury, carefully she checked to see if he was breathing, and by the blood flow coming from his head wound, he had a pulse, but she checked it anyway, and was relieved to find that both were strong and steady. After looking him all over as best she could, other than a head wound, the man had no other obvious signs of injury. Taking off her jacket, she rolled a sleeve up and then gently put pressure on the cut. There was little else she could do to help him other than to keep checking that he was still breathing and had a pulse until the ambulance arrived.
Boyd groaned, his eyes flickered open, but he couldn't see properly. Everything was blurry. He tried to move but stopped. White hot daggers of pain exploded throughout his body and he gasped.
Sucking in deep breaths, he waited until the pain became manageable, and then opted instead for something a little less ambitious, trying instead to see if he could move his fingers and toes, his relief clear when he was able to do both. He'd be all right.
Feeling pain must be good, because if he were dead, he wouldn't feel any pain, Peter reasoned. He only wished the pain would lessen because if felt like a truck had hit him, and then he remembered that thankfully a car, and not a truck, had hit him. Otherwise Grace would be very mad at him indeed if it had been a truck. More than likely, she'd kill him if he'd been hit by a truck.
When he tried to move his head again, a hand pressed on his back, stopping him.
"Try not to move."
"Grace?" Peter asked, confused and exhausted, wondering how she got there so fast from CCHQ.
"No. I'm Teresa." Was that the woman he'd pushed to safety? She didn't know. "Was Grace the woman you pushed?"
"No." Waves of nausea washed over him and he moaned.
She tried to reassure him. "An ambulance will be here soon."
"Okay." Teresa sounded like Grace, and just as Grace's voice could soothe him, her calm voice helped him focus and clear his mind. He tried to remember what had just happened. The woman's frightened face filled his mind. Was she all right? He had to find out. "The woman. Is she okay?"
Teresa looked around. She'd witnessed the whole incident. After he'd pushed the young woman safely into the arms of a man standing next to Teresa, she'd vanished; only her handbag remained. "I think so, but she's gone. She dropped her handbag." Amazed, Teresa couldn't quite believe that he was thinking about the woman he saved and not himself. "Don't worry, you'll be fine too."
"I'm a police officer. Put her hand bag in my case." His instincts screamed that there was something about the scared young woman and her running away only confirmed his suspicions. He had to find out what made her so petrified and why she'd vanished.
"All right." Having no reason not to believe Boyd, Teresa got up and did what Boyd had asked, and then returned.
Sirens got closer.
A police car pulled up to the scene. One PC went straight to the blue Focus and took a statement from the shocked driver while the other went toward the man lying by the curb.
"Is he alive, ma'am?" PC Howard asked the woman who was attending to the stricken man.
"Yes."
"What happened?"
Teresa pointed to the Focus. "That car hit him."
Howard shook his head, thinking the idiot was probably trying to cross against the lights and was lucky to be alive.
Teresa saw the PC's look of disdain. Indignant, she shot him an equally scornful look. He had no idea what this man bleeding in the gutter had just done. "He pushed a woman to safety before he was hit. And he told me he's a policeman."
Howard bent down to look at the man, but didn't recognize him. "Sir? What's your name?"
Tired, Boyd struggled to open his eyes; blood had clotted and dried sticking his eyes lids down, making it hard to open them. Recognizing a PC's uniform, he answered weakly, "DSI Boyd, CCU. … Warrant card number …176 … 401."
Shit! A DSI. Howard didn't know Boyd, but if he was a police officer, and a high ranking one at that, then he had to contact his sergeant.
The ambulance pulled up. Taking over from Teresa, the paramedics quickly assessed Boyd, wrapped a dressing on his head wound, and then carefully loaded him into the ambulance. Teresa gave the paramedics his case, making sure that they understood that it should stay with Boyd.
"I need to take a statement." Howard opened his notepad. "When you're ready?"
"Okay. I was waiting at the lights when .…"
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