22. Brighton.

After many apparitions, which Adam hardly noticed, and some considerable walking, they stood before the sergeant's desk, inside Brighton's main Police Station, while the sergeant scanned their notebooks. Now and then, he would stop and look at them both, frowning. The station was almost identical in style to Scotland Yard, desk sergeant guarding the way in, in person rather than a display, with key codes at each door; only the layout was different.

"You both check out. The super would like to see you both before he grants permission to see the files or talk to anyone."

Adam nodded and smiled at the Sergeant. A buzzer signalled that the door was now open.

"Second door on the left." He called after them.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Adam called as he entered the corridor, Tony right behind him.

The second door was open as they arrived. They could see the uniformed Superintendent sitting at his desk, reading from the screen in front of him.

"Come in gentlemen, take a seat." He spoke with a West Indian accent, not strong, but noticeable. His voice was a deep rumble that in the right circumstances would be quite threatening. He had spoken without looking up, showing his bald head. "DCI Croft, good to meet you." He stood up, dwarfing both of them. He was almost as wide as he was tall, and he was tall. His shoulders seemed to roll as he leant forward and shook hands, "Likewise DCI Garrett." Again, a perfunctory handshake. "I did a check and found that there is no DCI Garrett on any police force in the UK, but, your name exists as a secondment." He frowned. Tony knew what he was thinking, he was far too young to be a DCI.

"That is correct. I'm on special liaison with the yard. I work for the Ministry in London."

"Ministry?"

"That's all I'm at liberty to say. However, if you're worried about my presence, I have a phone number you can ring." Tony reached out and turned the pad of paper on his desk round, took the supers pen and wrote a number down. "The number will be answered at any time."

"You expect me to ring this number?"

"Yes."

"Who will answer?" The man's dark face had a look of mistrust on it.

"No idea. I was given the number by the Ministry and told what to do."

"Which Ministry are we talking about?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

The super's eyebrows rose as he reached out and picked up the slim piece of glass identical to Adam and Tony's, He pressed the numbers from the note onto the surface, before placing it to his ear, making sure they couldn't hear the conversation. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped and listened. Less than a minute later, he tapped the phone display, ending the call without talking once. He stared at Tony.

"Who the hell are you two?"

"What did they tell you?" Adam asked leaning forward.

"They answered me by my name, told me they were the PM's private undersecretary and that I am to help you in any way I can, and I am not to impede your investigation."

Adam looked at Tony. "Case is still on then." He grinned back.

"Would you care to explain that comment?" The super asked.

"We've been given conflicting information as to the nature of our investigation." Adam Replied.

"Would I be right in thinking something underhand is going on?"

"The problem we have is where the underhandedness is coming from." Adam smiled again.

"Does it affect my force or my officers in any way?"

"No, we're here to look at the evidence and talk to the investigating officer."

"That's all?"

"Seriously, that is all. As soon as we found out what we need and had a look at the site, we will be out of your hair."

"If you find something that could adversely affect us, I would appreciate the heads up?" This comment made him sound like the Commissioner in Scotland Yard.

"Which you will get if I find anything."

As they exited the superintendent's office, they found a young uniformed constable waiting for them. He introduced himself as the officers who had been present at the discovery of the two people. He told them he would be their guide and answer questions they had. Adam sized him up, knowing he wasn't long out of training.

They left the station car park in a small electric car. Although the car drove itself, their guide sat in the driver's seat staring out of the windscreen, arriving at the crime scene within a few minutes. People were milling around, out to lunch or shopping as they walked the last few yards, following the uniform.

He stopped, turned, and then pointed at a shop. "That's the shop that was burgled, or at least entered, nothing was taken."

"What sort of shop is it"? Tony asked, trying to look through the dirty metal shutter that covered the window and door.

"The shop has been empty for about a while. It was a second-hand furniture shop. No call for them anymore."

"So the shop was empty?"

"Yes, but the way the rubbish was piled up, would suggest that someone had been sleeping rough in the shop. No idea for how long, but more than a couple of days." He pointed further up the pedestrian area. "You see the large concrete planter?" They both looked at the large planter full of colourful plants, although smashed down on one side. "That's where we found the dead guy. He was bent into a funny shape."

Andy and Tony looked at the building nearby. The position of the planter was nowhere near the buildings, and the nearest was only three stories tall.

"Puzzling, isn't it? The autopsy said he fell from a hell of a height, we've been checking with airspace control, just in case he was trying to use a drone to get home and fell."

"I assume you've heard nothing?" Adam asked the man shook his head. "The girl was found where?" He asked as they followed him to the planter.

"Follow me." He headed along the wide pedestrian walkway, then through a short alley between two shops and out onto a small service road. He stopped in the middle of the road and pointed up at a two-story building with a flat-roofed ledge. "She was hanging over the edge of that parapet, spotted by a member of the public about six-thirty."

"She wasn't found straight away?" Adam said in surprise.

"No, if the two events happened at the same time, she was up there for over six hours. I saw the state she was in and I'm surprised she survived. She still might not."

"Was she carrying anything out of the ordinary?" Tony asked as he scanned the roofline.

"Any belongings she had and her clothes are with the coroner's office or back at the station."

"Was anything unusual found here or where the girl was found?" Tony asked again.

The officer shrugged and shook his head.

"Are you sure nothing was found, however stupid?" He pressed the point.

"No Sir. We carried out a full search of the scene when we found the dead man and did a more detailed search after the girl was found, in case it was a crime. Then we got the autopsy on the man and the hospital report on the woman."

"How do we get up there to have a look?" Adam asked heading for the doorway under the parapet.

"Not that way, Sir." He called after Adam.

He led them back through the alley to the shop front and in through the front entrance. He spoke to the owner for a moment before guiding them up a staircase at the back of the shop to a door. A key was hanging on a hook next to the door that he used to open it.

They stepped out onto the flat unkempt roof, covered in windblown detritus. The officer stepped to one side, allowing them both to wander around the small area.

"If you look up at the sloping roof." He pointed to the roof above the door they had exited. "You can see the damage to the tiles and the bloodstain where we think she landed. We think she must have slid the rest of the way, finishing up with one leg hanging over the parapet."

Adam took a run and shimmed up the sloping tiled roof while Tony wandered around the flat area. He stopped and smiled as he looked around the corner of the roof. Propped up against the wall behind the door was a standard broom. Closer inspection showed the word Nimbus in gold leaf at the top of the scuffed handle. He held his hand out, and the broom flew to him, the handle slapping against his palm. He walked back to the policeman waiting by the door, watching Adam slide back down the roof to join them.

"Nothing up there." He said looking at Tony and the broom.

Tony turned to the officer. "Have you seen one of these before?"

"It's a broom." He smiled and looked away.

"I've been in this business a lot of years," Adam replied. "And I know when someone is hiding something." The officer looked uneasy but said nothing.

"Come on we're only here for another hour, have you seen one like this before?" While he was talking Tony moved round to one side, his wand slipped into his hand from his sleeve.

"No Sir, it's a broom." He said as Tony waved the wand at the officer's head.

Adam asked again. "Have you seen another broom like this one?"

The man's eyes glazed over for a moment.

"We found one near the dead man. It was in two pieces. We threw it in the back of a skip."

Tony's wand moved again, and the officer shook his head and looked at the two men. He stepped back as he found himself under such scrutiny.

"I said can you take us to the hospital so we can see the injured woman," Tony asked.

"Sorry Sir, I must have phased out for a moment. I haven't slept much lately." He turned back toward the open doorway.

A few minutes later, they were back in the car and moving towards the Royal Sussex hospital. Again, the officer sat in the driving seat, glancing to his left at the broomstick that was now occupying the other front seat.

The journey to the hospital only took a few minutes. The officer stayed with the car and broom. The hospital used an electronic check-in system at the desk. A disembodied voice had told them where to go and how to get there.

They walked past a row of quiet rooms until they came to the one specified. Looking through the small window in the door, they could see a young girl, around twenty years old, connected to a large piece of monitoring equipment. They had passed the nurse's station where one nurse, surrounded by a bank of monitors, allowed her to watch a multitude of patients at the same time. She had advised them to look and try not to wake the patient, but Adam had asked for a photograph to aid identification. They were both surprised when they found they found they could go to the ward on their own.

"If I go in, I might bugger up the electronics. Also, I can't do anything to help the girl with the cameras on."

"Wait, a moment." Adam pushed the door open and entered the room, looked around and came back out. "The Camera is above the door and the monitoring equipment is on the left." He whispered into Tony's ear. "If you go to the right, I'll cover you from the camera. You pretend to take a picture and do your wand stuff at the same time."

"Do my wand stuff?" Tony shook his head at Adam. "If the equipment fails, it's on your head, OK."

Adam grinned back as Tony stepped into the room, took his phone from his pocket and moved around the side of the bed. Adam angled himself round to the bottom of the bed. Tony eyed the camera, seeing that if he kept his hands low, Adam's body would hide his movements.

He held the phone up above the girl's face while he moved his wand over her body. The machine in the corner recognised the changes in the woman's condition and bleated in several tones. Tony stepped back in surprise as a voice came from a speaker on the equipment.

"Please step away from the patient and the bed, a doctor is on the way."

Within seconds, a man in a white coat flew through the door.

"What did you touch?" He snapped.

"Nothing, my partner was about to take a photograph."

"Why would you want to take a photograph who are you?"

"We're police officers, trying to identify this woman," Adam replied, anger in his voice.

He turned away and touched the displays, silencing the warning sounds.

"She seems to be turning a corner, blood pressure is up, and respiration is better."

"How long will it take for her to come out of the coma?" Adam asked.

"She's in a medically induced coma. She had a head injury, and we wanted to make sure there was no internal bleeding. If she carries on like this, we'll bring her out of the coma tomorrow."

"When will we be able to question her?"

"We'll contact you when that's possible."

"I'll give you my number," Adam said looking at Tony for a moment. "Contact us before you wake her up, we need to be here."

"That might not be possible." The Doctor replied, smirking.

Adam's face moved to within an inch of the doctor. "We think she could be very dangerous, we believe she could be the one that killed the man in the centre of town the other day."

"We have our own security and you can't just walk out of a hospital."

Adam passed the doctor his police business card. "You will contact us before you wake her, understand." He emphasised the word, 'will'.

They both walked out of the room without talking to the doctor again.

As they passed the nurse's station, Adam dropped another business card next to the nurse with the same instructions.

They stepped into the lift and watched the doors close.

"Why are you worried about her waking up? She hasn't got a wand."

"The wand channels the power and focuses it, and we don't need a wand to apparate." He slipped his wand into his hand and pulled a piece of parchment out of his pocket. He touched his temple with the wand, drew a silver bead from his head, and flicked it at the paper. The woman's face appeared. Both items slipped back where they came from as the lift doors opened.

Their driver was patiently waiting beside the vehicle. As soon as they seated themselves, he took them back to the station.