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word the whole time but just made puppy eyes at Narey, headed towards the exit and Winter headed into A&E. In the family waiting area outside, he locked eyes with a young muscular guy with close-cropped hair and got an angry glare for his trouble. He had no idea what the guy’s problem was but given that he was about six foot two and built like a brick shithouse, Winter wasn’t about to start arguing with him.
    Inside, a nurse directed him to a curtained-off bed and he pulled back the screens to get a reproachful look from a bald surgeon in green scrubs who, along with a plump blonde nurse, was standing over the teenager in the bed. Winter just gave him a shrug in return and the surgeon shook his head before slipping through the curtain and letting him get on with it. The nurse, Karen according to her name tag, stayed.
    Rory McCabe was a big lad for his age but soft with it. A tousled mop of reddish hair fringed his eyes and he’d barely begun shaving. Most local kids his age were seventeen going on thirty-seven but this one didn’t have the hard-edged look that they wore. He looked a stranger to Buckfast and baseball bats. Well, except the one that had wrecked his knee.
    Narey said his mum and dad had sworn blind that Rory had never been in any bother but then lots of parents don’t have the first clue what their kids get up to. Winter was inclined to think the McCabes might be right though. No scars, no tattoos, no ned hair cut, no missing teeth, no needle marks. Just a busted knee, a big purple bruise on his jaw and a rash of skin torn off his face, presumably where he fell.
    It seemed standard practice. Teenager gets the shit kicked out of him and he remembers nothing. No names, no pack drill. Cops take notes then close the book and the case. Next.
    Rory was wearing a gown open to the waist and pulled off one shoulder, which was already bandaged and strapped to his side, his left leg hoisted up in a pulley. He looked at Winter but seemed far more interested in the pain that was coming from his knee. Aye, that knee, it was quite a sight. His amateur physiology said displaced patella and a severe haematoma. In new money, that’s a broken kneecap and badly swollen knee. Winter knew there were three bones that made up the knee joint – the patella and two others that he couldn’t remember. The odd, awkward angles pushing angrily at the skin around the knee suggested that all three of them were fucked. Someone had made a very good job of this.
    There was already violent bruising colouring the sides of the knee; it was now blood-red and would turn purple then black before long. It had ballooned up to nearly the size of a football and looked ready to pop. The docs would be draining that soon to ease the pain but he had to do his stuff first. It was the same old routine. On the outside chance that anyone was nicked for it then the extent of the boy’s injuries would need to be shown in court so that the sheriff could decide between a smack on the wrist or a really stern telling-off.
    Winter snapped off a photo without asking, catching the boy off guard. McCabe turned and just looked at him. Sullen. Glowering. Dour. Unsure. Resentful. Lost.
    ‘Awrite, Rory? My name’s Tony. I’ve got to take your photie.’
    ‘So I see,’ he muttered.
    ‘What happened to you anyway?’ he chanced. No harm in keeping in Narey’s good books if he did let something slip.
    McCabe spat out the words. ‘Don’t know. No idea. Leave me alone.’
    His mouth said no but his eyes said no way. The boy was scared shitless.
    ‘Fair enough,’ Winter said. ‘I’ll just do my job and leave you in peace. Couple of those nurses look pretty hot, eh?’
    That gained him a sheepish smile from Nurse Karen but no reaction from the boy beyond a grimace. He guessed that was down to the pain in his patella rather than a lack of interest in the nursing staff. No problem, wee man. I’ll stick to the photographs and you stick to your story, he thought.