The Recovery Assignment

‘It’s a rural road,’ the woman responded. ‘With an open-road speed limit. The vehicle was also travelling downhill into the bend.’

‘Doesn’t mean he hadn’t slowed down.’ Hawk stared back at the rather mousy-looking, bespectacled paramedic. She had a sweet smile so he didn’t need to worry if he was coming across as being intimidating here: one of the men present would leap in to rescue her any second now.

To his surprise, however, the paramedic was not so easily silenced.

‘The vehicle has a deformity greater than half a metre. There is compartment intrusion of more than thirty centimetres thanks to that tree crushing the driver’s door. The front windscreen has a star pattern that was probably made by the driver’s head. I’d be very surprised if he survived. And if he hasn’t, that makes the potential for serious injury to his passenger that much higher. Any accident involving death or major injury is serious.’

‘Go, Laura!’ More than one fire officer was grinning broadly.

‘You’d better watch out,’ someone quipped. ‘She’ll be doing your job for you next, mate.’

Hawk’s smile failed to reach his eyes as he tilted his head to acknowledge both the impressive response to his challenge and the friendly warning. The fire officer couldn’t possibly realise that he had just reinforced Hawk’s simmering discontent by reminding him of what was due to happen tomorrow. He turned away, wishing he was back in his own office. Or out on the road, investigating a crash scene. Or following up a complicated line of enquiry. Anywhere he could distract himself from the unwelcome turns he was being forced to accept in his professional life. He pushed the button he held and another image appeared on the screen.

‘The driver was killed instantly,’ Hawk confirmed. ‘And the front-seat passenger sustained severe chest and spinal injuries. There doesn’t have to be a fatality before we’re called in to investigate, however. As Laura said, any crash involving major injuries is serious. If the death of anyone involved occurs within twenty-eight days of the incident, then it becomes a fatal crash investigation.’

He waved at the scene now projected on the wall. The road was cordoned off by bright orange plastic cones. Police cars flanked the area that contained the wrecked vehicle, three fire appliances and two ambulances. Numerous uniformed officers could be seen at work.

‘Who arrived on the scene first?’ Hawk queried.

‘Probably us,’ a fire officer responded. ‘We’re quick off the mark around here.’

‘Only if you’re awake.’ The male paramedic grinned. He glanced at Hawk. ‘It depends on current deployment of resources. Sometimes a tow truck can get to a scene before any emergency vehicles.’

‘Bloody sharks,’ someone muttered. ‘Eavesdropping on our radio frequencies to tout for business.’

Hawk ignored the comment, though he could sympathise with the sentiment. ‘In this case, the police were first to arrive with a response time of four minutes and they were able to secure the scene. The first fire truck arrived at six minutes, closely followed by an ambulance. I arrived on scene eight minutes after the call was received.’

New images appeared more rapidly. Pictures of the vehicle and the debris scattered over a long stretch of tarmac. Heavy cutting equipment being used by fire officers to extricate the victims and paramedics working to stabilise the injured passenger.

‘It’s imperative that both the fire and ambulance services have unrestricted access to a crash scene. The preservation of life and safety for everyone involved takes immediate priority but this does make my job more complicated because it’s inevitable that a lot of evidence gets disturbed or destroyed.’

Hawk let his gaze travel right around the room. ‘That’s why I’m here. We’re all part of an overall team and the more we understand each other’s jobs, the more we can work to help rather than hinder each other.’

A senior fire officer nodded. ‘We have the advantage in being a peripheral city fire station. Having fire and ambulance working from the same base has made a real difference in how we work together.’

The male paramedic mirrored the nod. ‘We can tell these guys exactly what we need to get access to our patient or how we want the extrication done, and they’re in there securing the vehicle or cutting the right bit from the chassis. Saving time can save lives.’

‘Exactly. And if you know what we’re looking for and how we work, we can save time, do our jobs better and hopefully make a contribution to general road safety. So, what is it that we do?’

The projected image was now in written form. ‘There are three main threads to our investigations. The vehicle, the driver and the environment. It’s helpful if we can get to a scene quickly. That way we can document road factors like traffic and weather conditions. A lot of the debris is still in place and we can talk to any witnesses or uninjured people that may have been involved. The first things said at a scene are the most likely to be factual. Victims who do not wish to appear at fault may well construct a different story later.’

‘Should we be taking notes about anything said to us?’

‘That’s not part of your job,’ Hawk told the male paramedic. ‘And I wouldn’t expect you to do anything that could interfere with your own protocols, but if you remember something that comes up in an interview we might have later, that’s great. Same goes for impressions like the smell of alcohol or the mental state of those involved. You guys have a lot more experience than us in dealing with the kind of reactions people have to traumatic situations. If something seems odd to you, we’d like to know about it. On or off the record.’

‘We get advice about what to do at a potential murder scene,’ the paramedic, Laura, said. ‘Like disturbing evidence as little as possible. What can we do to minimise destroying any evidence the SCS needs?’

‘If you need to move something to assist a victim, do it,’ Hawk responded. ‘We’d just like to know about it. If you have to break windows, unlock doors or turn ignition keys off, do it but let us know.’

‘What about safety belts?’ a fire officer queried. ‘Is it OK to cut them?’

Hawk nodded. ‘In fact, it’s better to cut them and leave the clip in place than to unclip it and not have that recorded. That way, we can be sure that they were wearing a seat belt.’

‘Sometimes we’re moving vehicle parts that we’ve cut. Or cargo that’s come off a truck. Is that a problem?’

‘The more that gets changed, the less of a full picture we’re going to be able to put together,’ Hawk responded. ‘If we get told about the changes, we can factor them in.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sometimes small things can make a huge difference. Like a pedestrian versus car scenario, for example. When a vehicle hits a person, they’ll often lose a pair of glasses or a hat or handbag or something. The point at which that object falls is often the best indication of the point of impact. Some well-meaning person might pick the item up to give it back to the victim or tidy up a scene and that can make it impossible to be sure exactly where the victim was standing. And that could make the difference between the accident being the fault of the victim or the driver.’

Hawk’s face was serious as he let his gaze rest on Laura. She stared back and Hawk had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being evaluated for more than the content of his talk. He could feel some of the warmth leach out of his tone. ‘Fatal accidents can become court cases for manslaughter. A car is just as much of a lethal weapon as a gun in the wrong hands. Even small pieces of evidence can become of vital importance.’

His audience was clearly impressed, with the exception of Laura who was looking as though he had just scored another black mark on some personal score sheet. Hawk shrugged mentally and moved on, his tone now impersonal as he changed the image on the screen again.

‘What specifically are we looking for from the environment?’ He ran through a series of close-up photographs of tyre marks on road surfaces. ‘These can all tell their own story,’ he commented. ‘A yaw mark is a skid in a large arc and you’ll see these distinctive cross-marked tread patterns or striations. An acceleration scuff will have scrape marks in the opposite direction to travel whereas braking will give you scuffing in the same direction as travel.

‘Gouge marks, like this…’ Hawk pointed to the crescent shape carved into tarmac ‘…indicate the point of contact during a vehicle rollover. The mark occurs as the wheel rim hits the road. In this one—’ the crescent mark had a perfect circle close by ‘—the circle has been made by the central hub of the wheel during the final rollover.’

The next picture looked as though someone had emptied a rubbish container along a stretch of road. Papers, beer cans, broken glass, items of clothing and children’s toys were strewn over a surprisingly large area.

‘Debris scatter indicates the direction of travel of a vehicle and, potentially, its speed,’ Hawk told them.

He reached into a cardboard carton at his feet a few minutes later. The presentation was going smoothly and he was looking forward to finishing. He really wasn’t in the mood for liaison duties and that in itself was annoying. This kind of job had been a favourite when he and Cam had made it a joint effort. They could kick back and enjoy a semi-social occasion with their colleagues from complementary emergency services. There’d be jokes and laughter and maybe a beer or two at a local pub afterwards. If Laura had been scowling suspiciously at Cam he would have charmed her into appreciation pretty fast and it would have given the partners a moment of shared amusement later.

But those days were gone. As far as Hawk was concerned he was going solo now. He might be about to have a new partner foisted on him but that didn’t change anything. Cam was irreplaceable. They had worked—and played—as two halves of a whole. No one was going to step into that position easily. The notion that a female officer could replace what he’d had with Cam was about as likely as hell freezing over.

The item Hawk was now handing out to the group was an example of the kind of evidence they collected from the vehicles involved in a serious crash.

‘Look at the speedometer,’ he instructed. ‘Sometimes, with a high-energy impact, the speedo will become locked at the speed at which the vehicle was travelling. This one didn’t but if you look closely you might notice something.’

The dial was being carefully scrutinised by none other than Laura. ‘There’s a little mark,’ she observed. ‘At 190 kph.’

Hawk nodded. ‘A needle tap,’ he confirmed. ‘And another accurate indication of the vehicle’s speed.’

A collective whistle came from the group.

‘Didn’t come from your car, did it, Cliff?’ a fire officer called. ‘That time we were at the pub and you realised you’d forgotten your wedding anniversary and had three minutes to get home?’

‘Nah.’ Cliff shook his head ruefully. ‘I was late, man. Took me a month to get out of the dog box.’

‘And another week to get back in.’ A tall, blond fireman, who looked like an ex-surfer, was grinning broadly. ‘That’s marriage for you.’

Hawk joined in the laughter despite, or perhaps because of, Laura’s faintly disapproving expression. He agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly, anyway. Not that he had anything against female companionship. He never left too long a gap between his relationships, but he had it all worked out now and he knew precisely when it was time to call it quits. The first hint that the relationship was interfering with his own life or work was an alarm bell he never ignored.

Why the hell hadn’t Cam recognised those signals? They’d talked about it often enough. They’d watched their friends and colleagues move in and out of serious relationships. The fact that they’d both been burnt in the past had made them an ideal team to help pick up the emotional pieces when it all went to custard—as it invariably did. They had congratulated themselves on keeping their own lives in order in that department. They’d had it all. Great careers, a partnership that had only increased in strength over the years they had been together, an ability to attract female companionship whenever they’d felt the need and, more importantly, the wisdom to hear those alarm bells and act on them.

Hawk had tried to warn him that time he’d called off a night at the rifle range to take Cassie out.

‘She’s interfering, mate,’ he’d said sadly. ‘If you don’t watch out you’ll be up to your eyeballs in nappies and mortgages.’

And Cam had laughed. ‘Just wait.’ He’d grinned. ‘One of these days you’ll fall in love again and then you’ll change your tune.’