Chapter twenty-one
About three miles out of Pocheon I noticed two police cars and an ambulance pulled up on the side of the road. Several cars had stopped and I put my head out of the window to see what had happened. On the left side of the road a car had overturned in the ditch.
The queue of cars eased forward and a motor-cycle policeman waved me on. Then the queue came to a halt again and I stuck my head out of the window once more. ‘Are they badly hurt?’ I asked the traffic policeman.
‘There’s only one, sir – a woman’, he told me. ‘Shocking mess – they’re just getting her out now. I reckon she’s had it’.
The policeman moved on. I watched as a stretcher was taken over to the wrecked car. From where I was I could see that the near-side door of the car was smashed inwards on to the driving seat.
Near the wreck I noticed a boy of about thirteen holding a stuffed toy Korean tiger and showing it to another boy. It immediately brought to mind a similar toy tiger I had recently …
I went up to the boy. ‘Where did you get that from, lad?’ I asked him.
The boy jerked his thumb towards the wreck. ‘It came out of the car what was smashed up’. He said.
I parked my car by the side of the road and walked towards a small group of people who had gathered near the wreckage.
‘Have you identified the lady yet?’ I asked the policeman. He regarded me curiously. ‘We haven't had a chance yet, sir’.
‘I’ve an idea that she might be a friend of mine’, I explained. ‘I wonder if I could see her for a moment?’
‘Come with me, sir’, said the policeman.
We pushed our way through the crowd to the stretcher beside the wrecked car. A woman was lying there, swathed in blankets. The policeman lowered the blankets a little and looked at me inquiringly.
Despite the blood from two cuts on her face, I recognised the woman as Choi Ji-hye …
‘This lady’s a friend of mine, Officer’, I said. ‘I wonder if I could go with her to the hospital?’ The policeman looked puzzled. ‘You weren’t involved in the accident, were you sir?’
‘No, I just happened to be passing’.
The policeman indicated a man in plain clothes. ‘You’d better ask the doctor, sir’.
The doctor was a youngish man with jam-jar glasses. In answer to my request he said: ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t come along. I can’t tell until I give her a thorough examination at the hospital, but she seems pretty badly hurt’.
‘D’you think she’ll live?’ I asked.
The doctor looked at me sharply. ‘I can’t tell yet’, he replied shortly. He turned to one of the ambulance men. ‘Come on, let’s get to the hospital’.
I sat on the pull-out seat at the front end of the ambulance, looking intently at Choi Ji-hye, who lay quite still with her eyes closed. The doctor was taking instruments out of his bag, which was on the other stretcher.
Suddenly Mrs Choi emitted a quavering sigh. Her eyes flickered open and she tried to speak. I leaned forward. ‘What is it, Mrs Choi?’ I asked.
She forced the words out, but only with fearful effort. ‘Kim … Joo-young …’
‘Yes?’ I said. ‘What about her?’
She said in a whisper that I could barely hear: ‘She … didn’t … see … Park … Song-yong’
‘She didn’t see him?’
Mrs Choi moved her head very slowly from side to side. ‘No … she was lying … She didn’t … see … Park …’
‘Where is Park Song-yong?’ I asked tensely. Her expression went blank.
I leaned closer to her. ‘Try to tell me’. I urged. ‘This is very important. Where – is - Park – Song-yong?’
The doctor came towards me, holding a hyperdermic and put a hand on my arm. ‘I don’t think she’d better talk at the moment’, he said. There was a note of gentle reproof in his voice.
But Mrs Choi’s lips were moving again and I bent forward to catch what she said. ‘I … think… Joo-young … knows …’
Then the doctor slid the needle into her arm and she relapsed into unconsciousness.
The doctor turned to me: ‘She’ll be unconscious for another twenty-four hours at least. Looks to me like a skull fracture’.
The ambulance pulled up with a gentle jerk and I climbed out. There was no point in my going into the hospital, so I managed to hop a lift in a passing van, back to my car. Then I drove to Seoul.
The time had come, I thought grimly, to start getting really tough with Kim Joo-young …