‘There might have been.’
‘Thank you, Mr Burns. No further questions.’
It had been damaging. The reference to beefy young men with shorn heads being ‘two a penny’ had scored with Mr Stein. He, too, watched television and saw coverage of football hooligans at play.
Mr Carl Bateman was purely technical. He simply described the arrival of the unconscious man at the Royal London and all he had done for him before the patient went to neurosurgery. Nevertheless, when he had finished, Vansittart rose.
‘Just one very brief issue, Mr Bateman. Did you at any point examine the right fist of the patient?’
Bateman frowned, puzzled.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘At the time of admission or later?’
‘Later.’
‘Was this at someone’s request?’
‘Yes.’
‘And whose, pray?’
‘Detective Inspector Burns.’
‘And did Mr Burns ask you to look for knuckle damage?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘And was there any?’
‘No.’
‘How long have you been in Accident and Emergency?’
‘Ten years.’
&n
bsp; ‘A very experienced man. You must have seen the results of many violent blows delivered with the fist, both to the human face and to the fist itself?’
‘Yes, I believe I have.’
‘When a human fist delivers a blow of such force as to shatter the nose of a much bigger man, would you not expect to find knuckle damage?’
‘I might.’
‘And what would be the chances of such damage occurring? Eighty per cent?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Abrasions to the skin of the knuckles? Bruising over the metacarpal heads, the thin and fragile bones that run up the back of the hand between the knuckles and the wrist?’
‘More likely the metacarpal bruising.’
‘Similar to the Boxer’s Injury?’
‘Yes.’