(1995) By Any Name (6 page)

‘A horrendous city centre. What are those purple and green things?’

She peered at the photograph. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ She closed the Swansea file and tried an older snap of Cardiff.

‘Now this is more like it. It has character and atmosphere. An arcade, possibly built in the early part of the twentieth century?’

‘So you know a little about architecture.’ She flicked through the files. If only she had more time.

She was already half way through the time allowance Dave had given her. Not that she wouldn’t take more if she needed it. She deliberated which place to try next. North or south? She opted for south.

She tried the town hall in Bridgend, the market place in Pontypridd, the pretty main street in Cowbridge, which pleased John aesthetically although it failed to jog his memory; the beaches at Penarth, Barry Island, Porthcawl, and the rural, seaside beauty of Llantwit Major, all to no avail.

‘You probably heard an accident of speech.’ He dropped the last photograph she’d given him and turned to the window.

‘Just a few more,’ she begged, realizing that he was losing interest. She pulled out a print at random and handed it to him.

‘The castle, or rather what little is left of it, in Brecon. It’s part of a hotel now.’

‘John… ’

‘Michael,’ he interrupted.

‘Your name is Michael?’

He continued to stare at the photograph. ‘There’s a promenade in Brecon along the river. It’s a pretty spot, but it’s crowded in summer… ’

She pulled the Brecon file from the box and laid it on the bed. Opening it, she rummaged through the sheaf of photographs and passed him one of a stretch of surfaced walkway set alongside a river. In the background was a car park filled with old fashioned vehicles.

‘This is ancient, but Brecon doesn’t change much.

Show me what else you have there.’

She pushed the file towards him.

‘The statue of Wellington outside the Wellington pub, High Street. The Boar’s Head, they serve a damn good pint there.’ He continued to flick through the postcard sized photographs. ‘The Watton, Ship Street, Llanfaes church, St Mary’s. There’s a hook on the side of the church, myth insists they used to hang people on… ’

‘You know the town inside out.’

‘Better than my own name.’

‘Michael.’

His eyes clouded as the frown furrowed his brow again. ‘It doesn’t sound right. I don’t know why I said it.’

‘Carry on looking. I’ll get the consultant. We’re so close… ’

‘I’m being moved soon, aren’t I?’

‘Not if I have a say in the matter. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ She opened the door and stumbled over Corporal Summers’ boots. She mumbled an apology and ran down the corridor, passing two porters wheeling a steel-sided canteen trolley. Turning the corner she pounded the lift button. Why wasn’t it ever on the floor when she wanted it? Tapping her foot restlessly she considered taking the stairs, remembered the seven flights and thought better of the idea. But when the lift finally did come it took an age to reach the ground floor.

She found Dave discussing the treatment for schizophrenia with the family of a newly diagnosed patient. She stood unobtrusively against the door of his ground floor office and waited for him to finish.

They had a town, a starting point. Twenty-four hours, that’s all she needed. Surely Dave could negotiate her that much.

The two porters continued to wheel their trolley along the corridor towards the sister’s office. The corporal moved into the doorway of West’s room to allow them to pass. They drew the high sided wagon alongside the soldiers and stopped. Both porters turned. Twin thuds resounded simultaneously. The 53

first porter scanned the corridor. They had timed it well. Two of the staff were on tea break in the canteen and the others were busy in the four-bedded side wards. Opening the door to West’s room he pushed the body of the soldier nearest to him inside.

John looked up from the photographs to see the sergeant, blood trickling from his mouth, heaved head first through the door. One glance was sufficient. The man was dead. He realized he had only seconds to act if he was going to save himself. Throwing himself to the floor he rolled close to the body, seizing the standard issue Browning that the sergeant, even in his death throes, had automatically pulled from his holster.

Still rolling, John looked up at the window. He used one of the Browning’s thirteen rounds to shoot off the locking device that prevented the window from being opened more than a few inches. Diving towards it, he head butted it open and climbed out on to the outside sill as two men ran into the room behind him.

Cursing the pain in his ankle, he looked down. Toy town cars and people moved around the car park below him. He looked up. There was only one more floor between him and the roof. He reached up. A shot whistled past his ear. Releasing his hold, he fell down one floor and scrabbled for the next window ledge. He gripped it with the tips of his fingers and hauled himself to his feet. The sky light in the window was open. He prised it as far as it would go and wriggled inside. A second shot burned in his leg before he reached inside. He forced his fist into his mouth, stifling a cry of pain as he tumbled on to a sink. He 54

heard footsteps running closer. Brandishing the gun, he opened the door of the sluice room he’d fallen into and grabbed a terrified nurse. Clamping his hand across her mouth to prevent her from screaming, he stepped forward and confronted her colleagues.

‘Anyone make a move towards me and she gets it in the head.’ He pressed the muzzle of the Browning to his hostage’s forehead and looked beyond the half a dozen terrified people. He was in a corridor. Up ahead there had to be a stairwell. Keeping the gun to the nurse’s head, he propelled himself forward using her body as a crutch to support his damaged leg and ankle. People screamed and fell back as he advanced.

He tried to think clearly and coherently.

Logic told him his assailants would expect him to head for the nearest exit. But he couldn’t afford to do what was expected of him. Not if he wanted to live.

He had to hole up somewhere, formulate an escape plan . . if only his leg wasn’t so painful…

Taking a chance he opened a door to the side of him. It was a miraculously empty office. Throwing the nurse in before him, he locked the door on the inside. He heard footsteps and yelled, ‘Anyone come close and I’ll kill her.’

He fired a warning shot to emphasize his threat.

Pulling a length of electrical flex from a wall socket he tied her hands and feet behind her back and stuffed a wad of paper into her mouth. Finally he propped a chair beneath the door handle and opened the window.

A minute later he was back outside the building battling against the wind and the rain.

‘I gave you half an hour, it’s been three-quarters,’

Dave complained to Elizabeth after he’d shown the family out of the room.

‘His name’s Michael. He’s from Brecon, Dave. I need just a little more time… ’

A sister burst into the room. ‘Mr Watson, security’s rung down from Ward Seven. There’s a problem.’

‘John West?’ Dave raised his eyebrows at Elizabeth.

‘They didn’t say, but I could hear someone screaming.’

‘Oh my God, he’s recognized something else. He could have remembered the trauma. I should never have left him… ’ Elizabeth ran towards the lifts.

‘Wait.’ Dave charged after her. The corridor was blocked by patients being shepherded to the front door by nursing staff.

‘Emergency on the upper floors,’ one of the nurses explained to his hurried questioning. ‘Security’s up there.’

Elizabeth hit the lift button.

‘It might not be John.’ Dave didn’t believe his own words.

‘Those damned army officers can’t move him now,’ she said earnestly not listening to a word Dave was saying. ‘Not when I’m on the brink of a breakthrough. He said “Michael” after seeing the first photograph of Brecon. Dave, you have to back me on this… ’

‘I’ll do what I can, Liz. But you saw them.

They’ve made up their mind. Where the hell is the bloody lift?’

‘I’m taking the stairs.’ She pushed open the fire door and ran up them, two at a time.

A security guard blocked her when she reached the fourth floor. ‘Can’t go any further, miss.’

‘You can’t stop me.’ She tried to push past him.

‘I’m Dave Watson, consultant for Ward Seven.’

Dave was panting from the exertion of trying to keep up with Elizabeth. ‘This is my registrar. Elizabeth Santer. We are needed on the ward.’

‘My orders are not to let anyone through, sir.’

A scream echoed above them. Elizabeth sprinted past the guard. Ignoring his shouts she continued upwards. Ward Seven was open and the sister and two nurses were standing in the doorway. Behind them Elizabeth could see that the door to John’s room was open. There was no sign of the soldiers. Without waiting for explanations she brushed past them and lurched headlong into the room.

The first thing she saw was the open window.

Rain had lashed through the casement soaking the bed and chair. She looked down, stepped back and clamped her hand over her mouth.

The two soldiers lay face up, limbs sprawled, limp and relaxed. She fell to her knees, and automatically followed the routine that had been drummed into her during her training. But even before she laid her hand on them, she knew they were beyond any help that she could give them. Third eyes, seared by bullets into the centres of both foreheads had killed both men.

‘The mark of the professional assassin, Dr Santer.’

She looked up. Lieutenant-Colonel Heddingham was standing over her.

John lay face down on the roof desperately trying to make himself invisible. He could hear the screams of nurses and petrified patients, the whine of alarms, the pounding of security guards’ feet, and all the while the sounds of confusion and chaos resounded below him he had continued to lie doggo. Rain soaked through the thin tracksuit drenching his skin. His nostrils were filled with the stench of the creosote that covered the roofing felt. The air cloyed, heavy with smog, and foul, greasy smoke from a stack belching a few feet away from his head. The chimney rose higher than the roof by some twenty feet, but the wind had lost its battle against the force of the downpour.

He tried to move his leg. His ankle and thigh hurt abominably. He inched his hand downwards. There was a tear in his track suit trousers. When he pulled his fingers away they were covered with blood. He pressed down on the wound, grimacing when the pain escalated, but he couldn’t feel any lumps. Hopefully the bullet had simply grazed him. He’d had worse. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was sure that he’d been shot before.

The sound of sirens shrilled above the relentless pounding of the rain. He rolled to the edge of the roof and risked looking out. He saw the flashing blue lights of emergency vehicles turning through the hospital gates. Five minutes at most before the police, emergency services, and remembering the dead 58

soldiers, the army hit the building. Time to find that bolt hole.

Slithering forward, commando-style, on knees and elbows, he gained the side of the roof that overlooked the back of the hospital. He leaned over. A skylight was open directly below him. Women’s voices echoed from the room beyond it. Gripping the edge of the roof, he hung upside down like a bat and peered through the narrow gap. He saw mirrors, washbasins and the back of a nurse disappearing out through a door. He couldn’t find a better hiding place than a Ladies’ room. All he had to do was crawl inside, sit in a cubicle and wait until the search moved on.

He climbed back on to the roof. Tearing his trouser leg open to his thigh, he covered his wound, binding it tightly, so his blood wouldn’t leave a trail, then, after listening for a few minutes to make sure the room was empty, he edged over and swung himself through the window. Crawling into a cubicle he thrust the bolt home, turned down the seat and crouched on it keeping his legs off the ground.

Somewhere on route he’d lost his paper slippers.

His wound was still bleeding despite the improvised bandage, he was shivering with cold and soaked to the skin, but he had a breathing space. All he had to do was plan out his next move.

‘Dr Santer showed him some photographs of Wales in an attempt to jog his memory.’

‘Looks like she succeeded,’ Heddingham remarked caustically. He and Dave walked further down the corridor away from the pathologist and technicians who were zipping the corpses of the soldiers into body bags and lifting them on to stretchers. ‘By alerting him to his identity, she probably reminded him of his mission.’

‘You can hardly blame Dr Santer… ’

‘No?’ Heddingham watched the trolleys containing the shrouded remains being wheeled away. ‘No, I suppose I can’t. After all, most of the catastrophic disasters of this century have been caused by sheer ignorance.’ He looked from Dave to Julian Trist who joined them. ‘I suppose the next thing you’ll tell me is that Dr Santer was only doing her job.’ He went into the ward office where Elizabeth was sitting, shocked and bewildered. Major Simmonds was at the window, leaning out in an attempt to plot the escape route John had taken.

‘He could have been a member of the armed forces,’ Elizabeth left her chair and walked restlessly to the door. ‘He knows Brecon… ’

‘The Brecon Beacons are first class training grounds,’ Heddingham snapped. ‘It’s common knowledge that we exercise our special forces on that terrain. Your John West would probably have been given that information as part of his briefing.’

Major Simmonds left the window and looked down the corridor. Elizabeth turned to see what he was looking at. Sticky pools of congealing blood, marked by evidence tape blotted the shining white surface of the floor tiles; cold, hard evidence that reminded her just how wrong she’d been about her patient.

‘You asked me earlier to tell you what I know about John West, Mr Watson,’ the lieutenant-colonel said to Dave. ‘I didn’t know very much then, but this incident has confirmed my worst fears. It’s my guess, and it will remain a guess until we receive corroborating evidence, but I am fairly confident that your “John West” was planted in this country by a terrorist organisation. It is absolutely vital we apprehend him. Because the one thing that I am certain of, is that while he remains at large we face a terrorist outrage that will no doubt result in the destruction of a target of strategic importance and the murder of innocent people.’