And None Shall Sleep (3 page)

Mike gave an expression of disgust. ‘A couple of half-blind porters in their seventies. Doors and windows open everywhere.'

‘Was this man's room on the ground floor?'

Mike nodded. ‘And the room next door to him was empty with the window wide open. So anyone could have got in.'

‘No one saw him go?'

‘No.'

‘What does his wife say?'

Mike tapped his lip thoughtfully. ‘She doesn't seem too upset. She's convinced he'll turn up – somewhere,'

‘But there's no sign of him?'

Mike shook his head. ‘He really has disappeared, Jo. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything' He stole a glance at her arm. ‘Colclough would be furious if he knew I'd even mentioned it. He's convinced you have major injuries and won't be fit to work for months. Forget it,' he said, now eyeing the plaster cast with undisguised hostility. ‘That thing'll take weeks to heal. I'm sure we'll have found him by then.' He aimed a kick at the foot of the bed. ‘Dead or alive.'

But already the adrenalin was coursing through her veins. It dissolved the pain, gave her energy, made the mummy shape of her arm nothing but a bulky nuisance. She sat bolt upright.

‘Who was he?' she asked. ‘What was his name?'

Mike smiled grimly. ‘Was, Joanna? Was? Jumping to conclusions? After all you've said to me about being impulsive.'

‘Well, that's what you think, isn't it?'

She looked closer at him. ‘You think he's dead, don't you, Mike?'

‘You do,' he accused.

‘Yes,' she said slowly. ‘I do. Yet,' she mused, ‘I wouldn't have called myself a pessimist. And people do get stressed in hospitals – do strange things. Sometimes they wander off.' She frowned. ‘But the circumstances are unusual, aren't they? You say the IV line and machines had all been turned off?'

He nodded. Her curiosity was alight now. ‘Tell me more about him.'

Mike sank into the chair. ‘His name is Jonathan Selkirk,' he said. ‘He's a solicitor here, in Leek. He specializes in criminal law.'

A sudden image of a hard-eyed, humourless man with a toothbrush moustache edged into her memory. ‘I know him,' she said. ‘Sly old Selkirk and that crooked partner of his.' She looked at Mike. ‘What's his name?'

‘Wilde. Rufus Wilde.'

She closed her eyes and struggled with something.

‘Aren't they under investigation? Fraud Squad job?'

‘That was months ago. I haven't heard anything about that for ages. Solicitors,' he said disgustedly. ‘Some of them are more bloody crooked than half the villains they're defending.'

‘That's a bit of a sweeping statement, Sergeant. Most of the solicitors want justice every bit as much as we do.'

‘It depends on your interpretation of justice,' Mike said darkly.

Joanna moved her plaster cast across the sheet. It felt cold, heavy, unfamiliar. Inside it her arm ached. ‘Let's not get into prolonged discussions, Mike. Is there anything else I should know about Selkirk?'

‘Now hang on a minute,' he said quickly. ‘You're off sick. I just came to pick your brains.'

‘Really?' And even Mike knew she was laughing at him.

He paused before shrugging and adding, ‘OK, I admit it. I mean you've only got a broken arm haven't you. His wife did mention something about him receiving a letter through the post yesterday morning. She thought it could have triggered off his heart attack.'

Joanna looked up. ‘What sort of letter?'

‘It advised him to make a will.'

And Joanna jumped to exactly the some conclusion that Sheila Selkirk had jumped to only the day before. ‘It was probably just a circular,' she said, ‘or Make a Will Week. I'm always getting letters advising me to make a will.'

But Mike shook his head. ‘No,' he said. ‘It was a typewritten note which told him to make a will, and it rattled him. I've seen it. There wasn't a letterhead, a telephone number or anything to get back to. No.' He shook his head firmly. ‘It wasn't advertising – nothing to do with that. But it wasn't your regular threatening letter either.'

‘Then what sort of letter was it?'Joanna asked sharply.

‘I don't know. It was addressed to him and told him to make a will. That's all.'

‘So what did you think the point was, Mike, if it wasn't advertising?'

‘A warning?'

She looked up. ‘A
warning
?'

‘Well ... you know.' He stopped. ‘It could have been a sort of death threat.'

‘And now he's disappeared?' Joanna thought for a minute.

‘I don't suppose his wife has any idea who sent the note?'

Mike shook his head. ‘Not that she was going to tell me anyway. All I got from her was that it had a local postmark. She thinks he'll turn up.'

‘But you think he's been kidnapped.'

Mike protested. ‘I didn't say that.'

‘Well, what else does “taken against his will” mean?' She pushed on. ‘You think he's being held somewhere – or that he's dead.' She spoke the words flatly, as a statement.

Mike paused, then said, ‘I could do with you, Jo. I'd like to find him – soon.'

It was the nearest she would ever get to Mike begging. ‘Send the nurse in,' she said. ‘I'm getting dressed.'

There was a formality of signing a form ... a disclaimer, absolving the hospital of any blame. And she know they disapproved. She ignored it. Mike was right. He needed her. Besides, she wanted to find Selkirk too. So she signed the form then sat and waited while he organized a WPC to fetch some clothes from home. Something she could easily slip on. And all the time she waited she was in a fume. Intrigued and impatient.

When the WPC returned Joanna knew why Matthew had known it would be necessary for her to have help. She was disabled by the plaster cast, much more than she had realized, unable even to pull up her knickers properly.

She looked hopelessly at the WPC. ‘PC Critchlow – Dawn,' she said. ‘You're going to have to help me.'

The WPC giggled. ‘I'd guessed that,' she said. ‘You're not going to get very far with all your clothes lopsided like that. And that thing on your arm.'

‘A necessary evil, I'm afraid.'

Even in her impatience Joanna was forced to smile at her reflection. Her skirt was crooked, her tights twisted, her sweater half-on, half-off. She was helpless, her progress irritatingly slow. But even what progress she was making was suddenly brought to a halt by Matthew bursting in, still dressed in his theatre garb.

‘Joanna ...' He scowled. ‘What the hell's going on? I heard you were discharging yourself.' He glowered at the WPC who flushed and muttered that she would wait outside.

Matthew watched her go with taut impatience before he turned back. ‘Now, would you mind explaining?'

She smiled. ‘Not at all,' she said, ‘if you'll just give me a hand with my sweater.'

He cleared his throat before helping her wriggle her good arm through the sleeve and tucking the rest around her.

‘Thank you,' she said, ignoring his angry glance. ‘You were right, it is a bit tricky.'

‘I told you it would be. Now what's going on?'

‘A patient went missing from here last night.'

Matthew dismissed it with a wave of his hand.' ‘It was some old fool with hospital phobia,' he said. ‘I heard about it. It's hardly enough to get you from your bed. Joanna,' he said softly. ‘You could do with the rest. It was a nasty bump. You were concussed, you know.'

‘I'm all right now, Matthew,' she said. ‘Please, don't fuss. I'll seek medical advice if I feel ill. A man's disappeared. And they need me. I can co-ordinate things – direct the others.' She stopped. ‘It's not as though I have to do all the footwork.'

‘You need the rest,' he repeated angrily. ‘They can manage without you.'

‘You know how much work there is?' she said frowning. ‘They can't manage this sort of major investigation on their own. They need everyone they can get. Not someone off sick.'

He gripped her shoulders. ‘He's just some silly old fool,' he said. ‘Probably lost his memory... wandering the streets. He'll turn up.'

‘Mike told me all his wires had been ripped off,' Joanna insisted. ‘He told me there was blood on the bed. It had dripped all over the floor.' She paused. ‘I don't think even a silly old fool would have done that. And if he's simply wandering the streets dressed in a pair of pyjamas why hasn't he turned up, been found by someone?'

Matthew glared at her. ‘It's all you bloody well care about,' he said. ‘Law and order and your beloved police force. Think you're Joan of Arc, crusading for right against wrong.'

She hated him for that and was glad when he stormed out.

It was easy to find the missing man's room. The bright tape across the doorway, the army of Scene of Crime Officers in their white suits, the curious stares of staff and patients dawdling past. She slipped on some overshoes and went in.

Mike was standing at the foot of the bed, directing operations. For a moment she watched him. The scene was still one of chaos and confusion when order should by now have set in. In the centre of the room, surrounded by medical machines, was the bed, a narrow, high hospital bed with a small wooden headboard, labelled Jonathan Selkirk, date of birth 24.3.40, and presumably the consultant's name. A Mr Meredith. The sheets had been thrown back and the bed was strewn with a tangle of multi-coloured plastic-coated wires, still attached to a blank television screen. But the other ends – the ends she supposed had been attached to the missing patient – terminated in small squares of sticking plaster. She bent over and saw hairs and pieces of skin still attached. Mike had been right. They had been torn off and dropped across the bed.

‘Make sure you get pictures of this lot, will you,' she said to the camera man, ‘and then cut the ends off, bag and label them, and get them to the lab.'

She turned her attention to the far side of the bed. A tall steel stand was holding a bag of clear fluid, the pipe leading to the bed and ending in a tiny plastic tube. It must once have been taped to Selkirk's arm. Now it led to a puddle, mixed blood and the clear fluid. And blood was splattered across the floor in large drops. Joanna glanced at the sticking plaster on the small plastic pipe and saw that it too was smothered in hairs and flakes of skin. It must have been pulled out with some force. No gentle hand here. She looked around her. They were all watching her with confident expectancy.

She stood still for a moment and studied the room. Even crawling with police there was something ghostly about it, abruptly robbed of its occupant. The blank monitor which should have showed the beat of his heart, the drip apparatus that should have led to his vein, the empty space where he should be lying, the pillow dented by his head and still displaying a few stray grey hairs. Only one thing was missing – Selkirk himself. And she knew why Mike had been anxious to find him.

She looked up. ‘Best check the staff's fingerprints,' she said, ‘and be thorough with the room. Check it as carefully as if he were lying here dead.' They all involuntarily glanced at the bed as though they expected his corpse to materialize. ‘If he turns up,' she added, ‘we'll scale down operations.'

She caught Dawn Critchlow's gaze. ‘You'd better tell the ward sister the room's out of bounds for at least forty-eight hours.'

WPC Critchlow disappeared and the others all set to their various jobs.

Mike grinned. ‘Joanna,' he said, glancing at her plaster. ‘Are you going to be all right?'

‘Fine, with the help of the maximum legal dose of aspirin and some decent coffee,' She glanced back at the stiff, dried blood.

‘The doctor said the drip must have been torn out,' he said. ‘Switched off at the clip, then pulled. Some blood would naturally have drained.' He swallowed. ‘The nurse discovered the patient missing then found drops of blood all the way to the fire exit. Frightened the living daylights out of her.'

‘He used the fire exit,' she mused. ‘So that's how he got out without being seen?'

Mike nodded.

‘The nurse's name?'

‘Yolande Prince,' Mike said. ‘She's very upset.'

‘Mmm. I'm sure. I shall want to speak to her.' She glanced at one of the PCs standing by. ‘Make sure she's available as well as the other nurses on duty.'

‘At the station, ma'am?'

‘No, here will do. I think they've probably had enough shocks for one day,' she added drily.

She stared at the bed then back at Mike. ‘What did you say he was wearing?' she asked curiously.

‘Pyjamas.'

‘Just pyjamas?'

Mike nodded and indicated the hook on the back of the door. ‘His dressing gown's still here,' he said. ‘And ...' He bent down and picked up a pair of brown tartan slippers. ‘We found a couple of footprints along the corridor. He was barefooted.'

‘I wonder why he didn't bother to put his slippers on.'

Mike looked at her. ‘That's another reason why I thought he'd been abducted rather than simply left. Even suicides aren't keen on cold feet. It's automatic to put footwear on.'

She stared at the floor. ‘He came in yesterday – dressed?'

‘His wife took all his clothes home,' Mike said. ‘We asked her.'

Joanna nodded. ‘How did you think someone might have got in?'

‘Next door,' Mike said. ‘There's an empty room.'

‘Ah yes,' she remembered. ‘With an open window.' She glanced at Mike. ‘A bit opportune, don't you think? Did you look on the sill?' she asked. ‘Are there any marks?'

Mike shook his head.

‘Well get the SOCOs to scrutinize it anyway.' She crossed the room and looked out of the window to the small turning space outside. And then what?'