Bedlam (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

There was a mini battalion of journalists and press photographers encamped around the hospital entrance when McNeil arrived. They hadn’t been present when he’d left the previous day and he wondered what had happened overnight to yank their chain. He hoped it was coincidence and unconnected to his fall from grace.

His hopes were quickly dashed when they zeroed in on him with fervour akin to wolves scenting fresh blood. Mindful of his warning from Mather, he raised a hand to block any photos and doggedly pushed his way through the throng.

“Detective McNeil, would you care to comment on the latest developments?”

Latest developments?
He ducked his head and kept going, increasingly aware that the doctor’s little helpers were busily doing their thing, and as a result he might well say something he shouldn’t. His head buzzed in a good way, and although he now felt able to take on the world, a little voice in his head cautioned against it. It wasn’t Kit, and it wasn’t Nell. His head was so crowded now he’d given up trying to make sense of it.

“How do you feel, knowing you saved a monster?”

McNeil turned and the photographer caught the look of confusion on his face, a perfect portrait shot that would no doubt grace the morning dailies. If the lens were powerful enough, it might also have caught the dilated pupils and the slight flush rising beneath the grey pallor. McNeil blinked against the flash and stumbled backwards, his fall prevented by yet another photographer whose camera slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground.

“Shit, did you see that? Bloody copper pushed me,” shouted the man, and several others leapt in to capture the event for posterity, clicking wildly, jostling for position.

McNeil cursed. Whatever he said or did was going to be misconstrued and misreported. It seemed the freedom of the press allowed for a certain licence where the truth was concerned. He extricated himself and swung around to face his accuser, fists clenched, muscles bunched. He could feel his heart rate climbing, hear the blood pulsing loudly in his ears, but when he recognised eager expectation on the man’s face, he hauled himself back and raised his hands in apology instead.

“I have no comment to make,” he said carefully, enunciating every word. “If you require information on any case, then I suggest you contact the press office.”

He pushed forward, reaching the sanctuary of the lobby as a woman’s voice called after him.

“Don’t you want to give us your side of the story, detective? The public has a right to know if the police department isn’t doing its job.”

He paused at the revolving door, missing his opportunity to step forward into the next vacant rotation. Glancing back he spotted Clarissa Temple standing to one side of the pack. He knew why Mather kept her at arm’s length. She was a Thatcheresque clone, a strong, ballsy woman who went for the throat and wouldn’t let go. She had history with Mather, and McNeil wasn’t sure what the guv had done to warrant such single-minded determination, but the woman was out to ruin him by whatever means possible. McNeil knew he was merely cannon fodder in a battle that had raged between them both for years, but it didn’t lessen the immediate threat.

Clarissa eyed him now, assessing, calculating her strategy, choosing her weapons, and McNeil ignored the obvious risk and smiled. She cocked her head, puzzled, interested, obviously expecting him to rise to her bait, and he had, just not in the way she had expected. Clarissa and her poison pen could keep, but if the department wasn’t prepared to take him seriously about Kit’s disappearance, then McNeil wasn’t averse to colluding with the enemy. In fact, any enemy of Mather’s might well prove to be a friend to him.

He raised a single brow in covert acceptance and she dipped her head in reply, taking advantage of a surge within the pack to thrust a business card in his hand. He closed his fingers around it, the sharp edges digging into the fresh cut left by the blade. His palm tingled and his attention was immediately drawn back to Nell. What had happened to create such a furore?

He took the stairs as an alternative to the lift. The possibility of finding himself locked in a small space with an insistent reporter or an overbearing nurse had him sweating. He couldn’t guarantee his own behaviour anymore and it scared him.

The stairwell, by comparison, was spacious, cool and empty. There was a lingering, clinical smell that teased his nostrils in a bad way, like a sneeze that wouldn’t come or a memory that remained just out of reach. It taunted him. He stood a moment with one hand on the banister, gathered his wits, calmed his nerves and allowed his eyes to drift shut. He called silently for Kit and was rewarded by her soft laughter and warm breath against his cheek. He re-opened them reluctantly, more than happy to linger in her company a while longer and delay his return to the real world.

The real world had other ideas.

Instead of taking his first step up toward the third floor, McNeil’s attention was inexplicably drawn down to the double doors leading to the basement. Lights flickered beyond the twin porthole windows and he narrowed his eyes in confusion as the doors swung slowly open to reveal the corridor beyond.

The smell hit him first and he reeled back as ammonia, disinfectant and decay caught the back of his throat
.  He retched reflexively. Then came the noise, rhythmic pounding that grew louder by the second, angry fists on a locked door, heavy boots on a wooden floor, desperate heads on unrelenting walls. The sound swelled like water trapped beneath the ground, systematically testing the limits of its captivity, seeking an escape. The corridor was green with algae, chipped tiles camouflaged as nature sought to reclaim them. Weeds forced their way through cracks in the floor, spreading out, virus-like, shoots becoming trees before his very eyes until the chaos threatened to erupt from within and breech the safety of the stairwell.

A small boy crept out from the darkness and stood in the doorway, watching him. Ivy crept silently up one leg. Green mould stained his T-shirt. One hand was clamped so firmly over his mouth that his cheeks were pinched, the other hung awkwardly by his side, the small wrist swollen, fingers bent out of shape.

McNeil flexed his own scarred knuckles, tightening his grip on the metal handrail as fear and horror combined in his gut. He stumbled back, caught the stair behind with his heel and sat down with a sudden bump. He jammed his eyes shut, dropped his head between his knees and drew a desperate breath.
Get a grip!
He wanted to shout it out loud but the words were stillborn.

When he opened his eyes the doors were closed, silence cloaked the stairwell and the boy had gone.

By the time he got to the ward he knew by the extra police presence that something serious had occurred, and he guessed that whatever it was would be coming back to bite him. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down, to reveal his vulnerability. His heart raced, his chest was tight. He was ready to crack, could feel it building, and only the fuzziness in his head was preventing it. It cushioned the impact, smoothing out the rough edges and sharp corners of his nightmare.
Inhale, exhale
. He practised it as he walked.

Dennis was waiting outside Nell’s room. Scene of Crime officers were already in
situ. Yellow and black tape zigzagged the corridor. McNeil’s chest tightened another notch. He wondered if it was possible to die of acute anxiety and paranoia, and whether it would be such a bad thing if he did. He felt a cool palm against his chest, slowing his heart rate, focusing his mind. The fact that it was Nell, not Kit, stopped him in his tracks. He’d made a terrible mistake. He shouldn’t have left her.

“Where the hell have you been?”

McNeil swallowed and took a few seconds to compose himself. “Nowhere. I came straight down here, just like you said.”

“Via the pub?”

“Give credit where it’s due, Dennis. I’m on doctor’s orders. I haven’t touched a drop since Friday.”

“Really?”
Dennis studied him a little closer and McNeil shifted uncomfortably.

“Yes, really.”

“So where have you been?”

“I had stuff to do.”

“
Stuff?
I gave you strict instructions to get straight down here. Where the bloody hell have you been for the last six hours?”

Six hours?
McNeil faltered. He’d spent no more than thirty minutes at the station and he’d come straight to the hospital from the viaduct. He hadn’t spent five hours up there, he knew he hadn’t. His mind fogged with confusion.

“Why, what’s happened?” he asked. He caught the sly look on Mary Cameron’s face as she pushed past in her white cover-all, camera in hand, and braced himself for the reply.

“We’ve lost the witness.”

“Dead?”

“Missing.”

McNeil exhaled. “You mean, discharged? Checked out?”

“No. She was assessed by psychiatry after exhibiting behaviours overnight that suggested self-harm. She was about to be moved to a secure unit when she attacked an orderly. She used a scalpel. Slit his throat. Left him for dead.” Dennis gave McNeil a sidelong glance. “Looks like we had our killer all along.”

“When did all this happen?”

“Four hours ago. Who knows, you might have been able to prevent it if you’d actually done as you were told and got here on time.”

“Or I might have got my own throat slit. That would have solved a few problems for you.”

“Don’t think I didn’t consider that already.”

McNeil crossed to the viewing window and watched as the SOCOs did their work. Apart from the arterial spray that peppered the white walls and bed, the room seemed disturbingly unaffected by the event. What little furniture there
was, remained exactly where McNeil remembered. There was no sign of a struggle.

“Where’s the victim?”

“ICU. He was in here maybe ten minutes. When the rest of the staff arrived, this is what they found.” Dennis gestured with a broad hand.

“And the girl?”

“Long gone.”

“And we’re sure it was her?”

“What do you mean?”

McNeil frowned. “This doesn’t feel right, any of it. Why would she attack him? Where’d she get the weapon?”

“You said yourself she was crazy. We have the victim and the weapon she used against him. There’s no mistake. She’s out there and she’s dangerous.”

“
Out there?
You think she left the hospital?”

“It’s possible, but if she has she won’t get far. Unless she lifted something as she ran, all she has on is a hospital gown. I expect you noticed it’s snowing out there. We’re checking the CCTV. We haven’t spotted her yet.”

“Are you seriously expecting me to believe that she could overpower anyone? You recall how small she is, how beat-up she was. What’s the victim saying?”

“Not a lot. Like I said, he’s in ICU.”

“So, basically circumstantial evidence?”

Dennis stepped close.
“For the moment, yes. But that’s what we’re rolling with. We’re two, possibly three, bodies down now, and she’s the prime suspect.”

McNeil shook his head incredulously. “Has anybody considered that Nell might have been the intended victim here, taken by the guy who attacked her in the first place? This looks more like Jacob’s handiwork. Think about it. He comes to get her and the orderly gets in his way.” He gestured with an open hand to the blood-spattered room. “This doesn’t make sense. Nell was scared, crazy maybe, spooky definitely, but essentially scared, scared that the man who attacked her was going to come back and finish the job.”

“There was an officer at the nurse’s station. Nobody came in here other than doctors and nurses.”

“Yeah?
So where was he when all this happened?”

“Someone got stuck in the lift. He went to offer assistance.” Dennis grimaced. “I know … you don’t need to say it.”

McNeil, inhaled slowly. He couldn’t work it out in his head. The chemical buzz that had seemed so fine when he’d arrived and held him together earlier was now slowing his thought process, winding him down, readying his body for desperately needed sleep. He tried to concentrate. The room was covered in someone’s blood, there was no denying that.

“Okay,” he relented, “maybe she lashed out in self-defence, misread the situation,
mistook the orderly for someone else, I don’t know - but a killer? There’s no way she could have manhandled two men twice her size over the parapet. I‘ve just been up there.
I
would have had trouble doing it.”

“You’ve been up there?”

“Yes, I just told you.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because it’s a crime scene and I’m working the case, and I needed to know whether my theory held water. Fuck, Dennis, why shouldn’t I be up there? It’s my bloody job. I thought you’d be pleased I was being so conscientious for a change.”

“I told you to get straight down here and get a statement from a witness, a statement you failed to get previously because you were either drunk or hung-over or bloody stupid. What I didn’t do, is tell you to go do your own thing. We work as a team, Joey. Do you understand what that means?”

McNeil scowled. A surge of heat shot through him. He reached out and placed a steadying hand against the wall.
Had the doctor said one or two capsules twice a day?
He couldn’t remember. His throat was dry and he cast about, trying to locate the hallway water fountain.