The Horse at the Gates (40 page)

‘Jesus Christ,’ Bryce breathed. ‘Then who is–?’ He stopped suddenly, realising the answer to his own question. How far Tariq had risen in a couple of months, from a minister on the verge of disgrace to leader of the country. And how Bryce had underestimated him.

‘You’ve got it,’ Sully smiled, reading Bryce’s face. ‘Anyway, Hooper’s funeral was a few days ago. A family affair, very quiet. No press.’

‘Poor Jacob,’ Bryce whispered.

Sully laughed. ‘It was poor Jacob that had you transferred here.’

‘No,’ Bryce said emphatically, ‘we both know this is Tariq’s work.’

Sully waved an admonishing finger. ‘Show some respect, Gabe. It’s Prime Minister Saeed to the likes of you and me. Anyway, it was Hooper’s signature on everything, so he’ll take the fall. Literally, as it turns out.’ Sully chuckled at his own joke. ‘It’s all working out nicely, too. There’s barely a mention of you these days. No one wants to hear about sick people, Gabe, not even ex-Prime Ministers. The world has moved on. You’re just a news flash waiting to happen.’

Bryce searched those cold, hard eyes as Sully’s cruel laughter rang in his ears. With Jacob gone, his own demise was surely just around the corner. He found it almost impossible to believe that a couple of months ago he was safely ensconced in Downing Street, the leader of the nation. Now it seemed like another world, someone else’s life. He shivered, pulling his dressing gown tightly around him, his hands tucked beneath his armpits.

‘Someone will find out about all this,’ he warned. ‘People have died. It’ll get out, sooner or later.’

Sully came and sat on the bed next to him. He spoke softly but his eyes bored into Bryce’s. ‘Really? And who’s going to tell them? You? If you walked out of here today who would believe you? Your reputation is shredded and everyone thinks you’re a basket case. All you’d be is a mentally disturbed ex-politician wailing about a conspiracy. That’s the story that would hit the headlines, that and your wild-eyed picture. Bottom line is, you’d end up back here. With me.’ Sully patted Bryce’s leg and chuckled darkly. ‘And to cap it all, you’re a murderer now. I mean, look what you’ve done to poor nurse Orla. No Gabe, no one will ever believe you. You’re finished.’ He turned away from Bryce, his eyes drawn to the body by the wall. ‘Anyway, I can’t sit here chatting all day. This mess needs to be cleaned up.’

As Sully stood up, Bryce grabbed his tunic and sunk the needle into his backside, depressing the plunger in one swift movement. Sully yelped, his body arching and his arm swinging viciously at Bryce’s head as he twisted away. The blow caught Bryce on the shoulder and he tumbled backwards across the bed. Sully winced, clenching his teeth as he yanked the syringe from his right buttock. Bryce dropped to the other side of the bed, keeping it between them. He watched Sully as the Turk studied the syringe with disbelieving eyes. An empty syringe.

He hurled it at Bryce’s head, missing him by a fraction. ‘What was it?’ he screamed, reaching for the baton beneath his tunic. He racked it out, his eyes blazing with a fury that terrified Bryce. He pushed the bed towards the enraged orderly and ran for the door as Sully staggered after him.

‘Bastard!’ The baton swished through the air inches behind Bryce’s head. He ducked into the corridor, yanking the door closed behind him, his hand shooting up for the heavy dead bolt and slamming it home. He backed away from the door as it shook under the force of Sully’s assault, his desperate thumping muffled by the thick padding. The handle rattled violently, the shouts and curses promising a world of violence. Sully was like a wild animal suddenly caged, vicious, deadly, desperate. Bryce held his breath, willing Sully to shut up, terrified the syringe had failed to do its job, that the drug inside had somehow lost its potency.

But slowly the blows on the door weakened. The handle stopped rattling. He heard his name and crept towards the door.

‘Gabe,’ the muffled voice rasped. ‘Can’t breathe. Get… get some help.’

It didn’t sound like Sully, the usually deep, confident tone replaced by a choking, high-pitched pleading. There was another thump on the door, softer this time, like a child’s. He looked down, where the pale dawn light inched beneath the door. He saw shadows, Sully’s feet, moving, shifting balance. Then the light was extinguished as the sound of a body hitting the floor reached Bryce’s ear. He thought he heard the baton clatter across the linoleum.

He got down on his hands and knees and peered under the gap. Something white was pressed up against the door on the other side. Sully. Faking it or out cold? Bryce decided to wait.

He went into the washroom and splashed cold water on his face. He inspected himself in the mirror, his face pale, glistening droplets clinging to the stubble of his face and head. A small vein throbbed in his neck and he gripped the edge of the sink to stop his hands from shaking. If this was going to work he’d have to shape up, pull himself together. He began to breathe deeply, filling his lungs and exhaling slowly. Eventually his heart rate slowed, his hands stopped shaking.

He stayed in the washroom for a while, perched on a lavatory seat, listening for movement from the bolted room, from the rest of the wing. It was quiet, only the sound of dripping water, the distant toot of a vehicle at the main gate, the disturbed wail of a patient from somewhere within the facility. Business as usual.

Fifteen minutes had passed, maybe twenty, when Bryce poked his head out into the corridor. The light under the door was still blocked out, the room ominously silent. On hands and knees, Bryce peeked under the door again. Sully’s body appeared not to have moved, a crush of white material filling the gap. Perhaps it was all a sham, Sully lying with his back to the door, his eyes open, a cruel smile on his face as Bryce released the bolt and pushed open the door. How long could he wait like that? Hours maybe.

The question was, how long could Bryce afford to wait? Would anyone come looking for Sully? For nurse Orla? She was Bryce’s full-time carer, whereas Sully oversaw the whole thing, monitoring, reporting – goading, always making sure Bryce remained isolated, confined to his wing, that the windows and locks were not interfered with. And now his gaolers lay on the other side of the door, one certainly dead, the other out cold. Probably.

Another hour passed, then another, but Sully never moved. Bryce watched from the utility room window as the grocery truck honked a greeting at the main gate, the red and white barrier lifted, the driver waving to the guard from his window. That truck usually arrived long after the staff did, around ten o’clock Bryce calculated. That meant fresh fruit and veg for lunch and dinner, not that Bryce ever saw much of it. His meals were usually a mixture of watery potatoes and overcooked vegetables, the meat barely identifiable, the same pallid-looking flesh appearing in next day’s curry or stew. So, it was mid-morning then. Soon it would be lunchtime and the ebb and flow of traffic would begin again, funnelling through the main gate with predictable regularity. Bryce took a deep breath, knowing the moment had finally arrived, knowing that further inaction and delay would result in his own fate being swiftly sealed.

He checked beneath the door, his eye finding the crease in Sully’s uniform just below the rusted screw of the door’s footplate. The crease was still there, unmoved, which meant Sully had lain completely immobile on the floor for more than three hours. If he was faking it then he was good, but now he had no choice. The longer he waited, the more chance Sully would start to revive and Bryce couldn’t risk that. He reached up and dropped the bolt, pushing the door open against the weight of Sully’s body. He peered around the jamb. Sully lay curled at his feet, immobile, his mouth and eyes wide open, his dark features now a sickly grey. The baton had skittered across the floor and lay at the foot of the bed. Without thinking, Bryce hopped over Sully and raced towards the weapon, scooping it up and spinning around to face the Turk.

Nothing. Sully remained on the floor, his knees drawn up into a foetal position. Bryce advanced slowly, poked Sully’s trainers with the baton. He moved closer, navigating the tip towards Sully’s genitals. Sully didn’t flinch, not even when Bryce prodded the hardened plastic tip deep into Sully’s crotch. The Turk’s eyes stared into space, a pool of saliva beneath his chin staining the linoleum. Bryce waved the baton near his face just to be sure, but Sully’s eyes remained open, unblinking. Bryce tucked the baton under his arm and grabbed Sully’s legs, straining with the effort as he pulled him clear and out into the middle of the room. He removed his white tunic and trousers and folded them carefully over the back of the chair. He began to undress, his back to Sully, unable to meet those accusing, lifeless eyes. How much of an unidentified drug he’d given him Bryce didn’t know, but it had killed him. Two tablets a day, the clear fluid inside carefully decanted into the syringe over the last month until it was full. A fatal overdose, then; another death on Bryce’s increasingly bloody hands. He couldn’t bring himself to confront that reality right now, forcing it from his mind. Later, maybe. Not now.

He changed into Sully’s uniform, rolling up the legs and cuffs. Still it looked too big, so he pulled on a pair of track bottoms and a couple of sweatshirts to fill himself out and tried again.
Better,
he thought, looking down at himself. He removed Sully’s trainers and slipped them on his feet, wriggling his toes and discovering they were a size too big. It didn’t matter, he had no intention of running anywhere.

He relieved Orla of her money, her cell phone, travel smart card, access keys and security swipe. Finally, he scooped up Sully’s identification card and placed the lanyard around his neck. From the window he saw the hospital was operating normally, the guards safely ensconced inside the gatehouse as a fine mist of rain painted the roofs and roads with a wet sheen. Just another day in paradise. He left the room without looking back, bolting the door from the outside.

In the washroom, Bryce shaved carefully, removing his stubble and tidying up his sideburns. He used a pair of nail scissors from Orla’s handbag to trim his unkempt ears and eyebrows, then washed his face vigorously with soap and water, scrubbing a healthier complexion back into his pallid skin. He towelled himself dry and studied his efforts. Shaved, trimmed, an official uniform, an ID lanyard hanging around his neck. All in all, not too shabby. He might pass a cursory glance, but any serious study would reveal what Bryce believed were screaming inconsistencies. No matter, he had to keep moving now.

He placed Orla’s items in his right pocket, Sully’s in his left. The trademark keychain hung from his belt in a jangling loop. Bryce used it to open the security gate, as he’d seen Sully do countless times before. He locked it behind him, then pushed open the unlocked double doors. Opposite was another set of doors, an occupied ward beyond. To his right a staircase. He made his way down to the next landing, then the next. More double doors, more wards. He kept moving until he reached another steel mesh gate at the bottom of the stairs. Through the intricate metal pattern he could see a long corridor that led towards another door at the far end. Beyond that, daylight beckoned, like light at the end of a tunnel. The lack of CCTV and the signs on the wall told Bryce all he needed to know: Visitor Waiting Room, Kitchen, Storeroom – this was a non-secure area. Further along the corridor, a cleaner wiped a lazy mop across the floor, a yellow warning triangle blinking in the gloom. Sully’s key slipped into the lock and it opened on well-oiled hinges. Bryce saw a notice board to his left, some sort of timetable pinned to it. He snatched it off the board and pretended to study it as he walked along the corridor. The visitor room was empty, and Bryce glimpsed a low table littered with magazines, several easy chairs and a battered vending machine. The kitchen was nothing more than a narrow room with a kettle and a microwave.

The cleaner eyed him as Bryce approached, the mop swishing across the floor in a damp figure of eight. He was African, Bryce judged, his ebony cheeks scarred with tribal markings. Bryce stopped short of the wet floor, leafing through the papers in his hand. He gave the man a friendly nod, betting his white uniform trumped the light blue fatigues of the cleaner.

‘Hi. Can you tell me where the staff locker room is? I’m new and I’ve lost my bearings.’

‘Nursing or auxiliary, boss?’ The cleaner spoke in strongly accented English. He eyed Bryce up and down, clearly expecting him to say nursing.

‘The nearest one,’ Bryce answered. He waved the papers in his hand. ‘MRSA check. I’m taking swabs, recording levels.’
Keep it simple
.

‘Oh,’ the cleaner said. He pointed along the corridor. ‘Blue door, as you come in. Take de stairs to basement. The locker room is there.’

‘Down here?’ Bryce pointed, already moving away.

‘Yes, boss.’

Bryce went through the door and descended the stairs. He found the locker room easily enough, the stale air inside tinged with sweat. Thankfully it was unoccupied, just several rows of grey lockers and a few wooden benches in between. Off to the right was a washroom, toilets, and two shower cubicles marked male and female. From the full rubbish bins, the discarded clothes and wet towels on the floor, Bryce guessed that this was the auxiliary workers’ changing room. He took the opportunity to nose around, carefully checking the lockers. Some were secured by small padlocks, but many weren’t. With one ear open for the door, Bryce went through them quickly, finding what he was looking for in a matter of minutes. The blue puffer jacket with a cheap branded logo on the breast pocket fit snugly over the bulk of Bryce’s uniform and sweatshirts, the beanie hat with the initials ‘NY’ an added bonus. Then he saw the clock on the wall.

A long time had passed since Bryce had seen any sort of timepiece. Sully and Orla had never worn watches in Bryce’s presence, no doubt to add to his sense of disorientation. He paused for a moment, watching the red second hand moving around the dial, the larger hands working their way up towards the hour. Part of him felt like some sort of prehistoric cave dweller encountering this wondrous instrument for the first time, and he watched it for several moments. The clock read eleven forty-two. By Bryce’s estimation, the lunchtime period began at twelve. That was when the main gate got busy, when foot traffic flowed through the cage alongside the gatehouse. A voice inside screamed at him to go now, run. But Bryce fought the impulse and instead locked himself inside the male shower room. He sat on the small wooden bench and waited, willing the minutes to pass. He arranged the items around his pockets, selecting one or two for easy access. Someone entered the locker room outside and Bryce heard a muffled conversation and a peal of laughter. Locker doors slammed, then the room was quiet again. Bryce waited a while longer then stood up and pulled on the beanie hat, tugging it over his shorn head and covering his ears. He stepped outside, walking briskly towards the locker room door. The clock on the wall read 12:04. He hoped, prayed, that he didn’t bump into the owner of the hat and jacket in the next five minutes.