David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (41 page)

       
“No,” I said.

       
“I asked them how they
got there so fast. I was thinking
,
it would take some
serious
hussle
to get out of Thames House and still
catch the emergency crews like that. And guess what they told me?”

       
“What?”

       
“They hadn’t scrambled
in response to the fire at all. They were already there, staking the place
out.”

       
“They were? Why? Have we
crossed paths with another case?”

       
“No. Same case. Think
about it. They just happened to have Geiger counters with them, and immediately
test the water in the engines’ tanks?”

       
“So why were they
there?”

       
“They were ordered to
be. By Arthur Hardwicke. Last night. You know what that means?”

       
I took a moment to
think.

       
“He took your theory
about the school more seriously than you’d thought?” I said.

       
“No,” she said. “It
means he doesn’t trust me. If he’d trusted me, he’d have told me they were
being assigned, and we could have coordinated with them. Not been surprised
when they showed up, guns at the ready.”

       
“But you’re the one who
came up with the link between al-
Aqsaba’a
, the kid,
and the school. How does that make you look untrustworthy?”

       
“He must have thought I
suggested the school link so I’d be assigned to it. And sabotage our response
to it. Which is exactly what it looks like I’ve done.”

       
“Not necessarily. The
kid breathed in smoke. The protection
detail are
paid
to be cautious.”

       
“I let the kid slip
through my fingers. That’s the bottom line. If anything happens to him, they’ll
say it’s my fault. They’ll say I did it on purpose. Mud sticks, David.”

       
“It doesn’t have to. And
it won’t, if we get our hands on the poor little lad and make sure nothing else
happens to him.”

There were spaces left for two ambulances at the Accident and
Emergency entrance to St Joseph’s when Melissa pulled in, but she was in such a
hurry to get inside that our car ended up blocking both of them. A hospital
security guard saw us, and made a half-hearted attempt to intervene but he gave
it up as a lost cause long before we’d entered the building and reached the
reception desk.

       
“We’re looking for a
patient,” Melissa said, flashing her ID card at the middle-aged woman behind
the counter. “Name of Toby Smith. He should have been brought in by ambulance
in the last five minutes.”

       
The receptionist took
her time to reply.

       
“Who?”
she said.

       
“Toby Smith,” Melissa
said.

       
“You’re out of luck.
Sorry. There’s no one with that name come in here.”

       
“It’s a complex
situation. He might not have been using his real name. He’s around five years old.
Male. Have you had any boys that age brought in?”

       
“I can’t tell you that
kind of information.”

       
Melissa held out her ID
once again, and didn’t move it until the woman turned to check her computer.

       
“Two boys were admitted
this morning, yes,” she said. “One was five. The other, six.”

       
“Good,” Melissa said.
“Where are they?”

       
“I don’t know.”

       
“What do you mean, you
don’t know?”

       
“Where they
are’s
nothing to do with me. You’ll have to ask the triage
nurse. She’s the one that decides who goes where.”

       
“OK. Where is she?”

       
“Round the next corner.
You can’t miss her.”

The triage nurse remembered both the young boys who’d been brought in
that day. Her words said the first one had fallen down stairs at home, but the
expression on her face told us she didn’t believe the stepfather’s story. On
another day I might have been tempted to have a chat with the guy, since she
said he was still in the waiting room, but her recollection of the second kid
meant that wasn’t a possibility. He was the right age.
The
right height.
He was complaining of the right symptoms. He’d been
brought in by the right kind of people. Two fit looking men in
their
twenties. Friends of the family, they’d told her. And
we could see she didn’t believe their story, either.

       
She said she hadn’t been
too worried by the kid’s symptoms, but had admitted him anyway so a doctor
could take a closer look. She made a quick call, and told us we could find him
in cubicle twelve on the main Accident and Emergency ward.

       
The ward was long and
narrow, with a single row of beds along each side. There were twenty
altogether. The spaces between them were
wide,
to
allow for trolleys of special equipment to be wheeled in, and the floor was
scuffed and scraped as a result. About a third of the beds were occupied, and
beyond them we could see the two banks of cubicles. But as we approached, we
could see that none of them held any patients. We checked the numbers, to be
sure, and there was no doubt. Cubicle twelve was empty.

       
“Do you think they
transferred him?” Melissa said. “Or could they have released him already?”

       
“I don’t think it’s
either of those,” I said. “Look at the cot. The sheets haven’t been touched.
They’re immaculate. I don’t think he was ever here.”

       
“You might be right. But
the nurse seemed so sure. I’ll go and ask her to check. You stay here. Maybe
the kid just needed the bathroom or something.”

       
Five minutes crawled
past, and aside from the two nurses who were bustling between the half-dozen
beds that were in use at the other end of the ward, nothing happened. Melissa
didn’t return. There was no sign of the kid or his escorts. I was beginning to
worry, and when another five minutes elapsed and I was still on my own, I
decided the time for waiting was over.

       
The shift must have just
changed, because a new nurse was waiting behind the triage desk when I stepped
back into the corridor. She hadn’t seen Melissa, she said, but that didn’t
really help. She hadn’t been there long enough. All she could do was suggest I
ask at the nurses’ station on the ward.

       
“Oh yes, I saw your
friend,” the ward clerk said, when I’d found the little alcove where she
worked. “About ten minutes ago?”

       
“That’s about right,” I
said. “Did you see where she went?”

       
“Out into the corridor.
She seemed in a hurry, so I assumed she was leaving. I think a man was with
her.”

       
“A man? What did he look
like?”

       
“I don’t know. I’m
terrible with faces. But I think he works here. I’ve seen him before, coming
out of the admin block. I mean, I think he was with her. He might have just
been going out at the same time. I’m not sure.”

       
I didn’t like the sound
of that at all.

       
“OK,” I said, pushing
this new information temporarily aside for the sake of the child. “Never mind
them now. What about the kid from cubicle twelve? Can you tell me where he went?”

       
“What kid?” she said.
“Cubicle twelve is empty.”

       
“Exactly. That’s the
problem. We’re here to find a kid, and the triage nurse told us that’s where
he’d been sent when she admitted him.”

       
“No. That’s not possible.
Sorry. There must be a misunderstanding. It’s been a quiet morning. We’ve only
had one little boy brought in. He had a broken arm - a green stick, actually -
which we dealt with. And he’s not here any more, anyway. He was discharged a
couple of minutes ago.”

       
“The triage nurse said
there were two boys. It’s the other one we need to find.”

       
“Well, I don’t know what
to tell you. He’s not here. See for yourself.”

       
“He certainly was here.
The triage nurse remembered him. Is there anywhere else he could have got to,
from the corridor, without coming in here?”

       
“I don’t think so,” she
said, waving to one of the nurses. “Hang on a sec. Megan? Have you seen any
kids around here? We might have a wanderer.”

       
“Not for a while,” the
nurse said. “No. Christine had one earlier, though.
A little
lad.
Complete brat. Something wrong with his arm, I think. Not to
mention his manners.”

       
“No others?” the ward
clerk said.

       
“No other patients. Does
Serena’s little boy count? She was heading to the staff room with him, just
now.”

       
“I didn’t know Serena
had a little boy,” the ward clerk said.

       
“Nor did I,” the nurse
said. “But you know what she’s like. Keeps herself to herself. And I assumed it
was her son. It could have been a nephew or something, I suppose.”

       
“Who’s Serena?” I said.

       
“One of our
physiotherapists,” the nurse said.

       
“How long has she worked
here?” I said.

       
“She’s quite new. Two
months? Three, maybe?” the clerk said.

       
“And you’ve never seen
the kid she has with her, before?” I said.

       
“No,” the nurse said.
“You’re not really supposed to bring your kids to work. But people do,
sometimes, if their child care goes pear-shaped.”

       
“Was anyone else with
them?” I said.

       
“I’m not really sure,”
the nurse said.

       
“How can you not be
sure?” I said. “Was anyone else there, or not?”

       
“Well, a couple of guys
were near them,” the nurse said. “They were quite good looking, actually. Tall.
And heading the same way.
But they were hanging a few
yards back.”

       
“Heading for the staff
room?” I said.

       
“Right,” the nurse said.
“A couple of minutes ago.”

       
“Show me,” I said.

The nurse, Megan, took me back out to the corridor and pointed to a
badly scuffed pale green door midway down the far wall.

       
“That’s it,” she said.
“But you can’t go in. It’s more of a changing room, really, than a staff room.
It’s where we put our uniforms on. People might be getting dressed in there.”

       
“Don’t worry,” I said.
“I won’t look. Now, stand back. And whatever you hear,
do
not follow me in. Not unless I call specifically for you.”

       
I eased the door open and
peeked inside. A privacy screen prevented me from looking any further into the
room, but also made sure no one already in there could see me. I stepped
through the door, let it quietly close behind me, and drew my Beretta. From
there, I could also see the entrance to a closet on my right. A sign said
Domestic
Staff Only,
but it would have been difficult to keep anyone else out.
Because its handle had been broken.
From the way its
mechanism had been torn out of the wood, I’d say it hadn’t been an accident.
And in the gap at the bottom of the door, there was another sign of something
violent.
The edge of a puddle of blood.

       
My hand was reaching out
to open the closet door when I heard footsteps on the other side of the screen.
One set. They were light, and fast. Then they stopped, and a woman started to
speak.

       
“Don’t worry, my little
angel,” she said. “Your two friends will be back in a minute. And I have great
news. The doctors don’t need to see you. They don’t think you need any nasty
injections, after all. All you need is a nice long drink of water. That’ll wash
away the taste of that horrid smoke, and then you’ll be absolutely fine. You
can go straight back to school and catch up with your friends. I bet they’re
worried about you.”

       
I took two steps to my
left, rounding the screen and emerging into the changing room itself. It was a
rectangular space, large, but surprisingly gloomy because there were no
windows. Grey metal lockers lined three of the walls. The space between them
was filled with ancient-looking wooden benches.
Four rows of
them.
They were parallel. Two people were sitting on the nearest one. A
woman, in her mid thirties, hair tied back, wearing
a white
polyester uniform with the St Joseph’s logo on its tunic pocket.
And next to her, Toby Smith.