Double Blind (32 page)

“Come on,” I urged Chris, who’d stopped in the doorway.

“We’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “Just tell the police.”

“I tried that.”

Moving ahead of him, I jogged along the corridor. When I reached the door, I paused for a second, worried that that I might have been mistaken. But I was sure that the man I’d seen was Macintyre; there was something about the way he held his shoulders. The window in the door revealed a large commercial kitchen where a dozen people in white coats and checked blue pants worked at stainless steel work surfaces, peeling, paring and chopping. Large pots boiled on a massive stove, steam curling above them. I opened the door, and sidled in, expecting to be stopped, but no one even looked up.

I was glad when Chris slipped in beside me. “Now what?” he whispered.

“I don’t know. Macintyre’s wearing a hotel uniform. Green trousers, waistcoat, long sleeved tan shirt. Medium height, dark hair, cold eyes.”

No one seemed to take much notice of us as we skirted the main work area. Staying close to the wall, we came to a corner. Peering around it, I saw what seemed to be a staging area for plates of food. Macintyre was there, putting items on a tray, a pot of coffee and a plate of tiny pastries that reminded me of my favorite pasticcheria in Florence.

“That’s him,” I said to Chris, who craned his head around the corner to look. “I don’t know what he’s up to.”

Macintyre picked up the tray and headed for a swinging door at the far end of the serving area. Chris and I dashed after him. Over the bang of metal pans and clink of dishes, someone called to us, but we kept going, easing through the swinging door into the corridor beyond. It led to a bank of three service lifts. The indicator above the middle one was moving upwards, and stopped on the sixth floor, which I guessed was at the top of the building.

I pressed the call button, jamming my finger against it several times. It seemed to take forever for a lift to arrive.

“What are we going to do?” Chris asked while we waited. I noticed that his backpack was missing. Why would he leave it somewhere? I didn’t have time to pursue that line of thought, however, as our lift arrived and transported us quickly to floor six.

The doors opened to a wide corridor with light blue wallpaper, deep blue carpets, tasteful wall lights and gleaming double doors with plaques indicating suite numbers. It was easy to see which one was Scott’s. The door was guarded by two men in black suits, just like the jokers down near the ballroom. Even from ten yards away, I saw the bulge of holsters under their jackets. They reminded me of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in the Men in Black movies.

“Stop right there,” Jones ordered. Smith was talking into his mouthpiece. At any moment, I feared, a posse of gunmen would appear.

We stopped. The lift doors slid closed behind us. “Did a man go in with a tray of coffee?” I asked them.

“You need to leave this floor immediately,” Jones said, just as the door to the suite opened. Macintyre walked out, his hands empty.

He didn’t even glance at the bodyguards, but walked straight towards me. It only took a few seconds for him to cover the ten yards to the lift, where he pressed the call button.

“You have to stop this man,” I shouted at the guards. They didn’t move, not even a muscle twitch.

The lift pinged open behind me. Macintyre was close to me, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body. “Anita next and then it’s your turn, if you survive this little episode,” he said softly.

“You have to stop him,” I yelled again.

“That’s it.” Jones pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. I’d been through a lot, but I’d never had a gun aimed at me before. It was terrifying. All I could see was the sleek iron-gray barrel and the round hole that threatened death. “Put your hands up in the air.”

Beside me, Chris put his hands up. When I hesitated, the guard wiggled the gun. I complied. Behind me, Macintyre whispered “Sayonara.” He stepped into the lift.

I remained frozen, feeling like an insect caught in amber for all eternity. Macintyre was going after Anita, and I was stuck on the wrong side of a gun. I almost cried with frustration.

Seconds passed, feeling like minutes. Smith was still talking into his microphone, possibly calling for reinforcements. Maybe a SWAT team was about to descend from the ceiling. And Macintyre was getting away.

“Listen,” I tried again. “That man, the waiter who just left. He’s an assassin. You have to stop him.”

Jones told me to shut up, with another twitch of his gun to make his point. I did, trying to work out what Macintyre could have done in the suite. Obviously, he hadn’t pulled a gun or a knife on anyone. He’d gone in and walked back out. There was no shouting, no alarms, nothing to indicate that he’d done anything more than deliver coffee.
The coffee.
I’d take a bet it was poisoned.

“Macintyre is trying to poison them,” I said to Chris. “We have to do something.”

Chris looked at me, his lips pressed together so hard they were white. I felt sorry for dragging him into this. I was still trying to work out what to do when the door to the suite opened and a man in a navy suit came out.

“Five minutes before we go downstairs,” he said to the bodyguards. Then he noticed Chris and me. “Who are they?”

Chris moved. He crossed the hallway to the door so fast that the guards didn’t have time to stop him. Pushing the man in the navy suit to one side, he dashed inside. Smith and Jones pursued him, followed by the man in the suit, leaving me alone. I heard a gunshot.

Shaking from head to toe, I ran to the open door. Peeking in, I saw a room full of men in suits and ties. Jones had his gun pointed at Chris and was yelling, “Stand down, now.”

Ignoring him, Chris ran at Scott and knocked a cup from his hand. I was terrified that the bodyguard would shoot, but Chris was so close to his father that it would have been too dangerous. Instead, Smith leapt at Chris, pulling him to the ground, mashing his face into the carpet.

Kevin Lewis was standing just a couple of feet away, a look of horror on his face. Suddenly, his legs buckled. As he sank to the floor, his legs and arms jerked and yellow foam spewed from his mouth. Everyone started shouting at the same time.

There was nothing I could do there. I turned back into the corridor and ran towards the fire exit. Another gunshot in the suite behind me made my pulse race. What if they had shot Chris? Clattering down the staircase, my rapid breath echoing against the concrete walls, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen. Kevin Lewis had drunk some or all of his coffee. Had Scott? Was he back there, writhing, like Lewis, in pain?

Three floors down, I stopped for a second. I needed to formulate a plan. If I found Macintyre, what would I do? I pulled my phone from my bag, but my fingers trembled so much that I kept pressing the wrong numbers. I carried on running, almost turning an ankle on the concrete steps.

He could be heading to the hospital to find Anita. I got my phone out, noticing that the power was down to less than two percent. I hadn’t charged it for nearly twenty-four hours. Frantic, I typed a text. “be careful macintyre’s coming” and pressed send just as the screen went blank.

I dashed through the car park to the street beyond, realizing that it was just an access road to the back of the hotel. Even at this time in the morning, there were no pedestrians in sight. I ran to the right, unsure of where I was. At the corner, I found myself on a main road lined with shops, not yet open, and a few people out on foot. I thought of asking someone if I could use their mobile, but I knew what the response was likely to be.

Catching sight of a sign for a pub, I hurried towards it. The Rose and Crown was a shabby-looking place, but it was open, serving breakfast. The smell of last night’s beer mingled with the cloying odor of deep frying. Still, I wasn’t there to eat. When I asked the girl behind the bar if they had a public phone, she jutted her chin in the direction of a narrow, purple-painted hallway that led to the loo. A phone hung on the wall. Ignoring my reservations about hygiene, I picked up the greasy receiver. While I scrabbled through my purse, looking for change, I realized I didn’t have Parry’s number written down. I’d put it directly into my contacts list on my mobile. Anita’s personal phone had been destroyed and I didn’t recall the direct number for the Pediatric Unit. In this golden age of electronic communications, a dead battery had severe ramifications. The only number I knew off by heart was Josh’s. I crammed some coins into the box, but he didn’t answer, so I left a message asking him to contact Anita urgently to let her know Macintyre was looking for her.

Next I called 999, trying to explain to the operator that I needed to get a message to DI Parry at the Westminster station.

“You’ve reached the emergency line,” she said. “You should call him direct.”

“This is an emergency. Send police to London General to the pediatric unit. There’s a killer on the loose.”

She asked me a few questions that seemed to take forever. Finally, I jammed the receiver back in its cradle and ran outside. It is a universal truth that when you don’t need a taxi, the streets are full of them. When you do, they disappear. I stood at the curb waiting for an empty taxi to pass by, gave up, walked a hundred yards, and tried again. Five minutes later, one pulled over. As we headed towards the hospital, I sat rigid in the back seat, willing the wheels to turn faster and the lights to be green.

By the time we reached the hospital, I was so wound up I thought my bones would crack under the weight of my tense muscles. My breathing exercises weren’t helping. I paid the driver, took the entry steps two at a time and ran up four flights of stairs to the Pediatric Unit.

“Anita?” I asked the nurse at the desk.

“I’ll page her.”

My knees went weak with relief when Anita appeared just then at the far end of the corridor. I hurried towards her.

“Did you get a message from Josh?” I asked.

Anita’s face was blank. “Josh? No, why?”

“My phone is out of power, and I asked Josh to warn you — Never mind, it’s a long story. Have you seen any sign of Macintyre or Lizardman?”

Her face paled. “No, should I have?” She looked as exhausted as I felt. I didn’t want to scare her, but I knew we needed to be extremely careful.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “Did you see Chris?”

“Yes, but I’ll explain it all later.” I didn’t even know what I’d tell her, as I had no idea if he was okay. He could be dead or in a police cell. But her safety and the risk of Macintyre making an appearance were more pressing issues right now.

“We should go pick up the notes to get them out of Grace’s way,” I said, walking back towards the nurses’ station. “Let’s ask PC Wilson to come with us. He can be responsible for getting the notes to Parry. I’ll feel better once they are in police hands.”

I glanced around. The desk area was quiet, with only the one nurse on duty. “Where is Wilson?”

Anita shook her head. “I’m not sure. He was here the last time I walked by, but I’ve been in a consultation for the last hour or so. I’ll page him.”

There was no answer.

“Can you call Parry?” I asked. “He needs to know that PC Wilson’s not responding. My mobile is dead.”

Anita pulled Parry’s card from her trouser pocket and used the phone on the nurses’ desk to call. This time, the detective picked up immediately. She told him that Wilson wasn’t around and hadn’t answered our page. After a short exchange, she hung up.

“Parry said he’ll get a team over here right now. And that we should stay together here in the Pediatric Unit.”

“I called for police support nearly half an hour ago. What the hell is going on? I thought the hospital would be swarming with officers by now.”

Anita rubbed her eyes. She was almost asleep standing up and I felt the same way. “This makes me really nervous,” she said. “We should talk to Grace.”

Grace didn’t answer her page either.

“She’s probably working,” I said, trying to be reassuring, even though the hair was standing up on my arms. The lack of contact with Grace and PC Wilson had set alarm bells ringing in my head.

“We need to go check on her,” Anita said.

“We should wait for the police.”

Anita pushed away from the desk she’d been leaning on. “I’m going. Are you coming with me?”

“If we go down there and Macintyre is watching us, we’ll be leading him right to the place where the notes are hidden.”

“It’s a risk, but the morgue is a secure area. We’ll be safe there until the police arrive.”

She was right. And I was anxious to see Grace. Too impatient to wait for the lift, we ran down the stairs and crossed the busy entry hall. Never my favorite place, the hospital seemed especially depressing today. Under bright lights intended to replicate sunshine, auras hovered over a number of patients in wheelchairs or with walkers. I was jumpy and watchful until we reached the lift with the keypad. On the slow, creaking journey down, I told myself I was being ridiculous. Macintyre wasn’t in sight. There was no way he could know where we were going.

When we reached the basement, I relaxed. Several secure doors now protected us from the public spaces of the hospital. We hurried along the beige corridor to Grace’s office. It was empty.

“What do we do now?” I stood by Grace’s desk. A full cup of coffee sat on a coaster next to her computer, which was switched on, with images of pyramids floating across the screen. A stack of papers next to it was secured under an iridescent glass scarab beetle paperweight. I picked it up, attracted by its luminous wash of gold and crimson. It was surprisingly heavy.

Anita went to the door that connected Grace’s office to the autopsy room. She pushed it, but it didn’t open. Turning to lean on the door, she paged Grace again but there was no response.

“If she’s working, she won’t be able to answer,” I said. I touched the coffee cup. It was warm. “Or maybe she just went to the loo?”

Anita pushed on the door again. It didn’t budge.

“Why would the door be locked?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to go in the other way,” Anita said, heading out of the office into the corridor, where a set of wide swing doors gave access to the autopsy room. My heart raced. I had no desire to walk in midway through an autopsy.