The Forgotten Cottage (16 page)

This time it was Megan who reached out and took hold of his hand.

‘You know I would help you if you wanted to get out of here. I wouldn’t tell anyone. It would be our secret; we could go somewhere and I could look after you. Do your shopping, your messages, and you could be free to a certain extent. Obviously, we would be on the run from the police so it wouldn’t be an awful lot of freedom but it would be a damn sight more than you have right now. Then I wouldn’t be on my own. Have you ever thought about trying to escape, Henry? You must have; I know I would have done if I was you. I think I’d rather die trying than spend the rest of my life in here. Well, I’m offering you the chance to get away from this place but we’d need somewhere nice and quiet to escape to.’

Henry felt his mouth open; he didn’t know what to say. This was a turn-up for the books, but one that he liked very much. Megan apparently had a very naughty streak in her, one that wanted to put her life at risk and help a murderer to escape. He nodded; she had given him an awful lot to think about. He didn’t want to say too much just yet but he already had it all planned out. His mum’s friend had died a couple of months before he’d got caught and she’d left them her caravan on the very tip of Walney Island. The site fees had been paid up five years in advance and the key was taped under the top step of the caravan. They would be able to go there and hide out, in relative peace. The police had never picked up on the caravan and it wasn’t in his name; it was in his mother’s. Maybe he wouldn’t have to kill Megan after all and it made sense that he wouldn’t be able to survive on his own, not the way he looked. Because of Annie, he stood out from the crowd and would draw people’s attention. It was something he would consider very carefully before agreeing to her offer.

***

Jake drove back to the hospital and parked on the grass verge outside the Accident and Emergency Department for the second time in an hour. It was a good job he wasn’t busy but Kav, his Sergeant, would understand. He paced up and down and saw Kav coming in from the opposite side of the hospital and slowly driving towards him.

Kav got out of his car. ‘Any sign of him yet? Because his car is parked in the bottom car park, but it’s empty.’

‘Really? That’s all right then; he must be here. I must have missed him. Sorry, false alarm.’

‘Don’t worry. I wanted to come and see Annie anyway. Come on, let’s go inside and see how she is.’

Kav followed Jake; both of them kept their heads down, avoiding eye contact with anyone so as not to give them an excuse to come and start talking to them. When you wore bright yellow body armour you became a magnet for everyone and their friend to stop and tell you their life stories.

The nurse waved them on through when they approached the desk and Jake led Kav to the room Annie was in. The door was shut so he knocked then walked in. His heart dropped to see Annie on her own—no Will. Jake looked at Kav as if to ask
What next?
and Kav shrugged.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Annie asked with a happy smile.

‘I just wanted to come and see how my favourite ex-officer was; you know, make sure that you’re behaving and not causing too many problems for the nice doctors and nurses.’

‘One day you will see me when I look my absolute best and I don’t look like death warmed up.’

Kav laughed. ‘If I saw you without a stitched head or black eye it would probably give me a heart attack. How are you doing, kid?’

‘I’m okay, thanks, waiting for Will to come get me so I can go home. By the way, have either of you two heard from him? I’ve been ringing and ringing off this stupid hospital phone, which is rubbish, but all I get is voicemail. Has something bad happened at work that’s keeping him tied up?’

Jake stepped forward. ‘Not really. Annie, has he not been to see you at all today?’

She pulled herself up in the bed. ‘No, I haven’t seen him since he left last night.’

Jake felt as if there were a thousand alarm bells screeching inside his brain and he tried his best to come up with something that wouldn’t scare her but he found it hard to speak.

It was Kav who stepped in. ‘We can’t find him, Annie. No one has seen him since he left here last night. Is there anywhere, apart from your house and his parents’, that he could be?’

Annie began peeling the sticky pads off her chest and arms then swung her legs out of the bed.

‘Only our new house but we haven’t even got a bed in there yet or a sofa; it’s empty apart from one rickety chair in the bedroom. He said he was going home to bed. I don’t think he’d have driven all the way there when he was so tired.’

Before Kav could say the words, Jake had stepped out into the hall and was passing the address of Apple Tree Cottage to the control room to get a Lakes officer to go and check if Will was there.

‘If he had gone there he would have been here by now. Have you seen his car?’

‘Oh, shit, his car’s in the car park. Is there any other way he could get to your new house?’

Annie stood up on legs that wobbled as she tried to walk on them and Jake caught her as he came back in.

‘Get back in bed—what do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m going to find Will, that’s what, and don’t you dare try and tell me any different, Jake. He might be in trouble or ill.’

Kav nodded at Jake then he stepped outside and asked if there was a dog handler on duty and for CSI to meet him at the hospital. Then he popped his head back into the room. ‘I don’t think he was in the car but I’ll go and double-check.’

Kav began to jog down the corridor towards the stairs and the exit that would bring him out near to where Will’s car was parked. He made it out in record time, even though he had a stitch; why was it he only ever had to run whenever Annie was involved in something? He reached the car and peered through the windows, thanking God that Will wasn’t slumped over the steering wheel inside. He tried the doors but they were locked. Walking around to the front, he pressed the palm of his hand onto the bonnet. It was stone-cold. The car hadn’t been used for hours, so where the fuck was Will? He stood waiting for the dog and CSI to arrive.

***

Jake paced up and down the small room whilst Annie tried to make herself look presentable but she was wearing a hospital gown and no clothes because they’d all been cut off her when she was brought in.

‘Annie, I know you’re worried but, seriously, you can’t go out of here wearing just that gown; it’s proper indecent.’

‘Well, be a gentleman and give me your jacket, then when we reach the car you can drive me home so I can get some clothes and then bring me straight back.’

A nurse walked in with a tray of food and almost dropped it on the floor. ‘What are you doing, darling? Get back in bed and get your feet up.’

‘I’m sorry but I can’t; there’s an emergency and I need to go right now. I’m fine—thank you for all your help; I really appreciate it.’

The nurse looked at Jake as if to tell him to get a grip and he shook his head in apology and rolled his eyes at Annie.

‘I’m sure this nice officer can deal with whatever the emergency is while you rest up.’

Annie looked at the older woman and took a deep breath to calm her down before she spoke. ‘I’m sure the nice officer could, but I’m also a nice officer and I need to go right now.’

Jake began to unzip his body armour and take off his black fleece jacket that he was wearing underneath it. He handed it to Annie, who slipped it on and wrapped it around herself, the sleeves dangling almost to her knees.

She walked to the door. ‘Don’t worry; I know it’s my own fault if I go out of here and die but I’m sorry, I have to go. Thank you for everything.’

With that, she began walking barefoot down the corridor towards the lifts. Jake ran after her and took hold of her arm.

‘Thanks, Jake, I owe you. What about the cameras? Should we go and check them before we leave the hospital, see if it has Will leaving on it last night? We only need to check the A & E and Maternity exits; all the others will have been locked up by the time he left—it was past ten o’clock.’

‘Cracking idea, Annie; you know I really miss working with you, even though right now you look like you’ve escaped from the Mental Health unit. People are going to think I’ve sectioned you.’

‘I don’t care what I look like, Jake, and don’t tell me you wouldn’t be the same if it was Alex we couldn’t find because I know you would be having a nervous breakdown.’

He nodded. She was right; he couldn’t begin to imagine life without Alex in it and it didn’t bear thinking about because he loved him so much. They went to the small office near the main entrance where the security guards hung around drinking coffee and watching the CCTV. Jake knocked on the door and walked straight in, Annie following. The two guards looked over to him then at Annie and one of them stood up.

‘Cheers, mate, where did you find her? They didn’t even let us know one of them had escaped; they normally do. I’m telling you, they need better locks on the doors down there; it’s not safe.’

Jake couldn’t stop the grin which began to spread across his cheeks. The guard walked over to Annie and took hold of her elbow.

‘Come on, love, let’s get you back down to your ward; it’s dinner time. Fancy a little walkabout, did you, a bit of fresh air?’

Annie pulled her arm away from his. ‘How dare you? I’m not a mental health patient. I’m a police officer and I work with this idiot. We need you to check your CCTV from last night around ten o’clock to see if you have one of our detectives leaving the hospital.’

The guard looked at his mate then winked at Jake. ‘By heck, she’s good. Very convincing; you would have had me fooled.’

Jake felt Annie’s fist bury itself into his left kidney, which wiped the grin from his face. ‘Argh. She’s telling the truth; she’s a police officer who was a patient here on the medical ward and has discharged herself—without the doctor’s consent, I might add.’

He began rubbing his back. ‘We need you to check the cameras, please; it’s a matter of urgency. We need to see if the detective left the hospital or if he’s still inside somewhere because he hasn’t been seen since he left Annie’s private room last night.’

The guard’s cheeks flushed red. ‘Sorry, officer, no offence. You’re not exactly dressed right—my mistake.’

He turned and walked over to the monitors, where the other guard was stifling a giggle behind his hand. After what felt like forever he got the video footage up of both exits, checking the A & E one first. After watching it for a few minutes, Annie told him to stop it and let it play. Will could be seen walking past the reception desk, his head bent as he was looking at his phone. Annie clenched Jake’s arm, her heart racing. He walked out of the automatic doors and straight into a woman. Lifting his head, they had a brief conversation and Annie felt her world about to come crashing down.
Please, God, don’t let him have left with her and gone back to her house, not now. Not after all we’ve been through.
Annie could sense Jake squirming to the left of her and felt her cheeks begin to burn. The woman looked familiar but the footage wasn’t very clear and they didn’t look intimate; there was no kiss or touching, apart from Will walking into her, but it looked as if it had been a total accident.

Jake turned towards her. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking; you can tell he wasn’t expecting to see her. But it does look as if she knows him—sorry, Annie.’

They continued watching the screen. The woman turned and Will followed her out of the hospital.

Annie felt sick with worry; it wasn’t right. ‘Please rewind it to the point where he knocks into her.’

The guard obliged, rewinding it back then playing it in slow motion. Annie bent closer to the screen. She did know that woman – but she didn’t know her very well.

‘Oh, my God… I know her—I think it’s the ice queen.’

Jake raised his eyebrow at her and the two security guards turned to look at her.

‘Well, me and Will call her the ice queen. It looks very much like Amelia, Will’s dad’s new housekeeper. Why would Will go with her, unless she came to tell him Tom was poorly? Oh, God, have you spoken to Tom and Lily? Is everything okay with them?’

Jake relayed the conversation with Lily he’d had earlier.

‘Give me your phone, Jake; I need to speak to Lily.’

He handed it over to her then turned to the guards. ‘Please can you burn a copy of that off for me in case it’s evidence? What about the outside cameras? Can you check to see if they are on that and which direction they headed off to?’

The guard who was sitting down nodded and brought up the view from the outside camera. It showed Will walking along with the woman, past the Maternity Unit and down towards the steps which led to the lower car park, where they turned the corner and were gone.

‘Can you get them up once they’ve got to the bottom of those steps so we can see which car they get into?’

‘No, sorry, mate, someone broke the screen on the camera down on that part of the car park a couple of days ago and it won’t get fixed for a couple of weeks.’

Jake felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It was all too much of a coincidence. Annie let out a sob on the phone and he turned to her.

‘Don’t touch it again; tell Tom it’s okay, we’ll get someone up to you very soon.’

The guard handed a disc to Jake. ‘Good luck, hope you find him soon.’

Jake ushered Annie out of the small office and into the corridor. ‘Don’t touch what?’

Annie, her face whiter than he’d ever seen it before, burst into tears, which was another first for Jake. Everything she’d been through the last couple of years, he’d never actually seen her cry and he felt his heart begin to pound.

‘Tom got a card in the post this morning with a ransom note in it.’

‘You’re having a laugh… Why would anyone want to kidnap Will? I mean, that’s plain stupid. What did it say?’

‘Lily didn’t really say; she was too busy crying. What are we going to do? Poor Will.’

Jake shook his head. ‘Let’s go find Kav and tell him, then get you home so you can put some clothes on and then we’ll figure it out.’