Twenty Twelve (8 page)

‘Concerns,’ Clem repeats.

‘I just want to go through what happened at the Plaza again.’

There’s silence on the line.

‘Perhaps we could speak tomorrow?’ I suggest.

‘I’m not sure there’s anything else to say, Miss Connolly.’

‘It’s Jo. Look, I don’t want . . . I just need you to answer a few questions.’

More silence.

‘Fine,’ Clem says at last.

‘What time?’ I ask, but the line’s already dead.

Clem rubbed his mobile against his mouth. Benning had assumed the Connolly girl would make the perfect sap. That she wasn’t a patch on her father, just a smiley face to punt whatever story they gave her. Maybe that was the wrong call. Maybe she was a chip off the old block.

He glanced through the window of the private room where Miggs lay, attached to a machine, his head bandaged, hiding the bullet hole that had almost killed him. He was in a bad way. Might not last till morning. Clem needed a confession as soon as possible. Then everyone, Connolly included, could put this thing to bed.

He went to his briefcase, retrieved a small vial of sodium pentothal and headed to the door.

‘Don’t even think about it.’

Clem looked up, palm still on the door handle, and slipped the vial into his pocket with his free hand. A nurse was staring straight at him, shoulders back, chin cocked.

‘MI5.’ Clem dismissed her and began to open the door.

‘I don’t care if you’re the bodyguard to the bloody Queen.’ The nurse crossed the space between them and pulled the door closed. ‘This patient is seriously ill. Doctor Crosby said absolutely no interviews.’

‘A brief word,’ said Clem.

‘Not a chance.’

‘You do realise how important this is?’

The nurse narrowed her eyes. ‘The most important thing to me right now is keeping that man alive. Shocking as it might sound, this is a hospital. It’s what we do.’

Clem gritted his teeth and set off to page Doctor Crosby.

I pull into the car park of St Barts and am stopped by a police officer. The hospital is on high alert due to the Plaza bomb.

‘Can I ask your business, madam?’

I show him my department ID. ‘I’m meeting security forces here.’

My demeanour brooks no argument and he waves me in. I’m not going to be shrugged off like a minor irritant, not by the police and certainly not by Clem.

The automatic doors open with a whoosh of air and I pass from the cold night into the sterile heat, a blue poster wrapped around a concrete pillar welcoming me in eight languages. I shudder. Have I mentioned before how much I hate hospitals?

Even at this time, there are people milling around and a group of teenagers have gathered in front of the reception desk, pushing into one another, all speaking at the same time. Uniformed officers patrol the perimeter, keeping a watchful eye.

I glance up at the directions board. Accident and Emergency, Cardiothoracic, General Surgery, Trauma. The list is endless. It dawns on me that this is an enormous place and I’m unlikely to just bump into Clem. I pull out my mobile.

‘Miss Connolly.’ Again he answers on the first ring.

I don’t bother to tell him to call me Jo. ‘I’m here.’

‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

‘I’m at the hospital,’ I say.

There’s a pause and I steel myself to explain that yes, this is urgent and yes, I do bloody well need to speak to him.

‘Meet me in the café,’ he says.

Pleased with myself, I make my way up in the lift, buy a bottle of Evian and settle at a table facing the door. I take a swig of water and smile. Dad always calls me a fool for spending money on something that comes out of the tap for free. ‘Too up yourself for council pop?’ All those barbed putdowns stockpiled for maximum damage.

I take another sip and wait. There’s no sign of Clem. No sign of anyone, in fact. I sit and drink, the silence crashing around me.

Five minutes later, the Evian finished, I check my watch and mobile. Clem has stood me up. But if he thinks he can shrug me off, he can think again. I toss the empty bottle in a bin and head out into the corridor. Another wave of signs hit me. Cardiology. Haematology. Neurosurgery. Christ knows what most of it even means.

I need to think this through. Clem is here with a man he shot hours ago. A man not expected to live. Where would he be? I recall the signs downstairs and snap my fingers. Trauma. It has to be. You don’t get much more traumatic than getting a bullet between the eyes.

I take the lift again and arrive outside the Trauma ward. The reception area is deserted, a half-drunk cup of coffee abandoned, a white doctor’s coat hanging limply over the back of a chair, like a sad ghost. At the far side is another set of doors, presumably leading to the patients’ rooms. I walk over and try them, but they’re locked. I peer through the pane of glass. Two uniformed policemen are standing guard outside the furthest room. No sign of Clem, but this has to be the right place.

I’m about to press the buzzer when a nurse exits the guarded room and hurries down the corridor towards me. As she passes through, I nod and hold the door, hoping to slip inside.

‘Staff only,’ she says.

I open my mouth to explain but something about the way she has her hands on her hips tells me to shut up.

‘Are you with the police?’ she asks. ‘Or the security services?’ She makes quotation marks in the air with her fingers.

‘Erm,’ is all I can manage.

‘Like I told the last one, no one is getting to talk to your fella down there until Dr Crosby says so. You lot might not care if he drops dead, in fact it might suit you given how he ended up in here, but it’s not going to happen on my shift.’ Her eyes flash. ‘Understand?’

‘Completely,’ I say. ‘But I’m not with the police.’

She looks unimpressed. No doubt an explanation of who I actually am and why I’m here won’t help the situation. I look around me hopelessly. If I don’t come up with something, I’m going to get my marching orders without any answers from Clem. My eyes settle on the chair and the bedraggled doctor’s coat.

‘I’m Doctor Crosby’s colleague,’ I say.

The nurse’s eyebrows shoot up.

‘Given the severity of the patient’s injuries he asked me to take a look at him.’ As I say the words, I can hear the ridiculousness of it. But I’m desperate. What if the old man is right? What if Clem is feeding me a pack of lies? He’s certainly giving me the runaround. What if, I can almost hear the scratchy voice in my ear saying, the man at the end of the corridor conveniently dies?

I take a few steps back, grab the coat and return to the double doors to scan the identity badge clipped to the lapel. Shazia Rashid’s pretty brown face smiles up at me. I blot her photograph out with my thumb, thrust out my other hand and beam at the nurse.

She takes my hand and gives it a light shake. ‘Can I take your name?’ she asks warily.

I blink rapidly, remembering the film forming on the contents of the abandoned cup. ‘Kenco,’ I say. ‘Doctor Kenco.’

‘As in coffee?’

‘Yup.’

An empty second stretches between us.

‘Dark and rich.’ I’m gabbling but I can’t stop myself. ‘And perfect in the morning.’ I hear my false laugh and wince. There’s no way she’s going to fall for this.

She sighs and checks her watch. There are dark circles under her eyes. She’s probably been on her feet the whole night and needs all this like a smack on the arse.

At last she moves aside. ‘Go on then.’ She motions down the corridor with her head. ‘But for God’s sake, put your coat on.’

I nod and struggle into it. Shazia Rashid must be a size zero because the sleeves finish at my forearms and the stitching groans at the seams. ‘Put on a bit recently.’ I pat my stomach.

She gives me another withering look, so I duck past her before I can commit any further acts of extreme stupidity.

As I approach the policemen standing guard, I realise I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do next. All I do know is that I am impersonating a doctor in order to obtain access to a terrorist. And that can’t be good.

When I’m at the door they look at me expectantly.

‘Doctor Kenco.’ I flash Shazia Rashid’s badge at them.

‘Right,’ says the one on the left, swallowing a yawn.

I wait a moment before I understand that there’s nothing else they want from me. No complicated procedure for me to prove I am who I say I am.

I push open the door and put one foot inside the room when a voice comes from behind.

‘You know who you remind me of?’

I turn. The policeman on the left is wagging a slow finger at me.

‘That politician,’ he says.

‘Oh yeah.’ The other copper looks up now. ‘The one they put in charge of the Olympics.’

I’m about to point out that I’m not a politician, that in fact, I’m independent of politics, which I think is quite an important distinction, when I remember I’m trying to pass myself off as a doctor to gain access to a terrorist. I smile politely.

‘Not a bad thing now she’s saved that kid, eh?’ the second one laughs. ‘You’ll get plenty of drinks bought for you down the pub.’ He lets out a chuckle and I join in.

‘Make the most of it,’ adds the first. ‘It’ll all be forgotten by next month and everyone will be back to wondering who the fuck she is.’

I leave them laughing in the corridor and shut the door behind me. Inside, the room is darkened, only a lamp is on next to a bed where a man is lying, his head swathed in bandages. Wires snake between his chest and arms to a monitor, which lets out a melancholy, rhythmic beep.

There’s no sign of Clem.

I take a deep breath. Is this one of the men who tried to blow me up? He looks so small. Pathetic even.

I take a step closer. His face is pale, sprinkled with reddish stubble breaking the surface of the skin. His arms lie lifeless by his sides, covered from knuckle to shoulder in tattoos. I peer at the intricate designs of hawks, guns and swastikas.

Suddenly his eyelids begin to flicker and I’m shocked to find myself looking into his eyes. He blinks three times, as if trying to focus.

‘Is tha’ you, Ronnie?’ his words slur, solidifying around his accent.

I’m not sure what I should tell him, but before I can make a decision, he grabs my arm.

‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ he says. ‘Too dangerous.’ His unseeing eyes fill with water. ‘I told ’em I didn’t know anything about no bombing,’ he hisses. ‘I told ’em I didn’t know where you were.’

Still gripping my arm, he tries to lift himself towards me, but can only manage to raise his head an inch or so from the pillow.

‘I won’t give you up, Ronnie. I’d rather die.’

His chest begins to convulse and he is wracked by a coughing fit. Struggling to catch his breath, he lets himself flop back and releases my arm.

‘Remember the orchard, Ronnie? You changed my life – no, you saved it. Now it’s my turn to do the same.’

His chest heaves and his throat rattles, and a single tear runs down his cheekbone. Then the alarm on the monitor sounds and the doors crash open.

Isaac is sweating like a mule as he shuts the door behind him. The girls look up at him, their eyes as wide and their skin as white as a full moon. Mama is still hunched over the book. ‘It’s the police,’ he says
.

‘What do they want?’ Rebecca hisses
.

Isaac shrugs. ‘Didn’t say.’

Mama pushes back her chair and stands. She wipes her hands down her apron
.

‘They’ve come for us as we always knew they would.’

Isaac shakes his head. Mama has been expecting the Forces of Darkness for a long time. ‘I don’t think they mean no harm, Mama.’

A strand of hair has fallen from her plait and she pushes it back with a shaking finger. ‘And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.’

Isaac shakes his head again
.

‘Are you sayin’ you know better than the prophesies, Isaac?’ she asks
.

‘No ma’am, I ain’t.’

They hold each other’s eyes for a long while, Isaac wishing Daddy were here. He’d kiss Mama’s head and tell her to hush. Then he’d go on outside and shoo those strangers off the land like a couple of noisy possums. Isaac glances up at the clock above the range. Daddy ain’t likely to be back for more than an hour
.

‘I just don’t reckon it’s time is all.’

Mama pauses, her eyes flitting between her boy and the good book. Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘And I stood up upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up.’

Isaac takes a step towards her. ‘I know, Mama. I just don’t think now’s the time.’

Mama blinks, torn in two. Isaac takes another step towards her
.

‘So if they ain’t come for us, what are they doing here?’ asks Rebecca
.

Isaac could kill her dead. He turns towards her and glares
.

‘What?’ she says, tears tumbling down her cheeks
.

Can’t she see that he needs to calm Mama down? That he was doing it, too, before she stuck her stupid nose in? He’s trying to convey this to her silently when a voice comes from outside
.

‘Mrs Pearson?’

Mama jumps at the sound of her name
.

It’s the policeman calling. The fat one
.

‘Mrs Pearson,’ he shouts again. ‘We’d like to talk to you for a moment.’

Rebecca runs across the room and throws her arms around Mama’s waist. ‘Don’t do it, Mama. Don’t go out there. He wants to make war with us, like you said, I know he does.’ She buries her face in the folds of Mama’s apron, sobbing
.

‘There ain’t nothing to be afraid of, Mrs Pearson,’ the policeman shouts
.

Mama automatically straightens her spine and calls back, ‘I ain’t afraid of you or your master.’

‘Mrs Pearson.’

It’s the other one now, the one that smells of beer, the one Isaac didn’t like
.

‘We need you to open your door now.’ There’s something in his voice that makes it clear he isn’t asking. He’s telling
.