by Ben Oakley
I thought back to the photo and rubbed my neck, easing the sudden tension that had arisen. The thought of her unceremoniously laying there hurt me more than Paine realised.
She touched my arm again, “they all appear in the canals or sewers from somewhere. Whoever is killing them will be caught.”
It was my turn to push her arm away, “are you testing me?”
“Why would I be doing that?”
“You still think I had something to do with this, don't you? You wanted me to see the body in the photo so you could see my reaction, right?”
I stormed off the wooden floor and out through the larger tent on the towpath to be met with a bright sun and a fresh blast of world cuisine. It wasn't the best of deep breaths in the world but it was a Camden deep breath. It wasn't quite enough to get over the stench of the bridge but it helped me focus.
Jess Ashby was dead.
She was always my first port of call. Now I understood why The Ribnik was closed. Suddenly the thoughts began attacking me from all corners. Did they not have other staff? Was her killer someone who worked in the bar? Was it a regular? Dammit, was it someone at the bar yesterday?
“Who was there?” I said to myself.
Paine suddenly appeared beside me, breaking my train of thought. I took another deep breath and stepped to the water's edge.
Paine spoke, “we haven't run DNA confirmations, but with the identification that was on her, we believe it to be Jess Ashby at the present time ”
“It's her, it's her dreadlocks. A dreadlock renaissance. I know what you're gonna say. I'm more involved in this than even I know. First the girl in my cellar then Jess. Those two events happened on the same day.” I turned to her, “did you get a phone call from Jess Ashby yesterday? About Stansey King?”
“Honestly I don't know, I'd have to check. Kind of a lot's happened in such a small amount of time.”
That was the truth. I looked out over the canal to The Outhouse. “I quit smoking two years ago and never felt the need to smoke again until now,” I sighed. “You might know of my connection to Jess Ashby but you don't know what she meant to me.”
“I have some idea.”
“No,” I said, pre-empting her meaning, “it was nothing sexual, it wasn't a relationship. Six years ago I was investigating a cult in the Lake District and it escalated to Europe-wide cults. I ended up running a story about abuse in communes and sects, which blew the whole thing wide open. A year later, Jess read it and saw me as someone who could help her escape an abusive relationship. So I did.”
“Actually I remember the cult abuse. That was you?”
I ignored her, “Jess needed protection from retaliation. No authority would help, police wouldn't listen, nobody would help her. They simply discarded her onto the streets. So I took her in, I said she could stay at mine for a month and I'd help get her back on her feet. She then got a compensation payout from the government because of a previous case and she purchased The Ribnik outright. From then on all she wanted to do was help others.
“She kept her ear to the ground, listening out for information that would help me in whatever I was investigating at the time. I would check in on her once a month or as often as I could. By giving me a focus, she saved me more than she ever knew. In a way, I saw her more as a daughter than a friend but I would never have said that. Now she's dead with her throat sliced open.”
“I'm sorry Harrison. I am. But I don't rest on my laurels either. Together, we need to find out how you are connected in all of this and in doing so we might bring the perpetrator to justice.”
I silently agreed with her and she touched my arm again. I didn't push it away this time, as it was more than sincere and honest.
“I think I wanna get out of this hi-vis now.”
“I think it suits you.”
I smiled softly, “then you have very questionable fashion tastes.”
Suddenly Paine's phone rang and it took me by surprise, even though it shouldn't have done. She answered as if she had drawn a weapon in a gunfight. I think there was only one ring, but I kinda liked the speed at which she worked.
A few seconds passed until she spoke, “are you sure?” After the silent reply she continued, “right, I'm bringing Lake in on it with me and I don't want arguments on this.”
She hung up shortly after and took a deep breath herself.
“Lake?” I said.
“Paine and Lake has a little ring to it, don't you think?”
“What's happened?”
“Stansey King has walked out the hospital. She's disappeared.”
Seventeen
Paine and Lake. It sounded decent enough but I was fully aware I wasn't an authority as Paine put it, so I wasn't sure how this was going to work. But I had done my time as a Private Investigator, for a year at least until I lost the license. Still, I fell into the Oculus and haven't looked back since.
We arrived at the University College Hospital in Paine's unmarked blue Volvo V90. We didn't speak much en-route, I guess she was letting me grieve in my own way and leaving me to it.
The one thing a freelance investigator would always be missing was a badge of any kind of authority. So when Paine flashed hers and asked to be shown to the private wards then a little rising flash of jealousy shivered through me. If only I could open as many doors that easily.
“Lake and Paine,” I said to her, as we walked through the emergency wards.
“Does it actually make a difference?”
“It sounds better.”
“Either way it's only temporary – but it's Paine and Lake.”
The doctor who I had seen in the original video recording met us at the private ward. It was no different from other wards, it was just slightly out the way and seemed to be more methodically laid out but it had no window. I didn't know if it was a legality but it was the least of my worries.
“Hello Doctor Foster,” Paine said, “sorry to meet like this again.”
“Megan, it's good to see you,” the doctor said in a posh Oxfordshire accent. “I'll get straight to it, this is where the patient walked out of. She was due for an ambulance transport to Linden Psychiatric Hospital in a few hours. But I'll leave you alone for a few moments.”
“Thank you Doctor Foster,” she replied.
I watched the doctor leave us. He was mid-forties, with perfectly formed short brown hair, a strong face and slightly off-centre nose. It was never nice to pick up on inconsistencies but it stood out and I noted it. He looked athletic but it was tricky to tell as his body was covered with the scrubs.
I turned my attention back to the room.
The bedding was still unmade, exactly how it had been left. A jug of water had been pushed off the drawer unit and onto the floor, leaving a large puddle on the far side of the ward.
I noticed a white band on the floor. I picked it up and saw it was Stansey's hospital wrist band.
“What exactly are we looking for?” I said.
“Curiosities!”
“Do we know any more about who she actually is?”
“I liaised with the Thames Valley Police Force as Oxford falls in their jurisdiction. They sent two officers over to speak to Rachel King, Stansey's only surviving parent. They explained the situation and then showed a photograph of our Stansey King.”
“Let me guess.”
“It wasn't her daughter,” Paine replied.
“So are we still referring to her as Stansey King?”
“Until we know any better.”
I gripped Stansey's hospital band in the hope it might have told me something more than simply looking at it. It was still warm but then the entire ward seemed overly stuffy. The last time I was in hospital was when I dislocated my right shoulder, fifteen years ago. Got through the resulting physio and hoped to never be back.
Paine continued, “Doctor Foster is working on the theory she may believe she is Stansey King. This could be brought on by any number of mental health issues. But it still doesn'
t explain how she ended up in your basement.”
I wasn't going to correct her any further – it was a cellar and I knew it.
Yet, she was right, this wasn't helping explain anything. Whoever she was, she was now loose and I was more than a little worried about what it meant. And then I remembered a throwaway line Stansey had said.
“Back when she was in my – cellar, I thought she said something out of context but I wasn't too sure about it. It was a little intense down there to say the least and I'm not sure if it was real, imagined or misheard. She said that the pond was the key.”
“A pond? Like a body of water pond?”
“What kind of other pond is there?”
“I'm just making sure that's what you said.”
“That's what it sounded like. I'm unsure though, like I said I might have misheard it but what if she said it intentionally?”
“I don't know where you're going with this but carry on.”
Christ, nor did I. Her being in my basement made no sense and now she had vanished. I didn't know whether to be worried, scared or happy about it.
I moved to the bed and pulled back the bedding to the end then ran my hand over the sheet to the pillow. I lifted the pillows but there was nothing underneath. I reached into the pillowcase and fumbled around for something, anything. There was nothing there.
“Check the drawers,” I said to Paine, who hesitantly did so.
I looked under the bed, on the walls, the medication folder and the ceiling grates but there was nothing.
“Nothing in here whatsoever,” she said, “we don't have anything.”
I looked at the clock opposite the bed. It was high up, too high for someone to lift it off. I looked closer at the central black dot. It's where the camera must have been. I checked the location and the angle to the bed. I was surprised that Paine didn't suggest it before but maybe she was like me and wanted physical evidence before looking at the obvious.
“Maybe we do,” I said.
Eighteen
Doctor Foster showed us to the security centre of the hospital. It looked like any other hospital room, save for the huge number of screens on the far wall. All manned by one eagle-eyed male camera operator.
Foster told him to bring up the footage of Stansey's ward in the past hour. He found it pretty quick and I would have hoped so with all the tech I was seeing right in front of me.
“There it is,” Foster said, pointing at the screen, “that's five minutes before she leaves.”
I stood behind the operator and watched the screen closely as Stansey was pacing up and down by the side wall.
“Where were the nurses at this point?” I said.
Foster answered, “even though it's a private ward it doesn't mean they get a private nurse looking after them. We can't focus all our efforts on just one patient when we have 187 others to look after.”
Point taken, I thought. Note for future; don't argue with Doctor Foster. Then I caught something on the screen.
I pointed at it, “whoa, is she talking to someone there?”
It sure looked like it. She would stop occasionally and rest her back on the side wall and look as though she would be talking to someone hidden from view of the camera.
Stansey then pointed at someone or something and shook her head in fear, it looked like she then shouted in the direction of the unseen entity.
“It looks like she said leave me alone?” Paine said.
“Jeez,” I exclaimed, “someone else was in the room with her.”
Paine suddenly jumped into action, she had her phone to her ear in an instant. While waiting for it to answer she pointed back at the screen and looked at the operator.
“Bring up the external CCTV,” she said urgently.
“Which one?” he asked.
“Start outside the ward and work your way out to the exit. Follow her!”
“Where did she go?” I said to anyone who was listening.
Her call suddenly connected, “this is Paine, get me Salt.”
I ignored the rest of the conversation and focused on the screen, “there,” I pointed. I watched Stansey walk along the corridor near the ward but then on the connecting screen, she didn't appear.
“What happened?” I said.
It took a while but the operator finally answered, “I mean she should be there, there's nowhere else she could go.”
I looked closer, it seemed there was a four metre section of two connecting corridors where there seemed to be a black spot.
I pointed to an area beside the screen where the corridors would meet if the cameras could see all of it, “what's in this section here?”
Again, the speed he took to answer was less than exemplary, but I didn't blame him, I knew what stress felt like.
“There's some stock rooms there,” he said.
“What's in there?”
“It's a supply room, so there will be spare uniforms, clothing, things like that.”
“Dammit,” I said, “jump forward a few minutes, let's get her walking out.”
Paine suddenly raised her voice behind me as her call continued, “you're kidding me!”
I was then torn between Paine and the security footage. Had to stay with security, they had eyes on Stansey. I watched a nurse with black hair and her back to the camera, walking erratically with her arms crossed. She was heading in the direction of the exit.
“There, follow her,” I said. “Bring up the external recording.”
Another screen switched to the camera view that looked downwards and along the Accident and Emergency public entrance. I waited and waited but couldn't see anything.
I continued, “is it time-linked to this one?”
“Yes,” came the reply, “it's all displayed to run as one time-frame.”
“Then where the hell is she?” I quipped.
I heard Paine again, “what about Lake?”
I looked back to her and she nodded at me knowingly, as if whatever was being said was being resolved in the best way possible.
Foster spoke up, “no-one was seen entering the ward.”
I looked back at him, “she was speaking to someone.”
“We don't know that for sure. Her mental conditions might be more prevalent than we first thought. It's not uncommon for one to hallucinate or display severe delusions when in the midst of a mental health crisis. Some people will even talk to spectres or to someone they believe is there but doesn't exist in our reality. Delusion is a very real thing.”
I had to go with what I could see. I could see no one in her ward, no one entering it and no one apart from Stansey exiting it. Yet, I was sure there was someone else there. I've seen good acting and I've seen great acting, if she was pretending then she sure as hell deserved a Golden Globe.
“There!” the operator called out.
I looked back to watch Stansey leave the exit, with a black jacket around her badly fitting nurse's uniform. “She took someone's jacket from the A&E. How long ago was this?”
“35 minutes ago,” he replied with surety.
“Paine,” I called out. I needed to break her call.
She beckoned at me and then put her hand over the speaker on the phone, “what is it?”
I pointed to the screen which the operator had on repeat, “35 minutes and counting! Black jacket hiding a nurse's uniform, 19-year-old female with long dark hair. She's going somewhere.”
She nodded and spoke louder into the phone, “get a link up with London CCTV, localise here to the hospital then draw out to a wider region. Track Stansey King on CCTV and lead us to her. Image coming through now.”
The operator had already sent a still shot of the image through the database to the London CCTV offices and another to Paine's office in the Police Station. I was suddenly impressed with the speed he had worked.
Paine was about to hang up but had one more thing to say, “are you sure we're good to go on this? This better be good intel.” She paused and listened to her answer
. “Fine, we'll go there first. As soon as Stansey appears on the system, you patch her location through to me immediately.”
She ended the call quickly, probably not giving enough time to the person on the other end to finish. And that's what I was starting to like about her, she didn't mess around, she got to the point. Mostly.
“What was that about?” I said.
“I was just confirming you're legally okay to roll with me while the investigation takes place. Turns out you are.”
“Well I guess I'm stuck with you now then.”
“Could think of worse situations,” she said.
“Yeah, so can I, but you're growing on me so I guess I'll let you work with me for now.”
Her jaw virtually dropped to the floor. I'm sure she wanted to pick me up and slam me into the ground but she restrained herself, ever so slightly.
Before she had a chance to speak I butted in again, “what have we got?”
“London CCTV will attempt to track Stansey King and will keep us in the loop. And we have a lead on the Blood Streams, possible witness.”
“Where?”
“Little Venice.”
Nineteen
As I didn't drive, the concept of getting across town in a speedy manner was kind of lost on me. I'm told that 2.3 miles from University College Hospital to Little Venice in just under ten minutes was a new record. Not that Paine was jumping lights, even though she could have done, but we'd hit green pretty much all the way.
We parked on the south end of Rembrandt Gardens and walked slowly through the park. Luckily, Little Venice was well within my restrictive circle and Paine was all too quick to remind me of it.
“What if it was like 5.1 miles?” I jested, “would I still be arrested and sent to prison.”
She held back answering but replied hesitantly, “yes.” Her resolve was somewhat reassuring.
Little Venice, on the border of Paddington and Maida Vale, was one of those geographical oddities in London. Not many knew of it, especially not the tourists unless they were canal lovers. It was originally known as Paddington Broadwater until a 1930s mystery novel named one of the houses; Little Venice.