After supper, Waterfield would get his dress uniform from its carrier in the car and organise for the dry cleaners to pick it up. He might even get his medals polished again. He’d noticed a smear on one of them from one of the make-up women who’d prepared him for the press conference.
Waterfield had quite an impressive stack of medals, and so he should for someone of his standing. The fact he’d never so much as heard a single shot fired in anger in his entire career was neither here nor there.
11
Eleanor parked her car in a car park belonging to the University of East Anglia and blipped the locks. She was wearing a pair of running leggings she knew showed off her long legs very well, and a similarly tight running top. A pair of Asics trainers, Lycra baseball cap, and headphones completed her outfit, which was as much a disguise as it was functional. She did a couple of stretches near the car, but cut them short in her eagerness to get going. After starting a workout on her Apple Watch, Eleanor set off towards Norwich Research Park, her phone in her hand.
The road leading to the park had a pavement on the right with a white line down the centre, marking out separate lanes for cyclists and pedestrians. Eleanor kept to the centre of the white line, imagining for a moment that she was following the racing line in a proper race. When she had been a student at the university that was less than half a mile away, she’d tried out for the track and field team, but had been marginally too slow to be competitive. It hadn’t put her off running, though. If anything, it took the pressure off her because she only had to run for fun, not for performance.
When she reached a mini roundabout at the end of the lane, Eleanor took a left turn. The first proper building she ran past was an ugly, flat-roofed building that housed a biotech firm, like most of the buildings in the area. It was something to do with paint, but Eleanor wasn’t sure exactly what. She continued down the road, passing several similar prefabricated buildings before she reached Colney Lane and the business park proper. After waiting for a few seconds for the traffic to let her across, jogging on the spot to keep up her heart rate and not caring what she looked like, Eleanor crossed Colney Lane and into the central part of the research park. On her left was the Sainsbury Laboratory, one of the oldest and largest inhabitants of the park. It had three storeys and a distinctive roof shaped like an upside-down U with two circular chimneys. One of them was belching a white vapour into the otherwise clear air.
On the opposite side of the road was the other large company at the park, the John Innes Centre. It occupied a large footprint, with various strange looking buildings interspersed with more regular looking office accommodation. Eleanor remembered Beth telling her it was where she wanted to work when she had completed her PhD. According to her friend, so did virtually every other horticultural scientist.
Leaving the two sprawling complexes behind her, Eleanor continued jogging towards her target. She thought back to the satellite view of the area on her laptop. If the aerial image was correct, she could cut down the side of the Ascalon Institute and down a path that led to Hethersett Road. That would take her into the open countryside where she could stop for a while and consider what to do next.
A small sign on her left read Private Road. She glanced at it as she ran past, realising that the reason there was no Google street view of the facility was because the car with the roof-mounted camera probably hadn’t been allowed down here.
Ahead of Eleanor was an almost perfectly square building behind a tall green fence. It was bright white, the three floors intersected with a line of black windows. On top of the building was what looked like a large air-conditioning unit next to an antenna of some sort. She slowed her pace slightly, taking in the building as the gate in front of it slid open. A few seconds later, a small golf buggy pulled out and sped toward her. As it got closer, Eleanor could see two men in the vehicle, both wearing black from head to toe. She slowed to a halt as the buggy pulled up to meet her and prodded at her phone to turn her music off.
The man who got out of the passenger seat was broad-shouldered, with a narrow waist. He smiled at Eleanor, showing her a set of perfect white teeth as he did so, and apart from the embroidered badge with the word SECURITY in it, his clothing looked military. He looked military. The only thing he seemed to be missing was a gun.
“I’m sorry, Miss,” the security guard said. “This is a private road.” His voice was genial enough, but there was a hint of steel behind it. Behind the steering wheel of the golf buggy, the other guard was looking at anything but Eleanor. His eyes were flitting back and forth, never resting on anything for more than a couple of seconds.
“I was going to run down the side of the fence and across to Hethersett Lane,” Eleanor replied, slightly out of breath. Even though she’d not run far, she had a thin sheen of perspiration on her face.
“Sorry, it’s private land,” the guard said, his pale blue eyes never leaving Eleanor’s. He was still smiling, still genial. “But if you turn around and take the next right, there’s a bridle path that’ll take you to Hethersett Lane.” Eleanor looked over his shoulder at the white building that housed the Ascalon Institute before looking back at the guard. “It’s a little rough in places from the horses, so mind your ankles, but you should be fine.”
“Okay,” Eleanor said. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”
“No problem,” the guard replied. He turned and walked back to the buggy, climbing in next to his colleague. With a barely audible whir, the driver turned the vehicle round. As the buggy retreated, Eleanor raised her phone, swiped at the screen to zoom in as far as she could, and took a couple of photographs of the building.
The buggy swung back around about fifty feet away from Eleanor and turned to face her. She could see the two guards looking at her and, as she watched, the one who had spoken to her raised a hand. The message was obvious. We’re staying here until you’ve left.
Eleanor turned and started jogging. When she reached the path the guard had told her about, she glanced back at the building. The golf cart was still there. Eleanor ran onto the path and, within a few hundred yards, was completely hidden from sight within a thicket that bordered it.
She stopped and looked at her phone, bringing up the photographs she had just taken. The camera on it was excellent—one of the reasons she had bought it—and as she zoomed in on the Ascalon Institute’s green fence, she realised something strange.
It had double loops of wire on the top of the fence. Razor wire.
12
Not wanting to get up while Claire, who had returned to the front after Doctor Lobjoie’s solicitations had finished, was still talking to the audience, Lizzie sat politely in her chair and listened to some of the questions. The majority seemed to be from the younger attendees, most of whom seemed to Lizzie to be still living at home or perhaps at university. The questions weren’t about the work, but about the logistics of living in Africa. What was the food like? Where did you get your laundry done? Did Claire see any dangerous animals?
To the young woman’s credit, she answered all the questions without patronising the people who had asked them. The slightly older woman Lizzie had noticed earlier asked about what Claire had found the most rewarding about her experience, which Lizzie thought was a bit more like it. Claire really came to life as she answered this one, and her passion shone through. Whether or not she actually had, Claire was convinced that she had made a difference. That was the point when Lizzie crossed over from seriously considering the opportunity to actually wanting it.
After a few moments, the questions naturally dried up and the woman who had introduced the session brought it to a close. Her final remarks were followed by a further polite round of applause, and the attendees started getting to their feet. Lizzie watched as Claire was approached by a couple of them with follow-up questions, which she was answering animatedly. Preferring to let most of the others leave before her, Lizzie waited for a while until the room was almost empty before making her way to the door. She had plent
y to think about, but wanted to have a chat with Adams before making a final decision.
“Excuse me?” Lizzie turned at the sound of a female voice behind her. When she saw who was talking to her, Lizzie instantly felt dowdy. It was the doctor from the institute behind the programme. Lizzie wracked her brains to remember the woman’s name, but other than the fact it began with an L, she had no idea. “You’re Elizabeth, right? Elizabeth Jarman?”
“Um, most people call me Lizzie but yes that’s me.” Lizzie wondered how the doctor knew her name. It wasn’t as if they were wearing name badges, but Lizzie realised the other woman was wearing a lanyard with an identification badge. She glanced down at it. “You’re Doctor Lobjoie.”
“Very good, well done,” Doctor Lobjoie replied. If she had noticed Lizzie getting her name from her identification badge, she didn’t show it.
“How did you know who I was?” Lizzie asked as she looked at the woman. The doctor was in her early to mid-thirties, had blonde shoulder length hair, and was wearing a business suit similar to Lizzie’s. Except Doctor Lobjoie’s fitted her properly. She was curvy without carrying any excess weight and was wearing very little make-up that Lizzie could see. She didn’t need to. The woman was extremely attractive, and Lizzie hated her for it at the same time as admiring her looks.
“You filled out an expression of interest form?” Doctor Lobjoie replied. Lizzie remembered she’d submitted a photograph with it. “So, I was keeping my eyes open for you.”
“Right, okay,” Lizzie said, unsure where the doctor was going.
“You were here early. Let me guess, if you’re not early, you’re late.” A broad smile spread across the doctor’s face as she said this. Lizzie wasn’t surprised to see that she had perfect teeth. “You sat in a corner of the foyer where you could see everything that was going on, and you didn’t ask any stupid questions about where you could get your Calvin Klein lingerie dry cleaned in Sierra Leone.”
Lizzie laughed at Doctor Lobjoie’s comment. “A lot of them are quite young, aren’t they?”
“Indeed, they are. Are you in a hurry, Lizzie? Perhaps you’ve time for a quick coffee?”
Lizzie was stirring her drink a few moments later, acutely aware that Doctor Lobjoie was scrutinising her. They were sitting in the corner of the foyer where Lizzie had sat when she arrived, and had been joined briefly by Claire. Lizzie had told the young woman how well she had done with her presentation.
“I absolutely hate speaking in front of people,” Lizzie had said. “But you did it so well.” Claire’s cheeks had coloured slightly at the compliment, but she had accepted it gratefully before disappearing.
“The thing is, Lizzie,” Doctor Lobjoie said. “You hit the nail on the head with your comment about how young they all are. The applicants.” Lizzie looked at the doctor as she said this. She was smiling, but only just. “We do have a fairly high attrition rate. Sub-Saharan Africa is quite a world away from downtown Norwich.”
“I can imagine,” Lizzie replied. “Although I’ve never been there, so I don’t really know what it’s like.”
“But you’ve been away?” Doctor Lobjoie asked. “Afghanistan, right?” Lizzie couldn’t remember putting that on her expression of interest form.
“I have, yes. A couple of times.”
“I saw the Operational Service Medal on one of your Facebook photographs. And the clasp.” Doctor Lobjoie put a hand to her chest and laughed. “Oh, gosh. I must sound like a stalker. But we don’t get many applicants of your calibre.”
Lizzie, after making a mental note to purge her Facebook profile, looked at the woman carefully. She seemed genuinely apologetic.
“How d’you mean, my calibre?”
“Lizzie, you’re military. You’re a paramedic with operational experience. I know you don’t get a clasp on an OSM unless you’ve been in the thick of it. None of the others at that presentation have got half of what you have.” Doctor Lobjoie leaned forward and, to Lizzie’s surprise, took her hand. Lizzie caught the faintest aroma of perfume, but she didn’t recognise it. Whatever it was, it smelled lovely. It also smelled expensive. “Please tell me you’re going to apply for the programme?”
Lizzie managed to extract her hand tactfully from the doctor’s and finish the rest of her coffee. Doctor Lobjoie hadn’t had one, presumably so that her teeth stayed as white as they were.
“I was going to talk to my, er, my other half about it.” Lizzie still hadn’t got used to the idea that Adams was her boyfriend, even though they were an item. At least she thought they were.
“Well, talk to him. Sorry, how assumptive. Talk to them.”
“It’s a him.”
“We need people like you, Lizzie.” The look on Doctor Lobjoie’s face was earnest, pleading. “We would take one of you over ten of them.” Lizzie paused for a moment before replying.
“Well, I do want to talk to Adams about it,” she said hesitantly. “But I think I probably will.”
Doctor Lobjoie’s face lit up at Lizzie's words.
“Fantastic, that’s fantastic news.” Her mission seemingly accomplished, the doctor glanced at her watch and Lizzie caught a glimpse of gold. “I really do need to be going, I’m afraid.” She got to her feet, as did Lizzie, and the two women shook hands. “It’s been an absolute pleasure to meet you, Lizzie. Here’s my card. Please do call me when you’ve made a decision.”
“I will, Doctor Lobjoie,” Lizzie replied with a smile as she took the small white business card the doctor was offering her.
“Please, Lizzie,” Doctor Lobjoie said, still shaking Lizzie’s hand. “Call me Charlotte.”
13
Adams jumped as the doors to the resuscitation room burst open, causing him to spill his tea down the front of his scrubs. He swore under his breath and put the cup on the counter next to him to turn his attention to the new arrival. Until then, it hadn’t been busy at all for a Sunday. He’d ventured out into Majors and Minors every once in a while, but apart from the usual run of gardening incidents, the entire department had been quiet. No-one would actually use the word quiet to describe it, though. That would be like whistling on a stage.
The paramedic who had just burst through the doors was one of the more mature people Adams worked with. He was in his fifties, had been a paramedic his entire life, and had seen it all before, several times. Adams looked at his face and the expression of concern on it. If this man was worried, then so was Adams.
“What have you got, Trevor?” Adams asked the paramedic who was pushing the trolley quickly to the central resuscitation bay, as yet unused on the shift. At the other end of the trolley was a pale-faced young man who Adams looked at briefly and didn’t recognise. Between the two paramedics, covered in a blue NHS blanket and with a rebreather oxygen mask over her face, was a young woman. Adams took in her appearance as he helped the paramedics manoeuvre their trolley next to the hospital one. Before Trevor had even said a word, Adams knew the young woman was in desperate trouble. Her face was ashen, she had a blue tinge to her lips and earlobes, and she was almost unresponsive.
“Give me a sec,” Adams said before running over to the doors to the resuscitation room and opening one of them. “I need a hand in here. Now!” It wasn’t the phrase that would spur the other staff into action. It was the way Adams had barked it. He strode back to the paramedics’ trolley.
“Single stab wound to the back, just below the shoulder blade,” Trevor said, his voice terse and clipped.
“Got it,” Adams replied. He wanted the paramedics to focus on transferring the woman to the hospital trolley. There was a lot that he could do before Trevor gave his handover, and there would be no point in the paramedic repeating himself.
“Adams, you okay?” a woman’s voice came from over his shoulder.
“Hannah,” Adams shot back, not even looking at the nurse who had just arrived, “get Raj! He should be here already.” He looked down again at the woman on the trolley and made a decision. “Fast-bleep the cardi
othoracic reg as well.”
“Do you want Raj to have a—”
“Just do it, Hannah,” Adams cut her off. If it was the wrong decision, then he could apologise to the registrar later. Hannah didn’t reply, but relayed the instructions to another nurse who had just joined them. The external doors to the resuscitation room opened again, and Adams looked up to see two police officers standing by them. “Get rid of them!” Adams barked. If Hannah objected to his brusqueness, she didn’t show it. A moment later, during which Adams and the paramedics had transferred the patient onto the trolley, the police officers were gone.
Adams started with the most important piece of equipment in his armoury, at least initially. As he put the oxygen saturation probe onto the woman’s finger, he fired a series of questions at Trevor. No, the paramedic told him, there was no catastrophic haemorrhage. Yes, the patient was conscious and talking when they arrived.
“She told me she thought someone had thumped her in the back,” Trevor told Adams. “She was walking down on Riverside and heard a jogger behind her. Then she felt a blow to her back and thought he’d run into her or something.”
“She say anything else?” Adams asked.
“No, she started going off after that.”
Adams looked at the screen of the monitor. His patient’s oxygen saturation was only eighty-five per cent, nowhere near the ninety-nine to a hundred it should be. Her pulse rate was way too fast at over one hundred and thirty beats a minute. By Adams’s estimation from looking at how quickly her oxygen mask was misting up, her respiration rate was over thirty.
Enemy Within: A heart-wrenching medical mystery (British Military Thriller Series Book 3) Page 5