Time Is Running Out

by Michael Wood

He walked towards the noise, Sian following, and they saw uniformed officers clinging onto Justin as he pleaded and begged for Steve Harrison to help him as he was led through by Shaun Cox.

  ‘Steve, I did everything you wanted me to,’ Justin screamed. ‘I gave Jake all the notes and letters. I’ve done my part. We can be together now, Steve. We can be together.’

  Sian watched in horror as Justin was pulled away while Steve simply stood at the side of the room with a smirk on his face.

  ‘Fans can get so clingy sometimes, can’t they?’ he said. The famous twinkle in his eyes was back.

  ‘You really don’t care who you destroy, do you?’ Sian asked, walking up to him.

  He leaned forward, as far as he could being handcuffed to Shaun. He looked Sian up and down and licked his lips.

  ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t destroy you.’ He licked her face.

  Shaun Cox grabbed him and pulled him away.

  ‘Don’t let him see you cry.’ Christian put his arm around Sian but it was too late as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

  Chapter Seventy

  Sian had needed a breather, a few minutes alone to scrub her face and call her husband for him to say the right things to help her calm down and try to make sense of all this madness. She ended the call, and as she came out of the toilet cubicle, she caught her reflection in the stained mirrors above the sinks. There was the smallest hint of a smile on her face, which quickly disappeared. Stuart always knew what to say whenever she’d had a bad day or was feeling down. He always managed to perk her up. However, she felt guilty for having a moment of happiness when she was surrounded by such devastation.

  She left the toilets, almost bumping into Inspector Porter in the corridor.

  ‘Jesus, Gavin, you scared the life out of me. How did it go? Did you catch him?’

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Jake. At the hospital?’

  ‘What are you talking about? I’ve been at the school all afternoon. There’s not much more we can do at the moment until—’

  Sian cut him off. ‘The Chief Constable said he was calling you to send you to the Hallamshire.’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘He got on his phone as he was leaving HMET. I saw him do it.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t call me.’

  Sian’s eyes widened as realisation dawned. ‘Bloody hell! Come with me, Gavin.’

  They ran to the HMET suite where Christian was in his office talking on the phone to his wife. He had tears in his eyes. He quickly ended the call as Sian launched into an explanation of what she suspected was going on. Together, all three ran towards Valerie’s old office and burst in.

  Martin Featherstone was sat at the desk. He looked gaunt, as if all life had been drained out of him. There were tearstains on his face. He was staring down at his mobile phone in the middle of the desk.

  ‘Martin,’ Sian said, stepping tentatively closer to the desk. ‘What’s going on?’

  He looked up slowly.

  ‘You didn’t send an armed response team to the hospital, did you?’

  A wave of emotions ran across his face. His bottom lip wobbled, and more tears fell. He shook his head.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ he croaked. ‘He’s got Roisin. He said he’d kill her if anything stopped him. I can’t lose her. She’s been through so much lately.’

  ‘What?’ Christian asked, stepping forward.

  Martin unlocked his phone, opened the text messaging app and turned it around on his desk, pushing it towards him.

  The DI stepped forward. He picked it up, looked at the photo of the CC’s wife trussed up in the back of a van, tears streaming down her dirty face. He handed it to Sian.

  ‘How long have you known about this?’

  He shook his head and said nothing.

  ‘He’s been calling you, hasn’t he?’

  He nodded. ‘He wants Matilda dead. He told me if I didn’t keep the police off his back until he’d done it, then he’d kill Roisin, film it and send the video to my kids. I couldn’t … I…’ He choked on his words. He was a shell of the man they knew him to be.

  ‘You’re allowing him to murder DCI Darke to save your wife?’ Sian asked, venom in her voice.

  ‘I can’t lose her,’ he said softly. He looked at his watch. ‘It’ll be over now. I’m just waiting for his call to tell me where Roisin is. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You bastard,’ Sian said. There was pure hatred in her voice.

  ‘I’ll call security at the hospital and send a team out,’ Gavin said, turning and storming out of the office.

  ‘Sian, come on,’ Christian said, grabbing her by the shoulder and trying to pull her away from the death stare she had fixed on the Chief Constable.

  She ignored him. ‘It’s not just Matilda who’s at the hospital. Her parents are there. Her boyfriend is there. Do you think he’s just going to walk in, shoot her, then walk back out again? He’ll kill them all. Not to mention the doctors and nurses who’ll try to help. Do you have any idea what you’ve done, how many people will have died because of you?’

  ‘Sian, leave it, come on. It might not be too late,’ Christian said.

  ‘I can’t lose Roisin,’ he said again through a torrent of tears.

  ‘Do you honestly think he’s going to let her go? He’s killed dozens of people today. One more won’t make any difference.’ She stepped forward, placed her hands on the desk and leaned close to him. ‘You should have come to us. As a team we could have worked together to have stopped this going so far if we’d been given all the facts earlier. You know that. How the fuck did you get to be Chief Constable in the first place?’ she screamed.

  ‘Sian, now is not the time.’ Christian practically had to pick her up to drag her out of the room.

  ‘If Matilda’s dead, it’ll be all your fault,’ Sian screamed as she was pushed through the door.

  The Chief Constable was left in silence. He looked down at the phone and pressed the screen, bringing it to life.

  ‘Come on, you bastard, ring. Tell me where she is.’

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Jake Harrison found the Neuro Critical Care Unit after taking several wrong turns. Why did hospitals have to be so difficult to navigate? The door to the unit was closed and locked, accessible only by punching in the correct code number. He rang the bell above it and waited impatiently.

  He’d been watching Chief Constable Martin Featherstone and his wife for some time. They were a couple who liked their routine, and it wasn’t long before Jake learned their daily schedules by heart. There was one snag. Martin and Roisin seemed to be living separate lives.

  Martin left the house early and didn’t come back until late. Roisin worked regular hours, but she often went out for a drink or a meal with colleagues after work, and at weekends she spent time with her daughters rather than her husband. Did they even sleep in the same bed? How often did they have a meal together or sit down in front of the TV and chat about their day? If Roisin was to be his insurance policy, he needed Martin to want to save her life. The only way to do that was to remind Martin what he stood to lose.

  So Jake had played the waiting game. He followed Roisin. He learned her schedule, her routine, her route to work and back. He spent weeks on her tail, and she had no idea. When the time was right, he launched his attack.

  It was a dark night. The clouds were thick and heavy, hiding the moon. The new streetlamps Sheffield City Council had erected were next to useless unless you were standing directly beneath one. In the shadows of the trees, Jake grabbed Roisin from behind and threw her to the ground. He wanted to make it look like a violent mugging. He hadn’t expected Roisin to put up much of a fight, but he’d underestimated her.

  From her coat pocket, she pulled out her keys and swiped at his neck, scratching him with the rough end of a Yale key. He yelled out in pain and could feel the blood dripping down his shirt. Her feistiness made him angry. He kicked her in the stomach. Sh
e rolled over to protect herself, pulling her knees up to her chest. He kicked her in the back several times and jumped on her legs. He could hear the bones breaking beneath the heavy grips of his walking shoes. He didn’t want her dead, but he wanted the bitch damaged.

  As he walked away, he looked through her bag. He took her purse and mobile phone out and tossed the bag into bushes. He looked back and saw the prostate Roisin Featherstone curled up in the darkness.

  It was a couple of days before the ‘horror attack’ made the newspapers. The journalist focused hard on the victim being the wife of a Chief Constable, and Martin gave a statement declaring his undying love to his wife, mother of his children and his best friend. It was touching and heartfelt. It almost made Jake sick.

  Jake’s stalking of the Featherstones continued. He watched as a worried-looking Martin spent long days and nights at the hospital. When Roisin was released after four weeks, she was led carefully to the car on crutches. In the following weeks, Martin accompanied his wife to all of her physiotherapy appointments, and they seemed to be spending more leisure time together, too. He followed them to restaurants, the theatre, days out at the coast. The attack had brought them together. They were in love again. They were right where Jake wanted them. He just hoped, now, that Martin had kept his side of the bargain. If he valued his wife as much as he said he did, he’d keep the police at bay long enough for him to finish Matilda off.

  It was a while before a large nurse waddled down the corridor to the door. She squinted through the glass at Jake.

  ‘We’re in lockdown,’ she said loudly.

  ‘I’m police.’ He stood back so she could see his uniform through the small window.

  ‘I can see that,’ she said with a smile. ‘We’ve been informed not to let anyone in under any circumstance. This is a secure ward. Apart from fire exits, this is the only way in. We’re all safe so there’s no need for you to enter.’

  ‘I appreciate that, ma’am. However, I need to see for myself everyone is safe. For all I know, you could be being held hostage and told to tell me everything is normal.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve had my orders,’ she said, holding her hands out.

  And I’ve had mine, he thought.

  He pulled the Glock out of the rucksack he’d taken off his shoulders and was holding in front of him. The silencer was already screwed on. He held it up and fired twice. The first bullet shattered the glass, the second hit the nurse in the face. She was thrown backwards and hit the floor with a heavy thud.

  Jake reached in through the hole in the door and unlocked it from the inside. As he stepped into the overheated ward, he saw people coming out of rooms to investigate the sound of glass breaking. He aimed the gun and fired.

  He ignored the screams and allowed some of the medical staff to flee and hide. He knew he wasn’t going to make it out of the ward alive, or in handcuffs, but he had a task to do and he couldn’t let his brother down.

  He walked up to the reception desk where two nurses were huddled behind.

  ‘Where’s Matilda Darke?’ he asked. His voice was as calm and steady as if he were a visitor looking for a family member.

  Neither of the young nurses reacted. He rolled his eyes and pointed the gun at one of the women.

  ‘I will shoot her in the head right now if you don’t tell me what room Matilda Darke is in,’ he said, looking to the other nurse.

  The nurse held her hands up and slowly stood up. She went over to the computer and, with shaking fingers, typed onto the keyboard. She was crying and made several mistakes, cursing herself and apologising.

  ‘She’s in B11,’ she cried.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Down the corridor. Turn left. It’s the last door on the left.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with a smile. ‘You’ve just saved your friend’s life. Not yours, unfortunately.’

  He aimed the gun at the nurse who’d help him and squeezed the trigger. Her head exploded. She dropped to the floor and the nurse who was already cowering was splattered with the blood and brain matter of her dead colleague.

  Jake listened to her screaming as he made his way down the corridor.

  ‘What the hell is going on out there?’ Frank asked Penny.

  They were both sat either side of Matilda’s bed, watching her chest rise and fall as the machines breathed for her. They’d heard the sound of screams and assumed it was a patient in pain, but the terrifying sounds continued.

  Penny was holding her daughter’s hand. She looked up with tears in her eyes.

  ‘Leave it, Frank. It’s nothing to do with us.’

  The door burst open, and Daniel Harbison almost fell into the room, slamming the door behind him and standing firmly in front of it.

  ‘There’s a gunman out there. I overheard him asking for Matilda. Then he shot a bunch of people.’

  ‘What?’ Frank asked, standing up.

  ‘The attacks didn’t stop at the police station this morning – there have been more all day. I think he’s come to shoot Matilda.’

  ‘Oh my God, Frank!’ Penny said, descending into hysteria. Frank went over to her and held her in his arms.

  ‘What are we going to do? Is there any way we can move her?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I doubt it. Not without a medical team,’ Daniel said, looking at the bank of monitors and machines keeping Matilda alive.

  Someone tried to open the door, but Daniel was blocking it. He turned and saw a doctor he had been speaking to in the corridor earlier through the glass. He was banging frantically on the door.

  ‘Let me in! Let me in!’

  Daniel opened the door, dragged the doctor in and closed it again.

  The young doctor had blood on his striped shirt and spatter on his face. ‘I’ve just seen three nurses gunned down. I’ve pressed the panic buttons and alerted security, but I don’t think they’ll be able to get here in time.’

  Penny was shaking, in floods of tears as Frank held on to her tightly.

  ‘Where is he?’ Daniel asked the doctor.

  ‘I don’t know. He was at the nurses’ station. There’s a door at the end of this corridor between us and them that can be locked but I don’t think we’ll be able to close it without him seeing us.’

  ‘It’s worth a chance,’ Daniel said. He looked to Matilda’s parents who were looking at him with hopeful eyes. ‘Do you have the numbers of any of Matilda’s colleagues?’

  ‘Yes. Sian’s,’ Penny said.

  ‘Call her. Tell her what’s happening.’ He glanced over to Matilda. They hadn’t officially been dating long, but his feelings for her ran deep. He wasn’t going to let this madman kill her.

  Without giving a second thought to his own safety, he opened the door and ran out into the corridor.

  He headed for the open door at the end of the long corridor. Through it, he could see a nurse on the floor, lying in a pool of her own blood. He’d never seen a dead body before and lost crucial seconds registering the horror of the sight before he took off at speed.

  He reached the door without knowing where the gunman was. He closed it, but it wouldn’t fully shut. He pushed harder, but there was an obstruction. He looked down and saw the dead nurse’s arm blocking it.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he said under his breath. He’d been slamming the door against someone’s arm. He opened the door and senselessly kicked the arm out of the way. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, slamming the door closed. The mechanism locked. The only way for it to be opened now was with a code on the keypad on the other side.

  Picking up a fire extinguisher, he slammed it down on the handle which fell off in one swift movement. There was no way the door could be opened from this side, even if the gunman shot the glass and reached inside.

  He was headed back for Matilda’s room when he heard the glass break behind him. He turned around and saw a man aiming a gun at him through the hole in the door. They made eye contact. The gunman smiled as he squeezed the trigger.

  Cha
pter Seventy-Two

  Once again, Sian was on Glossop Road hurtling through the traffic towards the hospital. This time Christian was driving, and Aaron and Finn were in the back.

  Sian was still seething from the confrontation with the Chief Constable. She had no idea what the fallout from all this would be, but surely he would have to answer some very serious questions. She doubted he’d still be Chief Constable at the end of the day. Life at South Yorkshire Police was never going to be the same again once all this was over.

  Sian’s mobile started ringing, bringing her out of her dark reverie. She struggled to pull it out from her coat pocket, which was being squashed under the weight of the flak jacket she was wearing over the top. She saw it was Matilda’s mother calling and braced herself for the worst. She swiped to answer and put it on speaker so the others in the car could hear.

  ‘Sian, it’s Penny. Matilda’s mum,’ she said with a shaking voice. ‘We’re trapped. There’s a gunman in the ward. He’s shooting doctors and nurses. Daniel heard him asking for Matilda at the front desk. You need to send someone out here.’

  ‘Penny, calm down,’ Sian said. It was a stupid thing to say, but what else could she say. ‘An armed response team is already on site and we’re literally minutes away.’

  ‘It’s going to be too late,’ she said, tears evident in her voice.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Finn said from the back seat.

  ‘It’s not,’ Sian said. She too was struggling to hold back the tears. ‘Penny, armed police are already in the building. We’re going to contact them and let them know exactly where the gunman is. Just sit tight. I promise you we’ll get you out of there.’

  ‘I’m calling Gavin. It’s ringing,’ Aaron said.

  Christian and Sian exchanged nervous glances. Both of them knew it was likely already too late.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  The door to Matilda’s room burst open and Daniel staggered inside, clutching his shoulder, blood seeping out through his fingers.