Retracing our steps to the living room, we looked for signs of anything that had been stolen. “Her laptop,” I said, finally. “Usually she leaves it on the coffee table. She never takes it to work.”
We searched for it amidst the detritus on the floor but found nothing, not even the charging cable.
“Theft then,” said Josh.
“It seems like a lot of work for one computer?”
A noise from the hallway sent my heart rate rocketing. Josh put his finger to his lips and we both ducked down behind the sofa.
“Who’s there?” came a woman’s voice.
I peeked around the end of the sofa. A middle-aged woman in purple sweats and slippers stood at the front door, with one hand on the doorknob.
It was Anita’s neighbor from across the hall. I recognized her but didn’t recall her name.
I got to my feet, raising my hand in greeting. “I’m Kate. You might remember me?” Josh stood up next to me. “This is my boyfriend. We just got here and found all this.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, still waiting at the doorway.
“We don’t know. Someone broke in through the window in the back door. Did you see or hear anything?”
The woman shook her head. “No, I had the telly on and it’s hard to hear anything. Anita works all hours, you know, so I never know when she’ll be here.”
She took one step into the room, which I took as a sign that she believed we weren’t dangerous intruders. “I’m Nancy, by the way. I was just on my way to put the rubbish out and saw the door was open. We should call the police, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes, I was just about to do that.” I took out my mobile to call Clarke’s number. It clicked over to voicemail, so I left a message asking him to call me urgently.
When I’d finished the call, Nancy was looking at me, her eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you calling 999?” she asked. “That didn’t sound like emergency services.”
“No, I called a detective. It’s complicated, but you’re right, we should call the local police too. Would you do that? We have to go.”
“You’re leaving?”
I glanced at Josh. If we stayed until the police came, we could be stuck here for hours. We needed to keep moving.
“Nancy, we have to go. We believe that Anita is in danger. Okay?”
“Here.” Josh pulled one of his business cards from his wallet. “You can give this to the police so they know where to contact us.”
She looked very dubious, but we left, dashing across the lobby to the front door. The block of flats was in a quiet side street, so we hurried to the corner and turned on to the busy City Road, which thronged with cars and buses. Outside a bustling pub, we flagged down a taxi.
“London General Hospital,” I told the driver. “As fast as you can please.”
27
As soon as we pulled into the turnaround in front of the hospital, I jumped out while Josh handed the driver a ten-pound note, telling him to keep the change. Hurrying up to the fourth floor, and heading towards Anita’s office, we found Pauline at the nurses’ station. Quickly introducing Josh, I explained that we were worried about Anita.
“I haven’t seen her for a couple of hours,” said Pauline. “She was due to go off duty at six. Give me a minute. Let me ask the other nurses if they have any idea where she might be.”
She disappeared while Josh and I waited impatiently. After a few minutes, Pauline came back accompanied by a short, black-haired nurse in pink scrubs. “This is Suzy. She saw Anita leave the building.”
Suzy nodded. “I was just coming in for my shift when I saw Anita walking out with a man. They got into a car. I only noticed really because she didn’t speak to me. She’s usually so friendly.”
“Did you recognize the man?” I asked. “Had you seen him before?”
“No. I think maybe he was a boyfriend or something because they were walking arm in arm, very close.”
“Could you describe him?”
Suzy shook her head. “Not really. It was pitch black in the car park. You know they are always saying they’ll put more lights out there, but it never happens? He was quite tall, but I really didn’t see his face.”
“What was he wearing?”
“I don’t know. A dark jacket, dark jeans or maybe cords. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
“What about the car?” asked Josh. “Did you see what kind of vehicle they got into?”
Again Suzy shook her head. “I’m not good with car models. It might have been a BMW, but I’m not sure. It was a dark color though.”
If she said “dark” one more time, I’d scream. I knew the sun had gone down and that the lighting was bad, but surely she’d seen something that would be useful.
“Suzy,” I said. “It’s really important. We think that man kidnapped Anita.”
Eyes wide, Suzy gazed at us. “Kidnapped? Then why didn’t she shout for help when she saw me?”
“Because the man was probably holding a knife against her neck. It’s hard to scream when you’re under that kind of threat.”
I knew that from personal experience.
Suzy looked at Pauline. “Can I go?”
When Pauline nodded, she scampered away.
“Is that detective still here?” I asked.
“Detective Parry? No, he left a few hours ago, maybe around five. He didn’t say he’d be back and he took down the tape from over Dr. Reid’s office door.”
“Did Anita leave the ward with this man Suzy described?” I asked. “Did you see anyone?”
“No, I didn’t. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t here though, because I’m usually in one of the patient rooms and don’t see much of what’s going on out here. Or he could have met her downstairs in the lobby.”
She paused. “I have to go back to work. But will you let me know when you hear from Anita? She’s a good doctor, you know, and a wonderful person.”
Frustrated by the lack of information, I turned towards the lifts.
“Now what?” asked Josh.
“Let’s go check the car park.”
Outside, the air was clear and very cold. The sky was full of stars, but they were faint, struggling to shine through the blanket of light from the city’s buildings, street lamps and neon billboards. I thought of the sky over my father’s house in Tuscany. There, the stars were so bright that they looked close enough to touch.
We walked around the car park, peering in through car windows. All of them were empty.
“Kate,” Josh said. “It seems as though we need to report Anita missing.”
I leaned up against a car. My legs were shaking. “I’m scared,” I said. “What if she’s been …” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Pulling my phone from my purse, I tapped in Clarke’s number. “Who’re you calling?” Josh asked.
“Clarke again,” I said.
“Why Clarke? Why not that detective who’s been investigating Dr. Reid’s death?”
“You haven’t met Parry. Believe me, Clarke will be more helpful.”
The detective answered on the first ring. “Yes, Kate?”
“Did you get my voicemail? Anita’s missing. Her flat was broken into. Someone said she left work with a man, but no one knows who it was.”
“Calm down,” he said. “Tell me who Anita is.” I explained, my voice shaking. Josh put his arm round my shoulder.
“When did she go missing?”
“A few hours ago,” I said. “She was supposed to come to my place, but she never turned up. And her flat has been ransacked.”
There was a long silence and then I heard papers rustling in the background. “Usually we can’t process a missing person report until she’s been gone for twenty-four hours.”
“Her flat was turned upside down.” It was hard to keep my voice down. “And a nurse saw her leave the hospital with a man. I think she was being abducted.”
“Can you come to the police station and make a statement? Give me half
an hour to finish up some paperwork and then we can have as much time as we need.”
I began to object and then changed my mind. I wanted Clarke to mobilize the police force to search for Anita. I knew that, realistically, that wasn’t going to happen yet.
We did one more round of the car park before heading back to the hospital building. It was cold and I was glad to step back into the warmth of the lobby.
“Hello there!” A man was walking towards us with a big smile on his face. After a couple of seconds, I remembered that he was the young drug representative who’d been chatting with the nurses the day I’d faked my way into Dr. Reid’s office.
“Hi,” I said, hoping that he’d just keep walking. He didn’t.
“I hope your son’s doing okay,” he said. “The staff up there are wonderful. He’s in good hands.”
Josh opened his mouth and I cut him off. “Yes, thank you. He’s fine now. We’ve just been up to see him.”
The rep stuck out his hand to shake Josh’s. “Audley Macintyre,” he said. “Good luck with your boy.”
I grabbed Josh’s arm, pulling him across the lobby towards the exit doors.
“What the heck?” Josh asked once we were out on the pavement.
“It’s a long story.”
Josh suggested we take the bus to the police station in Westminster so that I could tell him all about it. The commute rush was over and the bus was only half full. We sat together upstairs at the back, so that I could make my confession in private. I told him about lying to Dr. Reid and my fight with Anita.
“It was the day I first saw her aura,” I said. “I hoped that I could find something out from Dr. Reid that would give me a clue about whatever it is that threatens her. I didn’t get much out of it though, except to learn that Dr. Reid was a very nice man.” I felt tears burning my eyes.
The brightly-lit interior was overheated and smelled of dusty upholstery and fast food. I thought of the hundreds of bus rides I’d taken with Anita when we were students and my chest throbbed with pain. I was so scared for her.
At the police station, we were directed to a meeting room where Clarke joined us a few minutes later. He shook hands with Josh. “Good to see you again.”
After we were seated, a policeman came in with a tray of coffee and biscuits. Josh took two shortbreads. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast,” he said.
“So, tell me everything you know,” Clarke said to me. I went through the events of the last few days, starting with Dr. Reid’s death, Grace’s preliminary findings, and the alterations Anita had found on some of the patient files. Clarke took notes on an iPad, looking up at me from time to time as though to check that I was telling the truth.
“I’m sure, well reasonably sure, that Dr. Reid was killed. It wasn’t suicide,” I said. “There was a Detective Parry at the hospital, making some enquiries, but a nurse told us he’s cleared the area, so it sounds as though he’s finished. From what he told us, the whole investigation thing was just window dressing to make the staff feel that the hospital was taking the death seriously.”
“Give me a few minutes,” Clarke said, leaving the room. When he came back, he tapped something else into his iPad.
“I can request further investigation in the light of Anita’s disappearance,” he said. “Detective Parry will be the lead.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’d rather you handled it.”
“It’s not my jurisdiction.” He held up a hand when I began to protest. “But I’ll talk with Parry, make sure he gets onto it right away. I’ve put a call in to him. He’s on his way in. I’ll give him your report and he’ll get in touch with you.”
I leaned towards him. “Did you get an official report about the break-in at Anita’s flat?”
He nodded. “That’s one of the things I went to check on. It certainly sounds to me as though she was taken under duress. We’ll find her. Is there anything else that might help us?”
“I just want her to be safe.” Tears filled my eyes again and I blinked them away, angry with myself for being so emotional. There was a long pause and then Clarke asked if I’d heard from Chris. My throat was so choked up with tears that I couldn’t answer.
“What’s the problem with Chris?” Josh asked. I’d told him about Chris and his relationship to Scott, but hadn’t brought him up to date about Chris’s mysterious absence.
“We’ve put out an alert for him,” Clarke said. “But no sign of him so far.” He looked at me. “It’s funny, the way people you know keep disappearing.”
“It’s not funny at all,” I said.
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry,” he said, standing up. “Try not to worry, Kate. If you hear anything at all from or about Anita, call Detective Parry. I’ll work with him on this.”
Josh and I walked slowly towards the bus stop. “Why would anyone take Anita?” I asked. “This has to be connected in some way with Dr. Reid’s death.”
“Well, the police are on it now,” said Josh. “They’ll find her.”
It was after ten by the time we got back to my flat. I unlocked the front door, and switched on the hall light. Just inside, on the hardwood floor, lay a white envelope. Someone must have pushed it under the door. Puzzled, as my post was usually delivered to the box downstairs, I picked it up and turned it over. There was no name on the front.
“Open it,” Josh said.
I pulled out a sheet of standard white copier paper. The message on it was typewritten. “We have Anita.”
28
After a nauseating rush of adrenaline subsided, I read the note out loud to Josh. “We have Anita. Bring the patient notes. No police or there will be consequences. The meeting location will be sent by text to your phone in two hours.”
“What notes?” Josh asked. He took the paper, which fluttered in my hands like an injured bird.
“I don’t know.” I tried to get my shaking fingers under control so that I could check my phone. There was no text yet.
My knees suddenly felt weak, as though the bones in my legs had dissolved. “Josh, whoever has Anita knows where I live.” The thought of a stranger at my door brought back all the memories of the intruder the previous year.
He took my hand, leading me to the kitchen. “We should let the police know about this.”
“The message says not to,” I said. “But I know we can’t handle this without them. I’ll call Parry.”
When he didn’t answer, I left a voicemail for him.
Josh put the piece of paper down on the counter. “Do you know what it is they’re looking for?”
I thought back to the records I’d looked at with Anita that afternoon. “Patient files, I think, but they’re on the hospital computer system. There’s no way to access them from here.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Before we left, Josh went to my desk in the spare bedroom and found a USB flash drive.
At the hospital, lights shone in some of the windows, but many were dark. The lobby was almost empty, the silence broken only by the squeak of a wheel as a tired-looking woman pushed a man in a wheelchair towards the cafeteria.
Fortunately, Pauline was sitting at the nurses’ station when we got there. The lights were turned down and she was filling out a form by the glow of a small lamp on the desk.
“What are you two doing back?” she asked, jumping to her feet. “Have you found Anita?”
We’d agreed on the taxi ride that we’d tell Pauline what was going on. We needed all the help we could get. I quickly explained the kidnapper’s note and the urgency to find the patient files.
Pauline’s fair skin turned a shade whiter. “Anita’s been kidnapped?” She slumped back into her chair. “Which patient information do you need?”
“I only remember one name for sure. Isaac Kaminski. There was another one, which I think was Jacob? No, it was a surname. Jacobs.”
Pauline tapped on the keyboard of the computer on the desk. “Let me see what I can do.”
She looked u
p when a young nurse walked towards the desk and sat down in a chair next to Pauline. “What a night,” she said. “I’m run off my feet.”
“Why don’t you go to the kitchen? Grab a drink and a snack?” Pauline said to her. “I’ll cover you for a few minutes.”
The nurse shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll just sit here for a bit.”
We stood, looking at each other, not sure what to do. “Well, as you’re free,” said Pauline, “Please accompany these visitors to the waiting room.”
Sighing, the younger nurse got to her feet. “Follow me,” she said. She left us in the small waiting room with the yellow walls and boxes of kids’ toys. We waited until she’d been gone for two minutes and then tiptoed back up the hallway until we could see the nurse’s station. Pauline was alone and typing. She waved us over when she saw us.
“Do you have a flash drive? I’ll copy the files for you.”
We all watched while the files were copied to the drive, the progress bar moving painfully slowly.
“And you don’t know the name of the third patient?” Pauline asked.
“I know it began with a B. Something short. I wasn’t really paying attention to the names.”
Pauline did an alphabetical search and started reading out names beginning with B. “That’s it,” I said, when she read out Boyd, Danny.
“I’ll just add this to the flash drive,” she said.
“Can I ask what’s going on here?”
We turned to see a doctor in a white coat watching us. He was short, barely as tall as me. The overhead light reflected on his eyeglasses so I couldn’t make out his expression.
“Good evening, Dr. Schwartz,” said Pauline, her tone unflustered. “These are friends of Anita’s. She asked them for copies of a couple of patient records so she could review them before her appointments tomorrow.”
“I believe you know that’s against the rules,” he said. “You can’t give medical information to unauthorized members of the public. If Dr. Banerjee wants to study patient records, then she can come in here to do it.”
The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries Page 42