The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

  Three floors down, I stopped for a second. I needed to formulate a plan. If I found Macintyre, what would I do? I pulled my phone from my bag, but my fingers trembled so much that I kept pressing the wrong numbers. I carried on running, almost turning an ankle on the concrete steps.

  He could be heading to the hospital to find Anita. I got my phone out, noticing that the power was down to less than two percent. I hadn’t charged it for nearly twenty-four hours. Frantic, I typed a text. “be careful macintyre’s coming” and pressed send just as the screen went blank.

  I dashed through the car park to the street beyond, realizing that it was just an access road to the back of the hotel. Even at this time in the morning, there were no pedestrians in sight. I ran to the right, unsure of where I was. At the corner, I found myself on a main road lined with shops, not yet open, and a few people out on foot. I thought of asking someone if I could use their mobile, but I knew what the response was likely to be.

  Catching sight of a sign for a pub, I hurried towards it. The Rose and Crown was a shabby-looking place, but it was open, serving breakfast. The smell of last night’s beer mingled with the cloying odor of deep frying. Still, I wasn’t there to eat. When I asked the girl behind the bar if they had a public phone, she jutted her chin in the direction of a narrow, purple-painted hallway that led to the loo. A phone hung on the wall. Ignoring my reservations about hygiene, I picked up the greasy receiver. While I scrabbled through my purse, looking for change, I realized I didn’t have Parry’s number written down. I’d put it directly into my contacts list on my mobile. Anita’s personal phone had been destroyed and I didn’t recall the direct number for the Pediatric Unit. In this golden age of electronic communications, a dead battery had severe ramifications. The only number I knew off by heart was Josh’s. I crammed some coins into the box, but he didn’t answer, so I left a message asking him to contact Anita urgently to let her know Macintyre was looking for her.

  Next I called 999, trying to explain to the operator that I needed to get a message to DI Parry at the Westminster station.

  “You’ve reached the emergency line,” she said. “You should call him direct.”

  “This is an emergency. Send police to London General to the pediatric unit. There’s a killer on the loose.”

  She asked me a few questions that seemed to take forever. Finally, I jammed the receiver back in its cradle and ran outside. It is a universal truth that when you don’t need a taxi, the streets are full of them. When you do, they disappear. I stood at the curb waiting for an empty taxi to pass by, gave up, walked a hundred yards, and tried again. Five minutes later, one pulled over. As we headed towards the hospital, I sat rigid in the back seat, willing the wheels to turn faster and the lights to be green.

  40

  By the time we reached the hospital, I was so wound up I thought my bones would crack under the weight of my tense muscles. My breathing exercises weren’t helping. I paid the driver, took the entry steps two at a time and ran up four flights of stairs to the Pediatric Unit.

  “Anita?” I asked the nurse at the desk.

  “I’ll page her.”

  My knees went weak with relief when Anita appeared just then at the far end of the corridor. I hurried towards her.

  “Did you get a message from Josh?” I asked.

  Anita’s face was blank. “Josh? No, why?”

  “My phone is out of power, and I asked Josh to warn you — Never mind, it’s a long story. Have you seen any sign of Macintyre or Lizardman?”

  Her face paled. “No, should I have?” She looked as exhausted as I felt. I didn’t want to scare her, but I knew we needed to be extremely careful.

  “Where have you been?” she asked. “Did you see Chris?”

  “Yes, but I’ll explain it all later.” I didn’t even know what I’d tell her, as I had no idea if he was okay. He could be dead or in a police cell. But her safety and the risk of Macintyre making an appearance were more pressing issues right now.

  “We should go pick up the notes to get them out of Grace’s way,” I said, walking back towards the nurses’ station. “Let’s ask PC Wilson to come with us. He can be responsible for getting the notes to Parry. I’ll feel better once they are in police hands.”

  I glanced around. The desk area was quiet, with only the one nurse on duty. “Where is Wilson?”

  Anita shook her head. “I’m not sure. He was here the last time I walked by, but I’ve been in a consultation for the last hour or so. I’ll page him.”

  There was no answer.

  “Can you call Parry?” I asked. “He needs to know that PC Wilson’s not responding. My mobile is dead.”

  Anita pulled Parry’s card from her trouser pocket and used the phone on the nurses’ desk to call. This time, the detective picked up immediately. She told him that Wilson wasn’t around and hadn’t answered our page. After a short exchange, she hung up.

  “Parry said he’ll get a team over here right now. And that we should stay together here in the Pediatric Unit.”

  “I called for police support nearly half an hour ago. What the hell is going on? I thought the hospital would be swarming with officers by now.”

  Anita rubbed her eyes. She was almost asleep standing up and I felt the same way. “This makes me really nervous,” she said. “We should talk to Grace.”

  Grace didn’t answer her page either.

  “She’s probably working,” I said, trying to be reassuring, even though the hair was standing up on my arms. The lack of contact with Grace and PC Wilson had set alarm bells ringing in my head.

  “We need to go check on her,” Anita said.

  “We should wait for the police.”

  Anita pushed away from the desk she’d been leaning on. “I’m going. Are you coming with me?”

  “If we go down there and Macintyre is watching us, we’ll be leading him right to the place where the notes are hidden.”

  “It’s a risk, but the morgue is a secure area. We’ll be safe there until the police arrive.”

  She was right. And I was anxious to see Grace. Too impatient to wait for the lift, we ran down the stairs and crossed the busy entry hall. Never my favorite place, the hospital seemed especially depressing today. Under bright lights intended to replicate sunshine, auras hovered over a number of patients in wheelchairs or with walkers. I was jumpy and watchful until we reached the lift with the keypad. On the slow, creaking journey down, I told myself I was being ridiculous. Macintyre wasn’t in sight. There was no way he could know where we were going.

  When we reached the basement, I relaxed. Several secure doors now protected us from the public spaces of the hospital. We hurried along the beige corridor to Grace’s office. It was empty.

  “What do we do now?” I stood by Grace’s desk. A full cup of coffee sat on a coaster next to her computer, which was switched on, with images of pyramids floating across the screen. A stack of papers next to it was secured under an iridescent glass scarab beetle paperweight. I picked it up, attracted by its luminous wash of gold and crimson. It was surprisingly heavy.

  Anita went to the door that connected Grace’s office to the autopsy room. She pushed it, but it didn’t open. Turning to lean on the door, she paged Grace again but there was no response.

  “If she’s working, she won’t be able to answer,” I said. I touched the coffee cup. It was warm. “Or maybe she just went to the loo?”

  Anita pushed on the door again. It didn’t budge.

  “Why would the door be locked?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to go in the other way,” Anita said, heading out of the office into the corridor, where a set of wide swing doors gave access to the autopsy room. My heart raced. I had no desire to walk in midway through an autopsy.

  Anita gently pushed one of the swing doors, which opened quietly. After a quick peek inside, she took a step back. “Oh my God,” she whispered, motioning me to come to her.

  The door had swung back silentl
y to the closed position, so I eased it open a couple of inches. A body lay on the stainless steel table, covered with a sheet. Velcro straps crossed the torso and legs. That was weird. Bodies don’t get up and walk away.

  A man was bending over the table. Even from behind, I knew who it was. And I guessed who was under the sheet. When I turned round, Anita was pale and shaking. I sank down to a crouch, my back against a wall.

  “Call the police,” she said. “But do it quietly.”

  I got up and tiptoed back into Grace’s office. My fingers felt like balloons and it took two attempts to dial the emergency number. The operator was confused at first about exactly where we were, but she finally seemed to understand and promised help was on its way. While I talked, I picked up the scarab paperweight and put it in my coat pocket. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but a quick glance around the office didn’t reveal any other possibilities.

  A sudden shrill scream came from next door. Horrified, I ran back to join Anita. She was holding the swing door open a couple of inches. Inside, Macintyre had a scalpel in his hand. I watched in terror when he slid the blade the length of Grace’s arm, leaving a thin red line that slowly blurred as blood seeped from the wound. Grace was trying to thrash her way out of the straps that held her.

  “We have to go in,” I said. “She could be dead before the police get here.”

  We pushed the door open, creeping up behind Macintyre. I thought we were going to take him by surprise, but he swung round, scalpel in hand. “Ladies,” he said. “So glad you could join the party. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Now I won’t need to come and find you.”

  “Let Grace go,” I said. “She doesn’t know anything.”

  “Oh, she does. She knows exactly where those notes are and she’ll tell me after another little cut or two.” Grace’s face was deathly white, her pupils black pinpricks under the harsh fluorescent lights. “Such a beautiful woman. It would be a shame to ruin that flawless skin.”

  “I’ll tell you where the notes are,” I said. “Just leave her alone.”

  Macintyre cocked his head to one side as though pondering his options. He held the scalpel directly over Grace’s abdomen. “Tell me.”

  “I’ll show you. They’re in a drawer in the morgue next door.” I had no intention of lying to him. All I wanted to do was get him away from Grace and Anita.

  Grace was quiet now, still as a cadaver. She also had an aura. I hadn’t noticed it at first, as it was almost transparent against the stainless steel table where her head rested. But it was moving very quickly, which meant she was in grave danger. I glanced up at Anita. Her aura was swirling too.

  “So many pleasures, so little time,” Macintyre said, running his hand down Grace’s slashed arm. He lifted his bloodied fingers to his mouth and licked them. I felt like throwing up.

  “Let’s go,” I said, desperate to get him away from Grace. He didn’t move, but stood looking at her, the scalpel still raised over her. I saw the muscles in his hand twitch. He was going to kill her. “If you touch her, I won’t tell you where the notes are,” I said. I made a point of looking at my watch. “I’m sure you’d find them eventually, but you’re running out of time. The police will be here any minute now.”

  He shook his head as though coming out of a trance.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he said to Anita. “Any trouble and you’ll never see Kate again.”

  I made eye contact with Anita, willing her to take Grace and get out of there. She gave a slight nod of understanding while Macintyre thumbed something into his mobile with one hand. I wondered who he was contacting, but had no time to finish the thought because he grabbed my arm and forced me towards the door that led to the morgue.

  Walking into that room alone with him felt like stepping into hell itself. There were no raging fires, no devils with forked tails. This was the underworld of the Greeks, dark and cold, a pit of despair from which there was no hope of escape.

  Macintyre squeezed my arm. “Where are they?”

  On one wall, six stainless steel drawers gleamed, reflecting distorted, ghostly images of us both. It seemed like a long time since Grace and I had hidden the notes. Was it the second or third drawer down?

  “Don’t mess with me. Which drawer?”

  “That one.” I pointed. He slid the drawer open to reveal a man’s body, partially covered with a sheet. His feet were grey. I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat.

  “It must be the next one down,” I said. Macintyre seemed amused to hear the shake in my voice. “Are you scared of dead people, Kate?” he asked, putting his hand under my chin and gazing into my eyes. I turned away, not wanting to hear any more of his rantings on death and dying. When I didn’t answer, he slammed the drawer closed and opened the next one.

  There lay the envelope, holding Anita’s handwritten notes.

  “Is it really worth it?” I said to him as he grabbed the envelope. “All this to stop some creep in management from going to prison? What do you get out of it?”

  He slid the drawer closed. “Why does anyone do anything?” he said. “It always comes down to money and power. They go hand in hand. Money buys power. Power generates wealth. I love the simple synergy of it, don’t you?”

  Although I hated breathing the same air as him, I needed to give Anita time to get Grace out of harm’s way.

  “So you’re getting paid a lot to derail an inquiry into a drug that is known to have negative side effects,” I said. “A drug that has actually killed people. Doesn’t that make you feel bad?”

  Macintyre laughed. “I never feel bad. It’s a weakness, Kate. Expunge the word from your vocabulary. There is no bad. There is no guilt. I feel good about everything I accomplish.”

  “Even an attack on our elected politicians?”

  “Of course, when the end justifies the means. The means in this case being poison. A fatal dose in a coffee pot. With a vast panoply of drugs at my disposal, I found great enjoyment in selecting the right one. Too bad I couldn’t wait to watch the results.”

  Shivering, I wondered if he knew something I didn’t. He looked very self-satisfied, with a hint of a smile on his lips. Had Scott and Lewis died?

  I glanced up at the clock on the wall. The red second hand didn’t move smoothly but flicked and jarred its way around the face as though reluctant to keep moving. I wondered why the clock was there at all. Time meant nothing for the inhabitants of this bleak room.

  It had only been a minute since we left the autopsy room. Not enough time for Anita to free Grace.

  “How did you know to come down here?” I asked Macintyre. “And how did you know the access codes?”

  “Always so many questions, Kate. Snooping around, meddling in things that don’t concern you. There’s something about you that I don’t quite understand. That’s why I find you so interesting. Alluring, almost. We’d make a good team.”

  “So answer the question.”

  “Ted was kind enough to help me out.”

  “Ted the pharmacist? But he’s friends with Grace.”

  “Yes, and he’s also addicted to barbiturates. I’ve been able to supply him with what he needs so that he no longer has to steal drugs and risk discovery. In return, he told me you and Anita spend time with Grace and that the three of you had been asking him questions. The minute I heard that, I knew. The morgue would make an excellent hiding place. You and I think alike, Kate.”

  “Hardly.”

  A sudden scream from the autopsy room sent chills skittering down my spine. I moved towards the door. I had to go help Anita. Macintyre grabbed my arm and backed me up against the wall of drawers. “Sit down on the floor.” He brought the scalpel within an inch of my eye. All I could see was the cruel tip of stainless steel, filling my vision. “If you move, I won’t hesitate to use this,” he said.

  I sat, my back against the front of a steel drawer, my legs out straight. Cold seeped into my jeans and coat, feeling damp against my skin. I heard more sounds from next door
, a crash, another scream. Macintyre ignored it all. Crouching at my feet, he put the scalpel down close to him, out of my reach. Then he pulled the notes from the envelope, six pages in total, and started to look through them. Another shout from next door made me jump. I shifted my weight, getting ready to move.

  Without warning, Macintyre grabbed the scalpel and stabbed it into my thigh.

  “I said to keep still,” he said.

  I felt no pain, but blood darkened my jeans, a spreading circle of glistening black. I panicked. If he’d cut an artery, I could bleed out fast. Macintyre saw the look on my face and he laughed. “You’re not going to die, not from that wound anyway. I need you for a little longer.”

  “It’s all pointless,” I said, willing myself to ignore the blood. “I took photocopies of the notes and left them in a safe place.” It wasn’t true. I hadn’t even thought of making copies.

  “Perhaps you did,” he said. “Although I suspect not.”

  “That means we’ll still have evidence to give the police.”

  “You’re assuming, wrongly, that you or Anita or Grace will be alive to hand over that evidence.”

  “Not necessarily. There’s someone else who knows where the copies are,” I lied.

  “Really?” He didn’t seem concerned. “Are you going to tell me who that is? I can probably guess. Your boyfriend perhaps?”

  Macintyre’s words were like a bucket of ice water over my head. The last thing I’d intended was to send him after someone else. He’d done enough killing already.

  I slumped back against the drawer front. “There are no copies.”

  “I thought not. It doesn’t matter to me anyway. My part in all this is almost done.”

  Spreading the pages out on the floor, he used his mobile to take a photo of each page, his eyes flickering between me and the notes. After typing something into his phone, he gathered the papers into a pile and pulled a small gold lighter from his pocket. The mini-bonfire crackled, the smell of burning paper replacing the stink of disinfectant. A fire was good, I thought, hoping it would set off an alarm. But the papers burned bright for less than a minute before collapsing into a little heap of charred scraps.