‘Can you get hold of Kate’s boyfriend?’ he asked. ‘She’s not well.’
‘What’s happened?’ Tess asked. ‘I fecking knew something was wrong when I got up and found you hadn’t come back from the party.’
He glanced down at Kate, who had slid down the glass and was sitting on the floor with her head in her hands, shaking again. He opened the door and glanced across the road to the street sign on the corner.
‘We’re in a phone box on the corner of Partick Street. It’s close to a station – we can hear the trains. King’s Cross maybe. Or St Pancras. Can you get Harry Barnard down here? Katie needs help and he needs to know what’s happened. Be quick, Tess. Katie’s not looking good. She needs a doctor.’
‘How does Harry find you?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Donovan said, and there was a note of panic in his voice. ‘He’ll need a map. Partick Street.’
‘Give me the number of the phone you’re using and I’ll get him to call you,’ Tess said with all the authority of someone used to organizing thirty fifteen-year-olds who were not terribly moved by the Shakespeare play she had to persuade them to read. ‘Hang up and wait there. And look after Kate or Harry Barnard is likely to kill you and post you back to Liverpool in bits.’
Donovan realized later that it cannot have been more than a few minutes before the phone rang, but at the time it seemed like hours.
‘How’s Kate?’ Barnard asked, and Donovan could hear the suppressed fury as if the sergeant was already standing no more than a yard away on the deserted street outside the airless refuge the phone box provided.
‘She was out of it when I woke up, but then she came round and now she’s shaking and shivering and talking nonsense. I think some bastard spiked our drinks.’
‘Have you called for an ambulance?’
‘I only had change for one call—’
‘Right, I’m on my way and I’ll get an ambulance down there. Partick Street? The ambulance will probably be first to reach you.’ There was a pause and Donovan could hear pages turning close to the receiver at the other end. ‘You’re at the back of King’s Cross station. Favourite haunt of toms and alcoholics, and the odd maniac. Those streets have never been touched since the war. It wasn’t so much that they got bombed as that they simply fell apart. Don’t move. I’m on my way.’
Barnard’s car pulled up with a squeal of brakes. Donovan had no idea how long he had taken, despite frequent glances at his watch, which still seemed to be liquidizing into unusual shapes and sizes, proving that his eyes were still not behaving as they should. He had sat down on the floor of the phone box beside Kate and kept his arms round her. She was still shivering violently and seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness again.
He knew that Barnard’s reaction would be unpredictable and quite possibly violent. The sergeant was out of his car within seconds and pulled the door to the phone booth almost off its hinges as he squeezed into the narrow space and pushed Donovan out of the door. Kate, still sheltered slightly by Donovan’s jacket, was trembling, but when he spoke to her she did not appear to hear him.
‘Do you know what they spiked your drinks with?’ he asked Donovan as he tried to lift Kate up.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Donovan said. ‘She seemed to be seeing things that weren’t there. I’m sure I got a dose too, but it doesn’t seem to have affected me so much.’
‘If it’s this new drug which seems to be hitting the streets it seems to be affecting people in different ways. You’re bigger and heavier. That probably makes a difference.’ He laid Kate back down gently against the side of the phone box as an ambulance appeared from the direction of King’s Cross. Barnard went to meet the two uniformed men who jumped out.
‘We think a drug overdose,’ he said, flashing his warrant card. ‘Do you know what the effects of LSD look like?’
‘I saw some pillock who’d taken it trying to wreck a casualty ward a couple of months ago. I reckon he ended up in a police cell until the tranquillizers kicked in. It’s nasty stuff, LSD.’
‘Someone was spiking drinks at a party these two were at,’ Barnard said. ‘Someone thought it was a joke apparently.’
‘It won’t kill you like a heroin overdose can, but some people react very badly, go a bit doolally,’ the ambulance driver said. ‘It looks like that’s what’s happened to this young lady. It’s certainly no joke.’
‘You’d better take them both to Casualty,’ Barnard said. ‘We’ll need to talk to them later and find out exactly what happened.’ While the ambulance men lifted Kate on to a stretcher, Donovan grabbed his jacket as Barnard pulled him out of earshot.
‘Who do you reckon?’ he asked.
‘Jason Destry,’ Donovan said flatly. ‘I doubt anyone else would have taken it to his party, not without him knowing anyway.’
‘OK,’ Barnard said. ‘Go and get checked out and I’ll catch up with you later.’ He watched the ambulance draw away from his car, fighting down the urge to drive down to wherever the party had been held and have it out with Destry, but he knew that would finish off his already threatened career in one easy move. Instead, he pulled away from the kerb slowly and followed the ambulance at a steady pace to Casualty, where he parked as close as he could to the ambulance bays and caught up with Kate’s stretcher as they manoeuvred it through the doors. Dave Donovan was still following closely behind and as they approached the expectant medical team waiting for them, the ambulance attendants urged Barnard away and said to the doctor who seemed to be in charge that they had two patients to be seen.
‘And you are?’ the Casualty doctor asked Barnard. He got out his warrant card again, determined to stay within reach of Kate.
‘Drugs,’ he said. ‘Mr Donovan here claims their drinks were interfered with at a party, possibly by LSD. I need to keep an eye.’
The doctor looked surprised. ‘I knew there was supposed to be LSD around but I can’t say I’ve seen a case before,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a look at the young lady first, as she seems to be the worst affected, but I may have to consult a colleague who knows a bit more about these things than I do. If you take a seat over there in the waiting room I’ll get back to you when we’ve examined her.’
Barnard bit back an angry retort and watched as Kate was wheeled into one of the cubicles at the side of the ward and the doctor and a nurse prepared to examine her while another nurse ushered Donovan into the next cubicle along. Barnard leaned back in one of the hard chairs set against the wall and took a deep breath. As far as he could tell, Kate’s condition did not seem to have changed on the journey to hospital: her complexion was pale, her breathing barely noticeable and, apart from an occasional involuntary tremor, she did not move. He closed his eyes for moment and opened them again quickly when he realized that in the battle which raged in his head between fierce anger and utter despair, despair seemed set to win. And Kate deserved more than that.
After about half an hour, Donovan reappeared and took the seat next to Barnard.
‘They can’t see any damage,’ he said. ‘Go home and sleep it off is all they can recommend.’
‘They’ve got some specialist in to have a look at Kate,’ Barnard said, glancing at the cubicle where the curtains were still tightly drawn. ‘Ingleby, he’s called.’
‘She’s not come round then?’
‘No.’
‘I suppose you reckon it’s all my fault,’ Donovan came back quickly.
‘Well, I thought she was more drunk than I’d seen her after she went with you to the Late Supper Club and came in late,’ Barnard said quietly. ‘I was a bit preoccupied with other things that day. And now this …’
‘Destry could have had a go that night,’ Donovan admitted. ‘He was giving us champagne as if it was water, celebrating his new record, he said. I had a bad hangover the next morning, I remember. A bit like I feel now.’
‘I’ll talk to the doctor,’ Barnard said suddenly. ‘There’s something I’d like to check out while it’s still daylig
ht.’ The doctor pulled the curtain back quickly when Barnard called him, revealing Kate curled on her side on the bed breathing quietly but with no other sign of consciousness.
‘No change?’ he asked. The doctor looked at his colleague on the other side of the bed.
‘It takes some people days to regain consciousness,’ he said. ‘They seem to be living in another world inside their heads and it’s not always a very pleasant one.’
‘I’ll drop in later to see if she’s come round,’ Barnard said. ‘We need to talk to her as soon as possible.’ He turned away and sat down again beside Dave Donovan.
‘You can do me and Kate one favour,’ he said. ‘I need to go down to Destry’s house and get a good look at the place today before anyone has the chance to clean it up and move any evidence. Will you stay here until I come back so Kate has someone with her when she wakes up? Please.’
‘Do you think you can pin something on Destry?’ Donovan asked.
‘I’ll have a bloody good try,’ Barnard said.
‘All right,’ Donovan said. ‘But be quick. It’s not me she’ll be wanting to see, is it?’
EIGHTEEN
DS Barnard found Jason Destry’s house hidden away down a narrow lane in the Surrey hills where houses were few and far between and he reckoned contact with the neighbours was rare. He parked discreetly close to the open gates and walked the last few hundred yards to the main door. There was no sign of anyone at home that he could see and no cars parked on the forecourt or near the garages at the back. The place was unexpectedly deserted given that it had allegedly been the site of a major party the previous evening. He walked right round the property, meeting no one at all, seeing only the remaining debris from a fireworks display on the lawns and through the downstairs windows the abandoned remnants of drinks and food left on tables and the floor which had not yet been cleared away. It was a substantial house, looking well kept at the front but much more dilapidated at the rear with the tower on the back corner suffering from what looked like significant and relatively recent fire damage for much of its height.
Barnard tried the doors at the back but they were all securely locked, and when he heard the sound of a car coming up the drive he turned back and approached the front door along the terrace and watched as a sports car parked on the forecourt. He had driven all the way from central London hoping to find Jason Destry himself, even if he was still sleeping off a hangover from the previous night, but the person who uncoiled himself from the green MG was unexpected and not necessarily a welcome sight. DI Brian Jamieson looked as startled as Barnard did himself.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ the DI asked.
‘I could ask you the same question, guv,’ Barnard said.
‘That was your parked car I passed down the lane then? The red one? I thought it might be a late visitor loaded down with illegal substances.’
‘I came to talk to Jason Destry,’ Barnard said.
‘Did you now?’ Jamieson asked. ‘Well, you’re a bit late. I arrested him and some of his group last night, and he and the rest are in cells at various police stations in London as we speak. It’ll be all over the morning papers tomorrow. This is a first outing for the new drug squad and we got here a bit too late last night to make the front pages this morning. We’ll have to do better next time.’
‘Drugs?’ Barnard asked.
‘Of course drugs,’ Jamieson said flatly. ‘So your turn now. Why the hell have you turned up on my crime scene completely out of the blue and totally uninvited? What do you want with Destry?’
‘A couple of friends of mine were at the party here last night …’
‘Names? We took everyone’s name though we only arrested the major players and sent the rest home.’
‘You won’t have got these two names. They left early and went back to London. But they were off their heads on something and one of them’s still unconscious in hospital. Or she was when I left.’
‘What was it? Heroin? Coke?’
‘More likely LSD, the doctors think. They claim someone spiked their drinks and I think it had happened before when Destry was around at the same time they were at the Late Supper Club in Soho together,’ Barnard said, knowing there was no way out of this conversation now and no way of knowing where it might lead him. ‘It might help the doctors if they knew exactly what they were dealing with. That’s what I wanted to ask Destry.’
‘And you think he might have told you? A friend of yours, is he?’
‘I’ve never set eyes on him,’ Barnard said quickly. ‘It’s a long story involving musicians from Liverpool and a singer who seems to have disappeared.’
‘So who’s this young woman friend of yours who came to the party?’
‘My girlfriend,’ Barnard said quietly. ‘She and an old friend from Liverpool were invited to the party by Destry when they met him at the new club in Soho.’
‘And you weren’t?’
‘I told you. I was working late anyway. You know what’s going on in Soho at the moment.’
‘Ah,’ Jamieson said, comprehension dawning. ‘So when she turned up off her head it was worth the effort of coming all the way down here?’
‘If it helps her, of course, guv. I want to know what she took,’ Barnard said. ‘Or was given.’
‘Well, you won’t get any help here now. We turfed everyone out at about two last night and told them not to come back until we’d searched the place thoroughly. If there’s LSD in there – or anything else, for that matter – I’ll let you know. Now if I were you I’d get back to the girlfriend while you can. Didn’t I hear that you have a serious interview with your DCI on Monday morning? Is it twos or threes they say troubles come in?’
‘Something like that,’ Barnard agreed and turned away, not wanting to let the DI see the fury he felt.
‘We’ve put her in a side room for now,’ the ward sister explained when Barnard tracked Kate down when he got back to the hospital and found that she was no longer being treated in Casualty. ‘Most of the time she seems to be sleeping. We check her regularly, of course. But every now and again she becomes very agitated and has been disturbing other patients.’ She led him into a small room off a main ward where Kate lay unmoving and still unconscious.
‘Is her life in danger?’ Barnard asked the question whose answer most frightened him.
‘The specialist, Mr Ingleby, doesn’t seem to think so but of course we have no idea exactly what she’s taken or how much.’ The sister did not hide her distaste.
‘I don’t think Kate knew either,’ Barnard snapped. ‘The friend she was with said someone put something into their drinks.’
‘Right,’ the nurse said with a sceptical look. ‘If you say so. She’s reacted very badly to it whatever happened. We’re seeing more and more of these drug-related cases and most of them are self-inflicted: heroin, amphetamines and now something called LSD.’
‘And some of the victims do end up dead,’ Barnard said. ‘One way or another.’ He sat down beside the bed. ‘I’ll stay,’ he said and the nurse made as if to object but then thought better of it and bustled off into the main part of the ward to chivvy the junior nurses into action. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. He had told Dave Donovan to go back to Tess’s flat and get some sleep.
‘Don’t go back to Liverpool yet,’ he had said. ‘The drug squad will want to talk to you about what happened. They’ve arrested Destry and some of the others and will want you as a witness to what went on at that party.’
‘I didn’t notice anything at the party which worried me but drinks were being poured out without anyone really knowing what they were. There was one so-called punch I thought was a bit dodgy … had a funny taste.’
‘Get some sleep and try to remember everything that happened,’ Barnard said. ‘We’ll have more questions for you later.’
‘That place they dumped us was dodgy, though,’ Donovan had added. ‘There were people there – voices, like someone
hiding, someone screamed.’
‘I’ll tell the DI,’ Barnard had said, turning back to Kate and taking her hand. For a moment he thought her fingers gripped his, but then they went limp again and he reckoned he had imagined it. In the end the overheated room defeated him and he fell asleep in the visitor’s chair still holding Kate’s hand, and only woke when he became aware that he was no longer alone with her. DI Jamieson was shaking his shoulder and the ward sister was close behind looking thunderous.
‘This is completely out of order,’ she said. ‘It’s only because it’s Sunday that Mr Ingleby hasn’t been in again to see the patient. He will throw you both out when he comes – you can rely on that.’
Both men looked appalled, but it was Barnard who hesitated and Jamieson who spoke.
‘Sister, someone has put this young woman’s life at risk, probably deliberately, which would make it a case of attempted murder. Your responsibility is to save a life – mine is to identify a possible killer. It would be a very good idea if we treated each other with some respect.’
The sister glanced at the watch pinned to her uniform apparently with no answer to Jamieson’s argument.
‘I will telephone Mr Ingleby,’ she said. ‘I’ll warn him what to expect.’ She quickly checked Kate’s condition and then turned on her heel and closed the side ward’s door behind her.
‘Thanks, guv,’ Barnard said.
‘I only came in to see if Kate had come round. Obviously I need to talk to her as soon as she’s able. In the meantime, I’ll catch up with Dave Donovan if you tell me where he is.’
‘He’s gone back to Tess Farrell’s flat. He looked almost as bad as Kate, to be honest.’ He gave him the address. ‘One thing he said before he went was that he thought there were other people under the arches where they were dumped,’ Barnard said. ‘They could hear voices and screams.’
Playing with Fire Page 21