And None Shall Sleep

by Priscilla Masters

  She hated him for that and was glad when he stormed out.

  It was easy to find the missing man’s room. The bright tape across the doorway, the army of Scene of Crime Officers in their white suits, the curious stares of staff and patients dawdling past. She slipped on some overshoes and went in.

  Mike was standing at the foot of the bed, directing operations. For a moment she watched him. The scene was still one of chaos and confusion when order should by now have set in. In the centre of the room, surrounded by medical machines, was the bed, a narrow, high hospital bed with a small wooden headboard, labelled Jonathan Selkirk, date of birth 24.3.40, and presumably the consultant’s name. A Mr Meredith. The sheets had been thrown back and the bed was strewn with a tangle of multi-coloured plastic-coated wires, still attached to a blank television screen. But the other ends – the ends she supposed had been attached to the missing patient – terminated in small squares of sticking plaster. She bent over and saw hairs and pieces of skin still attached. Mike had been right. They had been torn off and dropped across the bed.

  ‘Make sure you get pictures of this lot, will you,’ she said to the camera man, ‘and then cut the ends off, bag and label them, and get them to the lab.’

  She turned her attention to the far side of the bed. A tall steel stand was holding a bag of clear fluid, the pipe leading to the bed and ending in a tiny plastic tube. It must once have been taped to Selkirk’s arm. Now it led to a puddle, mixed blood and the clear fluid. And blood was splattered across the floor in large drops. Joanna glanced at the sticking plaster on the small plastic pipe and saw that it too was smothered in hairs and flakes of skin. It must have been pulled out with some force. No gentle hand here. She looked around her. They were all watching her with confident expectancy.

  She stood still for a moment and studied the room. Even crawling with police there was something ghostly about it, abruptly robbed of its occupant. The blank monitor which should have showed the beat of his heart, the drip apparatus that should have led to his vein, the empty space where he should be lying, the pillow dented by his head and still displaying a few stray grey hairs. Only one thing was missing – Selkirk himself. And she knew why Mike had been anxious to find him.

  She looked up. ‘Best check the staff’s fingerprints,’ she said, ‘and be thorough with the room. Check it as carefully as if he were lying here dead.’ They all involuntarily glanced at the bed as though they expected his corpse to materialize. ‘If he turns up,’ she added, ‘we’ll scale down operations.’

  She caught Dawn Critchlow’s gaze. ‘You’d better tell the ward sister the room’s out of bounds for at least forty-eight hours.’

  WPC Critchlow disappeared and the others all set to their various jobs.

  Mike grinned. ‘Joanna,’ he said, glancing at her plaster. ‘Are you going to be all right?’

  ‘Fine, with the help of the maximum legal dose of aspirin and some decent coffee,’ She glanced back at the stiff, dried blood.

  ‘The doctor said the drip must have been torn out,’ he said. ‘Switched off at the clip, then pulled. Some blood would naturally have drained.’ He swallowed. ‘The nurse discovered the patient missing then found drops of blood all the way to the fire exit. Frightened the living daylights out of her.’

  ‘He used the fire exit,’ she mused. ‘So that’s how he got out without being seen?’

  Mike nodded.

  ‘The nurse’s name?’

  ‘Yolande Prince,’ Mike said. ‘She’s very upset.’

  ‘Mmm. I’m sure. I shall want to speak to her.’ She glanced at one of the PCs standing by. ‘Make sure she’s available as well as the other nurses on duty.’

  ‘At the station, ma’am?’

  ‘No, here will do. I think they’ve probably had enough shocks for one day,’ she added drily.

  She stared at the bed then back at Mike. ‘What did you say he was wearing?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘Pyjamas.’

  ‘Just pyjamas?’

  Mike nodded and indicated the hook on the back of the door. ‘His dressing gown’s still here,’ he said. ‘And ...’ He bent down and picked up a pair of brown tartan slippers. ‘We found a couple of footprints along the corridor. He was barefooted.’

  ‘I wonder why he didn’t bother to put his slippers on.’

  Mike looked at her. ‘That’s another reason why I thought he’d been abducted rather than simply left. Even suicides aren’t keen on cold feet. It’s automatic to put footwear on.’

  She stared at the floor. ‘He came in yesterday – dressed?’

  ‘His wife took all his clothes home,’ Mike said. ‘We asked her.’

  Joanna nodded. ‘How did you think someone might have got in?’

  ‘Next door,’ Mike said. ‘There’s an empty room.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ she remembered. ‘With an open window.’ She glanced at Mike. ‘A bit opportune, don’t you think? Did you look on the sill?’ she asked. ‘Are there any marks?’

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘Well get the SOCOs to scrutinize it anyway.’ She crossed the room and looked out of the window to the small turning space outside. And then what?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, Selkirk’s left the hospital, either alone, contemplating suicide or with somebody, possibly under duress. Then what? You say you’ve searched the grounds and he isn’t there. So how did he get away? Walking or by car?’

  Mike swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ he said frankly.’ I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’

  ‘Well, let’s take a look outside,’ she said, nodding to the SOC team. ‘Carry on. And don’t forget to photograph all of the blood stains. And get samples of each one.’ She paused. ‘Just on the off chance that one of the splashes isn’t his.’

  They nodded, gave a swift smirk at her plaster, and carried on with their work.

  The trail of blood drips was easy to follow – straight to the fire door, as Mike had said. And there was a bloody smear at hand height.

  Joanna studied it for a moment.

  Mike nodded. ‘They’ve already photographed it,’ he said, ‘and lifted some prints. I’d take the whole thing off, only it’s a hospital door. And right now,’ he added, ‘he’s just a missing person.’

  The fingerprints were clear. ‘Looks as though he pushed hard against it,’ she said. ‘Very hard for such an ill man.’

  ‘Unless he was pushed.’

  She frowned. ‘It’s a strange case,’ she said. ‘Abducted, from a hospital. Why?’

  Mike chewed his thumb. ‘I don’t know, Jo,’ he said. ‘I was hoping you might have some bright ideas.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ She stared again at the door. ‘And what are these prints?’

  A grained mark was discernible about four inches above the handprint.

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t worked that one out – yet.’

  ‘But it’s bloody too. If someone left using this door they just might have got in this way too.’

  They walked through the doorway and crossed a flagstone path leading to a row of parking spaces. Joanna sighed. ‘I suppose the fire door wasn’t locked.’ She sighed.

  Mike shook his head. ‘Fire doors,’ he said. ‘Regulations. No, they weren’t locked because they can only be opened from the inside.’

  ‘So security was lax ... and he could easily have left in a car.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Who’s his next of kin?’

  ‘Wife,’ Mike said, ‘and he has a son.’

  ‘Just the one?’ Mike nodded.

  ‘Anything else there? A mistress, perhaps?’

  He paused. ‘Not so far. Come on, Jo. He only disappeared a few hours ago.’

  She allowed herself a slight smile. ‘Yes.’ The parking spaces had been taped off. ‘Get this inspected, Mike, then let the cars in. Otherwise all the side roads will be blocked with staff cars. You know how short parking spaces are.’


  ‘OK.’

  ‘You’ve had a preliminary look out here?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said gloomily. ‘He just disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘So what happened to the spots of blood?’

  ‘They end at the car park.’

  Heads bent, they followed the blood. Clear to see on the flagstones and darker even than the black tarmac of the car park.

  ‘So someone brought a car up and he got in.’

  ‘Or was bundled in,’ Mike said.

  ‘Did anyone see anything – hear anything?’

  ‘Not that we’ve found so far!

  ‘How?’ she said. ‘If it was suicide how did he get the car to come here for him? Was it a friend’s car or was it a taxi? But if he was depressed or worried about something and wanted to kill himself ...’ She looked back at the foreboding brick walls of the old-fashioned Victorian hospital, ‘Why not do it here? Why leave the hospital? Was someone in cahoots with him?’ She looked at Mike. If not his wife, did a friend come and pick him up in his car, take him home? And I suppose the one name that springs to mind is Wilde ... Rufus Wilde ... his partner. But,’ she said, ‘if someone did forcibly abduct him against his will, why from here when it would have been a lot easier grabbing him from home or work? So many people are milling around a hospital. Day and night. And there’s a much greater chance of his being spotted by someone.’

  She shrugged her shoulders and turned back towards the door. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a word with the nurse first. What did you say her name was?’

  ‘Yolande. Yolande Prince. I’ll find her for you.’

  ‘Mike.’ She sighed. Her arm was hurting now, and felt heavy. ‘Mike, when I’ve finished with Yolande Prince will you drive me to Selkirk’s house? I want to talk to his wife.’

  He grinned and nodded. ‘But of course. Your chauffeur, ma’am.’

  She watched his bulky shape stride along the corridor and disappear through the far door, then studied the tall building. A hospital should be a sanctuary. One should be safe here because if not here, then where?

  Chapter Three

  Staff Nurse Yolande Prince was a large girl with frank, blue eyes and well cut short dark hair. She looked pale and tired from the ordeal of the previous night and gave a sharp yawn as she sat down. Immediately she smothered her mouth. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘I am sorry. It’s been an awful night, just awful! A shadow crossed her face and she stared at the floor. ‘Sometimes I think I’m jinxed.’

  Mike cleared his throat. ‘We just want to ask you a few questions,’ he said. ‘Then you can go to bed and sleep.’

  But the strain of the previous night was catching up with the nurse. She stared straight at Joanna, her face ashen and haggard. ‘I’ll probably be in big trouble about this,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure you’ll find him. He’s all right, you know.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘It’ll be memory loss – or something.’

  ‘Just tell me about last night, Yolande,’ Joanna said sharply. Her arm hurt and it was making her fractious. She wanted some strong coffee – and a couple of aspirins. ‘You came on duty – at what time?’

  ‘Eight o’clock.’ The nurse frowned. ‘There were supposed to be four of us,’ she complained. ‘Two teams of two looking after the patients. But bloody Robbie ...’ She looked even more annoyed. ‘He was off sick.’ She glared at Joanna. ‘Maybe if he hadn’t, Mr Selkirk wouldn’t have taken himself off’

  Joanna was quick to latch on. ‘Is that what you think happened?’

  Yolande blinked. ‘Well, what else? No one would have walked in and dragged him off. He’d have shouted, wouldn’t he?’

  Mike gave Joanna a swift glance. ‘We don’t know what happened yet, Yolande,’ Joanna said testily. ‘We don’t want to guess. At the moment we’re simply fact-finding.’ She smiled at the exhausted nurse. ‘And we hope, too, that Mr Selkirk will turn up safe and well with nothing worse than memory loss.’ She didn’t add that this seemed unlikely.

  ‘Let’s get back to last night, shall we? There were three of you on duty?’

  Yolande nodded. ‘It made things very difficult,’ she carried on. ‘There were eighteen patients and some of them were quite ill.’ She glanced desperately at Mike. ‘There just wasn’t the time to keep a close check on him.’

  Joanna leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Yolande, how ill was Jonathan Selkirk?’

  The nurse looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was he, for instance, confused? Depressed?’

  The word seemed to have an effect on the nurse. She looked, panic-struck, from one to the other. ‘I can’t say,’ she began with difficulty. ‘I can’t say about depression ... No, not depression,’ and she closed her eyes wearily. ‘Although,’ she looked up, ‘he was a bit down. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you, if you’d had a heart attack?’

  ‘Of course. Of course ...’ Both were quick to reassure the nurse.

  Joanna decided to drop the issue of depression. ‘Let me put it another way. Did he seem as though he wanted to get out of hospital – go home, perhaps?’

  Nurse Prince shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Did he seem worried about anything?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Yolande scowled. ‘I don’t. Really, I don’t. I hadn’t met him before. Perhaps he always seemed worried about things.’

  ‘Had he had a heart attack?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Almost certainly.’ She stopped. ‘His ECG was normal, and so was his blood pressure. But he looked a pretty awful colour. And I could tell he was feeling rotten.’

  ‘You spoke to him?’

  The nurse nodded. ‘And to his wife, before she left.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘When I was giving out the night drugs,’ she said. ‘Round about nine.’

  ‘What exactly did Mr Selkirk say to you?’

  ‘He said he had some pain, and I asked him if he wanted an injection.’

  Joanna glanced at Mike. Surely an injection would have made him drowsy? ‘Did he have one?’

  ‘No. He said he could manage.’ She stopped for a moment, thinking. ‘Perhaps he wouldn’t have gone if he had had an injection. It would have made him too sleepy. Maybe it was my fault.’

  ‘Was he supposed to have one?’

  The nurse shook her head. ‘Oh no. Only if he had asked for one.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He asked me for the telephone.’

  Joanna pricked up her ears. ‘Did you bring it?’

  ‘No. We were really busy. I just didn’t have the time.’ ‘Perhaps one of the other nurses?’

  Nurse Prince shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.’

  Joanna let the subject drop. She could pick it up later with the other two.

  ‘At what time did you last see him?’

  ‘Well,’ she began, embarrassed, ‘we were supposed to be looking in on him every hour.’

  Joanna rubbed her aching fingers. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’m not the night sister. I don’t care what you were supposed to do. It doesn’t matter to me. If it helps, I have an idea you were extra busy. But it’s important I get the facts straight. We have to know how long Mr Selkirk could have been missing before his empty bed was discovered. All right?’

  But the nurse didn’t look reassured by this. She looked even more worried.

  ‘I feel awful about this,’ she said, ‘responsible.’ Her hands were pressed together, shaking. ‘It’s almost as though I was jinxed. Last year –’

  ‘Stick to the point, please,’ Mike interrupted. ‘We want to know what’s happened to Jonathan Selkirk. That’s all. We just want to find him, love.’

  ‘I checked him at eleven,’ Yolande said slowly. ‘All his observations were fine. He was almost asleep. I asked him if the pain had gone and he said yes, he was feeling much better but very tired.’ She sto
pped. ‘I closed the door.’ She looked defensively at Joanna. ‘He needed rest. He was tired. The ward was noisy. He wouldn’t have got much sleep with the door open. I wished him a good night and closed the door. I ... I didn’t see him again.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘At about four I thought I’d better check up on him. I was just going to check his pulse, blood pressure ... I opened his door...’ She thought for a moment. ‘It was ajar. I assumed one of the other nurses must have been in.’

  ‘And had they?’

  Yolande shook her head miserably. ‘They thought I’d been keeping an eye on him.’

  ‘What else can you remember?’

  ‘The overhead light was on. The bed clothes were thrown back.’ She looked at Joanna. ‘You saw the leads. They’d been torn off. And he’d pulled his drip out.’ She stopped and her face seemed to crumple. ‘I panicked. Shouted for the other nurses. I hoped he’d be in the loo.’ She was gnawing her thumbnail. ‘We searched the whole ward – absolutely everywhere.’ She gave a brave attempt at a smile. ‘Even the cupboards. Then Gaynor saw the blood on the floor.’

  She looked helplessly at Joanna and some of the panic of the night reached the two detectives. ‘We followed the blood spots all the way to the fire door. We used a torch and saw they led outside. Then I rang Night Sister. The porters hunted outside the hospital as far as they could.’ She stopped.

  Her eyes were wide and frightened and it was clear the memory of this night would stay with Yolande Prince. ‘We were calling his name really loudly. After about half an hour Sister rang the police. They were here really quickly,’ she finished helpfully.

  Mike nodded. ‘The call was logged in at six o’clock. They were here within ten minutes.’

  ‘That’s all I know,’ the nurse said, ‘except that all this plus last year will probably cost me my job. And it isn’t my fault.’

  She stood up then. ‘Is that all?’ She gave another huge yawn and this time didn’t even bother to try to disguise it. ‘I really am whacked.’

  ‘Just two more minutes,’ Joanna said.

  Mike shot Joanna a quick glance and made the sign of a tilting cup before giving a deliberate glance at her plaster cast.