Don't Wake Up: A dark, terrifying new thriller with the most gripping first chapter you will ever read!

by Liz Lawler

  She had witnessed Alex disrupting an already extremely busy night in the department, causing huge delays for all of them. When Nathan Bell suggested calling in Caroline, Alex had flipped. Her anger had no bounds as she shouted obscenities at the walls in the staff room.

  Nathan was shocked, warily backing away from her, while Fiona warded off anyone else trying to enter the room. The beetroot stain on his face, more purple than she’d seen it before, transfixed her until the sight of it repulsed her enough to run for the door

  She knocked over a yucca plant and upended a tea tray during her undignified exit, leaving more mayhem and gasps of disbelief in her wake.

  How, she wondered, had her life come to this? She had picked up the scattered pieces, moved on and put that stressful situation behind her. As each new month passed she had gripped her personal alarm less tightly, scanned shadows less frequently. She had met Patrick, and gradually her fear had lessened, and as the year passed she was glad she had made the decision to stay in Bath, and not bottled out and gone back to Queen Mary’s. It had become a distant memory, one she thought would never be repeated. Only here she was, thirteen months on, dealing with something a thousand times worse.

  This was different. This man wouldn’t be satisfied with taking a woman against her will. He wanted the feel and taste of blood on his hands. He was out there, walking around, perhaps even now choosing his next victim, and the police were not prepared to believe he even existed. How could that be possible? Was she such an unbelievable victim? She was being ridiculed behind her back, known throughout the hospital as ‘the one’, if that anaesthetist’s remark was anything to go by. ‘The one who had lost her mind,’ Alex suspected.

  She wished she had lost her mind. She wished it was a breakdown, because then there would be some chance of piecing herself back together again, of getting on with her life instead of wondering why he had let her live, why he had left her not knowing if she were raped or not. There were no physical signs found; no internal bruising or marks on her thighs, but then there would have been no resistance from her to cause them. She had been put to sleep, and had no way of stopping or of knowing what he did to her. Or was that his game plan all along? To simply have her think she was going to die, that she was going to be violated? A mind fuck. A sadist getting his kicks.

  Whatever his reasons, her normal life had been stolen and replaced with something that could never resemble normality again. Each day she relived the events, reheard her pathetic attempts to reason with him. And all the while she had lain there thinking she was trapped, injured, powerless.

  She, more than most women, had imagined how to react if she was ever faced with such a man – the screams she would utter, the scratches and bites she would inflict, how she would fight him off. And in the last scene she was always running, seeing a light, seeing a person ready to help, and then taking comfort, spilling tears of relief as everyone closed in around her, protecting her – and believing her.

  She had been brave. A survivor. A woman who could and would do anything when faced with the unimaginable.

  Not any more.

  She reached for the vodka bottle and took another gulp. She was not going back to work tonight, so what was the point in staying sober? This might at least help her forget.

  Chapter nine

  She wore blue leather clogs and over her tracksuit she wore a surgical gown. She passed the reception area seeing no one, but was not unduly surprised. It was still the middle of the night and there was no receptionist on duty.

  She had made the decision to stop drinking and return to the hospital after crawling out of the shower when the water ran cold, before courage failed her and before a decision to never return took complete control.

  She made straight for the operating theatres. She wanted to take a look at them at night when there was less traffic in and out of the place, and determine that there was a way she could have been transported here that night without anyone noticing.

  So far it seemed quite possible.

  By each entrance to the building there were wheelchairs ready to use, and on the downstairs corridor below main theatre a few abandoned trolleys were lined up. If she had been put on one of these, covered with a blanket and pushed along by someone wearing theatre clothing, no one would have reason to stop the person and question him.

  If anyone caught her walking through here she would have to come up with an explanation. This way, dressed as other theatre staff dressed, if she was stopped and questioned she could claim that she was fetching something.

  In theatre 2, the trauma theatre, an operation was ongoing. The light box displaying the warning ‘In Use’ above the double doors was lit, and guiltily she wondered if the patient in there had been rushed up from A & E, and if Nathan Bell had stayed for the rest of the night or called someone in, possibly Caroline, to relieve him.

  There were eighteen theatres in the hospital: eight in the main block, five in day surgery, three in maternity, and two now redundant. The closed theatres were the old day surgery theatres that were now being used as an outpatient assessment area. There were rumours of other closed theatres, Victorian, which she had never seen, below ground level, inaccessible and closed not only to the public, but also staff. Rumour had it they were flooded some hundred years ago, and instead of restoring them, new buildings above ground level had been erected. She briefly wondered whether it was worth exploring them, checking just how inaccessible they really were, and who she would have to ask to get permission. The theatre she had lain in was modern, busy with the sounds of monitors and machinery and the hiss of oxygen. She would search the modern departments first.

  Moving down the corridor she nipped quickly and quietly into each theatre, scanning ceilings and surroundings with critical eyes, but didn’t see what she was searching for. As she neared theatre 8 she heard the sound of a trolley and quickly hid. Her ears strained to hear where the trolley was going while her eyes stayed fixed on a brass plate on the corridor wall. It was a memorial to the department, and the words seemed to mock her present plight.

  The light of all good deeds is eternal.

  What about the darkness of evil deeds? Was that also eternal? Or was that something one had to forgive in order to get through the pearly gates? Forgive those who trespasses against you, and you’ll get a free pass to heaven.

  Taking a chance, she peered down the corridor. Seeing no one, she came out of her hiding place and walked over to theatre 8. She pushed open the double doors and slipped into the anaesthetic room. It was relatively small, with just enough space and equipment for an anaesthetist to do the first part of his or her job. Locked drug cupboards and work counters were on either side of a theatre trolley and a small anaesthetic machine.

  She pushed open the second pair of double doors and entered the operating theatre.

  Covering one wall was a sheet of steel – a console housing dozens of switches and sockets and embedded glass-plated lights for viewing X-rays. Keeping the lights off, Alex moved over to the operating table. Enough light shone through the frosted panes from the anaesthetic room to guide her, and she was able to see the clear outline of the round overhead lamp suspended above. This was not where she had lain.

  This lamp, although round, was much wider in diameter, and it held seven bulbs. A positioning handle on one side protruded like a fixed antenna. When the lights were on, if you were under the influence of drugs you could be forgiven for thinking a giant robotic insect with seven eyes was staring down at you.

  Her shoulders drooped as common sense took hold. This was a foolish waste of time. How was she meant to pinpoint exactly what lights she lay under? What had she actually seen? The shape of a large round lamp, maybe smaller than the ones she had just inspected? But it could in fact be any of the ones she had just looked at. She’d been blinded by the glare.

  She heard the outer double doors swing open and tensed. Standing still and silent in the near darkness, she saw the shape of someone through the fr
osted panes. He or she was tall and was wearing blue. A surgeon or an anaesthetist. She could tell by the bright pink headgear. A fashion statement for some, but others wore colour as they recognised the need to be easily identified as the doctor among the caps of blue worn by everyone else.

  She waited to be discovered, heart beating wildly. She heard keys jangling and a cupboard door being unlocked. A moment later she heard the metal door banging shut, and then the outer doors leading back onto the corridor being pushed open again. Then silence.

  Trembling with relief, she breathed easier. She needed to go home, get away from this place and its memories. Lock her door, drink her vodka and feel less afraid of dark shadows. She was not brave enough to keep searching on her own.

  Chapter ten

  Greg Turner undid the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie. He smelt a whiff of sweat from his armpit and grimaced. He’d dig out a change of clothing and grab a shower in the staff room shortly. Last night he’d seen Dr Taylor’s eyes on the stain on his tie and had wanted to fold his arms. It was rare for him to feel self-conscious, but there was something about her – a freshness, her clean hair or maybe her vulnerable eyes – which made him want to keep a distance until he was washed and shaved and wearing a tie he didn’t have to hide.

  He sighed. Sleeping in his office chair had not been a good idea, but it had hardly seemed worth going home after his late finish. His workload at the moment was stretching him almost to the limit, and he could have done without the trip to the hospital. It meant more paperwork, and hours he could ill afford to lose on his other cases. And his visit to Amy Abbott’s parents had left him with the wretched cries of yet another family ringing in his head.

  He couldn’t make up his mind about Dr Taylor. She looked sane enough, but her story! That was insane.

  The tap on his office door was expected, and Laura Best entered the room. Her blond bobbed hair, cut to jaw length, was sleek and smooth. Her white collarless shirt, tailored to fit, was crisp and clean. Immaculate as always and ready for a new day, Laura Best made a good impression.

  She had been with CID eighteen months and Greg knew she was ambitious. She was known as a clock-watcher, but not for the usual reason. Laura Best never minded staying late. She didn’t seem to notice the passing hours.

  No, the secret nickname was earned because her colleagues were aware she was clock-watching her future. She had let slip that she wanted to make DI before she was twenty-eight, and there was no doubt she was in earnest. She was hell-bent on making her mark in the department. Her cases to date were not only successful, but every bit of paperwork was duplicated and put into the right hands before the cell doors had even banged shut. The fact that she was successful was largely due to her carefully vetting each case. She only coveted sure winners – quick turnovers at that – leaving the time-consuming cases to others.

  She was a cool customer and admired by most other officers, but Greg was wary of her. And not because she was making her way to his rank; it had nothing to do with the job. It was personal.

  ‘You look haggard,’ was her first remark. ‘And you’re wearing the same clothes as last night.’

  If it wasn’t personal, she would not have got away with speaking to him so casually.

  ‘And you, Laura, look as fresh as a daisy, as always.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because I work out and don’t drink and don’t smoke,’ she said, pointedly eyeing the empty Coke can on his windowsill where she knew he dropped his cigarette butts.

  The police station had a strict no smoking policy, and for the most part Greg honoured the rule, only occasionally lapsing when rain was lashing outside in the early hours of the morning – like it had last night. Or following sex, which had happened on only one occasion in this office. With Laura Best.

  ‘So how was the mad doctor?’ she asked. ‘Did you read my report yet?’

  He nodded. He’d asked for it on his return to the station last night, and he would almost have agreed with Laura’s conclusion if he hadn’t already met Dr Taylor. She didn’t seem mad. Edgy and tearful maybe, but mad? He shrugged off the uncomfortable thought.

  ‘So you don’t think there’s even the slightest possibility that this abduction could have happened? The search was thorough?’

  ‘It’s in my report. Uniform were thorough. Sergeant McIntyre would have had us look under patients’ sheets if he’d had his way. The grounds and all floors were combed.’ She laughed derisively. ‘And sure, there’s a possibility, Greg. We see this kind of thing all the time. Why, if you look out your window you may even see an elephant fly.’ She mistook his silence as approval and proceeded, without laughing, to shred the doctor’s character.

  ‘The woman’s deranged. Even her colleagues don’t believe it happened. Concussed is their opinion. But if you want mine?’ She drew breath, not waiting for a reply. ‘She lost a patient that day. A baby, no less. I think Dr Taylor lost the plot. One too many nasty things to deal with and her mind simply flipped. Or . . .’ And here she paused. ‘She’s made the whole thing up for an entirely different reason.’

  Greg eyed her sternly. No matter that she made some valid points, it was the way she made them that offended him. ‘Laura, don’t assassinate the woman. Have a little compassion, why don’t you?’

  Her eyes and mouth grew round with surprise. ‘Compassion! If she’s made all this up, she needs locking up. At the very least, she should be struck off. Don’t forget there are people’s lives in her hands. Would you want her looking after you?’

  Greg wished he’d dug out the report himself instead of asking Laura for it. In the confines of his office, when it was just the two of them, her overfamiliarity unnerved him. He could deal with it better out on the floor among other officers, as she was not quite as outspoken, but even then he was on edge in case she opened her mouth and revealed what had taken place in this very office.

  He should never have slept with her. But she’d caught him at a vulnerable time. His decree absolute had arrived the morning of that eventful day, and a sense of failure coupled with too much alcohol had made him seek the warmth and reassurance of another woman. Six months ago he had handed her a powerful weapon. One that could easily end his career, if she ever decided to tell anyone.

  ‘She’s dealing with stuff that you and I couldn’t even begin to understand,’ he said, trying to reason with her. ‘The nearest you or I get to see what she has to cope with are the ones we find barely hanging on to life. But she’s the one who saves them. Or doesn’t.’

  ‘Which is exactly my point,’ she answered crisply. ‘She’s dealing with so much bloody trauma that she’s imagined some horror happening to herself.’ She turned to leave and then slowly turned back. Her eyes raked over his dishevelment – his face in need of a shave, his hair in need of a cut, and the grubby tie hanging loose around his neck. ‘And now she’s calling us in again for a so-called murder? I’d think about pressing charges for wasting police time, if I were you.’

  After she had gone, Greg felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He stood by the window of his office and gazed out at the city where he was born. Bath, a city so beautiful and unique it was designated a World Heritage Site, home to the rich and genteel for two thousand years. Jane Austen, Thomas Gainsborough and Beau Nash had no doubt drunk or relaxed in its curative waters. Waking up to a new day, the outline of the Georgian buildings was as familiar to him as his right hand, but it didn’t give him a sense of belonging any more.

  Home no longer felt like home. Laura Best’s presence was a thorn in his side and, come the New Year, he would have to make some decisions. Either she left or he did.

  He was a decade older than she was and he still had ambitions of his own. But this situation was beginning to sap his strength. He should never have slept with her and that was a fact.

  He was tired, and thoughts like this were not healthy right now. He had paperwork on the Amy Abbott case to sort out and her post-mortem to attend. Turning away from the w
indow, he set his mind back to work.

  *

  Back at her desk, Laura was still smarting from the rebuke Greg had given her; she couldn’t help but wonder whether he’d have been as keen to defend Dr Taylor if she’d been old and fat. He made her so angry sometimes she could spit feathers. He had the ability to bring out the best and worst in her, and more often than not, her plain bitchy self. She sighed bitterly. She should never have slept with him. The moment it was over she knew he regretted it. He couldn’t even look her in the eye. For her, that had been more than humiliation, as she had really liked him. Over the last six months she had tried to show him that it didn’t matter, that she hadn’t expected it to go anywhere, and wasn’t expecting a Mills & Boon ending; she would have been fine with that if he’d at least had the decency to acknowledge it had happened in the first place.

  Laura breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. He’d used her for sexual gratification and that was something she had done her best to forgive. Well, no more. She was done with trying to win him over. Instead she would show him what she was capable of. If nothing else, she would prove Dr Taylor was a madwoman. And then she would move on. She felt a tightening in her throat as she remembered the way he had kissed her and the sickness she had felt when he avoided looking at her afterwards. She was a fool. Well, she had learned her lesson. She would never let her guard down again. A valuable lesson indeed. She just thanked her stars that Greg was completely unaware of how very close she’d been to declaring her feelings, which thankfully were now gone. Her career was all that mattered now.

  Chapter eleven

  The hammering on the front door woke her from her alcohol-induced sleep. She hoisted her heavy head off the cushion and willed her stubborn eyelids to open. It was daylight, but the lamps in her living room were still on. Her sodden clothes lay strewn across the carpet where she’d left them, and an empty bottle of vodka rolled off her stomach as she crawled out of the makeshift bed.