by Robert Innes
She needed to speak to Joe as soon as she could. Then, a thought occurred to her that she had not even been able to consider when it had all been happening the night before. What if Joe had received a phone call like she had? What if something had happened to him? Her heart began to race again. Joe would have been on his own at home. The one saving grace with her being in the hospital the night before was that she had been surrounded by people, but what if whoever had been on the phone threatening her had been able to get to Joe?
She patted her pockets to search for her mobile, before remembering that she had chucked it across the room when she had received the sinister phone call.
She dropped to her knees and hunted around under the lockers for her phone. Eventually, she found it, amongst a ball of dust and cobwebs. As she pulled it out, she realised the screen was slightly broken. She turned it on and saw that she had received a video message.
Slowly, she sat on the floor and opened the message, a horrendous surge of adrenaline coursing through her when she saw the face of someone wearing a surgical mask and cap. It was covering the majority of their face and their head, meaning that it was impossible to determine who was wearing it. They seemed to be standing in complete darkness. Her hands trembling, Kelsey pressed play on the video.
When the figure spoke, it was in the same distorted deep voice it had been on the phone, immediately removing any hope Kelsey would have had about discerning who it could be.
“The third of April 2017,” the figure began, holding up a newspaper. It was a copy of the local newspaper, on the day after Lucy’s death. “HORROR IN HARMSCHAPEL” screamed the headline.
“This was the day you played a part in the death of a young woman. A year to the day since you cruelly snatched the life of an innocent victim. I am The Watcher. And now, the time has come for your justice. Joe Tilsley, come on down!” And the video cut out.
Immediately, Kelsey was on her feet. She ran out of the locker room, with the phone attached to her ear. Again, Joe’s phone went straight to answer machine.
She let out a loud cry of frustration as she kept running down the corridor, sending nurses and visitors flying as she pushed past them. As she tried to think as clearly as she could. Her best bet to finding him was to check on his ward, 10B, which was three floors up. Then, if he was not there, she would have to get home as quickly as she could. From there, she did not know.
As she was rounding a corner to 7A, she was stopped in her tracks by Stan pushing his tea trolley from the direction she wanted to go, blocking her way.
“Stan, move!” she exclaimed.
“Hello, Kelsey,” Stan said cheerfully, apparently not noticing her frantic mood or the fact she had been sprinting towards him. “You alright? You look in a terrible state.”
“I need to find Joe!” Kelsey cried. “Will you move this bloody trolley?”
“Joe? I’ve not long seen him up on 10B.”
“He’s on 10B?”
“That is where he works isn’t it, love?” Stan chuckled. “What’s all this about? You two haven’t had another barney, have you?”
“I just need to find him,” Kelsey snapped. “Can you move this -”
But she stopped as she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. Her heart skipped when she saw Joe’s name on the screen. “Joe?” she exclaimed, as she answered. “Thank God, where are you?”
“I’m coming down,” Joe replied. “I need to see you.” His voice was low and urgent. Kelsey could immediately tell that something was wrong. She pushed Stan’s tea trolley out of the way and hurried towards the lifts.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened? Are you alright?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said quietly.
“Joe?” Kelsey repeated. “Talk to me. What’s going on? Joe? Are you there?”
The silence on the end of the phone made her panic even more. She listened as hard as she could as she began to hear the sound of coughing.
“Joe?”
“I’m here,” he said at last. His voice sounded strained. “I’m coming down. I’m at the lift now. Meet me.” Then, he hung up.
By this time, Kelsey had reached the lifts. There were two elevators, numbered one and two in gold plating above the doors, one right next to the other. As she arrived, a couple of nurses were pushing a patient in a bed into lift two, meaning that Joe would be coming out of lift one. She watched the screen next to the call buttons. It showed that lift one had stopped at 10B and was now coming down.
The lifts were by no means slow, but to Kelsey at that moment, it felt like it was taking forever. The number ticked from ten to nine. Then, to eight. But then, just as it was about to hit seven, there was a loud clunk from behind the doors and the screen went blank.
Kelsey hammered the call button with her thumb as the ominous sound of metal grinding to a halt echoed around from behind the door.
“Joe?” she shouted through the slot of the big metal doors. There was no answer. “Joe! What’s going on?”
“What are you shouting about now?” Stan asked, as he caught up with her. “What’s the matter with you? You’ll be in trouble with your staff nurse if you carry on like that.”
“I think Joe’s stuck in the lift,” Kelsey told him frantically.
“Is he?” Stan said, staring at the doors.
As if to answer their question, the sound of a faint knocking sound came from behind the doors.
“Joe? Can you hear me?” Stan called, cupping his hands over the slot. “Is he in there on his own? I can’t hear anybody. Did it say on the screen where he got to?”
“I think between this floor and the eighth,” Kelsey replied. “Get him out of there, Stan, please!”
“Don’t you worry,” Stan told her. “Maintenance will just be coming in. I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere, Joe! We’ll have you out in a jiffy!”
He hurried off down the corridor, before Kelsey could point out how ridiculous it had been to tell Joe not to go anywhere when he was stuck in a lift.
A few people were hovering around the lift areas to get a glimpse of what was going on. Kelsey was close to telling them that unless they knew how to get Joe out, they would be better to keep on walking. The last thing she needed was more eyes on her now.
She tried calling Joe again, but his phone did not even ring before going straight to his answer machine. Clearly, he had lost all signal in the lift. She sent him a quick text message asking him if he was alright, but she did not get a reply.
The time ticked on. Still Stan did not return, and the lift did not move either. Kelsey kept calling for Joe through the door, but he had now even stopped knocking in response. She was becoming more worried by the second, wondering if he had pressed the emergency call button from inside the lift.
At last, Stan appeared, followed by Kevin and two maintenance men in blue overalls.
“Right, step aside, folks,” Stan ordered. “We’ll soon have this thing working again.” He knocked sharply on the door and shouted through it. “Going to get you out now, Joe! Just hang in there! Alright fellas, get it open.”
One of the men produced a key from his pocket, knelt down and unscrewed a hidden compartment next to the doors. He then placed the key inside it and turned. Nothing happened.
“Ah,” said the man. “I don’t think she’s listening. We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”
He reached for his toolbox and produced what looked to Kelsey to be a large metal hinge. “You get that side Kevin, I’ll get this.”
Kevin nodded wordlessly. Carefully sticking the hinge into the slot in the door, and with Kevin and Stan pulling with all their might, the big silver doors slowly began to open.
Then, they all looked up to where they could see Joe’s lift compartment. It was halfway onto the seventh floor, its own doors jammed shut.
“Right, give me a leg up, Kevin,” ordered Stan. “I’ll see if I can get him out.”
Kevin nodded and knelt down, pushing his colleague up
to where he could reach to slip the metal bar into the doors as they had just done with the exteriors.
Finally, the doors opened, but when they finally did, Stan gasped loudly and toppled backwards, landing on top of Kevin in a heap on the ground.
Kelsey looked up to the compartment, expecting to see Joe glaring furiously at them and demanding to be let out as she would have expected him to do. But what she saw instead nearly made her faint.
An arm. It was hanging through the open door, implying that whoever it belonged to was lying on the floor. On the wrist was the same watch Kelsey had bought Joe for Christmas.
“Joe!” shrieked Kelsey. “Get him out! Get him out of there!”
“Will you stop getting yourself into such a state?” Stan told her sternly, as he brushed himself down and helped Kevin to his feet. “He’s probably just gotten a bit claustrophobic. My sister is exactly the same.”
“Stan, I think there’s something more serious gone on with him that that,” one of the maintenance men said, who had now lifted himself up to peer into the lift compartment.
“Don’t be daft,” Stan said. “Come on, let’s get him out.”
With the help of the two men, Stan pulled on Joe’s arm and soon they were able to pull his whole body out of the lift and gently lowered him to the floor. But as Kelsey looked down at him, horror flooded through her.
Joe’s eyes were open, staring coldly straight ahead of him. His mouth was open, his tongue slightly hanging out. She had seen too many patients during her time as a nurse not to recognise the obvious. There was no life in him whatsoever. Joe Tilsley was dead.
6
Blake opened his eyes, feeling like he was in the middle of the worst hangover of his life. For a few moments, he wondered why he had had such a terrible night’s sleep, before remembering that he had not been to sleep, but had just had his operation. But as he began to regain his focus on the world around him, Blake immediately wondered if he was dreaming.
From his bed, his viewpoint allowed him to see right down the corridor to the lifts at the end of the ward. There, around the lifts, were his colleagues from Harmschapel Police Station.
Police Constable Billy Mattison was talking to Stan, just a few feet away from the end of the bed. Stan had an extremely serious look on his face.
Blake shook his head to try and gather himself. It was disorientating enough to have woken up from his sedation in a completely different place to where he had gone under, but to see police everywhere was making him think that the drugs had had an unusual effect on him. Then, he saw Sharon Donahue, a forensic pathologist, appear from one of the lifts. Blake stared at her in surprise. If Sharon was here with the police, it could only mean one thing. Somebody was dead.
He glanced up to see Mattison finish talking to Stan. “Oi, Matti!”
Mattison turned in surprise to see Blake gesturing to him to come over.
“Hello, Sir!” he said cheerfully. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve just woken up from an operation to find the ward buzzing with police,” Blake told him. “How do you think I’m feeling? What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know if I should really tell you in your condition, Sir,” Mattison said cautiously. “You are in recovery.”
“Matti,” Blake retorted warningly.
Mattison sighed. “One of the hospital’s doctors was found dead in the lift.”
Blake glanced across at the lifts. He could see Sharon taking a picture of the interior of one of them. “Which doctor?”
“Oh, come on, Sir,” Mattison said, grinning. “You’re not going to know him in a hospital this size.”
“Just tell me the name.”
“Tilsley. Doctor Joe Tilsley.”
Blake swallowed, his mouth suddenly incredibly dry. “And if I was to tell you that I know exactly who that doctor is?”
Mattison raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”
“Yes. How did he die?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Mattison replied. Sharon reckons there might be bruising round his neck, but she can’t be sure it’s got anything to do with his death. Doesn’t seem to have been violent though. There’s no blood or anything.”
“Mattison!” came a voice from the corridor.
Blake groaned as he spotted Sergeant Michael Gardiner strolling towards them. “Mattison, what are you doing?”
“I was just talking to DS Harte,” Mattison replied.
Gardiner stopped at the foot of Blake’s bed and put his hands on his hips, raising his eyebrows at Mattison in an expectant manner.
Mattison rolled his eyes. “Sir,” he finished.
Gardiner glared down at Blake. “And what can we do for you? I think you’ll find we have everything in hand. You concentrate on your recovery, I’m leading this investigation.”
“I know you are, Michael,” Blake replied. “So, I expect you’ll already have a list of people you need to interview.”
“Of course.”
“And the victim’s girlfriend would be top of that list.”
“Yes, thank you,” Gardiner said irritably. “I had managed to work that out for myself. Mind you, I don’t know why you’re referring to him as a ‘victim.’ We have nothing yet to tell us that this was anything other than a tragic, natural death.”
“Don’t you? I do,” Blake replied cheerfully.
“Yes, well you’re dosed up with God only knows what,” Gardiner said airily. “So, you’ll forgive me if I don’t exactly count you as a reliable witness at this point. Mattison, I want statements from both of those maintenance men. Off you go.”
Mattison went to argue but seemed to decide against it and stormed off in the direction of the lifts. When he had gone, Gardiner crossed his arms and looked down at Blake smugly.
“Inspector Angel has instructed me to take over your duties while you’re indisposed.”
“I know, he told me.”
“Seemed very keen to give me the job actually,” Gardiner continued. “He clearly felt he needed someone with a firm and decisive hand.”
“Yes,” Blake replied. “Inspector Royale said that to me when he gave me the job in the first place.”
Childish as it was, Blake felt some small satisfaction in Gardiner’s expression faltering slightly. Royale had been the inspector in charge of the station before Angel had replaced him. He was greatly missed after his fatal stroke in his office chair.
“Come on, Michael,” Blake reasoned. “I can be of some help to you here. There is something going on in this hospital, and I really think that Tilsley was murdered.”
“That’s impossible. He can’t have been murdered.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was alone in a lift. And he got stuck in said lift between this floor and the one above. It wouldn’t have been possible for anyone to get to him.”
“And yet, someone did. You need to speak to Nurse Kelsey Richards. Like I said, something weird is going on and everything I’ve seen seems to revolve around her.”
“I will be speaking to her personally, very shortly,” Gardiner said sharply. “And I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job.”
“I’m not telling you how to do your job, I’m telling you how to do my job,” Blake replied.
“Well, it’s not your job anymore, is it?” Gardiner snarled, leaning in and leering down at Blake. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a witness to interview.”
Blake watched him stalk away, shaking his head in disbelief. It was not unusual for Gardiner to be so obstinate and disagreeable. He had been after the job of detective sergeant since before Blake had arrived in the village of Harmschapel, and Blake’s arrival had put those plans to rest very quickly. Ever since, Gardiner and Blake had never seen eye to eye on anything.
Blake continued watching what was going on. He was not alone. All the patients in the ward were leaning around to try and see what was happening.
He could hardly imagine what Harrison’s reac
tion would be to him wanting to get involved with the case going on around him now when he had only just woken up from an operation. It was at that moment that Blake remembered that he was now without an appendix. He glanced down at his abdomen, lifting his nightshirt up and taking in the large bandage that was no doubt covering his scar. It felt tender to the touch and he could already tell that he would be incapable of any great movement for a while. As he watched the officers and forensic teams go about their business, he felt more useless than ever.
Once it had become clear that Sharon had finished taking photographs, Blake called her over.
“Shouldn’t you be breathing down my neck, asking me questions I don’t yet know the answers to?” she asked, grinning at him. “What are you doing in here? Undercover?”
“I wish,” grimaced Blake. “I’ve just had my appendix out.”
“And a body turns up right under your nose. Typical.”
Blake leant forward. “What have you found?”
“Should I be telling you this? I was under the impression that Michael Gardiner was in charge.”
“Oh, come on Sharon,” Blake pleaded. “Give me something. I’m going crazy in here. What the hell is going on?”
Sharon looked thoughtful for a moment, before chuckling. She sat beside Blake on his bed, talking in a low voice. “I’ve got a Joe Tilsley. Mid-thirties I’d say. Apparently, he went into that lift on his own from the tenth floor. There’s a cleaner who was mopping the floors and saw him go in. He was on his own. The lift then gets stuck for about twenty minutes or so. When they finally get it open, our doctor is dead on the floor.”
Blake frowned. “And he was completely on his own?”
“Yep. And he was definitely alive when he walked in.”