Department 18 [04] A Plague of Echoes

by Maynard Sims

  “Guy’s an asshole,” Karl said. “I could have taken him. You shouldn’t have interfered.”

  Sultan sighed. “Put your friend in the picture, Donald,” he said to the other ape in a suit.

  Donald rolled his eyes, went across to Karl and wrapped a thick-muscled arm around the other man’s shoulder and started speaking quietly to him. A few minutes went by while Donald put his friend in the picture. When he’d finished Karl turned to Sultan, his face white, an unnatural sheen of sweat covering his skin. He looked ill.

  “Thank you,” he said to Sultan, then lowered his head and moved quickly to the door. He couldn’t even bring himself to look back at O’Brien swimming more laps in the pool.

  When he heard the door shut behind the three men O’Brien hauled himself out of the pool again, toweled himself dry and went up to his apartment five floors above.

  From the balcony of the apartment he had a panoramic view across London. He rested his hands on the railing and stared across the Thames to the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A mile beyond that was Clerkenwell and Trudy Banks. He smiled at the memory of his encounter with her tonight. She was like putty, soft and malleable, so easy to influence. He had no doubt that she would do as she was told. Sometimes it was too easy.

  Chapter Seven

  Trudy was in bed and shivering under the duvet, unable to get warm and unable to sleep. The events of the evening were playing themselves over and over in her mind. So much so it was now just a jumble of random thoughts, snatches of conversation and disturbing images. The most unsettling of these was of the bullet splintering the doorframe. She had never come up against that level of latent violence before and was now in a mild state of shock.

  After the Irishman had gone she’d sat alone in her lounge, wanting to call someone to tell them what had just happened, but he’d warned her about contacting anyone else and assured her that he’d know if she did. She had no reason to doubt him. His knowledge of her personal history and the running of Department 18 left her with no doubts at all that he was a professional through and through. Her phones were probably tapped, the flat bugged, she was sure her office was.

  There was no alternative; she had to do as she was told. Gaining access to the files wouldn’t be a problem because, as Simon Crozier’s PA, she had level five clearance, a level down only to senior operatives like Robert Carter and Harry Bailey. But removing the files and destroying them would not be easy. Strangely the man hadn’t asked for any kind of proof the files had been destroyed, insisting that he’d know when she had carried out her task. Just how he could know this was one of the thoughts circulating in her mind, depriving her of sleep.

  After three hours of tossing and turning, and becoming increasingly frustrated, she threw back the covers and went out to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. She stood at the sink, filling the kettle and staring out through the window. Dawn was nibbling at the edges of the night and, as she watched, a milk float trundled into view at the far end of the street; a not-so-common sight in London these days. After a few yards it stopped and the milkman, a middle-aged black man dressed in Hawaiian shorts and T-shirt, hopped from the cab, grabbed several bottles of milk from the crates in the back and trotted to one of the houses opposite, leaving the bottles neatly on the doorstep.

  Returning to his milk float, he continued his journey along the deserted street. Trudy turned her attention to the kettle, taking it across to the granite counter and plugging it in. Hearing the glassy rattle of bottles coming from the street below, she returned to the window and looked out.

  The milk float was parked outside her building and the milkman was standing in the centre of the street, looking directly up at her window. As their eyes met and locked Trudy ducked back out of sight. It was an instinctive response, beyond rational. The milkman wasn’t a threat, yet she found his presence outside her flat distinctly unsettling. Taking a few deep breaths, she edged closer to the glass and peered out again.

  He was still there, still staring up at her window but this time, as she watched him, his eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites were showing. There was a buzzing in her head and her vision began to swim. He was losing form, definition, the edges of him becoming blurry, but she couldn’t wrench her gaze away from the blank, white eyes. His lips started to move, forming words, one word in particular—her name, Trudy, being repeated over and over again.

  Almost without conscious thought her hand reached out and untied the cord for the Venetian blind that protected her from the prying eyes of her neighbors. It unfurled with a clatter, knocking a potted African violet plant from the windowsill and into the sink. The pot shattered and earth formed a muddy pile on the stainless steel.

  With her view of the milkman blocked, Trudy’s head stopped buzzing and her thoughts started to reassemble themselves into a semi-logical order.

  It was a full ten minutes before she plucked up the courage to pull down a slat and peer out through the window again. The street was clear. The milkman and his float had gone.

  Pulling on a robe, she let herself out of the flat and took the stairs to the ground floor. The door was half glazed and she pressed her face against the glass, trying to see through it. Finally she took a breath and pulled the door open.

  As she’d seen from the window in her flat the street was empty, but the doorstep was not. There were three bottles of milk tucked into the lee of the wall. Against one of them was a square white envelope. She reached down and picked it up and, seeing her name written on it in bold capitals, tore it open. At first she thought it was empty but the finger and thumb holding the envelope told her differently. She could feel something inside. Pressing the sides of the envelope until it gaped open, she upended it and tipped the contents into the palm of her hand.

  For the next minute she stood there, staring down at the coil of silver chain nestled in her palm. Attached to it was a charm that looked like a spindly silver spider but unlike anything she had seen before. She checked the envelope again. There was a small slip of paper the size of a Post-It note. In neat block letters someone had written, WEAR THIS. IT WILL PROTECT YOU.

  Eventually she closed her fingers over the charm, trapping it in her fist. Shutting the door quietly, she turned and retraced her steps back to her flat.

  Maria Bridge pulled the duvet up to her chin and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come. Bone tired and nursing a pounding headache she had finally collapsed into her bed after a grueling eighteen-hour shift. The red digital numbers of her alarm clock seemed to mock her. Three a.m. and she had to be up at six, to be at the hospital for seven. Three operations scheduled. Routine stuff mostly; an appendectomy, hysterectomy and a prolapse. Nothing particularly complicated, but taxing enough.

  Not as taxing as the knife attack. That was outside her comfort zone, but as she was the only surgeon on duty she’d been left with no choice. Had she not operated, Simon Crozier would be spending the night in the morgue instead of resting comfortably in the ICU. He was being monitored carefully and her staff was under strict instructions to notify her should his condition change.

  3:05. So far so good, she thought. No phone call.

  Punching her pillow and throwing the duvet down to her waist, she tried to switch off her mind, but the more she tried to blank her thoughts, the more the operation replayed over and over in her head. As always there was the nagging fear that she had screwed up in some way. Logically she knew she hadn’t, but the tiny voice at the back of her mind needled her—her mother’s voice, telling her that no matter what she achieved in her career, she would never be half the surgeon her father was.

  Her father had been dead for ten years now, and she was getting very tired of living in his shadow. It was her own fault really. She should have taken a job in an office, a shop, anything but to follow in his giant footsteps. James, her brother, had tried to warn her away from her chosen path, but again her father’s
genes reasserted themselves, making her too pig-headed to listen.

  “So you’ve only got yourself to blame,” she whispered into the pillow.

  And then her cell phone buzzed.

  “Shit!” she said and sat bolt upright, reaching for the phone vibrating on the bedside table. “Bridge,” she snapped and listened closely to the ward sister on the other end of the line. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said when the sister ran out of words.

  Kicking off the duvet completely, she got out of bed, went through to the bathroom, splashed water on her face and quickly scrubbed her teeth. She threw on a fresh shirt and jeans and, with a look of longing at her bed, she let herself out of her flat and took the stairs to the underground car park.

  The hospital was a short drive and she pulled into the staff car park five minutes after leaving her flat. She climbed from the car and sprinted to the main entrance, colliding with a large man who was just pushing through the double doors, out of the hospital and into the night. Bridge was knocked back and she doubled up, winded. “Why don’t you look where you’re going?” she said as she struggled to get her breath.

  “I might say the same,” Bailey said with an easy smile. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, it’s you,” Bridge said, straightening up and feeling her cheeks flush. “I didn’t realise… You’re here to see Mr. Crozier?”

  “Can’t get near him. There’s something going on.”

  They went through the double doors together. “I’ve just been called back in. Apparently he’s regained consciousness. Come with me,” she said.

  Leading the way across the empty foyer, she jabbed the button to call the elevator.

  “You seem surprised. I take it you weren’t expecting him to come round so soon.”

  “Not for another…” she checked her watch, “…another six hours at least.” The elevator doors opened. “I don’t understand. He was given enough sedative to floor an elephant. There’s no way he should be awake yet.”

  They stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind them.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, it’s a bit late for a visit,” she said as the car ascended.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Bailey said. “I didn’t really expect to see him. I just wanted to know if he was doing okay. He is my boss after all.”

  “And a personal friend?”

  “Yes, a good one.”

  A bell chimed and the doors slid open.

  “Well. Let’s go and see how he’s doing,” Bridge said with a smile.

  There were three people in Simon Crozier’s IC room. Two staff nurses and Crozier himself, who was propped up on three pillows, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

  Bridge huddled with the nurses, speaking in hushed tones and casting concerned glances towards the bed.

  To Bailey’s eyes Crozier didn’t look any different to when he had last seen him. “There doesn’t seem to be much change,” he said to them.

  “Except that I can hear you,” Crozier said, his eyes flicking open and skewering Bailey with a look. “What the hell are you doing here at this godforsaken hour of the night?”

  “I thought you might want to go clubbing,” Bailey said with a grin.

  “I’m afraid my Macarena isn’t what it was. Besides I think the good doctor would object to me throwing shapes on the dance floor.” He closed his eyes briefly and swallowed loudly. “I’m parched. Water, Nurse.”

  As the nurse poured as small glass of water from the jug on the nightstand, Maria Bridge bent down in front of Crozier and shone a penlight beam in his eyes.

  Crozier didn’t complain, but when she had finished he sighed with relief and gratefully took the water from the nurse.

  “Slowly,” Bridge said. “Sip it.” She stared at the screen of the VS machine and nodded with cautious satisfaction. “You seem to be doing very well, Mr. Crozier,” she said.

  “Tough as old boots, that one,” Bailey said. “I should have told you.”

  “Did you catch the old cow who did this to me?” Crozier asked Bailey.

  “The police had in her custody, yes.”

  “Had?”

  “Long story.”

  Crozier stared at Bailey who was trying to communicate something with his eyes. “Can Mr. Bailey and I have a minute?” he said to Maria and the nurses.

  “You can have five, but no more, and then I’m afraid, Mr. Crozier, I’m going to have to sedate you again. It’s important that you rest. It was a major operation.”

  “Very well,” Crozier said tersely, and watched as Maria Bridge and the nurses trooped out of the room.

  “Right,” Crozier said. “Tell me everything.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jane lay in the bed, crying softly. Beside her Carter slept soundly, the steady rise and fall of his breathing signaling his contentment. He had what he wanted but for Jane it was a case of again being plunged into the suffocating morass of indecision. She’d been here before and sworn to herself that she would never come here again, but her feelings were too strong and they conflicted with her moral core, making her now feel like a cheap whore.

  Sliding out of the bed she padded through to the bathroom, the tiles icy cold under her bare feet. The latch clicked softly as she closed the door behind her. She slid the bolt across and ran water into the sink, splashing it on her face to wash away her tears. The truth was that no matter how much love she had for her two daughters, Gemma and Amy, she had no love left for her husband, David. She wasn’t even sure that she liked him anymore.

  “Decision time,” she said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The reflection stared back at her, the fear and conflict lying deep in the soft brown eyes.

  “Why isn’t this easy?”

  No pain, no gain. One of her father’s favorite sayings, a rather trite homily that nevertheless resonated strongly with her. An image of Fiona Meredith’s crumpled and broken body lying in the corner of the police interview room, suddenly thrust into her mind as if to haunt her, as if she had actually seen it. That in turn triggered other memories, none of them pleasant.

  There was a tap on the bathroom door. “Jane? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Go back to bed. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she called back.

  When she stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later Carter was sitting up in bed, flicking through the pages of a magazine.

  “I’ve made a decision,” she said.

  He laid down the magazine and stared across at her. “Am I going to like it?”

  “I don’t know.” She hesitated, chewing anxiously on her bottom lip. “I’m leaving David,” she said. There, I’ve said it, she thought. It’s out there now. After the months, years, of agonizing she’d finally made the decision.

  Carter pulled back the covers and patted the mattress. “Come back to bed. Let’s talk about this.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll come back to bed, but no talking, at least not tonight.”

  “Scared that if you talk it through you’ll change your mind?”

  She slid under the covers and rested her head against his chest. He nuzzled her hair and kissed the top of her head. “No,” she said. “I’m not going to change my mind. But there’s something else.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “I’m leaving the Department as well.”

  She could feel his chest rise as he drew in his breath.

  “For how long?”

  “For good. Permanently.”

  He was silent for a moment. “To do what?”

  “I haven’t decided yet, private practice, maybe even teaching. But whatever I chose it’s going to be safe, risk free. Get up in the morning, go to work and know that I’ll be going home in the evening. I have to give Gemma and Amy a stable life. I owe them that.”

  “And do I f
igure in that stable life?” Carter asked.

  Before she could answer Carter’s cell phone rang. He grabbed it off the floor and studied the caller ID. “It’s Harry,” he said.

  “You’d better take it.”

  He hit the button. “Harry, what’s wrong?” He listened for thirty seconds or so and then hung up, flopped back on the pillow, a frown creasing his brow. He lay there for a moment or so then threw back the covers and walked through to the bathroom.

  Jane followed him. “Well, that did he want?”

  Carter spat toothpaste and water into the sink and looked at her in the mirror. “He’s been arrested,” he said. “He was calling from the Waterloo Street police station.”

  “Arrested? Why?”

  “For trying to kill Crozier.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Jane said. “We know who tried to kill him. Mae Middleton.”

  “Mae Middleton stabbed him. Apparently Harry tried to strangle him in his hospital bed.”

  “But they’re friends…good friends.”

  Carter turned away from the mirror, went back to the bedroom and started pulling on his clothes. “As ridiculous as it sounds, Harry’s not denying it,” he said. “I’ll get down there and see what’s going on.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Jane said, reaching for her shirt.

  “No. Stay here. Try to get some sleep. You’ve got enough on your mind at the moment.”

  She opened her mouth to protest but the look on Carter’s face made her close it. “Call me,” she said. “Let me know what’s going on.”

  Carter nodded briefly and let himself out of the flat.

  Sixty minutes before making the phone call to Carter, Harry Bailey was sitting at Crozier’s bedside, filling in the hours for him since the attack on the South Bank. Crozier sat listening, eyes closed, breathing deeply, interrupting only to ask pertinent questions.

  Maria Bridge stayed in the room with them, ostensibly checking equipment but with one eye on the VS display screen. Because of her presence Bailey kept his voice low, speaking in little more than a whisper.