by Alex Howard
She looked down at the handsome, bearded face of Mark Whiteside asleep in his bed. So this was Hanlon’s former colleague, here thanks to Hanlon’s sticking her nose into other people’s business. She wondered if he had been Hanlon’s lover.
Adams thought, I don’t need to leave a note, she’ll know who this was from, and why.
She glanced through the circular porthole-type window of the room. The doors, skirting and woodwork was pale pine veneer. Presumably to keep everyone relaxed although the patients, at this end of the hospital, could be scarcely more so. The nursing station was empty, no one was around. There was an air of somnolence, of relaxed quiet about this ward, that was almost hypnotic. It was so peaceful apart from the faint noise of the machinery.
Adams took a hypodermic syringe out of her pocket. Heroin is very easy to come by, if you know where to look on the net. And Adams did.
‘Sweet dreams, Mark,’ said Georgie Adams, leaning over him. ‘This is for you, Hanlon.’ She put the needle into one of the veins in Whiteside’s powerful forearm, drew back the plunger a fraction and watched Whiteside’s blood swirl into the chamber. Satisfied she had the needle in the vein, she pushed the plunger in all the way.
Whiteside stiffened and then relaxed and sighed. It was done. That simple. That quick. Adams dropped the syringe into the mouth of his black bin bag attached to her trolley and pushed it swiftly out of the room and into the corridor.
As she walked away he could hear the noise of an alarm and of feet urgently rushing to Whiteside’s assistance.
She smiled to himself. This is the way the world ends for Mark Whiteside. The sound of a medical emergency in a hospital, hurried footsteps on lino.
*
And in a hospital in the Oxfordshire countryside, DCI Hanlon said quietly to Huss, ‘I think it’s time for a new beginning.’
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About Alex Howard
ALEX HOWARD was born in London and educated at St Peter’s College, Oxford and Edinburgh University, where he studied Arabic and Islamic History. He worked in adult education for the British Council and other institutions in the Middle East and London. He is married with two children.
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About the DCI Hanlon Series
Detective Chief Inspector Hanlon. She’ll break but she won’t bend. A woman with a habit of breaking the rules and a fierce loyalty to the few people she respects.
Her boss, Corrigan. Looks like a street copper promoted above his ability.
Underestimate him at your peril. Enver Demirel. Known in the boxing ring as Iron Hand. Now soft and gone to seed. But he would do anything for Hanlon.
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First published in the UK in 2016 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Alex Howard, 2016
The moral right of Alex Howard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781784971069
ISBN (E) 9781784971076
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