The Infirmary: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 11)

by LJ Ross

  “Yes, I think her name was Nicola Cassidy. I remember, because it reminded me of David Cassidy. You know, the singer?”

  He made encouraging noises and signalled to Phillips, who was on his phone issuing a series of hushed commands to the team back at CID.

  “As I say, she was a student doctor. I think she lived just around the corner. I’m sorry, I can’t remember much else.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ve been very helpful,” he said. She had saved them precious time that was in short supply. “Tell me, who did Nicola work with while she was here? Do you happen to remember?”

  She screwed up her face while she cast her mind back.

  “Well, obviously, anyone who’s been here a while would have worked with her, like me; we’ve had a bit of staff turnover in the past few months, so that’s why I’m trying to think who would have been here. Mr Draycott, of course,” she said, listing a few other names. “Doctor Chowdhury, one of our consultants, and most of the nurses. They’ve been permanent fixtures for a while. I couldn’t tell you how many security guards we’ve had, or hospital porters and healthcare assistants. There was John—” She stopped abruptly, thinking of their former healthcare assistant. “But he’s—he’s gone now.”

  “How about Doctor Edwards?” Ryan asked.

  “No, Keir only joined the department in the New Year. He’s such a positive person to have around,” she added. “Never complains, just does his job and usually a bit extra, too. He’s just come off the back of a double shift and he was still the last one trying to save this poor lass.”

  She tutted, reaching out to place the palm of her gloved hand on Nicola’s head.

  “We see a lot come through these doors,” she said. “And, you know, we do our best for everyone. But sometimes it gets you, right here.”

  She tapped her other hand against her chest.

  “Yes,” Ryan said, simply. “She didn’t deserve this.”

  Joan turned, busying herself to hide the sheen of tears.

  “Right. Time to get going,” she said.

  Soon after, the porter came to wheel Nicola away to the hospital mortuary and into Jeff Pinter’s waiting hands.

  Ryan stayed beside her all the way.

  CHAPTER 19

  With a curious kind of detachment, Ryan oversaw the transfer of Nicola Cassidy’s body to the hospital mortuary and was there to witness Jeff Pinter’s surprise when he uncovered her face.

  “I think I know this girl,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  Ryan’s eyes never moved from the other man’s face.

  “Yes,” Pinter said. “She’s a student at the medical school. I’ve seen her quite a few times.”

  “Professionally?”

  Pinter heard an odd tone in Ryan’s voice and bristled.

  “Yes, of course, professionally. What else?” He gave a nervous laugh. “She could almost be my daughter.”

  “But she’s not your daughter,” Ryan said. “Tell me, Jeff. Where were you on Saturday evening?”

  “Wh—Me?” Pinter squealed. There was no other word for it. “I-I was at home. I don’t have to answer that!”

  “Think yourself lucky I’m asking you informally,” Ryan snapped. “While we’re at it, you can tell me why you didn’t mention you knew Sharon Cooper personally. You went out on dinner dates, more than once, through the dating website used by both victims.”

  Something flickered in Pinter’s eyes.

  There, Ryan thought. There it was.

  “I-I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Ryan barked. “You know better than that, Jeff. Now, you put me in the position of having to ask you again: where were you on Saturday night?”

  Pinter swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed precariously.

  “I told you, I was at home. I, ah, I can give you the name of the woman I was with, if you need it.”

  “I need it.”

  Pinter nodded miserably, thinking that would be the end of that romance.

  “I’m sorry, I know I should have mentioned it. I was—well, I was embarrassed,” he said.

  Ryan waited, not giving any quarter.

  “Both of us knew it was a bad idea, really. Dating people at work? It rarely works out, does it?”

  Pinter forced a laugh, which was not returned.

  “Look, I made a mistake. I should have been upfront about my…my personal association with Sharon. It won’t happen again.”

  Ryan stepped forward until they were almost toe to toe.

  “You’re damn right it won’t happen again. I want the name and address of the woman you say you were with on Saturday night and, until I’ve checked it out, special measures apply.” He nodded towards Nicola Cassidy, who had been taken into one of the private examination rooms. “You don’t work on her alone. Make an excuse if you like, tell your staff it’s a new protocol, but you don’t work on her alone. I can’t risk it, Jeff. Not for you and not for them.”

  Pinter gave a jerky nod.

  “I—yes, alright. Ryan, I mean it. I sincerely regret not mentioning it and I understand it’s made things difficult.”

  Ryan looked straight through him.

  “Difficult? You don’t understand, Jeff. It isn’t just a case of making my job harder. Even if your story checks out, I’ll always question the information you give me in future. I’ll always wonder if you’re holding something back.”

  To their mutual embarrassment, Pinter looked as though he would break down.

  “What can I do?”

  “Never, ever, lie to me again.”

  Pinter nodded.

  “You have my word.”

  * * *

  Ryan left the mortuary behind him and moved quickly through the corridors, following the signs for the gents toilets. He needed to splash some cold water on his face and clear his head, re-group and figure out where to begin managing three active murder investigations rolled into one. There was little hope of keeping the latest news out of the press, but he needed to call DCS Gregson to update him anyway; perhaps the man’s infamous charm would help to buy them some time.

  Ryan looked up and realised he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere in the rabbit warren.

  “Lost?”

  He turned from his inspection of the signs on the wall to face the doctor he’d met earlier.

  “Doctor Edwards?”

  “Yep.”

  He held out a hand, which Ryan shook briefly.

  “I was looking for the gents.”

  “Use the one through here,” Edwards suggested, leading him through to the staff room. The central area was taken up with cheap round tables and chairs. An assortment of nurses and doctors were sitting flicking through dog-eared magazines and watching the television fixed to the wall in the corner. To Ryan’s mind, it could have easily been the staff area at CID Headquarters, minus the smell of shepherd’s pie.

  Beyond it, there was a small locker room lined with tall metal doors on either side.

  “Straight through here and on the left,” Edwards told him.

  But Ryan lingered.

  “Joan mentioned you’d only recently joined the team,” he said, watching Edwards select a locker and retrieve the key which hung from an elasticated key band at his hip.

  “I transferred back in January, so it’s not all that recent. I was over at North Tyneside General before.” He paused. “Mind if I get changed? I’ve been in these scrubs for hours.”

  “Sure,” Ryan murmured. And then, “Have we met before?”

  Edwards looked over his shoulder.

  “I don’t think so. Have we?”

  “I thought we had. Perhaps I’m mistaken.”

  Suddenly, it came to him. Keir Edwards’ face was the one John Dobbs had used for his online dating profile. They’d assumed it was a stock image, but Dobbs had lifted one from much closer to home.

  “Did you have much to do with John Dobbs?”

  Edwards shrugged into a fresh shirt.

  “The guy who
killed himself?”

  “Yes, he was a healthcare assistant here.”

  “Oh, right, John. Yeah, we were all quite surprised when we heard what happened,” Edwards said, and gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “Sorry. Long day.”

  “So, you knew him from on the wards?”

  “Yes, although I hardly noticed him. That’s an awful thing to say, considering the bloke killed himself,” he added, pulling a face.

  “But honest,” Ryan murmured, watching him bend down to tie the shoelaces on a pair of running shoes. “How about Nicola Cassidy? Did you know the girl who died this afternoon?”

  Edwards moved on to the other foot.

  “Sort of. I recognise the name from one of my class lists,” he said. “I teach a couple of classes at the university and I think she was in one of them. I’m afraid I didn’t recognise her when she was brought in. It was only when Sebastien mentioned her name that I realised.”

  He paused, resting his forearms on his knees.

  “As a doctor, I give my life to healing people, or trying to. It’s the worst part of the job, having to walk away like I did today.”

  “What did you make of her injuries?”

  Edwards scrubbed a hand through his hair and shrugged.

  “Thorough. Practised.”

  He stood up and reached for his rucksack and car keys.

  “Whoever did that to her really took his time. Is there anything else you need, Chief Inspector? I can stay a bit longer?”

  “No, thanks. That’s fine for now but we’ll be in touch shortly. I’ll need you to provide a formal statement.”

  Edwards nodded, then gestured towards Ryan’s shirt.

  “I’d offer you a change but—”

  Ryan looked down and realised his hands and clothing were covered in Nicola Cassidy’s blood.

  “This will wash off,” he said, raising his eyes again. “It won’t be so easy for the man who killed her.”

  Edwards closed his locker and turned to face him.

  “Whoever killed that girl probably sleeps like a baby.” He flipped his car keys to his other hand and slung his rucksack over his shoulder, preparing to leave. “I hope you find who you’re looking for, Chief Inspector.”

  Ryan smiled.

  “Never doubt it.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Phillips had busied himself in Ryan’s absence tracing Nicola Cassidy’s last known address and next of kin. He had taken preliminary statements from several of the staff who had worked to save her and, by the time Ryan re-joined him on the main floor, he was consoling the man who’d ferried her to safety.

  “I-I can’t believe she’s dead,” Greg Iveson was saying.

  He held his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees as he stared down at his scuffed work boots.

  “There, lad,” Phillips said. “You did what you could.”

  “One minute, I was driving along and then, the next—she just ran into the road. I swear, I tried to brake. I tried—”

  He stared hard at the linoleum floor.

  “I think—I need to tell you, I think I hit her.”

  He used the heels of his hands to stem the sudden flow of tears again.

  “You told me,” Phillips reminded him. “I’ve had a word with the doctor, and he says there was no major impact from your van. There isn’t even a dent or a scratch on it and there would have been, if you’d hit her at any speed.”

  Iveson looked up at that.

  “You’re sure?”

  Phillips nodded.

  “She—she was so badly hurt,” Iveson swallowed. “At first, I thought all the blood was because of me. I thought I’d done that.”

  Phillips was silent, lending an ear.

  “I’ll never forget how she looked. Somebody had taken her fingers. And there were cuts all over her body. Who would do that?”

  Ryan stepped forward.

  “We’re going to find out who,” he said quietly, waving the man down when he would have stood up. “And we need your help, Greg. I know you need to talk about what happened, maybe speak to someone at home, but I’m going to ask you not to tell anyone about the kind of injuries you saw. It’s important that we don’t make that public right now. Alright?”

  Iveson nodded.

  “Aye, alright.”

  “There’s something else I need to ask, and this is really vital.”

  Greg’s eyes sharpened, a renewed sense of purpose distracting him from his shock.

  “Of course. Anything.”

  Ryan came to sit beside him.

  “Did she say anything to you, when you found her? Anything at all? Try to remember.”

  Iveson shook his head slowly.

  “The only thing I remember is her trying to speak. She opened her mouth a few times, but she was gasping, and I couldn’t make out any words. I thought, maybe, she was trying to say ‘here, here’, but then she passed out.”

  Ryan tried not to let his disappointment show.

  “Thanks, anyway. You did the right thing today, Greg. Thanks to you, she had a chance.”

  The man’s eyes were pools of sorrow.

  “Can I go home now? I want—I need to go home and see my lass.” And hold her tight.

  Ryan exchanged a glance with Phillips to check he’d already given his statement, then nodded.

  “Sure. And Greg?”

  He waited until Iveson looked up.

  “You aren’t responsible for what happened today. Remember that.”

  “I’ll try.”

  * * *

  There was an army of police surrounding Nicola Cassidy’s garden flat by the time they made the short, five-minute journey from the hospital on foot. They took the route they thought it most likely she would have taken each day from her current placement, which was on the paediatric wards in the main hospital building and the university dental and medical faculties. Small footpaths connected the main roads to the hospital from either side and it would have been an easy commute each day for the woman who wanted to work with children.

  “Her supervisor says she wanted to qualify into paediatrics,” Phillips said, as they passed by the dental and medical faculty buildings. “Says she was a solid student, popular with the patients and staff. They all seemed pretty cut up about it.”

  “We’ll look at all of them,” Ryan said shortly. “Anyone who ever knew her or worked with her.”

  “Already got Lowerson on the case,” Phillips said, reaching for a cigarette. “But we’re snowed under as it is. It’ll take weeks.”

  “Everybody works overtime,” Ryan said. “We can’t afford to ease off, Frank. He’s still escalating.”

  Phillips gave him a questioning look.

  “With the first, he had his fun, but it was still a quick kill. Maybe a part of him was still worried about getting caught. But then, there was Sharon. With her, he hit out at the police, at justice. He was less cautious, but he was still in and out of her house in a few hours.” Ryan paused as they stepped around a group of students. “With Nicola Cassidy, he didn’t just spend hours, he devoted days. That’s the next level.”

  Ryan slipped inside the mind of a killer, braving the darkness once more.

  “He must be furious,” he murmured. “She deprived him of the final kill.”

  “We got to her house pretty sharpish,” Phillips said. “If he left anything behind, Faulkner’ll find it. He didn’t have time to clean up after himself, this time.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Here’s hoping.”

  * * *

  His body trembled, both in anger and ecstasy.

  The police had been so close. He’d thought about striking out, about surprising them all and watching them goggle as he offloaded the shackles he wore each day and showed them the man beneath. How he would have laughed to see their astonished faces. It would have been interesting to see how many he could get through before he was overpowered. It might have been worth it, if only to be recognised, for once.

  Above al
l else, he longed to be recognised.

  It was exhausting, the skin he wore each day to blend in with the rest of them. Even more exhausting was the effort he made to socialise, to remember the right faces to make at the right time, and the right words to say at the appropriate moment.

  It had been a shock when he’d seen Ryan at the hospital with his little sidekick in tow. Of course, he had expected them to turn up at some stage, but he’d still experienced a little jitter of excitement. It had been a supreme test, talking to them, playing the part, pretending to care whether the woman lived or died.

  And that had been another shock, he admitted. He’d worried for a split-second whether it had shown on his face as they’d wheeled her in. Had anyone noticed?

  They’d been too busy trying to save her and, ironically, so had he.

  Of course, he’d have made sure something happened. It wouldn’t have taken much to orchestrate an overdose or threaten to kill her mother if she talked before he could finish the job.

  He’d have thought of something.

  As it turned out, the mere sight of him had been enough to finish her off. That brought a smile to his face, followed swiftly by a snarl of anger.

  How dare she leave?

  How dare she leave him?

  True, he’d known the risks of leaving her unattended for too long. The sedative was bound to wear off and with every passing hour he’d worried about the dosage. All the same, he’d never dreamed she would escape. That was a lesson, he supposed, to be tougher in future.

  He’d know better, next time.

  CHAPTER 21

  When Ryan stepped inside Nicola Cassidy’s garden flat, he could still sense her killer’s presence. Beneath the human faeces and infected flesh, beneath the rotting food in her tiny kitchen, he could smell his essence following them from room to room like a spectre.

  They found Tom Faulkner standing in the doorway of her bedroom holding a sketchbook and pencil in his gloved hand.

  “No camera?”

  His pencil stilled, then continued to fly across the page.

  “Sometimes it helps to visualise what happened,” Faulkner explained. “I’ve taken photographs, too.”

  He didn’t bother to add that the process of drawing was cathartic. He was as human as the next man, and some days were harder than others.