‘Okey dokey,’ she said, simply.
He returned to the internet and carried on looking for nursery rhymes containing the word ‘Doctor’.
The next listing in his search came from ‘An Apple a Day’.
He read through the rhyme.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Apple in the morning, Doctor’s warning.
Roast apple at night, Starves the Doctor outright.
Eat an apple at bed, knock the Doctor on the head.
Three each day, seven days a week, ruddy apple, ruddy cheek.
He read it again and then learned that it was suspected of being parental propaganda to get children to eat their greens.
But it really hailed from the sixteenth century and a deep distrust of doctors, advising they should not be trusted.
Something stirred inside his stomach. A memory. A snippet he’d heard just recently on the news or in a newspaper.
He ran a search on doctors and trust and got nothing.
He ran a second search on doctors and malpractice suits and found what he was looking for.
He read the half-page article twice and then without hesitation he reached for the phone.
Chapter One Hundred Two
‘Dawson, what the hell are you talking about?’ Kim asked, putting her mobile on loudspeaker so Bryant could hear. They were approximately two miles from the target area in Romsley.
‘I think you’re going to the wrong place,’ he urged.
‘The two words that start that sentence do not convince me to change my mind,’ she snapped. Her adrenaline was running high as they got closer to Gloucester Street.
‘Please, just hear me out. So far our killer has left clues that allude to nursery rhymes that have a darker meaning behind them. There’s no darker meaning I can find anywhere behind the “Doctor Foster” rhyme. It’s about some guy falling off a horse into some water and never going back there again. It doesn’t make sense for him to change his pattern now.’
A mile and a half.
‘Dawson, I think we’re going to stick—’
‘One more minute, boss. There’s a different rhyme about an apple a day. It’s all about the mistrust of doctors, of them not being the pillars of society they’re supposed to be. It was a warning not to put too much trust in them, to try and resolve health issues without—’
‘Dawson, how the hell does this help me right now?’
‘There was a private clinic, boss, The Willows, just outside Quinton. Three doctors, all cosmetic surgeons…’
‘I’m hanging up now, Dawson,’ she said. She couldn’t listen to this any longer. She had to start forming a strategy for when they reached Gloucester Street and they had one mile left.
‘Boss, the place went out of business eleven months ago. Doctors were sued for all kinds of things both medical and admin. based but especially of sharing personal details of their clients.’
Half a mile.
‘Boss, at the final court case just two months ago the judge said it was the worst case of trust abuse he’d ever seen by any doctor. The newspaper headlines screamed that line.’
A quarter mile and they were going to be at the point where Gloucester Street met the reservoir.
‘Dawson…’
‘The whole clinic is abandoned now, boss. It’s a totally empty site, derelict and perfect if you don’t want anyone to hear the screams.’
Kim thought about the details on the wipe boards back at the squad room and everything Dawson had said. She considered how long he’d spent working this lead and what they had learned because of it.
They were one street away from the location they’d been speeding towards and she had to make a decision. Now.
She held the phone away for a second as she made up her mind.
‘Bryant,’ she said, ‘we need to turn the car around.’
Chapter One Hundred Three
‘Can you just put me on to someone who can give me the information?’ Stacey shouted down the phone.
She’d been passed from one unhelpful voice to another at the out-of-hours call service that she’d been forwarded to when she’d called the emergency number for Doctor Lambert’s surgery.
Each time she had tried to explain that she had no medical emergency she’d been put on hold and shunted to another operator. She understood that the operators were probably prioritising her against people who were calling with serious ailments, but she wasn’t going to keep anyone talking for long.
Call centre healthcare was something she couldn’t quite fathom. She imagined the operators sitting at tiny cubicle desks with headsets staring up at target-oriented wipe boards of how many people they could convince that they would be fine until the surgery re-opened in the morning.
‘I don’t want to hear the data protection laws again,’ she said to the next voice that answered. ‘I’m a police officer and I know them pretty well, but if someone doesn’t tell me soon where Doctor Lambert has been sent on a call-out I’m pretty sure he’s gonna die.’
Silence.
Finally. Maybe some assistance.
‘Excuse me, madam, but did you just threaten me? These calls are recorded and…’
‘I said the doctor is going to die. He’s in danger so will you?…’
The line went dead again. Stacey recognised the sound that came out of her mouth as a growl.
She was about to throw the phone down into the cradle when another voice came on the line.
‘May I help?’ asked the female voice cautiously.
Stacey threw back her head in frustration as she began to tell the story again.
‘My name is Detective Constable Stacey Wood and we have reason to believe that Doctor Lambert may be in danger and that the call received by yourselves was a bogus…’
‘One second, officer,’ she said.
Stacey expected the line to die again in her hand, but instead she heard the dialling of another phone. She also heard a generic voicemail kick in.
A pause before the woman did it again and got the same result.
‘Strange,’ she admitted. ‘We’re getting no response from the patient’s phone either.’
‘Because they’re not a patient,’ Stacey explained. ‘The call was made by someone with a grudge against Doctor Lambert, who has lured him out to a—’
‘Number 24 Cedar Close, in Belle Vale. That’s where he was called to.’
Stacey thanked her and ended the call.
‘So you got an address?’ Dawson asked, with a glint in his eye.
She reached for the phone. ‘Yeah, I’m just gonna call…’
‘Right, the boss is on her way to a potential crime scene in action and right now we don’t know for sure if Doc Lambert is even involved. You have the address that the call-out service sent him to, and if you want to speak to them again and ask them to make contact, be my guest but I don’t think the boss will welcome a progress report right this minute. You want to rethink?’
Stacey’s patience was wearing thin after the phone conversations and she was in no mood for long speeches or cryptic questions.
‘What the hell do you suggest I do, Einstein?’ she snapped.
For the first time all week she saw a genuine smile.
‘You wanna come with me for a ride?’
Chapter One Hundred Four
Kim was counting down both the miles and minutes as Bryant drove. The satnav on her phone had told her they’d been eleven minutes and 4.6 miles away from Quinton, and each passing minute was torture.
For just one second she’d considered telling Dawson and Stacey to head towards the site in Quinton. They were one mile closer, but her dynamic risk assessment of the situation had persuaded her otherwise. She didn’t know either of them well enough to be sure of how they’d react to a potentially dangerous situation, but what she did know was that Dawson was unruly and impetuous and Stacey was inexperienced and at her most comfortable behind a desk.
Neither of those things were deal bre
akers for her as team members, but for first response to a serious crime in action those qualities could get either or both of them killed. Not something that would go down well on her first week assessment.
She had briefly considered calling Woody and asking for backup. She played the request in her head;
Sir, I think I need assistance at a site where I think torture and murder might be about to take place to a doctor I’ve never met by a handyman of whom I have not one shred of physical evidence but the nursery rhymes say so.
He would politely refuse the reallocation of resources and issue her with a direct instruction to return. Which she couldn’t do if she was hoping to save a life and catch the person responsible for six other deaths. No, any further assistance at this point was not an option.
If Carl Wickes had persuaded his brother to impersonate him during questioning then this murder was going to happen tonight. It had to happen tonight, but she didn’t have the time to try and explain her certainty of this to anyone. She only knew that he had guessed they were on to him and he was still desperate to add another victim to his tally.
It was just her and a man she had known for four days against a killer whose thirst for blood was increasing by the hour.
She glanced sideways at her colleague as she took out her phone and typed in a search of The Willows. She couldn’t read his expression in the darkness of the car. She realised that she barely knew the man beside her any better than she knew the other two.
But right now, he was all she had.
Chapter One Hundred Five
‘Jeez, slow down, Dawson,’ Stacey said, hanging on to both the door handle and the underside of the passenger seat. As someone who had been terrified her whole life of taking driving lessons this experience was not instilling her with confidence.
‘Come on, you can’t tell me you’re not getting a buzz out of what’s going on right now. And if you’re not then you’re in the wrong job,’ he said, taking a bend at what felt like sixty miles per hour.
‘Have you forgotten that there’s a man’s life in danger here?’ she asked.
‘And we’re involved in trying to save it,’ he said, taking another corner at speed.
Why the hell had she agreed to come with him in the first place when she could be watching or co-ordinating events from the safety of the office? It was almost 11 p.m. and she could no longer remember what had happened today and what had happened yesterday. In fact, the whole week was rolling into one long shift.
If she gave him her honest answer she’d say she was having the time of her life, but she was keeping that fact to herself. There was something obscene about them both rejoicing in current events. People had died.
He turned another corner and slowed into Cedar Close.
‘You wanna bet that’s his car?’ Dawson asked, pulling in behind a grey Range Rover a few spaces away from the address to which the doctor had been called.
‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
Dawson turned off the engine and thought for a second. ‘We knock the door.’
‘Dawson, do you know what time it is?’
‘Lights are still on.’
Stacey had already seen the outline of ice blue flashing Christmas lights behind thin curtains. That didn’t make it any more acceptable to frighten the life out of people. Late night door knocks never brought good news. ‘You could still cause someone a heart attack knocking their door at this time of night.’
‘You don’t think the boss would want to know if Doctor Lambert is in there tending sick folks right now?’
She opened her mouth but it was not a point she could argue with.
‘I’m just not comfortable…’
‘Bloody hell, Stacey, man up or woman up, whatever. You go check around the car, see if the doors are open while I go and ask.’
Stacey got out of the car and approached the vehicle. Her heart hammered in her chest with the unnerving feeling that she was doing something wrong and the police were going to arrive any minute. Her actions would look suspicious to anyone taking a glance out of the bedroom window before closing the curtains.
She watched as Dawson knocked quietly on the door. It was answered within seconds by a bearded man who towered over Dawson. The facial hair did nothing to hide the look of annoyance on his face.
‘Sorry to disturb you at this—’
‘There’d best be a fucking good reason for—’
‘Sir, have you called a doctor to this address this evening?’ she heard Dawson ask with more politeness than she’d heard from him all week.
She shrank back against the side of the car and then jumped away in case she set off the alarm.
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Thank you. That’s all we needed to know. Is that your car?’ he asked, nodding her way.
The man looked beyond him. ‘I bloody wish. Now fuck off.’
‘Thanks again,’ Dawson said, moving away from the door which was already closing in his face.
‘Anything, Stacey?’ he asked.
She moved towards the driver’s door and reached for it. Her palm instantly recoiled from the metal as she felt a cool stickiness on her hand.
‘Dawson,’ she said, holding her palm upwards.
He took out his phone and shone it towards her.
There was no mistake.
Her hand was covered in blood.
Chapter One Hundred Six
Kim’s trepidation was tempered with relief as they pulled up outside the clinic building. A car was already parked. A Mondeo Estate that had been at the shelter both times they’d visited. And both times Curtis and Carl Wickes had been present.
Dawson had called it right.
Now she had proof. Now she could request backup without losing her job or being called back to the station.
She got out of the car. Her colleague followed.
‘Bryant, call it in,’ she said, stepping towards the car.
She quickly surveyed the area. The last house they’d passed was half a mile back down the road and the abandoned facility lay on the outskirts of Woodgate Valley Country Park: a 450 acre site previously made up of rural land and smallholdings.
From the aerial view she’d seen on Google Maps and the now defunct website, the facility was split into two distinct sections. To the east lay the administration, maintenance and welfare functions and to the west were the treatment rooms and a surgical theatre. A reception suite linked the two sides.
As she heard Bryant giving their location she stepped towards the car. She touched the bonnet. It was still warm. Thank God, they might have a chance.
She tried the door handle but it was locked. What kind of murderer had the bloody foresight to actually lock their car while escorting someone to their death?
She peered into the darkness of the car but could see nothing.
She beckoned Bryant over and motioned a clicking action while he continued speaking.
He took his torch from his pocket and handed it to her. She shone it through the front windows and saw nothing but bits of rubbish. She shone it on the rear seats and two things caught her attention.
In the foot well of the rear passenger seat was a medical bag and the seat was stained with blood.
Damn it, the doctor was already injured and she was willing to bet it was some kind of bang to the back of the head.
She looked longingly towards the glass door to the reception area that had clearly been breached.
She knew full well it would be foolhardy to enter the premises. There were two of them and support was being requested. Training and experience told her they should hold tight and ensure that the killer could not get away. Wait for more officers, form a plan to cover the area while keeping it secure. Flush him out. Safely.
‘Okay, guv, backup is on the way. ETA is eight to ten min—’
‘Ugh, what the hell?’ she said, lifting up her shoe.
A squashed apple lay beneath her foot.
&nb
sp; An apple a day.
Suddenly the image of an innocent man being tortured and made to suffer flashed through her mind. Backup would not arrive in time. If she waited patiently for the agonisingly slow eight to ten minutes to pass Doctor Lambert was going to die. They might get their man but another life would be lost. And this one had done nothing wrong.
She turned to her colleague. ‘Okay, Bryant, I’m going in.’
Chapter One Hundred Seven
Despite her best efforts Bryant had insisted on entering the building with her. She had tried to dissuade him but the time she was wasting arguing with him could be better spent trying to save the life of their potential victim.
‘Okay,’ Kim said, once they were inside. ‘We need to divide this up. You head around the admin. block and I’ll head to surgical.’
‘Okay,’ he said, thrusting his hand forward. ‘But you take the torch.’
She considered arguing some more but took the torch.
‘You got phone signal?’ she asked.
He took out his phone and nodded.
‘Me too. You find anything at all, just ring. No need to speak but just call my phone.’
‘Will do, guv,’ he said, using his mobile as a torch and heading off towards the double doors leading to the facilities block.
She shone the torch around the space. Behind the reception desk sat a couple of chairs and a small filing cabinet with the drawers pulled out.
She gasped out loud as something scurried past her right foot and past a metal cupboard marked ‘Incident Post’. It hadn’t taken the local vermin long to move in. A building infested with rats didn’t thrill her, but she wouldn’t let it stop her either.
She turned the torch to the floor onto mauve carpet with random spots. She looked closer and cast the torch in a wider arc. The pattern was too random to make sense.
She leaned down and touched one of the larger droplets and brought her finger to the torch. Damn, the doctor was still bleeding.
First Blood: A completely gripping mystery thriller (A Detective Kim Stone Novel) Page 23