‘Hang on, hang on,’ Stacey said, standing beside him. ‘Let’s say Cordell chose to save his son’s life over his own. Explains why he was so easy to move around. There was no force involved. He’d accepted his own death in place of his older boy, who ended up dying anyway.’
Penn followed her train of thought. ‘And, what if Nat Mansell was given the choice of herself or her mother and she chose to save herself?’ he asked.
Stacey was horrified. ‘You think she could do that to her own mother?’
Penn shrugged. ‘Her mum was getting on, in an old people’s home. Maybe she thought she deserved the chance to live more. Didn’t she say about having to live with the choice she’d made?’
‘Yeah but she didn’t have to live with it for very long, did she?’ Stacey asked, returning to her desk and throwing some search words into Google.
‘We’re missing something,’ Penn said, pacing in front of the board. ‘If he’s giving them a choice of who dies, and they die anyway, then it’s really not a choice at all.’
‘Bingo,’ Stacey cried out.
‘Huh?’ Penn said turning.
‘It does make sense,’ Stacey said, turning her screen towards him. ‘If after making such a horrific choice between his wife and child, the one he saved died anyway.’
One Hundred One
The call from Stacey rang through to her mobile as she and Mitch reached civilisation.
She stood away from the lift to take the call as Mitch motioned that he was going back upstairs. His proximity down in the bowels of the building had unnerved her and made her realise that she didn’t always know people as well as she thought she did.
‘Go on, Stace,’ Kim said.
‘Boss, we don’t think Mancini is our guy.’
‘What’re you talking about? It’s been confirmed that the blood found on the glove is Cordell’s,’ she stated, with no real conviction. There was a buzzing in her stomach that she couldn’t ignore.
‘You said think outside the box, and we found something.’
‘Tell me,’ Kim said.
By the time her colleague had finished speaking, Kim had forgotten the blood completely.
‘What’s his name?’ she asked.
‘Don’t have it yet, boss. His details are tied up in legal, but I hope to have—’
‘So, you’re saying that Cordell and Mansell were the people that gave the guy the choice. They took him into a room and made him choose between his dying wife and his dying child?’
‘It’s looking that way,’ Stacey said, and Kim could hear her tapping.
‘Just those two?’ Kim asked, doubtfully.
Stacey’s voice sounded over the noise from her fingers. ‘I’m sure there would have been a hospital representative…’
Kim turned cold.
‘Stace, tell me right now. Who else was in that room?’
But Kim already knew.
‘Err… it was the Operation Medical Director. A woman called Vanessa Wilson.’
One Hundred Two
Kim banged hard on the admin block door. It would either bring Vanessa scurrying out of her office or a security guard to tell her off.
She knew which one she preferred but it wasn’t the one she got.
‘Excuse me, but…’
This guy looked like he’d slept in his uniform, with creases across the middle and a tea-stained tie.
She shut him up by presenting her ID.
‘Where’s Tyrone?’ she asked. She’d felt the two of them were becoming quite close.
‘Finished his shift for the day.’
‘Where’s Vanessa?’ she asked, urgently.
He shrugged. ‘She’s not in there. It’s all locked up for the weekend.’
Kim had a sudden, terrifying thought.
‘Did Vanessa have her child with her today?’
He frowned, ‘I’m sorry but what does that have?…’
‘A lot. Now get on your radio and find out,’ she demanded.
He radioed through, and after a brief pause the voice confirmed that Vanessa had arrived at nine with her child.
Kim tried to stop the panic and think logically. Right now, she had no idea if Stacey’s theory was even correct. Despite all the forensic evidence against Giovanni Mancini, there was something in her gut that had connected with this new information.
Some sicko was making people pay for a choice he’d had to make. If Stacey was to be believed, Cordell had been offered the choice of himself or his eldest son. He had committed the one selfless act of his life and chosen to die instead of his son, thinking he was giving his own life to save Saul’s. But Saul had died anyway. Nat Mansell had been given the same choice and had chosen to save herself. Her mother had been killed and then so had she. So, two of the people involved were already dead, and Vanessa had been in the hospital with the person she loved most in the world and was nowhere to be found.
But maybe the killer hadn’t known that. Perhaps Vanessa had left right after the disciplinary to take her sick child home or to a doctor’s appointment.
‘Sorry, but can you find out for me what time Vanessa left?’ Kim said, trying to calm down.
It shouldn’t take too long to work back through the camera footage. She said a silent prayer that Vanessa and her child had left the building.
He went to key the radio and then changed his mind.
‘I don’t need to check with control for that,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Cos I started my shift fifteen minutes ago and I parked right next to her car.’
One Hundred Three
Kim scrolled to Stacey’s number and pressed.
‘Stace, tell me you’ve got something,’ Kim said, urgently. ‘Because I’ve got an unaccounted for Medical Director who has her six-year-old daughter with her.’
Kim tried not to show her frustration but she was beginning to feel like a cage was being erected around her. What she wanted to do was hit the fire alarm button and alert everyone to the fact that Vanessa and her child were missing and possibly in danger, but this was a hospital, filled with sick people on ventilators and heart monitors. Patients in operating theatres and treatment rooms. She couldn’t throw an entire hospital into an emergency situation because someone was missing.
‘`I need a name… something… anything to help me identify who the hell I’m looking for.’
‘I’m trying, boss,’ Stacey answered, breathlessly. ‘Give me just another few seconds. I’m close to accessing the legal…’
‘Hey, David, hang on, I might need you,’ Kim said, as the security guard began to walk away.
He turned and rolled his eyes. ‘Fine, but my name isn’t…’
‘Got it,’ Stacey said, excitedly. ‘You’re looking for a thirty-five-year-old man named Richard Chance.’
‘But how the hell am I supposed?…’ her words trailed away as she looked at the name badge of the security guard.
The events of the week flashed before her eyes and she remembered something Bryant had told her.
‘Stace,’ she said, quietly. ‘Does Richard Chance have a middle name?’
She didn’t need to wait for Stacey’s answer.
She already knew the name of the man she was looking for.
One Hundred Four
Bryant thanked his guide and passed through a refreshment area with vending machines, a sink and a few wooden tables and benches. The Sun and Daily Star were strewn between empty plastic cups and crisp packets.
He opened the locker door of Angelo Mancini by snapping the tiny padlock. His was labelled second one down in a tower of four lockers all lining the walls of a plain, brightly lit functional space. The crude labels were simple sticky squares. Some had been overwritten with the previous name scribbled out. Some had been written directly onto the metal and some had been stickered over and over again, causing Bryant to wonder at the rate of staff turnover.
Inside Angelo’s locker he saw an old tee shirt, a can of deodorant,
a spare pair of rolled-up socks and a car magazine.
He moved along the row until he found Giovanni’s locker. There was no padlock and the door was ajar by about an inch. He opened it cautiously and took a breath. On the inside door was a topless woman astride a motorbike but it was what lay inside that had caused his breath to pause.
Beside a blue microfibre cleaning cloth was the photo of Cordell’s two sons, taken from the photo frame used to smash the doctor around the head.
He took it out and looked at it for a second. The final piece of the puzzle. Indisputable proof that the man they had in custody was responsible for at least three murders and possibly a fourth.
He heard the unmistakeable sound of footsteps approaching from the refreshment room.
‘You all done, officer?’ asked his guide.
‘Yep, all sorted, mate. Thanks for showing…’
Bryant’s words were cut off as Giovanni Mancini’s locker door smashed against his head.
One Hundred Five
‘He’s not answering,’ Kim growled as Bryant’s phone went straight to voicemail for the third time. ‘Where the hell is the locker room?’ Kim asked the guard.
‘It’s right at the other end of the building,’ he said.
Her fast walk turned into a trot. David had already called the control room and alerted them but her mind wouldn’t slow down. All staff members within radio contact were now looking for Vanessa and her daughter.
‘If we get to the next staircase, it’ll take us all the way down,’ he said.
Kim nodded her agreement, but something was tugging at her mind.
Cordell had chosen to die, so he had died first and his son later. If Nat Mansell’s choice had been to sacrifice her mother, the older lady had died first and Nat Mansell after.
Kim didn’t need to think about Vanessa’s choice. She would give her own life for her child. There was no doubt in her mind about that.
So, he would kill Vanessa first and then go take care of her daughter.
Her legs slowed.
‘Come on, it’s along the next hall,’ he said.
Yes, she knew it was and even though every muscle in her body ached to follow him to the stairwell and go after her colleague, she knew she couldn’t do it.
If she made the wrong decision now Bryant would never forgive her and she would never forgive herself.
‘We need to find the child,’ Kim said, slowing down and turning left.
‘But how are we?… I mean, where?…’
Kim had a sudden thought.
‘I think I know where he’s put her,’ Kim said.
‘How would you know that?’
‘Because it’s where he took me at the beginning of the week.’
One Hundred Six
Bryant focussed through the pain in his head to stare into the face of Terry, the red-tee-shirted volunteer.
‘What the?…’
‘Stay still, or I’ll hit you again,’ he said in a voice that Bryant didn’t recognise.
They had talked amiably as Terry had shown him to the locker room. They’d chatted about the weather, about the hospital, and Bryant had never suspected a thing.
But his voice was different now; cold, hard, emotionless.
He tried to think through the fog that was bearing down on his mind from the bang to the head. What the hell did Terry have to do with anything? He was an invisible, someone who moved around the hospital unnoticed by staff, patients and public. Was he trying to help or protect Giovanni Mancini? Nothing was making sense to him.
A sudden cry sounded from the other side of the room.
Bryant squinted his eyes and saw Vanessa Wilson, tied and gagged against the opposite wall.
‘What the hell is?…’
‘I’m going to give this bitch a chance to apologise before I cut her throat,’ Terry said, reaching down and ripping the gag from her mouth.
Apologise for what? Bryant wondered, trying to understand this alternate reality in which he’d found himself. For a second he wondered if he had woken up, but the throbbing from the back of his head confirmed this was no dream.
‘You bastard, where’s my daughter?’ Vanessa spat.
‘She’s safe,’ he said. ‘For now.’
Bryant was desperately trying to play catch-up but realised he was running a completely different race. He knew this man had knocked him out but he had no clue why.
‘Come on, bitch, tell him what you did. Tell him how you ruined my fucking life.’
‘Richard, there was no way we could save…’
‘Fuck off,’ he cried, kicking her ribs, hard.
She cried out with pain as her body fell to the side.
Who the hell was Richard? Bryant wondered watching the exchange between the two of them and trying desperately to understand.
‘You didn’t even try. You gave me the choice: my wife or my child,’ he cried. ‘You quoted statistics, fucking numbers at me while my wife lay dying on the operating table. All three of you gave me percentages and mortality rates when I couldn’t even think. That’s all we were to you, just numbers. You wanted me to make the decision; you wanted me to make the choice. You told me my child would have the better chance.’
Terry glared at her as she held her side and coughed. ‘Who the hell can make that kind of choice?’
Bryant tried to keep up while appraising the room. It was clearly no longer used as a ward but would once have held four beds judging by the equipment on the wall. A metal bin sat beside a small hand basin next to which was a door.
And why was she calling him Richard? His name tag referred to him as Terry, which was doing nothing to help Bryant’s confusion; but he knew one thing for sure. If he was in the room and having trouble trying to work it out, his team didn’t stand a chance. He was on his own and no one was coming.
His boss knew he’d gone to check the lockers but he’d been knocked out and had no clue where he was now. The hospital was a warren of corridors and staircases, dead ends, and outdated wards not used any more. They’d never find him.
‘Okay, so there’s no point wasting any more time,’ Terry said, moving towards Vanessa.
‘But what about your baby?’ Bryant asked, trying to keep up. He’d said something about a choice between his wife and child.
‘Two weeks,’ he whispered. ‘And then my son died anyway.’
‘Wait,’ Bryant said. ‘Give her another chance.’
Terry shook his head.
‘No, she’s already made her choice.’
One Hundred Seven
‘Open the door slowly,’ Kim instructed, standing beside the door to the empty office.
David produced what looked like a master key and slid it into the lock.
The room was in darkness. Kim remembered a light cord to the left of the door. She reached for it and pulled. Nothing.
No light and no sound.
Kim’s heart rose in her throat. If she was wrong about anything at all then the child might already be dead.
‘Mia,’ she said, stepping into the small space.
Nothing.
She took another step as a torchlight from David shone past her and began to search the room.
A whimper sounded from the darkest corner.
Thank God.
‘It’s okay, Mia. My name’s Kim and I saw you yesterday in your mummy’s office. It’s okay, you’re safe now,’ she said, as David’s torchlight found the child.
Mia’s small body was folded into the corner, her legs pulled up, a small pony toy clutched to her chest.
The one that Bryant had played with.
Bryant.
Kim ached to turn away and go searching for her partner, but the child before her trembled with fear.
‘It’s okay, Mia. You’re safe now,’ she said, lowering slowly to her knees. She heard voices at the door, asking David what was going on, and thankfully one of those voices was female.
‘Mummy… I want Mummy,’ the child whimpered a
nd squeezed the pony tighter.
‘Mia, do you know where the man took your mummy?’
The girl whimpered louder and shook her head.
Kim moved forward and touched her leg gently.
‘Mia, there’s a nice lady behind me who is going to look after you while I find your mummy, is that okay?’
The whimpering stopped. ‘You’ll find my mummy?’
‘Yes, sweetie, I’ll go find mummy but I need to make sure you’re okay. Can you come with me so I can go look for her?’
Kim held out her hand, and the child took it.
Kim gently pulled the girl to her feet and brought her closer towards her.
David’s torchlight stayed on them both.
Kim held the small hand loosely and guided her towards the door.
Kim glanced at the woman in the security uniform questioningly, wondering why she was breathless and there at all.
‘Panic alarm,’ she said, pointing to the cord Kim had pulled. ‘Linked to the control room.’
Kim nodded to the woman and then turned to the child.
‘This lady is going to take you somewhere safe while I go and find your mummy, Okay?’ she said, letting go of the small hand, trying to keep the urgency from her voice. Vanessa Wilson was not the only person she was desperate to find. Bryant was in the hands of someone who would stop at nothing to get his revenge on the people he felt were responsible for the death of his family. And even worse, her colleague had no clue what was going on.
The woman took the girl’s hand. ‘Oh, my daughter has that exact same pony,’ she said, guiding the child away.
Kim turned to the security officer.
‘Okay, David, where are these locker rooms and how do we get there fast?’
One Hundred Eight
With both his hands and feet bound, Bryant did the only thing he could think of to get Terry’s attention.
Fatal Promise: A totally gripping and heart-stopping serial-killer thriller Page 26