Lewis, Ryan knew from what Crash had told him, had been having doubts and spending too much time with Alice – as far as Ryan was concerned, he should not have spent any time with her. The moment he woke, and the police spoke to him, Lewis would tell them everything he knew, to protect Alice from his partners, and the possibility that they might try again to kidnap her, or worse.
Crash, on the other hand, would spill the beans to the police to save himself.
Ryan guessed, with a grim certainty, that the first words out of Crash’s mouth would be ‘I want to make a deal’, and he didn’t doubt that the police would be more than happy to agree to one, which might even include immunity from prosecution, once they heard what Crash had to say.
Ryan would have liked to believe that both of his partners would die before they could wake and cause him any more problems; he didn’t think his luck was that good, however. Since he had no intention of just sitting back and waiting for the police to come for him, he pushed himself to his feet, dropping the bottle on the seat behind him to spill its contents, not that he cared about that. From the top drawer of his desk he grabbed his switchblade, which he shoved into a pocket on his way out of the room, though only after he flicked it open briefly to check the blade was still sharp. It was a nice weapon, with a good, five-inch blade, that he was sure would come in handy.
The front door swung shut with a bang that was loud enough to draw the attention of the two constables at the gate. Ryan was oblivious to the curious looks as he made his way around to the garage so he could get behind the wheel of his mother’s silver Jaguar XK8, the car he hadn’t long returned home in. He was in less of a fit state to be driving than when he left the club, but he didn’t care about that, nor did he care that there were multiple witnesses to him driving under the influence, and without a license; all he did care about was fixing his problem.
The crowd in the road scattered as he raced through the gates opened by the constables – he didn’t doubt that that would end up in the papers and on the news, but that was something else he didn’t give a damn about that, he had far more important things to worry about.
How long it took him to get to the hospital, not to mention how he managed to get there without crashing his mother’s car, Ryan didn’t have a clue. Not a single instant of his trip through the streets sank into his brain, and he only became aware of things around him again when he got out in the car park at the side of the hospital.
As he squeezed past a middle-aged couple, the wife/girlfriend supporting her partner, who was hobbling and wincing with every step, he realised he didn’t have a clue where to find either Crash or Lewis. A large sign on the wall at the rear of the foyer solved that problem, however – it told him on which floor each department could be found. Since he knew from the constable at the house that both of his partners had been seriously hurt, he came to the obvious conclusion that they were in the ITU, which, according to the sign, was on the third floor.
His next problem was not knowing which room or rooms Lewis and Crash were in, but that was solved when he reached the ITU and saw a uniformed constable outside one of the rooms, obviously on guard. Solving that problem, however, only led to another – how he was to get past the constable and into the room. He retreated to a vending machine he had passed and bought himself a very inferior cup of coffee and a Mars bar, both of which he consumed while considering his dilemma. His thought processes were blurred by the alcohol he had drunk that night, but by the time he reached the end of his coffee he had an idea, one he hoped would work.
Tossing his rubbish into the nearest bin, he smoothed the creases in his iridescent shirt, rounded the corner, and strode briskly down the corridor. He stopped when he reached the constable, and looked pointedly at the door under guard.
“Can I help you?” Constable Flowers asked of the man before him. He assumed he had found his way there by mistake, and was probably there with a friend, who had gotten injured while out clubbing.
“Yeah, I’m Ryan Keating, Inspector Stone asked me to come down and take a look at the two men they caught, to see if I recognise either of them,” he said, glad he was able to keep any hint of an alcohol-induced slur from his voice. “There’s some suspicion that one of them might be a former employee of my father’s, but the inspector doesn’t want to disturb him.”
Flowers considered what Ryan Keating had said for only the briefest of moments before nodding; from what little he knew of the situation, there was nothing wrong with what he had just been told. “If you can identify them,” he said, “it’ll be a great help. There’s a third kidnapper still out there somewhere, apparently, and the inspector is eager to find out who these guys are in case they can lead to their partner.” As he spoke, he opened the door so he could enter the room ahead of Keating. “They’re both still out of it, and the doctor can’t say when they’ll wake.”
Ryan paid almost no attention to the constable as he followed him into the room, he was far more interested in getting his switchblade out of his pocket without being noticed; unfortunately, the sound of the blade locking into place drew the attention of the constable, who started to turn, forcing him to take immediate action.
He reached around to clamp a hand over the man’s mouth, to keep him from raising an alarm, at the same time he raised his knife to stab it down into the constable’s neck, where it joined the shoulder. His hand smothered the constable’s cry, which was equal parts an exclamation of pain and a plea for help. Blood spurted when Ryan yanked his knife free, some of it hitting him in the face, then he stabbed the blade down again.
The constable went limp, and Ryan quickly lowered him to the floor. When he tried to pull his knife free, he found that it wouldn’t move, it was stuck, and wouldn’t shift, no matter how hard he wrenched at it. He gave up on his efforts to retrieve his knife after a few moments, and vented his frustration by kicking the constable in the ribs; since the action prompted no reaction he concluded that the man at his feet was dead, which suited him.
After delivering another sharp kick to the uniformed figure, who remained unmoving, he made his way to the nearest of the two beds. Without hesitation, he yanked the pillow out from under the unconscious Lewis’ head and placed it over his face; with a determined look on his own face, Ryan pressed down on the pillow. He didn’t know how long it would take for him to suffocate his former partner, but he figured the machine Lewis was connected to would tell him when he was dead, so he kept an eye on the monitor, watching the line that showed the heart rate.
What he hadn’t thought of, and what he realised he should have, was that the machine would sound an alarm when Lewis’ heart-rate dropped below a certain level. Because his thoughts were still clouded by alcohol, he was caught by surprise when the alarm suddenly sounded, filling the room with noise. The pressure he was exerting on the pillow lessened as his mind raced, and he tried to decide what he should do; his options were limited, and quickly became reduced to just one as the door burst open to reveal a nurse, who stood there, looking in shock from the pillow he was holding over Lewis’ face to the immobile form of the constable on the floor.
Ryan froze, just like the nurse, startled by the arrival so soon after the alarm began, but he was the first to recover. With a sudden, savage move, he hurled the pillow across the room; despite the strength with which he threw it, he realised the pillow was unlikely to harm the nurse, except in the most bizarre of circumstances, but that was not his intention. All he wanted from the pillow was a distraction, and that was exactly what he got.
As the nurse raised her hands to bat away the pillow, she took her eyes off Ryan, who took advantage of her lack of attention. He barrelled into her, his shoulder lowered as though he was on the rugby field and heading for the goal line, and threw her back against the doorframe. She collapsed to the floor as Ryan raced from the room and down the corridor to the stairs he had ascended not long before.
Ryan hurtled down the stairs as rapidly as possible, his footsteps e
choing loudly. Several times he slipped and almost fell, each time he caught himself just before he went tumbling head over heels. It would be better and safer for him if he slowed, but he had no intention of doing so, not when he could hear the shouts of alarm coming from the floor he had just left, and thundering footsteps approaching the stairwell where he was.
The door he had just passed was thrown open to crash into the wall with a boom that snapped Ryan’s head around in time to see a uniformed security guard appear on the second-floor landing. The guard lifted his radio from his belt to his lips the moment he saw Ryan to report his discovery, at the same time he moved to give chase.
Ryan thought about stopping and dealing with the security guard, but quickly changed his mind and increased his speed. He leaped the last half dozen steps and reached out for the bar on the door. He threw open the door and left the stairwell at a run, almost colliding with the security guard who was hurrying towards him; he twisted sharply to avoid the hand that reached out for him, which brushed past his sleeve, making his heart lurch at the close shave. Adrenaline flooded his system in response to the fright as his fight or flight reflex was triggered, giving him the impetus to race away down the corridor towards the foyer and the exit.
60
Stone was dozing in the passenger seat, while Burke drove him home, when his radio squawked. The sudden noise woke him with a sharp protest for the pain generated by him sitting up abruptly and being restrained by the seatbelt; his protest took the form of a stream of profanity that lasted for almost half a minute. Once he had calmed down a little, he lifted the radio to his lips, ignoring the amusement he could see in his partner’s face, which made him want to either say something or punch him in the arm.
“Stone.”
“Nathan, it’s Frank, where are you?” Sergeant Wells asked.
Stone glanced at his partner, whose expression revealed he was wondering what had happened, just like his superior. Neither of them thought for a moment that the radio call signalled anything good, not after the way things had gone over the last few days, and especially that day. “I’m heading home,” he answered. “What’s up? Has Collins decided I’m not allowed sleep till the case is finished?” he asked in a light-hearted tone.
“You’d better head back to the hospital,” Wells said, not a trace of humour in his voice.
“What’s up?” Stone repeated the question, certain now that something new had happened, and that it was not something good.
“There’s been an attack.”
With one ear, Burke listened to what Sergeant Wells was saying, while the rest of his attention was focused on the road ahead. He didn’t waste time digging out the light from under his seat, the streets were all but empty, and having the flashing blue light on the roof would not enable him to speed all that much, he was already at fifty miles an hour, and going any faster would be dangerous.
It took less than ten minutes for them to make it back to the hospital, and once there Stone released his seatbelt, threw open his door, and got out, ignoring the pain that such rapid movement caused. His face set, he strode round the car and made for the hospital’s entrance, Burke just a pace or so behind him. They were spotted the moment they entered the reception, and were quickly joined by Sergeant Silvestre, who was the senior uniformed officer on duty at the hospital – as the senior officer, prior to the arrival of the inspector, she had been stationed outside Alice Keating’s room, a position she had surrendered to a constable, with two of the hospital’s security guards a short distance away as backup, while she co-ordinated things and waited for Stone to return.
“Okay, Milly, tell me what’s going on,” Stone instructed the sergeant. “Frank said someone attacked Constable Flowers, and tried to smother one of the kidnappers, before escaping.”
Silvestre nodded. “We don’t know exactly what happened,” she admitted unhappily. “Right now all we know for sure is that the alarm went off on the heart monitor attached to the guy with the gunshot wound; Nurse Regan was the first person to get there, reaching the room within moments of the alarm sounding - she found Constable Flowers on the floor, a knife sticking out the back of his neck and a puddle of blood under his head, and a young man standing over the kidnapper, a pillow pressed to the guy’s face.
“The would-be killer threw the pillow at Nurse Regan and then barged past her. He took the stairs down, chased by one of the hospital’s security guards, evaded another when he reached the ground floor, and ran out through here and round to the car park. He got away,” she finished, the frustration she felt at the failure to capture the would-be killer evident in her face, not that Stone could blame her for feeling that way, or for the escape.
“Do we have a description of him, or the car he escaped in?” Stone asked, mentally crossing his fingers.
“The car is a silver Jag, but we only have a partial plate number, Frank’s running it now; as for the guy, I’ve spoken to Nurse Regan and the two security guards who chased him - he’s about six foot, slim to medium build, mid-length brown hair, styled, and he was dressed in smart, dark grey trousers and a smart shirt, purplish in colour. They couldn’t describe him any better than that, unfortunately, but there’s CCTV footage to be checked through that might help with a more accurate description.”
“It’s a start,” Stone said positively, “especially combined with the partial plate number. How’s Constable Flowers, and the guy our mystery man tried to suffocate?” he asked, changing the subject. He wondered who the mystery man might be, and why he had tried to kill the kidnappers. His natural compassion made him ask after the kidnapper who had nearly been killed, but he found himself unable to care on quite the level he knew he should; the man was, after all, responsible for taking a girl from her family and holding her against her will for more than forty-eight hours.
“No real harm done to the kidnapper,” Silvestre said in a studiously neutral voice. “Flowers, though, he’s lucky to be alive. He was stabbed twice and lost a lot of blood, he’s in surgery right now – there’s concern that his spine could have been damaged, but we won’t know for sure for a while yet.”
Stone opened his mouth to respond to that news, before he could, the radio on Silvestre’s belt crackled into life and she snatched it up. “Milly, Frank,” the duty sergeant identified himself. “Got a make on your car, it’s registered to Mrs Maria Keating, wife of Owen Keating, mother of…”
“Thanks, Frank.” Silvestre didn’t need her fellow sergeant to finish what he was saying - she knew who Maria Keating was the mother of.
“I think we should have been looking closer to home for our third kidnapper,” Stone said, surprised by the speed with which his mind was working just then, given how tired he was.
Burke’s brow furrowed as he regarded his superior; it took him a few moments to realise who Stone was referring to, though the bewildered look on Silvestre’s face made it plain that she remained in the dark, and when he did he found him disagreeing with the conclusion. “Don’t you think it more likely that he tried to kill them because they kidnapped his sister?” he asked. “I imagine that would be the reaction of most brothers, under the circumstances, and it is definitely understandable.”
Stone shook his head. “Given the arguments we’ve overheard the last couple of days between Owen Keating and his son, I can’t imagine that Ryan would act in a protective manner towards his sister. The suspicion is that Ryan Keating is on the verge of being written out of his father’s will – losing his inheritance would be a very good motive for Ryan to kidnap his sister, he needs the money to maintain the life he’s used to.
“Is Owen Keating still here?” he asked, turning his attention back to Silvestre.
“Yes, sir, he should still be in his daughter’s room,” Silvestre said, struggling to understand what the two detectives were talking about.
61
Ryan spun the wheel and raced around yet another corner, his fifth, or maybe it was his sixth, he couldn’t remember, since leavi
ng the hospital. Once he had made sure he wasn’t going to rear-end anyone after taking the corner at more than fifty miles an hour, his eyes moved to the rear-view mirror. He was just in time to see the police car that had been dogging him for the past couple of streets reappear, still three car lengths behind.
He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he had been hoping that his sudden turn would lose his pursuer, or at least gain him some space, which he could take advantage of.
Frustrated by the continued presence of the police car on his tail, Ryan pushed his foot down on the accelerator, making the powerful Jaguar leap forward and opening the gap between the two vehicles. As he raced down the road he realised where he was, and his hands tensed on the wheel in readiness to take the next turn, which would enable him to head out of town and begin his flight in earnest – where he would go, and what he would do once he got there, were things he would have to consider another time, just then avoiding ending up in a police cell were more important.
The closest route for him to take to get out of town meant passing close to the farmhouse where his sister had been held. He had enough sense to realise that he would have to take an alternative, if longer and more complicated, route, or risk getting himself stuck on the dual carriageway, rather than the route he was close to; the police were almost certainly still at the farmhouse, and he was sure they would be scrutinising every vehicle that went past, especially those that did so at such an hour and at speed.