Carver

57

Bronglais General Hospital, Aberystwyth

It was 1.15 P.M. when the helicopter landed on a patch of open ground on the western edge of the University of Aberystwyth campus, close to the National Library of Wales complex. The hospital was just a couple of hundred yards away, and Carver was already out of the helicopter and walking across the grass, past groups of startled students, before the pilot had cut the engine. He made his way to the intensive care unit, flashing his ‘Andy Jenkins’ Ministry of Defence pass at the receptionist, and walking straight by. A young, uniformed female PC was stationed outside the room where Deirdre Bull had been taken.

‘My name’s Jenkins,’ Carver said, showing her the pass. ‘I need to speak to Deirdre Bull.’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘That won’t be possible. No one’s been allowed in there. Not even us.’

‘I understand,’ said Carver. ‘But my boss has spoken to your boss. And I mean your Chief Constable. Go ahead and check.’

The policewoman had a brief conversation on her radio. ‘Well, that seems to be in order,’ she said. ‘But it’s not really a police decision. You’ll have to ask Dr Fenwick. He’s the one who can help you.’

‘I see. And where can I find Dr Fenwick?’

‘Right here,’ said a voice from behind Carver’s back.

Fenwick was a short, black-haired man. He placed himself between Carver and the door to Deirdre Bull’s room, and glared at him like a surly guard dog. ‘I’m not at all happy about you, or anyone else, speaking to Ms Bull,’ Fenwick said. ‘She’s suffered very serious injuries and considerable loss of blood, followed by a lengthy operation. She’s a very sick woman indeed.’

‘Well, I’m very sorry for her,’ said Carver. ‘But this is a matter of national security.’

Fenwick looked at him disdainfully. ‘National security is not my concern. Patient welfare is.’

Carver gritted his teeth. Fenwick was no more than five feet eight inches tall, mildly overweight, and presumably untrained in any form of combat, whether armed or unarmed. The temptation to give him an educational slap was all but over whelming. But Grantham had told him to use his charm, so, fine, he’d try that. Well, up to a point he would, anyway.

‘You’ve heard about what happened at Rosconway this morning?’

Fenwick grimaced impatiently. ‘Yes. What of it?’

‘We believe the woman in that room there may be able to give us vital information about who was responsible. The death toll’s over two hundred, in case you hadn’t heard. Hundreds more injured. So if patient welfare is your concern, perhaps you’d like to tell all the people who are sitting in hospitals all over Wales, waiting to discover if the men and women they love are going to be all right, why this woman is so bloody precious. I was at Rosconway, Dr Fenwick. I saw it happen. So please, do me a favour… don’t talk to me about patient welfare.’

It might have been Carver’s oratorial skills that did the trick, or just the intensely intimidating coldness of the gaze he fixed on Fenwick. But in any event, the doctor briefly relented: ‘All right, but make it quick. Now,’ he went on, regaining a little self-confidence and looking right back at Carver, almost daring him to try something, ‘I’m going to observe you. If you are in any way hostile or threatening to this patient — if you so much as raise your voice — I’m ending it, immediately. And I’m her doctor. So I don’t care who you are, or what you’re really up to. As long as you’re in my hospital what I say goes. Got it?’

‘Absolutely. Let’s do it.’

Fenwick opened the door, and led Carver into the room. Deirdre Bull was lying with an arm and a leg in traction. Her head was bandaged. She had an oxygen mask on her face and a drip attached to her right arm. A monitor beside her bed tracked her pulse, blood pressure, temperature and respiration. She looked at them blearily through heavy, barely open lids, spaced out on painkillers that would be making it almost as hard for her to think straight as to move.

Carver’s spirits sank. The woman was even more wrecked than he had feared. But she was the only surviving member of the terrorist gang that anyone had been able to find, so if he couldn’t get anything out of her, there wasn’t anywhere else to go.