Execution

FOUR

To Harry Tate, the Major Trauma Centre at London’s King’s College Hospital in Camberwell looked no different than on previous visits. It was nearly five p.m. on a normal weekday — or, at least, a normal weekday for those not confined here by circumstances outside their control. Yet as he walked through the main entrance, there was a discernible air of unease about the place, as if its pulse was beating a shade faster than normal.

A security guard at the entrance watched him check in at the unit’s main desk, and another nodded as he crossed the floor to the stairs. Both men had the ex-forces look about them, with that born-in-uniform appearance it’s hard to lose. Harry made his way up two floors to where another guard was sitting behind another desk. Also ex-military, this one was younger and looked edgy. He jumped to his feet at the sound of footsteps, straightening his jacket.

Along the corridor, two men in suits were talking in subdued tones. Beyond them was a line of red-and-white chequered tape strung between weighted plastic bollards. The men looked towards Harry then turned and walked away.

He gave the guard the patient’s name and showed his MI5 pass. It was out of date, but he doubted the guard would notice. None of his colleagues had.

The man consulted a list on the table and nodded. ‘I’ll have to ask you to stay inside the tape, sir. And don’t go anywhere but the room you’re visiting.’

‘Fine. What’s going on?’

‘I can’t say, sir. Thank you.’ He handed over a visitor’s badge on a clip, his face carefully blank. ‘If you’d return that before you leave?’

Harry walked down the corridor, forced by the tape to stick to the right-hand side. Turned the corner and saw the two men just disappearing into a room on the left down at the end. The tape ended there, secured to a hook in the wall. A bundle of bed linen lay crumpled on the floor just outside.

As the door closed, he caught a glimpse of another man inside, and heard the rumble of voices followed by the flash of a camera.

He shrugged and stopped outside the room where a former MI6 officer named Clare Jardine was recovering from a wound to the stomach. She’d been shot saving his life, although he doubted that had been her real intention. Even so, he figured he owed her the occasional visit, whether she liked it or not. The last one had been about ten days ago, before setting off on another assignment. She hadn’t been pleased to see him. Prickly by instinct and nature, it was what he’d come to expect of her.

He pushed open the door.

The room was empty.

He walked back out to the nurses’ station. There was nobody in sight save for an Asian man mopping the floor and humming. He continued on to the desk down the corridor.

The guard shook his head. ‘Sorry, sir. I don’t have anything to do with patient movements. Maybe she’s been discharged.’

‘She couldn’t have been; she’s not well enough.’

‘Like I said, sir, I wouldn’t know. You’ll have to check downstairs in Admin.’

Harry looked back down the corridor, at the tape strung between the bollards. ‘She wasn’t caught up with what’s going on here, was she? Those men and the tape. . something happened. Was she part of it?’

‘I can’t say, sir.’ He held out his hand for the visitor’s badge.

But Harry hadn’t finished. He turned and walked back towards Clare’s room.

‘Sir?’ The guard’s voice echoed after him. ‘Can you come back, please?’

Harry ignored him. Pushed open the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him. If the guard got really excited, he had only a few seconds before help came.

The bed had been stripped, leaving no sign that it had been occupied recently. Neither was there any of the usual monitoring equipment that seemed to be in every room here, and which he’d seen on previous visits.

He crossed quickly to the bed and checked under the mattress. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but he was being driven by instinct. Something had taken Clare Jardine out of this room, he was certain of it; what it was he had no idea. But part of his former job with MI5 had involved tracing missing persons. Looking for the smallest clues left behind by their passing was as instinctive as breathing.

Nothing under the bed. He checked the wardrobe, a slim, utilitarian model. Nothing there. The bedside cabinet was open and empty. On his last visit it had contained a plastic powder compact in a shocking shade of pink. It had been an ironic gift from Rik Ferris, his colleague and also a former MI5 officer. It was an acknowledgement of the fact that Clare had used a knife blade concealed inside a metal compact and saved their lives from the Bosnian gunman who had shot her. Clare liked cold steel.

The irony was that she didn’t do pink — and she didn’t do plastic. Neither had she any love or respect for Rik Ferris. It was a chemical thing. In spite of that, she had kept the compact. The fact that it was gone told him that she had left of her own free will.

The door burst open and the security guard came barrelling in. Behind him another man loomed in the corridor, bigger and meaner. Neither looked ready to take no for an answer.

‘I think you’d better leave, sir,’ the first guard said, and held the door open wide. He was breathing heavily. ‘Otherwise we call the police.’

Harry walked past him and out into the corridor, just as the door across the way opened and a head popped out. It was one of the men in suits he’d seen earlier. He eyed Harry, then the guards, assessing details, before retreating inside without speaking.

Harry walked back downstairs, shepherded by the bigger guard, and explained his problem to an admin assistant on the front desk. She tapped her keyboard, checked a couple of screens, then looked at him with an air of studied patience.

‘Well, her name’s on the list. Are you sure you went to the right room?’

‘Yes. I’ve been here three — no, four times. Upstairs, turn the corner, second room from the end on the right.’ He jerked a thumb at the guard. ‘He can tell you.’

He received a doubting look and a shrug in return. ‘Well, I can only go by what it says here. Sorry.’ She turned back to her work.

‘Can I talk to the nurses on duty while she was here? They’ll confirm it.’

The assistant shook her head. ‘That’s not allowed.’

Harry took out his card. ‘In that case, let me speak to your supervisor.’

The assistant took the card, and without looking at it stood up and walked away, her back rigid. She returned moments later with a large man in a smart suit and rimless glasses, checking his watch with a faint scowl of impatience.

‘Mr Randolph’s the unit manager,’ the receptionist announced, and disappeared behind her monitor with a smug smile.

‘Can I help?’ Randolph glanced at the card. ‘Mr Tate.’

‘Did she explain the problem?’

‘Uh, no. What’s your query?’

‘My query,’ Harry replied patiently, taking back his card, ‘is that a patient I’ve been visiting is no longer upstairs in the trauma ward. Jardine C — female.’

‘Really?’ Another scowl, this one at the assistant. He shuffled behind the desk and tapped the keyboard. More taps and huffing, watched by the assistant who yawned and stared balefully at Harry. ‘She was here, you say?’

‘Yes. About ten days ago when I last saw her. The nurses on duty then will remember.’

‘That won’t be any help, I’m afraid.’ Randolph seemed relieved to have found another hurdle to throw in his way. ‘Following a review of resources, most of the staff from two weeks ago have been rotated to other duties.’

‘So that’s it? You lose a patient and can’t tell me anything?’

Randolph stretched his chin out and sniffed. ‘It’s not that simple, sir — and we don’t actually “lose” patients here. I’m sure there’s an explanation. Have you checked the. . uh, patient’s home address? Maybe she discharged herself.’

‘With a gunshot wound to the stomach?’ Harry’s voice dropped to a dangerous level. ‘Are you serious?’

The guard clamped a heavy hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘Excuse me, sir.’

Harry turned and looked him in the eye. It was enough to make the man back off.

Randolph, the seasoned bureaucrat, interjected quickly. ‘Mr Tate, there are hundreds of patients passing through this hospital at any one time. Perhaps you should address your concerns to the appropriate authorities.’

‘Authorities? What the hell does that mean? You’re in charge — so I’m asking you.’

‘That unit — the one upstairs — is, strictly speaking, under the control of the Ministry of Defence. Because the patients are nearly all military, the consultants and staff have specialist responsibilities. We merely supply a service.’ He looked rather pleased with that summary and glanced again at his watch. ‘Look, I must go — I have a staff meeting waiting.’

Harry recognised the dead hand of officialdom guiding the man’s attitude. He wasn’t going to get anywhere here. Better to go higher up, to someone who might know something. The one person who knew Clare Jardine’s background.

Richard Ballatyne.