Retribution

ELEVEN

The Major Trauma Centre at King’s College Hospital in Camberwell, south London, was unusually quiet when Harry walked through the front entrance and checked in at the front desk. The receptionist smiled in recognition but still checked his details and logged him in before nodding him through.

He knew where to go.

He walked up two flights of stairs and made his way to a corridor lined with side wards. A security guard sat at the end behind a small desk. He checked Harry’s details again and nodded him through. The air was cool and smelled faintly of lemons. There was none of the medical detritus common to many hospitals; the better, he had decided, to hurry patients out of their rooms to emergency theatres without having to run the obstacle course of trolleys, unused wheelchairs and spare equipment.

In this place, speed was essential and taken as read.

His footsteps echoed along the corridor. Each room had specialist monitors bleeping quietly or displaying figures Harry didn’t pretend to understand, each linked to a person who had suffered gunshot or similar trauma. Each room was its own small universe, but one where survival was not a given.

He stopped outside the second door from the end just as a nurse came out carrying a tray covered by a cloth. She smiled sympathetically and closed the door behind her. It was a signal to him to wait.

‘Any change?’ he asked. The last time he’d been here a few days ago, there had been no reaction, just the steady breathing of sedated sleep.

‘Some,’ she replied. ‘She speaks occasionally, when it suits her. Mostly she doesn’t. But she’s on the mend. . if she wants to be, anyway.’

Harry knew that this nurse, like her colleagues in the unit, was a specialist in treating the Centre’s patients. Part of their remit was to take more than a strictly post-operative and clinical interest in their charges. For most of the inmates, coming round after severe wounds and surgery was to encounter a set of circumstances they could never have envisaged. They were awaking to face a lifestyle that would bear no resemblance to anything they had known so far, a future that was at best uncertain. It required a certain specialized approach by the staff.

‘You think she doesn’t want to?’

The nurse tilted her head to one side. ‘Hard to say. She doesn’t give any indication one way or another. She knows she’s got a fight on her hands, though. The instinct is there in everyone, so we can only hope.’

‘Any other visitors?’ He asked the same question each time.

‘No. A couple of men dropped by after your last visit, but I wouldn’t classify them as sympathy callers.’ A lift of an eyebrow showed she knew official visitors when she saw them.

Probably Ballatyne’s men, he thought, checking that the patient wasn’t stealing the cutlery.

‘Can I go in?’

She nodded. ‘Of course. Don’t stay long, though. She needs lots of rest.’

Harry hesitated, a question forming that he hadn’t wanted to ask before. ‘Is my coming here helping or hindering?’

The nurse looked at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘I know you’re not her boyfriend or anything,’ she said shrewdly. ‘But I’m guessing you have a. . connection?’

‘She saved my life,’ he said simply. And got shot in the process, he wanted to add. Her last words then had been to ask for his help. Would anyone have asked that if they didn’t have the instinct to live?

‘In that case,’ the nurse said, ‘I think it helps.’

He nodded his thanks and opened the door. As he stepped inside, the woman on the bed shifted slightly, sensing his presence. Her head swivelled on the pillow.

He still wasn’t sure whether Clare Jardine hated him or not. Maybe she just hated everyone. He walked over and stood looking down at her.

‘I didn’t bring any grapes or stuff,’ he said. ‘And flowers aren’t your thing, are they?’

Clare licked her lips, which were dry, and flicked a glance towards the bedside cabinet holding a jug of water and a pad of cotton wool. It was a mute request for a drink. There was nothing of a personal nature from outside: no flowers, no magazines, no cards. Just the water.

Harry dipped the cotton wool in the jug and touched it to her lips. She nudged forward, trying to get more of the liquid, but he pulled it away. He’d had instructions before about what was permissible, and drinking wasn’t.

‘Bastard,’ she whispered. But there was a flicker of something in her eyes that had not been there for a while.

She was tough, he knew that. And dangerous, with a predilection for cold steel. A former member of MI6, she had shared the Red Station posting with him and Rik Ferris after being embroiled on the wrong side of a honey trap with a foreign agent. Rik had been caught hacking into highly sensitive security and political files. Nobody had thought to mention that they were not meant to come back alive.

He pulled up a chair and sat down, his eyes coming level with the shelf of the cabinet. Inside was a bright pink powder compact. Harry smiled. An ironic gift from Rik Ferris. They weren’t friends, but it had been significant because Clare had helped save Rik’s life, too.

At least she hadn’t had it thrown out yet.

‘I called by,’ he began casually, as if they were old friends, ‘because I might not be in for a bit. It looks as if I’m being drawn into something I can’t get out of.’

No reaction. She wasn’t even looking at him. Her breathing was low and measured.

‘I know how much you value these scintillating chats of ours,’ he continued, ‘and I wouldn’t want you to think I was ignoring you if I don’t pop by for a while.’

‘Don’t let me keep you, then,’ she whispered, the sound raw, like sandpaper.

‘Great,’ he said cheerfully. ‘So we are talking. That’s nice. Shall I tell you about this new job? Well, it’s not really a job yet, but I’ve got a feeling it’s about to be.’ No reaction, so he ploughed on. ‘You know you get an instinct about some things? Of course you do — you’re ex-Six: you get injected with instincts when you join, don’t you? Well, I’ve got a feeling this one’s going to be nasty.’ He was rambling deliberately, hoping for a response. Anything was better than none, even insults. She didn’t disappoint.

She moved her head slowly and looked at him. Her eyes were cold, dark, empty. ‘Fuck off, Tate.’