Private Games

Chapter 88

THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS, and smells of St Thomas’s Hospital unnerved Knight in a way he did not expect. He hadn’t been back in a medical facility of any sort since Kate’s body had been taken to one and it made him feel disorientated by the time he and Pottersfield reached the intensive-care unit.

‘This is what she looked like when they found her,’ the Metropolitan Police officer guarding the room said, showing them a picture.

Farrell was dressed as Syren St James, filthy in the extreme, and looking as dazed as a lobotomy patient. An IV line hung from one hand.

‘She talking?’ Pottersfield asked.

‘Babbled about a body with no hands,’ the officer said.

‘No hands?’ Knight said, glancing at Pottersfield.

‘Not much of what she said made sense. But you might have a better chance now that they’ve given her an anti-narcotic.’

‘She was on narcotics?’ Pottersfield asked. ‘We know that for certain?’

‘Powerful doses, mixed with sedatives,’ he replied.

They entered the intensive-care unit. Professor Selena Farrell lay asleep in a bed surrounded by monitoring equipment, her skin a deathly grey. Pottersfield went to her side and said, ‘Professor Farrell?’

The professor’s face screwed up in anger. ‘Go away. Head. Hurts. Bad.’ Her words were slurred and trailed off at the end.

‘Professor Farrell,’ Pottersfield said firmly. ‘I’m Inspector Elaine Pottersfield of the Metropolitan Police. I have to speak with you. Open your eyes, please.’

Farrell’s eyes blinked open and she cringed. ‘Turn off lights. Migraine.’

A nurse closed the unit’s curtains. Farrell opened her eyes again. She gazed around the room, saw Knight, and looked puzzled. ‘What happened to me?’

‘We were hoping you could tell us, professor,’ Knight said.

‘I don’t know.’

Pottersfield said, ‘Can you explain why your DNA – from your hair, to be exact – was found in one of the letters from Cronus to Karen Pope?’

The information was slow to penetrate Farrell’s fogged brain. ‘Pope? The reporter?’ she said to Knight. ‘My DNA? No, I don’t remember.’

‘What do you remember?’ Knight demanded.

Farrell blinked and groaned, and then said: ‘Dark room. I’m on a bed, alone. Tied down. Can’t get up. My head is splitting open, and they won’t give me anything to stop it.’

‘Who are “they”?’ Knight demanded.

‘Women. Different women.’

Pottersfield was beginning to look irritated. She said, ‘Selena, do you understand that your DNA links you to seven murders in the last two weeks?’

That shocked the professor and she became more alert. ‘What? Seven …? I haven’t killed anyone. I never … What, what day is it?’

‘Saturday, 11 August 2012,’ Knight replied.

The professor moaned, ‘No. It felt like I was only there overnight.’

‘In the dark room with women?’ Pottersfield asked.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘No,’ Pottersfield said.

Knight said, ‘Why did you fake getting sick and flee your office when Karen Pope played the flute music to you?’

Farrell’s eyes widened. ‘It made me sick, because … I’d heard it before.’