The Art of Murder

Chapter 48

Pendragon was walking through the lobby of Gemma Locke's apartment block when the call came through from Turner. The traffic was gridlocked on Commercial Road, which meant it took over half an hour for him to reach the hospital. At reception, the same woman Pendragon had seen earlier that day directed him to the Critical Care Wing on the third floor. Turner met him at the swing doors into the ward.

The hospital administrators had gone into overdrive. The other four patients in Intensive Care had been moved to another building, and a dozen others in neighbouring rooms had been shifted to any available space beyond the doors into the ward. This included two elderly men who were forced to share a tiny room usually reserved for doctors needing a quick nap between shifts.

'Who else is here?' Pendragon asked, noticing Sergeant Thatcher and Inspector Towers. The two policemen were questioning a small group of hospital staff huddled in the corridor close to a workstation.

'Dr Jones has been delayed. But Colette Newman and an assistant are in the ICU.'

'And what's that smell?

'I dunno, sir. I noticed it as soon as we got here. It's like burned rubber.'

'Yes, and something else… I can't think what. Anyway, where's the ICU?'

'There.' Turner pointed to a door on the left towards the far end of the corridor.

The single bed containing Gary Townsend's body looked out of place alone in the room. Wires and leads hung from the wall at the other three bays. The machines still attached to Townsend stood mute. The monitor that had once recorded his shallow heartbeat now displayed a flat line. A plastic-suited forensics officer Pendragon did not recognise was dusting for prints along the rails and around the tubes on the far side of the bed. Dr Newman was crouching beside the bed, a test tube in one latex-gloved hand, a pair of tweezers in the other. She was wearing protective lab glasses and a paper mask over her mouth. Turning, she saw the two policemen approach, placed a stopper on the test tube, stood it in a rack inside a metal case on the floor beside the bed, and pulled the mask down to her chin.

'Well, Inspector, the bodies are piling up.'

Pendragon looked at the scientist with a pained expression then took a couple of steps to the side of the bed and peered down at Townsend's disfigured face. He let out a heavy sigh and turned back to Dr Newman. 'Any preliminary findings?'

'We've only been here ten minutes, but it looks like there're a lot of prints around the place… some hair… skin flakes. But then, you'd expect all those, wouldn't you?'

'How quickly can you analyse everything? I'm sorry to seem so damn pushy, Doctor, it's just…'

'No need to apologise. It will be our top priority… don't worry. Now, perhaps if you could…'

'Right,' Pendragon said awkwardly. He tapped Turner on the shoulder and pointed to the door.

Outside in the corridor, Towers was still talking to one of the nurses. The others had gone. Pendragon beckoned him over. 'What have you got?'

'Well, no one saw anything. Whoever got into the ICU set up a decoy.'

'What?'

'A homemade bomb. Feeble and crude, but enough to produce a bit of smoke and get people running around.'

'That explains the stink,' Turner said.

'The ICU sister, Agnes Daniels, insists she and her deputy were only away from the room for a couple of minutes. She got back and heard the buzzer on Gary Townsend's monitor going off. His heart had stopped. She immediately called a doc, but they couldn't revive him. Pronounced dead at nine-twenty-four this morning. She only realised over an hour later that someone had tampered with the computer at her workstation. They'd turned off the personal bleeper that warns her remotely of any patient distress if she's out of this room. She put two and two together, and immediately alerted Security. The call came through to the station about thirty-five minutes ago,' he concluded, looking at his notebook.

Pendragon strode over to Towers. The nurse he had been interviewing was walking away. 'Anything?'

'She was out here in the corridor. Heard a small bang from over there,' Towers pointed to a door a dozen feet away. It was ajar. Pendragon and Turner could just see inside. A forensics officer in a plastic suit was crouching down and prodding at something on the floor.

'They panicked a bit,' Towers went on. 'You know, what with terrorists here, there and everywhere. But then, when they realised it was a toy bomb, they decided it was probably some bloody idiot kids who'd got into the hospital. Security here dealt with it. Didn't bother reporting it to us.'

Pendragon was shaking his head. 'Understandable, I suppose. No one wanted the paperwork. So who else was here at the time of the explosion?'

Towers quickly scanned his notes. 'The Intensive Care sister, Agnes Daniels, and her deputy, Ungani Metubu, were in ICU. Two other nurses, Consuela Manito and… er… Ari Hullano, were out here at this desk.' He pointed to the now empty workstation along the corridor. A junior doctor was passing through on his way to J Ward. A Dr Imhrim Atullah. And there was a specialist due in at nine. But they didn't show.'

'Did they turn up later?'

'Not sure, sir.'

'Well, check then, Inspector!' Pendragon snapped, waving him away. 'Get the ICU sister… Agnes Davies… now!'

'It's Daniels, guv,' Turner said, and regretted it when Pendragon spun round on him.

'Sir, may I make a suggestion?' Sergeant Thatcher said, quickly defusing the situation. 'How about I talk to the staff in the main reception area downstairs? See if they spotted anything unusual this morning around nine.'

'Yes, it's worth a try, Sergeant. And while you're about it, talk to any of the patients who were up and about or at least compos mentis around here this morning, to see if any of them saw anything out of the ordinary. And, you, Turner…' Pendragon went on '… can get all the CCTV tapes from the hospital. There must be cameras in some of the corridors, and there'll be plenty of them outside the building. Get the recordings back to the station and go through them, second by second, between nine and ten this morning.'

Pendragon turned and saw Towers approaching them. Beside him walked a tall, slender woman in dark blue uniform. Resting in the crook of her left arm was a clipboard. She could have been anywhere between forty and fifty-five, Pendragon decided. She had dark eyes, slightly sunken. She looked ill or else extremely tired.

'Sister Daniels,' Inspector Towers said.

The woman nodded brusquely to Pendragon. 'I understand you wanted to know about the specialist.' She had a deep, almost masculine voice and it sounded as tired as she looked.

'Yes, please.'

'He was due here at nine. Still hasn't appeared,' she said, a hint of contempt in her voice.

'I see. Do you have a name?'

She glanced at the clipboard. 'Yes, Dr Hickle. He was Gary Townsend's specialist. But I imagine it's pretty academic now anyway.'