Chapter 54
By the time I got inside, into the sickly yellow light, Wilkinson had vanished from sight – he must have started running himself after he got through the doors.
He’d been on the right-hand side of the area, though, so I banked on him taking the corridor that led off that way.
I jogged quickly past the humming vending machines, glanced left to be sure – saw nothing – and took the right-hand corridor.
I knew this route well already. It was the quickest direction to take for the maternity ward on the fifth floor – which was close, I presumed, to the special care baby unit where Wilkinson’s son was being cared for.
The lifts …
I ran harder, but got there as the doors slid shut – just too late to jam my fingers between them. I punched the ‘call’ button over and over, but it was no use. The lift was starting on its way up. I hammered on the closed doors anyway, and shouted –
‘Tony!’
– then remembered the stairs, two doors further down the corridor, and set off again, reaching them a few seconds later.
I slammed through into the echoing stairwell, and headed up, skipping steps, using the bannisters to swing myself round at each small landing.
Counting off the floors, trying to imagine myself keeping pace with the lift, even though I couldn’t possibly be.
Still not sure what was happening here.
At the fourth floor, I half collided with an orderly trotting down, footfalls echoing.
‘Hey!’
I was already past him, plunging upwards.
‘Police.’
I hit the fifth floor and pulled open the door, realising as I did that I’d slipped my phone in my pocket without disconnecting the call. As I moved in the direction of the lift, I picked it out.
‘Laura, I’m still here. Are you – ?’
‘What the fuck’s going on?’
‘Don’t know yet. Get back-up to the hospital. Wilkinson’s here, and something’s not right. He saw me and started running.’
I reached the lift: the doors were open. Empty. Wilkinson hadn’t passed me, so he’d probably gone further on. Down towards the maternity wards.
‘What? You mean Tony Wilkinson?’
‘Yes.’ I started off. ‘I don’t know what’s going on. But Professor Joyce said Marie Wilkinson was an anomaly. She was the only person killed inside – and the only murder the killer messed up too. Not sure why Wilkinson’s run, but there’s something going on with him. And he’s in here somewhere.’
I didn’t wait for a reply – just pushed the phone back into my pocket and concentrated on where I was going.
The maternity ward: that was where Rachel was.
The door was magnetically sealed. You needed to push a button and give your details over the intercom to get in.
Wilkinson had no business going in there. He wouldn’t even be allowed in.
But I had to check she was okay.
That they were.
I buzzed the intercom for the maternity ward. A second later, the door opened without check. Christ. There was no way Wilkinson could know about my wife and son, but perhaps he had panicked, tried to hide. I had to make sure.
I held up my badge at the first nurse I saw.
‘Police. Nobody in or out now except me, understand?’
‘What?’
I gestured behind me, angry. ‘Lock that door. Keep it locked. Anybody entered in the last few minutes?’
‘No …’
She wasn’t sure.
‘Keep it that way.’
I headed around the corner. There were various internal wards here, all open, and I’d left Rachel in the nearest one last night.
There were six spaces, three to each side, all divided off from each other by green curtains.
She was in the middle on the left, and the curtains were closed across the front.
I found the join, moved it to one side and peered in.
Rachel was lying on her back, sleeping. Her head was tilted to one side, mouth slightly open, covers gently rising and falling. In the cot beside the bed, our son was sleeping too, almost mirroring her position. So small and vulnerable. But both of them were okay.
Relief – illogical but real – flooded through me.
‘Stay safe,’ I whispered.
Then I closed the curtains and ran back to the entrance, where the nurse I’d spoken to was standing guard.
‘Nobody in,’ I repeated. ‘Nobody out.’
‘I know.’
‘The police are on their way.’
Back out in the corridor, I headed down to the special care baby unit – realising that of course Wilkinson wouldn’t have gone after Rachel.
That was the whole fucking point. He didn’t know my wife had been pregnant, and that was why he’d reacted the way he had outside.
I’d known he had a reason to be here, but he could only think of one possible explanation for my presence. He’d thought I must be here for him.
I still didn’t understand why. Regardless, he’d run from me. He’d come back for …
The special care baby unit.
Obviously, this door was also sealed. I buzzed the intercom and waited.
A moment later, the intercom crackled and – once again – the door simply opened.
I pushed in quickly. As I entered, I reached under my jacket and unclipped the button on my gun holster.
Not retrieving the weapon. Just being ready if I needed –
You won’t need it.
But I might.
The reception desk was a little way down, past a number of closed doors. Two nurses were stationed behind it, and I pulled out my badge as I reached them.
‘Wilkinson,’ I said. ‘Where is he?’
The nurse nearest to me folded up her newspaper slowly, perhaps shocked by my sudden entrance.
‘What – ?’
‘Tony Wilkinson.’ But she still looked blank. I struggled to remember what he’d said when we interviewed him. ‘The baby’s called Jake. Is he here? The father, I mean.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Has anyone come in over the last couple of minutes?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Flustered, she checked a sheet she’d found, then gestured back the way I’d come. ‘Jake Wilkinson is in five-two-oh-two. It’s just back that way.’
‘Keep the main door sealed. Nobody out.’
I moved to the room she’d indicated, stood to one side of the frame, then turned the handle and pushed the door open in one quick gesture.
‘Wilkinson?’
He wasn’t here.
I stepped inside. It wasn’t a big room – little larger than the curtained-off bed space I’d left Rachel in down the corridor.
Jake Wilkinson was lying in a Perspex crib at the far end, on his back, limbs splayed, sleeping peacefully.
Around him, various pieces of machinery monitored the tubes and wires attached to his body.
I was shocked by how tiny and weak he looked.
My son, although born later, was technically the same age and yet twice the size.
Do you know what Marie used to tell me about Jake?
I remembered Wilkinson’s tear-stained face when we’d talked to him in the suite.
She used to say that she couldn’t wait to meet him.
What I’d thought at the time, but not said, was that at least he had his son. That as horrible as it was, it could have been worse.
And yet he hadn’t come here.
I headed back out, closing the door gently behind me. A doctor was coming down the corridor from reception, a worried expression on his face.
‘Let me out,’ I told him, holding up my badge again. ‘The police are on their way. Don’t let anybody else in until they get here. Nobody.’
He buzzed the main door open for me, and I stepped out into the corridor, wondering what the fuck to do now. Wilkinson had to be here somewhere. We’d have to lock down and search the whole building. God only knew what he’d –
That was when I heard the screams.
They were coming from the direction of the lift. I reached it seconds later. Several people were bunched here: nurses and doctors, surrounding a figure lying on the floor, working urgently. Another woman was standing to one side, dressed in overalls, holding her mouth in shock.
‘Police,’ I said. ‘What happened?’
The doctors working at the figure on the floor ignored me. The woman – a janitor, I realised – lowered her hands.
‘The storeroom,’ she said. ‘He just … burst out.’
I looked towards where she was gesturing: a storeroom, full of mops and buckets and blankets, its door hanging open. Right opposite the lift.
The doors were closed. He was gone.