Chapter 6
EDINBURGH
‘I like your sister,’ Ruth said after they had left the café and were walking to the car. ‘Her and I should go out more often.’
‘You’ve only seen one side of her. She’s calmed down a lot but she could drink a bottle of vodka for breakfast.’
‘What? No.’
‘You know what I mean. If drinking was a national sport, she’d win gold every time. Her and that group of women she used to go out with. They lived for partying and clubbing.’
‘She doesn’t give that impression.’
Brodie stopped as they reached the car. ‘She’s calmed down a bit over the last few years, but she was wild.’
They drove up to Morningside and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Ruth worked across the road normally, in the occupational unit, which was a wide umbrella for all the departments it sheltered. Hers were substance abuse and grief clinics.
Not dealing with serial killers.
This, the third anniversary of the attack – a date that lingered in his mind every day, he had told her – Ruth sensed a slight change in him. Like something was different. There was an edge to today’s trip out in a prison van.
No visitors were allowed into the secure unit of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital while Dr Gabriel Kane was on the move.
Two armed response units bookended the prison van, while two more marked patrol cars were also in attendance, one at each end.
A patrol car blocked off the entrance to the car park when Brodie pulled up. A young uniformed officer recognised him and let him through. There were Uniforms everywhere, some of them armed.
The hospital was on lockdown, all the patients in their rooms now. Inside, the air was crackling with a mixture of anticipation and stress and, Brodie thought, fear.
Fear that something was going to go wrong. Fear that maybe Kane was going to sneeze or maybe cough and a gun-happy trigger finger would blow his head off.
Detective Superintendent Rob Cross was pacing back and forth, issuing orders that had already been ordered to officers who were nodding their heads and wishing they could have one last coffee before they hit the trail.
‘You’re late,’ he said to Brodie when he saw him walking along the corridor with Ruth by his side.
‘Fifteen minutes early,’ Brodie said. Cross was almost the same height as Brodie, but was broad-shouldered, like he had played rugby somewhere down the line.
‘That’s what I mean,’ he said, locking eyes with Brodie. ‘You’re usually half an hour early.’ He looked at Ruth. ‘Hello, doctor.’
‘Morning, Rob. We stopped off for a roll at Isobel’s place before coming up here.’ She smiled at him. ‘I hope that was okay.’
‘Aye, of course it was.’ Cross knew that he couldn’t stop Ruth from doing that, and he was grateful that she had once again been on board with coming along on what he jokingly called the Helter Skelter Tour. ‘How are Isobel and Dougal?’
‘They’re keeping well. Serving delicious food as always. In fact, if I weren’t watching my figure, I would eat there more often.’
‘Watching your figure? I thought you had him for that?’ He nodded sideways at the big man.
‘Sometimes it’s a two-person job,’ Brodie said.
‘I hear you.’ Cross looked at his watch. ‘Great way to start the week, isn’t it? Monday’s are for easing into the week, not holding this nutcase’s hand.’
‘A necessary evil,’ Brodie said.
‘Right then, let’s get up. We’re twenty minutes past the time we said we’d be up. Lucy’s up there, probably chewing her fingernails off to stop her from stabbing that arrogant bastard.’ DI Lucy Warren, the woman who had saved Brodie’s life.
‘Keeping him on his toes?’ Brodie said.
‘Psychology; he knows that although he’s the one who’s showing us where the victim is, we’re still in charge. I told him earlier in the week that if he starts fucking us around, I’ll call it off, and he’ll be lucky if he’s wiping his arse with sandpaper when I’m finished.’
‘And his reply was?’ Brodie asked.
Cross shook his head. ‘Nothing. He just smiled that psycho smile of his.’
‘He knows he can call your bluff,’ Ruth said.
‘Aye. He knows that if I cancelled, all hell would break loose. The chief constable would have my balls in a jar in her office.’
‘That’s not something I can unsee,’ Brodie remarked. ‘Speaking of which, is the TV news crew present?’
‘They are. They’re upstairs doing a quick interview with Kane.
’ Cross raised a hand when he noticed Brodie was about to complain.
‘The chief herself gave the go-ahead after Wheeler pulled a few strings. Someone knows someone else who is acquainted with the justice minister, and we were instructed to make it happen.’
‘Is Lake up there?’ Simon Lake, hospital director.
‘Of course he is. He was bugging one of the make-up lassies to make sure they took care of him so he would look good on the six o’clock news. I hope if Kane goes off his nut with a sharpened toothbrush, he lets Lake have it first.’
‘Please don’t joke like that, Rob,’ Ruth said.
‘Wishful thinking,’ Cross said. ‘That man’s a pain in my arse.
He’s acting as if he’s running the show, as though this wouldn’t have happened without his go-ahead.
He fails to see that there are people well above my pay grade making these decisions, who make him look like a canteen lady.
’ He glanced at his watch again and signalled to a man in black fatigues. The armed unit commander.
‘Sir.’
‘Chief Inspector Williams, are your team members ready for escort duty?’ Cross asked.
‘All ready, sir, yes.’ Williams looked around at the four-man unit as if to check they hadn’t legged it in the time it took him to come over and talk to Cross.
‘Right. Let’s go up and get Dr Death. Get your team ready, commander.’
They trooped over to the lift and crammed in. On the top floor, there were heavy doors with reinforced glass. They walked along to the first one, were let through and stood in what amounted to a holding area while an operator in a control room opened the next door electronically.
‘Let the fun begin,’ Brodie said as the second door was unlocked.