‘I’ve come to see Mr Vincent,’ he said.
‘This must be his lucky day,’ she said. ‘Two visitors—’
‘Two?’ Hepton interrupted.
‘Yes, a young lady arrived half an hour ago to see him.’
‘A young lady? Short fair hair?’
The woman nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that sounds like her.’
‘Is she still here?’ snapped Hepton. He was growing afraid now. What if he had missed them? What if Harry had already whisked Paul Vincent away somewhere... somewhere Hepton couldn’t find him?
‘Well, I haven’t seen her leave. I’ll try Mr Vincent’s room.’ She picked up the telephone, pressed two digits and waited while the extension rang. Then she frowned. ‘There’s no answer. Perhaps they’ve gone to the sun lounge.’ An attendant was coming from that direction. ‘Oh, Roddy,’ she called. ‘Have you seen Mr Vincent?’
‘I thought he was in his room,’ the attendant called back. Hepton felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck.
‘Where’s his room?’ he said.
‘The end of the corridor on the first floor, but you can’t just—’
He couldn’t just, but he already was: he ran to the sweeping staircase, took it two steps at a time, stumbling at the top, and ran along the first-floor corridor. He pushed open the last door he came to and looked in. It was a large, airy room, the walls cream-coloured and the bed a double. Some of Paul’s things were lying about, but not untidily. There was an en suite bathroom, and Hepton paused at this door before turning the handle, expecting the worst.
‘Paul?’ he called. Then he pushed the door and let it sweep open on its silent hinges. But the bathroom was empty. He felt momentary relief, though he couldn’t say exactly what he had thought he would find. Then his neck prickled again. Paul wouldn’t have left knowing that Hepton was on his way. He would have stayed close to his room. He wouldn’t have let Harry take him away without a struggle. Not unless he’d been drugged...
The woman from the front desk was standing at the bedroom door, with the attendant peering over her shoulder.
‘He’s not here,’ she said.
‘So where is he?’ Hepton’s voice was loud, and the woman recoiled a little.
‘The stool from beside the bed’s not there either,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’s taken it into the garden...’
‘I’ll go and look,’ said the attendant, skipping away, glad perhaps of a little bit of action. Hepton was back in the corridor again. He examined the other doors. Three, like Vincent’s, were unmarked. Other bedrooms, he supposed. And one was marked Stores.
‘Where else might they have gone to talk?’ Hepton asked the woman.
‘Well, there’s the television room, of course, but it’s not ideal for conversation. Some of our patients are slightly deaf, and they like the volume turned up. Then there’s the morning room and the library.’
‘Library?’
‘Downstairs. It’s usually empty. But I’m sure I would have seen them go in there. They’d have had to go through reception to get to it.’
‘Would you check anyway?’ The woman seemed doubtful. Hepton tried a smile. ‘Please?’ he said. ‘It’s very urgent that I talk to Mr Vincent.’
She hesitated. ‘Very well then,’ she said, and turned and walked back along the corridor.
Hepton stared into Vincent’s room. Where the hell could they be? Wait, though: a building like this would need a fire escape, wouldn’t it? He walked back along the corridor and continued past the staircase. Just around the next corner was a door marked EMERGENCY STAIRS. He smiled and pushed it open.
He was standing at the top of an enclosed stairwell, its steps winding and made of concrete. There was a window looking out onto the hospital’s rear car park. He glanced at the dozen or so cars and saw the black Sierra parked there. He smiled again. Then he heard a sound from below him. Heels scuffing on stairs.
‘Harry?’ he called. He started to descend, then stopped. There was no sound now from below. ‘Harry?’ he repeated. He listened and heard the sound again. Footsteps, not descending now but climbing. Coming towards him. He was about to approach them, but something about the sound stopped him, something distinctly ominous. The steps were slow and even, and he could hear only one pair of feet. No Paul, then. Only a woman’s heels. Silently he retreated a few steps until he was back beside the door and staring down the twelve or so steps to where the staircase turned a corner. There was a shadow on the wall below him. Then a figure appeared on the lower landing.
Harry.
And she was holding a gun.
Her face was devoid of emotion as she saw him and angled the gun up towards his head. Hepton dived towards the door and yanked it open. He threw himself through it and into the corridor, looking to left and right. He heard Harry’s feet quickening on the stairs behind him and ran back along the corridor. The receptionist was standing at the top of the main staircase.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I’ve looked, but there’s no sign—’
‘Get back downstairs!’ yelled Hepton, startling her. Then he was past her, running towards Paul Vincent’s room. He realised that he should have pushed past her and down the stairs, well away from Harry and her gun. But there were people downstairs, lots of them. He couldn’t endanger all those lives. Very noble, Martin, he thought. But now what could he do? He stared at the door marked Stores. Beneath this sign was a smaller one indicating that a fire extinguisher was located within. Well, any weapon was better than none.
He saw as he approached that the door was ever so slightly ajar. Behind him, he could hear the receptionist. She hadn’t gone downstairs; instead, she had followed him along the corridor. Any second now, Harry would round the corner and be upon them. Hepton pulled open the cupboard door.
His eyes met a pair of legs. They were hanging a couple of feet above the ground, and on the floor lay an overturned stool. Hepton’s eyes started to move upwards, his teeth gritted in growing horror. The body’s arms hung limply; the head lolled at a tight angle. A thin metal tube, almost certainly carrying electrical wires for the building’s lighting, ran the breadth of the large cupboard’s ceiling, and this was what the green garden twine had been tied to.
The green garden twine that was cutting into Paul Vincent’s neck.
His face was purple, eyes and tongue bulging obscenely. Somewhere behind Hepton the receptionist shrieked. He leapt forward and wrapped his arms around Vincent’s legs, lifting them a little higher, then reached up with a finger to pull the twine out from where it had cut into the neck.
‘Get me scissors!’ he hissed. ‘Or a knife — anything that’ll cut this.’
The woman had a small pair of nail scissors in her pocket and handed these to him. After that initial shriek, she had quickly calmed. Hepton supposed she had seen this sort of thing before, working here. He cut the twine and eased Paul Vincent’s body down, bringing it out into the hall and laying it on the carpeted floor.
‘I didn’t know,’ the woman was saying. ‘I never realised the poor man might—’
‘He wouldn’t!’ Hepton snapped back at her. ‘He wouldn’t do this.’
He looked past the receptionist, along to the end of the corridor, and saw Harry standing there. Their eyes met, then she turned swiftly and was gone, back towards the emergency stairs.
‘Wait!’ he shouted.
The receptionist saw him staring and glanced back along the corridor too, but saw nothing. No doubt she thought him emotional and in shock.