‘No.’ He sounded as though he were in pain too.
‘If we can just talk about it…’ I carried on. ‘After all, it wasn’t just you, was it? Simcock played his part, and
Montgomery, they ought to take some responsibility too. It just got out of hand, didn’t it? The search for a cure?’
‘Shut up,’ he shouted. ‘There’s nothing to say. You can’t trick me. I’m not stupid.’ Suddenly his tone changed, the emotion replaced by a distant practicality. ‘It won’t hurt. I’m not a cruel man, I get no pleasure from violence. But I need to be careful.’ I could hear his footsteps coming closer. ‘They have such clever ways these days, don’t they, of catching people. But they don’t catch all of them. And without evidence, especially without a body, it would be very hard to prove anything.’
I preferred his anger to this quiet, logical reasoning.
‘They know you were at Agnes’,’ I bluffed. ‘I told my family when I was leaving that you were there. They’re bound to think of you. And what about Simcock? He knows you brought us to the hospital. If you harm us it will make things much worse.’
‘No!’ He thumped the door. ‘I know your game. But it’s too late. There’s not much time. There’s things I need. Yes.’
I heard him move away and shouted after him. ‘Dr Goulden, wait, please wait. Let’s just talk about it. Dr Goulden.’
I heard the rattling of a corrugated shutter and then more distantly the car engine.
‘Now what?’ asked Agnes.
I stared back at her, my heart full of dread.
‘Now we’ve got to get out of here.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘I’ll try brute force.’ I used the heel of my foot and bashed as near to the lock as I could. Nothing. It looks so easy on the telly but the door wouldn’t budge and every time I tried it the throbbing pain in my face made my eyes sting with tears. I lunged again and again, getting more and more desperate, my aim becoming wild with my increasing frustration. My nose started bleeding again. Great crimson splashes on the floor.
‘Sal,’ Agnes put a restraining hand on my arm, ‘it’s not working.’
But we’ll die, I thought. We can’t just wait here for him to come back and slaughter us. Oh God. Maddie and Tom. My stomach twisted with worry. Ray would be back by now. What if Vicky had forgotten to give him Agnes’ phone number? I thought of Tina Achebe, of the little terraced house with its dayglo scene-of-crime tape, of the headlines, photographs, quotes from the neighbours. Which photograph would they use for me?
‘It’s ridiculous,’ I railed. ‘We waltzed into the consultant’s office at a major hospital with no problems, but getting out of the paper store of a warehouse is like escaping from Alcatraz.’ I trembled, swayed against the wall. ‘At least I can wipe my nose.’ It was a pathetic attempt at humour. Agnes made a pathetic attempt to smile. I found a box of paper towels and pulled some out to staunch the blood.
‘Right.’ I tried to clear my throat, my voice was getting more and more hoarse. ‘We have to work something out for when he comes back.’ My heart dipped at the prospect. What chance did we have? A tired old woman and a weak and wobbly younger one. ‘He’s not going to talk and it’s unlikely we could both run away from him. We need to surprise him, stop him for long enough to get help. What have we got that could hurt him?’
We looked at all our potential weapons: car keys, earring wires, Agnes’ brooch pin. Weedy or what? There was precious little likelihood of getting near enough to Goulden to plunge a pin accurately into his eyeball or his Adam’s apple.
‘We need something we can knock him out with,’ I said, ‘something heavy. Something big so we’ve more chance of hitting him with it.’
It was bracketed to the far wall. Big, red, shiny and extremely heavy. We debated briefly whether it would be better to spray him with the fire extinguisher or clout him. Clouting had far more going for it.
‘The foam might just make him wet. What happens when it’s all used up?’ I said.
I practised lifting the thing above my head. I remembered log-splitting on some faraway holiday, the stance, the importance of watching the target instead of the tool, the satisfying thwack as the logs split and the shock that rippled back up arms and shoulders if the angle was wrong and the axe bounced off.
We rehearsed our moves, The door opened inwards to the right. I would stand behind it. We needed to get Goulden into the room far enough for me to move out and take a swing at him. There would only be one chance. If he remained on the threshold it wouldn’t work.
‘If he does that,’ I told Agnes, ‘don’t leave the room. He can’t force you to, not unless he’s got a gun. But I don’t think he’s going to come back with a gun.’
‘If he can only see me then he will realise that there’s something strange going on, he will know that it is a trap.’
‘OK.’ I pulled my jacket off. ‘Get some paper towels. We’ll make a guy.’
Agnes caught on quickly, screwing towel into balls and stuffing them into my jacket. Meanwhile I peeled off my damp trousers and started on them.
‘We can use this inside the hood.’ She held up a long roll of paper sheeting like they cover examination couches with. She formed it into a big ball for my head. When my dummy was stuffed I dragged boxes of paper off the shelves and constructed a sort of cardboard sofa we could sit on. We arranged the dummy beside Agnes and I surveyed it from the door. It was too obviously not a real person. ‘Lie it down, like I was before I came round. That’s better. Tuck the feet away. Yes.’ The paper face was hidden now and from the door it looked like I was lying prone, pretty much as I had been when I’d regained consciousness.
‘When he comes you’ll have to say something like I’ve passed out again or I haven’t come round. Something to make him think he’s only got one of us to worry about. If he does want us out of here he’ll have to carry me out. Tell him you can’t wake me.’
There was little else we could do. My stomach was rolling with anticipation. My sweatshirt covered my bottom but I felt exposed as well as cold without my other clothes. There was no heating at all in the room. I’d no intention of losing Agnes, or myself, to hypothermia.
‘We must keep warm,’ I said. ‘Paper’s a good insulator. Here, put some of this on your head.’ I handed her an armful of the paper sheeting. We both draped our heads. ‘Very stylish.’ I tore more off to use like shawls. I wrapped sheets around my hips like a skirt. We sat on the sofa.
She adjusted some of the paper sheeting over her legs like a blanket.
‘I’m so hungry. I was about to eat when you rang.’
We leant close. I could feel myself warming up where we shared our body heat.
‘Somewhere,’ she muttered as she fiddled through her coat pockets. ‘Aah.’ She held out two sweets. ‘Barley sugar or Murray Mint?’
Oh, Agnes. ‘Barley sugar.’
We unwrapped our sweets and sucked.
How long would he be? What things had he gone to get? He’d never let us go now, would he? We knew so much.
‘When did you realise,’ I asked Agnes, ‘that they’d deliberately made Lily demented?’
‘Once we knew the high dosages were deliberate. Why else would they do that to her? But I couldn’t fathom out what was behind it all. Then when Dr Goulden was talking, I realised there were two lots of patients involved. Remember when you found out what had happened to them, Mr Theakston at Homelea and the other ones from Aspen Lodge, I can’t recall all the names.’
‘Never mind, it doesn’t matter. They all had Alzheimer’s, progressive dementia, like the textbooks. All except for Mr Braithwaite, he was a bit different.’
‘Yes, and he was the one who had surgery,’ she said.