“Oh yes, I saw your friend,” the ward clerk said, when I’d found the little alcove where she worked. “About ten minutes ago?”
“That’s about right,” I said. “Did you see where she went?”
“Out into the corridor. She seemed in a hurry, so I assumed she was leaving. I think a man was with her.”
“A man? What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. I’m terrible with faces. But I think he works here. I’ve seen him before, coming out of the admin block. I mean, I think he was with her. He might have just been going out at the same time. I’m not sure.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“OK,” I said, pushing this new information temporarily aside for the sake of the child. “Never mind them now. What about the kid from cubicle twelve? Can you tell me where he went?”
“What kid?” she said. “Cubicle twelve is empty.”
“Exactly. That’s the problem. We’re here to find a kid, and the triage nurse told us that’s where he’d been sent when she admitted him.”
“No. That’s not possible. Sorry. There must be a misunderstanding. It’s been a quiet morning. We’ve only had one little boy brought in. He had a broken arm - a green stick, actually - which we dealt with. And he’s not here any more, anyway. He was discharged a couple of minutes ago.”
“The triage nurse said there were two boys. It’s the other one we need to find.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. He’s not here. See for yourself.”
“He certainly was here. The triage nurse remembered him. Is there anywhere else he could have got to, from the corridor, without coming in here?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, waving to one of the nurses. “Hang on a sec. Megan? Have you seen any kids around here? We might have a wanderer.”
“Not for a while,” the nurse said. “No. Christine had one earlier, though. A little lad. Complete brat. Something wrong with his arm, I think. Not to mention his manners.”
“No others?” the ward clerk said.
“No other patients. Does Serena’s little boy count? She was heading to the staff room with him, just now.”
“I didn’t know Serena had a little boy,” the ward clerk said.
“Nor did I,” the nurse said. “But you know what she’s like. Keeps herself to herself. And I assumed it was her son. It could have been a nephew or something, I suppose.”
“Who’s Serena?” I said.
“One of our physiotherapists,” the nurse said.
“How long has she worked here?” I said.
“She’s quite new. Two months? Three, maybe?” the clerk said.
“And you’ve never seen the kid she has with her, before?” I said.
“No,” the nurse said. “You’re not really supposed to bring your kids to work. But people do, sometimes, if their child care goes pear-shaped.”
“Was anyone else with them?” I said.
“I’m not really sure,” the nurse said.
“How can you not be sure?” I said. “Was anyone else there, or not?”
“Well, a couple of guys were near them,” the nurse said. “They were quite good looking, actually. Tall. And heading the same way. But they were hanging a few yards back.”
“Heading for the staff room?” I said.
“Right,” the nurse said. “A couple of minutes ago.”
“Show me,” I said.
The nurse, Megan, took me back out to the corridor and pointed to a badly scuffed pale green door midway down the far wall.
“That’s it,” she said. “But you can’t go in. It’s more of a changing room, really, than a staff room. It’s where we put our uniforms on. People might be getting dressed in there.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t look. Now, stand back. And whatever you hear, do not follow me in. Not unless I call specifically for you.”
I eased the door open and peeked inside. A privacy screen prevented me from looking any further into the room, but also made sure no one already in there could see me. I stepped through the door, let it quietly close behind me, and drew my Beretta. From there, I could also see the entrance to a closet on my right. A sign said Domestic Staff Only, but it would have been difficult to keep anyone else out. Because its handle had been broken. From the way its mechanism had been torn out of the wood, I’d say it hadn’t been an accident. And in the gap at the bottom of the door, there was another sign of something violent. The edge of a puddle of blood.
My hand was reaching out to open the closet door when I heard footsteps on the other side of the screen. One set. They were light, and fast. Then they stopped, and a woman started to speak.
“Don’t worry, my little angel,” she said. “Your two friends will be back in a minute. And I have great news. The doctors don’t need to see you. They don’t think you need any nasty injections, after all. All you need is a nice long drink of water. That’ll wash away the taste of that horrid smoke, and then you’ll be absolutely fine. You can go straight back to school and catch up with your friends. I bet they’re worried about you.”
I took two steps to my left, rounding the screen and emerging into the changing room itself. It was a rectangular space, large, but surprisingly gloomy because there were no windows. Grey metal lockers lined three of the walls. The space between them was filled with ancient-looking wooden benches. Four rows of them. They were parallel. Two people were sitting on the nearest one. A woman, in her mid thirties, hair tied back, wearing a white polyester uniform with the St Joseph’s logo on its tunic pocket. And next to her, Toby Smith.
She was holding out a large stainless steel thermos flask.
“Here, sweetie,” she said. “Take some of this. It’s nice and cold. Much nicer than ordinary tap water.”
“Thank you,” he said, reaching out to take it. “We never drink tap water at home.”
“You might want to rethink that policy,” I said, moving closer. “Bottled water’s bad for the environment. So do not touch that flask.”
The kid screamed, dived on the floor, and scrambled away from me under the bench. The woman took hold of the flask’s lid and started to twist.
“Stop,” I said.
She’d turned the lid half a revolution. I didn’t know how many it would take to open it. I didn’t even know for sure there was caesium inside the flask. But bearing in mind Melissa’s description of its effect, I was in no mood to find out the hard way. The kid wouldn’t need to drink it, to be in serious trouble. She could just splash it all over him. So I pulled the trigger. Twice. And then I called for Megan.
I didn’t fancy my chances of coaxing a scared five-year-old out into the open, after that.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nurse Megan had hesitated to enter the changing room when I’d called for her. The sight of the woman’s body had stopped her in mid-stride. I was surprised, given most nurses’ professional familiarity with death. But in the end her concern for the kid outweighed her reluctance to come near the corpse. She finally crept in, keeping her back close to the wall, and tried to coax the boy out from under the bench. Even her most persuasive voice was no match for his fear, though, so eventually she settled for sitting on the floor next to him and holding his hand while we waited for the pair of diplomatic protection officers – the ones who’d been dressed as electricians at the school – to arrive and take over.