‘Shush,’ she told it, tousling its ears. ‘Be still, Star.’
‘Glad someone’s keen,’ Whelan commented, looking at his watch.
There were six of us standing at the bottom of the steps outside St Jude’s. Seven, including the cadaver dog. Ward had said she might be out later, but at the moment she was busy dealing with the fallout from my identification of Christine Gorski. Not that there was any need for the SIO to be there. In addition to the handler, Whelan and myself, there was the police search adviser, a rotund man in his fifties called Jackson, and two SOCOs I recognized from the loft. One of them toted a video camera on a strap around her neck, the other carried a case of equipment. All of us wore white coveralls and the usual protective paraphernalia, although for the moment our hoods and masks were down. They weren’t necessary until we went inside, so we were making the most of the fresh air while we could. By now, though, it wasn’t only the Labrador that was impatient. We’d been standing in the grey drizzle at the bottom of the steps for the past ten minutes.
Waiting.
Whelan’s radio came to life. He answered it bad-temperedly. ‘Go on.’ I didn’t catch the reply, but the deputy SIO gave an exasperated huff. ‘About bloody time.’
He ended the call.
‘He’s here,’ he announced.
We watched in silence as another white-clad figure approached from the police trailers. The newcomer walked slowly behind a young PC, his coveralls strained tight around his heavy gut. A battered but clean holdall was slung over one shoulder, while in his other hand he carried an equally well-used case for a heavy-duty drill.
‘Glad you could join us, Mr Jessop.’ Whelan spoke tonelessly, not openly sarcastic but not welcoming either. The demolitions contractor looked at him sullenly, his eyes jaundiced and bloodshot.
‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’
The coveralls were the smartest thing about him. Above them his thinning hair was unkempt and two or three days’ growth of grey whiskers shrouded his jowls. When I’d called Ward the night before to tell her I’d identified Christine Gorski, she’d confirmed that Jessop would be helping out on the cadaver dog search.
‘He knows the building as well as anyone,’ she’d said. ‘He’s got copies of the original blueprints as well as equipment to check behind any false walls.’
I said nothing. Jessop hadn’t seemed exactly enthusiastic about the investigation when I’d seen him with Whelan, and he’d failed to show up that morning for the SIO’s briefing. The signs weren’t good, but it was up to Ward who she used as a civilian consultant. And it made sense to have someone along who had structural knowledge of the derelict hospital. Jessop had been hired to knock the place down: he could bring a useful perspective to the search. Even so, I had my doubts as I followed the big man up the steps to the entrance. Then I stepped through the doorway into St Jude’s.
The few days I’d been away had dulled the physical memory of how dismal it was. Inside the hospital’s vast interior it was permanent night. Even the police floodlights only accentuated the shadows in the recesses and corners of its echoing corridors, and no amount of light could take away the stink of mould and urine. When Ward had asked me to go back there I’d been pleased: now, as we left daylight outside and the scale of the task sank in, I felt my enthusiasm wane. It would take days to work our way through every ward, anteroom and corridor.
In St Jude’s claustrophobic darkness, that would seem a long time.
The hospital had been divided up into zones so it could be systematically searched, starting at the top, where the two interred bodies had been found, and working down floor by floor to the basement. The police were carrying out a fingertip search of the entire building, and the plan was for the cadaver dog team to follow along behind to ensure there were no more decomposing remains concealed behind false walls, or anywhere else.
Normally, the forensic pathologist would accompany the search, to certify death if a body was discovered and oversee its removal. But this was an unusual situation, where it was uncertain there was even anything to find. I’d be able to determine if any remains were human, and whatever the Labrador located would likely be concealed and inaccessible anyway. There’d be ample time for Parekh to come out when — and if — she was needed.
The dog’s claws clicked like knitting needles as we made our way up the stairs. Our heavier footsteps set up a reverberating echo that bounced off the stairwell’s hard walls. I was behind Jessop and could see that the big contractor was making heavy work of the climb with the drill case and holdall. He hauled himself up by the handrail, and by the time we reached the top his breath was wheezing in his mask.
‘You OK?’ I asked when he stopped.
The yellow eyes turned to look at me, the barrel chest rising and falling. Even through his mask I got a waft of his breath, sour with old alcohol.
‘I’d be better if I wasn’t in this shit heap.’
‘Do you want a hand with one of the bags?’
He stared at me, his affront obvious even under the mask.
‘No.’
Hoisting the holdall further on to his shoulder, he set off along the corridor. Lit by floodlights, it seemed to go on for ever, a black tunnel disappearing into the distance. The search was starting at the far end, but part way along Jessop stopped again. I thought he might still be having difficulty after the stairs until I saw where he was looking. Off to one side, a cordon of police tape sealed off the access to the loft where we’d found Christine Gorski’s body.
He gave me a quick glance, realizing I was watching him. ‘That where they found her?’
‘I expect so.’
Jessop stared at the darkness beyond the police tape, breathing nasally in his mask. ‘Said on the news she was twenty-one. Same age as my daughter.’
Without waiting for me to comment, he turned and clomped off down the corridor.
Even though I knew there were other police search teams in the building, as our small group began the slow trek through St Jude’s dark expanse it felt as though we were completely alone, stranded from any other living thing. I was no stranger to hospitals, knew how maze-like they could seem at the best of times. But the ones I’d worked in had been full of life and noise, not empty and silent like this. It would have been easy to become disorientated.
At least the dog was happy. With the exception of the Labrador’s handler, the rest of us hung back so as not to distract the animal as it worked. Not that there was much chance of that: Star was wholly engrossed in exploring the wonderful new world of scents the old hospital offered. Consulting rooms, wards, examination cubicles, even storage cupboards: all had to be checked by the cadaver dog.
I hadn’t given much thought to the practical aspects of the search. Like most old NHS hospitals, St Jude’s had been renovated and modernized over the years. The outside might look the same, but the interior bore little resemblance to the original building. The layout of rooms, wards and corridors had all changed over the years. Walls had been taken down in places and erected in others. Some of these were obviously old and had been there for decades. Others were less so.
The Labrador made its first find within the hour, its ears cocked intently as it explored the recesses of a dusty closet. A quick check by a SOCO produced the leathery corpse of a bat, crumpled under broken shelves like a discarded glove. The dog’s handler rewarded it with a well-chewed tennis ball.
‘Must be nice to be easily satisfied,’ Whelan remarked, as the dog thrashed its tail happily.
Not long after that I saw why Ward had wanted Jessop along. We were in a former waiting room, a row of broken plastic chairs still fixed to the wall below a sign that read Please take a seat and wait to be called. A torn poster showing an electron microscope image of an influenza virus was stuck next to an empty hand-wash dispenser.