The Valley of Longing 37

‘I like her.’ Sophie nodded as though she had come to a decision. ‘She’s a nice lady.’ ‘I have to agree,’ Jack said. ‘She’s one of the few in the village to actually make an effort to get to know me.’ ‘She said she was a friend as well as a neighbour when she came round this afternoon. She didn’t say as much, but I think she was curious about who I was and what I was doing here. When she found out I was cleaning up after Sunday night she stayed to help; she might be old, but boy can she scrub.’ As though the house was hers rather than Jack’s, she led the way along the passage to the kitchen, where she took the bags and put them on the side so she could unpack the shopping. ‘If it had been left to me, I think you’d still have stains on the carpet, but she got them out; just as well she came round and helped actually, or I’d never have had the time to sort out anything else.’ ‘Like What?’ ‘Like arranging for your furniture to be picked up so it can be re- upholstered, they’re coming to get it day after tomorrow, so’re the window people - soonest they could make it given where you live. And I’ve ordered you a new TV and Laptop, same models as the ones you had before, well, same makes anyway, newer models.’ Jack stared at his friend suspiciously for several long moments before saying anything. ‘Thanks for doing all that; one question, though, how can you afford to buy me a new TV and Laptop - not that I won’t pay you back - I was under the impression you’re just about permanently skint.’ ‘Not quite. I’ve got enough money to get by, It’s not like I’m gonna starve or anything. Once I clear a couple of outstanding debts I’ll be fine. I didn’t pay for anything, though.’ Sophie grinned cheekily as she took something from her pocket and held it out. ‘Here, you’ll want this back.’ Only when he took the object did Jack realise that it was his credit card, which had been left at home when he was taken to the hospital. ‘You really shouldn’t leave your credit card lying around where just anyone can find it, especially when you’re not the only one that knows the pin number.’ Jack slipped the card into his pocket. ‘If I’d know what was going to happen, I’d have made sure I kept my wallet in my pocket.’ Taking the first items that had been unpacked, he began putting them away. ‘Do I need to check my bill when it comes in to see what you’re tried to sneak onto it?’ ‘You can if you want,’ Sophie said unconcernedly. ‘ I didn’t put much on it, just a few little things, call them a fee for babysitting you until it’s safe for you to be left on your own again.’ Jack laughed at that. He wasn’t actually worried that Sophie might have used his credit card to buy things for herself, he knew her well enough to know that she probably hadn’t bought anything at all, and is she had it would be something he could easily afford. The surveillance room in the security suite at St Francis’s Hospital was small, barely big enough to hold the two chairs occupied by the guard who had the duty of watching the bank of monitors that took up most of the space and by DI Lemark. There certainly wasn’t enough room for either of them to move out of the way, which meant Lemark had to lean across the guard who was reluctantly sharing his space in order to see the image in the middle left monitor better. ‘All stations, heads up, we have a possible suspect in the East stairwell, heading up from the ground floor,’ Lemark alerted the officers he had been given for the operation he had put together. ‘Suspect appears to be between 1.7 or 1.9 cms tall and medium build, wearing dark clothes, including a balaclava or similar. ‘Can you follow him on the cameras?’ he asked of the security guard next to him as the figure in the stairwell continued up, disappearing out of range of the camera he had been watching. The guard answered the question with a nod and quickly cycled through the cameras he controlled until he found the mystery figure again, he then followed the suspected killer on his way to the fourth floor. Lemark found himself torn by conflicted feelings as he watched the figure leave the stairwell on the fourth floor. A part of him was pleased that the plan he had come up with appeared to be working; someone, and he didn’t want to pre-empt his thinking by putting a name to the figure, was heading towards Amy Wright’s room, almost certainly with the intention of killing the teen before she could wake up. A much larger part of him, however, was concerned about the fact that there was now a murderer in the hospital, and the violence he had shown, according to the post - mortems, suggested that he was not going to simply surrender when he realised he had been tricked. If anything, discovering that he had been set up was likely to make him angry and violent. The murderer paused when he reached the fourth floor so he could listen at the door of the stairwell. He had made it that far without being seen, as far as he was aware, and was determined to make it the rest of the way, and back out again; he hadn’t even been seen when he entered the accident and emergency department and headed for the stairwell. He listened for more than a minute before deciding that the corridor on the other side of the door was empty. He eased the door open and slipped through after a quick visual check of the corridor. He was pretty sure he knew where Amy’s room was from his current position, but everything looked different in the semi - darkness. Despite the gloom, he made it to his destination with only one incident; the sound of footsteps around the corner he was approaching made him scurry back the way he had come in search of somewhere to hide. He found what he was after in the form of an ICU room occupied by an elderly man who was connected to a variety of machines that seemed to be the only things keeping him alive. As he had in the stairwell, HE pressed his ear against the door and listened until he was sure the way was clear; the footsteps approached his position, making him worry he was going to be found, then passed and receded into the distance. Relieved to have evaded detection. He left his hiding place, and a couple of minutes later he reached the room Amy had been put in. He stopped in front of the door and looked around briefly before entering the room to do what he was there for. Melissa heard the door as it began to open, the noise was surprisingly loud in the quiet of the room, and had to fight the urge to turn her head and look. It proved to be far harder than she had anticipated to remain still and continue the pretence of being a comatose Amy Wright, knowing that a suspected murderer had entered the room. She was sure if the room had not been as dark as it was, her pretence would have been spotted, either because of the flickering of her eyelids or the tenseness in her muscles. After a few seconds she heard the door close, followed by footsteps as the murderer crossed the room to the bed. She found herself becoming more and more tense the closer they got, and it took everything she had to resist the urge to move; about the only thing that kept her still was the thought that if she moved before the figure revealed his reason for being there, she would blow their chances of catching the killer who had done so much harm to the village she loved. For several long seconds. He stared down at the slumbering form. There was a part of him that thought he should leave and not do anything to Amy, after all, she was already in a coma, but that was overridden by his instinct for self - preservation and the selfishness that made him care for himself ahead of anyone else. Almost of their own volition, his hands reached out towards the place where he was sure Amy’s throat was. His fingers bumped against her chin and he quickly altered their position so he could tighten them around her throat and end the threat she posed to him. That was when a lamp came on over the bed and he saw that it wasn’t Amy he was strangling. ‘You’re under arrest,’ Melissa gasped as she let go of the switch for the lamp and brought her hands up to try and pull away those around her throat. It was a task that she found all but impossible; her position robbed her leverage, while what strength she had faded as darkness crept in at the edges of her vision. Even is she hadn’t been at such a disadvantage, it would have been next to impossible for her to save herself, the person choking her was much stronger than she was. He was tempted to laugh at the words from the constable he was killing, he couldn’t believe she was trying to arrest him while he was strangling her. ‘This is the police, release the constable, you’re under arrest.’ The situation wasn’t as funny when the words were repeated from behind him. Releasing the constable, he spun around in time to be almost blinded as the main light in the room was turned on. He could see little of the man who had spoken beyond an outline, but that was enough; without hesitation, he charged, barrelling into the officer before the sergeant - he saw the stripes on the uniform sleeve just before impact - could react. Knocking him to the floor He quickly straddled him, pinning him and preventing him rising. While the man beneath him bucked and heaved in a desperate effort to throw him off, HE grabbed him by the hair and smashed his head into the floor. Again and again he repeated the manoeuvre, until an arm encircled his throat and began to apply pressure, forcing him to let go so he could defend himself. Having recovered from her own choking, as much as she was likely to just then, Melissa clung on to the killer with all her strength. She didn’t want to kill the man who had murdered her cousin - at least she didn’t think she did - but she was determined not to let him get away, and if that meant choking him until he passed out, she was fine with that. She kept one arm locked around the throat of the murderer who had just tried to kill her, while with the other she kept him from pulling himself free from her hold. It was a difficult enough thing to manage given how much stronger that her he was, and it became even more difficult when he straightened to his full height, which was about a third of a foot taller than hers. She had to stretch up to maintain her grip on his throat, and when he began throwing himself about to dislodge her, it became almost impossible. With his vision beginning to fade and his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, HE found himself in a position to understand what the girls he had killed had been through before dying. The experience was not one he liked, and it made him even more determined to get free; he thrashed about as if he could shake the person on his back loose, while wrenching at the arm around his throat in an effort to pull it away. It wasn’t until he bumped into the bed and fell over it to the floor that the arm loosened its grip and he could breathe properly again. He slammed his head back into Melissa’s face, provoking a short, sharp gasp of pain and a further loosening of the grip she had on him. He quickly jerked free and scrambled to his feet so he could leave. As angry as he was a being tricked - he was furious, with himself for falling for the deception, and with the police for deceiving him - he realised that it would be stupid to stay and take his anger out on the cops, no matter how much he wanted to. He glanced back briefly to see what was happening with Melissa, she was still on the floor, and then hurried from the room. He had gone no more that a dozen feet when he found his route back to the stairwell he had used to get there blocked by two constables. His hand immediately went to his pocket, and the knife he always carried with him. He took advantages when the constable hesitated at the sight of the weapon; feinting at the officer on the left, he made him retreat, immediately he turned and barged into the officer on the right, bowling him over and leaving the way clear for him to escape. He threw himself through the gap between the two officers, and was just thinking that he was clear and could head safely for the stairwell when he was grabbed by the ankle. He tumbled to the floor but rolled quickly onto his back so he could kick out at the constable who had tripped him. His boot caught the man square in the face, shattering his nose and leaving his features a bloody mess. A second kick worsened the damage and left the constable unmoving on the floor. Wrenching his leg free from the grip of the immobile officer, he slashed the air wildly with his knife to keep the other officer away and scrambled to his feet. He slashed again to force the uniformed figure back, and then turned so he could race away down the passage. A glance over his shoulder told him that although he was far the quickest of people, he was quicker than the constable pursuing him, who seemed almost to plod along like he was trying to run on sand. ‘Talk to me people, what’s going on?’ Lemark spoke urgently into his radio. He had no idea what had happened in the room where Constable James had been playing the part of Amy Wright, but it seemed clear to him that things had not gone well, If it had, the figure he believed to be their killer would not have reappeared in the passage, except in handcuffs. As if it wasn’t enough that his officers had failed to secure their murderer while he was in the room, Lemark could see that one of his officers was down in the passage, and the other was being left behind as their suspect made his escape. ‘He got away, Sir, sorry,’ Melissa gasped into her radio as she left the room. ’Sergeant Tracey’s down, I don’t know how badly he’s hurt, but it looks bad. Help’s on its way.’ It hadn’t been an easy decision for her to make, to leave the injured sergeant after pressing the alarm button to summon help, but she was sure she had done the right thing. She had no medical knowledge, beyond her first aid training, so there was little she could do for the sergeant, but there was still a chance that she could catch the man who had injured him. ’Constable Wally is down as well,’ she reported. Lemark made a snap decision as he saw Melissa hesitate by the constable on the floor. ’Leave him, let the medical staff deal with him, you get after the suspect.’ He realised that his decision might not be one Melissa agreed with, it might even be one that would land him in trouble when the operation was reviewed, but he was certain it was the right one. Melissa had already been torn between stopping to help the constable on the floor and continuing to pursue the killer, and was relieved to have the decision taken out of her hands. Leaving the constable, she took off down the passage. When she reached the corner around which she had seen Constable Jordan disappear, she saw the fleeing figure of their suspect up ahead, beyond her lumbering colleague. Her throat was sore where she had been choked, she was sure her nose had been broken, and her split lip was bleeding, but she didn’t let any of that slow her down as she gave pursuit. It surprised her when she began to close the distance between her and those she was pursuing; she overtook Constable Jordan just before they reached the stairwell. ‘Which way?’ Melissa asked of Lemark after bursting through the door into the stairwell. ’Up or down?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, the sound of heavy, hurried footsteps from below told her which direction to take, and she descended as quickly as she could. Lemark sat in the security room and watched the monitors with a growing sense of dismay. He had said from the start that he needed more officers, four plus himself simply wasn’t enough to be certain of stopping someone who had shown a capacity for extreme violence; a capacity that had been demonstrated again with the disablement of two of the four officers given him for the operation. He watched as the medical staff began working on the constable in the passage, and he watched as his suspects pulled away from Constable Jordan, only to have Constable James narrow the gap. It was good that Melisa was gaining on the fleeing suspect, but it only took him a second to realise that she was unlikely to catch him, and that if she did she was at a serious disadvantage. Barefoot, and dressed in little more than a hospital gown, with neither handcuffs nor a baton, Melissa was unlikely to have much chance of stopping the suspect, especially when he was armed and unafraid of violence. HE could think of only one way to prevent what seemed like the inevitable escape of his suspect, and realising that he got quickly to his feet to leave the room…..