Chapter Twenty

Philippa Haven took out her mobile phone and turned on the camera function.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance… the five stages of grief. She had jumped directly to anger; how could there have been a denial stage when she had undeniably failed to save Rob’s life? But his tragic death had chopped away at the net of fatigue that she was engulfed in; she had inherited a newfound determination to stop this serial killer.

Shinji Nyarko had taught her to look for “what didn’t belong”.

She knelt down to examine the shoes – a pair of black leather pumps with a lilac interior and an untied ankle ribbon. Size five. They were certainly not brand new, though they had not been worn much.

Were there other clues?

She ransacked the sports bags and clothes. Someone in the anaesthetic department played squash but all the clothes in the pile belonged to men.

She inspected the desk. If the killer had time to plant these shoes, they would have had time to leave more clues.

Philippa Haven brushed aside some old newspapers, unveiling a heavily scratched surface.

There was a black suede diary with the year in gold letters on the front. Flicking through she noted it had been utilised instead as a rota for the department. She turned to the current week. Rob Gadra was supposed to be working the next two nights as well. They may have gotten to know each other properly…

The other anaesthetic registrars were nothing more than names to her – none were ex-lovers or ex-colleagues with any legitimate reason to ruin her life at least. Peering like a cautious meerkat from underneath the diary was a black and white photograph taken by a Polaroid camera.

She slid the photograph out and held it up to the light.

The location was not one she recognised; it appeared to be an external brick wall with a path formed of large square tiles running in front of it. Half a hedge photobombed the left border.

She didn’t know what it meant, if anything at all, but maybe Shinji would be able to make some sense of it. She wondered how he was feeling…

Items of stationary had been left scattered across the table and mugs with stubborn-looking stains stood upside-down like tower blocks by the sink. Amongst them, Rob’s mug projected particularly prominently.

She swallowed hard as she held the mug in both hands. Then she chuckled to herself as she remembered watching his feeble attempt at washing up. She should have showed him the ropes when she had the opportunity.

She began patrolling the room. By chance, her starting point was by the Periodic Table. The walls were adorned with posters on analgesia, methods on induction of anaesthesia and something closer to her line of work – blood glucose control. From the markings on this poster, there had clearly been a teaching session on insulin at some point. The final poster –

Bleep…

The eerie tranquillity had been disrupted.

But as Philippa proceeded to jot down the number, the hairs on her neck stood like antennae detecting danger.

88888.

She bit her lip. Her scalp tingled as she picked up the handset and dialled the number.

Switchboard put her through.

The tones halted.

Philippa embarked on a game of patience with the caller. After all, she was a doctor, so patience was a sound attribute of hers. How was she going to turn this round?

Every millisecond that passed felt like minutes and beads of sweat were forming along her hairline.

She won the game. That was a start.

‘Hello Dr Haven,’ said the chilling voice at last.

‘What do you want?’ she hissed.

‘I wanted you to play fairly.’

Philippa knew what that meant, but she kept silence in hope that her biggest fear wasn’t true.

‘I warned you not to disclose your situation to anyone and that there would be serious consequences if you did. If you do it again Dr Haven, there will be deadlier consequences…’

Then the killer hung up.

Philippa felt suddenly queasy and rushed to the bin holding her chest. She retched but nothing came up; that sandwich had long been digested. A few strands of hair came loose and she tucked them behind her ear.

‘No…’ she uttered as the pang of guilt incinerated her from inside, just as she had begun to feel strong. She was solely to blame for Rob Gadra’s death…

Philippa sat with her knees to the ceiling, her lower spine touching the resonant wall and her shoulders slumping in defeat. She stared at the tough mauve carpet within a quadrilateral window formed by her arms and legs. She inhaled deeply a few times but each breath was a struggle.

The pressing concern was that the killer had somehow unearthed what she had done. How? Had the anaesthetist told somebody else after she left the portacabin? Rob, what exactly did you get up to in the final hour of your life?

Her attention now turned to Shinji Nyarko; more frighteningly, was he now in danger also? But she needed him, more than ever and she could not unsay what she had already disclosed.

She pursed her lips. She would have to warn him then find a way to protect him from the killer at all costs for the rest of the shift. She put her hands either side on the floor.

Her right hand knocked over a mug.

Cold coffee trickled over the lip but the carpet was already so stained that it was barely visible.

Still, Philippa picked it up quickly.

It had been her mug.

Rob had said he would clean it up for her.

He didn’t get the chance to.

She did so now.

Silly man, she thought sadly. The memory forced another tear to spill over and clear a path down her lightly powdered cheek.

She dabbed the sides of her eyes with her shoulder as she washed up, but the tears kept coming, like ravaging bloodhounds breaking free from their leashes.

She dried her hands then tried to leave the portacabin, yanking at the door. Her efforts were futile.

She tried again.

It wouldn’t budge.

Then she noticed the small green button that she was supposed to press, in order to exit. Rob had opened the door for her earlier so she hadn’t noticed.

She pushed the button and heard a soft click, then opened the door. Outside, it was a shower.

Something didn’t feel right.

The more she thought about it, the less it made sense; why had Rob not managed to wash her mug? What else would he have been doing in the cabin? Unless whatever took his life happened immediately after she left the portacabin.

The door to the portacabin – her card did not have access, and that meant the killer was somebody with access to it. Who did? How could she find out?

With a new arsenal of clues, Philippa switched off the light and hurried back to the Chartwell Unit. The nearest lamppost sprayed the side of the cabin with a sparse ration of rays. It illuminated two numbers painted in white, two fives with a hyphen in between.

Portacabin fifty-five… she thought. It would forever remain in her memory for both fond and dire reasons.

The Chartwell Unit was situated close to the back exit of the hospital, so it made sense that Effy was one of the nurses who had attended Rob’s life-saving attempt.

Now, she was back on the ward, doing a set of observations on Shinji Nyarko. He had remained stable as Rob Gadra had perished. Why had he not been targeted?

Shinji had learned about the anaesthetist’s death as Philippa and Effy conversed cryptically over his right, cuffed arm but it was not until the nurse left the cubicle, that they could discuss the events freely.

‘Three tests, one every two hours… exactly as the killer had forewarned,’ Shinji whispered.

‘The killer never said only patients would be killed.’

‘It must have been something spectacular to kill a staff member without raising suspicion amongst the team?’

Philippa sighed and plodded around the bed to the window sill. She sat down with her back hunched over in defeat and face sunk into her palms.

Silence ensued.

Philippa found it comforting, the stillness felt as full as it was empty, yet deep down, she wanted it to end. She did not deserve this moment’s tranquillity, but Shinji was going to let it linger.

‘I don’t know how it was done,’ she said at last. ‘The blood tests we managed to retrieve, showed a normal potassium level. The lactate was high though.’

‘What could do that?’

‘A lot of things – infection, heart attacks, seizures. Gemma thinks he might have had epilepsy, like his brother. But if that was the case, something must have triggered it.’

‘Did you get a chance to capture any of the crime scene?’

‘Yes, here; sorry I completely forgot. Sorry, I’m just…’

‘I understand, you’ve lost a colleague so suddenly. I know how it feels from working in the force, trust me.’

‘I took on your advice – at the crime scene.’

‘How so?’

‘The clue, a pair of women’s shoes.’

‘What is it about them?’

‘Rob told me the anaesthetic department here is all-male, so unless people are inviting girls to stay over in the portacabin…’

‘If that’s another clue, then…’

‘A woman is involved. Probably young…’

‘The scarf, red lipstick, the shoes; it certainly seems that way,’ Shinji Nyarko added, ‘but someone is planting these items at the crime scene for you to find. Someone who is meticulous who has likely plotted this attack on you for weeks if not months. If Rob was one of the planned victims, the culprit must have worked in this hospital long enough to know who he was, when he would be working and where he would be at this time –’

‘He wasn’t the intended victim,’ Philippa said suddenly. ‘I-I-I am to blame for Rob’s death,’ she explained, burying her face in her hands. ‘The killer called me at the end of the test. I can’t remember word for word what they said as it’s all a bit fuzzy, but the killer basically said that I had been warned about serious consequences and if I told anyone else, then there would be even more severe ones.’

‘You’re not to blame,’ Shinji told her, in response to her lamenting. ‘The killer is the only one we blame.’

She nodded. She felt ridiculous. In her career, she had lost count of the number of times tears had participated in a discussion with patients and their relatives, but the tears never belonged solely to her.

‘You said nobody was around when you told Rob?’

‘There was no one obviously around and in the portacabin with the door shut, I don’t think anyone would have been able to hear us from outside.’

‘Where are these portacabins?’

‘Outside, almost hidden away by the back exit of the hospital. You wouldn’t know what they were used for if you didn’t know one of the anaesthetists. And we were on the top one so you can’t just go around the other side; there’s only one entrance and that’s up the staircase.’

‘Could he have told someone else?’

‘He must have, but I don’t see how or why. He didn’t have long between the time I left the cabin and for him to do what he had said he would – to check on two wards.’ Her forehead felt tense and she tried to massage the ache away.

‘The killer must have deliberately gone there to find him as soon as you left, which means someone was watching you – wait – what did the caller say to you again?’

‘Something along the lines of there being bigger consequences if I tell anyone again.’

Philippa’s bleep rung and her heart skipped a beat.

Shinji Nyarko’s eyes widened. ‘If you tell anyone again…’ he repeated several times, decelerating each turn.

‘I had to come back straight away and warn you. We need to keep you safe from the killer.’

‘But… I am safe, Philippa,’ he replied.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘The killer threatened you not to tell anyone again… they don’t know that you’ve told me!’

‘You’re saying the killer somehow uncovered I had told Rob Gadra but doesn’t know I’ve told you.’

‘Otherwise I’d be dead by now, surely?’

‘Then this proves Rob told someone else,’ proposed Philippa.

‘There must be another way,’ said the detective. He shook his head and stopped at Philippa’s waist. ‘Unless…’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless the killer has been tracking your movements all night.’

‘How might…’ but Philippa did not need to complete the sentence, as the answer dawned on her.