Luke Delaney - Cold Killing

I make my way confidently through the never-ending, winding corridors to the laundry room. Medical staff and porters wander in and out of here endlessly, nobody paying anybody else much attention. These giant hospitals are about as personal as a rush-hour train station. Their security is a joke.

I help myself to several clean and neatly folded sheets, all wrapped in transparent plastic wrap, and make my way to the lift that will carry me straight to the Intensive Care Unit and her. As the lift rises my heart begins to race. The power surges through my veins. I feel giddy with excitement. It makes me want to lash out at the other people in the lift, pull the knife from the small of my back and cut them all to pieces, but I won’t. I keep control. I have other business to take care of today.

As the lift doors slide open I see the Intensive Care Unit stretch out before me. It’s different from the rest of the hospital: darker, warmer, and quieter. It feels safe. I step into its peace and allow the lift to fall away to rejoin the chaos. Immediately, I know which room she must be in, dutifully advertised by the armed police officer standing outside. I have anticipated it. Good. I’ll make excellent use of his uniform. Once I have that, I’ll be spending a few farewell moments with the little bitch. Then I’ll use the syringe I’ve brought to inject a bubble of air into her already fragile body and send her quietly to meet her maker. After all, who’s going to question a cop with a gun?

A nurse steps from a room into the corridor and looks me up and down dismissively, my uniform marking its wearer as a lower creature in the hospital hierarchy. I look down at the sheets I carry.

“Laundry said you were running low,” I say in the most effeminate voice I can muster.

“News to me” is all the self-important slut can say for herself. “Laundry cupboard’s around the corner, outside the toilet.”

No please, no thank you . How I would like to teach her some manners. Another time maybe.

I follow her directions, acknowledging the armed pig with a nod of the head as I pass. I place the laundry in the cupboard then walk to the communal toilet and open the door. But I do not enter. Instead I contort my face to falsify an expression of concern and walk quickly and quietly toward the pig. I speak with the voice of a homosexual, keeping it low so the nurses can’t hear.

“Excuse me. I think there’s something in the toilet you should see.”

He casts an eye over me, barely able to disguise the disgust on his face, as if he wants to swat me away like an annoying fly. Eventually he walks toward the toilet fearlessly, as all pigs with guns would, safe in the false knowledge they are untouchable. I hold the door open for him as he enters.

“What’s the problem?” he asks. It’s the last thing he’ll ever say. I pop the cheese wire around his throat and pull it nice and tight. He manages to get several fingers under the wire, a futile attempt to save himself. If need be I’ll cut through his fingers. I drag him silently into the middle of the room, where he tries to reach for anything that will make a noise, anything that will raise the alarm. He realizes he can’t. He gasps for air, his rubber-soled shoes kicking quietly on the hard floor tiles. Eventually he falls still. There’s blood on his shirt and body armor, but nothing I can’t conceal. Should I kill the nurses? No. It would take too long. If they notice the pig’s change in appearance, they’ll just assume a change of guard.

Now it’s time to right a wrong.

Sean’s siren screamed at the ever-present choking traffic in the streets of Hammersmith as he drew closer and closer to Charing Cross Hospital and Sally. The blue light magnetically attached to the roof of his unmarked car gave other drivers little and often too late warning of his scarcely controlled approach. If he crashed now, he had no backup, no one to continue the race toward Sally. Even in his fear and panic he knew he should have contacted the local police and had them cover the hospital, but how long would it take to explain his fears? How long would it take to get authority to deploy more armed guards? And what if he was wrong? What if this was Hellier’s last hurrah, to make him look a fool? To discredit him as a detective? No, he had to do this himself. Donnelly would organize backup, do the sensible thing, but Sean had to come alone. Right or wrong, he had to come alone. Somehow he knew everything would end soon. Everything.

As he swung into the hospital parking lot he killed the siren and lights, suddenly feeling the need for stealth. Ignoring the signs for the main entrance, he made straight for the Accident and Emergency Department. He parked the car in an ambulance bay and abandoned it, keys in the ignition and door open.

Sean ran as quickly as he dared through the swing doors. He didn’t know this hospital as well as he did the ones in southeast London and the East End, but he remembered where he’d seen the lifts last night when Sally was first brought here.

He jabbed the arrow button to summon the lift and waited, beyond impatient, for the metal boxed carriage to arrive, while studying the hospital floor guide for Intensive Care. He found it just as the lift arrived. Without waiting for the doors to open fully, he leaped in and punched the floor he needed with the side of his fist. Thank God there was no one else in the lift, no one to slow his ascent to Sally. Two floors short of his destination the lift suddenly stopped and doors slid open painfully slowly. A gaggle of chatting nurses stepped toward the entrance. Sean flashed the identification he already held in his hand.

“Sorry,” he almost shouted. “Police business. Use another lift.” He jabbed the lift’s button and the doors closed on a mix of protests and disbelieving giggles.

Finally the lift drew to a smooth halt at the ICU floor. The doors silently opened, the warmth and silence of the unit wrapping around Sean, mechanical whirs and beeps that appeared so reassuring.

As Sean stepped from the lift he saw the armed uniformed officer standing outside what he assumed would be Sally’s room. The officer had his back to the wall; Sean presumed this was so he could see in both directions along the corridor. His eyes were immediately drawn to the automatic pistol on the officer’s thigh, as any policeman’s eyes would have been. The officer’s flat hat was pulled low over his forehead, military style, almost totally hiding his upper facial features. Sean guessed he would have been an ex-soldier, a guess made all the more likely to be true by the macho mustache the officer proudly wore. Sean’s eyes darted around the unit, checking for other signs of life. Two ICU nurses busied themselves quietly with another ravaged soul in a room two doors away from Sally’s.

Sean held his identification aloft. “DI Corrigan. I need to see DS Jones.” The uniform nodded his permission as Sean entered through the already open door. He walked slowly toward Sally, already fearing the worst, his heart pounding out of control, making it difficult to breathe; his stomach felt painful and knotted. But as he drew closer he became aware of the comforting, rhythmic sounds emanating from the machines that surrounded Sally. Heart-rate monitors, pulse monitors, blood-pressure monitors all reassuring him that she was alive. Even the ugly, impossibly big tube that snaked into Sally’s throat, feeding her oxygen, somehow made Sean feel at ease. He finally inhaled a long breath and blew it out through pursed lips.

He placed a hand on Sally’s forehead and gently stroked her hair back. He was struggling for something to say when he suddenly felt a presence behind him, some change in the atmosphere of the room. He spun on his heels, heart rate soaring, adrenaline already beginning to prepare his body for combat.