Ian Rankin - Westwind

‘Okay, Paul, just hang on. I’m coming. It’ll take an hour, maybe a bit longer. Just keep calm. Okay?’

‘Okay. But hurry, please.’

‘Paul, I know there isn’t any Dr McGill. They never did take you to hospital, did they? And you didn’t become ill. Isn’t that right?’

Vincent sighed loudly. ‘Yes. They said they were security. I was on my break. They asked me to go with them. They brought me straight here. I drank some tea and the next thing I knew I’d crashed out for a solid day.’

‘Drugs?’

‘They wouldn’t admit it, but I get the feeling they’d been questioning me during that time. The bastards won’t admit anything .’

‘You mean the staff?’

‘Not all of them. No, these were other people. People brought in by Villiers.’

‘With Fagin’s knowledge?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay, Paul. Hang in there. I’m on my way.’

‘Thanks, Martin.’

Hepton pulled on a pair of denims and a T-shirt, hardly aware of what he was doing. He slipped on his shoes, grabbed his jacket, then took a last quick look around and left the flat, pausing to check that the lock had connected and to turn the key in the mortise. He didn’t believe Harry’s story of finding the door ajar. He had spent over an hour checking for bugging devices that she might have left behind. He hadn’t found any, but that didn’t mean anything. There were many other possible points of entry into a closed environment or a telephone line: no one knew better than he what technology was capable of.

Shit, if they were listening in on his telephone, they would already know about Paul. He had to hurry.

Outside, he glanced around as he unlocked the door to his Renault. He crouched beside each wheel arch and peered beneath the vehicle, running a hand around the body in search of a tracking device. Nothing. No black Sierra parked in sight. No tramps picking fruit off the ground. He got into the car, fired it up and sped down the cobblestoned street. He started to think about Paul Vincent, and the line of thought led him back to Zephyr . How often did Fagin entertain bigwigs? Three, maybe four times in a year? A large coincidence then that he should have one such party in tow on the day Zephyr chose to blow a fuse. Hepton smiled grimly at this, remembering how he had once used the phrase ‘blow a fuse’ when talking with Jilly about the satellite.

‘You mean those things actually have fuses?’ she had said, and he’d had to explain that he was using layman’s language. She had bristled at this, and insisted that he explain things to her in more technical terms. So for over an hour he’d spoken of SIGINTs and COMINTs and geostationary orbits, while she had listened intently, asking occasional questions. At the end of his explanation, she had smiled.

‘You really are a clever little sod, aren’t you?’ she had said, and he’d nodded. What else could he do?

Clever, Martin, but perhaps not clever enough. He was used to being given orders, used to doing what he was told, to being nothing more than an operative. He seemed a long way from that now. Those uniformed high-ups were still in his mind. Three minutes and forty seconds, and they’d looked pleased. What was it about Zephyr ? What was it that was so classified even the control personnel couldn’t be told of it? For he was sure now that the malfunction had been a test of sorts, that it had been being put through its paces, with the brass there to watch, and that it had passed the test.

But what was the bloody test?

If anyone was following him, they were good. He didn’t catch sight of a single suspicious car or person on the drive to the Alfred de Lyon Hospital. Everyone was doing his or her bit to seem genuine, from the lady driver who nearly hit him at a junction to the man whose dog ran into the road, causing him to brake hard.

So far so good. Paul Vincent had sounded on the verge of a breakdown. Hepton didn’t feel too good himself. His body seemed extraordinarily tired and sluggish, his brain befuddled. He was hoping that Vincent knew more than he had been saying to date. It seemed the only way to unlock the hoard of answers to this whole thing.

He made good time on the drive, steered the car through the gates of the Alfred de Lyon and sped up the gravel drive. He didn’t bother with the small car park, leaving his Renault outside the main doors to the building. In the reception hall, he went straight to the admissions desk, where the white-coated lady on duty smiled, recognising him from the previous day.

‘I’ve come to see Mr Vincent,’ he said.

‘This must be his lucky day,’ she said. ‘Two visitors—’

‘Two?’ Hepton interrupted.

‘Yes, a young lady arrived half an hour ago to see him.’

‘A young lady? Short fair hair?’

The woman nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that sounds like her.’

‘Is she still here?’ snapped Hepton. He was growing afraid now. What if he had missed them? What if Harry had already whisked Paul Vincent away somewhere... somewhere Hepton couldn’t find him?

‘Well, I haven’t seen her leave. I’ll try Mr Vincent’s room.’ She picked up the telephone, pressed two digits and waited while the extension rang. Then she frowned. ‘There’s no answer. Perhaps they’ve gone to the sun lounge.’ An attendant was coming from that direction. ‘Oh, Roddy,’ she called. ‘Have you seen Mr Vincent?’

‘I thought he was in his room,’ the attendant called back. Hepton felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck.

‘Where’s his room?’ he said.

‘The end of the corridor on the first floor, but you can’t just—’

He couldn’t just, but he already was: he ran to the sweeping staircase, took it two steps at a time, stumbling at the top, and ran along the first-floor corridor. He pushed open the last door he came to and looked in. It was a large, airy room, the walls cream-coloured and the bed a double. Some of Paul’s things were lying about, but not untidily. There was an en suite bathroom, and Hepton paused at this door before turning the handle, expecting the worst.

‘Paul?’ he called. Then he pushed the door and let it sweep open on its silent hinges. But the bathroom was empty. He felt momentary relief, though he couldn’t say exactly what he had thought he would find. Then his neck prickled again. Paul wouldn’t have left knowing that Hepton was on his way. He would have stayed close to his room. He wouldn’t have let Harry take him away without a struggle. Not unless he’d been drugged...

The woman from the front desk was standing at the bedroom door, with the attendant peering over her shoulder.

‘He’s not here,’ she said.

‘So where is he?’ Hepton’s voice was loud, and the woman recoiled a little.

‘The stool from beside the bed’s not there either,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’s taken it into the garden...’

‘I’ll go and look,’ said the attendant, skipping away, glad perhaps of a little bit of action. Hepton was back in the corridor again. He examined the other doors. Three, like Vincent’s, were unmarked. Other bedrooms, he supposed. And one was marked Stores .

‘Where else might they have gone to talk?’ Hepton asked the woman.

‘Well, there’s the television room, of course, but it’s not ideal for conversation. Some of our patients are slightly deaf, and they like the volume turned up. Then there’s the morning room and the library.’

‘Library?’

‘Downstairs. It’s usually empty. But I’m sure I would have seen them go in there. They’d have had to go through reception to get to it.’

‘Would you check anyway?’ The woman seemed doubtful. Hepton tried a smile. ‘Please?’ he said. ‘It’s very urgent that I talk to Mr Vincent.’