CHAPTER ONE
He was coming to his own domain. Where he felt most comfortable, especially at night. For a short time, he could be alone in a place that felt uniquely his.
The lift door opened, and he pushed the trolley out into the corridor. The trolley was heavy and should have been handled by two members of staff. Staffing shortages meant he generally ended up manoeuvring it on his own. He was happy with that. He was strong enough to cope, and it gave him more time by himself. When he came down here, especially at night, he preferred to be alone.
No one would miss him for another half hour or so. His colleagues all did the rounds as slowly as possible, especially at night. It was a way of filling the time, alleviating the boredom. Of scoring a few more small points against those in charge.
He had no idea what the rest of them did with the time. Sneaked out of the building somewhere for a clandestine smoke or even something more. He didn't care. His own preference was innocuous enough. Just to spend time down here by himself, enjoying the solitude. The sense of power.
More than anyone realised, he was in control here. The one who decided whether they lived or died. Others might claim that power, and some saw themselves as more qualified for the role. But they rarely exercised their power, constrained as they were by some notion of ethics, of decency, he would never begin to understand. Power became power only when used.
He pushed the trolley along the bleak white-painted corridor. Away from the patient-facing parts of the hospital, the decor was less well maintained. The walls were stained, the paint peeling in places. The lights were motion-activated, illuminating only as he walked towards the darkness. As a result, it was dimmer down here, shadows clustered more thickly in the corners. Exactly as he liked it.
He turned at the end of the corridor and pushed the trolley along the next corridor to the loading bay. The hospital laundry was handled off site by a commercial provider, and his job was to unload the laundry bags ready for collection early in the morning. There'd be a reciprocal run to collect the fresh laundry for delivery to the wards. The process had been explained to him at length during his induction training, but he'd taken in only as much as he'd thought would be useful.
He unloaded the large bags from the trolley and left them stacked in the allocated place, then pushed the trolley back along the corridor towards the central service lifts. As always, his objective was to complete his duties as quickly as possible, to allow him maximum time by himself. Before he reached the lifts, he turned into a side corridor and left the trolley out of sight. The chances of anyone else coming down here in the small hours were remote, but he preferred to be cautious.
Having deposited the trolley in its hiding place, he continued along the corridor past the lifts. He'd familiarised himself with every inch of the basement area. It was used mainly for storage—everything from cleaning products to clinical equipment to pharmaceuticals. From time to time, he and a colleague came down here to collect supplies for distribution to the wards and departments. Predictably, he'd never been allowed to carry out those duties by himself. Pilferage and petty theft were recurrent problems, and management were understandably concerned to ensure employees were not led into temptation.
He didn't much care. When he wanted to help himself, he did. The half-hearted security was a minor inconvenience, a small hurdle to overcome. And that, repeatedly, was what he had done.
At the far end of the basement area, below the main hospital entrance, he passed through a set of double doors. The decor and surroundings immediately improved. There were outpatient departments here accessed from the main public lifts, and, tucked discreetly away at the end of the corridor, the hospital mortuary. By day, these areas would be busy with patients, but now the corridors were silent and empty.
He always made a point of coming along here, even though his time was limited. This was the heart of his kingdom. He never went inside, even though one of his several duplicate keys would have allowed him access. There were times when he'd been tempted. Just to go in and stand looking at the rows of storage units, hearing the silent voices calling to him. But the risk was too great. If he were found wandering about in the corridors at this time he'd have no difficulty coming up with an excuse. But his presence in the mortuary would be much harder to explain.
He was happy to do no more than pause briefly outside its doors, sensing the power within, knowing how easily he could commune with its inhabitants if he chose. He drew something from that, an energy he knew would help sustain him.
Having paid his usual obeisance, he headed back through the double-doors into the restricted areas. He'd organised himself a private room, tucked away at the rear of the basement, an unused storage area where he could remain concealed from any unexpected visitors. He'd furnished the room with an abandoned office chair he'd discovered elsewhere in the basement and various other pieces of furniture. He generally whiled away ten or fifteen minutes there. This was when he thought and planned.
The intensity of his thought down here was different. He was at the centre of his kingdom, everything in reach. He could see how it fitted together. He could discern the patterns. He could work out exactly what he needed to do, and the order he ought to do it. Everything came together.
He had to limit his time here—he had no desire for his absence to be noted—but that intensified the experience. He could almost see them all up there, the staff and the patients. He could see what they were doing, those who were working and those who were not, those who were waking and those who were asleep. Those worthy of his attention, and those who were not.
Those who deserved to live. And those who did not.
He sat for ten minutes or so, his mind probing the spaces above. Finally, as if waking from sleep, his eyes snapped into focus. He had one more task to complete before he returned upstairs.
He walked back along the corridor and stopped in front of one of the many closed doors. He'd had less difficulty obtaining the duplicate key than he had expected. But they were as careless here as everywhere else. He shouldn't have been surprised, but he still had a tendency to over-estimate them. Perhaps that was just as well. It prevented him becoming complacent.
He opened the door and stepped into the storeroom. Closing the door quietly behind him, he relocked it from the inside, and only then turned on the lights.
He was gradually learning more about the products down here and their various uses. None of the really serious items were stored here, of course. Even those fools were smart enough to realise that the Class A drugs and similar items needed to be stored more securely. But there was plenty down here for his purposes.
As always, he selected a small number of items and slipped them into his pockets. He made a point of not taking too much of any one item. He presumed that some kind of periodic inventory was carried out, but he imagined the checks were not precise. As long as he avoided raising any immediate suspicion, he should be able to continue for as long as he needed.
Satisfied, he turned out the lights, unlocked the door and stood for a moment listening. Then he stepped outside into the corridor. Finally, he relocked the door and slipped the key back into his pocket.
He returned to where he had left the trolley and pushed it back towards the service lift. Another satisfactory night. Another step towards his objective. Slowly, the plan was coming together, the pattern forming in the way he wanted. It wasn't yet fully in focus, but it was within his reach.
And only he could see it. Only he could read the connections, see the links, identify how the parts fitted together.
Only he could see which deaths were needed before the pattern was complete.
CHAPTER TWO
Kenny Murrain stepped into the main hospital foyer and paused. He didn't know how many times he'd been here over the last few weeks. Each time he'd hoped things would be different. That there'd have been some change, some positive development. But the news was always the same. He assumed, though no one seemed prepared to confirm this, that in practice that meant the news was becoming worse.
It was cold outside, though spring was finally on its way. There was blossom on some of the trees, burgeoning buds on others. The days were growing longer. It was normally a time when Murrain felt optimistic, as if the coming year might have something new and better to offer. This year he felt nothing but gloom.
The foyer was thronged with people—visitors on their way to see patients, former patients waiting to be collected, hospital staff passing through in the course of their duties. At the far side there was a small café serving coffee and snacks to visitors, one of several in the building. Murrain ran his eye idly across those sitting at the tables.
She was sitting by herself, staring through the window at nothing in particular.
He was tempted just to walk by. It wasn't exactly that they'd been avoiding one another. That had been impossible in the circumstances. But their paths had crossed only up on the ward, and it had never seemed appropriate or tactful to exchange more than the usual platitudes.
He'd been spared the need to interact with her at work, partly because she'd been on compassionate leave since it had all happened, and partly because Marty Winston, the superintendent in charge of the team, had taken responsibility for handling the welfare issues. Murrain had resented that at first, feeling edged out of the picture. But Marty had been right. Murrain had barely been in a state to take care of his own welfare, let alone anyone else's.
If he pretended he hadn't seen her, it would be yet another example of his weakness, his inability to step up when it mattered. A trivial example compared with everything that had happened, but still indicative of his failings.
He made his way over to the café, positioning himself close to her table. “Marie.”
She looked up. “Kenny.”
“Can I get you another coffee?”
She glanced down at her empty cup, and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse. “Yes, why not? Thanks. A cappuccino, if that's okay.”
“Won't be a moment.”
While the coffees were being prepared, he looked back at her. She was sitting motionless, her gaze fixed on the empty cup in front of her. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
When he returned, she stared at him as if only now registering his presence. “Sorry, Kenny. My mind's—well, you know …”
“Of course. I take it there's no news.”
She gave a barely imperceptible shake of the head. “Same as ever.”
“At least it's not bad news.”
“Isn't it? The longer this goes on, the worse the outcome's likely to be. They're not optimistic.”
Murrain wanted to argue with her, tell her the doctors had offered him a more positive prognosis. But they'd both been given the same information, even if they'd chosen to interpret it differently. That was understandable. She didn't want to allow herself the luxury of hope.
“Christ, I'm sorry, Marie. I wish …”
“It wasn't your fault, Kenny.”
“None of that matters now, anyway. It happened.”
“I thought he was all right, you know? That night, I mean. I was praying and praying after he'd been swept away. Then when we found him, swept up on the bank, I thought …”
Murrain knew exactly what she meant. He'd been though the same sequence of emotions himself. The initial horror at that dramatic surge of water along the bank. The realisation that Joe Milton had been swept away by the sheer force of the water. Then the euphoria, only a little later, when they'd found his body washed up by the river. Murrain had barely been thinking coherently, but he and Marie had administered CPR until the ambulance had turned up. At that point, he'd thought the worst of it was over. Joe would spend a night or two in hospital getting checked over, and everything would return to normal.
But the following day Marie had phoned from the hospital to break the bad news. Joe had remained in a coma and the prognosis was at best uncertain. The consultant had later given Murrain a detailed explanation he hadn't really followed, but it amounted to the fact that, for precious minutes, Joe's brain had been starved of oxygen. The precise cause of the coma remained uncertain, but—though no one had ever said the words out loud to Murrain—there were fears the outcome might be lasting brain damage.
Even then, he'd expected the future would soon become clearer. But they were nearly three weeks on, and nothing had changed. Marie spent the days sitting by Joe's bed desperately hoping for an improvement. Murrain came here after work most days, and phoned regularly to check for developments. They remained trapped in this hellish limbo.
“Why now?” She was talking more to herself than to Murrain. “Why the hell did this have to happen now? When we'd just finally got together.”
He could offer no answer. It was just how life was. When you finally thought things were running smoothly, the fates screwed you over. “All we can do is hope.” He was conscious how feeble his words sounded.
“What about Edward Crichton? Any news on him?”
Murrain hadn't expected the question. He assumed that Marie would be too focused on Joe's condition to worry about the wider case they'd been involved in. It was Crichton they'd been trying to stop when it had happened. Murrain supposed they'd succeeded. They'd prevented two innocent people from being killed. In the end, the only casualty had been Joe. And, most likely, Crichton himself.
They still didn't know for sure. Crichton had been swept away in the same surge of water that had dragged Joe from the shore. But his body hadn't yet been found. The river itself wasn't particularly wide or deep in normal times, and Murrain had expected to find the body shortly after they'd found Joe's. But nothing had turned up. “Nothing at all,” he said now in response to Marie's question.
“I don't like it.”
Murrain shared her unease. Something about Crichton had disturbed him from the start. There'd been moments, out there in the pouring rain that night, when Murrain had felt Crichton had entered his head. As if Crichton had been the one in control.
He'd found himself thinking of Crichton almost as something other than human. It was nonsense, of course. Crichton was flesh and blood. It might be that he had unusual gifts. It might even be that his talents were greater than anything Murrain had experienced. But none of that made him superhuman. He was no more capable of surviving those waters unharmed than Joe had been. The only question was whether he'd been luckier.
It was possible. If he'd been washed up on the far bank or further downriver still conscious, it wouldn't have been difficult for him to have made a successful escape. He'd have been soaked and freezing, but Murrain had little doubt about Crichton's resilience.
All they could do was continue the hunt. It didn't help that the intelligence services had, as so often, been less than co-operative. They regarded Crichton as their business and were unlikely to change their views at the behest of some tin-pot local force. It was possible they'd already tracked down Crichton and taken him back into their clutches. Although, from everything he'd seen of their work, Murrain doubted it.
“He scared me,” Marie said. “He scared the bloody life out of me. There was something about him.”
“We'll get him, Marie. If he's out there, we'll get him. And if he's not, we'll find the body sooner or later.”
“In the meantime poor Joe just lies there. What do you think's going on in his head, Kenny? He might be conscious. He might be aware of what's happening.”
Murrain avoided her eye. He knew what she wanted to ask of him. Could he somehow use his gifts—whatever they were, however they might work—to communicate with Joe? The same thought had occurred to Murrain himself. But it just didn't work like that. It wasn't something he could control. Sometimes it was there. More often, it wasn't. Sometimes it helped. More often it didn't. Even when it did, the results were frequently unexpected. When he'd first visited Joe here, he'd tried. But there was nothing. Not even the static or white noise he sometimes encountered. Just the absence of a connection.
“What do the doctors say?”
“They don't seem to know any more than I do,” she said. “Or if they do, they're not saying. There are signs of brain activity, but they won't commit themselves to their significance.”
“There are plenty of instances of patients making full recoveries from this kind of state.”
“And more cases where they haven't, and the chances of recovery grow slimmer with every passing day.” She pushed her cup away and bent over to collect her bag. “I'd better be getting back up. Are you coming?”
“I'll follow you up.”
“I do mean it, you know, Kenny. None of this was your fault. You helped save his life.”
Murrain nodded, not trusting himself to respond. Whatever anyone might say, he was always going to blame himself. He should have acted more quickly. He still didn't know why he hadn't. Something had prevented him. He hadn't been able to explain it then, and he couldn't explain it now.
He watched her walk towards the lifts. She was right, he thought. There was something scary about the mysterious Edward Crichton. Whatever had happened that night, whatever had prevented Murrain from acting the way he'd wanted, it was all connected to Crichton. Crichton shared Murrain's distinctive gifts perhaps at a level Murrain himself couldn't even imagine. But he'd begun to suspect there was more than that.
Whatever the truth might be, he wouldn't feel comfortable until they'd finally tracked Crichton down. Alive or dead.
CHAPTER THREE
How the hell had he ended up here?
Kyle Amberson still didn't know, two years on. He could trace the sequence of events that had resulted in him living and working in this place. But he couldn't replicate the state of mind that had made each of those steps seem, at the time, quite natural, if not inevitable.
There had been Anna, obviously. That had been a big part of it. She was what had brought him up to the North West in the first place. There'd been a period, probably several months, when he'd assumed they'd end up living together, get married, make a joint life for themselves up here. Whether she'd shared that expectation, he now had no real idea. He couldn't recall they'd ever seriously discussed it. It was only when she almost casually took up with someone else that it occurred to him that, in her eyes, they'd never been much more than friends. They still were, he supposed, though he hadn't seen her in the best part of a year. From what he'd heard, she was now happily living with the man she'd left him for.
Then there'd been the work. When he'd decided to move up here, he'd needed to find something. He'd worked as a locum for a while, and then the practice here had invited him to join them on permanent basis. The relative stability had appealed, and he'd willingly taken up the offer. He largely enjoyed the work, and the practice was efficient and well regarded. His income was less than most of his patients probably assumed, but he'd never wanted an extravagant lifestyle and he earned enough to meet his needs.
It was just that he'd never envisaged ending up somewhere like this. Not that there was much wrong with the place itself, and the location had its compensations. But it was essentially a functional, slightly bleak northern market town which had undoubtedly seen better days. There were pockets of deprivation and of relative wealth, and he encountered instances of both every day in his work. There was nothing wrong with the place but nothing particularly attractive or inspiring either.
The main compensations were that a thirty-minute drive in one direction would take him out into the Peak District, while a thirty-minute drive in the other took him into central Manchester. When he'd first moved here, particularly when he was with Anna, they'd taken frequent advantage of that. Now, he spent most of his time here. He'd occasionally head into the city for a drink with mates, and every now and then they'd have an excursion into the countryside. But his old friends were drifting into serious relationships and he found himself left more and more to his own devices. Most weekends, he felt too tired to do much more than head to the supermarket for his weekly shop before settling down to watch the football on the TV.
He wasn't due back at the practice for another twenty minutes. He made a point of getting out at lunchtime, if only just to buy a sandwich and a cup of soup. Today was a half-decent spring day—still chilly, but with a clear sky and the scent of renewal in the air.
Instead of heading back to the practice, he found an empty bench in the market square and sat sipping at his soup. Behind him there was the attractive brick-built edifice of the town hall, but the market square itself had little to commend it. It was the usual wasted opportunity, a pigeon-filled space surrounded by anonymous concrete shops and offices from the 1960s. It could easily have been transformed into an inviting location if the buildings had been designed as a tribute to the Victorian grandeur behind him. But nobody had cared enough or had had enough funding to produce anything of that quality.
Various shoppers, mostly elderly, shuffled past him. That was another thing about the place. It seemed increasingly to be dominated by old people, or at least by people who seemed old to Kyle. He saw that in the surgery too. Sometimes it felt as if the majority of his patients were geriatrics. It probably wasn't true, any more than it was true of the population of the town in general. But most younger people would be working at this time of day. The only sign of a newer generation were the hordes of teenage schoolchildren who descended on the square every lunchtime. Kyle always timed his break to avoid their mass invasion.
So, if not here, where had he envisaged himself? He'd originally had ambitions for a more specialist medical role but—partly again because of his ultimately unrequited pursuit of Anna—he'd drifted into general practice as offering more flexibility in location and lifestyle. He'd never really regretted the decision. He enjoyed the interaction with the public. He didn't resent the fact that his role was often more that of counsellor than medical advisor. He liked being able to establish a more personal relationship with some patients.
That was important. And it was particularly important in this particular town. A shadow hung over the place that he and his colleagues could never entirely dispel. It was a long time ago now, of course, or it seemed so to a young man like Kyle. Nearly twenty years. But people here had long memories. Too many of them had been directly affected and they weren't likely to forget. Against that background, trust was hard to regain and all the more precious.
Kyle finished his soup and sandwich, throwing the packaging into one of the market square bins before heading back.
It was just up the road, he thought. Only a few hundred metres away. The place where the man had been based, where he'd carried out much of his consultation work. There, and in the dozens of homes that he'd visited. He'd been liked, well-respected and, yes, trusted. They'd all believed in him, confident he had their best interests at heart. Perhaps, in his own twisted way, he'd come to believe that too.
It was a risk of the profession, Kyle thought. You were taught to trust your own judgement, to deal confidently with uncertainty or ambiguity, to convince your patients you knew what you were doing. That didn't mean you acted blindly or ignorantly, but it did mean you had to exude an air of authority. Most learned to strike the balance appropriately, but Kyle could see how easily you might begin to believe your own publicity.
He hurried across the street, suddenly feeling cold in the early spring afternoon. His own fault. He'd brought in only his light overcoat today, fooled by the brightness of the day, but winter still lingered in the air. As he reached the entrance to the surgery, he glanced behind him and hurried through the doors with the air of a man pursued.