‘ARE YOU SURE?’ I demand, doing everything in my power not to scream into my mobile.
‘Positive,’ Marta hisses back at me. ‘She was found wandering around the Beckton Gas Works, not far from the factory. Who was there last?’
First Petra and now you, Teagan, I think murderously as I glance at Marta’s sister next to me behind the wheel of her car. My thoughts are boiling again. But I reply cryptically to Marta: ‘Does it matter?’
‘I’d go and clean that factory out if I were you,’ Marta says. ‘They’re right behind us.’
It’s true. Over the homicidal buzz I’ve got going in my ears, I can almost hear the baying of dogs.
What a blunder! What a colossal blunder! Farrell wasn’t supposed to be freed until tomorrow morning, a diversion that would draw all police attention to her while I completed my revenge. I should have just killed Farrell when I had the chance. But no, I had to be clever. I had to pile deception upon deception upon deception. But this one has backfired on me.
My fingers go to that scar on the back of my head and the hatred ignites.
My hand has been forced. My only hope is ruthlessness.
‘Take the children,’ I say. ‘Now. You know what to do.’
‘I do,’ Marta replies. ‘The little darlings are already fast asleep.’
Chapter 88
THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS, and smells of St Thomas’s Hospital unnerved Knight in a way he did not expect. He hadn’t been back in a medical facility of any sort since Kate’s body had been taken to one and it made him feel disorientated by the time he and Pottersfield reached the intensive-care unit.
‘This is what she looked like when they found her,’ the Metropolitan Police officer guarding the room said, showing them a picture.
Farrell was dressed as Syren St James, filthy in the extreme, and looking as dazed as a lobotomy patient. An IV line hung from one hand.
‘She talking?’ Pottersfield asked.
‘Babbled about a body with no hands,’ the officer said.
‘No hands?’ Knight said, glancing at Pottersfield.
‘Not much of what she said made sense. But you might have a better chance now that they’ve given her an anti-narcotic.’
‘She was on narcotics?’ Pottersfield asked. ‘We know that for certain?’
‘Powerful doses, mixed with sedatives,’ he replied.
They entered the intensive-care unit. Professor Selena Farrell lay asleep in a bed surrounded by monitoring equipment, her skin a deathly grey. Pottersfield went to her side and said, ‘Professor Farrell?’
The professor’s face screwed up in anger. ‘Go away. Head. Hurts. Bad.’ Her words were slurred and trailed off at the end.
‘Professor Farrell,’ Pottersfield said firmly. ‘I’m Inspector Elaine Pottersfield of the Metropolitan Police. I have to speak with you. Open your eyes, please.’
Farrell’s eyes blinked open and she cringed. ‘Turn off lights. Migraine.’
A nurse closed the unit’s curtains. Farrell opened her eyes again. She gazed around the room, saw Knight, and looked puzzled. ‘What happened to me?’
‘We were hoping
‘I don’t know.’
Pottersfield said, ‘Can you explain why your DNA – from your hair, to be exact – was found in one of the letters from Cronus to Karen Pope?’
The information was slow to penetrate Farrell’s fogged brain. ‘Pope? The reporter?’ she said to Knight. ‘My DNA? No, I don’t remember.’
‘What
Farrell blinked and groaned, and then said: ‘Dark room. I’m on a bed, alone. Tied down. Can’t get up. My head is splitting open, and they won’t give me anything to stop it.’
‘Who are “they”?’ Knight demanded.
‘Women. Different women.’
Pottersfield was beginning to look irritated. She said, ‘Selena, do you understand that your DNA links you to seven murders in the last two weeks?’
That shocked the professor and she became more alert. ‘What? Seven …? I haven’t killed anyone. I never … What, what day is it?’
‘Saturday, 11 August 2012,’ Knight replied.
The professor moaned, ‘No. It felt like I was only there overnight.’
‘In the dark room with women?’ Pottersfield asked.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘No,’ Pottersfield said.
Knight said, ‘Why did you fake getting sick and flee your office when Karen Pope played the flute music to you?’
Farrell’s eyes widened. ‘It made me sick, because … I’d heard it before.’
Chapter 89
I TERMINATE THE call to Marta and look over at Teagan, feeling as if I’d like to rip her head off right now. But she’s behind the wheel and an accident is out of the question at this late stage of the game.
‘Turn around,’ I say, struggling for calm. ‘We’ve got to go to the factory.’
‘The factory?’ Teagan replies nervously. ‘It’s broad daylight.’
‘Farrell escaped. She was picked up inside the gasworks. Knight and the Scotland Yard inspector Pottersfield is with her at the hospital right now.’
Teagan loses colour.
‘How could that have happened?’ I demand softly. ‘She wasn’t supposed to be freed until tomorrow morning. It was your responsibility to see to that, sister.’
Panic-stricken, she says, ‘I should have told you, but I knew how much pressure you were under. There were drunken lads inside the factory when I was there yesterday morning. I figured the smell would keep them from the room. They must have broken the lock and let her go or something. I don’t know.’
‘We’ve got to clean the place,’ I say. ‘Get us there. Now.’
We don’t talk during the rest of the drive, or during our entry into the toxic factory grounds, or as we sneak inside the basement. I have only been here once before, so Teagan leads. We both carry rubbish bags.
The smell coming from the open storage room door is obscenely foul. But Teagan goes inside without
