He glanced over at Angela, who had removed her jacket to reveal a nurse’s uniform. “Kinky!” he said, giving her a lascivious smile as he ran his eyes over her breasts. It fell from his face when she didn’t immediately respond. “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug of indifference.
Errol was the last one to get out of the car, and underneath his leather bomber jacket, he was dressed as a porter.
It was eleven forty as they approached the hospital entrance. According to the latest report from the nursing station, which he’d received earlier that morning when he’d called in posing as Oliver Clarke’s intern, the police were sending a team to take Uncle Claude back to prison at one o’clock. Perhaps he was cutting it fine by leaving the breakout attempt until the eleventh hour, but he figured the longer he left it, the more complacent the cops would become.
◆◆◆
“Guv, there’s a phone call for you. I think it’s the hospital.” DS Steve Bull shouted as he poked his head through the doorway of Dillon’s small office.
“Bloody hell, Stevie! Can’t you take a message?” Dillon snapped. “I was just about to make an important call for the boss.” He waved the telephone handset at Bull to emphasise his point.
Jack Tyler was going to be stuck at court for most of the day; he had a PCMH – a Plea and Case Management Hearing – listed at the Old Bailey this morning, and an appeal against sentence was scheduled to be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice at two-thirty. Before leaving, he’d asked Dillon to speak to the NPIA – which stood for the National Police Improvements Agency, although most coppers he knew thought the acronym ought to stand for ‘No Point In Asking’ – with a view to them recommending an expert in gait analysis for a trial that was due to commence in late February.
“Sorry, guv. They asked for you in person.” Bull shrugged apologetically as if to say ‘what could I do?’ After delivering the message, he took his leave quickly, before Dillon could hurl abuse at him.
With a sigh of pure frustration, Dillon lowered the receiver and pocketed the crumpled sheet of paper Jack had given him. “Oh well, I didn’t really want to speak to the NPIA anyway,” he mumbled under his breath. Closing his door behind him, Dillon strutted into the main office and snatched up the telephone that Steve Bull was pointing to.
“Hello, Detective Inspector Dillon speaking…”
◆◆◆
Melissa Smails genuinely loved her job at the RLH where, for the past two years, she had worked as a ward sister on a mixed-sex, short-stay surgical ward with a surgical elective admission unit. There were fifteen beds in total, catering for all of the surgical specialities. The patients currently under her care included people who had undergone complex surgical procedures, were receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy, or required symptom control.
Mel’s working day had begun, as always, with a detailed handover from the night shift, during which she had been briefed about each and every patient – especially the mysterious one being guarded by the police in a private room just along the corridor.
Although the clinical shift started at 8 a.m., Mel was ultra-conscientious and she always liked to arrive a few minutes early so that she could review the staffing and skill mix for the day; this helped her to effectively plan the nurse-to-patient allocation so that none of the nurses were inadvertently put in a situation that exceeded their skills or capabilities.
After the handover, there had been time for a quick cup of coffee, and then Mel had commenced her ward round and personally visited every patient under her care, chatting with some, simply exchanging a cordial greeting and a smile with others.
Throughout the morning, teams of doctors from the various surgical disciplines had carried out their ward rounds and checked on their patients’ progress. It had been controlled pandemonium as usual, and she had presided over it like a fussy mother hen.
As Melissa wearily hung up the phone after fielding yet another lengthy call, she reflected that she had spent a disproportionate amount of her morning speaking to the hospital’s bed manager and other ward managers trying to juggle beds for patients.
Mr Winston, it seemed, would be leaving them today. She’d uttered a silent hoorah when she’d received the news; not only was the man utterly obnoxious, but having all these policemen around, not to mention all these extra security precautions that had been put in place, interrupted the smooth flow of her ward, and she didn’t like it.
She glanced at her watch. It was quarter-to-twelve. There was a bit of a lull going on at the moment, and she wondered if she’d have the time to scoot down to the hospital cafeteria and grab herself a fancy coffee and a bar of chocolate before it got busy again.
◆◆◆
As soon as he cradled the phone, Dillon looked around the office, checking to see who was available. The place resembled a ghost ship; Colin Franklin, Kelly Flowers, and young Dick Jarvis had accompanied Jack to the Bailey, and almost everyone else was out on action-led enquiries.
“Steve, what are you and George doing right now?” he asked. The only other people in the room were Dean Fletcher and Wendy Blake, two DCs who worked on the team’s Intel Cell, but they were both swamped with work.
“Why?” Bull asked guardedly. It was like having a bad case of déjà vu because he knew exactly where this was leading.
“What are you doing?” Dillon repeated, impatiently folding his arms across his barrel of a chest.
Bull grimaced, sensing that he was about to be lumbered. “Some urgent enquiries for the boss,” he said, hoping Tyler’s name would be enough to deter Dillon from burdening him.
“Not anymore, you’re not, mate. I’ve just spoken to a Consultant at the
