“They’re not mine,” the driver said quickly. “Never seen them before.”
When Copeland re-emerged a few seconds later, he was holding several sheets of folded paper in his hand, and staring at them in consternation. “Boss, I found these under the front passenger seat. I think you’d better take a look at them.”
Frowning, Dillon leaned across the top of the car and took the papers that were flapping around in the wind from his outstretched hand. As he studied them, his face darkened.
“What are these for?” Dillon demanded, shoving the papers under the driver’s nose.
The man squirmed uncomfortably. “They ain’t mine either,” he said. “Never seen –”
“Yeah, I get it,” Dillon snapped, cutting him off. “You’ve never seen them before.”
The driver shrugged. “Never seen anything else you find in there before either.”
Steve appeared by his side and relieved Dillon of the prisoner. He led him over to the two uniformed locals and explained what had happened. To Bull’s delight, one of them was a newbie probationer who was dead keen to have the arrest, which meant that all the AMIP officers would have to do was provide a brief statement of detention.
Bull heard his name being called, and when he looked around, he saw Dillon impatiently beckoning him over. As soon as he got there, Dillon passed him the three crumpled sheets of A4 paper that George had found.
“What do you make of these?” he asked.
Bull’s forehead creased into a deep furrow as he studied the handwritten diagrams. “They look like rough drawings of the hospital, marking out all the entrances and exits, the location of the lifts, staircases and -–” Bull’s eyes widened. “Shit!”
“And the location of Winston’s room on the third floor, the number of officers guarding him, and their shift changeover times,” Dillon said, finishing the sentence for him.
In an instant, Bull’s facial expression transitioned from confusion to shock. “I don’t believe it,” he said, disbelievingly. “Someone’s really gonna try and break him out.”
“Looks like it,” Dillon said, and then turned to Copeland. “Anything else of interest in there?”
Copeland had a quick nose inside and then re-emerged, shaking his head. “Nah, doesn’t look like it, just three coats on the back seat – two men’s and one female from the look and size of them.”
Dillon considered this. The driver was already wearing a winter coat, so unless one of the male coats had been brought along for Winston, there were currently two unidentified men and one woman wandering around the hospital, getting ready to break Winston out.
In his opinion, the optimum time to strike would be just as the drug squad officers were putting Winston into their car for his return journey to prison, but that wasn’t scheduled to happen until one o’clock, which hopefully gave him a little time to prepare. If he could get armed officers in place before then, he should be able to thwart the escape and arrest everyone involved.
“George, get on the radio,” he said, speaking quickly. “I think Winston’s gang are gonna try and spring him from custody when he’s taken back to prison. We need to get armed support in place before then, and we’re gonna need enough officers to sweep the building. I think there’s a little team roaming around the hospital waiting for the drug squad to move him.”
Copeland’s face blanched. “Bloody Nora,” he said.
“Organise an RVP at the entrance over there, and as soon as the first Trojan unit arrives send them straight up to Winston’s room. In the meantime, me and Steve are going up to warn the officers guarding him that trouble’s brewing.”
As soon as they checked on the officers guarding Winston, Dillon planned to get someone over to the hospital’s CCTV room to review the footage of the Ford Scorpio arriving. With luck, they would be able to retrospectively track the suspects through the hospital and work out where they were. Once located, Trojan units could be sent to intercept them before the drug squad moved Winston.
Leaving Copeland to organise back up, Dillon and Bull sprinted into the hospital.
◆◆◆
Errol was embarrassed by his pathetically slow response to Winston’s command, and he knew it would all be on him if the slender, frizzy-haired woman he was now chasing along the antiseptic scented corridor managed to get away and raise the alarm.
In his defence, if he hadn’t still been reeling from the shock of Winston executing a defenceless cop right in front of him, he wouldn’t have been caught off guard when she barged into the room so unexpectedly.
The nurse was damn fast; he’d give her that. One moment, she’d stood riveted to the spot in shock, and the next she had taken off like Speedy bloody Gonzalez, slamming the door in his face on her way out. As he’d run out of the room after her, Errol had slipped in the puddle of spilled coffee and nearly fallen flat on his face. He must have twisted his ankle during the fall because with every stride he now took, a jarring pain shot up his left leg from ankle to knee.
Ten yards ahead of him, his quarry skidded to a halt, crashing into the wall by the ward’s door with a thud that seemed to knock the wind out of her. He was rapidly closing the distance between them as her finger furiously jabbed at the little access pad, keying in the code to open the secure door.
“Come on, come on…” he could hear her saying breathlessly.
Her face was white with fear as she glanced back at him.
Smiling in triumph, Errol reached out to grab her.
Suddenly, there was a dull buzzing noise and, just as his fingertips brushed against her shoulder, the door popped open and she was through it in an instant.
“No,” Errol shouted as the heavy wooden door closed in his face. He thumped it with his fist, and when that didn’t work, he
