His phone started to ring, but he ignored it.
As carefully as he could, he rolled the male officer over onto his side, supporting his flopping head with one hand and checking him out for gunshot wounds with the other.
As he worked, he barked out orders. “Stevie, call the Yard and chase up that armed assistance,” he instructed. “Trojan need to set up a perimeter around the hospital ASAP. Also, get Winston’s description circulated. He’s such a distinctive looking bastard that there’s no excuse for anyone missing him.”
As he turned the female officer onto one side to examine her for injuries, he spotted a thin silver key dangling from a fob on the front of her utility belt. Unclipping it, he set about removing her handcuffs and placing her in the recovery position, a process he quickly repeated for her colleague.
Dripping with the sweat of his exertions, Dillon stood up just as a frizzy-haired nurse in her early thirties appeared in the doorway. Her taut face was streaked with mascara.
“Who are you?” she demanded, her eyes darting nervously from one to the other. She sounded like an Aussie, Dillon thought, although her voice was so strained that he couldn’t be totally sure. The athletic-looking nurse fidgeted anxiously while awaiting his reply, and he could tell that she was poised to run if the slightest thing spooked her.
“Police. I’m DI Dillon and this is DS Bull,” he said, producing his warrant card from his pocket.
Bull was talking animatedly to the operator at IR, but having heard his name mentioned, he raised a hand in greeting.
“Thank God,” the woman said, sagging against the door frame.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, thinking she looked emotionally drained.
“My name’s Melissa Smails, but everyone calls me Mel.”
He indicated the two unconscious officers on the floor. “Mel, I need you to come in and examine my colleagues for me, but this is a crime scene now so you’ll have to be really careful where you tread and what you touch.”
“I understand,” she said, nodding weakly. “I’ll be careful.”
Crossing the room cautiously, Mel knelt down and gave each of the officers a cursory examination.
It didn’t take long. “I think they’ve been drugged with a powerful sedative,” she told him when she’d finished. “I’ll arrange for them to be moved somewhere more suitable so that we can get them checked out properly, but I don’t think either is in imminent danger.”
“Thank you,” Dillon said, enormously relieved that the body count wasn’t set to increase.
“How did you get here so quickly?” Mel asked as she stood on wobbly legs. “I only called this in a couple of minutes ago.”
Dillon stared at her in confusion.
She let out a short, mirthless laugh. “You’re not here because I called the police, are you?”
Dillon shook his head. “We were coming here to supervise Winston’s return to prison.”
“You’re too late for that,” she said, bitterly.
He didn’t think she had intended it as a dig, but it stung anyway.“What exactly happened here?” he asked her.
Mel ran a trembling hand through her hair, brushing it away from her eyes.
“I was on my way back to the ward when I heard a bang. When I came to check it out, I found three people in here with Mr Winston – two men and a woman. They were all dressed as hospital staff, but I didn’t recognise any of them so I’m guessing the clothing was just a disguise.”
“Exactly how long ago was this?” he asked, staring at her intently. “Please think carefully.”
Mel bit her lip. “I reckon four or five minutes tops. After I stumbled across them, the bald one chased me back to the ward. I… I was lucky to get away.”
Her voice wobbled and, for a moment, Dillon thought she was going to break down and cry. Instead, she took a deep breath to compose herself and then continued. “As soon as I was safely inside, I dialled 999. The emergency services operator said help was on the way, and a couple of minutes later I saw you guys run in.”
“Can you describe any of the people who were with Winston?” Dillon asked.
Mel nodded. She doubted she would ever forget the oaf who had chased her. His face would haunt her dreams for years to come.
“They were all black,” she said, her voice quivering. “One was dressed as a doctor, one as a porter – that’s the one with the bald head – and the woman was dressed as a nurse.”
As she described them, Dillon realised that these were the very people he had seen walking along the corridor as he’d arrived. If he and Steve had reached the top of the stairs thirty seconds earlier, they would literally have bumped into them. He really wasn’t sure how he felt about that – should he be relieved or angry that he had missed them by such a narrow margin?
“Did you see how many of them had guns?”
“The only one I saw with a gun was Mr Winston.”
Dillon nodded, digesting this information. “How many lifts are there in this place?” he asked, turning his mind to how the suspects were going to get down to ground level.
Mel shrugged. “I dunno, five or six, I would imagine. It’s a big hospital, after all.”
He waved his arm to get Bull’s attention. “Steve, this is Nurse Smails. She –”
“It’s Sister Smails, not Nurse,” Mel interrupted.
Dillon acknowledged the correction with a curt nod. “Sister Smails got a good look at the suspects. Can you take a description from her and get it circulated?”
Dillon’s telephone rang again, and this time he checked the caller ID. It was George Copeland. Excusing himself from the others, he pressed the green button. “How are you getting on with that back up I asked for?” he demanded, tetchily.
Copeland ignored the question. “Thank God you’re alright,” he blurted out with a huge sigh of relief. “We heard that there were police fatalities up there and we were all worried.”
“George,” Dillon cut in, “we’re both fine, but the
