by Eva Hudson
The next thing she was aware of was a torch shining in her eyes. “You’re going to be just fine,” a soothing female voice told her. Then sleep overcame her again.
When she woke up Ingrid could feel something digging into her nostrils. She raised her hand to her nose, but another hand stopped her before she reached it.
“Leave that just where it is.”
Ingrid fought to focus on the face that the voice was coming from. Natasha McKittrick. She blinked and took in her surroundings. A hospital room. The blanket felt heavy against her legs. Light was coming in from a large window to her left. She had a gray plastic clip on one of her fingers and a tube of clear liquid feeding into her left arm.
“What day is it?” She struggled to get the words out, her mouth was so dry.
“Here.” McKittrick lifted a plastic beaker to her lips and Ingrid took a sip of water. “It’s Tuesday, you’ve been in overnight.”
Ingrid tried to sit up. “My apartment.” Memories of the night before were drifting in and out of her mind in a muddled mess.
McKittrick helped raise the pillows behind her and Ingrid pulled herself up. “Do you need the nurse or anything?”
“Not right now. Tell me what happened.” She was having trouble focusing, so she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the chair McKittrick had been sitting in was empty. She glanced toward the door. Through the porthole window she saw the detective speaking to a uniformed cop. A moment later the door opened and McKittrick came back in carrying a Pret A Manger plastic bag.
“Hey—you’re with us again.” She dumped the bag on a tall bedside cabinet and pulled out a cardboard cup. “I went for decaf—hope you don’t mind. I didn’t want your heart rate setting off any alarms. There’s a pot of muesli and yogurt there for you when you’re ready.”
Ingrid smiled up at her. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“I fell asleep earlier. I didn’t mean to.”
“Go right ahead and drift off again, if you need to.”
Ingrid blinked a few times and wriggled upwards in the bed. She puffed out a breath.
“The color’s come back into your face. You look a bloody sight better than you did earlier.”
“What time is it?”
“Two in the afternoon.”
“Why is there a cop outside the room?”
“Protection.”
“What?”
“You really don’t remember what happened?”
“It’s a little hazy.” She gave her friend a weak smile.
McKittrick sat down on the edge of the bed. “You may want to get comfortable. It could take a while.” She handed Ingrid the coffee. “The fire brigade have done some analysis, and it was definitely carbon monoxide poisoning. The flue leading out of the boiler in your bathroom had come loose, and instead of the waste gases going straight outside, they all leaked into the flat.”
“That doesn’t explain the cop.”
“I’ll make allowances for your slowness, given you’ve only just come round. But I’m warning you now, my patience might wear a bit thin—I’ve been up most of the night.” She pulled another cup from the Pret bag and took a sip. “The friendly neighborhood bobby is outside because three of the four screws that were meant to fix the flue in place had been removed.” She stared into Ingrid’s eyes. “Not come loose with general wear and tear, not rusted away… removed deliberately.”
A sudden memory of the shiny objects she had seen in the bathtub popped into Ingrid’s head. “Someone tried to…”
“Kill you… bump you off… do you in… yes.” McKittrick put her coffee on the bedside cabinet. “Second attempt on your life in as many days. Even the Met aren’t going to ignore that.”
“Contact Sol Franklin—he can send someone from the embassy.”
“You saying our boys can’t handle it?”
“Only thinking of your budgets.”
“Sod that! Besides, I’ve already spoken to Sol, he was in earlier with a huge bunch of inappropriate flowers. The nurses weren’t at all happy with him.”
Ingrid drank a little of her caffeine-free, and frankly, pointless black coffee while she considered who the hell might want to kill her. “I’ve got to get out of here.” Pulling the blanket from her legs she noticed the tube that had been anchoring her to a drip was gone. All that remained was a cannula leading into a vein in her arm with transparent adhesive tape. She wondered how bad the bleeding would be if she just yanked it out.
“Stay exactly where you are.”
“I need to find out who did this.” She sat very still for a moment, the sudden movement had made her head spin. “How did they know about the apartment? Or the paintballing thing on Sunday? I didn’t even know where I was going until we arrived.”
“As it happens, I’ve been giving it some thought. I’ve had a bit of time on my hands, sitting here, listening to you snore.”
“I don’t snore.”
“Well all last night you did. Thank God you’re in a private room.”
“And what did you come up with?”
“He must have followed you. To the paintballing place on Sunday and to your apartment yesterday evening.”
Ingrid screwed up her face as a wave of nausea swept over her then gradually subsided.
“Jesus—should I fetch someone?”
“Oh God—I just remembered—I threw up on your shoes last night.”
“It’s OK—I wasn’t that fond of them anyway.”
“Sorry.” Ingrid sniffed. “Whoever sabotaged the boiler would have needed to reach the apartment way ahead of me, just to have enough time to do what they did. They couldn’t have followed me.”
“Glad to see the gray cells have started firing. I suppose he must have already known about the flat.”
“He?”
McKittrick raised her eyebrows. “You said it was a bloke who fired arrows at you.”
“You should speak to the real estate agent.”
“Tried that. He didn’t show up for work today.”
“He didn’t?”
McKittrick shrugged. “Gone AWOL. I don’t think he’s our man, though.”
“I really do need to get out of here.”
“The registrar’s doing his rounds later this afternoon. If he says you’re good to go, fine. Otherwise you’re here for another night.”
“Better make sure I pass the test. I’ll have that yogurt now.”
“I should warn you, you might get a call from Marshall at some point.” McKittrick couldn’t look her in the eye.
“You told him?”
“I didn’t—but someone at the embassy must have. I called your colleagues to find out who your next of kin was—I guessed, as he’s only your fiancé, it wouldn’t be Marshall. The hospital insisted on having a name.”
Ingrid shuddered slightly.
“You cold? Want another blanket?”
“It’s my mom.”
“I know that now. Svetlana Skyberg. Now that’s got a good old American ring to it.”
“It’s a Russian name.”
“I would never have guessed.”
“Should I expect a call from her too?” Ingrid shuddered again.
McKittrick shrugged back at her. “Judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing you don’t want to speak to her?”
Ingrid shook her head.
“If she calls,” McKittrick said, “I’ll take it.”
A half hour later Detective Constable Ralph Mills arrived with a bunch of magazines shoved under one arm. He hesitated at the door, too awkward to come straight in.
In a rush, Ingrid remembered the way she’d recoiled from the kiss he’d planted on the top of her head on Sunday. Thinking about it now, the kiss was as chaste as a grandson pecking his grandmother’s cheek. She had completely overreacted. She needed somehow to make amends.
“I was expecting the doctor,” she told him as he closed the door. The words came out like a criticism, not a
s she’d intended at all.
“Sorry to disappoint.” He handed her the magazines. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I bought a range.” He offered her the merest hint of a smile.
“That was very thoughtful of you. Thank you.”
Ingrid fanned the glossy monthlies out across the bedclothes. Parkour and Free Running, Motorcycle Monthly, and Rolling Stone. Not a bad selection. She wasn’t even sure she’d have chosen as well for herself. His insight into her personality unnerved her.
“And if you don’t like any of these, you can read the paper.” He laid the late afternoon edition of the Evening News on top of the magazines.
As Ingrid stared at the paper, she couldn’t stop her mouth dropping open.
“What’s wrong? Are you OK?” Mills asked her.
Two portraits dominated the front page of the paper. The one on the left was the photograph of Darryl Wyatt taken by his girlfriend, sent to Ingrid by Detective Trooe in Savannah. The one she and Angela Tate had distributed to dozens of properties surrounding the dead Latvian’s apartment. The picture on the right was some sort of artist’s impression of the same face, but this one had much darker hair and clean-shaven chin and cheeks. Ingrid checked the byline, even though she didn’t really need to: Angela Tate.
The headline: Have you seen this man? was followed by a brief reminder of how the cherry-headed Latvian woman was murdered. Ingrid continued to read, fighting hard to keep her head clear, and discovered a witness living in the same apartment block had confirmed seeing a man fitting the description of Wyatt visiting the Latvian’s apartment regularly for the last few months. He even occasionally stayed over.
“What is it?” Mills asked again.
The clincher came in the next paragraph. A fact that Ingrid had not revealed to Tate: the witness had also confirmed he’d seen a distinctive rose tattoo on the man’s left forearm.
“He’s definitely here.” Ingrid swung her legs over the side of the bed. “There’s no doubt now.” The facts about Cory Ellis and his connection to both Matthew Fuller and Barbara Highsmith swam up through layers of murky memories and finally surfaced in her mind. “Darryl Wyatt. Cory Ellis. Whatever he’s calling himself now.”
“Who?”
“Help me find my clothes. I’ve got to get out of this place.”
35
Mills finally located Ingrid’s clothes in a large green plastic sack shoved into the bottom of the bedside cabinet. Just as he was handing them over to her, the door opened. McKittrick marched in. A man in smart suit pants and a short sleeved shirt trailed after her. The man raised both eyebrows in an exaggerated expression of surprise.
“I do hope you weren’t thinking of going anywhere, Ms Skyberg,” he said.
“First of all, it’s Agent Skyberg, and I am thinking of getting the hell out of here.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
The registrar—McKittrick had apparently dragged him all the way from the Emergency Room—spent the next five minutes running through tests: checking her blood pressure, temperature, oxygen absorption and reflexes, before finally giving her the OK to be discharged.
“A nurse will be along in a while to remove the cannula,” he explained.
“Can’t you take it out for me?” Ingrid lifted her arm toward his face.
“I’m afraid matron wouldn’t allow that.”
“All right—I’ll rip it out myself.” Ingrid tugged on the adhesive transparent tape and managed to loosen a corner. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Stop that! Good grief.” The registrar quickly washed his hands, grabbed a pair of disposable gloves from a dispenser above the bed and carefully unpeeled the adhesive tape. When the cannula was out he told Ingrid to apply pressure to a folded dressing on the needle site for a minute or so.
“Now you can get the hell out of my hospital. But there is absolutely no way you’re returning to work. I’m discharging you into the care of a responsible adult on the clear understanding that you rest for the remainder of the day.” He looked from Ingrid to McKittrick and back again.
“He means you, Natasha. How responsible are you feeling?” Ingrid peered at the needle puncture. It oozed a little more blood. She pressed the dressing again.
“Well I’m definitely an adult—that’ll have to be good enough. We’ll get you fixed up at mine, in the spare room.”
“I’d be perfectly fine on my own.”
“I didn’t hear that,” the registrar said, and left the room.
Ingrid and McKittrick were sitting in a taxi stuck in traffic, just a few hundred yards from the hospital when Ingrid decided to make her escape. She reached for the door handle.
McKittrick grabbed her arm. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to get to work. I’ll pick up another cab.”
“You’ve been released into my care.”
“Jennifer’s perfectly capable of looking out for me in the office. I’ve already taken up far too much of your time. You need to get back to work too.”
“No way. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“But I need access to the Bureau database. I know who killed Matthew Fuller. And the Latvian woman. I need to put together a profile of the perp to try and work out where he might be now.”
“Fine. But not today.”
“Tomorrow might be too late.”
“Tough. Call someone. Get your boss to handle it for you.”
“It’s my case. I’ve worked damn hard on it.”
“You’re in no fit state. You’re coming home with me and resting. You can watch a bit of television maybe. But mostly, you’re going to be lying down and dozing. Carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t something you can just shrug off.”
“I’ve had a night in hospital. I’m fine now.”
“Are you still talking? I’m not listening anymore.”
“At least let me make a couple of phone calls.”
“OK—but make them quick.”
Ingrid found her cell phone buried deep in the bottom of her purse and scrolled through the contacts list until she found the name she was looking for. She hit call and waited. And waited. The call was finally answered just as she was about to give up.
“Agent Skyberg, so good of you to get back to me.” The sarcasm in Angela Tate’s tone was unmistakable. “I’ve been leaving you messages all morning.”
Ingrid glanced at McKittrick, who was staring out of the window. “I’ve been a little… tied up.”
“Seems those flyers worked a treat.”
“Have you reported all the information to the investigating team?”
“Of course I have. The witness is probably giving his official statement as we speak.”
“Who is this witness?”
“Bloke who lives in the upstairs flat in the same block as the Latvian woman. He’d been away for a few days. Couldn’t believe what had been going on in his absence. I got the impression he was rather fond of the woman.”
“He gave you the description of the man?”
“He noticed him coming and going. He’d asked Mary about her new boyfriend a couple of times, but she never wanted to talk about him.”
“This neighbor knew her name?”
“Only her first name.”
“And the name of the boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
“How was he so sure the man he’d seen was the same as the one in the photograph?”
“He wasn’t one hundred percent. But the likeness was close enough for him to call me.”
McKittrick cleared her throat nosily. Ingrid turned to her.
“I’ll take that bloody thing away from you. Hurry up and finish the call.”
“Who’s that?” Tate asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“So—is he your man? You never mentioned a tattoo to me.”
“Maybe. I need to do a little more research to be sure.”
McKittrick cleared her throat a
gain. Ingrid held up a finger and mouthed “one minute” at her.
“When was the last time the neighbor saw the man?”
There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Last Tuesday evening. That’s when he left for his holidays.”
“Can you give me the neighbor’s details? I’d like to speak to him myself.”
Tate told Ingrid his name and flat number. “Though you might want to wait a while. He’s rather tied up with the police at the moment. Perhaps you should liaise with them.” Tate hung up.
As Ingrid stared down at her cell phone, trying to work out the significance of the timing of the Darryl Wyatt’s last visit to the property, McKittrick snatched it from her hands.
“That’s enough. You already look paler. No work. And that’s final.”
“I have another call to make.”
“It can wait.”
“I don’t think it can.”
“What was that all about anyway?” McKittrick waved Ingrid’s phone in the air.
“According to the witness, my suspect returned to the property several hours after he killed her. I don’t understand why.”
“To clean up after himself, I expect. Didn’t you say no forensic evidence was found at the flat?”
“It’s more fundamental than that. If I’m right and the man responsible for the Latvian’s death also killed Matthew Fuller…” Ingrid’s head was just too fuzzy to figure everything out.
“Yes?”
“Bear with me here—”
“Wait a minute… how is this any different from you sitting at your desk working through things? I shouldn’t even be talking to you about it.”
“Matthew Fuller is on his hit list, he comes all the way to London to kill him. He watches him die a terrifying, painful death. Why not leave the country straight after? You’ve achieved your goal. Why stick around long enough to discover that your Latvian girlfriend is trying to screw money out of your old bank account in the US?”
McKittrick shrugged. “Maybe he had another reason to stick around.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I really shouldn’t be encouraging you. Let’s talk about it later, once you’ve settled into the spare room.”
