Back Track

by Jason Dean

  Bishop saw he was at the end of a long, well-lit corridor. Halfway down was a set of double doors, currently closed. He couldn’t see anybody through the glass panels, but that wouldn’t last. He needed to move. And what he really needed right now was a locker room.

  He walked down the hallway, checking each door as he passed. One bore the legend Records – 2b. Then came Records – 2a. Most doors had no identification at all. These were all locked. But on the left side he came across one that said Supplies. It was also locked.

  Good thing he never left home without his tools.

  He looked at the lock for a few seconds, then brought out his key ring. On it were three different-sized ‘bump’ keys he’d made the year before to practise with. His old cellmate had shown him how. The one he picked was just a normal house key, but with the five evenly spaced, triangular grooves filed right down to the minimum setting. He looked both ways, then inserted it fully into the lock. He pulled it out one notch, using his index finger to apply a little torque pressure from one side. Then he took his Swiss Army knife from his pocket, tapped it against the key and felt it catch against the tumblers. He turned the key all the way and unlocked the door.

  And people say you never learn anything useful in prison.

  Once inside, Bishop closed the door and felt around in the darkness until he found the light switch. He was in a narrow, windowless room with ceiling-high shelves on either side and a metal cabinet at the far end. Amongst all the spare bed sheets, pillows and towels, he also spotted a whole section devoted to green scrubs. But best of all was a shelf loaded with piles of doctors’ white lab coats. Looked like he wouldn’t need a locker room, after all.

  He flipped through until he found a size 42 and pulled it out. He put it on, but it felt a little tight around the shoulders. He tried the next size up and that fitted perfectly. Then he went over and opened the door to the metal cabinet. Inside were stationery supplies, surplus chart holders, name panel pads, and some aluminium portfolio clipboards. He took two pens and one of the clipboards and closed the cabinet.

  Next, he took the items he’d purchased earlier from his pocket and laid them out on an empty shelf.

  A strip of passport photos. A Tombow glue stick. A small tube of Super Glue. A thin X-Acto knife with a No. 11 blade. He also added his pocket knife to the collection.

  He extracted the miniature scissors from the multi-tool knife and used them to cut one of his photos so it was slightly larger than the one on the ID. Then he used the extra-fine X-Acto blade to make a long slit in the right side of the laminated plastic where the card began. Picking up the Swiss Army knife again, Bishop chose the flat-edged screwdriver tool and inserted it between the plastic and the card, moving it around a little to work the space. He took the photo, used the glue stick on the back and pushed it under the plastic with the tip of the screwdriver. After a little manoeuvring, he got it so it covered the old photo entirely and pressed his thumb against it until he was sure it would stay. Finally, he used a drop of Super Glue to seal up the slit in the plastic and waited for it to dry.

  After fifteen seconds, he picked the ID up and studied it closely. The photo didn’t protrude from the surface too much, and the cut he’d made in the plastic was only noticeable if you were looking for it. Bishop felt it would get him through a casual inspection. As long as the person in question didn’t know the real Albert Williamson, that is.

  Pocketing everything else, Bishop clipped the new ID to his shirt pocket. The pens he stuck in the coat’s upper pocket. Jenna had once said that if you look and sound the part, people will generally believe you’re who you claim to be. And she would know. All he needed now to complete the picture was a stethoscope, but you couldn’t have everything. The clipboard would have to do.

  Bishop listened at the door and heard nothing. He stepped out, switched off the lights and relocked the door behind him. Then he continued down the corridor and pushed through the double doors.

  And almost walked right into a nurse coming out of a room to his right.

  ‘Whoa there, doctor,’ she said, backing into the food trolley just behind her.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Don’t know my own speed sometimes.’

  Through the open doorway behind her Bishop saw a patient on the bed, eating from a tray. Looked like he’d caught them during suppertime. Good timing.

  ‘No harm done,’ she said and frowned at the double doors behind him. ‘Were you looking for something, Dr . . .?’

  ‘Williamson,’ he said, and quickly flashed the ID. ‘No, my patient puked up on me and I was just getting a spare lab coat from the supply room, that’s all.’

  ‘Ha. Welcome to my world. Was it bad?’

  ‘You ever seen The Exorcist?’

  The nurse laughed and said, ‘I’ll tell the kitchen to lay off the pea soup for a while.’ Then she took another tray from the trolley and opened the next door along. ‘Evening, Elaine. How we doing? Just look at the feast we prepared for you this evening . . .’

  Bishop shook his head and carried on walking. That was too close. He was aware he could slip up and say the wrong thing at any time. And the more encounters he had with hospital staff, the more likely it was it would happen.

  About fifty yards up ahead the corridor opened out into a large open area with lots of glass. Just the kind of exposure he hoped to avoid. Bishop continued walking until he noticed a large chart on the right-hand wall. He moved closer and saw it was a floor plan for the whole building.

  Bishop checked his current position on the first floor and saw that the area up ahead led to the main reception. But before that, about twenty yards away on the left, were the stairs. He scanned the rest of the floor, as well as the three above. Not memorizing everything. That would take too long. Just enough to get a general sense of the place.

  This corridor contained the only patient rooms on the first floor. The rest was taken up by the intensive care units and various admin departments. The second floor contained cardio, radiology and a number of other departments. Patient accommodation took up most of the third and fourth levels. He took special note of the locations of the nurse stations.

  Out the corner of his eye, Bishop saw somebody walking this way from reception. It looked like another nurse. Not wanting another encounter so soon, he strode over to where the stair entrance should be. He found the door without a problem, pulled it open and entered the stairwell.

  He climbed to the third floor, opened the door and looked down to his left. The same long corridor as downstairs. All he could see in this one was a trolley about thirty yards down. A nurse was taking something from the middle. Looked like another food tray. She and the tray disappeared into one of the rooms. He turned to the right and saw the nurses’ station about fifty yards away with another corridor just beyond it on the left. Another nurse, her blond hair tied back into a ponytail, was leaning on the counter with a phone at her ear. She paged through a medical file while she listened. Then she replaced the phone, picked up the file and walked off down the left passageway.

  Bishop stepped out onto the floor and walked in that direction. When he reached the counter he looked over. The station was currently unattended, like he’d hoped. But it wouldn’t stay that way for long. He needed to work fast.

  He stepped through the opening and saw three computers on the desk under the counter. All the screensavers were activated. He jiggled all three mice and the screensavers disappeared. Two of the screens asked for passwords to log on to the hospital database, but he got lucky with the third one. The user hadn’t logged off.

  Placing the clipboard on the desk, Bishop sat down and paused when he noticed a pad of blank CMS 1500 health insurance claim forms under the counter. Figuring something was better than nothing, he tore off three sheets and stuck them under the clipboard’s metal spring-loaded clamp.

  He turned back to the computer and scanned through the desktop folders. There was one titled Admissions. He double-clicked on it and ano
ther folder opened up with a number of sub-sections, all arranged by date. He couldn’t make sense of the names and figured it was some kind of hospital code. He knew the medical community had a language all their own.

  Bishop clicked on the first entry and a spreadsheet instantly filled the screen. It contained a long list of names with more dates and times alongside. These had to be patients and their admission dates. The first one was an Eamonn Baxter from the morning of June 1. He scrolled down. The last was a Rosalie Warner, who was admitted on the 12th at 20.56. He looked at his watch. That was just sixteen minutes ago. Which meant it had to be the patient Williamson and his partner just brought in. He was impressed. They sure didn’t mess around in here. Or maybe they did. That was what he was here to find out.

  He tried the next folder down. More names and dates, but for May this time. Bishop scrolled down till he reached the 16th. A lot of admissions that day, but he was only interested in the overnight ones. He calculated that if Selina had been taken at 03.00, that meant the ambulance would have gotten here by 04.00 or thereabouts. He looked at the entries for that time period:

  5/16 – ADM. 03.02. MARIN, Colleen. 4–19. D.G. 328.

  5/16 – ADM. 03.43. ECCLES, Angelina. 3–05. D/C 05/23 – 17.42.

  5/16 – ADM. 03.59. WHITLOCK, Caden. 3–12. D/C 05/20 – 11.18. K.G. 199.

  5/16 – ADM. 04.14. EASTMAN, Mary. 4–29. A.T. 423.

  The next patient after Eastman hadn’t been admitted until almost six o’clock, so that just left these four. Bishop immediately discounted Colleen Marin because of the time factor, and Whitlock for a more obvious reason. Which left two possibilities: Angelina Eccles and Mary Eastman. One of these women could well have been Selina under an assumed name. Another assumed name, that is.

  Just then a female voice behind him said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Bishop turned round to see the same blonde nurse glaring back at him. Her eyebrows were set in a straight line as she walked round the counter towards him. She looked ready for war.

  Bishop quit out of the program and put on his best disarming smile. ‘Hope you don’t mind. I just needed to check on something and there wasn’t anybody . . .’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said, facing him across the counter. ‘But this section right here? Where you’re sitting? We call it a nurses’ station, which means it’s for nurses. If it was for doctors, it would be called a doctors’ station. Which means if you need some help with something you come and ask a nurse. You see where I’m going with this?’

  ‘I’m beginning to get the picture,’ he said as she came through the opening. The name on her badge read Helena Thornhill. Picking up his clipboard, he got up and turned to her. ‘Would it help if I said I was sorry, Helena?’

  ‘It might.’ She turned from the screen to look at him for a moment. He could see the anger slowly fading from her features. The use of her name probably helped. But the frown still remained. She glanced at the part of his ID that was visible and said, ‘You know, I don’t recall seeing you before.’

  ‘Well, I’m only here for today. I was sent over from St Joseph’s in Phoenix to do a special consult on an ICU patient, and just needed to double check the exact time he was admitted. I couldn’t make it out from the notes they give me.’ He shrugged. ‘You know what doctors’ handwriting’s like.’

  ‘Do I ever.’

  ‘There you go. I didn’t think there’d be a problem, Helena; the nurses at St Joseph’s are all pretty easy-going about this kind of thing. But I’ll get out your way now, okay?’

  The nurse showed him her palms and smiled. ‘Hey, forget it. I guess I get a little over-possessive about my workspace sometimes.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ he said, turning to go. ‘Well, I better get back.’

  She nodded and sat in the seat he’d vacated, while he walked down the corridor in the opposite direction to the stairs. Taking that route again might raise the nurse’s suspicions even more. At the end he turned left and saw the elevator bank up ahead. He stood before the right-hand doors and pressed the ‘up’ button. He needed to check one more thing before he left. Assuming D/C stood for discharged, that meant Mary Eastman was still in the building. In room 4–29 on the fourth floor. His next stop.

  As he waited, a female doctor and a male nurse exited a room at his left and came over to stand in front of the elevator next to him. The nurse pressed the ‘down’ button. Bishop took a pen from his pocket and pretended to go over the blank forms on his clipboard.

  After ten long seconds, Bishop heard a ping and the doors in front of him opened. The elevator was empty. He stepped in quickly with his head still down and pressed 4. The doors closed and he breathed out again. At the fourth floor, he stepped out and turned right, studying the room numbers as he passed. There was a 4–15 on the left. Then a 4–16 on the right. Looked like he was going in the right direction. He carried on, but slowed when he saw another nurses’ station up ahead on the left, just before another intersection.

  He opened up his clipboard again and moved his finger along as he walked. He was aware of the two nurses in the station, but didn’t look up. Just kept walking straight ahead, checking his imaginary medical charts. Once he felt he was out of range, he looked up and saw a large window and a long bench marking the end of this passageway about twenty feet away. He checked the door on his left. 4–25. And two more doors to go.

  Bishop stopped outside the last door and looked back. Just a single figure in the distance. Looked like a patient walking around. He turned back to the door to 4–29, gripped the handle and turned. Except he couldn’t. The door was locked.

  That was unexpected. Bishop had never heard of hospitals locking patients in their rooms before. Not even felons. They might assign a cop to stand watch outside, but that was about as far as they went. He took out his keys again and used the same technique as before. Five seconds later he opened the door and stepped inside.

  It was a normal private room with a window, a bed with rails on each side and a small en-suite bathroom on the right. There was a patient lying in the bed. It was clearly female. The bed sheets covered her body all the way to the chin. She had blond hair, but that was as much as he could tell for certain. The rest of her head was wrapped in bandages.

  Bishop looked at the foot of the bed, but didn’t see a chart. Or a chart holder. Even though he’d seen plenty of spare ones in the supply room. So this patient apparently didn’t warrant a medical history. Which was unusual. The only item on the small bedside table was a call button. He looked around and couldn’t see any personal effects either.

  ‘Mary Eastman?’ he said, approaching the bed. ‘Can you hear me?’

  No response. No movement except the steady rise and fall of her chest.

  Bishop moved closer and touched her shoulder. ‘Mary Eastman?’ He leaned in closer and said into her ear, ‘Selina, is that you under there?’

  Again, no response. Probably doped to the gills on God knows what. But there was an easy way to tell if she really was Selina. Bishop reached down, about to pull back the sheets to expose her arms, when somebody said, ‘Hey, what you doing in here?’

  Bishop turned and saw a male orderly walking slowly towards him from the doorway. He was wearing a scowl along with two days’ worth of stubble. About Bishop’s height, but much wider in the shoulders.

  ‘We’re in a hospital,’ Bishop said. ‘I’m a doctor. This is a patient. Which part of that don’t you get?’ He studied the man’s white scrubs and saw no identification. ‘Who are you anyway?’

  ‘That’s none of your business. Only authorized personnel are allowed in here and you’re not authorized. And this door was locked when I left. How’d you get in here?’

  ‘What are you talking about? It wasn’t locked. I was told to check up on this patient and that’s exactly what I was doing when you barged in.’

  The orderly stopped a couple of feet from Bishop. ‘I don’t think so, pal. I ha
ven’t seen you around here before. I’m thinking maybe we should go talk to somebody about this.’

  Bishop opened his mouth to reply when he noticed a shadow in the corridor outside. Then another orderly appeared at the door. Shorter than the first one, but just as wide, with a noticeable paunch. This was starting to get out of hand. Bishop knew he had to make a decision right now, while he was still an unknown quantity.

  ‘Sure, let’s go,’ he said, and nodded towards the doorway. ‘Your girlfriend coming with us?’

  When Stubble turned his head to look, Bishop dropped the clipboard, bent his left arm and slammed the point of his elbow into his face. Right between the eyes. Stubble grunted and fell to the floor with his hands at his forehead. Bishop spun round just as the second man charged towards him.

  It took fractions of a second for Bishop’s mind to sift through the seven possible hand strikes. He chose the ‘spear hand’. The only move that would give him the extra three inches of range he needed. Even as he thought it, he set his legs wide apart, knees bent for perfect equilibrium. At the same time he pressed together the fingers of his right hand, straightening them so the whole hand resembled a spearhead. The orderly was less than two feet away. Bishop could almost smell the guy’s breath. Bishop pulled his right elbow back, then in one rapid movement just shot his arm out to its full length, his fingers sinking into the orderly’s stomach like it was a pillow. Bishop immediately pulled his arm back then dived out of the way as the man’s momentum swept him past the foot of the bed.

  The man made a sickly, gurgling sound and fell to the floor with his hands wrapped around his waist. Bishop heard him make heaving sounds and turned back to the bed. Stubble was already getting to his feet, ready for the next round. Bishop dropped his shoulder and delivered a short side kick into his solar plexus and the man fell back into the bathroom.

  Retrieving his clipboard from the floor, Bishop pulled out his keys and ran for the door. Slamming it shut behind him, he inserted the same bump key as before and did everything in reverse. When he heard the lock bolt slide home, he then inserted the key all the way and bent it back until the metal snapped. Bishop heard a weight crash against the door. He slowed his breathing and walked back down the corridor. He passed the nurses’ station and smiled at the single nurse sitting there. She gave him an uncertain smile back.