Birthdays for the dead

I turned to hobble after the two SEB techs chasing Frank McKenzie, but she wrenched her hand free and sprinted towards a mud-spattered SOC Transit van instead. Pulled open the driver s door and climbed in behind the wheel. The headlights snapped on, then the engine roared into life, the front wheels spinning. Mud and grass spattered up the sides of the cab. The wheels caught and the van slithered forwards onto the path, pulled up beside me and stopped. The window buzzed open. Get in.

I clambered into the passenger seat and she put her foot down.

The Transit van surged forwards, then lurched off the path onto the grass again, bucking and slithering through the bumps.

Up ahead, one of the SEB tripped and went sprawling, but the other one kept going, his SOC suit glowing in the van s headlights.

We crashed through a knot of brambles and out the other side.

The park s boundary wall loomed into view. In the middle distance, the twin chimneys for Castle Hill Infirmary s incinerator reached towards the heavy sky, warning lights twinkled at their tips turning the billowing steam to boiling blood.

The SEB figure slowed to a trot, then a walk, then stopped bent double with his hands on his knees, back heaving as we roared past. The headlights caught someone up ahead, running, hairy arms pumping. Frank McKenzie.

He ducked through one of the park s arched entrances, and Alice swung the van after him. Closer. Closer.

Oh, shite We were never going to fit. Not in a Transit van. I clutched at the grab handle above the door.

She didn t slow down. The brick arch exploded above my head as we smashed through. BANG, and the windscreen was an opaque mass of cracks. The van s bodywork squealed, sparks flying in the gloom.

Alice stamped on the brakes and the Transit screeched to a halt in the middle of the road. Bastard!

I tore off my seatbelt, dragged my left leg up, and kicked. The shattered windscreen buckled. Another two kicks and it was clear, crashing down onto the road. Only one of the headlights was still working, peering myopically into the darkness.

Alice jabbed a finger through the hole where the windscreen used to be. There!

A screech of tyres and we jerked forwards. I fumbled my seatbelt back into its buckle.

McKenzie was heading for the hospital.

Run the bastard down!

Alice almost had him, but he leapt over a short retaining wall and legged it across the grass towards the west wing of Castle Hill Infirmary. She swung the van around at the junction, taking the road marked MATERNITY WARD, EYE HOSPITAL, OUT PATIENTS, RADIOLOGY. Only halfway down she swung right, mounted the kerb and bounced onto the grass, making a straight line for McKenzie s back as he shoulder-charged his way through an emergency exit into the building.

Chapter 48

Alice sprinted off down the corridor while I lumbered along falling further and further behind, forehead peppery with sweat. Clenching my teeth every time my right foot hit the cracked linoleum. The thunk, thunk, thunk, of the cane s rubber tip was like an icepick in my lungs.

What was the point of a nerve block if the bloody thing wore off?

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

A trail of scarlet dots speckled the floor. Fresh blood, red and glistening in the fluorescent lighting. Frank McKenzie might have got away from Alice in the park, but it looked as if she d done some damage first. The trail led through a set of double doors and into another two-tone institution-green corridor.

No sign of Alice.

A pair of nurses were helping an old lady up from the floor, glancing back over their shoulders. For God s sake, someone should call that girl s parents.

Come on, Mrs Pearce, let s get you back into bed.

I clumped past, breathing in time with the cane.

My phone blared. I dragged it out, cutting the thing off mid-ring.

Ash? It was Alice. Where are you?

I m I m going as fast as I can Thunk, thunk, thunk.

He s gone downstairs to the basement.

Don t go after Hello? Alice? Hello?

She d hung up.

Why did no one ever bloody listen?

Through another pair of doors. My phone went again. I jabbed the button. I told you not to follow him! Wait for

Guv, where are you? Rhona. We got a call from the SEB they ve got Megan Taylor, she s alive. We can

Get a firearms team down to Castle Hill Infirmary. Full lockdown. No one in or out unless I say so.

But

The Birthday Boy is Frank McKenzie: tell Dickie. And get that bloody firearms team down here now! With any luck it d be too late to stop me beating the fucker to death. I stuck the phone back in my pocket and lurched through one more set of doors.

The corridor opened out onto a hallway. Signs hung from the ceiling: RADIOLOGY, ONCOLOGY OUT PATIENTS, NUCLEAR MEDICINE, pointing in three separate directions. On the right was a hospital lift, flanked by stairs one lot going up to CARDIOLOGY the other down to the basement.

The trail of blood snaked off into the depths, shiny red spots on the grey concrete steps.