gradually it began to subside. He could actually see by the time they were walking DI Steel out of the house. They helped her into one of the ambulance beds. She sat there swaying back and forth as they checked Simon McLeod was securely strapped into the other bed. Unconscious and hooked up to a heart monitor.
‘OK,’ said the paramedic who’d washed out Logan’s eyes, ‘we’ve got to get going.’ He shouted through to the driver. ‘Lights and music, Charlie!’
Logan hopped down off the tailgate, said, ‘I’ll follow you up there,’ then marched over to the CID pool car. Trying to pretend he wasn’t still in pain. He climbed in behind the wheel, starting the engine as the ambulance pulled away – lights and sirens blazing in the sunny afternoon.
Rory’s voice sounded from the back, ‘What happened?’ He was still handcuffed to the seat support.
‘You saw them, didn’t you? You must have been looking right at them when they passed.’ Logan stuck the car in gear, accelerating after the ambulance as it turned right onto Leslie Road.
‘I… What did they do? We—’
‘I want a description.’
The speedometer hit fifty as they screamed through the roundabout and onto Westburn Drive.
‘Aaaagh! Slow down! I haven’t got a seatbelt on!’
‘Did you see them or not?’
Right again, onto Cornhill Road, the grey and brown concrete mass of the old children’s hospital whipping past as they made for Accident and Emergency.
‘Slow down!’
‘Hold on tight – speed bump.’
‘AAAAAAAGH! OK, OK: I saw them, I saw them!’
Logan pulled the car into the closest A&E parking spot and jumped out.
Rory shouted from the back, ‘Wait! You can’t leave me like this!’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Logan opened the door and uncuffed one of Rory’s hands.
‘Ow…’ Rory creaked upright, groaning, rubbing at the small of his back. ‘That wasn’t funny.’
There was a uniformed PC standing by the automatic doors; Logan called him over. The officer looked as if he was about twelve, his badge number marking him out as one of the newest batch of recruits – probably only been on the force for a couple of months. Logan steered him towards the pool car.
‘Keep an eye on Captain Cardigan, here. And if he offers you any sweeties, don’t take them.’
As the young constable got into the back, Rory Simpson smiled, patted him on the knee, and asked him if he liked puppies.
Accident and Emergency looked as depressing as it always did. This wasn’t a place people came to have fun, it was where they went when something had gone spectacularly wrong, and after all these years a little bit of that suffering had seeped into the room’s magnolia walls and green lino floor. A couple of women sat at opposite ends of the grimy seating area, one of them breastfeeding a small child and swearing quietly to herself. The other was sitting next to a little boy who kept screaming, ‘Mummy, it hurts! It hurts!’
‘Well you shouldn’t have fallen down the bloody stairs, should you?’
Logan flashed his warrant card at the desk and asked what had happened to DI Steel and Simon McLeod. One of the admin staff looked up from her computer, sighed, then said, ‘Are you a relative? Because—’
A cry of, ‘HELP!’ came from the direction of the examination rooms, then, ‘LIE STILL, DAMN IT!’
Someone screamed.
Logan lurched into a run, following the sounds down the corridor, towards a row of cubicles. He burst through the curtain: a nurse and a female doctor were struggling with Simon McLeod, trying to keep him on the examination table. A second doctor was crunched up against the far wall, clutching his groin and moaning.
The nurse glared at Logan. ‘Don’t just bloody stand there!’
He grabbed one of Simon’s flailing arms, putting a lock on the wrist. The huge man roared and tried to break free, feet flying in random directions. One caught the nurse on the side of the hip and she staggered back, swearing.
The doctor let go of Simon McLeod’s waist and grabbed his ankles, trying to pin them to the table and failing – he was just too big for her.
‘Bugger this!’ Logan tightened his grip on Simon’s wrist and yanked, pulling Simon off the examination table and onto the floor. He crashed into the linoleum, and Logan twisted, forcing him over onto his ruined face.
The doctor tried to drag Logan off. ‘What the hell are you doing? He’s been seriously injured!’
Logan stuck a foot on Simon McLeod’s shoulder and shoved, keeping the arm fully stretched out and twisted round. ‘You want me to let him go?’
She paused for a second. ‘No. Stay there!’ She hurried out through the curtain and was back thirty seconds later with a hypodermic syringe and a small glass vial of clear liquid.
She threw the syringe cover onto the floor, drew a hefty measure from the vial, then stepped in close to Logan. ‘Hold him still…’ She yanked Simon’s shirt sleeve back, smacked his wrist a couple of times, and slid the needle in.
Slowly the struggling began to fade. One kick. Two. The fingers clenched and unclenched. And then Simon McLeod went limp.
Which was when three burly men in hospital security uniforms burst in through the curtains.
The doctor dropped the used syringe in a yellow sharps bin, then gave the new arrivals a slow handclap. ‘Oh yes, well done. Very good. We could all be dead by now.’
One of the guards shrugged. ‘Fight in the maternity ward – some bloke turned up to see his kid. The mother’s husband wasn’t very happy about it.’
‘You think Doctor Patel’s happy about the state of his goolies?’ She pointed at her groaning colleague. ‘You’re lucky I was next door, or he’d be a eunuch by now.’ Then she asked Logan to help her get Simon McLeod’s unconscious body back onto the examination table.
‘Is he going to be OK?’
‘I doubt it.’ The doctor peeled back the gauze dressing they’d put on in the ambulance, exposing the top half of Simon’s face. Then winced. ‘Both eyes are gone and the optic nerve’s been burnt. He’s blind. Probably in a great deal of pain. All we can do is clean his wounds, keep him sedated, and hope he doesn’t get an infection.’
Five minutes later, Logan followed the doctor through to the next cubicle, where DI Steel was sitting up on the examination table, wobbling slightly. The doctor pulled out a tiny torch and shone it in Steel’s eyes, flicking the light away, then back again. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘can you tell me who the Prime Minister is?’
‘Is it…? I can picture him…’ Steel scrunched her face up, lips moving silently for a moment. ‘Whatsisname – slimy, lying tosspot…?’ As if that narrowed it down.
‘Well, you’ve definitely got a concussion.’ The doctor felt around the back of Steel’s head with a latex-gloved hand. ‘Probably going to have one hell of a lump tomorrow, but nothing’s broken. We’ll keep you in overnight for observation, OK?’
Steel frowned again. ‘Is it Margaret Thatcher?’
‘I’ll give you something for the headache.’ She turned to Logan, ‘Do you want to contact her next of kin? Let them know where she is.’
‘I’ll give Susan a call. Get her to bring in some—’
‘Next of kin!’ Steel hopped down from the table. ‘We—oops!’ Her legs gave way and the doctor grabbed her. Steel kissed her on the cheek. ‘Is that a stethoscope