David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (12 page)

       
“Do you believe it?”

       
Melissa rotated her
chair a quarter turn to the left, on the spot, and then straightened up again
before answering.

       
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?”
she said. “Given someone’s shoving me towards the same door, with no good
reason. But yes. I believe it. He was always pushing the limits, and I think
one time he pushed that little bit too far.”

       
“Did he get a result,
that time?”

       
“Well, yes. But you
still can’t condone it.”

       
“I’m not condoning it.
I’m only asking.”

       
“Not morally.
And not practically.
It does more harm than good, nine times
out of ten. Look at the situation we’re in now, with the firemen.”

       
“What’s
Leckie
got to do with the firemen?”

       
“It’s his fault they’re
being so uncooperative.”

       
“Did he
brutalise
one of them?”

       
“Not physically. But
verbally, yes. He was furious when he heard what had happened during the alarm,
so he got the chiefs of all the fire stations together on a conference call.
Then he bawled each one out, one after the other, in front of their peers.”

       
“Not the most
constructive of approaches.”

       
“No. What we needed was
trust and openness, but because of him, that ship’s not just sailed. It’s been
torpedoed and gone down with all hands.”

       
“Maybe he should spend
more time playing golf.”

       
“Maybe he should.
Seriously. Normally I hate the game. But if it means golf balls are the only
things
Leckie
hits in future, that’s something I
could get behind.”

Chapter Ten

Under different circumstances I’d have been happy to stay in the
garden with Melissa all afternoon, but that day it wasn’t to be. She had
several more phone calls to make, she said. Plus some preparations to complete
for tomorrow, when the
hazmat
team would arrive. And
of course, the inevitable reports to file, to keep her boss safely out of her
hair.

       
She invited me back to
her room while she worked, but again I declined. Admin’s bad enough when it’s
your own. She’d already shown herself to be too smart to give anything away in
front of me, even if she was tainted. And the stakes were too high to waste
time going through the motions, or trailing other people around
like
a nursemaid. Instead, I needed the chance to weigh up
what I’d learned, see what was missing, and figure out what to do about it.

       
We
agreed to meet at 6.00pm, assuming everything went smoothly, and take stock
again then. It was just after 3.00pm, so that gave me almost three hours. I
thought about staying in the garden, but the rain had grown heavier and there’s
no fun in getting wet on your own. The coffee I’d had in the canteen was
surprisingly reasonable so I thought about going there, but in the end I just
made my way back to my room. I slipped off my new boots, then picked up the
remote control and flopped down on the bed.

       
The TV came back on to
the same channel I’d been watching yesterday, but somehow I couldn’t make
myself concentrate on the show. My thoughts kept homing in on Melissa. I
pictured her six rooms across from me, one floor below, phone pressed to her
ear, taking care of business. Yesterday, I had no idea who she was. Today, it
was down to me whether she kept her job or went to jail. I was starting to like
her, and she certainly came across as honest. But in our business, I knew those
things count for nothing.

       
Most of what Melissa had
told me down in the basement made sense, but I still wondered what the
inspection team was going to say in the morning. And if the inventory checked
out, whether she’d be happy. I knew I wouldn’t be, if I
was
in her shoes. The fact that no
caesium
was missing
wouldn’t prove there hadn’t been an attempt to steal some, however inept. So
whatever she learned tomorrow - theft or no theft - Melissa would have some
work to do. Her only way out was to prove that
the
armoured
door had been damaged by a fireman
, and
that he’d done it by mistake.

       
I switched off the TV
and made for the door. The basement was calling me back. Because it struck me
that Melissa had focused on two factors - the human elements, and the
technology. She had those well covered. But there was another angle to
consider. Logistics. I didn’t know much about
caesium
,
but clearly it was a volatile substance. You couldn’t just pick some up and
walk away with it, even if you could get into the vault. Which meant you’d need
special clothing, to handle it. Maybe something to transport the containers
she’d mentioned, depending on their size.
 
And you’d need an escape route. Getting inside the hospital under cover
of the fire alarm was one thing, but getting out again with such volatile loot
was another.

       
The next two hours were
lost underground. I must have walked at least two miles without setting foot
outside even once. It was stifling, and the whole time I couldn’t shake the
thought that during the cold war, people actually believed they could live like
that for years at a time. Every time I passed the junction of the four
corridors I was tempted to jump in the lift, head up to ground level and grab a
breath of fresh air. But I resisted. I stuck to the task at hand, and in the
end I was glad I did. Because the hospital may have looked picturesque from the
outside, but it was in the basement where it really became interesting.

       
The swimming pool was my
first port of call, but I spent more time in the machine room that lay behind
it. There were dozens of drums of chemicals stored there, bristling with
toxicity warnings, which would have been heaven for anyone with a mind to cause
trouble. I found three boiler rooms. Each had miles of inviting, vulnerable
pipework, which would be a gift for anyone wanting to cause a diversion. There
were four separate storage areas. Each one was large enough to hide a dozen
men. Or all the supplies they’d need to lay siege to the whole complex. An
office belonging to the hospital’s security firm was down there, too - tucked
in between a standby generator room and a tool store - which didn’t recommend
working for them. But the thing that sounded the most interesting of all, I
didn’t even get to see. It was sealed away behind a rusty, steel door. I only
found out about it from a maintenance guy who saw me trying to pry it open. He
swore it was the entrance to a fully equipped World War II rifle range, and
that he knew this because his father had been inside. The government had built
it in 1940, he said, when they were more worried about improving the hospital
workers’ ability to shoot invading Germans than their skill at patching up
injured Londoners.

       
That maintenance worker
wasn’t the only person I spoke to. I also talked to five of his colleagues. I
found them in a huddle, sneaking crafty cigarettes in a room at the far end of
the red corridor. It was full of ancient-looking ventilation equipment. The old
machinery appeared basically redundant, with just enough life left in it to
dissipate their smoke. I asked if they’d rigged the place back up
specially
for that purpose, and one of them admitted they
had. Then the subject of the recent fire alarm came up. That wasn’t much of a
surprise, given the cigarettes in their hands and the piles of flammable debris
on the floor. The biggest talking point wasn’t whether the hospital had been in
danger of burning down, though. It was the attention they’d attracted from the
police, afterwards. All of them seemed pretty indignant about the implied stain
on their characters, but one guy’s complaints were particularly strident. He
was standing furthest from the door, so when the others made a move to leave it
wasn’t too hard for me to head him off. I penned him back in the corner, and
when the sound of footsteps had died away in the corridor outside, I asked him
his name.

       
“Elvis Presley,” he
said, without irony. “What’s it to you?”
       
“Just being friendly,” I said. “I
thought maybe we could talk.”

       
“Haven’t got time,” he
said, eyeing the narrow gap behind the largest machine. “I’ve got work to do.”

       
“It won’t take long,” I
said, stepping to the side to show how easily I could block his escape route if
he tried to worm his way out. “Give me a minute. I think I might be able to
help you with something.”

       
“Help me? How.”

       
“Let me give you my
card,” I said, reaching into my jacket pocket, then pulling a frustrated frown.
“Oh, damn. They must all be upstairs, in my room. I’ll get one for you later,
if you’re interested. In the meantime, let me tell you what I do. I’m a lawyer.
And I
specialise
in police brutality cases.”

       
“You’re a lawyer? Good
for you. Why would I care?”

       
“Because I saw how you
reacted when your friends mentioned the police, just now. I know the signs. If
the police are giving you a hard time, I can make them stop. And if they’ve
crossed any lines, I can make them pay.”

       
“Why should the police
be giving me a hard time? I haven’t done anything.”

       
“I’m not saying you
have. But I’ve been cooped up in this place for a few days, now. I know about
the fire alarm. I know some hospital property was damaged. And I know the
police are looking for someone to pin it on.”

       
He didn’t reply.

       
“How many times have
they questioned you?” I said.

       
He looked away from me.

       
“How many times?” I
said.

       
“None,” he said.

       
“And you’d like it to
stay that way?”

       
He nodded.

       
“Were you working that
night?” I said.

       
“No,” he said.

       
“So where were you?”

       
He didn’t answer.

       
“You can tell me,” I
said. “Anything you reveal to me is privileged information, because I’m a
lawyer. It can’t get you in trouble. But it might make it easier for me to
help.”

       
He looked at the ground,
and remained silent.

       
“You were at the
hospital, weren’t you?” I said.

       
He nodded.

       
“Down here?” I said.

       
“Yes,” he said.

       
“What were you doing?”

       
“Collecting something.
Then the alarm went off. And I saw firemen all over the place. I thought it was
for real.”

       
“So what did you do?”

       
“Tried to get out
without any of them seeing me. I wasn’t supposed to be here, remember.”

       
“Did you make it?”

       
“Almost. Then two of
them practically fell on top of me.”

       
“Where was this?”

       
“At the end of the hot
corridor.”

       
“The hot corridor?”

       
“Where they keep the hot
waste. Along there.”

       
“Why were you in that
corridor?”

       
“I wasn’t. I was passing
the end of it, and I heard voices.
Two men, arguing.
I
paused for a moment, curious, like an idiot. Then the door opened and they
burst out, one dragging the other by the arm.”

       
“Could you hear what
they were arguing about?”

       
“The door to the hot
room. One had tried to get through it. Whacked it with his axe. And the other
was tearing him a new one for it. No one’s supposed to touch that door, ever.
Anyone working here should know that.”

       
“So, it was one of these
firemen who’d damaged the door.”

       
“Right.”

       
“Are you sure they were
firemen?”

       
“What kind of question
is that? There was a fire alarm. They came in a fire engine. They had firemen
suits. Yes, they were firemen.”