Page 111 of First Blood

‘One more minute, boss. There’s a different rhyme about an apple a day. It’s all about the mistrust of doctors, of them not being the pillars of society they’re supposed to be. It was a warning not to put too much trust in them, to try and resolve health issues without—’

‘Dawson, how the hell does this help me right now?’

‘There was a private clinic, boss, The Willows, just outside Quinton. Three doctors, all cosmetic surgeons…’

‘I’m hanging up now, Dawson,’ she said. She couldn’t listen to this any longer. She had to start forming a strategy for when they reached Gloucester Street and they had one mile left.

‘Boss, the place went out of business eleven months ago. Doctors were sued for all kinds of things both medical and admin. based but especially of sharing personal details of their clients.’

Half a mile.

‘Boss, at the final court case just two months ago the judge said it was the worst case of trust abuse he’d ever seen by any doctor. The newspaper headlines screamed that line.’

A quarter mile and they were going to be at the point where Gloucester Street met the reservoir.

‘Dawson…’

‘The whole clinic is abandoned now, boss. It’s a totally empty site, derelict and perfect if you don’t want anyone to hear the screams.’

Kim thought about the details on the wipe boards back at the squad room and everything Dawson had said. She considered how long he’d spent working this lead and what they had learned because of it.

They were one street away from the location they’d been speeding towards and she had to make a decision. Now.

She held the phone away for a second as she made up her mind.

‘Bryant,’ she said, ‘we need to turn the car around.’

Chapter One Hundred Three

‘Can you just put me on to someone who can give me the information?’ Stacey shouted down the phone.

She’d been passed from one unhelpful voice to another at the out-of-hours call service that she’d been forwarded to when she’d called the emergency number for Doctor Lambert’s surgery.

Each time she had tried to explain that she had no medical emergency she’d been put on hold and shunted to another operator. She understood that the operators were probably prioritising her against people who were calling with serious ailments, but she wasn’t going to keep anyone talking for long.

Call centre healthcare was something she couldn’t quite fathom. She imagined the operators sitting at tiny cubicle desks with headsets staring up at target-oriented wipe boards of how many people they could convince that they would be fine until the surgery re-opened in the morning.

‘I don’t want to hear the data protection laws again,’ she said to the next voice that answered. ‘I’m a police officer and I know them pretty well, but if someone doesn’t tell me soon where Doctor Lambert has been sent on a call-out I’m pretty sure he’s gonna die.’

Silence.

Finally. Maybe some assistance.

‘Excuse me, madam, but did you just threaten me? These calls are recorded and…’

‘I said the doctor is going to die. He’s in danger so will you?…’

The line went dead again. Stacey recognised the sound that came out of her mouth as a growl.

She was about to throw the phone down into the cradle when another voice came on the line.

‘May I help?’ asked the female voice cautiously.

Stacey threw back her head in frustration as she began to tell the story again.

‘My name is Detective Constable Stacey Wood and we have reason to believe that Doctor Lambert may be in danger and that the call received by yourselves was a bogus…’

‘One second, officer,’ she said.