Page 116 of First Blood

No sound and she hadn’t expected any. This man was not going to give himself up easily.

She raised the loudhailer again.

‘Okay, fella, get running cos I’m coming to get you.’

Chapter One Hundred Nine

Kim began moving along the corridor opening doors and shining the torch inside. Contained within each space were the remnants of the business it had been. A desk here, a chair there, boxes of gloves, syringes.

Even if her plan had worked this was taking too long. If the killer had left the area, Doctor Lambert could still be bleeding to death.

Think, think, she told herself. Where would the killer want to make his point? Where was the most important area of the building?

The operating theatre.

She recalled the information board and remembered it was halfway around the other side.

She dropped the loudhailer as something scurried up ahead. She put it out of her mind and began to sprint, shining the light at the ground and then up towards the signage.

She was only twenty feet away from the theatre when she heard a sound. She slowed and tried to drown out the sound of her own breathing. She took a second outside the door. Took a deep breath and threw the doors open.

There was a small ante-room that led into the operating theatre. Two steps in she could see a writhing form on the ground.

She rushed forward and shone the torch down. Doctor Lambert’s eyes were wide with fear and pain. The groans of agony were being held back by a gag that indented the flesh of his cheeks. A trail of blood was seeping from beneath his head but that wasn’t the reason for his pain.

His trousers and underwear had been pulled down to his ankles and blood from his genitals oozed over his thighs.

She reached down and eased the gag from his mouth. A loud groan escaped.

‘Police,’ she said. ‘You’re safe now. Did you see which way he went?’

Doctor Lambert shook his head and groaned again as his head rolled from side to side.

Kim reached underneath him and untied his hands. They immediately came around to his genitals.

He cried out. ‘What the?…’

‘Try not to move too much, help is on the way.’

She heard a sound in the corridor as the man’s eyes rolled back in his head. She shone the torch and her colleague walked into its beam.

‘Bryant, stay with the doctor,’ she said, glancing down at his central region. ‘And help him to apply pressure.’

Bryant didn’t flinch as he knelt beside the man.

‘What are you going to do, guv?’ Bryant asked, using his palms to bear down on the doctor’s genitals.

‘I’m going to find our killer.’

Chapter One Hundred Ten

Kim stepped outside of the operating theatre and wedged the door open. Once emergency services arrived they’d be able to hear the doctor’s cries and be guided quicker to offer assistance.

She turned right and headed around the corridor in a clockwise direction. It made sense to her that if she’d scared him off he would have headed away from where she was making the noise with the loudhailer.

She threw open every door as she went, shining in the torch and listening for just a second before moving on. She found herself back at the double doors leading to the reception. Would he have made a dash for his car not believing her bluff of them being surrounded? And if she went out to check would he somehow give her the slip?

She sprinted outside but the car was exactly where he’d left it.