Get Katja (15 page)

The doorman is talking to a group of girls as Liz approaches the Wheatsheaf but somehow senses her presence and sticks out an arm to block her way.

“You want in you gotta pay like everyone else,” he says, then smiles at the girls to check they are suitably impressed.

Liz checks her bag first but finds no cash there, then checks her pockets. One by one they turn up empty. The doorman’s patience is quickly dwindling.

“Look, you want in or—”

“Here,” Liz says, holding up a small pile of crumpled notes.

He takes them from her, unfolding them and straightening them one at a time, clearly taking pleasure in elongating the whole process. Liz refuses to show her frustration, knowing that it will only make him delay further. The doorman rolls a piece of bright pink chewing gum around in his mouth before sighing and stepping to one side.

Liz pushes her way through those lingering in the entrance corridor, blaringly loud punk music rampaging off every wall. Stage lights flash and flicker from red to green to blue and back again, sweeping across those gathered there, strobing. The whole place is jumping, people grabbing one another, headbutting anyone close by, as much a battleground as a venue.

Liz makes her way through as the crowd jostles around her, shoving her in several directions but always back into the corridor again. She pushes herself up onto tip-toes and spots the unmistakable burst of pink that is Bridget’s hair but can’t see any sign of Stasko.

A leering punk looms in front of her, blocking her view. He smiles at her with his sole remaining tooth, his arms held wide as if about to embrace her, chest bare and soaked in beer.

Liz moves to one side but he moves the same way. She ducks to the other side and he follows.

She jumps up and down, looking for Bridget once again and the man copies her, thinking she is pogo-ing and grinning madly now. Over his shoulder she sees the pink hair again and in the same instant someone grabs Bridget.

The man keeps jumping in front of her, blocking her view. And are those flames flickering behind the stage?

“Fuck off!” she shouts, the words lost but the sentiment clear. Something is happening on the stage, the music stopping, just guitar now, but she is only peripherally aware of it.

She jumps again and this time the snapshot is Bridget with a hand around her throat. Liz cries out and charges forwards but the punk catches her, embraces her. She fights to get out of his clutches and then he suddenly lets go. She staggers backwards and the man frowns. He looks up.

Liz follows his gaze just in time to see multiple chunks of debris tumble from the ceiling above and crash into the circle pit. Then the sound of metal rending, of rivets popping, the sounds that echo through the belly of a ship just before the hull bursts and water comes crashing in.

The punk looks at her again, no longer jumping. His face is slack, his eyes wide.

This is just before the ceiling collapses on top of him.

When Liz comes to clouds of dark grey dust swirl around her, carried on the drafts created by the fires that burn everywhere. She’s aware of another, cooler breeze brushing over her and thinks that she has somehow ended up outside the club—then realizes that the entire place is now, technically, outside. The remainder of the corridor she had been unable to get out of is steepled over her and several others.

She rolls onto her back and sees that most of the Wheatsheaf is gone, all except a single wall. There are piles of warped scaffold and chunks of masonry out of which various limbs protrude. People cry and moan. Others shout instructions.

Someone runs past her in a green uniform.

Liz pulls herself upright, wincing as pain shoots up her back. Her ears are ringing. Everything is so distant. Another green uniform—a paramedic. A series of ambulances are lined up on the street outside, a cordon being set up by Policie officers just beyond them, holding back a growing crowd. Lights flash red and blue, just as they had during the gig.

Liz becomes aware of a warmth on her left arm and looks down to see blood oozing down it from a gash in her bicep, distorting her tattoos. She picks up her bag, laying beside her, and slings it over her shoulder.

“Bridget . . .” she says, though deaf to her own words thanks to the ringing.

She crawls out of the remains of the corridor through the wreckage on hands and knees, aware of others getting to their feet and stumbling around, some collected by paramedics, others collapsing to the ground once more. She calls out Bridget’s name over and over, her arms shaking and threatening to give way but she refuses to stop.

She passes the body of the doorman, his arms spread out beside his head, the night’s takings spilling from his bomber jacket pocket, then spots a flash of pink a few metres away. She drags herself over to the prone form, almost hidden beneath the figure of a transvestite in a gold lamé dress.

“Bridget?”

She reaches out and touches the other woman’s arm.

She pushes aside the Tgirl’s body, rolling it off Bridget. Bridget is covered in a thick layer of concrete dust and charred embers, one leg twisted at an unnatural angle.

“Bridget?”

No response.

She cries out for help and catches the attention of one of the paramedics who quickly finishes tending to another casualty and hurries across. He stops next to Liz, looking down at Bridget next to her. Shakes his head.

Before she can say anything he rushes off again, then there is the sound of one of the ambulance’s sirens blaring into life and the screech of its tyres. Liz cries out to him but he either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t care.

“Please . . .” Liz begs. She reaches out to Bridget’s still form, this time noticing how cold the other woman is when she makes contact. She looks around, desperate for someone else to help her despite knowing that it’s all too late, calling to anyone who will listen to help her. She lifts Bridget’s hand and peels one of the purple gloves off, the latex already torn in places. She strokes the soft skin of Bridget’s palm, pressing it to her face.

Then looks up—and spots Stasko. He is being lifted onto a gurney by a pair of paramedics who then strap him into place and wheel him towards another waiting ambulance.

A vicious fury ignites inside Liz.

She places Bridget’s hand back down and forces herself to her feet, her knees threatening to give way at first, then stabilising. A gust of hot air washes over her from a nearby fire, the image of Stasko being loaded into the ambulance shimmering and diluting in the heat distortion.

Liz bears down on the pain and staggers towards the vehicle but isn’t even close when its siren comes to life and it speeds away from the scene. She keeps going regardless, holding out one arm towards it, as if she could simply pluck it from the road, until someone catches her wrist.

A young paramedic, smeared in blood and dark, grimy dust.

“Miss, you can’t . . . please . . . are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She stares past him at the ambulance vanishing into the distance.

“Where are they going?” she asks him. “Where are they taking him?”

“St. Michael’s,” he tells her, noticing the wound on her shoulder. “Let me get someone to look at that for you—”

She pushes him away, clutching her bag close to her, but he won’t let her go. He calls to another paramedic loading up an ambulance, asks if they have room for one more. There’s a short argument which Liz is only vaguely aware of, still staring at the point where Stasko’s ambulance was last visible. She breaks free, ignoring the pleas of the paramedic and making her way towards, then through, the cordon. The Policie who guard it see her coming and let her through, watching her stagger off across the street.

Her mind somehow spinning and numb simultaneously, she continues on across the junction to the corner where she had left Bridget’s car. Gets in and takes the key from her bag and starts the engine.

An ambulance reverses away from the smouldering remains of the Wheatsheaf and into the junction then the wheels spin as it changes direction and plows forwards. Liz throws the car into first, ignoring the old gearbox’s resistance, and goes after it.

She abandons the car in the hospital’s parking lot, the drop-off points at the building’s entrance jam-packed with ambulances hurriedly unloading their bloodied cargo. She puts the gun into her bag then walks inside, vibrating with adrenaline, knowing that if she were to give in to her body’s demands and slump into a heap then the pain which lurks at the edges of her consciousness will flood in and consume her.

So she keeps going, following the main flow of traffic into the ER, feeling as if she exists on a different plane of reality than everyone around her. She approaches the circular reception desk, stepping around and between the frenzied medical staff. A large whiteboard hangs above it, names and numbers scribbled on it.

She scans it until she finds Stasko’s name, grateful that he had been carrying some form of ID, then takes note of the bed number. She goes to the nearest bed, reads its number, then tracks her way towards where Stasko would be. She stops, and sees the man being helped from the bed by a medic. They have a brief conversation then Stasko walks across the ER, obviously looking for something specific. He stops at bed thirteen, finds it vacant, then turns around. For a moment he appears to be lost then his expression changes. He’s staring at something across the busy emergency room but Liz can’t quite tell what. Then he’s moving again.

Liz hurries after him, keeping her distance. She chases him deeper into the hospital, always making sure to remain a corner or junction behind him, then hears a crashing sound up ahead. She slows, grateful that they are now well away from the busy emergency room and in the quieter passageways of unused examination rooms and locked offices.

She can hear him up ahead, carefully peeks around the corner. He’s helping a woman to her feet, then says something to her. Liz watches as he withdraws a syringe from one of his pockets and flicks the cap away. Plunges it into the woman’s neck. Then she continues to watch as he slips an arm under the woman’s and hauls her to her feet then drags her into one of the nearby rooms.

It’s only then that Liz recognises who it is that Stasko is taking away and realizes that it is not a woman after all—instead the man who had abducted her earlier, the one Bridget had tricked.

So Stasko
was
involved in . . . whatever that had been.

She edges towards the room, listens at the door. From inside there is shuffling, then a ripping sound. Drawers being opened and closed.

Liz has no idea what she is witnessing but also no longer cares.

She waits for a few minutes to see if Stasko will emerge but her patience withers quickly. She checks that nobody is around and opens her bag. The gun glints within.

She opens the door.

Stasko spins around. The captor, cable-tied to a gurney beside him.

“Get out of my way,” he snaps. “Can’t you see I have a patient here? She needs to go to surgery
immediately
, do you understand?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Liz tells him. “You have no idea who I am do you?”

Tears are welling up within her now, her hatred of him filling her with a dark, menacing energy. The thought of Bridget lying on the ground outside the club that the surgeon had dragged her to, her internal organs ground to a pulp, fills her mind.

“I have no
interest
in who you are,” Stasko says, jabbing the gurney at her.

Liz reaches in and takes out the gun. Her hand shakes uncontrollably as she raises it to point it at him. She clenches her teeth, focusing all of her hatred into her arm, then her hand, then her forefinger.

And once that happens, it’s like the trigger pulls itself.

“Here, here,” Nikolai says.

Katja follows his voice to the back of the room, fumbling through the darkness. She collides with a laundry basket, pushes it to one side.

“Laundry chute,” he says. There’s the sound of metal grinding against metal as she heaves the hatch before him upwards.

Katja reaches past him. “It’s too small,” she says, slapping her hands against the sheers walls of the chute. “And there’s no way we could climb up it anyway.”

“What about down? It must lead down to a main laundry room – that’ll surely have a way out, a collection point.”

“It’s too small, Nik, up or down.”

“So what about a trolley? I’ll find some used scrubs, you could climb inside and I’ll wheel you out.”

“What do you think this is, a fucking cartoon? I’m
not
getting into one of those beside bloody clothes and shitty underwear. Anyway she’s just as likely to spot you as she is me. There’s no other option, we’re going to have to go back up.”

“And if she’s waiting there for us?”

“If she’d seen us come in here she would have bust in already.”

“Maybe not.”

“We don’t have any other choice, Nik!”

And without waiting for him she feels her way along the wall back to the ramp and starts to climb it. A moment later Nikolai follows. They stop at the door and she listens through it but there’s nothing to hear.

“Ready?” she whispers.

Nikolai shrugs and she shoves the door open before he can say or do anything else.

The corridor is empty, the strip-lighting above reflected like a meandering river on the recently polished floor.

Katja looks back the way they came and sees the toppled cart that the debt collector had crashed into, but no sign of the woman herself. Perhaps they have gotten away from her after all.

“Which way?”

“Not that way,” Katja says, nodding towards the fallen cart. “This way.”

She jogs farther up the corridor, ducks around a corner to a pair of lifts, Nikolai following.

“If we can get to where that chute leads there should be a way out.”

She hits both of the buttons, illuminating them, then takes a step back to watch the level indicators above each set of doors. One remains where it is but the other is already ticking through the numbers.

Five.

Four.

She isn’t sure if it was already moving before she pressed it, if someone else was on their way down.

Three.

Suddenly thinks that Nikolai’s idea to dress themselves in smocks might not have been that bad after all but knows it’s too late now.

Two.

The elevator dings and then the doors slide open to reveal not Lady D but a male nurse. He stands in the middle of the elevator, staring down at his feet, mumbling something to himself.

He looks up when the doors open and his eyes go wide.

Nobody says anything. Nobody moves.

“Are you getting out or what?” Katja asks.

The man opens his mouth to say something, glances at Nikolai, then grabs Katja and pulls her into the elevator. Whilst Nikolai’s brain is still processing what is going on the nurse jabs at the buttons inside the elevator and the doors slide shut.

And Katja is gone.