THE FIX: SAS hero turns Manchester hitman (A Rick Fuller Thriller Book 1) (24 page)

I took the elevator to the third floor but walked to the intensive care unit which was next to HDU. I poked my head around the door and saw three nurses. One took a quick glance at me and smiled. I returned the gesture and gave her a quick friendly wave, turned on my heels and walked to Rick’s ward.

I virtually marched into HDU with the tray of drinks at shoulder height. I walked past Rick’s bed and he seemed fine.

I counted two nurses. The first was in her late forties, maybe older, and was very overweight. The second was younger and attractive.

Call me cynical, but not being the handsome guy at the party, if the job involved sweet talk, I always went for the fat one.

“Hiya!” I chirped, but half whispered. “I’d made tea for the girls in ICU and there are two left. So I thought of you lot here with the cabbages.”

I gave the fatty my best Scottish twinkle and added, ”Milk and sugar?”

In perfect unison both women said, “No sugar for me,” and then giggled slightly. My God, it was all going too bloody easy. I poured milk into both teas and handed them to the nurses.

I concentrated on my older prey again. “Drink up, it won’t be that warm now.”

Both sipped their tea. The young one wrinkled her forehead and said casually, “I’ve not seen you before.”

“Nah, I’ve only been here two weeks. I’ve never made it away from the path lab yet.”

“Oh,” said the pair, again in perfect time.

“In fact, I’m off there now, girls. I’ll collect the cups later, okay?”

“Great,” was the chorus and the pair started to worry me. They must have been some kind of relation, maybe mother and daughter. They probably lived and worked together, spent so much time together that they became inseparable like those identical twins you see on the telly, the ones that speak in unison all the time.

Whatever the reason, it was a strange encounter.

Just as got to the exit I turned again and in my best Lorraine Kelly gossip tone I whispered.

“Which one is the gangster, by the way?”

The older woman rose from her desk and I thought I detected a slight stumble.

“Number four here.”

I could tell she was quite excited that she had someone else to share her gossip with. She walked over to Rick’s station. I turned and joined her.

“Big fellow, isn’t he,” I quipped, hastily taking in as much as I could about Rick’s medical state. He was being fed intravenously and he had a catheter, but the rest was monitoring gear.

“He is, but he’s no trouble.” The nurse guffawed and elbowed me in the ribs to make her point.

I laughed with her and noticed she was definitely unsteady. I checked over my shoulder just in time to see the younger nurse drop her tea cup and fall unconscious in her seat.

The big nurse took on a puzzled expression before dropping to her knees. I helped her to her desk and she went out completely, farting loudly in the process.

I walked back to Rick.

“Alright, mate. Can you hear me?”

Rick opened one eye.

“Good to see you, Des, get me the fuck out of here.”

I took out my little plastic box.

“I’m going to have to hit you with some morph before I move you, mate. At least you won’t feel anything till we get mobile.”

Rick moved his body slightly.

“Just do it, let’s get going.”

I wasted no time. I found a vein and pumped enough of the drug into him to knock out an elephant. I stripped back his bedclothes and removed his catheter. Then, I took out his drip and lifted his forearm to stem any bleeding. It was all going well until I removed the monitoring gear. In my haste I’d forgotten that the heart monitor had an alarm system and I hadn’t disabled it.

The second I removed the first sensor from Rick’s chest it went off. The alarm was deafening.

I would have a resus team on top of me in no time. I heaved Rick’s dead weight into the wheelchair at the side of his bed. He groaned slightly as I propped his feet onto the supports. Then I legged it quick time to the lift. Buzzers were going off all over the bloody place and I could hear the hurried footsteps of emergency staff getting nearer and nearer.

I changed my mind about the lift and went for the stairs. I only needed to get one floor away from the melee, and then a porter pushing a sleeping man in a wheelchair might not seem too bad.

Well, it was the best I could do.

I pushed Rick along the corridor until I saw the green and white sign for the stairwell. I knew the next act was going to be hard. I was going to have to haul fifteen stone of dead weight down two flights of stairs in double quick time. I opted for backwards and pushed the swing door open with my backside, looked over my shoulder and negotiated the first steps. I took all of Rick’s weight onto my chest. By the time I’d bounced down the first flight one at a time I was panting like a greyhound and sweating like a racehorse.

As I made the bottom of the second flight my legs burned with the effort and my heart pumped hard. I wiped my brow before casually pushing Rick out onto the ground floor.

As we negotiated the X-ray department, I confiscated a blanket from a nearby trolley and covered Rick’s legs with it. Then I whistled my way to the lift which would take us to the mortuary and our escape route.

By the time the hospital security guys had dealt with the two unconscious HDU staff and even noticed Rick’s empty bed, I was at the back door of the Ford camper van.

With all of my strength, I lifted Rick from the chair and laid him on a single bunk inside the camper. I covered him.

“You okay, mate?”

He groaned. The morphine had done its job.

I jumped down from the back of the van, keys in my hand and plan in my head, straight into the arms of Lauren North.

Rick Fuller's Story:

Despite the painkillers, I could feel the bumps in the road. It was a really strange experience. I had suffered burns to just over eighteen per cent of my body. Hospitals categorise burn injuries by degrees. Mine were first degree, the same category as severe sunburn. Some fucking dick-head with an Oxbridge PhD had decided that. I bet he’d never had boiling water poured over twenty per cent of his body mass. I was lucky though. I’d been wearing boots. Had I been barefoot, my burn injuries would have been far worse.

As for my gunshot wound, to be fair, the surgeon had done a great job. He’d sorted the dental side of it out on the table. What was left of my wisdom tooth was removed at the same time he repaired my cheek. He’d also left a painkilling pad at the site of the operation. Something I’d been glad of the last day or so.

So why, as we drove along, could I feel the road and not my injuries?

Who knows?

The roof of the camper was starting to glisten with condensation. Des and the nurse were sitting up front and I could just hear the radio.

How the hell did Des find me so quickly?

Why the hell was the sister there? I had lots of questions.

My last definite memory was Stephan pulling the trigger. I had some vague pictures of people around me, later on, maybe in an ambulance? Whether they were the good souls who found me on the road or hospital staff, I couldn’t say.

Being on the road in a camper van was similar to an ambulance and I actually felt okay. I know that sounds pretty weird coming from a fucked up bloke who was being driven to Scotland in a stolen second hand Transit. But I did.

The morphine sorted my pain and I was with the only person in the world I trusted.

No worries.

I slept without hurting.

I awoke to near silence. The van was parked and empty. All I could hear was my own breathing and distant motorway traffic. I presumed we were in a motorway service station and Des had gone for a brew or whatever.

I was well delighted at my exit from the hospital. Des had played a blinder. How the hell he’d conned the nurse into the plan I could only guess. I had to hand it to him, he was good.

I heard another car approach the parked van. Headlights illuminated the interior of the camper. They lingered. They stayed too long. I heard a car door open, then the voices.

I started to feel uneasy. I couldn’t walk, and I couldn’t cry out. Then I heard Des and the key in the lock. The interior light came on, and finally, he and Lauren peered at me from the sofa opposite.

“How ya feeling, pal?” whispered Des.

“Are ye hungry, mate?”

I did my best to speak out of the side of my mouth that worked.

“No, ta, but I could go some water.”

“No problem,” said Des. “I’ve even got you a straw.”

He rooted in a carrier bag, found a bottle of Evian and a box of straws and held it for me. The water tasted good. I’d been fed intravenously the past few days and my throat was dry as a bone.

“Cheers,” I said.

Des knelt by me. He poked a thumb in nursie’s general direction.

“We’ve been and hired another motor. I used one of your snide driving licences just to be on the safe side. Funny thing, though, your credit card didn’t work. We had to use hers.”

I didn’t take in the information. I should have. It would have saved time in the end, but I was too drugged to notice.

I think I managed an “okay”, and fell into a deep sleep again.

By the time I awoke, it was daylight, we were travelling on a country road and I could just see the green of the hedges fly by and some bright blue sky. I twisted my head to look for Des but couldn’t see him. The nurse drove. She noticed my movement in the rear view mirror, and shouted over the engine noise. “How are you feeling?”

It was a very jolly hospital voice. The swelling to my face was going down but I still found speech hard. The morph had all gone and I was perhaps a little blunt.

“Where the fuck is Des?”

Lauren alarmingly swerved the camper and suddenly we ground to a halt. She leapt from the driver’s seat and sat heavily opposite me. The sofa across made a second single bed, if anyone could ever bear to sleep on something all yellow tartan and fake pine.

Lauren wasn’t pleased with me. I could tell.

She sat in silence for a moment as if considering what to say. She was a classically beautiful woman. She was Bathsheba. Raven-haired with no hint of make-up.

She appeared not to notice her own splendour but it was there, like something she’d carried inside her, something that was allowed to be noticed by others but never completely supposed. She looked past me at first, as if focusing on a distant object. Her voice was quiet but precise. She left a gap between each word.

“Where, the, fuck, is, Des?”

That one line seemed to give her confidence. She grew in stature as she repeated the same line.

“Where, the, fuck, is, Des?”

Any hint of nerves faded with each staccato delivery. This was a woman who had fought many a verbal battle. Somewhere behind those eyes was a past with too much pain, eyes that had fought a war and were not afraid to fight another.

She dropped her head in her cupped hands, her face inches from mine. She focused on me, sharp as a rapier, voice level.

“I’ll tell you where Des is. He’s taken the hire car to his old house by the Loch. Know it? Stern’s guys already have that address so we can’t go there.”

Her green eyes widened and she had the slightest hint of derision in her tone. Her words hit me like a brick.

“I believe that one was down to you, Rick?”

If she’d been a man I’d have knocked her out.

“Des has organised a safe place to stay. We’re about ten miles from it now. He’ll meet us there after he’s collected some gear from home. He can’t go there again. Well, not until this is all over.”

My blood boiled at her insolence. I raised myself from my bed for the first time. I felt my usually strong arms quiver under the strain. My head swam. I took a deep breath and managed a full sentence.

“And you know what all this is about then, eh? Sister?”

“Lauren,” she tapped her chest with an unpolished nail. “That’s my name, and yes, Rick, I think I know where we are all at.” She stopped short, and for a second I thought I saw a flaw in the performance, a trace of fear maybe?

I couldn’t hold myself in position any longer and I fell back on my pillows panting and in pain.

“Sure you do.”

She looked concerned but stood, and walked back to the driver’s seat. Once she’d started the engine and strapped herself in she turned, and delivered her prognosis in her slightly Surrey tone.

“Without my care, the possibility of you getting back to full health again is pretty shitty. If you think you’ve got me sussed and know why I’m here helping you, you’re very wrong.”

She turned the wheel of the camper and we started to move.

“Cos I haven’t a fucking clue myself.” 

Lauren North's Story:

It didn’t bother me that Rick was a mean bastard. I suppose anyone would be, if they’d been in his shoes of late. But he wasn’t going to take it out on me. I was used to men who were mean bastards.

My ex-husband was a successful doctor, a specialist. He was respected throughout his profession. To the outside world he was a good, honest man. No one, my mother, Jane, no single human, knew he beat me. Even his longest and closest friends never knew of his violent outbursts.

And I don’t just mean a one-off slap in the middle of a drunken row. I mean a systematic yet frantic punishment should things not go his way. This was always followed by weeks of him being the perfect fucking human being.

Now, if you saw Des and Rick it wouldn’t take you long to realise that they were two extremely scary guys. Yet I knew, just knew that I was totally safe in their company despite everything that was going on. No matter what was to come. I was in safe hands with them.

I had made a decision, and even though slightly insane, I considered it to be the right one. I told myself, I’d be there to see Rick through the first few days of his treatment. Once he was stabilised and out of any danger, well, then I’d turn around and go on holiday as I’d planned. It was a purely clinical decision. 

Back in Leeds, after Des had left my flat, I’d stared at the closed lift doors for ages. I stood there with wet hair, dressed in a five-year-old dressing gown. It had a very fetching iron burn around arse level. I realised that I’d had a gorgeous guy back at my flat for the first time in living memory and I was dressed like a bag woman. I looked at my feet and was horrified to confirm I was wearing Snoopy slippers.

Since becoming single I’d dated one man for three awful hours. I’d drunkenly snogged a doorman outside The Ritz in Manchester, and had my backside felt by a couple of overzealous patients.

That had been the sum total of any excitement in my life for the last three and half years. For a woman of my age it was a bloody long time. I was in my prime. I’d read it in Cosmo.

As Des exited my block, and with him, any chance of further excitement, I turned, went back inside, and started to wash dishes. After the water had finally drained, I prodded some peas down the plughole with my finger and I realised the truth. I didn’t want to have a relationship with Des. I didn’t want a boyfriend or a lover or a husband. I just wanted to be in his world for a while. I’d listened to his amazing story on that one fascinating evening, and, I was ashamed to say, it excited me. It was physical. I could’ve been part of his world if I’d wanted, but I chose safety, as I always did. That’s why I chose my husband Phillip. He was safe, from good stock.

Safe as bloody houses, I was.

It had all ended as quickly as it had started and Des was gone. I’d frightened him away.

I rang Jane.

“Alright?” she chirped.

“Not really.”

“What’s happened now?”

“Nothing.”

“There must be something, you’ve got that ‘nobody loves me, everybody hates me’ tone.”

“No.” I tried to sound a little happier. “I just rang for a chat, nothing wrong with that, is there? Ringing a mate for a chat?”

“Okay.” Jane let each letter drag. She didn’t believe me.

“I am okay, honestly I am. It’s just well you know how it is with me and opportunities. I get a prospect of some real excitement in my life and I push it away.”

“This is the new guy we’re talking about then, eh?” I heard Jane reach for her cigarettes and take the first long drag. “This Jock?”

“Scot,” I countered.

“Whatever. So he’s dumped you then?”

“He didn’t dump me, I sort of dumped him. In fact there was no dumping at all.”

“Hmmm.”

“It’s true!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I felt as close to tears as I could, but as usual none came, “Jane, I need to banish some ghosts, once and for all.”

There was silence other than the static of the phone in my ear.

“I need to get on a plane right now, where nobody knows about me, where nobody gives me pitiful looks and where Phillip and his fucking cronies don’t sneer across the dining room at the crazy frigid bird in the corner.”

I heard Jane take a deep breath. She was about to go into her ‘Support Lauren’ speech, the same one she’d delivered to me on countless occasions in the past. Jane was my personal self-confidence counsellor. Before she could start, I heard myself say.

“I’m going to take some leave, right now.”

I was owed four weeks annual holiday and I decided to take two of them from that night. Jane tried to argue about the staff rota, but I had made my decision.

In my mental wanderings I’d forgotten that Jane and I had planned a holiday in Greece together. I’d promised her two weeks in Crete, but I needed to stand firm. I needed to go.

I tried to explain the inexplicable to her but of course I couldn’t. I just had to get away from Leeds for a while, that was it. I was going to go to the ward right that minute and tell the on-call unit manager what I was doing.

When I’d finished, I heard Jane stubbing out her cigarette, as she exhaled slowly.

“Suit yourself.”

The phone went dead.

I cursed my useless self all the way to the hospital.

I thought I’d done the hard part when I’d convinced the unit manager to let me change my leave at a moment’s notice. I virtually hopped down the last few steps to the car park, mentally booking my holiday on the net. I’d always promised myself a trip to Egypt and the Pyramids.

I was almost to my car when I heard the unmistakable sound of the resuscitation team alarm flooding out of the open casualty doors. It always filled me with dread, that dreadful siren. I pulled my keys from my bag and opened the car door. I was glad that I didn’t have to deal with any death for a few well-earned nights. A little devil on my shoulder, the one you should never listen to, told me what the alarm meant. I just knew it had something to do with Des. Des and Rick. I knew he was there, in my ward, stealing my patient. My heart raced and I started to run. I ran around the side of the main building toward the path lab. I had no idea what I was looking for until I saw the camper. Come on, who goes to visit a sick relative in a camper van?

Within seconds I saw him.

Des was pushing Rick with all his might towards the van. I was so close I could see Des was pouring with sweat and smiling.

His face was a real picture when he jumped right into me ten seconds later.

“Lauren! Jesus H Christ, love, you frightened the life outta me.”

I didn’t speak but looked at Rick moaning steadily inside the van.

“He’s a very poorly man, Des.”

Des closed the back of the van. There was obviously no time for sentiment.

“You know I’ve got to move him.”

I must have been out of my mind. “Where are you going?”

“Scotland.”

I opened the passenger door and climbed in. The cab smelled vaguely of pipe tobacco.

“I’ve never been to Scotland. Is it cold?”

I checked my map and made the final turn toward Hillside Cottage. Rick slept as the camper bounced along the track to the house.

If I had ever wanted to escape, to find peace and solace, Scotland would have been my place. The mid-morning sun flashed in fresh puddles ahead of me and I blew a low whistle as the whole of Hillside came into view. The cottage had everything you might ever dream of. Its stone-built whitewashed walls were fixed firmly to the Scottish landscape by thousands of ivy fingers which covered a full two thirds of the house. The living structure supported a recently thatched roof. I suppose the place may have needed a lick of paint, but unbroken views of the whisky trail, as far as the eye could see, more than made up for it. A large private walled rear garden pricked my girlish imagination. The cottage had it all.

The place belonged to Des’s ex-wife. She had inherited the place as part of their divorce settlement. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous as I compared my grotty Leeds flat with the relative rustic charm of Hillside.

Des had been forced to contact his estranged partner to get access to the place, and from the telephone conversations I sensed it had been a tough job for him. He was one of those men who wore his emotional heart on his sleeve.

He had used the story that holidaying American fishermen had approached him for accommodation. She had only been too glad of the four hundred quid a week offered. The conversations had been businesslike. I got the impression Des was somehow saddened by her detachment.  

I pulled the camper to the rear of the cottage and killed the engine. I heard Rick cough but he stayed asleep.

I sat listening to Rick breathe. The sun was suddenly dragged upward and sinister black curtains of cloud took most of the daylight.

I’d never witnessed such a frantic change in weather. It was if the sky had suddenly become embarrassed at the beauty beneath and attempted to preserve its modesty.

Then it rained.

Ten minutes later, the sound of the downpour hammering on the roof of the camper was covered by engine noise and Des pulled into the drive.

“This is it then?” I chirped as I jumped from the van, shielding myself from the torrent with a newspaper.

“Aye, nice isn’t it?” Des hid his sarcasm badly and didn’t seem to bother about the downpour and just got wet.

“The place cost me a fortune. Now I’m paying to bloody rent it.”

Des unlocked the front door. I followed and dropped what possessions I had in the middle of the lounge floor. The cottage had the chill that always comes from a house having lain empty, but I spun around in the centre of the living room and took in the decor.

“Very nice, Des. Mrs Fagan has extremely good taste.”

I stopped still and saw that Des looked slightly hurt.

“Sorry.” I sounded weak and felt stupid.

“Nae bother,” he said. “Let’s see to getting the big man inside.”

I felt suitably chastised. With some effort we carried Rick carefully to a downstairs bedroom. He was still drowsy. I got what medical supplies we had together on a dresser worth more than my entire collection of house contents, and Des got straight on with lighting the fire.

Rick looked pale. He’d had all the morphine he could take. I could see he was in some pain. I sat beside his bed. “How do you feel now?”

“I’m okay.” He stretched his neck painfully.

“Can I get you something?”

He lifted himself slightly. “A brew would be great, tea, no sugar.”

“Tea it is.”

I turned to leave the room, but Rick took my arm. He looked straight at me. His voice was soft and kind. I didn’t believe he could produce such a sound. “Thank you, Lauren.”

“Erm, no problem,” I said. “I’ll bring you some paracetamol with the tea. I’m afraid that’s all the pain relief you can have for a while.”

“Okay,” he said, as matter-of-fact as you like.

I motioned toward his scalded legs. “We’ll have to start physiotherapy on those first thing tomorrow.”

I saw him grimace, so I added, “Be thankful it wasn’t your bollocks.”

He smiled. It was the first time I’d seen it, and despite the swollen lips he lit up the room. I shook the shiver from my back and closed the door behind me. I walked into a small, tiled kitchen. It, like the roof of the cottage, had been recently refurbished. You could still smell new wood. A stunning Aga cooker was surrounded by beautiful oak and stainless steel. Des’s ex certainly had style.

Des himself had pre-empted Rick’s request and was boiling a fancy chrome kettle.

“He okay?”

I shrugged. “He’s in a bit of pain but he seems good enough considering.”

Des rummaged around in cupboards for mugs and I unpacked groceries obtained from unknown sources.

“He’s a good bloke really, Lauren.”

“I know,” I said. “Why don’t you take him his tea and I’ll finish the fire.”

Des nodded and I tapped along the polished wood floor to the perfect country lounge. I sat and stared as the first flames found their way through the jet coals. I added some wood and poked at it, not really knowing what I was doing. For the first time we were all together under the same roof and safe. I was exhausted. I felt my insistent muscles complain as I rested back on the sofa. The warmth of the fire grew and I was engulfed by it. I could barely hear Des’s voice echo along the hall, as he talked to his best friend. I was falling into the deepest sleep, strangely content.

I awoke to find Des had put me to bed in a beautiful attic room. He’d been the perfect gent and I was fully clothed minus shoes.

I stepped onto more stripped wooden floors and shuffled to a small en suite bathroom. Once again, no expense had been spared and yet it was just quality for its own sake. No flash.

I could hear voices and smell bacon. Both attracted me in equal amounts, so I hurried my shower and pulled on jeans and a sweater.

I negotiated a spiral staircase that would beat most Sherpas and marvelled at Des’s ability to get me up it the night before.