The Reckoning (2 page)

THREE

“You’re going to have to take the handcuffs
off him, Constable.”

Phillips looked across the table at the
nurse/technician, he wasn’t sure what her proper title was. “Why?” he asked,
not at all comfortable with the idea of removing the handcuffs that secured
Michael Davis’ wrists, not when the only people in the x-ray suite just then
were him and the nurse. His partner was elsewhere in the hospital, being
treated for his injuries, the paramedics who had brought Michael Davis in had
just left, and the two constables who were supposed to have been following the
ambulance to back him up hadn’t arrived.

“I can’t x-ray him while he’s handcuffed, and
I need to x-ray him to find out if he has a head injury,” the nurse told him.
“I need to remove everything metal he might have on him.”

“He’s a murderer; he has to remain in cuffs,
it’s not safe to remove them.”

The nurse looked down on the teen on the
x-ray table for a moment, a worried look on her face, and then she looked up at
the constable. “He’s unconscious, and it won’t take long to get these x-rays
done; you’re here if he wakes up,” she said. “If we don’t do these x-rays and
he’s bleeding into his brain he could die.”

Phillips was uncomfortable with the idea of
taking off the cuffs. He realised, though, that if Michael wasn’t x-rayed
because he refused to take off the cuffs and something happened to him, he
would be the one held responsible.

“Fine, just get them done quick,” he told
her, taking out his keys so he could remove the cuffs, uncomfortably aware of
how nervous he was as he did so.

The moment the cuffs were removed Michael
acted. Having woken in the ambulance on the way to the hospital he had
pretended to still be unconscious, while he waited for an opportunity to
escape.

Surging up from the table Michael threw
himself onto Constable Phillips. A startled shout came from behind him but
Michael ignored it as he used his momentum and his superior build to shove the
constable back into the wall, slamming his head against it. While Phillips was
stunned and dizzy, Michael buried his fist in the older man’s stomach, driving
the air from him and doubling him up.

As Phillips folded, Michael lifted his knee
into the constable’s face and then smashed his right fist down onto the side of
his face, knocking Phillips to the floor. Michael was just bringing his foot
back to kick the man at his feet when he heard the door to the x-ray suite
scrape across the floor at it was opened. He spun on his heel and saw the nurse
at the door; in an instant he was across the suite. He reached the nurse before
she was through the door, and dragged her back into the room by the hair.

Realising that she was about to scream,
Michael punched the nurse in the kidney. Her scream caught in her throat as an
explosion of pain ripped through her, leaving her unable to do more than gasp
incoherently. While she struggled to breathe he spun her round by her hair and
let go, leaving her to tumble across the suite.

Michael ignored the nurse as she lost her
footing and fell, colliding with the x-ray table. He was too busy poking his
head out the door to look for any sign of trouble. The corridor outside was
empty, and there was no sign of anyone having heard what was going on. Thankful
for that, he shut the door and turned back to the room.

“Please don’t hurt me!” the nurse sobbed,
huddling against the x-ray table as he approached her.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Michael raised his
foot and slammed it into her face. Her nose shattered under the blow, spreading
blood across her face, but she remained conscious. When he saw that, he drove
his boot into her face a second time, making sure he had knocked her out.

The nurse dealt with, Michael turned his
attention to the constable, who was moaning in pain as he tried to crawl away.
He had little time, he knew; he needed to get away from there before he had to
worry about anyone coming along and discovering that he had escaped. Dropping
onto the constable’s back, Michael grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face
into the floor. Again and again he pounded the constable’s face into the vinyl.
He didn’t stop until his chest was heaving, the constable lay still, and there
was a bloody mess on the floor beneath the man’s head.

Michael got to his feet then and turned away
from Phillips’ body. He was about to head to the door when he saw the trail of
bloody footprints he had left as he walked around the x-ray table. Lifting his
foot he swore when he saw that blood from the nurse’s broken nose covered the
sole of his boot.

Annoyed, he returned to the constable so he
could wipe his boot on the man’s trousers. The blood was fresh enough that he
was able to remove the worst of it, and, once he was satisfied his boots
weren’t going to give him away, he made for the door. He didn’t notice the
blood he had transferred from his boot to his hand when he checked it.

He stopped when he reached the door, holding
it partially open as he looked back. He wanted to be sure that neither the
nurse nor the constable were in a position to alert anyone to his escape. Both
were immobile, though he didn’t think he’d killed either of them, and he was
about to leave when his attention was caught by the constable’s extendable
baton.

Why he felt the urge to take the baton
Michael couldn’t have said, but he did. As well as the baton, he took the
handcuffs that had formerly secured his wrists; as an afterthought he also took
the radio, unclipping it from Phillips’ belt.

He hoped that having the radio would help him
to stay at least one step ahead of the police, who he was sure would be looking
for him soon enough. Not that he had the slightest clue where he was going to
go, or what he was going to do.

The last thing he did before leaving was
search through Phillips’ pockets until he found his wallet, which he took. He
didn’t know how much money was in there but it didn’t matter; whatever he was
going to do, he needed as much money as he could get his hands on.

With the handcuffs and the radio stuffed into
his pockets, out of the way, and the baton up his sleeve where it couldn’t be
seen, he opened the door to the x-ray suite. After a quick check to be sure the
corridor was still empty he left. Walking casually, as if there was nothing
wrong and he hadn’t just assaulted a nurse and a constable, he made for the
nearest junction.

When he reached the junction he looked
around, not sure where to go. There was a sign on the wall, giving directions
to the various departments as well as to the nearest lifts and other places of
importance, and his eyes fell on the section telling him where the ITU
department was.

The sign brought to mind his sister,
unconscious upstairs. It was all her fault, he thought as he clenched his
fists, his breath coming in short sharp gasps. If she hadn’t been poking her
nose in where it didn’t belong, going in his car for no good reason and finding
Danielle’s phone, he never would have been caught. They hadn’t had a clue that
he was the one who’d killed Danielle and Emma, they’d thought it was Denton; it
had made him laugh when he heard that Denton was a suspect, not him.

Thinking about his sister, and what her
prying had cost him, he was strongly tempted to go up to her room – he imagined
they had moved her after last night but was sure he could find her easily
enough - and choke the life out of her. It wouldn’t take him long, after what
he had done to her on Sunday she must surely be almost dead already; it had
come as a surprise – a very unpleasant one - when Underwood revealed that she
was still alive.

“Are you lost?”

The question came out of the blue, startling
him, and Michael spun, his hand reaching for the baton hidden up his sleeve. He
stopped when he saw that it was only a nurse; she didn’t seem suspicious of him
or anything so he relaxed, a little. He remained ready to react the moment she
said or did anything that might suggest she knew who he was or what he had
done, though.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you,”
the nurse said, a look of concern on her face.

“That’s okay, I was miles away.” Michael
smiled. “I was looking for the quickest way out of here and got confused by the
sign.” It was an easy lie to give, the sign in front of him listed two sets of
lifts, in different directions, with no indication of which one was the
closest.

The nurse returned his smile with one of
amusement. “It’s easy to get lost around here, the place is so big. Even those
of us who are here pretty much every day manage to get lost from time to time.
If you go down this corridor to your right, take the first left, and then the
first right, you’ll find a pair of lifts. When you get to the ground floor,
follow the corridor to the left; it’ll bring you out in the main foyer.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” With that the nurse turned
away and headed off, leaving Michael alone.

Michael started off in the direction
indicated but once he was certain the nurse wasn’t around to see him, he turned
and headed for the other set of lifts marked on the sign. It wasn’t that he
didn’t trust the nurse, she certainly hadn’t given him any reason for a lack of
trust, but he wasn’t about to take any chances.

If the nurse should go into the x-ray suite
he had just left and discover the nurse and the constable he had escaped from,
he didn’t want her knowing which direction he’d taken on his way out of the
hospital.

Moving as quickly as he could without
attracting attention, he made his way through the hospital, following the
directions on the signs he encountered. He ignored the lifts, when he found
them, not wanting to put himself in a position to be trapped, and entered the
stairwell next to them. He descended the stairs two and three at a time and
soon reached the ground floor.

He pressed an ear to the door when he reached
the bottom of the stairs, listening for any sign of trouble. He heard nothing
to worry him so he left the stairwell and followed the signs to the nearest
exit.

It wasn’t until he was outside that Michael
realised he had exited the hospital by the same route as last night. The car
park was fuller than it had been when he attempted to kill his sister, and he
looked around at the array of vehicles before him.

He didn’t know how long it would be before
someone went into the x-ray suite and discovered his escape. He imagined it
wouldn’t be long, though, which meant leaving the hospital on foot wasn’t a
good idea, he was bound to get caught if he did. What he needed was a vehicle.

After all he had done up to then, he had no
qualms about stealing a car, or a motorbike, or even an ambulance. The trouble
was, he lacked the knowledge necessary for such an endeavour; he didn’t have
the first clue how to steal a vehicle.

It was with relief that he saw the car park
was empty of people, with the exception of a single young man. The young man
was a couple of years older than him, and appeared to be heading toward a car,
which meant he was the answer to his transportation problem. Michael
immediately set off after him.

As quickly as he could, he made his way
through the cars in the car park, closing the distance between the two of them,
while doing his best not to draw attention to himself. When he had narrowed the
gap to just a couple of cars he slid the baton from his sleeve. With a flick of
his wrist he extended it, holding it out of sight against his leg until he was
within striking range.

A last look around assured him that there was
no-one else in the car park, and that was when he attacked. His first blow
struck the man on the shoulder as he bent to unlock the driver’s door of the
dirty grey Vauxhall Astra he had stopped at. The blow knocked him forward into
the car and Michael immediately raised the baton to strike again, determined to
put the man down quickly, before anyone came along.

The baton caught the man on the arm that
time, the arm he raised in a desperate attempt to protect himself as he turned
to see who was attacking him. A cry of pain accompanied the sharp cracking
sound that suggested the arm had been broken. Michael barely heard either noise
though, so intent was he on his attack.

His next blow battered the man’s arm down out
of the way. His fourth hit his victim on the side of the face, shattering his
jaw and cheek and spinning him around and into the car once more. A fifth blow
smashed into the back of the man’s head, and was closely followed by a sixth,
and then two more in rapid succession.

Breathing heavily, Michael grabbed the man by
the back of his collar and dragged him off the car. He dropped to his knees
alongside the inert body and quickly rifled through his pockets, looking for
anything that might be of use to him. The keys were in the lock, so he didn’t
have to search for them, but he did take the man’s mobile phone and wallet.

He didn’t waste time looking to see whether
the wallet contained any money, he just stuffed it into a pocket, along with
the phone, and opened the driver’s door. He jammed the key into the ignition
and was dismayed when the engine failed to turn over. It wasn’t until the third
try that the engine rumbled into life, to his relief, and he quickly shifted
into gear.