Calm, cool thoughts.

She’ll need to wrap the body in something, then she’ll have to clean the floor. Get rid of the evidence. Something deep inside her likes that. Mopping and scrubbing will be therapeutic, calming. Then she can throw the body back into the disposal buggy and wheel it down to the incinerator.

Calm, cool thoughts.

But inside she burns. She wanted a release-deserved one-and Liam didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. She needs to let off steam. She needs it. Even with three shots of medicine in her she can’t sit still.

Bees and broken glass.

Dr Westfield looks from the battered corpse of worthless Liam to the clock on the wall. It’s just after four: nearly seven and a half hours to go. She can’t last that long. She just can’t.

A shudder runs down her spine. The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit has to come back to the hospital at half past four: she read about the appointment in his medical records. She has half an hour to clean stupid Liam away before the man responsible for all this shit arrives in the building.

She was going to save William Hunter for later, for when she’s all fixed up and can taste his fear and his blood, but she needs something now. And William Hunter will do nicely. Escort him back down to her storeroom-operating theatre and give him the worst seven hours of his life.

21

The Network has its own private floor of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Different from the rest of the building, its walls are thicker, its floors are reinforced, its ceiling covered with shielding. Troopers stand guard at the main bank of elevators; anyone without a pass is escorted off the thirteenth floor at the point of a Whomper. But she walks right past them as if they weren’t even there.

She wanders slowly around the private reception area, picking up the wastepaper baskets and emptying them into her buggy. Fat, useless Liam is just another layer of ash in the hospital furnace, the storeroom is nice and clean, and she still has ten minutes before The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit arrives for his appointment. Ten minutes to find out where he’ll be going. Ten minutes to get into position. Ten minutes to decide what she’s going to do to him.

So many beautiful options…

Her medicine makes little stars twinkle at the edge of her vision, the world fizzing on chemical ripples. The base of her neck is sore from repeated injections. She’s had far more than the recommended daily dose.

The buggy creaks as she pushes it through the double doors, following the orange line. The place is quiet, but then four twenty on a Sunday afternoon is hardly peak time. She passes wards, scanners, and operating theatres. The consultation rooms are at the end of a short corridor.

There’s a waiting area in the middle of the room-comfy chairs, pot plants, a coffee machine-and treatment rooms down either side. Each one with a display screen next to it, listing the doctor’s name and upcoming appointments.

There’s no one around to see her checking the screens for William Hunter’s name. She finds it down at the end of the row.

Seven minutes. His appointment is in seven minutes.

Perfect. All she has to do is wait in the little room. She’s not worried about the doctor already being there-doctors die just as easily as everyone else. And when William Hunter turns up she’ll wait till he’s not looking, then use the injector in her pocket to pump him full of sedatives. Heave him into the buggy, just like useless Liam. Only when she gets him down to the storeroom he’ll last a lot, lot longer.

Mmm…

Her hand freezes on the doorknob; there are voices inside the consulting room. She frowns at the display, checking. No one should be in there-it’s reserved for The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit. How dare they! How dare they get in the way! And then the voices say something that makes her flinch.

‘Peitai…’

The word makes her skin burst out in pins and needles.

A cold room, keys beneath her fingers and tubes in her arms.

She lurches back from the door, heart thumping in her chest.

Peitai.

Pictures of her children, flickering lights, questions, elec tricity, pain. She staggers into the buggy and it sends one of the pretty pot plants crashing to the ground.

Peitai…

‘What was that?’ Jo jerked upright.

‘I said that Ken Peitai-’

‘Shush!’ she crossed to the door and put her ear against it. ‘There’s someone out there!’

Will nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s a hospital. There are thousands of people out there.’ It was a stupid thing to say, but it was out before he could stop himself. Ever since she’d asked about the photos in his living room there had been a layer of glass between them. Something that couldn’t be seen, but kept them apart. He was acting like a tit and he knew it.

Jo scowled at him. ‘You know what I mean. We’re hacking into the hospital records, you think your doctor’s going to be happy about that?’

‘Good point.’ He started hammering commands into the keyboard. ‘You see who it is, I’ll copy the files and shut this thing down.’

Lights: too bright for her to bear, shining straight in her eyes. A short man in green, an older one dressed like a crow. Questions. More questions. She stumbles to the seats in the middle of the waiting area and collapses into one.

Hot noise races through her head; the interrogation chair; stabbing bursts of pain; questions. Peitai and his keeper-the man in the long black cloat with the delicate fingers that make her writhe in pain.

Someone says something, but she ignores it. Her head is burning from the inside out.

A hand touches her shoulder and she explodes out of the chair. No. No more. She won’t answer any more questions!

Something goes ‘crack’ and suddenly all the noise and light and pain vanish.

She’s in the waiting area, standing over the body of a woman. The woman isn’t moving, she’s just lying there on the floor, a Palm Zapper nestling in a shoulder holster, just visible through her open jacket.

Dr Westfield grabs it.

It’s all gone wrong. Unravelling…

She stares at the consulting room door with his name next to it.

This is too dangerous. Too big a risk. She has to get away from here. Now.

She grabs her trolley and makes for the exit. Walk, don’t run. If she runs they’ll know something’s wrong. If she runs they’ll catch her.

Will shut down the doctor’s computer with a satisfied click. There were only a couple of references to Peitai and his boss, Mr Kikan, but it was still a lot more than he’d had this morning. And now the files were all downloaded to his cracker where he could read through them at his leisure.

He put everything back the way he’d found it and stood, waiting for Jo to return. When she didn’t he crossed to the treatment room door and stuck his ear against it: silence.

‘Jo?’

He pulled the door open and saw her body lying sprawled across the floor. A bloody graze on her forehead.

‘Jo!’ Will dropped to one knee and felt for a pulse. She was still alive, but it looked as if she was in for one hell of a lump. ‘Jo, can you hear me? Who was it?’

No reply.

‘Damn!’ He stabbed his throat-mike. ‘Control, this is Hunter: Network treatment rooms, Glasgow Royal. I have an officer down.’

‘Roger that, Security is on its way…Wait a minute, “officer”? Don’t you mean Agent?’

‘No I don’t.’ He dragged his Palm Thrummer out of its holster and snapped the thing on. ‘Get a med team here on the double! You’ll find DS Cameron outside Doc Morrison’s room.’

‘Where will you-’

He killed the link.

There was no sign of which way the bastard had gone.

Left or right? Left. He sprinted back along the corridor, making for the exit and the lifts, barged through the first set of swing doors and almost fell over a halfhead. The damn thing was right in the middle of the passageway, but Will dodged it just in time and kept on running.