Over the next few minutes several people arrived, and twenty minutes later the place was swarming with activity. Two bags of blood had already replaced some of what Alex had lost, and a third and fourth were hung ready to flow through a blood warmer.
Greg was leaning against a wall out of the way of everyone. Jakie Jackson was against another, looking shell-shocked. He had rung the station and alerted them to arrest Maggie Fielding on sight. Greg didn’t care about the capture of the other woman; he could only think about Alex. He could tell that she wasn’t out of the woods yet. He could hear them talking about clotting factors and about the fact that she had lost so much blood that the new blood was unable to clot. He imagined her blood being too thin, less sticky, like watered-down tomato sauce. His eyes were fixed on her chalky face and he found himself praying like he had never prayed before.
A trio of miniscule tubes were inserted into her neck. Cannulas were in both her arms. Another cannula was placed in her groin artery so that her blood pressure could be monitored accurately, and a urinary catheter had been positioned into her bladder so that they could watch her output. Several pieces of complicated equipment surrounded her. She was on a ventilator and her body was covered with the thinnest lightweight plastic, which looked like it would easily tear. They were waiting until she was stable before they could move her to intensive care. He heard someone mention that she had a sixty-to seventy-per cent blood loss, and from the strain on Nathan Bell’s face she was clearly critical.
A couple of times nurses had looked at Greg pointedly, clearly indicating they thought he shouldn’t be in the theatre, but he had no intention of leaving either Alex or Nathan Bell. If the outlook was bleak he wanted to be there for both of them.
A surgeon was suturing the arteries in her wrists and an anaesthetist was monitoring her airway. There was tension in the air, as the crisis was clearly not over.
Chapter fifty-five
The ambulance driver was concentrating hard on the road ahead of him. He had silenced the siren as they turned into the road leading up to the hospital entrance, but kept the blue light flashing. He sounded the siren briefly as he saw a car trying to pull out and then relaxed as the vehicle halted.
His partner was in the back of the ambulance with a woman who was fully dilated and on the verge of delivering her baby. He would have pulled over and assisted with the delivery, but from what his partner told him the baby was breech. They were less than two minutes from the maternity unit, and he felt the mother and baby’s best chance was to get them there without stopping.
*
Maggie saw the blue flashing lights rushing towards her and jammed the brake on. She was covered in Alex Taylor’s blood and knew the woman would be dead by now, but instead of feeling relieved she was filled with dread of the future.
It was over and she had no more purpose. Alex was gone, those other women were dead. And her beloved Oliver was also dead.
Dylan’s burnt eyes and red-coated fur and desperate squealing haunted her, and the memory of Oliver’s face in death constantly loomed in her memory. She couldn’t get away from the ugliness of it all. The person she had most loved had been taken away from her, and now she was alone with only memories.
The blue lights were drawing nearer, the ambulance still travelling fast, and Maggie remembered her last night with Oliver. After dinner they’d gone back to his place and he’d told her about his plans to move to Los Angeles. He would make a fresh start. He was drunk and optimistic and kept dwelling on the great part that had just been denied him. He wondered if some producer in Hollywood would be interested in making an American version of the movie. It didn’t seem to bother him that it would be plagiarism; he said there was always a way round it.
‘It can be modified. It’s a great story, Maggs. Any producer would jump at the chance.’
She had smiled and he had plonked down at her feet wanting to tell her how it would make him a big star. ‘It opens with this serial killer and the police closing in on him. He’s a doctor and the police are racing to his home. Then you see him hang himself and the police find him dead. But the thing is, he’s not dead. He’s faked the suicide. As a doctor he knows how to make his heart stop and make it look like he’s dead. Then the killings start again and the police think they’ve got a copycat killer on their hands until he starts sending them messages.’
There was only one thing on her mind when she suggested she show him how it could be done, mocked him, dared him to prove to her it could work, because it sounded ridiculous. It would be completely safe; after all, she was a doctor. There was only one thing on her mind: did he want her to go with him to LA?
As he stood on a stool, foolishly drunk, with a rope secured around his neck, he told her how to operate his camera and how to zoom in for close-ups. ‘Five seconds on my feet, Maggs, and then put the stool back. I don’t want a bloody accident.’
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ she asked.
He smiled carelessly and said sure. Maybe not straight away; he needed a bit of time to make contacts and get started. But later he’d get her over there – as soon as he was set up.
She waited while he tied the rope to the beam above his head, and then she pulled away the stool. He let his legs dangle and his feet drop. ‘Be quick, Maggs,’ he panted. ‘I’m too fucking heavy! Put the stool back! PUT IT BACK!’ There was no sudden drop as he let go the rope. His grip had simply slipped further down it until he was left grappling with the knot at his neck. She quickly picked up the camera to film him. His eyes had bulged desperately after the first half a minute, the veins popping and streaking the whites with red; his tongue swelled and pushed out fat and purple between his lips. He clawed at his neck for over three minutes until finally his hands dropped, his fingertips twitched, and his toes danced a last few steps in the air.
Before she left she tipped over the stool and packed everything that had ever belonged to her; she wiped her presence from his life and erased the images of his death from his camera. His last role – the one he would be most proud of if he had lived to see it – was an Oscar winner.
Her beloved Oliver was dead. He could do no wrong until his eyes told her it had all been a lie.
Maggie saw the single-decker bus, saw the driver’s face clearly, coming from the left. The blue flashing light on her right was almost upon her. She gazed at both drivers coming her way and, at just the right moment, she pressed her foot on the accelerator.
*
The ambulance driver only just managed to brake before crashing. The bus driver didn’t get the chance. Maggie’s Explorer was hit sideways on by close to fifteen tonne of steel. Later both drivers would recall glimpsing a dark-haired woman at the wheel, and both felt that she had placed herself in harm’s way deliberately.