The Escape

Chapter 8

‘Look can we focus? Someone must have noticed his disappearance. He was here at the one a.m. check-in and gone by two. How do explain that? Nobody saw anything. No records, no eyewitnesses of anyone enter this section of the building. From what I gather, they had to be in the building long before they entered his room. Did you talk to the nurses?’

‘Had a real friendly chat with them. Asked them for their numbers and all. Got a few. You should try it. I’m sure your wife won’t mind.’

‘Gerry please. For Christ sake he’s probably as baffled as you and I are about this and you’re not helping. Now, where did he go? What did they say?’

‘One nurse, some short gook with the ponytail, said she checked the room at twenty past two in the morning. Room was locked, no sign of forced entry, no sign of anything suspicious at all.’

‘Right, go on.’

‘Walked in, opened the door. Man was gone. Windows shut, blankets smeared with blood. Machines scattered about the floor. Place was in a mess according to her.’

‘Where did the traces of blood lead?’

‘Didn’t say. Ran back to the nurses’ station. Told one of the staff the patient was missing.’

‘Did you speak to them?’

‘They said the same. Pool of blood left on the bed and only the bed. It was the man’s. The floor was spotless.’

I listen carefully, steadying my breath.

‘So where did he go? Fingerprints on the windows? Any signs of escape?’

‘Nothing. Place was clean.’

‘So whoever did this, can they do it again? They had keys, obviously. The window was locked. No other way in or out without making some kind of mark on the exterior of the room.’

‘More or less.’

‘So we basically have no clue as to how he escaped.’

‘That’s about right.’

‘Speak to any of the other staff? Doctors, nurses, guards?’

‘There was only a couple on the desk at the time. Their stories are the same. No-one in or out past the nurses’ station.’

‘No unusual faces passing the desk on the way in or out of the unit? Any suspicious faces? Any unusual characters?’

‘Not that I am aware of. According to the nurses, the place was clean. Nothing unusual at all to report. Just a routine day as far as they were concerned.’

‘How the hell could someone get in here anyway? Place is harder to get into than a bloody bank. It’s not as if he got up from the side of the bed and strolled out of here. I had to pass through at least two keypad restricted doors to get into this wing. Do you know how long it took to do that?’

‘Surprise me.’

‘Twenty minutes. That long to walk fifty metres from one end of the corridor to the other. I tell you, whoever these men were, they must have done this before.’

‘This glass is double bolted, reinforced. If someone were to drop from this height they’d fall to their death. How do explain that?’

The room was silent for a moment. The shrill beeps from the cardiac machine emitted a metronomic noise.

‘How would he survive if he was taken off his drip? According to his medical records he should have died within minutes.’

‘Unless he was given something the moment he was taken from the bed.’