Shrike (Book 2): Rampant (26 page)

I find it after a beat. The label on it just says MacIntyre, and it makes my heart sink just looking at it, lettered so precisely in block letters.

I resist the urge to sit at Trevor's desk to look at the folder and instead sit in my normal chair on the opposite side. This way if he comes in, I can at least pretend I'm really just waiting for him.

I'm sure he'll believe me. It's not like he thinks I'm an overly paranoid superhero or anything, or that he had a high-voltage taser up his sleeve the last time I was in this office.

Bugger. If Trevor does pop in before I'm done, I really hope he's forgotten to slip a taser up his sleeve.

Opening the file, I page through the basics. Arrest warrant, booking documents. Ross didn't resist, at least, and the charges listed don't tell me anything I don't already know.

I don't know what I hope to find here. Like Rosamund Granger's hideout, I keep thinking that there has to be something Trevor has in here that would explain something. I see the note about finding Ross's fingerprints on the bomb's casing, and that seems damning enough all over again. Seeing it in black and white in an actual file with his actual name attached makes it all the more real. Behind it is a stapled transcript of an interview with David Menzies, and behind that a paper detailing what David transcribed while Ross slept. 

My fingers begin to shake reading it. It's just as David told me, just as he said. I don't know why I expect it to be different, but again seeing it is like watching the gavel fall already.

All of this makes Ross's attempt at suicide seem like a desperate act of remorse — or of a man's last attempt to avoid getting murdered in prison. Take matters into his own hands. 

I don't think I'll be able to talk to Ross again, and my fingers on the impassive white papers in this folder make me wonder how anyone will ever know the truth of what happened. 

A key slides into the lock on the door. 

I've dropped the file back in the drawer and landed my arse back in my seat before Trevor gets the door open. He starts when he sees me.

"Scone?" I ask, motioning at the sack on his desk.

He looks at me, still with that wary look he had last time. "Jacobsen didn't say you were in here."

"Is Jacobsen the lad at the front desk?"

"Aye."

"Well, I gave him a scone on the way in, so he ought to have remembered I was here. Ungrateful of him."

"What are you doing here at six in the morning, Gwen?"

"I want to know more about Ross's case."

Trevor flops into his chair, and I see that his eyes are reddened. I'm clearly not the only one not sleeping. "I can't tell you, and you know that."

"I know about David Menzies turning him in."

Trevor's red eyes widen momentarily at that, and then he swears. "He's your trainer. I bloody forgot that."

"Aye, well, not anymore. He's taken a wee leave of absence on account of his boyfriend getting splashed about the news for attempted mass murder."

"There's really not much else I can say. His fingerprints are on the bomb. The bomb itself. He has no alibi or explanation for the nights leading up to the referendum, and we don't know for certain when the bomb was placed. It's going to be nearly impossible to definitively eliminate him as a suspect."

It's the biggest speech I've heard from Sergeant McLean in a while, and each word seems to drain him a bit more.

"I'm sorry, Trevor."

"You didn't do it."

I'm not sure what he's referring to, whether the bomb or his promotion or the way he seems to deflate into his chair like an air mattress with a hole in it.

There's nothing left to say here, and nothing new to be learned. 

One of these days, I'd appreciate something not turning into a dead end.

twenty-six

Arriving back at home at a quarter of seven, I head up to shower before realising I don't have to work because it's Sunday. 

Every day for the last week has bled into each other. I've five days to find out what's going on with Granger's list plans, and nothing seems to be bringing me closer to it. My feet feel like they're mired in a bog, and every step I take makes me sink farther instead of helping me get where I need to be.

When I step out of the shower, I hear low voices from my bedroom.

"I've got to go see her," Taog's saying. 

I'm wearing only a towel, and I step through the doorway. "I'm right here."

"He does not mean you," Magda says, and from her sleepy frown and the way she's blocking the door, whoever Taog wants to go see isn't in this flat at all. He's standing, but barely. After a war of stares with Magda, he sits back on the edge of my bed.

"What's wrong?" I ask him, pulling the towel tighter around my stomach.

"Tasha. She's in hospital with a forty degree fever."

I have to grip the towel to keep from ending up naked in front of both of them. I knew Tasha was ill, but not that ill. "Is that her only symptom?" 

Taog shakes his head, "She wasn't very coherent, but she said she coughed up blood too."

"This isn't a coincidence," I say. 

The others look as if I've just told them we're all in Edinburgh as we speak. 

"Is she at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary?" I ask.

"Aye, I'm her emergency contact, and they let her speak to me because she insisted."

"They?" 

"She had to ring an ambulance herself. She'd been monitoring her fever, and when it spiked, she dialled 999."

Poor Tasha. I shudder to think of any less capable person going through what she was. I think of Bronwyn Sultani at the Gu Bràth office, dabbing at her nose. Alarmed, I look to Magda. "There might be more ill people," I say. 

This can't just be the flu. 

"I need to go to Tasha," Taog says. "She hates hospitals."

Apparently she and I have that in common, though in present company, I think that's the unanimous opinion. 

Magda and I exchange a look. 

"If you're going to ERI, you're probably going to end up staying there," I say to Taog. "They're not going to just let you waltz in looking like death on a stick and saunter back out after visiting hours."

"At least I can get that chest x-ray," he says. He looks at his knees, which shake even sitting. 

Bugger the towel. I go to him and sit on the bed, still covered, though my thighs are mostly exposed. I don't like the way he said that. 

He unclenches his hand and shows me a tissue. It's spotted with red.

"Magda, call a taxi," I say.

Two hours later, Magda and I wait with Taog in his room in the Respiratory Medicine ward — which is only a few doors down from Tasha's. I bloody hate hospitals, and I bloody hate the way Taog's face is drained of colour, like he's coughing all his life into tissues and leaving the rest of him empty.

I squeeze his hand, even though he's half asleep. 

I checked Granger's tracer on the way here, and she was still in Falkirk. I idly open the app again, waiting for the doctor to come in and explain the test results she's rung Shannon and Dr Morrison to discuss. I stare at the app for a solid ten seconds before it dawns on me that I'm looking at a map of Edinburgh. I make a strangled noise and jump up from my chair.

"Gwen?" Magda starts to get up herself, but I motion to her to sit back down.

"I've got to make a call," I tell her.

I find a phone and dial the now-familiar line at St. Leonard's, usurping the voice of the taxi driver who picked us up at the flat.

When the phone is answered, I say I've an anonymous tip about the location of Rosamund Granger, eyes trained on the moving white dot. She's got to be in a car; she's moving too quickly for someone on foot.

I rattle off the cross streets, affecting the tone of someone as distressed as I would be if I were a civilian seeing Rosamund Granger on the streets. Pulling the photo I snapped of Gina Galbraith's list up on my mobile, I look at the neighbourhoods and addresses we managed to get. The closest list member to Granger is Amelie Evans, and Granger is only a few streets away.

The white dot stops.

In a daze, I rattle off the streets right around Granger's location and hang up the phone, breathing hard. 

Do I run all the way back home? I've not got my Shrike outfit with me. Taog and Tasha are ill and in hospital.

I make myself wait five anguished minutes, then I ring Trevor from my mobile.

"I heard Granger was seen in Edinburgh," I say, taking a page from his book and omitting pleasantries.

"Christ, Gwen, how could you know that already?"

"Sources." Myself. The fact that I betrayed you and put a tracer on the bitch instead of turning her in. A handy app and a handy bit of tech from a fellow paranoid conspiracy theorist. Take your bloody pick.

"We've got a team headed to the address. Are you coming?"

"I'm at ERI with Taog."

There's a silence. "Is he okay?"

"He's coughing up blood, and he's not the only Gu Bràth member in that condition."

"I'll ring you after we deal with Granger."

He hangs up. 

I'm not sure if Trevor and I are back on friendly terms, or if he's just too knackered to argue with me.

Back in Taog's room, Magda gives me a questioning look. I mouth
later
at her, and while she doesn't look appeased, she lets it slide. 

We don't have to wait much longer for the doctor, and I seek out Taog's hand and hold it in mine the whole time.

Taog wakes when the doctor comes in, but his eyes look unfocused, and I wonder if we haven't brought him here at the exact right time. His hand feels hot in mine. 

The doctor doesn't sit, but she does shake my spare hand. "Doctor Jensen," she introduces herself briefly before launching right into business, turning to Taog. "Your x-ray came back, and there does seem to be a buildup of fluid in your lungs."

I'm thankful she's speaking to Taog, but he barely seems to hear her, blinking more times than he ought to and staring.

"Pneumonia?" I ask. 

She nods, but I can tell she has something else to say. "We're not entirely sure yet what the extent of his symptoms are. We'd like to run a few more tests, especially considering the young woman down the corridor is exhibiting similar conditions to your friend here."

"They're both my friends," I say. I'm not sure Tasha would necessarily back me up on that, but I'm going to claim her anyway. 

"Doctor," Taog says. His voice is weak and sounds far away, and I swivel to look at him. His eyes are bloodshot, and his grip on my hand is fading.

Alarmed, I clasp his hand. "Taog, are you all right?"

"Hot," he says. His head falls back on his pillow.

Dr Jensen is already moving, hitting a button on Taog's bed. She presses one hand to his head. He's not hooked up to any monitors yet, and there's no read on his temperature. She swiftly takes a thermometer from the rolling trolley of instruments and slides it into the plastic protector. She has it under his tongue in moments, and I see her eyebrow shoot up when it beeps. Before she can say anything, a nurse hurries in, his blue scrubs rumpled as if he's at the end of a very long shift. 

"Get his BP," Dr Jensen commands. "His temp is just under forty degrees. He just lost consciousness. Get his heart rate—"

I've been holding his hand this whole time, and I can hear it. "One hundred thirty beats per minute."

The doctor shoots me a strange look, and the nurse clamps a monitor on Taog's finger. After a moment, he nods. "She's right."

Dr Jensen shoos me away from Taog. "I need you to give me some space."

"Is he going to be okay?" Magda asks the question I don't want to. 

I remember his lips on mine. I cling to that. My hand burns where his just left it.

"We need to get his temperature stabilised," she says. She turns to the nurse. "Paracetamol. Now."

Again I can do nothing. Magda's hand finds mine, and she twines her fingers around my palm. "He'll be all right," she says.

I want to believe her.

I have to believe her.

Dr Jensen manages to get Taog's fever down to thirty eight degrees within the next half hour, but he doesn't wake.

I can tell the doctor is worried, because her mouth buttons tighter than Scrooge's purse on Christmas Eve. Magda's hand in mine quickly becomes slick with perspiration as those thirty minutes tick by, but she doesn't remove it, and I don't try to make her.

After thirty three minutes, Dr Jensen asks us to go to the lounge while she runs some tests. 

I don't know what else to do but obey. Magda and I walk slowly through the second floor of the hospital, still hand in hand. 

"Do you really think he'll be all right?" I ask finally when we get to a pair of chairs in the corridor and sit.

"It's a bad flu season," she says. "They will find a treatment."

That seems too easy. I've never seen adults this ill with influenza before, and clearly everyone from Shannon to Dr Morrison at Sick Kids thinks there's something strange going on here.