‘Did you call 911?’ asks Philip, bending down to pick up one of the crushed USB sticks.
‘Of course I did, I’m not a bloody idiot.’ Moira doesn’t try to hold back her anger; she hasn’t the energy or the patience. Philip needs to not ask stupidly obvious questions. ‘The guy had a mask on, but I think it was the same person I saw on the trail last night – similar body type and gait. He took the hard drives.’
‘And destroyed the rest,’ says Philip, grim-faced, as he inspects the smashed USB stick in his hand. ‘He must have—’
‘Shush.’ Moira holds up her hand to silence him. Listens. There’s a siren and it’s getting closer. She looks at Rick. ‘Can you go outside and guide them to Hank?’
‘Sure,’ says Rick.
She closes her eyes as he hurries back down the hallway to greet the blue lights. The pneumatic drill inside her mind seems to double down on its efforts, and the effect makes the urge to vomit stronger. When she opens her eyes again she sees Philip poking about at the computers on the desk and muttering something unintelligible.
Moira ignores him. She thinks back to the previous evening – how she’d had the feeling that someone was watching her and Rick as they talked outside in Philip and Lizzie’s garden. And how she’d thought she’d seen movement over by the hedge. She’d checked it out and when she’d seen no one she’d told herself she was being paranoid, but maybe there had been someone there – not the blond from before, but the guy she’d seen on the trail.
She thinks back to that part of the evening. The four of them had planned their next moves and talked about the CCTV cameras. She’d said she was going to make a visit to Hank at the CCTV office the following morning. What if the killer had heard her and decided to remove the evidence first? What if she caused this to happen? She looks down at Hank – still out cold – and shivers. She doesn’t want to be responsible for more hurt, more death, but now Hank’s blood is smeared across her tabula rasa too.
‘They’re in here.’ Rick’s voice is in the hallway and coming closer.
Moments later three paramedics and several uniformed police officers burst into the room. Two paramedics go to Hank and get to work. The third kneels in front of Moira.
The paramedic is a tall, athletic-looking woman with her long blonde hair tied back in a neat ponytail. ‘Ma’am, we need to take a look at you. Are you able—’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Moira pushes herself up to standing. Waits a moment as her vision swings, the room seeming to tilt at an angle before it rights itself again.
‘Okay then,’ says the paramedic, looking unconvinced. ‘You want to come with us to the ambulance and we’ll check you out?’
Moira glances at Hank. There’s an oxygen mask over his face and the other paramedics seem to be doing some vitals checks. She supposes there’s nothing more she can do. ‘Yeah, okay.’
It takes a while to get to the ambulance and she has to use all her concentration to stay upright and keep putting one foot in front of the other. An assistant paramedic – a short, muscular guy with close-cropped black hair and a receding hairline – offers to help her, but she declines, so he hovers around just behind her, waiting to catch her if she falls, she assumes. She’s vaguely aware of a gurney being wheeled down the hallway towards the Security Suite. Fear grips her around the chest. ‘Is Hank okay?’
‘My colleagues are helping him,’ says the blonde paramedic. ‘He’s in good hands.’
They reach the end of the gloomy hallway and step out into the daylight. The medics help her navigate along past the spot of wall where the attacker got away, and out to the parking lot. It’s not empty any more; now there are two ambulances and several police cars. Moira stops. She can guess what comes next, and she doesn’t want to do it.