Free Execution (A Harry Tate Thriller) by Adrian Magson

anyone speaking to him.’
    Rik nodded. ‘Enough to drive her onto the street.’ He returned the phone. ‘If she’s gone deep, she might never come up again. What then?’
    ‘Then she’s on her own. She’ll have to rely on her wits – or someone she knows she can trust.’
    Rik gave him a doubtful look. ‘Someone like us, you mean? Could she be that desperate?’
    ‘She might.’ Harry stopped. He looked at the phone, remembering the call he’d received earlier on his way here. He’d assumed it was a misdial. But what if it wasn’t? He went to the log screen to search his missed calls. There was just one. He read out the number and said, ‘Can you trace the subscriber?’ Professional instinct made him wary of calling it back until he knew who was on the other end.
    ‘Sure. Then what?’
    ‘Leg work. We know Clare left King’s trauma unit during the night, but not the precise time or the direction she took. We might be able to narrow the time down using the nursing staff visits, but she was no longer critical, so I doubt she’d have been on a regular watch list.’
    ‘Internal CCTV would nail it,’ Rik suggested. ‘If we can get a look at the drives.’
    ‘That might not happen.’ He explained what Ballatyne had told him. ‘We’ll have to go for private cameras. Can you trawl the neighbourhood for business CCTVs, see if you can get something?’
    ‘Sure. But wouldn’t street cameras be quicker?’
    ‘They will, but Six will have already blocked them. Ballatyne might be able to get something, but I’d like to have our own line of evidence, just in case the footage disappears.’
     
    Everything about the building housing the Major Trauma Centre looked normal to Harry. After arriving, he’d spent fifteen minutes on foot trawling the area surrounding the hospital for signs of extra security, but had seen nothing so far to indicate that the guard roster had been beefed up. Even so, he approached the complex via the glass-fronted Golden Jubilee building, banking on the bustle of visitors, patients and the collection of ambulances either side of the entrance to give him a degree of cover.
    Before leaving for his search of the neighbourhood, Rik had run a quick check of the hospital website, checking facilities. The complex had its own security team with police backup, and considerable CCTV coverage inside and out, monitored by staff in a central control room. Any person entering and wandering the corridors for too long without any obvious aim would soon attract attention from one of the guards.
    Harry waited for a family group of visitors to make their way up the steps, then joined them, holding the door open for an elderly lady and chatting easily to her about nothing of importance as they entered the foyer. It was enough to get him past a female security guard standing just inside the doors. She was short and sturdy, blank of face. Another ex-military person, he guessed. But not like the guards the other morning.
    A second guard stood by the reception desk. Male, older, he was too busy joking with the receptionist to be scanning the crowd, and Harry peeled off from the old lady and walked away with the confident air of one who knew where he was going.
    He found his way by trial and error to the trauma unit, and paused before approaching the security desk. There was no way of getting past this point without checking in; the set-up throughout the hospital was tight, but especially right here, and since the events of the other night, he expected efforts to have been tightened even more. Worse, if it was the same man he’d seen on duty last time, he was going to recognise him immediately. Even so, he was counting on the through-flow of patients and visitors not to be obstructed by undue procedure, and took a deep breath before stepping in front of the guard.
    It was a new man, fresh-faced and friendly. He decided to go for broke, relying on a strong grain of truth.
    ‘I’m here to interview one of the