Free Omega by Stewart Farrar Page B

counter, and her tone was sharp. 'I'll attend to this lady. You can go for your lunch-break.'
    The nurse flushed and scuttled away.
    'Yes?' the sister asked abruptly.
    'I was asking for my cousin, Nurse Eileen Roberts. But I understand she's away.' 'I'm afraid so. She's b een lent to another hospital.' ‘ At Banwell?'
    'The nurse was misinformed. Nurse Roberts went to Weston, yesterday, but she was due for two weeks' holiday first. So it'll be no use asking for her there for another fortnight.'
    Miss Smith said 'Thank you, Sister' and left. When she was back in the van she looked at Ginger Lad curled up in his usual place on the passenger seat. 'You know what, my friend? There's something very odd going on. That sister was lying. And so was the sergeant, back there.'
    Ginger Lad yawned.
    'You're probably right,' Miss Smith told him. 'All the same, we're going to Banwell to have a look-see.'
    She remembered passing through Banwell three or four kilometres back; just as well, because she had not known the name and if it hadn't been fresh in her visual memory she might not have caught what the nurse had said. As she drove towards it again, she wondered what she should do. She was obstinately determined to sec Eileen, quite apart from the fact that her curiosity (an active element in Miss Smith's make-up) had been aroused. But her experience with the sister warned her that there might be snags to simply asking for Banwell Emergency Unit. Miss Smith was not at all sure what she was up against, but she felt wary.
    On the other hand, the young nurse had told her that 1 Eileen was at Banwell Emergency Unit. Maybe she shouldn't have but that wasn't Miss Smith's fault. And Eileen was her cousin, which gave her every excuse for asking for her—
    She decided to risk it.
    As she came to the outskirts of Banwcll, she kept her eyes open for a suitable pedestrian - preferably someone a little naive and unsuspicious. She picked on a housewifely woman of about forty and pulled up beside her.
    'Excuse me. Can you direct me to the Banwell Emergency Unit?'
    The woman had smiled when Miss Smith leaned through the window to speak to her, but now the smile faded. She looked at Miss Smith nervously.
    'You'd better ask at the police station,' she said, and turned away.
    Miss Smith sat there for a moment, thinking. She decided she did not want to ask at the police station. She did not want her name noted down in the station book. Obviously, to ask for the Emergency Unit made one suspect; and if, somewhere along the official wires, that suspicion linked up with the disappearance of a local government officer and an unauthorized entry in File LB 0806. . . . She was beginning to regret that little joke.
    Oh well. One more 'innocent' try. She drove up to the post office and parked.
    From the medical cupboard she took a cardboard carton of penicillin tablets which she had somewhat unofficially acquired as useful stores; it was still in its hospital wrapping. That would do. She could carry it into the post office and say she had orders to deliver it in person to the Unit; it might work, and if it didn't, she could say she was going on to the police station.
    But Miss Smith was saved the trouble of finding out. As she opened the door of the van, a nurse walked out of the post office.
    Miss Smith called, 'Eileen!'
    The nurse spun round, startled. She gasped, 'Angie!' and then looked quickly up and down the street. No one was looking their way. Miss Smith jumped back into the van and opened the passenger door from inside.
    'Move over, Ginger Lad. We've got a visitor.'
    Eileen said, 'Drive straight on, Angie,' as soon as she was seated.
    Miss Smith did as she was told, asking, 'Where are we going?'
    'Towards the Unit, as long as anyone can see us. But not to it.... How the hell did you find me? We're supposed to be top secret. We can't write or phone anyone.'
    'Never mind that now - tell you later. What were you doing in the town, then?'
    'Official errand. But