Free Fairy by Shane McKenzie Page B

before he pitched forward onto the grey paving slabs and lay there with his life blood forming a wet, sticky pool beneath him.
    â€œWhat do you mean, attacked?” Harry Bailey said. He was cradling the phone between his chin and shoulder while he mixed the ingredients for a Spanish omelet, his dinner for tonight. On the phone was Simon Crozier’s PA, Trudy Banks who’d stayed late at the office with every intention of catching up on some paperwork. Her plans had been shattered by the call from the police.
    Bailey was Crozier’s deputy and, as such, was top of her list of people to call.
    â€œTrudy, calm down,” Bailey said as he whisked the eggs. “And tell me slowly and rationally what happened.”
    Bailey listened attentively, set the Pyrex mixing bowl down on the granite counter, and went through to the lounge.
    â€œSo what’s the hospital saying?”
    â€œHe’s in theatre at the moment,” Trudy said, sniffing back the tears. “I’m going down there now.”
    â€œBut did they give a prognosis?”
    â€œI don’t know, Harry. I’m getting all my information secondhand through the police. I’ll know more when I get to the hospital.”
    â€œWho else have you called?”
    â€œNo one. You’re the first.”
    â€œOkay. Leave it to me to inform everyone who matters. You get to the hospital. I’ll meet you there when I’m done with the phone calls,” Bailey said and hung up. He went back to the kitchen, switched off the cooker, grabbed his coat from behind the door and left the flat.
    On the way to the hospital in a taxi, Bailey made a number of phone calls to various Department 18 operatives and government ministers. The Home Secretary knew of the attack already, the police having briefed him as soon as they realized who the victim was. Simon Crozier was not exactly high profile as far as the media was concerned, but as head of the Department, his name carried a lot of weight in Whitehall and Westminster and many of the civil servants and politicians would treat the attack as an assault on one of their own. The Department 18 members he contacted were altogether more pragmatic.
    â€œAn eighty-two-year-old woman stabs Simon in broad daylight…” John McKinley said incredulously, “…and the police are treating it as just another manifestation of street crime?”
    â€œTo be fair to them, John, the investigation’s barely got underway.”
    â€œWell, they’re going to need our help,” McKinley said decisively.
    â€œWe don’t know that at this time,” Bailey said. “For all anyone knows, the old girl could have escaped from an institution. Once I’ve been to the hospital I’ll go to the police to find out what they know, and if they need our help, I’ll certainly offer it. In the meantime it’s best that we keep an open mind.”
    Robert Carter had very little to say about the stabbing. That he and Crozier rarely saw eye to eye and had a difficult working relationship was an open secret in Whitehall. Like McKinley, Carter expressed concern about the perpetrator of the attack and asked Bailey to keep him in the loop, but was no more forthcoming than that.
    At the hospital Bailey found Trudy Banks waiting just outside the main doors smoking a cigarette. Her cheeks were tear-streaked and she pulled in the smoke with the zeal of the condemned. She dropped the cigarette to the ground as Bailey approached and crushed it out with the toe of her Bally slingbacks. Clutching Bailey tightly in a hug, she blew out the last of the smoke over his shoulder and said, “We should go straight in. He’s just come out of surgery and they’ve put him in Intensive Care.”
    â€œAt least he made it through the operation,” Bailey said.
    â€œThey’re describing him as critical,” Trudy said. “The knife cut through his intestines and punctured his