Deep Hurt - Eva Hudson Page 0,5
and shoulders to relax.
Mike Stiller had never let her down before. She prayed this time would be no exception. She planted a hand across her forehead and leaned her elbow on the desk. All she could do now was wait.
“Jeez—I guess you really need this, huh?” Jennifer said as she appeared at the door. “Sorry I was so long. The line at the cafeteria took forever. I think the espresso machine isn’t working properly.” She carefully placed the small cardboard cup on Ingrid’s desk.
Before Ingrid had a chance to drink any coffee her landline started to ring. She stared at the phone for a moment, trying to get her head together.
“Want me to get that?” Jennifer asked.
“It’s OK.” The words came out louder and harder than she’d meant. “Hey—thanks for the coffee.”
The clerk smiled back at her and returned to her desk. Ingrid answered the call.
“Agent Skyberg, US embassy.”
“Hello, this is the duty sergeant, calling from Holborn Police Station, I’ve been asked to inform you about an incident that happened earlier today at a hotel in Bloomsbury.”
Ingrid grabbed pen and paper from her desk. “Give me the details, sergeant.”
“I don’t have them all, this is a courtesy call, more than anything.”
“Give me what you got.”
“American family, husband went on the rampage, attacked his baby daughter and left her for dead.”
“Left her? Has he been apprehended?”
“No. He snatched his eight-year-old son and took the boy with him. He’s still on the loose.”
Ingrid’s pen remained poised over the notebook. “When did this happen? How long has he been out there?” She heard the rustling of paper.
“Haven’t been given an exact time—earlier this morning.”
“And what about the wife? Where is she?”
“At the hospital.”
“He attacked her too?”
More rustling.
“No, that doesn’t appear to be the case.”
“Is there someone else I can speak to who has more information?”
“Sorry, no, not at the moment. The bulk of the team are at the hotel. The rest are at the hospital.”
“Which hospital?”
The sergeant gave her the address and hung up.
Ingrid grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair and her purse from the drawer beneath the desk. Over the last eight months she’d gotten used to being the last to find out about incidents when they occurred, but had never received such limited information about a case before. She tried not to read too much into it, and headed for the door.
4
Ingrid parked her motorcycle on Chenies Street and walked three blocks north to the rear entrance of University College Hospital. Although she’d never before set foot inside the building during her eight months in London, she had often been struck by its appearance. It looked more like a skyscraper office block than a hospital: seventeen stories of tinted green windows and pearly white cladding towering over the intersection between Euston and Tottenham Court Roads. She supposed from the top few floors the patients must get a pretty impressive view of the whole of London.
A plain clothes detective was waiting for her just inside the entrance when she arrived.
“Agent Skyberg?” the muscular man in the cheap gray suit asked Ingrid as she glanced around the expansive reception area.
She nodded back at him. Unruly tufts of shortish dark blond hair stuck out from his scalp at different angles. His face was covered in stubble and the shirt beneath his jacket was a little crumpled. Ingrid suspected he’d had an unplanned early start.
“I’m Detective Sergeant Brad Tyson, I believe our duty sergeant has passed on the details of the case to you.” He guided her toward a wide corridor to the right of the entrance, three elevators on each side.
“Actually, the details were a little sketchy.” Ingrid saw no point in criticizing the duty sergeant’s reticence. She didn’t want her relationship with the investigating team to start off on the wrong foot.
“Let me bring you right up to speed, then.” After pressing the ‘up’ button of the express elevator he stood back and studied her face for a moment. “If you think that’s strictly necessary, in the circumstances.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I’ve had the embassy’s role explained to me. I know when an American citizen is involved in a crime—victim or perpetrator—you like to keep an eye on the investigation, offer assistance, write your report, etcetera, etcetera.”
He had just made her job sound almost an irrelevance, but Ingrid did her best to ignore his dismissive tone. She said nothing, just nodded at him encouragingly so that he might actually get to the point.
“But with the Air Force so closely involved in