Helen ran along the corridor until she came to the infirmary. Swiping Robins’s ID card through the reader, she pushed inside. Normally it would have been full – whenever there was a spare bed it was always grabbed, by an inmate with a genuine medical need or a prisoner with a healthy imagination. This morning, however, it was deserted, the staff and patients having presumably been evacuated now that a prison riot was in full swing.
Helen had bent her steps here almost by instinct. She may have been a prisoner for several months now, but she was still an investigator at heart. Robbed of her usual resources she had been floundering in the dark, guessing wildly and inaccurately, but she still had one vital clue. The killer had injected the victims with adrenaline. And there was one obvious place to find that.
Did this mean the prison’s nursing staff were involved in these murders? Helen suspected not – she wasn’t a big believer in conspiracy theories and, besides, she had the feeling this killer was working alone. The crimes were too peculiar and unusual to suggest otherwise. But there were others who had access to the infirmary’s registered drugs and Helen had an instinct she would find one of them here today.
The treatment rooms were empty, so Helen tried the large medical storeroom at the back. This was kept locked at all times, but employing Robins’s card once more, she unlocked the door and peered inside. It was dark and everything appeared still and for a moment Helen was tempted to move on. But then a tiny noise made her pause and snapping on the lights she discovered Wheelchair Annie.
She was cowering behind cardboard boxes towards the rear of the room. And she was alone. Helen had never seen her like this and now, bereft of her thugs and bodyguards, she cut a rather pitiful figure. She looked somehow smaller, weaker. More than that, she looked scared.
‘What do you want?’
Annie was trying to sound authoritative, but it was all bluster. Helen couldn’t suppress a smile – beyond her own beating, Annie was responsible for much of the misery that haunted Holloway, ensuring that many of the vulnerable women who passed through here remained dangerously hooked on drugs. Saying nothing, Helen walked slowly towards her.
‘If you touch me, you’ll regret it.’
Annie was trying to wheel herself backwards, but she was boxed in. Still Helen advanced upon her.
‘For God’s sake, I’ve got MS. You’re a police officer. You wouldn’t hit a defenceless –’
‘I was a police officer,’ Helen corrected her. ‘And I’ve got a score to settle with you.’
‘Look at me. I’m begging you …’
Annie held up her shaking hands. She wanted to use her condition as a bargaining chip, but Helen wasn’t interested. Her beating at the hands of Annie’s thugs was still fresh in her memory and Helen knew that Annie would be utterly ruthless if their positions were reversed.
She leant in close. As Annie craned away from her, Helen said quietly:
‘I’m feeling generous, Annie. So I’m going to give you a choice. Tell me what I need to know or take what’s coming to you.’
Annie nodded cautiously. Information was a valuable commodity in prison.
‘You supply everybody in here, right? There’s no one you won’t sell to, nothing you can’t source?’
‘I do what I can.’
‘I know you do. And I’m not interested in the usual stuff, I want to know about one of your more specialist clients.’
Annie nodded obediently, so Helen continued.
‘Adrenaline. Can you get hold of pure adrenaline in here?’
‘Of course. They need it for the girls with allergies, plus it’s in all the resuscitation packs. They use them on the code blacks, if they’re too far gone.’
‘And have you ever lifted some for a customer?’
‘It’s not a common request.’
‘Answer the question, Annie.’
‘I may have acquired a few batches but it was months ago now.’
‘Who did you give it to?’
‘Why are you so interested? It was a few hundred centilitres at best …’
‘WHO?’
‘Listen, Grace, I want to help you, but I can’t go giving up my clients like tha—’
Helen cut her off short, grabbing her by the collar.
‘That adrenaline was used to kill three innocent women. Which means you are an accessory to murder.’
Annie stared at Helen, genuinely shocked by this revelation.
‘So I’m going to ask you again and this time you had better answer me.’
Helen released her grip round Annie’s throat.
‘Who did you give the adrenaline to?’