‘I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS AT ALL.’
THE JANGLING OF THE TELEPHONE on the bedside table scorched through his deep, dream-free sleep, jarring into his brain like a brilliant spear of sound, a shock wave surging through his chest, his heart suddenly pounding. Calls in the dead of night were never good news. Groggily, he reached for the telephone, answered, “Yarrow?” and switched on the bedside lamp, the sudden glare making him wince.
Wedging the phone into his shoulder, he picked up his watch from the nightstand, 4:15 a.m., what on earth could be so urgent as to call him at this time of night; even more surprising, it was Superintendent Bullock calling him.
Something had to be seriously wrong to get Bullock out of his bed at night.
“Chris, get yourself down to the hospital, the children’s ward, seems like a young lass has gone missing, looks like it might be an abduction.”
“Abduction?”
“Aye, four-year-old girl…Emily Black…was in her bed in the children’s ward when the night nurse did her rounds, next time she looked, the lass were gone. First off like, the nurse thought that mebbe the little lass had gone t’toilet, so she looked in there, no little lass. Then looked all around before calling in the duty doctor in case he had taken her for some reason although he should have notified the duty nurse if’n he had. Then another look around, called out the matron and other staff, did another quick search of the nearby wards and such before calling us in. One of the other girls in the ward, barely three, all she could say it were ‘a doctor man.’
“I don’t like the sound of this at all.”
“Me neither, they should’ve called us in sooner, the trail is already getting cold, so get on down there. I’ll get uniform set up for the search, we’ll do the hospital top to bottom, just in case she did wander off and got lost, you know what a labyrinth the old hospital is, then the grounds, then spread it out. Get the rest of your lads in.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“This has a nasty smell, Chris, a right nasty smell.”