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The facilities office was at the far end of the yard, and we ran to it. A small security light turned on as we approached the painted dark green door. It was locked and no light came from the wire-barred window beside it. I banged on the door, but there was no response. I took a step back. There were no lights on in the building.
“How do we get in if there’s no-one here?” I grabbed his arm impatiently and pointed to my watch. “Less than an hour to go. Can we break into the monitoring room?”
He shook his head. “Probably not a good idea. We’ll leave fingerprints everywhere and it’ll come back to us.” He looked up at the window. “What’s that notice?” He pointed to a small sign about the size of a credit card in the corner of the window beside the door. It read “Out of hours, call main security office” and a mobile number was printed below it.
Olly was already dialling the number. “Good evening. My name is Olly Williams. I’m the Network Team Lead from Western Water. We supply the commercial water to the hospital. I called earlier about getting access to the water monitoring room this evening to check it over. I’m at the facilities office, but there’s no one here.”
A pause while the person at the other end spoke.
“No, I can’t come back tomorrow. I need to get in tonight.”
Another pause.
“Did you know that the Warbreck water tower went offline on Saturday?”
Another pause.
“Well, it did. You should have a record of it somewhere. We always send an email notification.”
Olly looked at me and rolled his eyes. He covered the phone. “This guy is clueless. He isn’t the same person I spoke to earlier.” Turning away from me, he spoke back into the phone. “I have to get into the monitoring room and check that everything is working normally now that the water has come back on.”
There was ten seconds of silence, and in the orange light of the security light, I saw Olly’s face contort in anger and frustration. “Look, I can’t come back. I need to do this tonight. Right now! That’s why I’ve driven two hours up from our head office.” A brief pause. “Thank you. We’ll come round.”
Olly hung up and put his hand flat in front of him and wobbled it side to side. “Maybe. He wants us to come round to the main security desk and he’ll see what he can do.” Olly turned away from the facilities office. “It’s this way.”
Without checking to see if I was with him, Olly jogged back along the lane past the refuse pit. A dull hammering came from the container where the stooge had fallen. The lid was firmly closed and his muffled shouts were just audible. We ignored him.
“Hopefully no one overhears him before we stop the attack. I’m sure someone will let him out at dawn,” I said to Olly.
As we ran past the door to the water monitoring room, Olly pushed the handle. It was locked.
We ran out the lane and across the road to the main hospital entrance. The automatic glass doors didn’t work and, after a half a minute waving at the sensor, a man appeared on the other side. He was in his early sixties, with a pockmark scarred face, and walked with a stoop. He wore a blue uniform and a peaked cap, and he carried a walkie-talkie. He shook his head at us like we had disappointed him and pointed to the back of a large sign on the door. We stepped back and read it, and then walked to a small side door.
“After eleven, the automatic doors are turned off,” the security guard said in a broad Northern Irish accent. “That’s why I wrote that big sign and put it on the door, so it is.” His name badge read, ‘Trevor’.
Trevor turned and walked back to the security desk. “You’re the two boys from the water company, then?”
Olly pulled out his Western Water security pass. “Yes. Thanks for bringing us round here. We went to the facilities office first.”
“Aye. You should have come here, so you should. When I come on shift, I close that office.”
“I see. We didn’t know. Anyway, I work for Western Water and we have a service level agreement that means we must inspect the monitoring system after any significant issue at the water tower.” Olly spoke rapidly, barely pausing to breathe. “You said you didn’t know that Warbreck was offline?”
Trevor shook his head. “I’ve been sleeping all day. My shift just started at ten.” He looked suspiciously at us. “Why do you need to check it?”
“When the water pressure drops, the hospital relies on a small reservoir onsite. As the utility supplier, we’re responsible for the maintenance and monitoring of that. So, when the water tower that supplies all the water to Blackpool went offline on Saturday, it became an issue. It came back on early on Sunday morning. Probably you noticed the water pressure being lower over the weekend.”
A flicker of understanding passed across his suspicious face. He nodded. “Aye, you’re right. My missus said she couldn’t have a bath yesterday. So that’s because your water tower broke?”
The clock above the security desk ticked the seconds away. It was already 11:25 PM. Olly started to explain but I interrupted. We didn’t have time for this.
“Look, Trevor, we need to get into the monitoring room to perform a quick inspection after the water tower went offline,” I said. “We need to do it before midnight to meet our deadline. Otherwise, we’re in trouble.” I rubbed my hand over my face and sighed. “I’ve driven all over the county today and you’re our last stop.”
“And I called earlier to let you know I was coming,” said Olly.
“Well, I don’t have any message, so I don’t.” Trevor pointed to a blue folder. “The day shift writes down any messages for the night shift and put it in there. There’s nothing about a visit from you guys.”
“But I did call. And it’s important,” Olly told him.
Olly peered over the desk at something that caught his eye. A sheet of paper with Western Water’s logo on the top was hidden under the blue folder. Olly reached over and pulled out the paper.
“Oi!” shouted Trevor. “This is my desk.”
Olly ignored him and turned the paper round for him to see. “This is the communication from our head office. I told you there would be one. We email it out to every client when there’s been a major issue. It says at the bottom, we will be round to inspect it if required.”
Trevor glanced at it and tut-tutted. The email said that the water tower had been offline, but that water was now restored. “The day shift staff must have printed this off. They’re supposed to put these notes inside the blue folder, so they are. And my boss is supposed to remember, but he doesn’t, of course.” He tapped the blue folder. “This folder has everything the duty security staff need for their shift. It should be hole-punched and put in the front of the binder, not stuffed in the back.” He sneered. “My boss is the first one to nit-pick over all the little things I do wrong, but he can’t even put the paper in the folder.”
“Trevor, our boss is the same as yours. He’s a pain in the arse!” I lowered my voice. “If I don’t get in and check the system before midnight, my boss will drag me over hot coals tomorrow. And I can’t afford another black mark on my file.” I pointed to the large white clock in the middle of the reception. “It’s 11: 35 PM. We just need you to open the door and we’ll do the rest.”
“You can come with us if you want,” Olly suggested. “We only need a few minutes to check it over. I was here two months ago inspecting the system.”
Trevor turned to look at the clock, and then squinted back at me. “You were here two months ago?”
“Yes.”
Trevor opened a yellow manilla folder labelled “Sign in” and ran his finger down a handwritten list of names. He turned the page and repeated the action. “Olly Williams did you say?”
“Yes.”
He smiled at us and winked. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I thought I recognised you.”
Trevor spoke into his walkie talkie. “Tommy, it’s Trev. Can you come and man reception for a few minutes while I take two guys over to the water monitoring building? They need to inspect something after the water went off at the weekend.”
While we waited an excruciating five minutes for Tommy to turn up, Trevor consulted a key register and, from a safe under the desk, withdrew a key. “This is the one.”