I slump down again and manage, somehow, to silence the groan that rises in my throat at the intense bloom of agony and the burning afterglow where the plates rested on my cold damp skin.
More breath forced into me, fingers on wrists and their voices are still authoritative and in control as they were earlier but they are edgier now. And then the defibrillator is ready again.
This time I am unable to remain silent and as I groan and recoil at this fresh assault they are surprised and a little elated at the response.
I can hear the policemen voicing relief and the paramedics have me on a gurney and are wheeling to the ambulance as one of them continues to fret over my lack of pulse. I can hear them attempt to convince themselves that there is something faint, very faint.
But as the engine starts and the vehicle moves, they cannot deny the evidence and eventually they hit me again with another massive bolt of electricity that piles more pain on me and I am lost now, silent and wrestling with the dilemma I am in.
Amidst the fog I cling to the slender idea of an out that came to me in the boat but I am beginning to wonder if I have been over optimistic in my calculations.
'Let's try giving him an intracardiac then,' says one of them and the light at the end of this tunnel gets a little brighter, a little closer.
'Epinepherine,' responds the other and I have only a faintest hopeful idea what that means, but there's no stopping it now whatever it is.
The needle slides in at the crook of my elbow and I can barely feel it going in and then they are massaging my heart again. I had thought that they might jab me right in the heart like I'd seen in the movies but I suppose, as I wait to feel something, that stabbing patients directly in the heart is not something that would be standard practice. Indeed, this seems all the more civilised as they work the heart muscle and then suddenly I can feel it, warm and comforting and sharp and clear all at once. The adrenaline shot hits the mark and my heart takes it up and takes over the job of beating.
By the time we reach the hospital they are relaxed and happy and hand me over to their colleagues, pronouncing me stabilised.
Now that I'm replenished again, and not 12 hours since the last one, that shitbag in the car park who was so quick to plead for the mercy that he had been unwilling to grant that girl, I am finding it hard to remain subdued. I'm buzzing and not just because of the shot, but at the excitement of once again slipping the noose that Frost and Stanford had ready for me.
For now I let things run their course and find myself transferred to a fresh bed which is more comfortable than the truck or even the train that I have spent time relaxing in of late and I fall asleep once the activity around me subsides.
When I wake it is to the sound of a familiar voice.
It is soft and unmistakably female and also calm but there is a sense of urgency and when I open my eyes and look up I am momentarily baffled and completely speechless.
'Mr Laing? Are you in there somewhere?' she repeats but I just stare. She is so familiar that my brain tries frantically to place her and where I know her from. She is no friend of Issy's, nor of mine for that matter. I wonder whether I have seen her on TV or a movie but that makes no sense at all, and more to the point, why on earth would she have on a nurse's uniform?
But the conclusion I reach, when I finally reach it, makes little sense either.
She is the nurse from the burns unit that I walked out of weeks before. What is she doing here?
I have a flash of panic when I think that perhaps she has tracked me down finally after I made my unscheduled exit from that hospital but that was a different hospital. I can see that much just from the view out of the window.
'Mr Laing?'
I nod.
'Good. How are you?'
I shrug.
'Fine. You're good from here, OK? I'll have you out soon enough but we’ll wait until it’s a bit later and a little less busy.'
I frown.
'You do remember me don't you?'
'I think so. But…'
'Ah, you do speak. That should help. I was beginning to wonder.'
'Wasn't I in King's last time I saw you? Did you transfer or something? What are you doing here? And here specifically, at my bedside?'
'Yes I was with you at King's and yes, in a manner of speaking, I have transferred here,' she explains in a low voice. 'But I can't give you a full run down right now. Sit tight, sleep if you like, and I'll be back in a couple of hours. You feel ok right? They gave you the epinepherine, yes?'
'Was that an adrenaline shot?'
She nods. 'Lucky for you.'
She knows more than she is letting on but I cannot be sure how much so I figure I'll just follow the instruction to sleep and see how it plays out.
Funny, I reflect as I doze off in the crisp cotton NHS sheets, how much more likely I am to do what I'm told and trust in the word of a strikingly attractive woman. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
*
By the time she returned I had developed a little more scepticism. I had been fooled once by Frost and Stanford and this woman had brought with her more questions than answers and appeared to expect me to simply trust her.
She carried my bag at her side and dropped it next to the bed. My clothes were all cleaned and dried - whether at some huge hospital facility or simply a local launderette I did not have time to ascertain but the laptop she informed me, could not be saved.
I dressed quickly as I pulled a clean set of clothes from the bag. I was happy to make my exit now, avoid any further questions and suspicions. Someone would return to take my pulse and my temperature soon enough and I would prefer not to have to go through again that whole ridiculous, painful pantomime of feigning unconsciousness whilst somebody slammed volts of electricity through me.
We walked through the quiet ward and she insisted I stay close in order to maintain an impression that this was official and above board.
'Are you going to start talking soon? I'm really none the wiser about you and I could do with some answers before I keep following,' I say as a silence descends.
'Now's not ideal. Just this way,' she tells me and turns a corner, following another corridor away from the ward.
'Not ideal for what?'
'Please. We need to be fast and quiet, this is not helping.'
We're still walking and pass a doctor in the corridor who gives us a polite smile and keeps bustling on his way to the next overdue task.
'Seriously,' I say and seeing that the man is out of sight, I stop in the corridor and wait for her.
'Just here. Come on,' she replies and she makes for a door and pops it open, pointing inside.
I pause, apprehensive, but then hear more voices nearby and hurry across the shiny floor to the doorway. She steps through and leaves me to catch the door and follow.
Cautiously I peer in and half expect to find Frost and Stanford waiting in the room but it is empty but for this mysterious woman. It is some sort of locker room, with low benches at the edge, and a toilet and sink area behind the bank of lockers.
'The door please. Quickly,' she instructs and as I release it to swing closed behind me she begins to unfasten the uniform and lets it drop down over her body and to the floor.
Stepping out of it, she flicks it up into her hand with a deft toe and gestures to me to pass her a small bag on the bench beside the door.
I don't do a thing for a moment, not a thing but stare. She is wearing only a simple cotton bra and briefs and as I stand a little dumbstruck she is winding her long dark hair up into a pony tail.
'The bag, Mr Laing. I shan't get far like this.'
I stare a little longer, only half out of the fading sense of shock and the rest because I am biologically programmed to look at this type of thing when I see it.
'In no way is this clearing things up,' I say as I pass the bag.
She cracks a smile then and fishes a sweater and jeans from inside and secures
the pony tail in place with a band that was round her wrist.
I turn my back on her then to let her finish though it is frankly an empty gesture so far as chivalry goes.
'I was there with you in King's and kept an eye on you. Not a very good one as it turned out, I wasn't expecting you to vanish like that. I thought you were getting settled.'
I don't really know what to say yet, so I say nothing.
'You don't seriously believe that you got through that alone do you? With no pulse and burns that heal that fast and that well? Charts don't fake themselves Mr Laing.'
I turn to face her again trying to process what she is saying. She is dressed and looks markedly different from the tired looking nurse that had come to my bedside and moved through the hospital with such ease. Her hair up and the ill-fitting uniform replaced by jeans and a grey sweater, she looked brighter and prettier even than before. The thick rimmed glasses were probably unnecessary but effective nonetheless.
She has balled the nurse uniform into the bag which she tosses into a locker. 'We need to move,' she says and I follow her out the door.
As we pass a waiting area with a smattering of people reading magazines or dozing, she lifts a coat from a seat back and has slipped it on before I've even had time to register that she has done it.
'My name is Carla. Would you prefer I call you Mr Laing, or Jonathan?'
'John will do it just fine Carla.'
'Very well John. We will get on the move and find somewhere a little more quiet and conducive to talking. There's probably a lot to cover.'
'Will this talking involve some actual detail or will you be continually addressing me as though I have the first clue about what is going on and who you are? Aside from your delightful name of course.'
'Yes, some actual detail. And thank you. Flattery isn't going to get you anywhere but there's no harm in trying.'
But I have stopped and she spins and comes back to me to see what has arrested my progress.
The television in the corner has the 24 hour news playing and my face is on the screen. The yellow ticker and captions tell in the briefest detail of the man plucked from the river today by police boats scouring the Thames for signs of the Oxford Circus killer who fell into that stretch of the Thames just the night before.
I had been oblivious in my state to the presence of media or news crews but there I was being treated on the bank of the river and loaded into an ambulance.
'We are best not to linger. You can perhaps see why,' she says and hooks an arm through mine and pulls me to the exit.
I steal a look over my shoulder to catch one final glimpse of the TV screen, and then it is her turn to stop.
'Oh,' she says.
'What is it?' I ask as I turn back from the screen and scan the pathway in front of us.
'Him.'
I see who she means before she finishes speaking.
'Roth's here.'
Chapter 48
'Why do I keep seeing your fucking face?' he asks. It is a very good question.
'That night, that night when it happened. Then again outside the estate with them lads and then following me into that girls room before I was finished. You just keep popping up. And now on the fucking TV. Swimming in the river was you? Fucking looking for me?'
Roth's anger and resentment are clear enough though why it seems directed at me less so.
'I am looking for you as it happens,' I reply and he snorts and looks just a smidgen angrier.
'Do you have any idea what is happening Roth?' I ask and his face drops, fury to shock.
'How the fuck do you know my name?'
Bad start. Don't make him angry. I don't suppose I'll like him when he's angry.
'We really need to not do this here,' Carla cuts in and does so with enough command in her tone that the two of us break our gaze for a moment and look to her, as if awaiting the next instruction.
'Too public,' she says.
Roth considers that for a moment, looks about to respond and then simply turns to me and charges.
He is rapier-fast but sloppy too as he appears to assume that I will react in the same manner as the last time we met, when the scales were tipped all the way in his favour.
I step quickly aside and he stumbles at the space where I was but recovers fast and comes at me again, which is when I see that not only has he not reckoned with this new version of me, but he has not reckoned with Carla.
She is a phenomenon. As Roth tears past her toward me she takes his wrist and sweeps his legs from beneath him in a blur of fluid motion. As he drops, the momentum allows her to have his arm wrenched far up his back and he is at her mercy in one graceful, effortless movement.
'Give me an excuse,’ she says and she pulls on his wrist. Roth snarls in impotent fury and keeps his eyes fixed on me. There is confusion and frustration in there somewhere, but right now he is not in control of his volcanic anger.
He struggles some more, tries to get to his feet. Carla somehow pushes him down again whilst at the same time pulling more on the arm wrenched up between his shoulder blades.
'Get a grip on yourself. You're not going to win here,' she tells him.
With a determined grunt, Roth pushes himself up to stand but he barely gets his knees six inches off the ground before Carla has planted her other hand on his shoulder, thrust him back down and then pulled hard and sharp on his arm. The crack of bone is audible and despite all the things I have seen and done these past weeks, it still makes me dry heave in disgust.
Roth cries out in agony and the fight drops out of him as Carla releases his arm.
She looks slightly mournful that she has been forced into this but it passes and she's onto the next job, the next priority.
'It will heal,' she tells him and then puts a look of surprise on both our faces as she puts her hands under his armpits and hoists him easily to his feet. 'But we need to move.'
'You're one of us?' I ask but the question feels redundant the moment it is uttered. Roth is just staring at her, his twisted arm clutched to his side.
She sighs then, an impatient teacher with pupils who refuse to see the things laid out right before them, no matter how clear the chalk on the blackboard.
'We need,' she repeats slowly and deliberately, 'to move.'
We both nod. I have somehow shed some of my initial distrust. The manner in which she appears intent on helping is one thing, but the way she dealt with Roth quite another. Roth, for his part, seems a little awed by her, scared and impressed and confused all at once.
We hail a cab and jump in.
'Where to?' asks the cabbie into his rear-view mirror.
I look at Carla, eyebrows raised. Carla looks at Roth. Roth looks baffled.
'Where to Mr Roth?' she prompts.
Roth pauses and then barks a street name at the cabbie who grunts in response and then dives into traffic and starts heading south.
I note the direction as we pass Elephant and Castle and figure we are heading back to wherever Roth calls home. I assume from our first encounter that he lives not so very far from my own.
Questions are bursting to get out and I can see that Roth too is consumed by his own curiosity but this does not seem to be the place to be airing them, in the presence of a stranger. Not that these other two are exactly my trusted confidantes.
We pull up outside a derelict old cinema and Carla feeds cash through the window to the cabbie.
On the pavement Roth looks nauseous in the neon of the shop lights along either side of the road and he is sweating and grimacing. He grips the arm a little tighter and winces. It is healing already.
We follow him around the back of the cinema and in through a door that looks securely locked but which Roth has cleverly rigged for the illusion, and pops open easily.
Inside, the place is dusty but though it seems to be an old cinema, with a large curtained screen and red velvet seating, it also appears not long vacated. I know the area and the mu
ltiplex not far away must have finally done for this place.
'It’s going to be turned into a church,' Roth says with a shake of the head. I cannot fathom if his disdain stems from a love of cinema or contempt for religion. Considering his recent high-profile preacher-murdering infamy, I suspect it is the latter.
‘Weird. There's an old church up the road they turned into flats,' I reply.
'Worship centre. That's what it says. Whatever that means,'
'Are they just going to show The Ten Commandments every week?'
Roth frowns for a moment, then gets it. Carla just frowns.
'I'm here to help boys, but the bad jokes and the stale conversation aren't exactly convincing me I'm making good use of my time.'
'OK. Maybe someone just hurries up and tells me what the fuck is going on?' Roth jumps in, both feet.
'Where do you want me to start? What blanks do you need filling?' she asks.
Roth's temper snaps and his bellowing shout fills the high auditorium. 'All the blanks. Everything is a fucking blank.
'You know what you are though? Don't you?' I ask him as the echo fades.
Roth's temper deflates like a balloon and he slumps into a front row seat. 'I guess, but that's about it. How it happened, what it means. Why...' he says and raises his hand in exasperation.
'The night you jumped me Roth, that's when it happened. They were waiting. Two of them. Took us both, and shared us. Left us there to deal with the rest of it ourselves. I don't know what happened to you but I was out of it. Got fried in the sunshine and carted off to hospital.'
'I went home after I woke up. It was still dark but I was all over the shop after that. Then I saw you by the estate beating up those kids and I recognised you. The first time I remembered any of it.'
'And you followed me and you killed her,' I say and it all starts to rise up again and I look at him, his half healed arm, the pain he's in and I think that maybe now the odds are in my favour.
Carla sees the look in my eyes, sees the look in Roth's and gets in between us. I'm glad she does, because it snaps me out of it and I remember that I need him.
'Thought you did it. Thought you were responsible. Wanted to kill you too, but once I'd had the blood… just felt amazing. Had to get out of there, away from it, out into the night again. Freaked me out that did.'