Blackout, p.14
Blackout, page 14
She seemed beside herself in desperation. The month had been a nightmare for her. She had had to live through the pain and knowledge that he might die, right there in front of her. That the machine might be the only thing telling her this, her husband otherwise unresponsive.
There had been no talk of switching off life support. They had been clear all along with her. He was in a coma, something that they expected him to wake from, though they had not yet gone as far as to saying when.
How many more days, weeks—or, heaven forbid—months did she have to wait there with him?
“Mrs Caine, as we said earlier, your husband’s latest brain scan was very positive. We think he’s coming back.”
“Coming back? What does that mean? It has been a month, for God’s sake.”
“These things take time, Tiffany. We don’t want to rush him. It’s important we give him all the time he needs.”
“But he is going to wake up, isn’t he? He’s going to recover?” She was holding her stomach, the baby showing. Tiffany was several months pregnant. Something they were all aware of.
“We are doing everything we can. But yes, all signs are that he’ll come around, eventually. There are no indications of permanent damage. It’s just a matter of time.”
They had been saying that for the last two weeks, but she didn’t need to point it out.
They were only doing their job.
She watched the three leave, each of them greeting the officer on the door as they went. Looking across at her husband, who hadn’t seemed to notice at all the examination he had just gone through, she reached for the book again. It would be the twelfth that she had finished in the last week.
She had never read so much before in her life.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Kings Hospital, Fulham—London
It was late. Tiffany had started book number thirteen. She secured the bookmark in place, a third of the novel consumed already. Standing, she stretched.
How long had it been since she’d got out of that chair? She couldn’t really remember.
Her back ached. It gave her answer enough.
She went over to the curtains, the windows only showing dark streets outside. Tiffany closed the curtains. She turned on the radio as she stood, continuing to stretch. Celine Dion was playing over the airways, My Heart Will Go On.
Tiffany used to like that song.
Now, it felt almost a mockery. She left that thought; she couldn’t go there. The doctor appeared at the door, Tiffany smiling as he came in.
Feeling self-conscious, she stopped stretching, retaking her seat, sitting alongside her husband as she had done for a month. The flowers on the windowsill, once so abundant with colour and fragrance were long gone.
Tiffany took hold of her husband’s hand as the doctor checked the notes at the end of the bed.
Tiffany felt the slightest movement in Marcus’s fingers as she held his hand. It was something that hadn’t happened since they had been there.
A squeeze, a tightening of his fingers into her hand.
As if he was responding to her touch. As if knocking on the door of his own consciousness, desperate for escape.
Desperate for connection. To tell her he was there.
Tiffany stood up, still holding his hand, but needing a closer look at him.
Marcus’s eyelids flickered. The doctor had noticed now too, putting down the notes at the end of the bed, standing there, waiting, watching.
Marcus opened his eyes, turning his head slightly towards her, Tiffany lost for words. She couldn’t tell if he could see her yet, if he was even awake, but there had been nothing like that for the entire month.
She remained silent. Was silent, speechless. The moment felt too fragile, too precious.
He settled on her face, smiling a little, though he was not able to hold it for long. Could he have forgotten how to smile? She wondered. She dismissed the wild thought the moment it arrived.
He took in the room slowly, eyes moving more than his head at first, though he could move it after a few more seconds. Sound was coming through now. The monitor behind him, a clock somewhere, the music, the Dion track still playing.
Marcus could tell he was in a hospital bed, though he didn’t recall how he got there.
Images were mostly a blur. Tiffany’s face, her shape, her hair came into a little focus the more he looked at her. He knew that outline.
Knew it was her.
He then took in the presence of another person, the white of their jacket, telling him there was a doctor with him too. All adding to that hospital connection, confirming where he was.
For a second, as he looked up at the face at the end of the bed, it was only a blur. No focus to the image, no sharpness.
Then the clarity returned.
Standing at the end of his bed, was Andrus. Andrus Gils, standing right there. And he knew this man. A million thoughts ran through his mind, his brain racing, his head struggling.
How did he know this man?
Why did he know this man?
Where had he seen him before?
Then he remembered. The postman, no, the newspaper… what paper did he write for again? That was it. Postimees was to be the first word he would say when he finally came round, a word which Tiffany had not understood and which became a family joke. As this word hit, another thought tried to press through. A darker thought.
Andrus, taking this all in from the end of the bed, understood immediately that Marcus recognised him, too.
He watched as the smile vanished from Marcus’s face and he said the word Postimees.
Tiffany, only looking at her husband, had seen this too. She took it to mean something bad, something internal for Marcus. Some unseen trauma manifesting from inside.
She turned to the doctor for help.
Andrus, looking down upon this patient he had been watching for three days, could not believe what he was seeing. A man he had left for dead in Tallinn just days ago.
Identical.
If he didn’t know, he would have had to assume they were twins.
Yet, this Marcus, this man lying in a bed for a month in west London, should never have laid eyes on Andrus before.
They had never met. Not this version of the man, the one in this bed, in England.
A man who had only ever, to that point, lived in London.
It was impossible.
But there was no mistaking it. That reaction he had just witnessed, his terror, his fear, was unmistakable.
Marcus Caine knew who he was, and that was now an enormous problem.
Tiffany, looking at the doctor, desperate for help, was urging him to do something.
The alarm sounded on the heart machine, Tiffany panicking.
“What’s wrong baby?” she asked.
Yet Andrus had no pity for her, not at that moment. There was only one thing on his mind.
He pulled a syringe from his jacket pocket, his last batch of poison, inserting it into Marcus’s upper arm seconds later.
Marcus could do nothing to stop him.
With the sounding of the alarm from the heart machine, other nurses soon rushed into the room to help. Andrus knew he was not alone with the patient anymore.
He stepped back a fraction, pocketing the now empty needle, dropping it deep into his jacket. They didn’t need to see what he had just given him.
Slowly, he retreated towards the door as more medical staff rushed in.
The heart machine then flatlined. The poison was reacting fast, sending Marcus into an induced cardiac arrest.
“What’s happening?” Tiffany screamed in tears. She was standing by the bedside, glancing around the room at the frantic faces, looking back at the doorway. The doctor had just left, though there were many more medical professionals in the room now. All fighting for his life, the life of her husband.
Tiffany stood back, giving them space. Silently, she was crying.
She was watching as a nurse used a defibrillator to restart her husband’s heart.
There was no sign of Andrus, who had vanished. He had headed up the corridor, already removing the needle from his pocket, dropping it into a bin on the way.
Given the commotion happening inside the hospital room, the police officer standing guard by the door looked inside. He could see a nurse trying to restart the patient’s heart.
It didn’t look good.
Speaking into his radio, he said. “Patient has gone into cardiac arrest.”
Rob, hearing the call, jumped straight on the radio with a response. “What? Don’t let anyone leave the room.”
“A doctor passed me a moment ago. Do I stay here or go after him?”
“Stay where you are. We are coming in,” Rob confirmed.
Rob, outside, immediately began rounding up the officers. He pulled out his phone, having promised to keep Peet informed. He knew he would not like what he was about to hear.
“Your patient has just gone into cardiac arrest.”
Peet swore. “He’s already inside!”
“We’re going in. We’ve got every exit covered. He’s not getting away.”
Peet didn’t sound so convinced. “Well, he found a bloody way in, didn’t he?”
Rob ended the call. No response needed. He charged into the hospital. He had seven other officers with him.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
North Tallinn Hospital—Estonia
Peet put his phone away, having just heard from Rob. He turned to Marcus.
“Seems like Gils slipped through.”
Marcus breathed out heavily. He was shaking his head. It felt surreal. Yet this was real time.
He could only imagine what Tiffany must be going through.
Marcus said. “I guess there really is no changing what happened.”
Peet took in this comment. “If this is really playing out for you the same as before, then we know you don’t die. Whatever he did to you, like he tried to do here, doesn’t seem to be enough to kill you.”
Marcus didn’t know what to think.
“In everything I’ve ever been told about what happened to me back then, I never remember a murderer being arrested in the hospital. So who knows what happens now. How the hell did he even get inside?”
Peet was shaking his head. He had been asking himself the same question since finishing the call. “I don’t know. But they’ll find him. I’m certain they will.”
Kings Hospital, Fulham—London
The manhunt had been extensive, lifts shut off, stairwells marshalled. There were teams on the roof, a police helicopter in the air, and officers searching the underground pipes leading away from the hospital.
On the fourth floor, women in gowns fled from their ward, several officers drawn by the commotion and closing in.
They spotted Andrus, who had barricaded the glass doors as the last of the patients left, attempting to get out of the window as the police approached.
Several officers were helping the women move away from the area. Rob soon arrived on the scene, radio to his mouth.
“All teams, we have the suspect in sight. East wing, fourth floor, ward two. Get units outside, watching the street.”
Rob rattled the door, which held firm for the moment. Andrus, hearing someone trying to get in, looked back at Rob. He knew they were close now.
Andrus tried kicking at the window, hoping to smash it. Even then, there was still a drop of three floors, the ground floor canteen forming the landing below. It was too far to jump without the risk of serious damage.
A broken ankle and there would be no running away from there.
Armed officers, who had been on the street for the last hour in preparation, were next on the scene. Rob stood back, letting them get closer to the door.
It was not known if the suspect had a firearm. There had been no reports of seeing any type of weapon.
One of the Specialist Firearms Command officers from CO19 had a battering ram. They smashed through the blocked door in no time, two hits enough to send splinters flying in all directions, the doors crashing open.
They charged in with their weapons raised and with shouted voices.
Andrus had not made it out of the window, realising too late that there was no escape from that ward. He’d slipped in when the alarm sounded and when he had spotted two officers were blocking the fire escape ahead of him.
Andrus cowered into almost a foetal position as they closed in on him. They forced him onto the floor, an officer checking him quickly for any weapons or anything else that could be dangerous.
Andrus had his hands above his head in surrender.
“We have him,” Rob called out on the police radio, alerting the rest of the officers still scattered around the building that the manhunt was over. There were no other suspects.
He soon then made the same call minutes later to inform Peet of the arrest.
They handcuffed Andrus and then escorted him out of the ward under heavy guard. A few of the officers began sweeping up and clearing the remains of the broken door. The hospital needed the beds that night.
Outside, they placed Andrus in a police car, two officers in the front with him. With their blue lights bouncing off the buildings down the street, they drove off at speed.
North Tallinn Hospital—Estonia
Peet had just ended the call with Rob. There was a huge smile on his face as he looked at Marcus.
“They have him, Marcus. It’s over.”
Marcus smiled, his immediate reaction was to cry, but then soon enough he laughed.
Big, loud, unstoppable laughter just gushing out of him.
It wasn’t long before Peet was joining in too.
Finally, they controlled themselves, Marcus drying his eyes. They remained in silence for a while, glancing at one another occasionally, but just savouring the moment.
“What now?” Marcus asked.
Peet went more serious. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
Peet looked at Marcus, who was just smiling. It was a look Peet hadn’t seen often in him since first meeting him.
Something had changed.
Peet watched as Marcus closed his eyes. As if in pure satisfaction for the first time in weeks.
It was over. Finally.
O’Learys, Men’s Restroom—Present Day
Marcus stood there. A second ago he had been in that bed. Slowly opening his eyes, he blinked. Getting used to the different lighting, the unfamiliar noises.
He was no longer in the bed. No Peet, no machines. He was standing at a washbasin in front of the mirror in a Gents. The tap was running, the television screens playing a sport highlights show.
Marcus blinked again. The sound of the tap running was the first sound he heard. Then it was the background music. He looked around, unbelieving, confused. He took in the television screen playing.
The stickers for O’Learys were on the wall.
He was stunned. He dried his hands frantically, bursting back out through the doors seconds later.
As he turned the corner, there, in the distance, at the table they were at before, was his wife, his two daughters.
He ran over to them, hugging them, kissing his wife.
“You okay, baby?” she asked, held at arm’s length now, as if he couldn’t believe it was her.
He couldn’t.
He held them all tight for a few seconds.
“You do not know how good it is to see you all, that’s all. I’ve missed you.”
Tiffany gave him a funny look. She knew he was a joker at the best of times.
“You’ve only been gone two minutes, Daddy.”
“It felt longer, believe me,” though he said no more.
What could he say?
Tiffany still looked a little confused, though she soon shook the comment away. There were plans afoot for the rest of the day, and they were only delaying these plans. She held up his jacket, which he took.
“Shall we get moving then, birthday boy?”
He smiled, walking out with his family arm in arm. As he left, he glanced once more back inside the restaurant, taking in the entrance, taking in how it now looked.
How it had always looked, at least for them since they had lived in Tallinn.
There was a broad grin on his face.
He spotted Emily, their waitress, in the distance. She didn’t see him looking at her. She wouldn’t remember any of that, anyway, he reminded himself.
It was not far to go to get to their car, Tiffany getting in, Marcus making as if to go on further. The car differed from before, only a little change, but different. As he helped the girls get into their seats, memories came flooding back to him of being in this car before.
A trip to the beach, picking it up new from the dealership.
It was a hint to him that things could have changed. That some things had changed.
For a moment, it was incredibly strange. Yet soon the feeling returned.
He knew this car.
It was their car.
It had always been their car. They’d had it for three years, picked it out a month after moving to Tallinn.
He glanced at both his girls, Millie still in her booster seat, the same one they had before. He blew them a kiss as they put on their seat belts.
Tiffany was already behind the wheel, Marcus deciding that he wanted to join the two girls in the back, much to their delight.
He had not stopped smiling.
They pulled into a gated car park. The barrier to the car park lifting at the press of a button by Tiffany, the fob something she had picked up from the divider between the seats.
Marcus looked up at the building, initially confused.
Then another collage of images flashed through his mind. Of their moving day, unpacking boxes, him building furniture.
