Pressure Chamber, page 9
She continues on towards the nurses’ station, where Nathan, a member of the hospital’s security personnel and another police officer are sitting in front of a computer monitor. He sees her approach and motions her over.
The screen they’re looking at is split into an array of square frames. “This is the video footage from all the security cameras inside the building,” Nathan explains. “We’ve run it back to the point at which he enters the building. Here, look.” The police officer next to him vacates his seat for her. “Here you see him walking in. Pay close attention and tell me what’s out of line. What’s off-color. What doesn’t add up.”
“The bearded guy with the black coat and umbrella?” She points at the blurry image on the screen. The kidnapper is of average height and build, his face can’t be clearly seen. It seems he knows where the camera is and turns his head the other way.
“Yes.”
Nine squares, each displaying a different camera angle, and various other people in black-and-white. She sits down in front of the computer and studies the images up close.
“He disappears here from the camera’s field of vision. What’s there?”
“Bathrooms.”
“Okay. We’ll check them. He may have left some DNA behind.”
Nathan nods. The video footage from the security cameras continues running.
“There, that’s him coming out, minus the coat and umbrella. Rewind a moment, to the point at which he enters the building.”
The hospital’s security officer responds immediately and the video jumps back.
“Look, he had a bag over his shoulder when he came in, and it isn’t there when he emerges from the bathrooms. He leaves the coat, the umbrella and the bag in the bathroom and wanders around the ward without them. We need to check for fibers on the coat hooks in case he hung up his coat in one of the stalls.”
“Good. What else?”
The video continues to run. She observes him walking around the ward. A knit cap on his head. Jeans, sneakers. Going over to the coffee machine, looking through the large nursery window, returning to the bathroom. Emerging from the bathroom.
“Pause a moment.”
The video freezes.
“What’s that on his arm?”
The security officer increases the size of one of the squares until it fills the entire screen. “It’s a wristband.”
“An ID bracelet of sorts?”
“Yes. You can’t get into the nursery or take one of the babies out without one.”
“Go back a little to the point at which he goes into the toilets.”
The images run in reverse again. “That’s it. Stop,” Daphne requests. “See what I’m talking about? He wasn’t wearing a wristband when he went into the bathroom. He put it on inside.”
She continues to stare intently at the screen. He walks into the nursery. Talks to the nurse. Leaves the room with a baby.
“Has she been interviewed?”
“Yes,” Nathan confirms. “He told the nurse he was taking the baby to his mother for feeding. She checked his wristband and the details matched. You can see her checking the wristband in the video footage.”
“Are you telling me he stole the father’s wristband?”
“No, we’ve spoken to the father. He’s still in possession of his wristband,” the police officer standing next to her says.
“So where did he find…” She pauses, but just for a moment. “Could he have made a wristband for himself in the bathroom? That would explain his first walk past the nursery – to find the details and then make an identical bracelet.”
“Good. What else?”
“He’s familiar with the ward. He knows where he’s going. He doesn’t appear to be looking for anything.”
“True.”
“So I’d like to see earlier footage. He must have visited here before in preparation. How far back does your footage go?”
“Three months.”
“The detectives have already requisitioned the material,” Nathan stops her. “Let’s focus on the areas we’ll have to work on, in keeping with the places where we see him wandering around.”
The video continues. He walks down the hallway, talking on the phone. When no one’s around, he returns to the bathroom with the crib.
“Are there cameras in the bathrooms?”
“No. It’s not permitted.”
He emerges from the bathroom with the black coat, the umbrella and the bag. No crib, no baby.
“Did he leave the baby in the bathroom?” she asks, not even daring to think of anything else he may have done to it.
“No. Take a good look at him.”
The security officer enlarges the square displaying the footage from the camera at the entrance to the building.
“Got it. He’s put on a little weight. The baby’s under his coat. Is that it? No footage from outside?”
“The footage from outside shows him getting into a white Tucson and driving away. The plate numbers are visible.”
Nathan leans back in his chair. “What would you examine now?”
“First, the crib he touched, and the bathrooms as a whole, where he spent most of his time – faucets, coat hooks, everything. And afterwards, door handles for fingerprints, the path he followed for shoeprints. You’ve sealed off the bathrooms, right?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“The coffee machine for prints, possible tire prints from where the car was parked even though it’s raining and I doubt we’ll get anything from there, the coffee cups in the trash can. He drank from one of them, so we should get prints and DNA.”
“He took it with him. He was carrying it when he went into the bathroom but emerged without it.”
“Maybe he threw it into the trash can there?”
“Good. We’ll check that too.”
“So, we’re going to start with the bathrooms?”
They walk the empty hallways towards the men’s bathrooms. The place looks deserted. The corridors are empty and the parents are in the ward rooms with their babies.
“How’s it going with the dreams?” Nathan asks.
At once, the image pops into her head. A naked body in a tree, smeared in colorful mud. Eyes open.
“Great,” she responds.
“Have you managed to shake off the nightmare?”
“No. But I can remember my dreams really well now, and sort of aim to dream of something particular at night, in a general sense. I’ve yet to experience lucid dreaming, but I’m getting there. Little by little.” She isn’t going to tell him that he appeared in one of her dreams, not to mention the manner of his appearance. Never.
“I saw.”
“What?” she asks.
“I saw you counting your fingers while we were analyzing the video footage.”
“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. This all feels like a bad dream.”
As they walk she shifts her gaze from Nathan to her fingers, resisting the urge to conduct a reality check in his presence.
“Are you listening?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Be careful with those games you’re playing. It sounds like something that could screw up your head.” More than a warning, his tone expresses concern.
“It really does sound a little weird to someone who hasn’t read up about it and isn’t familiar with it. But it’s okay. I haven’t lost it. I’m still sane.”
“Okay then, you can sit me down to an orderly lecture after we catch the scumbag who’s snatched the babies.”
They stop at the bathroom door.
“Where should we start?” he asks as they go inside.
“Fingerprints from the faucet handles, the door handles, the coat hooks. Hair samples. An examination of the toilet bowls to see if he tried to get rid of something perhaps.”
“There’s something else that needs to be done first. What aren’t we seeing?”
“Latent shoeprints on the floor. Electrostatic prints. Before we walk all over it. I’ll get the kit. We can try that first. And then check with powder. The tiles are white. Black powder?”
“Yes. And use the blower for dispersal. We’ll move on when we’re done with that.”
They lift and photograph shoeprints from the bathroom floor and progress gradually until the entire surface has been dusted. Nathan takes pity on her and shoulders the task of retrieving samples from the toilet with a handful of test tubes, and she goes over to the first sink to examine the faucet. She raises her head and looks in the mirror.
She returns home from the street.
It’s dark already and her friends are going back to their homes too.
Lights are on in the windows of all the houses.
Hers is always dark.
She goes into the bathroom.
Too bad she didn’t pee outside in the bushes.
The toilet is filthy and she flushes the water down first and then stands over the bowl so as not to touch it.
There’s no toilet paper and she pulls up her panties without wiping herself.
He’s sitting on the sofa in the living room in front of an empty glass bottle with a picture of two green stags with antlers.
His head’s between his hands.
He lifts his head and looks at her when she walks in.
His eyes are red.
There’s a full ashtray on the table.
The house smells of smoke.
Of alcohol.
She’s twelve years old.
She remembers the moment like it’s been etched behind her eyes.
“You had a little sister once,” he says.
“We sold her.
For twenty thousand dollars.
She was two and a half years old.
She had black hair.
Slanted eyes.
I’m going to sell you one day too, but for less.
You’re too old already.
No one will want you.”
His head wobbles.
A memory of hands touching hands appears on the edge of her consciousness.
Two small black ponytails.
Mia.
Her name is Mia.
A voice calls out, “Wait for me, Daph,” and then it all explodes.
Something inside her snaps like a rubber band that’s stretched too thin and then tears apart with the sound of a whip shot.
She picks up the empty bottle with both hands, takes a swing and smashes it into his face.
She remembers his look.
The blood.
Her legs carry her far away. She never returns.
She grips the sides of the sink tightly until her knuckles turn white. Like all her flashbacks, this one came out of nowhere, and was so vivid. She takes a deep breath, releases her grip on the sink and looks anxiously behind her. Nathan is in one of the toilet stalls collecting samples. Thank God he didn’t see anything.
She concentrates on examining the faucet. No fingerprints. She opens it and washes her face, then stands up straight to cast her eyes over the bathroom again.
What’s different? What’s out of place?
She looks at the door of the disabled toilet, then says to Nathan, “Take a look at this for a moment. Why is the toilet locked like this?”
She points to the lock on the outside of the stall and the sign that reads: Out of order. Undergoing repairs – sorry for the inconvenience.
“What’s suspicious about that?”
“If a toilet at a boarding school or in the army was out of order, no one would bother to fix a latch to the door on the outside and lock it. It doesn’t make sense. There’d be a sign at most.”
“True.”
Until then, they’d ignored that particular stall only because it was locked. Daphne goes over and dusts for prints on the lock and door before they remove the latch with the help of a screwdriver and hammer.
Inside the stall, next to the toilet bowl, is an empty crib.
She photographs and collects findings from the crib, the floor of the stall, the walls and the toilet bowl, while Nathan calls the command room.
One after the other, all the forensics teams from the remaining three crime scenes send in confirmation: each of them also found an empty crib inside the toilet stall for the disabled at their respective locations, all of them fitted with a latch and locked from the outside. They also found the same sign on the door. Clean of fingerprints.
23.
“Another day in paradise,” Lee says out aloud while she goes over to the four cribs and peers into the first one, staring at the newborn baby lying there, wrapped up in a hospital blanket and fast asleep. She leans over, still refusing to believe her eyes; but yes, it’s a baby – pink and breathing and warm and very real.
That’s what she’s here for. That’s why he abducted and imprisoned her.
“Where did you get four babies from? You fucking lunatic. What did you do with their mothers? Do you have them locked up here too?” She talks to herself, as she’s grown accustomed to doing to alleviate the silence, as she checks the other cribs, unable to believe this is happening. All four cribs contain infants sleeping soundly and peacefully. And they are all wrapped in hospital blankets. She notices that each blanket bears the logo of a different hospital. Four babies from four maternity wards. She remembers the terrible wall of photographs she saw. The babies here aren’t quadruplets or sets of twins either.
She goes over to the cupboards and lays out bottles, a bottle heater, a container of Similac baby formula, a large bottle of mineral water, wet wipes and a package of Huggies Newborn diapers on the stainless-steel surface next to the sink. He didn’t have to threaten her to force her to take care of them. Who can see a baby without wanting to take care of it?
She reads the instructions on the Similac container and prepares a bottle.
“It would have been nice of you to include in the instructions not only how many measuring spoons of powder to put in the water, but also how much a newborn baby should drink,” she remarks, chastising the bottle as she places it in the heating device.
Bottle prepared, she sits down to wait for the babies to wake. A few minutes later, she hears the sound of crying. She lifts the baby out of the crib and sits down with him on the bed. She tries to feed it, but it can’t suckle, and the crying turns into heart-wrenching screams. She quickly replaces the nipple with a different one, softer and more transparent, and the baby then manages to latch onto the bottle and feed. As it does so, the remaining infants wake up too, and she’s surrounded by a chorus of wailing.
“It would help if you were to abduct someone else to give me a hand.” She looks at the baby suckling on the bottle in her arms. Her tone is complaining but she smiles at the baby. After the silence of the past months, the noise is a blessing. They’re crying the demanding cries of the helpless, but they’re here. She’s not alone.
“I’ll get to all of you soon. Don’t worry.”
He chose her. He chose someone who’s studying medicine. Who works in a hospital. Who looks after people. He wanted someone who could handle it. She’s going to be here with them for a long time. She looks at the babies and knows deep down what’s in store.
“Не волнуйся, мои дети. Все будет отлично.”
She speaks to them, practicing the flawed Russian she’s picked up from the Russian-language television channel.
24.
When he leaves the Guardian’s room with the laundry cart he passes through the image gallery room and into the X-ray Room, stopping alongside the X-ray machine and below its metal plate to retrieve a key he’s fixed to its underside. From there, he pushes the trolley to the opposite wall and opens a heavy iron door. Stretched out behind the door is a long passageway with signposted doors on either side. And behind the one marked Laundry Room stands an industrial-sized washing machine and a large dryer. He empties the laundry bag into the machine, singing to himself as he does so:
From a chicken’s dreg
To a monkey’s leg
Whatever he’s got
He’ll devour the lot
“Another day in paradise.” The Guardian’s voice echoes in the Laundry Room. The hidden microphone he installed in the ceiling of her room is connected to the loudspeaker system and he can hear everything she says, no matter where he is. He stops singing, raises his head and listens.
“Where did you get four babies from? You fucking lunatic. What did you do with their mothers? Do you have them locked up here too?” Hmmm. What did you do with their mothers? Nothing. Could he have abducted four pregnant women and imprisoned them here? Or four non-pregnant women who he could have impregnated somehow? He had thought about doing so early on. When he first began investigating. Too complicated. Too long a process. Too risky. And no matter how well he planned it, he wouldn’t have been able to ensure that they were exactly the same age. And he wouldn’t have achieved that element of intense emotional agony that needs to be a part of the process. He waits, his eyes fixed on the speaker in the ceiling of the Laundry Room. When the silence lingers, he looks down and returns to his verse.
He’ll ingest it all
And grow strong and tall
Lying in the street
A carcass to eat
After pouring in a generous measure of detergent and softener, he turns on the washing machine, and its large drum starts to revolve with a mechanical hum. He then returns to the hallway, which is cast in a yellowish hue from the old incandescent light bulbs fitted along its entire length. He makes his way to the last bulb, retrieves a key from behind it, opens the door at the end of the hallway and steps into the stairwell. He descends one floor, into a second hallway, and opens the first door on his right.
He goes over to the large generator situated in the room. He checks the oil, individually checks each of the batteries to which it’s connected and which serve to start it up, greases several moving parts and cleans away a thin layer of dust that has accumulated. He then measures the amount of diesel in the tank at the other end of the room and dusts that too.
From there, he makes his way through the other rooms leading off the hallway, dealing with the equipment in each of them. When he’s done, he climbs the stairs again, locks the door and puts the key back in its place. He then walks to the Admin Room opposite the Laundry Room. He retrieves a binder from one of the filing cabinets, pulls out a page with a table and begins filling in the fields. Date, Generator Checks, UPS Checks, Water Pumps, Chemical Filters, Control Room, Electricity Boards, A/C System, Sprinkler System, Medical Equipment Rooms. He ticks all the boxes pertaining to checks that went well, and marks two of the fields with an X and adds comments.
