Fielding’s face lit up. ‘That’s a bloody great idea, McIntyre.’ She clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Hill could easily have figured out how to get his hands on one of them. Head upstairs to the incident room and get that actioned right away. I want a check on hospitals that Nadia Wilkowa visited, see if they’ve had any portable anaesthesia units stolen. Paying particular attention to Bradfield Moor and Bradfield Cross. Although Tony Hill’s credentials could get him in anywhere.’ She looked almost gleeful. ‘Bloody brilliant! Well done, McIntyre.’ She bounded off up the stairs leaving Paula in her wake, feeling stricken. The suggestion was meant to shake Fielding’s certainties. Instead, it seemed merely to have reinforced them.

‘Bloody hell,’ Paula muttered, heading up to the incident room. If they uncovered any stolen anaesthetic sets, that would give fresh life to the investigation. At least she could set the guys on to checking out paramedics rather than solely focusing on Tony. She wondered whether the search teams were suitably baffled by Tony’s life – psychology textbooks, computer games, superhero comic books, case notes and cryptic memos to himself. She couldn’t imagine they’d find anything to link him to the victims or the crimes. Wasting police time, that’s what this was.

Somehow, she didn’t think anybody would be charging Fielding.

61

Buoyed up by her success at Bradfield Moor, Carol was eager to get to the Central Library so she could pursue the next stage in her investigation. But her life wasn’t quite as simple as it had been a few days before. She couldn’t just drive straight to the library and immerse herself in bound copies of the newspaper for as long as it took; she had Flash to consider.

She texted Bronwen to fill her in on the outcome of her inquiries at the hospital then let Flash run free again while she walked several hundred yards up the track and back again. As before, the dog ranged far and wide but always returned at intervals to make sure Carol was still there and, presumably, in one piece. After this second run, Carol considered the dog could be left in the Landie for a while. Later, she could take the dog down to the canal and let her have a walk along the towpath, safe from the city traffic.

Carol left the Land Rover in a multi-storey near the library, cracking the window open to give the dog air. She’d always been a little intimidated by the massive Victorian building. Its highly polished marble columns, staircase and wall panels came in colours she associated with the sort of old-fashioned butcher’s shop where the meat had lost its first bloom. There were no books in the grand entrance hall to absorb sound, and every noise seemed magnified by the hard surfaces, echoing in a swirl of footsteps and snatches of speech.