She turned back to the nurse. ‘Any chance of a coffee, or something?’

The nurse regarded her with a strange kind of fascination, as if she couldn’t quite believe that Lucy was being so calm.

‘Seriously,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s the middle of the night and I’ve been on all day. I need something to pep me up.’

Still not smiling, the nurse nodded and sidled around her desk, passing through a door into a back room. Lucy turned and scanned the reception area. It wasn’t hugely different from other parts of hospitals she’d visited: pale cream-coloured walls, a floor that was tiled in light green, handwash dispensers at every corner. The air was scented with disinfectant, but it wasn’t overpowering.

Right of the nurse’s station, an archway led into a darkened passage. Signposts above it pointed in various directions, reading Neonatal, Paediatric, Coronary. But to the left, the corridor passed a number of doorways, most of which stood open on well-lit rooms. Lucy strolled to the first one and glanced inside. Even with everything she knew and felt about Frank McCracken, it was a shock to see him propped up on a pillow between banks of machines. His face was pale, his eyes sunken and closed. A breathing tube had been inserted into his nostril, while a drip fed painkillers and antibiotics into his arm.

She advanced a couple of steps. The room was windowless and warm, but blankets had been drawn up to the patient’s bare chest, revealing that the top of his left shoulder and the left side of his neck were buried under a mountain of gauze and surgical padding. A slow steady bleep from one of the monitors sounded as if it meant that everything was okay so far.

She went back into the reception area. There was no sign of Nurse Reynoldson, though what sounded like a kettle was bubbling. Lucy glanced through the glass door, happy to see the waiting area still deserted.

‘Can I help you?’ a voice asked.

She spun around, to be confronted by a burly, beefy-faced man with bright red hair, wearing black trousers and a white, open-collared shirt with black epaulettes on the shoulders.

Lucy flashed her warrant card. ‘DC Clayburn.’

‘Oh.’ He didn’t look relieved to discover that she was a police officer. No doubt, on hearing that a cop would be posted on this door, he’d been hoping for someone a little more like himself. ‘Hawcroft. Hospital security. Bit of a mess, isn’t it?’

‘Could be worse,’ Lucy replied. ‘We’ve no fatalities yet.’

‘Hmm.’ Again, he seemed unimpressed – he was probably struggling to work out how Frank McCracken being dead was a worse scenario than Frank McCracken being alive.

‘How many guys have you got on site?’ Lucy asked.