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“Scrubs?”
“Yes, that doctors wear. Informally we always call them pajamas. Could he have been wearing scrubs?”
The room bursts into conversation. Adam’s thoughts are reeling. He’s seen Romilly wearing them in the past at the hospital—baggy trousers, in a variety of colors.
“Hey, hey,” Adam shouts, silencing the room. “Who would wear scrubs?” he directs to Romilly. “And why?”
“Doctors, nurses, surgeons. Mostly people working in critical care, so the theaters and ICU. Maybe the emergency department.”
“But you never wore them home?” Adam says.
“No, you’re not supposed to. We get changed at the hospital. But there’s nothing to stop people taking them—I have a few pairs in my wardrobe. They’re easy to dispose of. Comfortable.”
“Shit,” Adam mutters. It fits. It fits with the medical waste found at the scene, the knowledge to drain Pippa’s blood. But where to start?
“Tim, get a list of all staff from the main hospitals in the area. Quinn, start cross-checking them against the registered owners of the VW vans.”
“What about locums?” Romilly adds. “Or admin staff. Anyone could potentially steal them.”
“They’d need the medical expertise. Stick with nurses, doctors, anyone that might have that know-how.”
The team explodes into activity. Romilly comes over and stands with Adam.
“Marsh called me,” she says. “In case I could help. In whatever way possible. I couldn’t bear to be at home,” she adds. “Doing nothing.”
Adam’s not sure whether his boss is making an exception to get Romilly’s input or whether it’s an excuse to provide Adam with a modicum of moral support, but he ruefully acknowledges the gesture. “Thank you,” he says to Romilly, “for coming.”
She smiles. She looks worn out. He hates to think how he’s looking right now. His skin feels tight, his eyes dry. He knows he must smell bad—of cigarettes and layers of hastily applied deodorant.
There’s a shout from the other side of the room, and a detective holds out a phone. “They want to know exactly what professions we’re looking for,” he calls.
“I’ll go,” Romilly says, and heads across.
Adam watches her. Seeing her has given him a boost of energy. A new line of inquiry to follow. But it’s more than that.
Her being with him. It helps. As it always has.
CHAPTER
39
ROMILLY DIDN’T KNOW what to expect when she turned up at the police station barely an hour after Adam had arrived at her door. But she’d recognized the expression on his face when he’d told her about Pippa: emotion bubbling, the desperation of wanting to talk, but not knowing how. Old feelings pulled to the surface. She’d wanted to be with him, so when she’d received the call, she’d walked away from Phil, gotten in her car, and driven here.
But this man in front of her? The Adam she knows has gone. He’s pulled the mask back on, all previous vulnerabilities disappeared behind the brisk competence, the commanding manner. The detectives in his charge don’t know the man she married. The one that admitted he had failings. The one that asked for help, that could show weakness. That cried, laughed, that wrapped his arms so tightly around her she knew she would never break. She misses that guy, oh so much.
Romilly finishes her conversation with the detective and does the next most helpful thing she can think of: fetches coffee and tea for the team. The canteen is about to close for the night, but the woman behind the counter takes pity, switching the coffee machine back on. As she waits, she thinks about the moment their marriage imploded.
The man was the son of one of her elderly patients. Tall, single, broad shouldered. Out of bounds from the start, but somehow it made him all the more irresistible. He showed an interest in her, and he was attractive. She’d been flattered in a way that seems embarrassing now, that she could be so easily swayed with a little attention and a handsome face.
And everything had been horrible at home. She rarely saw Adam—it felt like their shifts were completely out of whack—and when they did connect, all they did was argue. He had just been made DI, and with it came a new level of arrogance that made her stomach turn. He’d changed, she said, but he maintained he’d always been this way. And so she stormed out and went to work. Where he was.
His mother was ill but recovering. He came in to thank Romilly, presenting her with a bunch of flowers. He asked her out for a drink; she said yes. A trip to the pub that turned from one drink to a bottle, unfamiliar drunkenness that lowered her inhibitions and made her think, Fuck you, Adam. For the hard shell, for the frown, the look of distrust. For making her feel insecure, needy, alone.
Except it wasn’t Adam. It was this guy she fucked. In a hotel down the road from the pub. She hadn’t even had time to take her bra off: shoes kicked away, trousers down, a bit of perfunctory kissing, and he was inside her. She barely considered what she was doing until he’d finished and was pulling the condom off, slumping next to her on the bed.
“I have to go,” she’d said, numbly pulling her knickers back on.
He gave her a cursory pat on her bum as she stood up. “I’ll call you,” he replied.
