The answer struck him. He was apparently right having decided to give him a lift to his home. He had a panic attack.
«That bitch should have thanked you for licking her behind her husband’s back!» he cried. «Now she will not say anything – she must have had a heart attack. She deserved it! Yes, don’t look at me like that! She was no longer breathing. I tried a mirror – it was clean. She got what she deserved! It’s fair, right? Yes, justice hurts!» The man in the back seat of the car was clearly gloating. In the rearview mirror, his face blurred with a contemptuous smile, and anger flashed in his eyes.
«What?» muttered Woodruff, hardly understanding the meaning of what he just heard. His blood pressure jumped instantly, and his ear drums pounded. Thoughts in his head started circling around the drugs he had prescribed Carol, around sleeping pills and alcohol – could their combination really cause a heart attack? «We must urgently return!» he croaked, feeling that he was starting to suffocate. At some point, he felt so bad that he dropped his head on the steering wheel and stopped.
«I cannot breathe. It’s burning in my chest,» he breathed out with difficulty. «There’s St. Mark’s Hospital… around the corner. We’ll stop by. I will ask „Nitrolingual“.»
«I have „Cardiotex“,» the voice said behind him.
«Not enough. It’s weak. Also, I have to ask them…» then a spasm caught his throat, and Michael fell silent, trying to concentrate on the road.
When they stopped in the parking lot behind the hospital fence, he felt even worse. Tearing off his shirt, he began to gasp for air, holding out his hands to the glove compartment. His face showed that he needed urgent help. Michael was breathing heavily and holding onto his chest. His passenger took a small plastic jar from his backpack and handed a pill over his shoulder along with a bottle of water. Michael was about to faint. Having hardly swallowed the first pill, he could not take a second sip and dropped the bottle from his hands. The young man picked it up, closed it with a cork and took out napkins. The pain lasted several minutes. When Woodruff stopped wheezing and froze in an unnatural position, his patient lowered the back of his seat as far as possible. Now, from outside, no one would be able to notice the person lying on it. Then he disconnected the DVR and took Woodruff’s phone.
«Sorry, I wanted to do that a bit later. You’ve spoilt it. You betrayed me. Well, somewhere by the sea, of course, would be more pleasant, but it’s not bad here either,» with these words he began to wipe the psychiatrist’s dark hands, neck and ears, then he did the same with the inner surface of the door. Michael’s smartphone was the latest model, but the psychiatrist didn’t set up a face recognition input on it. Unlike Carol’s, his screen was unlocked immediately, so he disabled all passwords at once. When everything was finished, glasses wrapped in a handkerchief appeared from the backpack, while napkins returned to their place along with a bottle of water. This was difficult to do, as the backpack was packed tightly. Having wiped the dark glasses with a cloth, he put the handkerchief back on, and before putting them on he carefully looked out the window. There was no one around, so he could go out. Holding the door with the last napkin, he sharply pushed it back, trying not to touch it. In the darkness it was not visible how a small handkerchief fell out of his full backpack, slipping from a seat onto a rubber mat. The road to a McDonald’s with free Wi-Fi was ahead. Yes, his life really was getting interesting, and the coincidences in it did not seem to be accidental.
CHAPTER 4
There was silence at first but something was in its way. The distant, insistent ringing of the phone broke through the fog of sleep and reached the depths of his desolate consciousness. His eyes slowly opened, and his hand reached for a bright spot on the nightstand.
«Lieutenant Lindstone?» it sounded somewhere far, far away, as in space, but his brain has already begun to work. His first thought was about the voice – who has such a sharp, creaky voice in their department? «Lieutenant Lindstone?» was repeated.
«Yes, I’m listening,» he said, quietly gurgling and wheezing at the same time.
«This is Sergeant Huston. We have an incident. The corpse of a woman was discovered in a house. There’s a suspicion that it’s your wife.»
«What?» for a few seconds he could hear only a thumping heart beat in his head and nothing more. In his mouth, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his throat was blocked up from the disgusting bitter aftertaste of alcohol. «Repeat,» he asked, in a barely audible tone.
«Sir, we have an incident…» followed the repetition of the same words.
«Address?» he got up and sat on the bed.
«I’m texting it to you now, sir.»
«Thank you… Oh, shit!» his attempt to get out of bed was unsuccessful. A sharp pain hit his head, right in the middle of his brain, before spreading from his forehead to his temples and sank down the back of his head to his shoulders. He obviously has to take something urgently. Last month, the psychiatrist prescribed him a new antidepressant, but it was unclear whether he was allowed to take them in the morning, and in particular, after alcohol. Would it be better to take aspirin? Hell, it was necessary to call the doctor and ask him what to do.
Suddenly, his thoughts returned to the call, and his whole body strengthened, as before jumping over the abyss. Even the pain hid in the back of his head, frightened by the tension of the brain. A huge ball of fire was approaching him, gradually filling the entire space around with bright light, and Carol stood still in the middle of it, looking at him. His head seemed to burst from this feeling, and, clutching his temples with his hands, he moaned. He knew he had to urgently put his head under cold water. A chair, a wall, a door, a faucet, water, goosebumps – all these existed, but he was not able to get rid of the vision. Only the headache subsided a little. William quickly changed clothes, drank some water, which made him feel even worse, and yet he swallowed one capsule of the new medication. His thoughts were revolving around a luminous ball, not daring to get inside. He was watching it from the side, blocking his emotions inside and tried to restore the course of events of last night in his head. Taking a bottle of water, he called a taxi and went out onto the porch. The cool spring air touched his face pleasantly. It was only six in the morning. His gaze lingered on the SMS with the address, and for a few moments the letters were dancing before his eyes, as if they didn’t specifically want to connect together. He had already read them and realised that it was him who was trembling along with the phone, and a wet layer appeared on his eyes – either from tears or from the light wind. The rustling sound of rubber on asphalt made him tear himself away from the screen. He had to go and now the light ball in his head turned black, and Carol’s figure turned into a white outline. The world in his head turned upside down.
«Eleven Walnut Street,» he said in a hoarse voice to the taxi driver, sitting in the back seat. The car slowly moved forward. Outside the window, yellow maple leaves were dancing in his eyes. He closed his eyes and there was an unpleasant feeling of slight nausea in his stomach. It was better not to look out the window. So, what happened? How did Carol end up in Doctor Woodruff’s house? It was clear that this happened by chance, but then what the hell could get her there the night before?
CHAPTER 5
«Stop at the yellow ribbon!» he said to the driver. The taxi drove up to the fence, a few meters from the policeman on duty. The man took several steps, but when he saw who got out of the car, he stopped.
«Good morning, sir!
«Hi
