Implant (DI Gardener 3)

“I can’t say I heard a car engine while we were in the waiting room,” said Reilly. “But to be honest, with all the racket she was making, a jet could have crash-landed on the street outside and we wouldn’t have heard it.”

Gardener checked his watch. What the hell was keeping the doctor? They had heard nothing about Sonia Knight’s condition, or if she was even alive.

“She must have been in some serious pain, considering what was in her mouth.”

“What did you see, boss?”

Gardener suspected he would never forget what was in Sonia Knight’s mouth as long as he lived. He wasn’t even sure if he could adequately describe the image.

“Wires... lots of them.”

“Wires?”

Gardener turned to face him. “Yes, Sean. Wires. Don’t ask me to explain what the hell was going on, but her mouth seemed to be full of wires. And there was something in the middle of them, a capsule of some sort, with the wires extending from it.”

“Could you see where the wires were going?”

“No, it all happened so quickly.

“Was it another one of those pumps?”

“I don’t think so.” Gardener put his hands in the air, almost in defeat. “But it could have been. It could have been anything.”

Gardener walked over to Andrew Jackson’s desk, staring at the mess. His PC was barely visible under a mountain of letters, files, and stationery – the only bit of colour was a collector’s magazine of some description. But if it was true, what he’d heard about the amount of hours that NHS doctors had to work, he could see why they didn’t have time to clean up after themselves. The only other item visible was a framed photo, which he took to be the doctor’s wife and two children.

Reilly broke his train of thought.

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

“What?” Gardener asked, turning to face his partner.

“It can’t be Jackie Pollard.”

Gardener sighed.

“It still doesn’t mean he isn’t involved. He may not have been pressing the buttons on the phone, but he sure as hell could have instigated it.”

“I don’t doubt you, boss. Lance Hobson and Jackie Pollard could be in it together. What I don’t understand is why?”

“That makes two of us. It’s pretty unusual for drug dealers to collaborate. They’re normally tearing each other’s throats out, trying to gain superiority.”

“We need a full background check on Hobson,” said Reilly. “Maybe he’s our electrical genius, and Pollard is the medical man.”

“You could be right. Whatever happened to Knight took a lot of arranging, and a fair amount of time. She’s been holed up somewhere for a month. Enough time to carry out what we saw today.”

“Pollard operates on them, and Hobson puts them into place?”

“If that’s the case, Sean, where the hell is Pollard doing it? You need expert equipment to carry out operations like he’s doing.”

“Maybe we’ll find that out when we search his house.”

Both men fell silent for a few moments.

“I’ve just thought of something else,” said Reilly.

“Go on.”

“How much do they trust each other if they are working together?”