He tried to stretch. His back was pushed tight against the wall, his covered head snagged between two coat hooks. Every other breath brought with it the stench of foot odour and moth bombs.
He’d been in the flat for three hours, the last two of which had been in the wardrobe. Preparation was important. The woman was predictable, she would return after work, the husband less so. His behaviour was erratic of late. He’d been spending more time at the bar than at work.
He stretched once more, savouring being alone, going over the plan again and again until it was so embedded in his mind that it was almost a memory.
The woman arrived on time. His pulse didn’t alter as he listened to her move around the room, the strange noises she made, thinking she was alone.
Eventually she left the room. Realising he’d been holding his breath, he let it out in a rush, his lungs filling with the trapped, musty air of his hiding cell.
It was another two hours before the husband arrived. He heard the front door click open, the heavy steps as the husband walked into the living room, the muted voices as the couple exchanged pleasantries.
He was about to leave his confines when he heard the woman enter the en-suite bathroom. He edged the wardrobe open. The bathroom door was ajar and he tiptoed across the bedroom floor in time to see the woman pulling up her garments.
As she left the room, he placed his right hand on her shoulder. She jumped, and rounded on him thinking he was her husband. She stared at him for a second, her mouth agape. A look of confusion crept across her face and for a heartbeat it was as if she’d been expecting his arrival. Then, realising what was happening was all too real, she went to scream.
With a practised move, he reached out and covered her mouth before she could give sound to her situation.
Lambert sensed the decay as he entered the building.
He’d been here before.
Inside, the cloying stench of antiseptic and bleach did little to mask the subtle odours of illness and death which permeated from the walls of the hollow reception area.
He knew where he was going, he’d visited the same ward on numerous occasions many years ago. His body guided him along the route without him having to think, a homing instinct he’d thought long extinguished. He tried to ignore the people he passed. An elderly man, wisps of dry grey hair atop a wrinkled skull, wheeling a bag full of yellowing liquid which seeped into his veins. An obese teenage girl, pushed along in a wheelchair by two similar sized youths, her plastered leg protruding in the air like a weapon. And finally a man he’d hoped to avoid, leaving the lift as Lambert was about to enter.
The man, immaculate in a pinstriped suit and coiffured hair, froze. Lambert had to suppress a smile as the colour literally drained from the man’s face. His healthy