by Peter James
'Let fucking go of me.'
'You're staying here.'
Ross heard a siren. He balled his fist to hit the man, then glanced around at the onlookers and restrained himself. Great bloody headline: 'Plastic Surgeon in Road Rage Attack on Bus Driver.'
'You can let go, I'm staying.'
With threatening eyes, the driver released his grip. Then Ross stared back at his car. The bloody phone was ringing again.
By the time he had ducked in to answer it, the ringing had stopped. He climbed out feeling even more foolish, and angry, carrying the phone with him. Not wanting to meet anyone's eyes, he pressed the message retrieval button.
There was one new message. It was a customer-services representative from Vodaphone. They wanted to know if Ross was happy with their service.
87
To the Victorians, size counted. A man demonstrated the width of his wallet and the depth of his purse by the girth of his waist and the grandeur of his house.
Gothic revival became the must-have of the late Victorians. The more turrets, leaded lights, crenellations and gargoyles they could cement, carve and etch on their ugly country piles and their even uglier London homes the better. Balconies of wrought iron as fine as filigree, columns and pilasters borrowed from Ancient Greece, spider's web fanlights ripped off from the brothers Adam.
The Grove Hospital had originally been such a private residence — more of a statement than a home, it was a red-brick edifice that had been built by a Victorian aggregates-and-munitions robber baron — and eventual lord mayor — on what had then been the outskirts of London. It was now in a mishmash street of houses and offices, sandwiched behind the racetrack of Wellington Road and a marginally quieter reach of Maida Vale. It was the kind of London architecture Oliver Cabot had never particularly cared for. He liked Georgian, Queen Anne and Regency light and elegance, not Victorian darkness and clutter.
He checked his mirror to make sure he wasn't being tailed, still aware he might be a target, then parked on a single yellow line just beyond the entrance. The Jeep's clock told him it was 6.10 — twenty minutes before it was legal. Chancing it, he climbed out of the car, then hauled his jacket off the rear seat and wriggled into it, his shirt clammy with perspiration despite the Jeep's air-conditioning. A sudden shadow caught his eye and he looked up to see a quarrel of starlings break formation above his head, bursting like a firework, splaying out in a hundred directions, then miraculously together again and dipping over the rooftops, heading north towards Regents Park.
It was a warm evening, the cloying London air listless and muggy. He wiped the shine of perspiration from his face with his handkerchief, adjusted his tie, clipped his cellphone to his belt and locked the car. Then, grimacing at the building, he walked up the steps to the panelled front door beneath a scrolled porch, turned the brass handle and pushed. It was locked. To the left there was a speakerphone with a surveillance camera lens visible above it; he pushed the button. A crackly voice: 'Yes, who is it, please?'
'Dr Cabot — my secretary told you to expect me.' A few moments of silence then the lock clicked. He pushed the door and this time it yielded. In stark contrast to the exterior, the inside was drab and featureless. He entered a narrow, characterless hall, dominated by a high mahogany reception counter behind which was perched an elderly receptionist with prim hair and a fretful face.
The lighting was poor and the general ambience stark, institutional: bare cream walls hung only with licences, certificates, a list of First Aid procedures and exit-indicator arrows. There was crimson carpeting on the floor and a strong smell of paint, as if the place had recently been redecorated. Through an open door to his left, he could see a waiting room. A large wooden table in the centre was covered in magazines and there was an assortment of chairs. A frail, Middle Eastern-looking man in a business suit sat on one, cradling a walking stick. Beside him on a sofa were two women in traditional clothes, with yashmaks. They were all staring ahead in a funereal silence. 'Dr Cabot?' the woman said, as if double-checking. 'Yes, I've come to see my patient, Mrs Faith Ransome.' She handed him a clipboard with a visitor's log, asked him to sign in, then reached for her phone with more assertiveness than her increasingly worried demeanour belied, and said, 'Sheila, I have Dr Cabot in reception.'
Oliver scanned the log. The first visitor of the day had been Ross Ransome, in at 7.15, out at 7.35. Then further down he saw his name again. In at 12.32. Out at 1.05. He scrawled his own name, making it deliberately illegible and put down the time: 6.15 p.m. Then he glanced at a floor plan of the hospital taped to the top of the counter. It indicated that the building stretched further back than was evident from the exterior, into an annexe.
The woman replaced the phone and said, 'Take the lift to the third floor, turn right when you come out, walk down the corridor, through the fire doors. You'll see Neurology directly in front of you, and a sign to the left to Park Ward. Follow the signs and you'll find the nursing station.' The lift was deep and wide enough for a stretcher, and painfully slow. Oliver stepped out into a windowless corridor and followed the directions. As he went through a fire door and approached the nursing station, he heard a man screaming in the distance, a series of deranged howls. A pretty ginger-haired nurse in a chequered blue uniform was talking to a serious-looking man in a white medic's coat, poring over a file. As Oliver approached, the howls worsened. The nurse looked up at Oliver and raised her eyebrows with the trace of a smile, as if acknowledging a problem beyond their control. On her lapel was a tag identifying her as Ward Sister Sheila Durrant.
'Good evening, I'm Dr Cabot,' he said.
The man continued studying the file without glancing up.
'Yes,' she said. 'Hallo. We're a little confused. We have down on the forms that Mrs Ransome's GP is Dr Ritterman.'
'I believe Dr Ritterman has been the family doctor for some while, but Mrs Ransome recently registered with me.'
She held up a fax. 'Well, your secretary sent this through to us. It's just that we have instructions that no one other than the staff doctors and psychiatrists here — and, of course, her husband — is to see her. We have been trying to contact Mr Ransome but we haven't managed to reach him yet.'
The man put down the file and said, 'I'll be back in an hour or so. If Mr Oberg doesn't calm down in the next fifteen minutes or so, give him another intravenous fifteen milligrams.' Then, affording Oliver only a cursory glance, he left.
'You have a Mental Health Act section order?' Oliver asked.
'Yes.'
'Can I have a look at it?'
She produced a file from under the desk and handed him a bunch of documents clipped together. Oliver read through them. Faith was being held for assessment under a Section 2 order for twenty-eight days. The applicant for the order was Ross Ransome, as the nearest relative. The separate supporting forms were signed by Faith's mother, Mrs Margaret Phillips, Dr Jules Ritterman, as Faith's GP, and by a psychiatrist, Dr David DeWitt.
He glanced through the notes of the consultant psychiatrist for the hospital, Dr David Freemantle. They confirmed symptoms in accordance with the advanced stages of Lendt's disease. Her current medication consisted of intravenous glucose solution, three milligrams of risperidone twice a day — a fairly heavy dosage — and Moliou-Orelan N646329 Entexamin capsules, two, three times daily with food.
'How is she?'
'She's under our consultant psychiatrist Dr Freemantle. It would probably be helpful for you to talk to him, but he won't be here until nine tomorrow. So far she's not responding well to sedation — she's very delusional and confused.'
'I really would like to see her.'
She glanced down and he could see the hesitation. 'Yes, well, I think you have every right to see her.' Then looking up at him again, she said, 'You seem familiar — your face. I'm trying to think where I recognise you from?'
'I've been in the news this week.'
'Ah, right, that's what —'
He could see, suddenly, that the
penny had dropped. 'Oh, God, it was your brother?'
He nodded, with a lump in his throat.
'I'm sorry.'
Falteringly, Oliver said, 'Life has to go on.'
'I'll take you to her room.'
Oliver followed the nurse down a long corridor of closed doors, calculating from his memory of the plans that they were now in the annexe. A series of long, low moans from Mr Oberg, whoever he was, accompanied them.
At the end of the corridor they turned right, along a further corridor of closed doors, passing on their left, he noticed, a fire escape external door. A male orderly wheeled a dinner trolley from one, bringing out with him the smell of boiled fish and stewed cabbage. Oliver noticed lurid green jellies on the trays. Kiddie food. Plastic spoons only and styrofoam beakers. A flash of anger burned inside him. Faith was being treated as a child. This beautiful creature reduced to eating kiddie food off cutlery she couldn't harm herself with.
Sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
His secretary had phoned him back and read out the relevant parts of the Act to him. It required two doctors and a social worker or a close relative to carry this out. Any order would be granted for an initial period and was then to be reviewed. Patients had the right to ask for a review, which could either be reassessment by hospital managers or a Mental Health Act commission in a tribunal comprising a psychiatrist, a lay person and a chair. Oliver knew from his training in the States that, if similar criteria applied, it was far harder to get such an order reversed than granted.
'Here we are.'
Her name was printed on a card in the slot on the door. The nurse opened it and went in first, quietly in case Faith was asleep. When she could see she was awake she said, 'You have a visitor, Mrs Ransome.'
Faith was sitting up, propped on pillows, her food tray untouched on the swing table over the bed. She was staring straight ahead and did not acknowledge the nurse, who walked across and checked the almost empty drip bag.
'I'll just replace this. You may be coming off it tomorrow. Dr Freemantle says your electrolytes are almost back to normal levels now. They were badly depleted by the nausea your husband says you were suffering — I don't think you were eating or drinking enough, were you?'
In a slurred voice, Faith said, 'My husband changes it for me. He'll be here soon. He changes it.'
'Your husband?' Sister Durrant said, amused. 'I don't think that's your husband's job.'
'He changes it,' she said.
There was an insistence in her voice that the nurse brushed aside. 'Well, he's not doing a good job because it needs changing right away and he's not here. We'll have to give him the sack, won't we?'
Oliver stared at her from the doorway, deeply perturbed. The room felt like a cell: stark white paint, the skylight admitting one miserly pane of evening light, and a bare lightbulb fixed to the ceiling providing the only proper light. The bed was in the centre of the room, making her look some kind of exhibit. The only other furniture was a table next to the bed on which was a paper cup and a plastic water beaker, a remote control attached to a coiled wire, presumably to prevent it being flung or dropped, a drip stand with a line running down to her wrist, a wash-basin, and a television set built into the wall behind toughened glass.
But it wasn't the room that perturbed him, it was what Faith was saying.
She looked beautiful, even in the flimsy white hospital gown, her hair greasy and matted, and no makeup. A tad pale from lack of fresh air and any exercise, perhaps, but otherwise OK. He had to restrain himself from walking straight over to her, putting his arms around her and kissing her. Instead, from the doorway he said, 'Hallo, Faith.'
There was no reaction. He exchanged a glance with Sister Durrant. Her eyes told him that this was normal.
Walking slowly over to the bed, he said, 'How are you feeling?'
It seemed to him there was fear in her eyes. Fear and confusion. Just the faintest flicker of recognition, that was all.
'I'll pop back and change the drip bag, then I'll leave you,' Sister Durrant said, and went out, leaving the door ajar.
He waited, listening to her footsteps recede, before he spoke to Faith again.
'Do you recognise me, Faith?' Leaning close he could see that her pupils were dilated. From the medication she was on, this surprised him. 'It's Oliver.'
She spoke, suddenly, in an almost robotic monotone, staring dead ahead. Impossible to tell whether she was pleased to see him or not.
'It's true what I said. Ross comes in and changes the drip bag. First the nurse changes it, then Ross changes it again. They don't believe me. They don't realise I can watch him sometimes from the ceiling.'
88
In his head Oliver carried a detailed summary of all the published material on Lendt's disease he had been able to find. The symptoms and time-frame for the development of the disease seemed consistent throughout the three thousand cases so far identified. The first symptom was prolonged nausea, the patient usually feeling this for two to three months, then increasing disorientation and paranoia-related irrational behaviour, including night terrors, and psychotic hallucinations during consciousness. A gradual loss of motor-control functions followed.
Faith had returned from Thailand in late April. Today was 9 June. If she had contracted the disease out there, she should still be in the prolonged-nausea phase — the symptom she had been manifesting frequently when he had seen her. She should not be in the psychotic state in which she appeared to be now.
She should not have dilated pupils.
It's true what I said. Ross comes in and changes the drip bag. First the nurse changes it, then Ross changes it again. They don't believe me. They don't realise I can watch him sometimes from the ceiling.
Was it possible?
Harvey had been murdered. Over the years the two of them had often been mistaken for one another. Ross Ransome was a bastard and, whatever Faith said, Oliver had put him at the top of the list of his personal suspects and he had made that clear to the police.
He strode over to the door, looked up and down the corridor, then dashed back to the bed, disconnected the drip line from Faith's wrist, put the tube to his mouth, and tested the solution tentatively with the tip of his tongue. It tasted innocuous enough. Then he gripped the tube in his lips, took a couple of hard sucks, swallowed and replaced the line. He saw that the electronic controller clamped to the line was set for six hours.
Moments later the nurse came back into the room, carrying a fresh bag, which she exchanged for the almost spent one.
'Are you expecting Mr Ransome?' Oliver asked her.
'He said he would be here at about six o'clock.' She glanced at her watch. 'Twenty-five past.' Then, sensing something from his expression, she said, 'Shall I let you know when he arrives?'
'I'd be grateful.' Then he added, 'Tell me something — the drip, she's on a six-hour replenishment?'
'In the daytime. Dr Freemantle has it on twelve hours at night.'
Oliver thanked her. She left and closed the door.
It shimmered as she closed it. Oliver stared at it, puzzled. It was as if he could see every single atom in the door vibrating. And as he turned back to Faith, the door seemed to elongate and travel with him. Unsteady on his feet, he touched the side of the bed to balance himself, and felt Faith's wrist. His head was hot, suddenly, and he felt giddy. The floor seemed to be swaying beneath him.
A voice that he wasn't immediately sure was his own said, 'What do you mean, Faith, that you watch Ross changing the drip bag from the ceiling?'
It was himself speaking, and yet he felt as if he wasn't in his body.
That same monotone. 'He comes and he changes it. He thinks I don't notice.'
She seemed a long way away from him now, as if he were on the far side of the room. But he was standing right beside her. He stared up at the skylight and it looked now like a tiny orb of golden light, miles above his head. Something crawled down his back. It felt like a spider. As he reached behi
nd him, he felt more creatures, down his chest, down his legs, down his neck.
Squirming, it took all his concentration to put the words together and get himself to speak them, as if his mind had to fire impulses to his vocal cords one at a time. 'Tell me what happened, Faith. Why are you here?' Ants were crawling down his arms. He took off his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves, but he could see nothing.
There was a long silence. 'They came for me.'
'Do you know where you are?'
She shook her head.
The ants were crawling over every inch of his body now. 'You're in a psychiatric hospital. Called the Grove.'
'Psych —'
The door opened. He saw the nurse, Ward Sister Sheila Durrant. Her lips were moving but her words seemed to take for ever to reach him. He could feel the pulses in the air that each one made. 'Would. You. Like. A. Drink. Dr. Cabot?'
He tried as hard as he could to remain focused on her. She was giving him an odd look. Could she tell he was in some strange space?
'Thank you, I'm OK, we're doing fine.'
She closed the door. This time the sound distorted, the click of the lock was like the volley of a gun echoing around a valley.
In his teens he had dropped acid a few times. The first trip had been beautiful, but subsequent ones had made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't like to be out of control and the sensations of being dissociated from his body had panicked him. He'd never taken another recreational drug.
Now he recognised what was happening to him. Something in that drip he had sucked was doing this to him. He was tripping, but not enough to cloud his thoughts completely.
Faith must be tripping, too.
Ross was putting something in the drips he was substituting, but why? Was he trying to drive Faith mad? Was this his way of getting back at her?
He was startled, suddenly, at the clarity of his thoughts. Then he caught sight of his watch: 7.17.
Impossible. He'd arrived here before a quarter past six. No way could he have been here an hour, no —