Lauren could be anywhere between thirty and fifty, and actually looks a bit like Adele (before she started living on fresh air and kale and lost all that weight) but sadly labours under the tragic misapprehension that she also sounds like her. I must say, though, sometimes the singing can be quite funny. This is her third time on section, and I have to admit that I did laugh a few days after I came in, when I found her in the toilets, serenading herself in the mirror.
‘I’m once, twice . . . three times a loony . . .’
But . . .
You know how prisons have a ‘Daddy’ or whatever? Someone who everyone’s a bit wary of and who more or less runs the place? Well, Lauren’s the Daddy on Fleet Ward. Nobody messes with Lauren, not Ilias, not Tony . . . nobody. Even George and Marcus give her a wide berth when she’s got one on her and she’s on a WAL more often than she isn’t.
She’s just . . . bad.
Some people are, right? I met plenty of them when I was working, nicked my fair share, so there was something about her I clocked straight away that I definitely did not like the look of. It’s not drugs, I’m fairly sure of that, so I can only think it’s some kind of bog-standard disorder. Serious ADHD or a skewed personality thing. Who knows, maybe she can’t help herself. Maybe she skulks back to her bedroom every night and weeps into her pillow, hugs a teddy bear or whatever, but the fact is that, out here during the day, she can be a dreadful cow. Like all bullies she wants a reaction and she usually gets one from most people. Tears or fawning, a daily shouting match.
I try not to get involved and steer clear of her, but it’s hard.
We’re living on top of each other, so sometimes you haven’t got a choice.
One day, me and Lauren are going to kick off and it won’t be pretty.
EIGHT
They held the interviews first thing Monday morning in the MDR, calling us in from the dining room one at a time. I think it was probably alphabetical, but I couldn’t swear to it, because I don’t know everyone’s surname. Ilias was in first, I remember that, then a couple of the Informals and then Jamilah. The rest of us sat there, twiddling our thumbs in the dining room, waiting our turn.
I had my headphones on, listening to nothing.
I can’t lie, I was like a cat on hot bricks.
There was a copper in there with us – a woman who smiled a bit too much – and she’d made it clear that they didn’t want us talking to each other about what had happened two nights earlier, and definitely not talking to anybody who’d already been questioned before we went in. Didn’t stop some people talking about other things, obviously. Didn’t stop Ilias asking the copper if she wanted to play chess or Jamilah offering to sort her feet out.
It was properly frustrating, though.
I just had to hold it in, tell myself that I’d have plenty of time to find out what the others had said later on.
I understood why, course I did. You don’t want information to be tainted or untrustworthy so it can be easily discounted down the line. You’d be amazed how careful you need to be about that . . . about everything. We once had a six-month murder inquiry fall apart at the last minute because nobody had thought to offer a suspect – who had been brought in the night before his interview – something to eat. Can you believe that? His solicitor argued that his client had not been in a fit state to be questioned, so the entire statement got thrown out and the case fell apart. That’s the way it is, these days.
It got me wondering, sitting there waiting to be called down to the MDR, just how reliable any of our statements might prove to be. I wasn’t including myself, obviously, but surely these coppers knew the kind of people they were talking to. Easy enough for a brief with five minutes on the job to pick holes in anything L-Plate had to say, or The Thing. Not very hard to convince a jury these were not what you’d call solid witnesses.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have been told that Witness A can clearly identify the accused, but you should also know that she believes the moon to be a hologram . . .
I know, I was probably getting ahead of myself just a little back then, but in the early days of an investigation it always pays to think about what might be down the road, because nothing is ever that easy. You need to prepare for all eventualities.
When the copper told me it was my turn, I was out of my seat and away down that corridor like shit off a shiny shovel. Marcus and Femi were standing outside the nurses’ station and Femi said, ‘Nothing to be scared of,’ as I walked past them, which was ridiculous because I was the last person who had anything to be frightened about. I smiled, so they could see that. Behind me, Ilias was shouting, ‘Don’t tell them anything,’ and Lauren was singing her Murder on the Fleet Ward song again.
Before I’d reached the MDR, a female officer directed me into one of the treatment rooms and asked very nicely if I would be willing to provide DNA and fingerprint samples for elimination purposes. She explained that she was asking everyone on the ward.
‘Some of them will almost certainly say no,’ I told her. ‘The patients, I mean. Don’t waste your time reading anything into it, though. A few of them won’t tell you their names or else get off on giving you false ones. One or two of them might well bite you if you go anywhere near them with one of . . . those.’ I nodded, watching her as she snapped the seal and removed a swab from its container. ‘You need to know who you’re dealing with.’
Her smile showed plenty of perfect teeth but was dead as mutton.
‘Oh, don’t worry, we do,’ she said. She began talking me through the process as if I was slightly simple, told me that it was painless and explained how she would need to swab both sides of my mouth.
I held up a hand to stop her. ‘I’ve done this,’ I said.
‘You’ve had your DNA taken before?’
‘No.’ My turn to smile. ‘I’ve done what you’re doing.’ The look on her face was priceless and, just for once, I didn’t give a toss if she believed me or not. ‘So you don’t need to worry too much. I mean yeah, I’m chock full of drugs right now so I’m a bit all over the place, but I probably won’t bite you.’
It was the same detective I’d spoken to outside the men’s toilet on the night it happened. Well, the early hours of the following day if you want to be accurate about it. The thug in glasses. He was sitting behind a desk in a suit and tie. The same desk the judge had sat behind when I was in there for my last tribunal.
‘I’m Detective Constable Steve Seddon.’
I leaned forward to check out the lanyard around his neck. ‘I’m Alice Armitage. Al.’
‘I know.’ He turned a fresh page on the notepad in front of him and began writing.
He’d been given a list of all the patients, of course, and it was probably just that, but sitting there, I preferred to think that someone had told him about me. A colleague of a colleague. Word gets around and there’s always some gobshite in the Met you can count on to beat the jungle drums.
‘I’m a DC, too,’ I said. I leaned back and turned to look at the rain running down the small window. ‘Homicide Command East.’
He didn’t look up from his notepad. ‘Right.’
You can imagine how much DC Seddon’s reaction – his lack of it – pissed me off. It was like I’d told him I was Britney Spears. I might just as well have been L-Plate, wittering about chemtrails. He looked up finally and took a deep breath, the hint of a smile to let me know that he understood, and I could see straight away that he didn’t really want to be there. That he thought interviewing a bunch of mentals was a colossal waste of time.
Hard to blame him for that, mind you.
‘Miss Armitage . . . you understand we’re here this morning to gather as much information as we can about what might have happened on the evening of Mr Connolly’s death. That’s Saturday evening, yes? Two evenings ago.’
So Connolly was Kevin’s second name.
‘You could start by telling me anything you think might be important, anything you might have seen or heard that you think could help?’
I said nothing and turned towards the window again. I was going to make Steve work for it a bit, see what he was made of.
‘OK, so let me ask you if you saw anyone going towards Mr Connolly’s room—’
‘I saw loads of people, obviously,’ I said. ‘Members of staff, other patients. All sorts of comings and goings.’
‘Let me be more specific then. What about after eight-thirty? We know Mr Connolly went to bed early, just after dinner, so . . . ’
I thought about it, but not about his question. It was blindingly obvious that they had not yet managed to establish the time of death. ‘I didn’t see anything suspicious,’ I said.
‘Nobody hanging around near Mr Connolly’s room?’
‘No.’
He scribbled something, but I couldn’t make it out. ‘So, can you recall what you were doing that evening?’
‘I was watching TV until about ten o’clock,’ I said. ‘Plenty of others in there with me, so easy enough to corroborate. Casualty and some rubbish with Ant and Dec. After that, I sat nattering in the dining room with Shaun and Tony. We were still in there when the body was discovered.’
He wrote some more. ‘Thank you.’
‘Was it a stabbing?’ He looked up, put his pen down. ‘Easiest way, I would have thought. Nice and quiet.’
He took off his glasses. ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to reveal details at this stage—’
I raised my hands to let him know I got it, although, one copper to another, he shouldn’t have been quite so Job-pissed. In his shoes I’d have been happy to bring a colleague up to speed. I sat back and told him why a blade was the obvious weapon and let him know how easy it was to smuggle anything smaller than a baby elephant on to the ward. I told him that if they were looking for the murder weapon – and why wouldn’t they be – they should widen the search to include the hospital grounds, because there were several patients on unescorted leave who pretty much had the run of the place.
I waited.
I was wearing a T-shirt and I could see he was looking at the scars on my arms.
‘Like I said.’ He put his glasses back on and turned a fresh page, ready for the next customer.
‘There was a fight,’ I said. ‘Did anyone tell you that? A big one and Kevin was right in the middle of it. It was me that broke it up, actually.’
‘When was this?’
‘On the Wednesday. Three days before Kevin was killed.’
He didn’t like me putting it like that, I could tell, but he was obviously interested. ‘Who was the fight between?’
‘Well, there were lots of people involved, but mainly it was Kevin and Tony. I don’t know if you’ve talked to Tony yet.’
Seddon looked at a list. ‘Anthony Lewis?’
‘Yeah. He can be a bit . . . volatile, you know?’
‘So, what was the fight about?’
I’d heard several conflicting stories and I wasn’t convinced that Lauren didn’t have quite a lot to do with what happened, but at least one version of events involved Kevin saying something to upset Tony. Something about the Thing, most likely. So that’s what I told Seddon, because I thought he should know.
He thanked me, which was nice. Told me I’d been very helpful.
‘Least I can do,’ I said. ‘I mean, I do know how this goes. Waiting for the PM results, whatever the forensic boys come back with . . . and obviously you’ve got the cameras.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He was done with me, I could tell. ‘We’ll certainly be reviewing the ward’s CCTV footage. So . . .’
Bingo. The lack of enthusiasm wasn’t just down to the fact that he was having to waste his time questioning a bunch of fruitcakes. There are cameras almost everywhere on the ward and yeah, there’s a couple of blind spots, but there’s certainly one that gives a perfect view of the men’s corridor. So he was sitting there, cocky as you like, thinking he’d have the whole thing wrapped up by the end of the day.
Remember what I said about nothing being easy? About thinking ahead?
‘Good luck with that,’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘What?’
‘Well, I’m guessing that nobody’s told you about Graham.’ I saw him glance at his list again. ‘About Graham’s . . . issues with being watched all the time.’ Another look towards the window, because I was in no rush. I was proper buzzed up and loving it. ‘What Graham likes to do with leftovers.’
NINE
With one or two exceptions, the staff on Fleet Ward are pretty decent.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had run-ins with all of them at one time or another, but by and large they’re not a bad lot. Most of the time they’re just doing their jobs, right? It’s meds and meetings. It’s all about your various tests and whether you’re behaving in your classes and if your observation status needs reviewing. Thing is, I’ve had cracking chats with several of them. We’ve shared a few secrets, talked about partners and kids or whatever, but I still wouldn’t say that any of them are . . . friends. End of the day, they can’t ever really be mates, doesn’t matter how well you get on with them. It’s not easy to form that kind of relationship, however nice they might be, because you never know when one of them is going to be holding you down while another one’s jabbing a needle in your arse.
If you might be swinging a punch at one of them.
I think it’s high time you were properly introduced to the men and women responsible for my care, but I’ve decided to mix things up a bit. Nobody needs another list, do they? After the excitement of my interview with DC Seddon, the rest of that Monday was predictably uneventful, so, as I mooched around, I decided to entertain myself by casting the members of staff in rather . . . different roles. Dealing with them at the meds hatch or in the dining room or nattering with them in the hallways, it struck me that, compared to what goes through the heads of some people in here every day, imagining the doctors and nurses in a series of no-holds-barred, to-the-death UFC bouts wasn’t actually that weird. You do need to understand that when people aren’t getting murdered, this place can be seriously boring.
On top of which, I’ve definitely imagined things a whole lot weirder.
So, picture a crowd baying for blood, a microphone descending from the heavens as the fighters are introduced and me in a sparkly bikini prowling the ring between rounds. On second thoughts, best not imagine that if you want to keep your dinner down . . .
FYI, I haven’t bothered giving any of this lot nicknames because they have their names on their badges, like I used to have mine on my stab vest. Oh, and as far as job titles go . . . well, the doctors are obviously the doctors, but I still don’t really know the difference between a nurse and a healthcare assistant. I mean, in theory an assistant would be assisting a nurse, because they’re probably a bit less qualified, but most of the time that doesn’t seem to matter and everyone just mucks in. I suppose that, when the only thing there’s no shortage of is patients, it’s all hands to the pump.
OK . . . let’s get ready to rumble!
Dr Bakshi is the consultant psychiatrist, so she’s the big cheese around here. Her first name’s Asma, or maybe Asha, and I’m guessing she’s Indian. She’s always been nice to me; reassuring, you know? Says that there’s no reason I shouldn’t get well again, but that I do need to be careful with the psychosis, because any further drug use could bring it on again. It’s like breaking the seal on a bottle, she said, or once the genie’s out of the bottle . . . something along those lines. All scary stuff, but only if you believe that you were properly unwell to begin with. I’m not saying I was behaving what you’d call normally through the whole thing, but there are shades of grey, you know? Shades of crackers.
She doesn’t use too much medical gobbledegook and s
he listens a lot – I guess that’s just being good at her job – but I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with her, because she’s the one with the power to send me home, or, if not, to make my life in here a lot harder than it is. She’s also the one member of staff I try not to be too much of a smartarse with – even if I can’t help myself, sometimes – because she’s the only one I know is cleverer than me.
Bakshi’s a bit older than the others and she doesn’t strike me as much of a scrapper, so to make things a bit fairer when the fighting starts I’m pairing her with someone, two against one. I need to partner her up with one of the nurses and it’s a fairly obvious choice.
Debbie’s very Scottish and very ginger, but more important . . . she’s big. Not big like Lauren’s big, but like she could easily bench-press Bakshi if she had to. Or me, come to that. If something kicks off between any of the female patients, it’s likely to be Debbie who’ll come steaming in to sort it out. Actually, most of the blokes in here are more scared of Debbie than any of the male members of staff, even Tony, who’s still not convinced she isn’t the Thing and always gives her a wide berth. She’s loud and rude and she’s ridiculously sweary.
It’s one of the reasons I thought that Kevin’s room, after the murder, must have been a proper horror-show. Debbie’s scared of bugger all and she was the one that found him, remember. She came bombing out of that corridor like she’d stumbled into the Texas chainsaw massacre.
Rabbit Hole Page 5