Rabbit Hole

by Mark Billingham

  Not too much of a shithole and we’d visited plenty of them the previous few days.

  Yeah, I could see that the bloke was wired, you learn to recognise it, so straight away Johnno and I exchanged a look. We good with this? I seem to remember that I rolled my eyes or raised my eyebrows or something and he knew what that meant. Just a doper or a crackhead who probably won’t be able to string a sentence together anyway, so let’s get this over with and head to that greasy spoon a few doors up for an early lunch.

  I’ve already said I had a feeling we had nothing to worry about and that everything was going to be fine, but if I’m honest it wasn’t quite that. It was more like I didn’t have a feeling that it wasn’t.

  I should have had and I didn’t.

  I asked the bloke, nice and polite, if he’d mind me taking a quick look around, while Johnno sat down with him on the settee to ask a few questions about his absent flatmate. The bloke – stick-thin, a bit weaselly, par for the course – said he didn’t have a problem with that, but we’d need to get a shift on because he had to go and meet somebody.

  Johnno and I looked at each other again. A dealer, most likely.

  I went into the bedroom of the man we were actually looking for and started poking around. I put on some nitrile gloves and opened drawers and looked in the wardrobe and under the bed. Standard stuff, but you never know what you might stumble across, so I was cautious, like I always was.

  I could hear Johnno in the front room.

  Do you know where your flatmate is now? Do you know when he’ll be back? Have you any idea where he was four nights ago . . . ?

  It didn’t sound hugely productive.

  As soon as I’d lifted the mattress I could see the DVDs gaffer-taped to the bed frame, and I was just reaching in to take one out when I heard the bloke shout. I can’t remember what he said, and thinking about it, it was probably just a noise. Hoarse and high-pitched, like he was in pain.

  When I came back in, I could see the pair of them struggling on the settee, and when Johnno turned his head and shouted at me to call for back-up as I was on my way across to help him, that’s when the bloke threw the punch.

  What I thought was a punch.

  It wasn’t until the bloke staggered to his feet and dropped the Stanley knife that I saw what had happened.

  The blood on the blade.

  The blood that was starting to pulse between Johnno’s fingers and splash on the carpet.

  That pattern – those hideous blue-green swirls – is still there sometimes when I close my eyes.

  The rest of it’s all a bit scrambled in my head, if I’m honest, like it was just a few seconds and like it took for ever. The bloke mumbling and strolling out of there like it was nothing and he was pissed off that we’d held him up. Me trying to key the radio and still keep my hands pressed against Johnno’s neck. Those stupid gloves, slippery with all the blood, and his shirt changing colour.

  Shouting about an ambulance and whispering to Johnno.

  Telling him to keep still, to hold on.

  Feeling his boots kicking against the carpet underneath us and knowing I was wasting my time.

  Knowing that both of us were gone.

  There. Not to excuse the fact that I did some stupid things, that I still do them now and again, but just so you know . . .

  As we’ve already established, Within Arms’ Length is at the shitty end of the obs stats ladder. A status that really means you’ve got no status at all. But for those privileged few, for the chosen, the Holy Grail of stats awaits them in the 1983 Mental Health Act’s very own VIP enclosure. I’m talking about the five-star, business-class status that is . . . Unescorted Leave.

  Be still my beating heart.

  Actually racing most of the time, thanks to the anti-psych meds.

  To put it more simply: Fuck yeah!

  Fifteen minutes might not sound like much, but trust me, you savour every sodding second of it, because you’re outside. On. Your. Own. Free to smell air that actually smells like air – as much as it ever does in north-west London – and to enjoy the relatively dogshit-free green space available within the hospital grounds. It’s something you have to earn, naturally, and you must demonstrate a clear understanding that, if you leave the hospital grounds, the police will be sent to bring you back pronto, and you can kiss goodbye to unescorted anything for a good while.

  Yeah, of course I understand. Police, totally . . . got it.

  Like I’d said to Banksy a couple of hours before, I’d been a very well-behaved patient of late. A damn sight better than the few weeks previously, that’s for sure. I’d earned a degree of trust, Dr Bakshi had said, and I should do my very best to maintain it.

  ‘I promise,’ I said. ‘It means a lot.’

  George let me out of the airlock just before nine o’clock. He looked at his watch and told me I needed to be back by quarter past.

  ‘To the second,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be waiting,’ he said.

  I smoked a cigarette by the main entrance to the unit, just in case George or anyone else was of a mind to pop down and check, or was watching me from one of the windows.

  I thought about the drugs they’d found in Kevin’s room.

  Had one of his visitors smuggled them in for him? Quite a lot, Banksy had said. OK, sneaking in the odd bottle wasn’t out of the question, but more than that was hard to imagine. Kevin must have been trying to sell them to someone on the outside, though, however he got hold of them. There’d def­initely be a market for it and I had a feeling he’d been involved in stuff like that before he came in.

  I couldn’t think of any obvious way he’d got hold of the drugs in here, though.

  Nicking a pack or two of aripiprazole from an unguarded trolley was not beyond the bounds of possibility, but there’s some proper locks on the medical supplies rooms, so a large quantity would definitely have been trickier. No, some things on the ward might not be as shipshape as they should be – the mash-on-the-cameras thing for a kick-off – but they do tend to be quite careful about the meds.

  The whole suicide thing.

  So, where was Kevin getting the drugs and why was he stockpiling them in his bedroom?

  I was still thinking about it while I strolled down to a spot just inside one of the hospital gates. Billy was waiting by the wheelie bins, playing some stupid game on his phone.

  ‘Been a while,’ he said.

  I handed over the twenty pound note and he handed me the baggie. It would be more than enough. He’d pre-rolled a freebie for me, which was thoughtful.

  ‘Things got a bit messy,’ I said.

  Billy folded the note into his well-stuffed wallet and began scrolling through his messages. ‘Got messy again, have they?’

  ‘In a different way,’ I said, as he walked away towards the main road.

  At exactly nine-fifteen I rang the bell and watched George sauntering towards the airlock. He nodded, reaching for his keys, so I leaned against the window and said, ‘Bang on time, mate,’ and hoped I wasn’t shouting or grinning like an idiot without knowing it.

  I told George I was going to get an early night and winked at Donna as I marched straight down to my room.

  ‘Sleep well, pet,’ George shouted.

  He’d smelled it on me, though, course he had.

  Ten minutes later, him and Marcus were knocking on my bedroom door and there wasn’t a fat lot I could do. While they turned my room upside down, I stood outside in the corridor and cried for a few minutes, holding Malaika’s hand and listening to her telling me I was ‘daft’. I knew they’d find the weed – it was tucked into the toe of one my trainers – but I’d rolled a couple before coming back in and stashed them, so at least there was that.

  Think ahead and keep your fingers crossed, right?

  Later, after I’d shouted for a w
hile and kicked the door until my foot hurt, I lay down and tried to sleep. I thought the weed would help, because it usually did, but there was too much rattling around inside my head. Mine would be the first name mentioned at the following morning’s staff meeting and my next assessment wasn’t likely to go well, but I decided it had been worth it.

  A short-term fix, I’m well aware of that, but it was what I needed.

  TWELVE

  There aren’t too many secrets in this place – there are plenty of patients and staff members with big mouths – so I wasn’t the least bit surprised that several of my fellow sectionees were keen to join me for breakfast and get the skinny on my escapade the previous evening. They all chipped in or had questions. I told them it was just a bit of weed, that it was no big deal and it’s not like I’m the only person in here that’s ever tried to smuggle drugs in, but I suppose anything that breaks up the monotony is exciting.

  You’d have thought I was Pablo Escobar or whoever.

  Lauren was smirking, like I’d made her day. ‘Should have come to me and we could have sorted something out together.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I raised my arms and mock-bowed like I wasn’t worthy. ‘I’ll know next time.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said.

  ‘Should have used the old “prison wallet”,’ Ilias suggested. ‘Stuck it up your arse. I don’t reckon they’d have looked up there.’

  I thanked him and said I’d bear that in mind as well.

  ‘You reckon somebody snitched on you?’ L-Plate asked.

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ I said. ‘Because I’m not stupid.’ If I had then someone would almost certainly have had a quiet word with Marcus or one of the others. Donna, because she was trying to help me. Ilias, because he thought it was funny. Lauren, because she’s a bitch.

  ‘They bump you back to Within Eyesight obs?’ The Thing asked.

  ‘If you’re lucky,’ L-Plate said.

  ‘They haven’t told me yet.’ But they would, as soon as the morning staff meeting had finished. I wasn’t massively worried, because even if they wouldn’t be letting me outside again in a hurry, I knew I could be on basic hourly obs again quickly enough. I knew how to behave to get back into Dr Bakshi’s good books, besides which there simply weren’t enough staff around to keep an eye on everyone all the time.

  ‘Careful who you talk to,’ Tony said. ‘I still reckon one of the nurses is the Thing. The Scottish one.’

  Graham, who hadn’t spoken up as yet, patted me on the shoulder. He whispered, ‘Nice try, though,’ then grabbed a plateful of porridge before setting off to mess with some cameras.

  Lauren started singing ‘Back on the Chain Gang.’

  L-Plate and Ilias both asked if I could let them have my dealer’s number.

  Ten minutes later at the meds hatch, once Femi had handed my paper cup of pills across, I leaned close to her and asked, ‘Have any drugs gone missing lately?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘From in there.’ I nodded behind her. ‘Any stuff unaccounted for?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’ She was holding out the cup of water and smiling at the voluntary patient who was waiting in line behind me, but I didn’t move.

  ‘So, you would know?’ I waited. ‘All the staff would be told about it, right?’

  ‘Why are you so interested in this?’ Femi was starting to look concerned or uncomfortable, I couldn’t be sure which.

  ‘It’s part of my investigation into Kevin’s death,’ I said.

  She shook her head, still brandishing the water, then raised a hand, inviting the Informal behind me to step forward.

  I turned and smiled at him. ‘Almost done.’

  ‘The police have already asked us these questions,’ Femi said.

  ‘So, what did you tell them?’

  ‘I’m afraid we are not allowed to discuss such things with patients.’

  ‘Maybe not normally.’ I leaned closer. ‘But somebody killed Kevin and drugs had something to do with it—’

  ‘You need to step away now, Alice—’

  ‘—and I’m going to find out how he got them.’

  Behind me, the Informal muttered something as he stepped back to let Donna walk past. I turned and winked at him as she marched away down the corridor. I said, ‘She’s working off breakfast.’

  ‘Take your pills and fuck off,’ he said.

  ‘There are other patients waiting.’ Femi had raised her voice a little. ‘Are you going to move?’

  I turned back to her. ‘That depends.’

  ‘Do you want me to bring Marcus over here?’

  For a moment I thought about asking her to do exactly that. I’d wondered all along if Marcus should be the one to question about the drugs in Kevin’s room, before deciding I’d be more likely to get a straight answer out of Femi. Now I reckoned there was no point in getting the ward manager involved until I needed to.

  I smiled and took the cup of water.

  I swallowed my olanzapine then my sodium valproate, watched her tick my chart and said, ‘Thanks for your help.’

  That afternoon, I was in the music room with Big Gay Bob, chatting about this, that and – as always – the other, when it all kicked off in the 136 Suite.

  ‘I shagged a policewoman once,’ Bob said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘In the back of a police car.’

  ‘Nice. Did she put the blue light on?’

  ‘I swear, I always thought women in uniform batted for the other team. No offence, but you know what I’m saying. Bang up for it she was though, the dirty mare.’

  ‘Did she take down your particulars?’

  As usual, Bob hadn’t a clue that I was taking the mickey and he was grinning and saying something about his ‘helmet’ when our uplifting conversation was interrupted by the row out in the hall.

  Screams and shouts from a voice we didn’t recognise.

  The 136 Suite is where all those brought in by the police (under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act, hence the imaginative name) are taken to be assessed. It’s a ‘place of safety’ to which the police, having removed them from street/pub/wherever, are obliged to take any individual deemed to be in immediate need of care and control.

  Right then, it didn’t seem like a particularly safe place for anyone.

  I found out later on that the kid – he couldn’t have been more than seventeen – had been picked up after a member of the public dialled 999, having spotted him dodging cars on the North Circular. God only knows what he was on or what had happened to make him so agitated, but nurses were running around, grim-faced or barking at one another, while the poor bastard was locked inside the suite, shouting and smashing his head against the glass.

  Some shit about spiders . . .

  For obvious reasons, the staff don’t really appreciate having an audience when there’s business like this going on, so Big Gay Bob and I had the good grace to hang back a bit. As did Ilias, L-Plate and everyone else who’d come out to have a nosy. Donna even stopped walking for a few minutes, which I’d never seen happen before.

  Seriously, ‘restrictive intervention’ is not a part of the job that any of the staff enjoy, even if some of them are better suited to it than others. Nobody likes doing it, least of all completing the paperwork and taking part in the compulsory ‘incident debrief’ afterwards, but when the immediate safety of staff or the service-user is threatened and a de-escalation of the situation is required quickly, swift tranquillisation is usually the only option.

  Basically, hold the bugger down and jack them full of sedatives.

  I watched as Malaika tried to calm the kid down verbally, while George and Marcus discussed how best to approach and restrain him, Femi did the necessary on the computer and Debbie and Mia ran off to prepare the drugs they would need. A poky lorazepam and aripipraz
ole cocktail.

  The rapid-tranq.

  It was dead impressive.

  They were a seriously well-organised team and, if it hadn’t been for the screaming – I had to cover my ears – and the look of terror on that poor lad’s face, it would almost have been a pleasure to watch.

  It made me start to think, though.

  ‘Come in handy,’ Bob said. ‘A couple of bottles of that tranquilliser stuff. You know, if you didn’t want ladies to put up a fight.’

  ‘What?’

  He said something else after that, probably equally revolting, but I wasn’t really listening to him. I was listening to the new arrival yelling and watching him smear drool on the glass and thinking that if, just for the sake of argument, it had been some kind of . . . performance, it was as good as I’d ever seen. I was putting it all together and – then, at least – it made perfect sense.

  I began walking away just as George and Marcus steamed into the 136 like a two-man Tactical Support Unit, so I didn’t see what happened after that. Must have gone OK though, because apparently the kid settled down and was discharged the following morning. I’ve no idea what happened to him after that. He might be getting therapy somewhere or he might be playing chicken with himself on a motorway somewhere else, but either way, he was the one that put the idea into my head.

  Right then, though, while they were pumping a syringe full of benzos into his backside, I needed to get to my room as quickly as possible and make a call while it was still fresh in my mind.

  ‘So, any news?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Al, give me a chance.’ Banksy’s voice was low, like he didn’t want to be overheard. ‘I only saw you yesterday.’

  ‘Quick and the dead, mate.’

  ‘Far as I know they’re still waiting for forensics.’

  ‘Yeah, I mean there’s no rush. It’s only one less nutter, after all.’

  ‘To be fair, I think there’s a bit of a backlog, all right? Besides which I don’t think they’re hopeful it’s going to be a lot of help.’