2004 - The Reunion

by Sue Walker

“Okay. But where are you? It’s bloody late now, Alex!”

  “I know, I know. I’m a bit fucked in the head right now. And a bit pissed. I’ve no sense of time. Even less of a sense of place but I’ve…I’m here. At die Unit. I…I just wanted to have a look round. Knew I couldn’t sleep tonight and thought, fuck it! I wanted to be here. Think about things. Come over. Meet me here. I need to see you. I need your help, Innes.”

  Innes stopped walking through Alex’s living room and stood at the open windows. She recognized something of herself in Alex’s almost shameful confession that she was paying some kind of secretive, nocturnal visit to the Unit. She’d done it too, after all, even very recently. Yes, she could understand that. But could she face that tonight? Tired, confused. Was she up to it?

  She sighed. “For Christ’s sake, Alex! What is going on? There’s nothing to see at the Unit. Damn all. It’s shut up. I’ve been out there.”

  But Alex’s voice filtered back through, unusually emollient. “I know, but I’m…I need to be here. Just come over. Please, Innes?”

  Innes closed weary eyes. She was too tired to think any more. The prospect of meeting up with Alex no longer appealed. On her own admission, Alex had said that she was drunk and that might mean aggressive too. Though…on replaying the brief telephone conversation again in her mind, Innes thought Alex had sounded more maudlin than combative. If that were the case and Alex was in a vulnerable state, maybe she could, this time, get a semblance of truth from her. Whatever was going on with Alex, she might as well confront it now. “Fine. Okay. But I’m so bloody tired of all this. I’ll be there shortly.”

  Simon replaced the tape over Alex’s mouth and removed the mobile from her tightening grip. “She’s coming, I take it?” He didn’t wait for the nod of agreement. Instead, he turned his back to the room, checked his watch and strolled over to the window. Hands in pockets, he waited for the headlights of Innes’s car.

  FOURTY-EIGHT

  She pulled up in the parking area opposite the old Unit building. As she locked the car, mild pricklings of anxiety started again in her gut. She had doubts as to whether this bizarre rendezvous was such a good idea. If Alex was in a wekd mood and maybe drunk, what was she letting herself in for? Her abiding memory of Alex from the Unit, and not entirely exorcized by their meeting that evening, was of someone capable of violence. She’d always carried a nasty air of physical threat about her. On the other hand, she was here now, so might as well face Alex, whedier drunk and gloomy or belligerent.

  The great hulk of the old Unit building stood in darkness. Silent. Closed against the world. Everything about it said ‘go away’. She clambered over the low garden wall and checked the front of the house. The ground floor was shuttered as before. Nothing. But…hang on? As she glanced up to the top-floor window of what was once die main female dormitory she saw it. A faint yellow glow. What on earth? Someone was up there. She started jogging round to the main entrance again, situated, perversely, at the side of the house. “Alex! You there? It’s Innes! Alex, you there?” She stopped, spun through three hundred and sixty degrees, convinced she’d heard somediing, flinging rapid glances up and down the road, and checking back at the car before stopping where she’d begun. The main entrance door was before her. Open. She hadn’t noticed that before. She took two steps inside the hallway.

  “Alex? You in there? A/ex! Look, don’t muck around. Please, Alex!” The tentative steps turned into a brisk walk as she headed deeper into the building, heart-rate up, breathing shallow. She patted her pocket. The paper bag was there. But shit! Anyone could be in there. Druggies, vagrants. Where the hell was she? “Al—”

  The left hand was clamped around her mouth, the right hand and arm lifting her with ease, the whisper clear. “Please don’t struggle. You’ll hurt yourself. Alex is fine. You’ll be fine. Just come with me.”

  She lost count of the flights of stairs as he bundled her up them with strength and agility. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she became aware of the familiarity of the place. The various doors and landings sucked her back over a quarter of a century to her last time here. She noticed a complicated matrix of scaffolding poles on each landing. The building looked like it was being propped up by them. As her captor kicked the door open, she knew immediately where she was. The ornate ceiling rose and cracked picture-rail had once been the object of hours of her attention, when at her lowest ebb and brooding in her bed, during those many sleepless nights. The knowledge of where she was dampened the shock of her abduction.

  As he released her, the sight that met her stopped any thoughts of fleeing. She could have sworn that the spartan, metal-framed single beds were the same as those they’d used to sleep in. Alex Baxendale was sitting up as much as her chains would permit, a dark band of tape slashed across her mouth, her eyes swivelling from side to side in an oscillation of rage and confusion.

  Innes felt the man release her and move round in front of her, his face eerily distorted, half in shadow and half illuminated by the lamplight. “I apologize for the use of force, Innes, but it was necessary. Will you please sit there? On the edge of that bed.” He paused to make sure she was looking directly at him. “Do you know who I am?”

  He took the opportunity to observe Innes while she was still in the relative oblivion that Was shock. Yes, he could see that vestiges of the adolescent version of her that he had known were still evident. She looked puzzled and frightened. Understandable. But she had done what she was told. She was sitting on the bed indicated, chosen by him so that she would be facing Alex. Though dishevelled from the struggle, she was a good-looking woman. Strong-featured, intelligent face. It was Innes’s misfortune that she found herself here. She hadn’t been in his plans. There had been no need. No reason. But, along with Alex, she was the last survivor of the group to be left unscathed, until now. Maybe it was fitting that she was here. It was both their fates, his and hers, perhaps.

  She didn’t know how long it had taken for her to become aware, really aware. Seconds rather than minutes, no doubt. She felt sick. It was the shock. The room, the whole scene, had a dream-like quality. But it was more than that. How many times had she thought of this very room in the years since she’d left the Unit? Countless. She’d dreamed about it. About the whole place countless times too. And the patients? Seldom, until recently. And now here were the two of them. She and Alex. Alex in chains.

  She looked at the man again. Properly. He was dressed, incongruously smartly, in an expensive business suit. The face was tanned, lean, behind the sleek designer spectacles. The dark hair close-shaved, almost a military crew-cut. He talked in a normal volume now, the voice educated Scottish.

  Disarmingly gentle. She was in a world of shock, that much was true. Scared, yes. But this man had less of an air of menace about him than…than what? Melancholy? Any fear in her was fuelled not so much by him but by the sight of Alex in chains and the look of anger and fear on her face. Although she was trying to hide it under a pose of defiance, worryingly reminiscent of her Unit days. And failing.

  And then she got it. Recognition registering. It must’ve been the shock, blanking out her memory. “My God. Simon” It wasn’t so much how he looked, although there was something about the eyes and mouth. It was more the way he was standing. Still that diffident, almost awkward air. And he still had that earnest, near-pleading look on his face. The voice was lower, but precise and measured, with a hint of unintentional condescension. Just as she’d always remembered it. “But I went to your house. You’d fallen. I don’t un—”

  He shook his head. “As you can see I’m very much alive and well. I’ll tell you about my ‘death’ later.” He raised a hand. “Now, I should say right at the outset that this…these events tonight are not about you. They concern her and others of us who were here in ‘77. However, you have, through your own inquisitiveness, become directly involved. Alex has told me about your meeting with her tonight and how you come to be here in Edinburgh. It’s commendable and touching that
you wanted to find out more about Abby’s death. But I’m afraid you’ve bitten off far more than you can chew. What I am about to tell you will, I’m sure, upset you deeply. But in a way, your presence here may be of some use. You can be my…well, my almost independent witness.”

  She felt she was coming to her senses a bit now. Felt less afraid, although the sight of Alex bound and gagged was more than unsettling. Why? “What the h—”

  “One moment.” She watched as he disappeared into the shadows and then, seconds later, came back into the lamps’ spotlights, a bundle of papers and what looked like a small tape player in his hands. The furrows of concentration on his face grew deeper as he flicked tfhrough the paperwork.

  He dragged a chair from the end of one of the beds and sat facing her, interposing himself, she noticed, between her and the door, just in case she tried to make a run for it. With legs crossed and the bundle in his lap, he looked to her as if he was just about to give a seminar in some rekxed academic environment. It hurtled her back to group-therapy sessions. He’d often sit like that aping Dr Laurie. And now, before he began, she couldn’t help but notice the withering glance he threw at Alex.

  “As you may recall, twenty-six…nearly twenty-seven years ago, at that benighted camping holiday, I, Alex, Carrie, Danny and Isabella went missing on an orienteering exercise. We got lost. Or rather, we didn’t. We deliberately absconded. Isabella didn’t want to do it but went along with it because of Danny. Anyway, it was actually Alex’s idea. For some reason she was in a particularly filthy mood that day. That whole holiday. Looking back on it with my psychologist’s eye, I recognize that Alex had been waiting to erupt. Violence I would have expected but what else ensued leaves me, even now, dumbfounded. You are not the only person tonight who is going to hear our story. Here in my lap is a copy of a package that my senior colleague, Dr Sheena Logan of the Royal Western Hospital…our old hospital, if you remember…yes, a copy of a package that she will receive in the next hour. I made a back-up to leave behind here.

  “Anyway, as you are here, I’m going to share its contents with you and I think it will speak for itself. This first excerpt is a description by me of what happened as we peeled off from the staff that night. The idea was to go missing for the night, have the staff frantic and then allow ourselves to be found, when we felt like it. Very typical Unit behaviour, as you may recall. Tormenting the staff. Our favourite pastime. When we were not tormenting each other. Or ourselves.

  That night, darkness had just about fallen and we had made our way down to the shores of Loch Fyne. We were in boisterous mood, having smoked a bit of dope and cracked open one of two bottles of whisky we had with us. Alex and Danny had an idea to steal a boat if there was one lying about, as it were. But there were no boats. We continued our increasingly aimless wandering, getting a bit bored, a, bit cold. And then, down a track to the water’s edge, we came across a clearing. There were two children there. They were obviously lost and had been out all day. They had duffel bags and toy machine-guns. They were playing some sort of goodies and baddies game. They were brave French Resistance fighters, trying to get back past Nazi enemy lines. Anyway, please listen.” A hiss and crackle. Then he found the place.

  “We saw them from some distance away. The moon had come out and it was quite easy to see, what with the light reflecting off the waters of Loch Fyne and we all had torches. There were two of them. When they saw us they began waving. Tentatively at first. Unsure. And then they realized that we were just kids. Nothing to worry about. I heard one of them say, “They’re smiling. They’re friendly. Allies. Not the enemy. We’re saved!”

  “We asked them their names, where they were from, what they were doing, that sort of thing. They were shy and acted in a very naive, childish way. The girl especially. She let her little brother do most of the talking. He was obviously very protective towards her. But, looking back, I suppose they were just quiet, sheltered, country kids, really. And trusting. They were obviously relieved to see us, though, and told us that they were lost and that their mum and dad would be frantic. They lived further down the loch at Lochgilphead. At first I think it was our intention…it was certainly mine and Abby’s, at least, to help them. Somehow get them safely home. But, almost immediately, Danny had started taunting the little boy. Grabbed his toy gun. And then Alex did the same widi the girl’s. Danny started saying things like, “We’re in charge now, what you gonna do about it soldier?” Joking, really, but…on the edge of meaning, really meaning it. And Alex…well, she started it. She started laughing at them both, rifling through their bags that just had a bottle of lemonade and some biscuits in each. She emptied everything on to the ground, smashing one of the bottles in the process. And then she started telling the kids to stop whining about going home. Alex slapped the girl and she started crying. At that, Abby tried to intervene. She told Alex to lay off and walked away up the track. Danny ran after her and I could hear raised voices. A couple of minutes later, he came back. He looked angry and muttered something about us meeting her later up at the high road.

  “And then Carrie started in. She started having a go at the girl, saying that she whined just like ‘fat pig Lydia’. Carrie always had it in for Lydia. They couldn’t stand each other. Of course Lydia wasn’t there, so Carrie needed someone else to bounce her aggression off. And then she had the bright idea to ‘play psychodrama’. “Let’s make this little bitch be Lydia and put her and the other little fucker in the circle.” That’s how she put it. And so that’s what we did.

  We crowded round the children and trapped them in a tight circle. And that’s where the similarity between that and psychodrama ended. Basically we were just terrorizing these poor kids, shoving and jostling them around, forcing them to have swigs of whisky. So much that the boy vomited. And then we made them drink more. Pure unadulterated bullying. We needed to let off steam and we were doing it at their expense.

  “And then Carrie went to her rucksack and came back with a length of climbing rope and a hunting knife, and said, “Right, now let’s really play the trust game.” That’s when the atmosphere changed. Carrie and Danny dragged the boy off and tied him to a tree. Danny kept saying it was just a bit of fun. But he slapped the boy into silence and the lad stood tied to the tree, quivering and wetting himself. Just watching, eyes wide with fear…”

  Without warning, he leaned forward and clicked the tape to a halt, pulling it roughly from the machine. He’d been watching every flicker of Innes’s face. Now it was time. “The names of those children were Crawford and Fiona Hamilton. I would appreciate it if you would read this. Here.”

  FOURTY-NINE

  What was he giving her? She took the piece of paper and peered at it under the dim glow of the nearest lamp. It was a printout from the Glasgow Herald’s website.

  archive/Glasgow Herald/27 September/1981.news.text Bodies of missing children found in Highland loch

  The remains of a brother and sister, missing for almost four years, have been found in the waters of Loch Fyne, about twenty miles north-east of their home, near Lochgilphead.

  Strathclyde police have confirmed that the remains have been identified as that of Fiona Hamilton (12) and Crawford Hamilton (8), of Gair Lodge, Kylemore, by Lochgilphead. Fiona and her brother went missing on 8 November 1977, after going for a walk in the Kilmichael Forest.

  Although police have never ruled out foul play, it is thought that the two children had a fall while climbing rocks close to the loch’s shore. A spokesman said, “Unfortunately, due to the length of time that the bodies have been in the water, it will prove extremely difficult to establish cause of death. Identification has had to be confirmed by reference to dental records.”

  Last night, the children’s parents, Eileen (40) and Alistair Hamilton (49), were said to be ‘devastated’ by the news. Friends and relatives said that the couple had been ‘living in hope’ that one day their son and daughter would be found alive, even though an extensive search at the time failed to find any
trace of the children.

  In the low light she reread the news report. And again. He saw her blink repeatedly and then she looked up. “Oh, God. How…what…was it an accident? How did they fall into the loch? Tell me! Simon, what happened? What…”

  She felt her voice trail away. She felt cold all over now. But that wasn’t what was worrying her. Something was wrong with her mind. She wasn’t processing the information. It wasn’t going in fast enough. She felt sick, confused, scared. The surreal atmosphere was cutting across any attempts at rational thinking. Before she had time to steady herself, he was talking again. Ordering her to listen to him.

  He handed her a sheaf of photocopied news cuttings. “These are going to be in my packages. You’ll see why in a moment. Go on. Read them out for her. Just the headlines please.”

  Most of them Innes recognized. One by one she leafed through the cuttings, each banner headline screaming out at her as she parroted their chilling messages into the silence of the vast room. ‘Girl Abducted—Police Fears Grow’, ‘Girl Found—Police Search for Serial Abductor’, ‘Father and Three Children Die in Christmas-fire Tragedy—Mother ‘Critical’, ‘Inquiry Finds Family-death Fire ‘May Have been Started Deliberate’’, ‘Man Falls to Death from Island Ferry’, ‘Swimming-pool Death—Inquest Date Set’.

  She finished the eerie recitation, her head spinning. A few feet away, Alex had stopped making any kind of movement and sat slumped on two crushed pillows, her arms awkwardly pinioned above her head. Innes knew she had to put a stop to this. Or…or things would become uncontrollable. “Listen. Please tell me wh—”

  Again he cut across her. “And this please. Read. Aloud.”

  She peered at the yellowing magazine. “It’s…it’s from fat Journal of Adolescent Psychology, vol. 76, March 1975. You want me to read the passage marked in highlighter pen?”

  She detected the slightest of nods. “Okay…”The Royal Western Hospital in Edinburgh this week opens a new and innovative clinic. The Adolescent Psychiatric Unit (APU) is a specialist, residential centre for patients aged 14—19 years. It is planned that the Unit will house some of the most difficult adolescent patients but only those whom the Medical Dkector, Dr Adrian Laurie, believes will benefit most. Dr Laurie outlined his plans for the new clinic. “It is aimed at the most intelligent young people who may have high levels of disturbance but whom we believe, through intensive, innovative therapies, can reach full psychological health once more arid continue their lives without further harm to themselves or others.”