by Max Hardy
‘Why?’ shot back Saul, staring at the screen.
‘She’s in the Fielding Institute, in Morpeth, under the authority of Dr Ennis. The same Dr Ennis that you collared for two deaths caused during Face Down restraint incidents. The same Dr Ennis that was acquitted last month.’
Strange took a deep breath and looked over to Saul, who was staring incredulously at Harris. ‘Professional and Personal John, there’s your starting point.’
4:15 am
A quizzical expression found its way onto Rebecca’s restrained face as she saw a handle in one of the cells padded sections in front of her turn and a door open up in the wall. Through it walked a tall, broad man, hunched in the shoulders and limping lightly on his left leg as he entered the cell. He wore beige polyester slacks, a tan gingham shirt under an angora cardigan that was stretched in the pocket and sandals over white socks. He looked old, furrows sculpted into a brow tickled by the odd grey hair combed over his bald scalp.
Behind him, he pulled a metal chair which emitted a bone tingling screech as it was dragged over the tiled corridor, the sound stopping on the padded cell floor.
‘You look a lot older than I thought you would be.’ said Rebecca, her eyes not leaving him as he positioned the seat directly in front of her.
‘I get that a lot. It’s the soft Irish lilt in my accent, so they tell me.’ he answered as he turned to her and began to loosen the mouth guard she was wearing. ‘If we are going to have a proper conversation, let’s get this thing out. Do you promise me that you won’t try and bite your tongue?’
‘I promise I will try hard not to, but I can’t promise I won’t. It depends on what questions you ask me. I thought you were about forty six. You first kissed a girl in 1974 when you were seven? Was that a lie?’ she finished, wiggling her jaw as the guard was removed.
‘I can see being insane hasn’t impacted your cognitive abilities.’ he smiled wryly as he sat down in the chair in front of her. He reached out and took her bound hand, shaking it.
‘Hello Rebecca, it’s nice to meet you face to face, it’s nice to talk to you without your mind being in a drugged fug. Yes, it was a lie. I’m Dr Hanlon and I am here to help.’
Rebecca’s eyes looked down to his hand which was holding hers, then shot a startled glare back at him. ‘Are you sure? You haven’t just come in for your Kit-Kat, have you?’ harsh invective emphasised in every word.
‘Kit-Kat? I don’t know what you mean. I’m sorry, I should have asked if I could shake your hand.’ he replied, removing his hand from hers, appreciating the distress that the contact had instilled.
As much as it could, her head tilted to one side, eyes darting over his face, trying to glean any sign that he might be lying again. ‘You don’t know what I mean, do you. It’s what the staff call me, well, most of the staff. It’s also what they do when they ‘Have a break’: come into my cell, slip two fingers into my cunt and frig me until I come. They think I don’t remember. I mean, why would I, being dosed up on Diazipam and Haloperidol. I remember every, single, time.’ She finished the last three words slowly, her stubby tongue trying to lick her lips lewdly. It looked grotesque.
Dr Hanlon leant forward in his seat, white knuckles evident as he clasped his hands together tightly. Shaking his head, eyes alive with anger he said, ‘Rebecca, I am genuinely sorry for every single violation that has been exacted upon you under your care. Please believe me, I am here to help. I am here to understand the care, or lack of care that you have been given. I am here to understand your version of events and get to the truth of why you are here. I am here to let you know that I do not think you are insane. I think you have had a tremendous amount of trauma to cope with and that has caused you to behave extraordinarily. I believe I can help you believe again.’
He held her gaze intently in silence, then looked over her body at the lesions, bruises and burns. ‘Were any of these wounds inflicted by the staff?’
Her wrists were turning again, and she was biting the corner of her bottom lip so much a drop of blood oozed out of the broken skin. She saw him look at it and frown, immediately stopping the action.
‘No, not directly.’ she started, calmness descending over her again. ‘They are all my doing, either self-inflicted or from when they stopped me trying to kill myself. I believe I deserve every single one of them. It was only sex with the staff. They see me as a sexual deviant. I think I am complicit in that. I did nothing to discourage them, in fact, probably the opposite. It wasn’t about pleasure though. It was about suffering, about pain, about living the hell I truly believe I deserve.’
‘That doesn’t excuse their actions Rebecca. You are not well and they have a duty of care to you, a legal obligation to look after your wellbeing. I won’t let that lie. Why do you believe you deserve this hell?’
She burst out laughing, her chest wracking with the force of the guffaws, loud chortles able to escape her freed mouth now. ‘Oh Doc, you are such a comedian, you remind me of Dave Allen with that accent. I think I like you, but you just might be deluding yourself if you think you can ever lead me to a path of redemption. Didn’t you listen to how I killed Hannah? How I murdered Michael?’
‘I did listen. What I need you to try and help me with now is to understand what happened, if you can. When you murdered your son…’ he began before being interrupted.
‘Michael.’ she stated firmly, tension in her tone which quickly relaxed as she continued. ’Can you call him Michael please?’
‘If that’s what you want, I can. It may make it harder for you to talk about?’ he suggested.
‘Harder, it should be horrendous: it should be a living hell. They aren’t once removed for me. They aren’t a faceless fantasy that I have brought to life in their killing. They were the essence of me, my pulse, my breath, my being. ‘Sorry Hannah’, ‘Sorry Michael’ will be my litany until the last breath of life passes these lips. It’s what I want.’ A tear started to trickle from the corner of her eye as she finished. Her gaze didn’t leave Dr Hanlon’s questioning, concerned stare.
‘Alright.’ he said, nodding gently in appreciation. ‘So, when you murdered Michael, you said that you were sat astride Michael, Michael was inside you, you ripped Michael’s heart out and ate it laughing as Michael died. Is that what you remember?’ he asked.
‘It’s what happened.’ she retorted brusquely. ‘You can’t deny the facts.’ she finished abruptly.
‘No, I guess you can’t.‘ he conceded, pausing for a moment in contemplation before a quizzical look came over his face and he continued. ‘Which rib did you break first?’
‘What?’ she replied, stunned disbelief evident in her voice. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? Aren’t you going to ask me why?’ she added, frustration entering the tone, oozing into her actions as she flexed against her restraints.
‘At this point Rebecca why isn’t significant. How is. Which of Michael’s ribs did you break first?’ he repeated firmly, sitting calmly in his seat, holding her confused gaze without blinking.
She started shaking, tension escalating in the pulsing veins of her forehead, in the rouge that flowed up her face, in the blood that started to drip from the lip she was chewing.
‘I…I….’ she stuttered, ‘The… the…’ she continued, her eyes bulging now as she tried to hold his gaze.
‘What T-shirt was Colin wearing in the car crash?’ he said abruptly in a firm tone.
Within a split second, she answered, ‘Fields of the Nephilim.’ surprise overtaking her frustration.
‘What line was Prince singing when you kissed Hannah for the first time.’ he asked just as sharply.
‘Dig if you will a picture.’ Her animation was slowing now as she answered.
‘What was the picture hall called where you went to see Purple Rain?’ he fired firmly.
‘The Regal.’
‘It’s funny what you remember, isn’t it?’ he finished, leaving the statement hanging in the air.
Rebecca
stopped biting her lip, stopped shaking and stopped forcing her limbs against the restraints. She didn’t stop staring at him intently and said in a tone wavering with bubbling emotion, ‘I don’t know which rib I broke first. I can’t remember. I can’t remember how we got to the flat. I can’t remember why he was on my bed. I can’t remember how I did that to him, I honestly can’t.’
‘That’s fine. Let’s start with what you do remember.’ he said, the gentle lilt of his voice whispering encouragement.
‘Johnsons baby powder, rubber and copper. That was the mixture of smells that began to invade my senses as I was stuttering back into consciousness. I couldn’t open my eyes initially. Jackhammers were pounding away at my temples and thoughts were nebulous things wafting into touching distance, then floating away the second I got anywhere close to making one coherent. I vaguely recalled lots of drink, lots of drugs, lots of dancing and lots of sex, but who with, where and how much all eluded me at that point.’
‘I eventually managed to force one eyelid open and the vague blurriness ever so slowly began to focus. The side profile of a face started to coalesce into what looked like the serene, sleeping features of my son. At least that’s what my mind saw. It also wondered what he was doing there, and I tried to speak his name but my mouth was far to parched to emit a noise, only a whispered breath escaping.’
‘Some thoughts began to impress themselves upon me at that point as his image became clearer in front of me. Why is he looking so drawn and pallid? Has he been eating? Why does he smell of baby powder and rubber and what is that copper odour? He’s got cuts to the corners of his mouth, what are they from? What are those red spots dotted over his face? I raised a thumb to my mouth and unsuccessfully tried to lick a bit of spittle onto it before reaching over to rub off the red spots. Mother’s instinct? My hand and arm came into my line of vision as I did so, and it was red, it was all red. My sense of taste suddenly kicked in, enlightening my mind with the knowledge I had just licked blood off my thumb.’
‘Every synapse fired, all at once, kicking a rush of adrenaline into my system. Both eyes shot open, and from a prone position I was on all fours next to Michael in a split second. I couldn’t process all the information that was bombarding my brain in that moment. He was lying on his back, neck to toe in black rubber apart from two areas, one where his genitals were exposed, one where the latex was torn on his chest. Flaps of skin, bits of bone, trailing veins and rivers of blood all encircled a gaping cavity where I knew his lungs and heart should be. I screamed, or tried to scream. There was not a drop of moisture in my throat so all that came out was a hoarse moan. I shot one hand up to his neck, foolishly feeling for a pulse. With the other hand I scrambled round in the pools of blood that were forming from the rivers flowing from his chest to see if I could find his heart. How stupid is that? My mind thought that if I could find it, I would be able to push it back in, and he would be fine!’
‘’Michael!’ I screamed, over and over, the constant use of my throat making it moist, making the sounds come, making the screams real and making everything real as the crescendo echoed around the bedroom. I couldn’t find his heart, but that didn’t dissuade my mind. I forced all of the loose bits of bone and skin back into the gaping cavity and started pumping it to try and resuscitate him. One, two, three pumps on the chest then one, two, three breaths into his mouth. ‘Breathe, Michael, breathe!’ I screamed in time with the beats.’
‘I counted three thousand. Three thousand pumps. Three thousand breaths. It was about an hour before I gave up, before I tried one last time to breathe life into him, ending it with the gentlest of kisses on his lips. The last time I kissed my son.’
‘I was in bits, tears streaming from my eyes, my whole body wracked with sobs as I stumbled from the bed in a daze, mumbling his name over and over again under my breath. I picked up the phone from the bedside table and dialled 999, turning back to look at the bed as it rang. It was only then I saw the bigger picture, saw the entire bed scarlet with his blood, even where I had been lying. I saw my own reflection then too, in the mirrored wardrobes opposite. I didn’t recognise it as me. I saw a naked woman, hunched and quivering in shock, her whole body painted in shades of blood, the worst being caked around her mouth as she began to speak into the phone.’
‘’I’ve killed him. I’ve killed my son. He’s dead. Oh my god I’ve killed him. What have I done….’ I started to wail down the phone as I collapsed into the corner, sliding down the wall and curling up into a gibbering ball on the floor.’
‘That’s all I remember until the police arrived.’ she finished, tears shining brightly on her cheeks, her body still, calm.
‘So, you can’t remember laughing manically? You can’t remember ripping his heart out? You can’t remember eating it?’ asked Dr Hanlon.
‘I can’t remember doing any of those things. They are the things I can’t explain, the things that test my lucidity.’
‘What about sitting astride him. Can you remember that?’ he asked.
She tensed again. ‘Do you mean did I fuck him?’
‘Rebecca, I am using your words, all I want to do is know what you know. I am not trying to get a rise out of this, please believe me.’ he encouraged.
‘Sorry Doc.’ she answered, sincerity in her tone. ‘My moral compass is totally demagnetised and spinning like a dervish. I do remember my son fucking me, vividly. It wasn’t at my flat. It was after a party the night before, after we left there and went back to someone’s house.’
‘You went back to someone else’s house? They were with you and Michael before he died? Did the police know this? Did they visit the house, question who you were with?’ he asked.
Rebecca laughed through her still trickling tears. ‘Doc, if only it was that simple. I don’t have a clue where the house is that we ended up at. All I remember is the room that we had sex in, all three of us. It had a black fire place with gargoyles chasing cherubs around it. We fucked all over, on the Chesterfield sofa’s, on top of the Steinway piano, on the plush carpets in front of a roaring fire, with huge candelabra’s throwing flickering light onto passions shadows throughout. That’s where I sat astride him.’
‘So who was the other person? Surely they know where it is?’ he pushed.
‘You would think that, yes, she probably does. If you can find her, if she were ever real. I don’t know where she came from. I met her in a particular kind of bar, and she introduced me to a world of pleasure I never knew existed. She became my dark disease, my fatal addiction. I never had a phone number, an address, any kind of contact information, just a name. I told the police everything I knew about her, which wasn’t much and they checked at all the places we had met. Some people did recognise the description, but no one knew who she was, no one could recall the two of us being together and to be honest, that is the way those kind of places are. The police and Dr Ennis concluded that everything I told them about her and the house was all down to my psychosis, all just a figment of my imagination. I only knew her name: Madame Evangeline.’
5:30 am
The stuttering orange hue of streetlights illuminated the road out of Morpeth as Saul turned left into the entrance of St George’s Park Estate, and started the meandering ascent up the side of the hill to the main hospital grounds which were housed on the plateau on top of it.
He dialled recall on the hands free phone as he took the bends slowly. The call went to voicemail. ‘Just me again. Look, I can only apologise so many times, but I am truly sorry. I’ll give you a call a little later, when the world wakes up a bit.’ he finished, hanging up on the call to Sarah with a heavy sigh.
The beams from his headlights punctuated the darkness beyond the glow of the streetlights, highlighting tall metal fencing to the left and right on the winding road, ‘Keep Out’ signs fixed to them. Behind these, the lights exposed fleeting glimpses of boarded up houses. They were ancillary offices and accommodation of the old lunatic asylum that came into view on the right as his car
rounded another bend. Security lights shone out from each side of the redbrick tower at the centre of the asylum, illuminating the derelict wings of the main building, the harsh glare against the darkness accentuating the detritus of dilapidation festooning the weed infested concrete pathways surrounding the boarded up structure.
He took a left into a driveway that passed the new Community Mental Health Centre, and ended at the security gates to the Fielding Institute, a large, modern structure totally enclosed within a ten metre high metal wall. He flashed his badge to the Security Guard. ‘DI Saul to see Dr Ennis. I rang ahead, he is expecting me.’
The Guard checked his tablet. ‘No problem Sir. Through the gate when it opens and please park in the visitor bay to the right then report to reception.’
A large red light began to pulsate on top of the tall steel gate as a loud beeping signalled its opening into a holding cage with a similar gate at the far end. He drove in and waited for the gate behind to shut and the one in front to open, which it did, in a similar manner. The car continued on and Saul pulled into the visitor bay.
He vacated the car and walked to short distance into the light, airy reception area, announcing his arrival to the polite, smiling young lady behind the smoked glass and aluminium reception desk. ‘If you would like to take a seat Sir, I will let Dr Ennis know you are here.’
Saul returned her smile, thanked her and then walked the few paces to the waiting area with its metal legged black leather sofas, taking in the various pictures on the walls. His eyes were drawn immediately to an enormous canvas just behind the seats, fully five metres wide by about a metre deep. It depicted a Jesus like figure, long hair and beard, pious expression on his face, in hessian robes with palms held out displaying his stigmata. Two giant wings spread out either side of his body to fill the width of the picture.
‘Impressive canvas, isn’t it Saul.’ came the impersonal greeting from a tall gentleman in a tweed three piece suit, striding down the corridor, thumbs tucked tightly into the pockets of his waistcoat as he arrived and positioned himself right beside Saul, shoulder to shoulder, taking in the picture. ‘We found it in the old hospital, hidden under wood panelling removed from the main hall. Records suggest it was painted by an inmate, around 1899. Psychopath. Murdered three men. Partial to eating their genitals apparently. Also killed one of the guards, maimed and sexually molested two others before he was restrained, face down.’ Dr Ennis finished, leaving the last statement hanging in the air as he turned his head to take in Saul’s profile.