by Jodi Taylor
Dr Bairstow began to shuffle through the outer door.
And then a voice shouted, ‘Stop that woman.’
Bollocks.
Markham didn’t hesitate. Actually, neither did Dr Bairstow. Cunning old bugger, I suspected he’d been waiting for just this moment. In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting his first words would be, ‘What took you so long, Dr Maxwell?’ He was transformed. Gone was the frail old man barely aware of his surroundings. He might not have his stick but it was very apparent he was perfectly capable of getting out of here by himself.
He moved at some speed through the door.
‘Black car,’ shouted Markham after him. ‘Get in the back.’ He himself stood blocking the doorway, gun raised. Gaunt, over by the far door, was shouting instructions at the clerk behind the glass, who frantically stabbed at the door controls, but there must have been some sort of safety device that prevented this heavy metal door slamming shut if a person was in the way.
My gun was still in the tray and I was too far away to get at it, so I spun around to deal with this unknown threat behind me.
I don’t swear anything like as often as I used to – despite being a mother – but I swore now.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck.
Standing just inside the door, staring at me with hatred in their eyes, were Halcombe and Sullivan and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, pushing past them to see what was going on, Captain Hyssop.
Again – fuck.
My first thought was – what the bloody hell are they doing here?
My second thought was not to be so silly. Where else would they be? The Red House was a select medical establishment where the government stashes those whose personal problems are becoming an embarrassment to the nation. That weird cabinet minister was here for a while – you know the one I mean – and tellingly, six months later, they hosted her husband as well, so God knows what was going on there. Discreet and effective – but not cheap – the nation’s leaders could be nudged back on to the straight and narrow before anyone became aware their behaviour had been any more bizarre than usual.
And the Red House wasn’t that far from St Mary’s – where else would they send a couple of inconvenient nutters? It really should have occurred to me, although, and I think everyone will agree, I’ve had a lot on recently.
It had all gone so well. They hadn’t been expecting trouble. Why would they? Our paperwork had passed the closest of inspections. We’d passed muster, we’d taken legal possession of the prisoner, one more minute and we’d have been driving out of the car park. And now – this.
Well, at least my role was clear. We’d talked about this. I knew exactly what to do. I shouted, ‘Go.’
His gun raised, Markham backed out through the door. With the obstruction removed, the door swung shut and locked. I heard the clunk. I was trapped on the wrong side.
Well, there went my escape route but at least Markham and Dr Bairstow had made it out. My job now was to hold the door. Alarms pealed everywhere. Lights flashed. Throughout the building I could faintly hear the crashing doors of lockdown. Security teams would already have been deployed. If Markham lingered for even one moment . . . if he waited for me . . .
We’d discussed our exit strategy. What to do if things went wrong. According to Markham, the trick of successful escaping is to do the unexpected. Not for him the expected escape route down the drive taken by the law-abiding. He’d be smashing his way through the gardens, the car digging great ruts in those perfect lawns, flattening rose bushes and shattering garden ornaments. And he wouldn’t have to go far. There was a small grove of trees about four hundred yards away, just inside the perimeter fence, and behind that grove a secluded spot where a small pod could be concealed until required as a getaway vehicle. Obviously, we hadn’t been able to arrive in the pod because it was important to appear in a conventional vehicle. We couldn’t just appear from nowhere and expect them to hand over Dr Bairstow. That would never have worked.
Had things gone according to plan we’d have driven through the gates, turned right, gone a couple of hundred yards down the lane, turned right into the fields and accessed the pod from there. We’d have had to leave the car there. Pennyroyal – or whoever’s identity he had borrowed – would lose his deposit if it was discovered before we could retrieve it, but recovery of Dr Bairstow was the priority. And I still had my part to play in that. I should get on with it.
Once in a bad dream – a very bad dream – I guarded another door so someone dear to me could get away. Every second had counted. Every second.
Now I stood against the door to the Red House. I honestly don’t know what I thought I could do but whatever it was, it wouldn’t have to be for very long. Just long enough for Markham and Dr Bairstow to find the grove and call up the pod.
On the other hand, this was Halcombe and Sullivan in front of me and both of them were very familiar with the existence of small hut-like structures with unusual properties.
‘Get her out of the way,’ roared Halcombe. ‘After them. They’ll get away.’
Well, that was a big mistake. I could have told him there was no way Gaunt would appreciate anyone attempting to trespass on his turf.
In a perfect world they would have argued among themselves, giving Markham the time to get clear and I wouldn’t have to do anything. Sadly – and I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this – we live in a very imperfect world.
Things continued to happen at a rapid rate.
Sullivan, coming alive at the thought of action – or, more likely, coming alive at the thought of revenge – grabbed me. Too late, I remembered how strong he was.
I was hoping very much that Gaunt wouldn’t let them shoot me but on the other hand I’d just made a bit of a fool of him and he wouldn’t be feeling that friendly. He might well decide to let them have ten minutes’ fun with me.
Fun, however, was not what Sullivan had in mind.
I was forced down on to my knees by a man who never cared how much he hurt people. I heard the crack as they hit the hard floor and for one moment I wondered if they were broken. Seizing both my arms, he dragged them back and up. Long past the point of pain. Great pain. The position forced my head and shoulders forwards. All I could see was the floor.
I heard a door opening somewhere. Gaunt shouted, ‘Red alert! Immediate lockdown. Alert the main gate. One intruder. One inmate. Shoot on sight. Search the premises and grounds and if that dozy wazzock Washburn starts whining about his precious patients then shoot him too. Just find them.’
The door closed, cutting off his voice as he passed through. All his attention was on retrieving his prisoner. The one he’d been tricked into parting with. He would be on fire to rectify his mistake. Although it wouldn’t be his mistake. This would be someone else’s cock-up. At the moment he had no interest in me, which was a shame because from my point of view I reckoned I’d have been better off with him. With all his many faults, he was at least mostly sane, whereas I had grave doubts about Sullivan and Halcombe. And Hyssop, in whose charge they apparently were, was just a complete waste of a pair of shoes.
Sullivan forced my arms even higher. The pain was excruciating. Overwhelming. I couldn’t think of anything else. No coherent thoughts. No clever plans. No witty remarks. Just horrible, brutal pain. Agony rippled up and down my arms, through my shoulders, into my neck and even around my ribcage.
This was a form of strappado. A torture very popular with the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition, which tells you how effective it must be. And efficient. You didn’t catch the church wasting long hours in the torture pit. An hour of this was enough to kill you. Even just a few minutes of it could lead to long-term nerve and tendon damage. Girolamo Savonarola – our old friend from the Bonfire of the Vanities – was tortured by this very method and it was allegedly used at the Salem Witch Trials as well. Because it works. If done properly –
if the victim is hung from a rope with their arms tied behind them and taking the full weight of their body – then they die.
I could believe it. The bastard put his knee on my back for leverage and hauled again. All I could do to try to ease the pain was lean forwards some more. My forehead touched the icy floor. The only thing saving me was that most of my weight was being taken by my knees. My shoulders were being wrenched from their sockets. I clenched my teeth but there was no holding it back. And why would I even try? A scream burst out of my mouth. And again. I was in agony. He was dislocating my shoulders a fraction of an inch at a time. Arms aren’t supposed to do this. Shoulders aren’t supposed to take this strain. Imagine pulling a chicken wing apart. Remember that gruesome little popping sound? That was going to be me any second now.
And then, just when I was convinced I was going to pass out from the pain, gasping for breath, screaming and dribbling, the agony seemed to ease a fraction.
My relief was short-lived. Something cold and hard bored into the top of my head. Shit – he must have grabbed my gun from the plastic tray. Halcombe yelled, ‘This time. This time, you bitch! This time you’re going to die.’
I actually didn’t care. I was enveloped in a ball of flaming pain. I tried to fall sideways but Sullivan had me in a firm grasp. He shoved his knee between my shoulder blades and pushed again, his arms pulling mine backwards. Every part of me was screaming in red-hot pain. Physically, I think this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
I couldn’t tell what Halcombe was yelling. He had to yell because I was making a hell of a racket. I couldn’t hear anything over the throbbing inside my own head. I think I might have shouted, ‘Just do it, for God’s sake,’ but I don’t know. I could feel dribble running from the corner of my mouth. My throat was raw. My screams were no longer screams, just hoarse, long, drawn-out wails of suffering.
Halcombe himself was still shrieking. His loss of control was frightening. Words spewed everywhere, a torrent of abuse spilling from his lips. ‘You took my life, you . . . Do you know the things I’ve had to do just to stay alive? Never mind what I did for food. Well, I’ve done it. All of it. And worse. And the one thing that kept me going was the knowledge that one day – one day, Maxwell, you fucking b—’ There was a long string of vile words. The gun jabbed again. ‘I knew one day I’d have you and now I have. And then I’m going after your kid. Trust me – life as a climbing boy will be a picnic compared with what I’m going to do to him. And every single second I’ll make sure he knows it’s all your fault.’ He was crying – nearly hysterical – completely out of control. ‘That you’re the reason! All the pain and humiliations – the vile, unspeakable things done to me – I’ll do them to him. And then I’ll sell him on. For others to do even worse. He’ll learn to hate you as I do. But first, I’m going to blow your fucking brains up that fucking wall.’
The gun jabbed again. I knew this time I really was going to die. Gaunt had pissed off – he had other priorities. I spared a thought for Markham. Had he and Dr Bairstow got away? I don’t know what the guard in the cubicle was doing. Pulled out by Gaunt, I suspected, who wouldn’t want any of his people involved in this. If I died, then Hyssop would carry the can. Gaunt would make sure of that.
The pressure on my arms eased again. I stopped screaming. In the silence I could hear my own panting. And the snick of the safety catch coming off. All this had taken only seconds. Far, far less time than it takes to describe.
‘The last thing you hear,’ Halcombe said quietly, ‘will be the shot that kills you.’
I wondered if I would. How quickly would it happen? Would I actually hear the shot that killed me?
Yes. Yes, I did. There was an enormous explosion at one and the same time both inside and outside my head. The echoes resounded around my skull, ringing from one side to the other. Back and forth. Back and forth. The world went black. There was nothing. There was nowhere. There was no one. Everything stopped.
Death – the all-encompassing darkness we drag behind us from the moment of our birth . . . the one from which there is no escape . . . the one that inevitably overwhelms us when our time is done . . . here was mine. My time had finally come. For years, I’d always been one hop, skip or jump ahead of it, laughing as I got away every time but now, now I’d finally stumbled. My death pounced, smothering me in its dark embrace. This truly was the end.
I . . . died.
The world was a negative. All black and white. And very cold.
I looked down. I was standing up to my ankles in snow. The ground was white. The trees were skeletons against the black sky. The lake, off to my right, was black, deep and motionless. There were no stars in the sky and no light reflected in the lake.
A ghostly wind whispered among the ghostly trees but nothing moved.
I was back at St Mary’s, standing in our tiny graveyard. Was this my funeral? Had I been buried already? Was that it? And now I was doomed to stand here for all eternity, cold and alone?
St Mary’s itself had disappeared. The whole universe had shrunk down to just this tiny spot surrounded on all sides by the whispering darkness of death. Who knew what waited for me in there? Lisa Dottle, broken and betrayed and blaming me? Or Isabella Barclay, her gaze fixed on me as her lifeblood soaked silently into the dirt, her hatred of me the last thing to die. Or Clive Ronan, with his broken spine and ruined face, the black hole of his mouth cursing me with words I didn’t want to hear.
They’d walked behind me while I was alive. They’d waited patiently for the inevitable and now, finally, here I was. Guest of honour in my own private hell as the souls of those whose death I’d caused feasted on mine.
The silence was vast and everlasting. And had always been so. Time stood still here. This was not part of the world I had known.
I looked around. Neat rows of headstones were laid out in front of me. The names were obscured by snow but that didn’t matter because I knew them all. Every last one of them.
The black and white silence stretched on and on and on.
There’s a story somewhere. Every year a bird flies around the world and comes to a mountain. He strikes a rock with his beak and flies away again. And the next year and the next and so on. Until the rock is worn away. Then he moves on to another rock and then another and then another until finally, the whole mountain is worn away to nothing. And even though it has taken the little bird hundreds of thousands of millions of years – all those years are only the first second of the first minute of eternity.
The cold was striking up through my feet. And my heart. Someone stood behind me. I dared not move. I couldn’t move. I was paralysed with fear. My head spun. The world began to skid away from me. I was lost. They’d come for me. This was my end. It was as if I’d always known I would end this way.
A voice said, ‘Max.’
I opened my eyes.
I was in Sick Bay. Light streamed through the window. Dazzling, eye-watering sunshine. A dark figure sat on the window seat, silhouetted against the brilliant light.
There was a sigh of exasperation. ‘I can’t find my bloody lighter.’
I swallowed. My voice wouldn’t work. I swallowed again and croaked, ‘Peterson has it.’
‘Ah.’
I heard a match strike and then I could smell cigarette smoke, see it even, floating across the room, hazy blue in the sunlight.
‘You shouldn’t be here, you know,’ she said, puffing her smoke out of the window. ‘That’s so bloody typical of you, isn’t it? What’s the phrase – wrong time, wrong place? Bloody historians.’ The figure was already fading. As insubstantial as the fast-disappearing smoke.
‘Wait,’ I said urgently.
‘You need to sort yourself out. And quickly.’
I said stupidly, ‘I can’t. I’m dead.’
‘No, you’re not.’
I could still hear echoes of the sh
ot that had killed me. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘For God’s sake – who’s the bloody doctor here?’
‘But . . .’ I looked around. ‘Where am I?’
‘The most dangerous place in the world.’
That figured.
‘You’re inside your own head, Maxwell. WAKE UP.’
Well, that was nasty. I did as I was told and opened my eyes. I was in a small hospital room. On my right was a window. Just an ordinary window with the sash pulled up to let in the summer sunshine and with an ordinary sill. No window seat.
The room was bare of everything except a bed and a small locker next to it, a plain blue plastic chair and a waste bin. The smell was familiar. Shit – I was still at the Red House, which meant I was probably still under Gaunt’s jurisdiction. This should be fun.
The throbbing pain in my shoulders and arms didn’t seem to have lessened even the tiniest fraction. I squinted down. I was wearing a cotton hospital gown and covered with a light blue blanket. My army uniform had been tossed over a chair on the other side of the room with my shoes tucked neatly underneath.
I’d like to say I ignored the pain and tried to sit up. That’s what heroines do. They’re always ignoring the pain. Daft bats. Sadly, it’s not that easy. I rolled on to my side and discovered my right hand was handcuffed to the bedrail. I don’t know why they’d bothered. I could barely move as it was.
And that was the least of my problems because Treadwell was standing in the doorway. He’d obviously arrived from St Mary’s. I wondered how much time had passed. And what of Markham and Dr Bairstow?
He walked forwards to stand at the foot of the bed. ‘Well, Dr Maxwell?’
I swear, if he said, ‘Here’s another fine mess you’ve got yourself into,’ I would not be responsible for my actions.