by Knight, Ali
Darren got off his bike and threw it down in the road in front of the car, blocking the lane. The lights turned green and car horns blared.
‘Worried I laid a hand on your two tons of metal?’ He took a step towards the guy. ‘Don’t you dare knock me off that bike and then pretend you didn’t even see me.’
‘I’m going to fucking deck you!’ The guy balled his fists, aggression oozing from every pore.
‘Come on then, let’s see if you really got the guts. Cos I got nothing to lose.’ He took a step towards the man, his eyes never leaving his face.
‘You little punk-ass cunt—’ The guy took a step towards Darren.
Darren could feel an explosion of great violence brimming inside him. His house keys were gripped in his fist and he brandished them menacingly. ‘Get back in that penis extension before I blind you.’ Darren saw the man hesitate just a fraction and knew he’d won. ‘Now! And if I ever see you do that to a cyclist again, I’m coming for you.’
The man turned and got back in the car, showering expletives. Darren stood full in the lane, legs and arms outstretched, so the guy had to reverse awkwardly and manoeuvre into the other lane before roaring away from the lights with a bad-tempered squeal of rubber.
Darren picked up his bike and walked to the pavement, horns and shouts of abuse following him to the kerb. His legs had turned to jelly, but it had felt good to hold the power. Really good.
21
The management team at Roehampton didn’t get all the interested parties to an emergency meeting until seven that evening. The governor’s secretary had laid out Hobnobs on a plate like a fan and got some water in, but Helen suspected that what they all really wanted was a proper drink.
‘So, bad day at the coalface, ladies and gentlemen.’ The governor was considered a rising star in the prison service, youngish, black, with designer glasses and a bright tie. ‘This is the first fatality we’ve had in more than fifteen years. Indeed, I’m not suggesting we don’t have a near exemplary record in the care of our patients and staff.’ He put his hands over the fronts of his chair arms. It struck Helen that it looked like he was sitting in an electric chair. ‘But considering the patient involved, I need to know that every T is crossed, every I dotted on this.’
Back-covering. They were all up to it, Helen knew, but no way was she taking the fall for this incident. Of that she was completely confident.
‘Shall I start?’ Helen offered. ‘It is the extremely unusual reaction from Olivia Duvall that has me puzzled, I have to admit. There was no relationship between Linda Biggs and Olivia, no point of disagreement, even. Olivia’s always been a model patient and had built up a large degree of autonomy in here. In 2005 she helped separate two patients who had started fighting, at some considerable risk to herself.’ She ran a finger down a report. ‘Then in 2009 that rogue guard tried to attack her with a Stanley knife but she didn’t retaliate. And then there was the time she reported that she believed Tracey Wilshaw was suicidal and Tracey’s later attempt on her life was thwarted.’
The governor was nodding, forefinger tapping on his lips. ‘There was that unsavoury incident at Rampton with the guard, though.’
‘No violence occurred,’ Helen replied.
He nodded. ‘From what I understand, as soon as she had attacked Linda she became calm again. When she was being carried to solitary she asked several times about the state of nurse Vince Bayer’s back. She was worried he’d put it out as he carried her.’ The governor paused. ‘The woman’s all heart.’ He stopped tapping his lips and began to scratch his scalp. ‘And how in hell, excuse my French, did she manage to attack another patient from a standing start and kill her if she’s got a heart murmur?’
All heads turned to Dr Vivek Chowdray, whose eyes couldn’t be seen behind the light reflection in his glasses. ‘I’m afraid it’s entirely possible,’ Vivek said. ‘A heart murmur doesn’t restrict a patient’s ability to endure vigorous bouts of exercise, it just means that they have a greatly increased risk of a heart attack or collapse.’
The governor went back to lip-tapping. ‘I think we’re more vulnerable on the employees mixing with patients—’
Helen interrupted him. ‘This was discussed at the meeting in April this year. We have implemented cuts of 12.5 per cent in the cleaning budget. If the cleaners weren’t sometimes in the common areas with patients the facility would fail its hygiene inspections. I remind you that cuts of a further five per cent are coming next year.’
‘And four and a half per cent the year after,’ Kamal added.
‘Darren Smith was not harmed?’ the governor asked.
‘No,’ Helen said. ‘Olivia attacked Linda, not him. He was certainly suffering from shock when I talked to him after the incident. It seems to be coincidence that he was there, although obviously none of us realised how quickly a mop handle can become a deadly weapon.’
There was silence in the room as they absorbed the uncomfortable implications of allowing cleaners to mix with patients.
Helen cleared her throat and continued. ‘He has since accepted an offer of promotion to a Level Two cleaner as of tomorrow and he is open to the idea of counselling. But obviously there is the potential for a post-traumatic stress claim from him, and there is the issue of him going to the press.’
‘So we need to be braced for negative publicity,’ the PR added.
The governor sighed and nodded. ‘I’ll try and smooth things with the CPS. Can you liaise with building services about the funeral?’ The PR scribbled a note. ‘Poor woman.’ He paused; he wasn’t without feeling. ‘I’ll attend.’
‘So will I,’ Helen said.
The PR nodded again.
There was nothing sadder than a coffin being lowered with nobody there to see it off. Most of their patients were interred like that in the hospital graveyard – seen off for the final time by the men and women who had kept them locked up.
‘Olivia’s recreational classes and outside access have been withdrawn, I understand?’ the governor asked.
‘Olivia is in solitary and will remain there, pending an updated behavioural and emotional assessment,’ replied Helen.
‘OK, let’s leave it there,’ the governor said, standing and pulling his files towards him.
There was a knock at the door.
Martyn the nurse came in, shuffling and looking embarrassed. ‘Sorry, sir, but Olivia Duvall insists she wants to talk to you,’ he said.
‘Me?’ the governor said, looking astonished. ‘No can do. Her privileges have been revoked.’
‘She said she wants to speak to you and that it’s very important.’
The governor shook his head, as did a few other people in the room. They were constantly dealing with the demands of those under their care. ‘It’s a bit too late for sorry.’
‘She said it’s about the missing women.’
The governor was a cool customer, Helen thought, as he didn’t react immediately but instead looked at Helen as if to ask what she thought. Helen threw it back into his court. ‘It’s your call.’
The governor sighed. ‘I’ll meet her, because it’ll make the guards happier if they think I’ve done what I can to calm her. But if she wastes my time, I’m extending her punishment.’
22
By the time Darren got home he was a nervous wreck – he couldn’t eat, his legs were like jelly and his mind a disordered mess. He expected the doorbell to ring at any second and the police to be silhouetted against the front door – Olivia could at any point reveal who he was. He sat on his bed with his head in his hands. He had been the reason Olivia had murdered an old and defenceless woman. Whatever her crimes in the past, she hadn’t deserved that. He also realised the hideous danger he had put himself in, unthinking and naïvely – Olivia could just as easily have murdered him. That risk, even for a one-on-one meeting with Carly’s killer, seemed too high a price to pay.
He wouldn’t be able to see her again, of that he was sure. Their snatched convers
ations were over; she would be in an isolation ward or cell, out of the reach of people she could harm. But even locked up and impotent, with drugs pumping through her veins or trussed up in a straightjacket, she still held all the power. Despite her being mad and bad, he had been closer to Carly when talking to her than at any time over the last ten years. He felt the frustration of having got close; he needed to get closer still.
His phone beeped with texts from his mate CJ asking if he wanted to sink a few beers. Darren dodged them. He couldn’t see his friends now, couldn’t pretend that life was still normal.
Instead he pulled a piece of paper towards him and began to draw.
He must have fallen asleep eventually because he woke to find Dad shaking him awake. The pale light of early morning was coming through his undrawn curtains, and he was still in his clothes on top of his bed.
‘You need to come and see something right away. I haven’t woken your mum. It’s on the news.’
Darren yawned and stretched, scratching his sides. ‘What time is it?’
‘Six thirty. You know I never sleep in the summer.’
Darren looked down at his dishevelled clothes, at the joint butts in the wooden cannon, his messy room. He scratched his head, rubbed sleep from his eyes and followed his dad down the stairs.
The TV news was on in the living room, one story rolling on and on.
They had found one of the Five.
Darren felt the strength go in his legs and sank down on the sofa. The news reported that there had been an incident at Roehampton High-Security Hospital that had resulted in Olivia Duvall killing a fellow inmate. Apparently, in a rush of contrition following this event, she had confessed to the prison governor where the body of Molly Peters, last seen in Brighton in 2004, aged fourteen, had been buried.
Police had begun digging that evening by a stile on the South Downs, and a few hours later they had found bones, which were still being examined.
‘When your mum wakes up, there’s going to be hell,’ Dad said. ‘We need to be prepared.’
Darren’s legs had drained of blood and he couldn’t speak. ‘I worry about her emotional state, Darren, she’s weak and vulnerable. The timing couldn’t be worse.’
The anger was building inside Darren like water behind a dam. He knew what Olivia was doing. She was dangling the promise of resolution in front of him, tantalising him with it. She had given one of them up, but not Carly. The price she would exact for her would be high indeed.
And Melanie wanted Carly alive; she lived for the moment when Carly would come back. The discovery of Molly’s bones was further evidence that Carly never would. The extinguishing of hope was a cruel thing. And Olivia knew that too.
The TV news flipped back to the studio. Orin Bukowski was in a chair, in a sports jacket and a pink shirt. His American accent was loud and uncompromising. ‘I don’t know what regime they run at Roehampton, but that this child killer was allowed to murder another patient is a sick joke. The government should have enacted the true justice that the people of this country overwhelmingly desire and got rid of this hideous creature years ago. Why is the governor still in post this morning? Why does he still have a job? Why was this evil woman allowed out in a recreation room with other people? She is bargaining her way out of the punishment that is her due. Time and time again we see killers laughing at the justice system, laughing at the families of those they’ve murdered.’
‘But Mr Bukowski, surely this proves that the capital punishment you and your organisation seeks is the wrong solution. If Duvall had been killed by the state she could never have revealed where these girls are—’
‘I have said that she should be force-fed truth drugs. We should be treating criminals such as her, who are an aberration, who cause great damage to society and individuals, the same way we treat terrorists. They are a threat to our way of life—’
Darren switched off the TV.
‘That man is all we need,’ his dad muttered. ‘No one else gets to have their say with him around.’ He froze. The toilet was flushing upstairs. His mum was awake. ‘I’ll get her tea,’ Dad said.
Darren trailed his dad into the kitchen and waited while the kettle boiled. ‘Do you remember, Darren, when you were little, you had a toy called Billy and his Seven Barrels? They were brightly coloured plastic barrels, one inside the other, like a Russian doll. You open up each barrel and inside is a smaller barrel, until right at the centre there’s a tiny little one, and you open that and it’s empty.’ He ran a hand through his hair, staring at the floor. ‘I used to sit you on my knee and we’d open the barrels up one by one, and then you used to ask me, what’s inside the last one?’
Darren finished the anecdote. ‘And you’d say, nothing. The endless void, the big nothing.’
Dad nodded. ‘I didn’t believe in anything. The afterlife, or heaven, God, the devil, karma, ESP, Wicca …’ He tailed off and looked at the ceiling, where they could hear the creak of Melanie’s tread. ‘But she did. She believed in everything. She’s clung to those things for ten years to get her through.’
‘What do you think now?’
Darren’s Dad looked at him and it was as if a bomb had exploded behind his features somewhere and rearranged them in a way he had never seen before. ‘Now it’s just too late. We are so very tired and it’s too late.’ He poured a splash of milk into the cup and took a deep breath. ‘Are you going to tell her, or am I?’
‘We’ll go together,’ Darren said. And they walked up the stairs.
Melanie took the cup of tea that Andy gave her and stared at them hovering round her bed. ‘Why are you both staring at me like that?’
She wasn’t as clairvoyant as she claimed she was, otherwise she would have known, Darren thought.
‘They’ve found Molly Peters’s body on the South Downs,’ Dad said. ‘Olivia told them where it was last night.’ Melanie put the tea down on the bedside table. ‘They are widening the search to see if any other bodies—’
‘Carly’s not there. I can feel it.’
‘Melanie—’
‘She’s not there!’ She swung her arm out with a cry and sent the tea hurtling across the room, spraying Andy with hot liquid. ‘Just get out! Just get out!’
‘Jesus, Melanie, look at yourself!’ Dad was pulling down his trousers, hopping round the bedroom to get the heat away from his skin. ‘Why is this my fault? Why is it always my fault?’
‘She’s not dead!’
‘She was my daughter too!’
Melanie was out of the bed then, a look of pure hatred on her face. ‘You can believe what you want. I’ll never believe she’s dead. Get out, get out before I throw you out.’
Murder didn’t bring the grieving together, Darren thought; it forced them away from each other. Grief had made his mum so tall that she towered over Dad and demoted him to a place where he couldn’t reach her. Darren retreated down the stairs, his parents’ argument rebounding with increasing intensity above his head. At that moment Carly had never seemed so far away, the hole she left behind so distorted and unfillable. He had brought this about. His poorly thought-through actions had placed this grenade at the heart of his family and he had pulled out the pin.
But there was something even worse. He wanted to see Olivia again. He was desperate to see her – to listen to her lies, to listen to every bit of rubbish that spewed from her mouth. And if he couldn’t see her, he could get close to her psychiatrist. He had to get back to Roehampton.
He was taking his bike from the garden through into the kitchen when he noticed the flat tyre.
He shouted up the stairs. ‘Mum, I need the car.’
When their argument didn’t stop he picked up the key and left.
23
Traffic was bad, seemingly snarled up all over south London. Darren ended up in a long queue on the road that ran to the prison, shunting forward one car at a time, first gear, second gear. An ambulance passed him at speed, a jangle of noise bearing down on the gates of Roeh
ampton.
He saw the TV vans and the crowd of reporters when he was eight cars away from the gates; the hatchbacks of the journalists parked up high on the opposite verge. They were reporting on Olivia, filling in the wait for police confirmation on the South Downs bones with speculation and gruesome rehashing of the events of ten years ago. The queue inched forward. Ten years fell away as he remembered the reporters who were often outside his house in Brighton back then, swarming forward as Dad parked the car. Darren had moved past their large bellies and recording equipment then, sometimes with his face squashed next to his mother’s skirt, at other times his hand gripped like a vice by his nan. Later some of them came in the house as his mum gave interviews, the strange smell of their aftershave and cigarettes lingering in the hall.
The crowd here was large, thirty people at least. Panic enveloped him. Some of those men and women would be the same ones as ten years ago – back on a case that was never solved, the ones who wrote the books, who sold his family’s pain for money. And they would recognise him as he drove slowly through the gates. It was their job to question and to enquire and they would know who he was, and they would wonder what the hell was happening.
Darren slammed the car into reverse and backed up to the bumper behind him. He signalled to turn out of the queue, hoping he was still too far away from the gates for anyone to see him. A car two in front of him was doing the same, hurriedly reversing to do an awkward five-point turn in the street and head away. Darren watched until the old Ford Fiesta was clear so he could complete his manoeuvre. The Fiesta’s driver was the young befriender who had been waiting to visit Olivia. Darren watched as he drove away at speed. He didn’t want to be seen by the reporters, just as Darren didn’t.
A car far back in the queue honked. The traffic was speeding up, the obstruction further ahead cleared. Darren put up an ‘indulge me’ hand and did a three-point turn in the road, seeing the heads of the reporters turning his way. As he accelerated away he saw Helen, three cars back, staring at him as he went past.