Tower of Silence

by Sarah Rayne

  Delight welled up–she had forgotten how fiercely good it was to feel like this–and this time it was all her own delight and all her own excitement, because that unreliable bitch Christabel had not played any part in this.

  When the warder came along to wake people, rapping on the doors and sliding back the spyholes, Mary got up as usual. She washed and dressed in the ugly white-tiled showers, and then she ate breakfast in the dining room just as if it was an ordinary day. Early morning would not be a good time to set the plan in motion; there were too many people coming and going: change-overs of shifts, breakfasts being prepared for staff and inmates. She would wait for the before-lunch period, when it was generally a bit quiet.

  She was scheduled to attend a group therapy session at ten o’clock–something boring and utterly futile about expressing your emotions through photography, and if Flasher Logan was part of the group it would give the therapist a bit of a shock because everyone knew what emotions the Flasher liked expressing–but she asked if she could be excused from it.

  ‘I feel sick,’ she said to the on-duty warder.

  ‘How sick? D’you need an infirmary check?’

  ‘Oh, not that sick,’ said Mary. ‘I think it was the kedgeree at breakfast. I’ll just lie flat for a while in my room. I can do that, can’t I?’

  ‘I’ll get you some magnesia or something,’ said the warder, completely unsuspicious, and within half an hour Mary was left on her own in her room. The warder would check back in a hour, she said. Would Mary be all right for an hour?

  ‘Yes, I’ll just lie quietly. Thanks for the magnesia.’

  OK, the foundations had been laid. Now to the practicalities. She had one hour.

  Anyone who had been inside any kind of institution for more than a couple of months knew how easy it was to induce a bout of vomiting in order to be carted off to the infirmary wing for a couple of days. You sneaked a packet of salt or a tin of mustard from the kitchens–bribing or threatening one of the kitchen workers if necessary–and then you drank down two or three pints of heavily salted, or mustard-laden, water. Or you did what the bulimics did; you learned how to jab a finger at the back of your throat or use the end of a feather from your pillow to make yourself retch. Mary would use this last method, because she was not going to trust anyone with even a fragment of her plan.

  The being-sick part would be relatively easy, but she had had to think quite hard to sort out the next part of the plan, which was to get blood–as much blood as possible–into the vomit, so that they would not just think she was suffering from a brief bilious attack. At the Young Offenders’ Hostel the girls had sometimes put menstrual blood in the vomit, which looked very convincing, but Mary had not had a menstrual period for over a year, and in any case, this had to be done now.

  None of the inmates were allowed scissors or knives, of course, and nor were they allowed nail files or needles or tweezers. Nothing that could be broken to create a sharp edge was allowed in any of the rooms. Two photographs were permitted, but the frames and covers had to be plastic or perspex. The rooms and lockers were all searched once a week, on random days. Mary had already realised, rather grudgingly, that Moy’s security was very good indeed. Even combs were plastic rather than metal, and the mirrors over the washbasins were fixed so firmly to the wall that it would have taken an electric drill to get them off.

  And then she had it. The under-wiring from a bra. Unpicking the seam was awkward but she used her teeth and her nails, and in the end she managed to draw out the semicircle of thin springy wire. She had put it in the little plastic wastebin, so that even if there was a spot-search of her room while she was at breakfast it would look as if the thing had snapped and Mary had put it to be thrown out.

  But it was all right; no one had been in, and the wire was still there. Keeping her ears alert, she finally managed to snap the wire halfway along. It was quite difficult because each end was padded, but she did it. Now for the unpleasant part.

  She used the finger-down-throat method, and after several attempts she was sick in the washbasin in the corner. She managed to let some of it go onto the floor. So far so good. Still listening intently for footsteps coming along the corridor outside, she dug the jagged end hard into the fleshy part of her underarm, holding it over the washbasin as she did it.

  This took three attempts–it was harder than you realised to inflict real hurt on yourself–but Mary set her teeth doggedly and jabbed the wire deep into the wound twice more, until the blood really flowed. Drip-drip into the smeary washbasin. Horrid. But necessary. And there was quite a lot of blood now. She made sure that some dripped into the little scooped-out part for the soap where it would not dry out.

  They would realise what she had done at some point, of course, but they would not suspect anything for quite a while, because she had no history of this kind of deception. She had been a model prisoner, really. Anyway, providing nobody found the bra-wire until she was out of their reach, it did not matter. She pressed a wadded handkerchief against the wound to stop the bleeding, and then bound her arm up with strips of a cotton pillowcase. It was still bleeding quite a lot so she pulled two thick sweaters on, in case it bled through the bandage.

  Her timing was absolutely dead-on. She had just finished hiding the broken wire under her bed when she heard the warder coming along the corridor again. Mary scooped up the still-wet blood from the soap dish and smeared it inside her mouth and over her chin. In the oblong of mirror and in the dull morning light it looked pretty fearsome, but it looked extremely convincing. She slumped against the washbasin, and waited for the warder to reach her door.

  When she heard the sound of the key being turned, she called out in a shaky and frightened voice, ‘Please, I need help…I need a doctor. I’ve been dreadfully sick. And there’s blood in it–quite a lot of blood.’

  The infirmary was a brightly lit, antiseptic-smelling place. Mary was not allowed to walk there; two of the warders brought a wheelchair and a blanket, and they even brought a stainless steel kidney-dish in case she was sick again on the way. If only.

  The warders wheeled her into a little examination cubicle off the main ward. There was a glass panel set into the door leading onto the corridor, and there was another glass panel in the wall looking out over the ward, but Mary saw that despite this it would be fairly easy to stay out of sight. Several of the infirmary beds were occupied, but from the look of it nobody was paying much attention to what was happening in here.

  The doctor who came in was a large four-square female with a no-nonsense haircut and a brisk manner. She said, ‘Onto the bed, please,’ and Mary had a moment of panic, because surely the warders would not have to stay in here while the doctor examined her? But the doctor was nodding dismissively to the two warders, and both of them went back into the corridor. Mary watched them through the glass panel, and saw that one returned to the wing but that the other remained outside the door. Damn. But to be expected, really.

  ‘Any pain?’ said the doctor as Mary clambered onto the examination couch, doing so awkwardly as if it hurt her to move.

  ‘Yes. Stomach. Quite bad. But I don’t want people fussing around me—’

  ‘We don’t fuss around anyone in here.’

  Mary waited until the brisk doctor turned away to pull on the thin surgical gloves, preparatory to making an examination, and then sprang up from the bed in one swift movement, and brought the kidney dish smashing down on the woman’s skull. The dish was not as heavy as she would have liked but improvisation was the name of the game, and even if it did not actually knock the doctor out it would surely be enough to daze her.

  She was right. The doctor staggered back, one hand groping instinctively for the alarm button set into the wall. Mary lifted the stainless steel dish again, and dealt a second blow, and this time the woman slumped to the floor. Mary sent a quick look through the glass panel. Had anyone noticed? No. How about the door? No, the remaining warder was still there, still staring into space. Deal w
ith her in a minute.

  She knelt on the floor and curled her hands around the doctor’s flabby neck. She would have liked to stab the creature–stabbing was satisfying–but it was important not to get blood anywhere, and speed was of the essence now. Strangling would be fine–even half strangling would give her the time she wanted. She had not actually strangled before, so it would be a new thing to try. It was slightly annoying that the first time she tried it she was hampered by having an injured arm.

  But even with the injury it was easy. It was far easier than she had thought. Yes, but you’re protected and guided, Mary, remember…? She thought there was a whisper from Christabel at that point, and then she thought it was not Christabel at all, but her own mind. But when she straightened up from the inert body of the doctor there was a moment when she saw, as she had seen on the night she cut off Darren Clark’s penis, a shadowy ghost-outline watching her. Christabel? Her heart lurched and then resumed its normal pace, because of course it was not Christabel, the faithless bitch-cunt, it was Mary’s own reflection she was seeing. Still, it was a reminder that she needed to move quickly.

  She had expected to have to drag off the doctor’s white coat at this stage, but in fact there were a couple of the coats hanging behind the door of the examination cubicle, and so Mary simply reached up and took one. Her arm was throbbing quite painfully now, and it felt as if it was bleeding through the handkerchief as well. She opened several drawers and in the fourth one found packs of surgical dressings. Good! She put two into the pocket of the white coat for later, and then she was ready. No–a couple more things to do. She wrapped a crêpe bandage around her right wrist, making sure that it was visible beneath her cuff, and dropped a further bandage in her other pocket. Then she bent over the doctor once more–she thought the woman was not quite dead, but she was unconscious which was all that mattered–and removed the spectacles. When she put them on they distorted her vision, but she could let them slip down her nose a bit and peer over the top to see. They altered her appearance quite a lot. Last of all she took the bunch of keys from the unconscious doctor’s belt.

  She walked across to the door, to where the warder was still stationed outside, stupid slab-faced creature, and opened it. The warder half turned and saw Mary, and Mary saw the confusion and bewilderment in her face. Before the creature could work out what had happened she lifted the stainless steel dish yet again, and although the warder made a swift instinctive gesture of defence Mary was too quick for her. This time she used both hands and the blow was heavier and better. There was a satisfying bone-bruising sound as she crunched the dish’s edge hard against the woman’s skull, and the woman dropped to the ground with barely a grunt. Good. Getting better at this. It was a shame there was not time to actually kill this one–there were several methods Mary had not tried yet–but at any minute someone might come along, and she could not risk that. With a swift look up and down the empty corridor, she dragged the stupid creature into the cubicle, and to delay her from raising the alarm she pushed one of the wadded crêpe bandages into her mouth. It might in fact suffocate her–she was lying on her back, so there was quite a good chance. Mary pushed it as hard in as she could.

  It was this next part that would be really nerve-racking. She set off along the corridor, forcing herself to be calm, because this was where she needed coolness. Panache.

  She was counting heavily on the fact that she had not been at Moy for long enough for all of the warders and doctors and attendants to recognise her. She had certainly never been in the infirmary wing. But despite the dangers her heart was thumping with excitement because this was new territory, just as strangling had been new territory. Just as she had never strangled anyone before, she had never tried to escape before either.

  It seemed that the luck was staying with her. She had only the sketchiest idea of Moy’s layout and she dared not go anywhere near her own D wing, but she had noted the way here very carefully, and if she could get to the central section without being challenged—

  It worked like a charm. It worked as if the plan had been oiled and polished, and smoothed to a seamless finish. The white coat and the spectacles had been a stroke of genius; no one questioned her as she walked confidently through the corridors and most of the warders hardly gave her a second glance. She was just another doctor going along to see a patient or attend a group therapy session.

  The infirmary wing joined the main central portion of Moy’s cluster of buildings by means of a small guardhouse that gave onto a courtyard. Beyond the courtyard Mary could see other guardhouses, each one manned by a warder, each one the entrance to one of Moy’s other wings. She paused unhurriedly at the guardhouse and held out the keys, making sure to let the warder see her bandaged wrist.

  ‘Hi–I’m Dr Brooker’s new assistant.’ Dr Brooker had been the name clipped to the breast pocket of the doctor she had strangled. ‘I’m needing to fetch some case notes from her car for her, is that OK?’ Had that sounded casual enough? Modern enough? You got out of the way of modern expressions when you had lived inside institutions for so many years. And what if she had got the car-parking arrangement wrong? She said, ‘I haven’t been here very long, so I don’t know all the procedures yet.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said the warder, glancing up. ‘I expect she’s parked on the Bell Tower car park–she usually parks there.’

  ‘Yes, she is,’ said Mary, picking this up at once. ‘Uh–could you do the unlocking for me, d’you think? I’ve sprained my wrist, and it’s awkward to turn these big keys.’ She held out the bunch of keys to him. See? said her mind. I really am who I’m saying I am. And my wrist is bandaged.

  ‘No problem,’ said the man. ‘But you’ll be quicker to go through the east gate, you know.’

  Mary gave him her best smile. ‘I told you I was still getting used to this place,’ she said. ‘It’s an absolute maze, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll walk you across,’ he said. ‘Don’t want you getting lost.’

  ‘I should think not! I’d never live that one down, would I?’

  They chatted quite companionably about the weather as they went across the inner courtyard, and as the man unlocked Moy’s great outer door. He even sketched a little mock-salute as Mary went through.

  Ten minutes later she was standing on the Bell Tower car park, and Moy’s bulk was behind her, and she was out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Patrick had spent most of the hours since Mary’s escape was discovered in helping to organise search parties.

  Stornforth police were in command of the actual search–‘We couldn’t have coped by ourselves,’ Don Frost had said–and the area around Moy had been divided into sections, with some of the men assigned house-to-house investigations and questionings. But there was still a lot for the staff to sort out in addition to the search. There were press releases to prepare, and various governmental departments to contact. Radio and television stations would carry the story with their early evening news programmes, and up-to-date photographs of Mary were being photocopied. This last was very important indeed, said the chief superintendent from Stornforth. Mention the name Mary Maskelyne, and most of the population instantly visualised that famous Sixties shot, but at least 95 per cent of people would not recognise Mary as she looked now, said the superintendent ponderously. Mid forties, ordinary and unremarkable.

  Ordinary, thought Patrick going back to his own office. She would never be ordinary, that one. Yes, but she could don ordinariness at will, almost like a cloak, and she could pass unnoticed in a crowd if she wanted to.

  ‘And by anybody’s reckoning it’s five, if not six, hours since she got out,’ he said to Don. ‘They took her to the infirmary shortly after ten this morning, and it wasn’t until nearly midday that they found poor old Brooker’s body.’

  ‘I know.’ Don sat down in the chair facing Patrick’s desk.

  ‘Is that warder all right? The one she knocked out?’

  ‘Dazed and a bit concuss
ed, but they say she’ll recover.’

  ‘That’s something, I suppose.’ Patrick glanced at the darkness beyond his office windows. It was almost five o’clock. ‘Maskelyne could be halfway to anywhere by this time,’ he said.

  ‘We had to search Moy before we gave the main alarm and called in the police,’ said Don defensively. ‘We had to be sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere.’

  ‘Don, I’m not criticising anyone,’ said Patrick, who wasn’t. The probability had been that Mary was still inside Moy’s complex; it had only been when they began the systematic questioning of the staff that they had realised what had happened, and the governor-in-chief had taken the decision to sound Moy’s great bell to warn the surrounding villages. ‘But,’ Patrick went on, ‘I think we should try to work out why she escaped in the first place. That might get us one step ahead of her.’

  ‘Presumably she escaped because she wanted to be free.’

  ‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘There’s more to it than that. Think about it, Don. She’s been shut away for more than thirty years, and she’s never tried to escape before. Not from any of the institutions where she’s been. Exemplary behaviour, day to day.’

  ‘Except for the small matter of killing two people in Broadacre, and a question mark over that matron’s death in the Young Offenders’ Hostel,’ observed Don, and Patrick caught the faintly caustic note that Don’s daughter occasionally used.

  ‘You’re such an old cynic,’ he said, and Don grinned rather half-heartedly. ‘But listen now, my point is that Maskelyne has got more than enough intelligence to have concocted a reasonably workable escape plan long before this. Moy’s security system is very good, but no security system in the world is foolproof. Well, maybe Devil’s Island or Alcatraz might be. But Broadacre wasn’t nearly as good as Moy, and the youth place was laughable from the security angle. So, why did she never try to escape from either of those places?’