Dangerous Minds

by Priscilla Masters

  SEVEN

  Friday, 12 September, 8.30 a.m.

  The next day she was inspired and went straight up to his room.

  She took his hand, met his eyes. ‘David,’ she said, and almost flinched at his dead eyes. ‘Your father knew the burnt bread was your fault, didn’t he?’

  He nodded, head down.

  ‘He probably knew he would be shot.’

  Again that hanging of the head. Shame.

  She pressed on. ‘He died so that you could live – not die yourself. He wanted you to live through the war, bear testimony, marry, have children. Maybe he even hoped for a grandson like …?’

  ‘Ephraim,’ he supplied. ‘The same name as my father’s.’

  She nodded. ‘David,’ she said, ‘if you kill yourself now, you betray your father’s belief in you. If you die nearly seventy years later, Hitler and the Nazi Party will have finally won.’

  He didn’t respond straight away but stared out of the window, ingesting her words. And then, without turning back to her, he spoke. ‘You’re a very clever girl,’ he said; then, turning to face her, she saw a flicker in his eyes. ‘Sure you’re not Jewish?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘You have planted good seeds in my head. But Claire …’ There was something else in his eyes now; something which made him ache and her afraid. ‘They are still out there.’

  Her mouth felt dry. She couldn’t ask the question: Who? Because he opened the card which had lain on the table by their side. And she saw the swastika, the black spider, and knew someone had sent this. David Gad was watching her read the words.

  We are still here.

  It was so clever, so cruel, so malicious. Was she seeing him behind every bush, every tree? It could not possibly be Jerome Barclay. It must be someone else.

  David Gad’s face was grave. Then he managed a smile. ‘And now …’ He met her eyes without fear or any sign of intimidation. ‘Now I must think. Now I must plan.’

  She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Families are important, David,’ she said. ‘They are our balm.’ She paused. ‘You have survived. Your father wanted you to carry on the line. Ephraim is a fine boy,’ she said, and again she saw that smile, stiff and rusty through lack of use, but unmistakably warm.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He is.’

  She left him then to his thoughts, but carried the phrase with her as she left the room. Families are important.

  As she walked down the corridor, she caught a glimpse of bright September sunshine. For once she actually felt she’d achieved something in her day’s work. She believed she’d found the key to unlock David’s death wish. The question was, did she now dare to discharge him?

  Or would his next attempt be his last?

  She did not have time to ponder the point. Recalling Siona’s words, she made Hayley Price her next priority.

  She hadn’t liked the girl from the start. A sly little thing, she’d thought. Sly and deceitful, mistrusting the vapid blue eyes, the hair – goodness knew what colour it really was, straggly bleached and dyed purple with bits of blue – and the numerous amateur tattoos and body piercings. Her history was poor. She had been born the daughter of a heroin addict. Father baldly stated as ‘unknown’. She had been fostered from two days old but, even as an infant, had rarely fitted in. Subsequently Hayley had been passed from pillar to post, ending up in a small children’s home in Hanley.

  The Rookery had fewer than twenty inmates at any one time and the children there were entertained and well cared for. But young Hayley had the blood of a tearaway and by the age of eleven she had found drugs of her own. The trouble was that in many ways there is no such thing as ‘recreational’ drugs. Claire disliked the phrase. It sanitized them, made them sound fun. Harmless when they are no such thing. The truth is they interfere with the mind. And so Hayley had turned from a truculent, difficult teenager into a disturbed and troubled young woman with a complete lack of self-esteem and an abnormal attitude to food. She sometimes claimed she had conquered appetite. That she didn’t need food. But it wasn’t the anorexics’ desire to look slimmer. There was no vanity there. She had simply lost the desire to eat. Trying to get her to even manage an intake of 1,000 calories a day – what most of us would consider a slimming diet – was like trying to coax a toddler to eat his meat or his greens. The food would go round and round in her mouth and Hayley would try everything she could to spit it out surreptitiously. She would tuck it in her cheek for minutes and at the first opportunity it would be in a flowerpot or out of the window or deposited under the sheet if she was in bed or behind a cushion if she was in a chair. She would do everything she could to avoid swallowing because then she would have to vomit it up which was a) a bit more difficult and b) a bit more uncomfortable.

  This was how she dealt with every single morsel of food.

  She had no family and no one to care for her apart from her social workers. Her only known relative, her heroin-addict mother, had gone the way of her kind – dying from an inhalation of vomit before reaching her thirtieth birthday.

  Frustratingly, Claire knew perfectly well that Hayley was not stupid. In fact she had above-average intelligence. She could easily have managed a university degree, perhaps in the Arts. In spite of the dreadful hair, she had a knack for colour and – in some of the art classes run by the Occupational Therapy Centre – had produced some excellent drawings. But who was going to encourage, support and finance Hayley through this? Also, with the terrible L-O-V-E/H-A-T-E tattoos, various ex-boyfriends’ names which had been blurred in a vain attempt to scrub them out, the scarring and piercings of nose, upper lip, eyebrows, who was going to give her a job? She was hardly going to be the front desk girl for some major company or organization.

  Her background screamed at you.

  So what was her future – if she survived? Right now she was teetering on the edge. Her liver, heart, lungs and kidneys were all struggling without nutrition. At fourteen years old she had the porous osteoporotic bones of an unhealthy seventy year old. Her exercise tolerance was nil.

  And so, as she approached the girl’s room, Claire felt frustrated. She could go so far and no farther. She was not a wizard.

  Hayley gave her ‘a look’ as she entered. Claire could see that, contrary to Siona’s overoptimistic statement, the girl had actually lost even more weight, and soon they would have to make decisions. They disliked tube-feeding their patients. It might bypass the immediate problem but did nothing to deal with the underlying issues. The trouble was that Hayley was not going to share those underlying issues. It was possible she wasn’t really aware of them herself. Hayley might not lack intelligence but she did lack insight.

  And there was something in the girl’s eyes, as though she had read what was in Claire’s mind as she had walked towards her down the corridor. It was as though she had seen the hopelessness of her future.

  She knew that Claire had nothing to offer her. No happy pills. No great future. No stable happy relationships. The only tiny silver lining Claire could even conjure up was that at least Hayley didn’t have a series of manipulative, unsuitable relationships behind her. There was no ‘boyfriend’ pimping her around. And also, surprisingly, Hayley had been clean for months. She didn’t ‘do’ drugs any more. Probably because most of them had to be ingested. She might be clean but it wasn’t much of a silver lining.

  Claire sat on the edge of Hayley’s bed. The girl was looking pinched and tired. Both she and Claire knew that she was heading towards readmission to a general hospital, tube and i/v feeding. It was that or death. It wasn’t a great choice for a fourteen year old.

  She met the girl’s eyes. ‘How are you?’ she asked shortly. It was formulaic. She’d never once known Hayley admit the truth.

  She was in for a surprise. Hayley looked straight back at her. ‘Not good,’ she said.

  Claire’s ears pricked up. She tried not to show she was startled by the response.

  The girl put a weary hand up. ‘Don�
��t tell me to bloody eat. My friend tells me I do not need to.’

  Claire tucked the phrase away for future discussion. Who was this friend who was trying to kill her? But she had the feeling Hayley would not tell her – either because she did not want to or because there was no friend. The friend was herself. She had no other.

  For the time being she focused on questions she thought Hayley would answer. She gave the girl a chummy smile. ‘So how did you fool Siona that you’d gained weight?’

  ‘Drank a load of water,’ Hayley replied, smiling like a mischievous elf.

  Hayley had been Claire’s patient off and on for almost three years – ever since she had been a stubborn eleven year old. Claire had watched as the tattoos had bloomed and the piercings multiplied. She had watched the stubborn child morph into an adult who always felt like she was going nowhere. But she had never mentioned this ‘friend’ before and no one ever visited her. So was Hayley becoming psychotic? Hearing voices which forbade her to eat? If so, it was a worrying progression.

  ‘OK,’ Claire responded steadily, ‘I won’t tell you to bloody eat if you’ll tell me who this friend is.’

  As expected, Hayley simply pressed her lips together. Claire would have to be a little more subtle. ‘Did the friend say why?’

  Alerted, Hayley started then frowned. She started on the You’re the psychiatrist line but stopped herself.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s because I have a death wish.’

  ‘OK, well that’s a start,’ Claire said. Then, ‘Why? And what can I do to replace it with a life wish?’

  Hayley managed a watery weak smile. ‘Maybe it isn’t up to you,’ she said.

  The words were unspoken but hovered between them.

  Then who is it up to, Hayley?

  She was not going to get an answer, although the obvious answer was: Me.

  It struck Claire then that Hayley’s teeth were bright white, regular and even. The girl had never worn a brace as far as she knew. Ergo she must have been born and blessed with good dentition, because constant vomiting with the reflux of gastric acid usually played havoc with the teeth. That and the two fingers down the throat which pushed them out. And Hayley would not have had access to an orthodontist.

  It was something on the girl’s side but not enough.

  ‘You’re good at art,’ she said.

  Hayley’s lips drew back. ‘Oh per-lease,’ she said. ‘And where’s that going to get me?’

  Claire bowed her head. Hayley was right. Not very far.

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to do?’

  ‘Yeah. Like be a supermodel.’

  It could be so hard to connect with these girls.

  But – was this a clue? Was body image behind this destructive behaviour? It was worth pursuing. ‘So is that why …?’

  Hayley shut this one down. ‘Not really.’

  It struck Claire then that her patient was too weary to fight, argue or even talk.

  The friend was winning. What she prayed was that the friend was something in Hayley’s imagination. Not a physical presence. Please – not Jerome.

  She drew in a long deep breath. Something had to be done but the girl shook her head. ‘Don’t send me to hospital. Please, Claire, don’t send me in.’

  Claire hesitated. If she didn’t admit Hayley, there was every likelihood the child would die. The girl was not mad. She had – the magic word – capacity. She could make rational decisions.

  Claire waited and Hayley chipped in again. ‘You can’t give me a life,’ she said. ‘You can’t give me a future.’

  ‘And can your friend?’

  Hayley closed her eyes wearily. ‘At least he stops me struggling.’

  Claire moved her hands apart in an encompassing movement. ‘But Hayley, you’re young. You deserve a future. Boyfriends. College. Fun. Socializing,’ she appealed.

  Hayley simply shook her head. ‘Not for me.’

  Claire left her room feeling depressed. Her biggest fear was that Jerome Barclay was poisoning this vulnerable girl’s mind. Don’t be silly, Claire, she said to herself. Stop seeing him everywhere. How would he gain access to Hayley? How would he inveigle himself and pretend to be her friend? Does Barclay have magical powers?

  But her self-lecture failed to cheer her up. Ahead lay case conferences, decisions. But in the end Hayley Price was right.

  A future? Maybe not for her. Hayley never would have anything.

  And so days passed.

  EIGHT

  Wednesday, 17 September, 2 p.m.

  The day was taken up with overbooked clinics and an extended ward round which, as always, took twice as long as it should have done. She was currently teaching a group of fourth-year medical students from The Royal Stoke University Hospital, trying to encourage them to understand the blurred variations and presentations of mental illness. They were keen and attentive and asked lots of questions, hence the extra time taken, but scanning their bright eyes and eager attitude, she felt it was justified. Time well spent. An investment into their future patients. They always cheered her, these embryonic doctors.

  Leaving the hospital that night she felt happy and fulfilled.

  It was past seven when she arrived home. The telephone was ringing even as she put her key in the door. Leaving the front door wide open she picked it up. Hopeful. Perhaps it was Grant – ready to talk at last.

  It wasn’t. She recognized Jerome’s voice at once. He’d waited a few days before ringing again.

  ‘Claire,’ he said in a voice soft as suede, ‘I wondered if you wanted a room booking at the hotel after the wedding?’

  He couldn’t leave her alone, could he? She was his professional audience. She recalled one of Heidi Faro’s lectures she had attended eons ago. ‘The strange thing,’ she had said, shaking her shining hair self-consciously, ‘about narcissistic personality disorder is that however dangerous it might prove, they always want an audience. They want applause. They can’t do without it. Even though it may put them at risk, they will want you to applaud their cleverness. Interestingly this need supersedes their instinct for self-protection. However, as they believe they can outwit everyone, they don’t really think they will get found out. They think they’re safe. Because they are the clever ones.’

  Claire jerked the memory away, alerted to the fact that Barclay was speaking. ‘Double or a single?’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘I – we – shan’t be staying.’

  ‘Oh. That’s a shame. But you are still coming to the wedding?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. I shall look forward to meeting up with you again.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ve missed our little chats since you discharged me. It’ll be fun to catch up.’

  She couldn’t respond to this, nor to his next words, which were spoken so softly she wondered afterwards if she had imagined them.

  ‘The hungry child,’ he said. ‘The doomed homeless man. The haunted Jew, the dangerous butterfly and the stupid clever.’

  And before she could respond, he had put the phone down with a quiet chuckle.

  Claire reached for pen and paper. She needed to write these down before she forgot them. The hungry child. Hayley? Hayley, who had a friend who told her she did not need to eat.

  The haunted Jew. David Gad who was sent a card with a swastika on.

  The stupid clever. Dexter. Stupid. Was he really also clever?

  Her patients.

  Then she wrote down two other phrases which described others of her patients. The doomed homeless man. Stan Moudel?

  The expensive butterfly. Could that possibly describe Maylene Forsyte, a patient with a histrionic personality disorder whose behaviour was destroying her husband, Derek? Was Barclay orchestrating more of her patients’ lives? If so, she feared for their prognoses. Her throat felt tight with apprehension.

  She sank down on to the bottom step of the stairs as she tried to think this through, rationally. How did he know these patients and their diagnoses
? How did he know her private telephone number? How did he know where she lived? How did he know she was now living alone? He didn’t have supernatural powers. He didn’t. The only solution she came up with was a member of staff.

  But, more sinisterly, what was behind it? Why was he spying on her? What was he planning with this elaborate scenario he was building up? What was in his rotten mind?

  She was too disturbed to stay in, alone, and it was only half past seven. She couldn’t face a long, troubled evening. She needed to escape. She had membership of a local gym, though she hated the place, and while Grant had been at home she had rarely attended. She’d almost cancelled her membership but in the end had never got around to it.

  Perhaps that was a good thing. It was an option. And a better option than sitting here alone, ruminating, worrying and wondering. Barclay was not supernatural. So how did he know these details about her current caseload?

  She packed her bag, trainers, swimsuit and headed off.

  NINE

  Saturday, 20 September, 9 a.m.

  She hadn’t meant to go in to Greatbach over the weekend. Her instinct was to avoid the place. It was her weekend off. She was heading down to Birmingham later to visit a friend and then they planned to see a ballet at the theatre but, as she locked up the house, she realized she would be far too early. She passed the unit anyway, she reasoned. She would just pop in to see if there were any problems.

  The unit was ominously quiet as she crossed the empty quadrangle, the shadows long, bending towards autumn then winter. In winter the sun hardly reached the area at all. It couldn’t peep over the high walls so remained outside, leaving the quadrangle damp and chilly until spring lifted its rays again. Being the weekend, the numbers of inpatients were depleted. Many of them would be home on weekend leave, and consequently quite a few staff were also able to have their weekends off. The kitchens and cleaners were down to skeleton staff too, so at weekends Greatbach could feel underpopulated, like Stoke during Potters’ Fortnight.

  She approached the ward cautiously, aware of an eerie silence wafting along the empty corridors like a chilly vapour. Sometimes, at quiet times like this, she fancied she could hear the whispers of patients long since gone, the ones she had read about in the records. She heard their shrieks and sobs and hopeless screams, felt their desperation to get out, to escape. The corridors windows were high, giving only a view of the tops of the trees, and through them the sky, which was full of tumbling grey rain clouds that threatened to dump a good soaking later on. The car park was almost empty, quite unlike a weekday when it could be hard to find a parking space. The old days of protected parking spaces for consultants and senior staff were long gone. As she parked she saw in her rear-view mirror a black Volvo estate pull up behind her, driver concealed behind glinting glass. She didn’t recognize the car. Maybe a visitor, she thought as she locked her doors and made her way towards the entry, glancing back only once. Maybe not a visitor. The driver remained inside, still hidden.