I was feeling particularly victorious about pushing for what I needed, when I heard my name echo across C Wing. There was only one woman in the whole of the prison who had a set of lungs on her like that.
‘Hello!’ I greeted Governor Frake, my voice rising an octave from nerves. She waited for me to draw closer. It was ridiculous that I was still intimidated by her presence, but I couldn’t help it.
‘Hello, Doctor Brown,’ she said. ‘I want a word with you.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘Doc,’ Frake said, almost shyly, ‘I’ve got a favour to ask.’
I wondered what on earth the head of Security would need my help with.
She lowered her voice. ‘I’ve been awarded an MBE.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful news! Congratulations!’ I was truly delighted for her, and not the slightest bit surprised. Governor Frake had turned the Scrubs into one of the most secure prisons in the UK, and for a woman to work her way up to such a high position, in a predominantly man’s world, as it was back then, was a great achievement and definitely worthy of such recognition.
I was thrilled and full of admiration for her.
‘Thanks,’ she replied. ‘It’s just I’ve got nothing to wear to meet the Queen! I don’t own a single dress, never have. I look ridiculous in them. So I’m going to need a smart suit, but have no idea where to buy one.’ She looked especially sheepish. ‘I just wondered if you might know where to try.’
I was taken aback. The thought of going shopping with the mighty governor was a bit surreal!
‘You always look smart and professional, and I thought you would be the best person to ask for advice!’ she said.
‘Of course I’ll help!’ I said, ridiculously excited at the prospect.
It was a slow process, but little by little I was feeling accepted as one of the overall team, rather than just as one of the doctors.
But this came at a cost. Bit by bit I was also feeling more estranged from the world I lived in.
*
Every summer, an ex-colleague of mine called Peter held a magnificent garden party in the grounds of his beautiful house in Bucklebury.
He was a very successful orthopaedic surgeon, whom I had known for many years. We had first met in 1980 when we were doing our surgical house jobs together.
Anyone who was anyone in the community was invited, as well as many of his current and ex-colleagues. It was a chance to exchange stories and, for a cringe-inducing few, the opportunity to brag about money or how well their children were doing.
It was a beautiful day, and I should have been excited about the change of scene from the grime of the prison. But for some reason I was feeling apprehensive as David and I pulled into the car park in the paddock.
‘What’s that face for?’ David asked.
I sighed. ‘I feel exhausted and can’t be bothered to make an effort.’
‘Come on, we don’t have to stay long,’ he said.
Peter was a good friend, and I really appreciated the fact that he invited us to his party every year. He always made me feel welcome, despite the fact that my job was definitely not as glamorous, nor as prestigious, as those of most of the other guests. A lot of people simply couldn’t understand why I would want to surround myself with criminals when I could still be working as a community GP. They struggled to see the value in what I was doing, and I found that upsetting and hurtful.
I ruffled my hand through my hair, painted on a smile, and patted David on the knee, indicating that I was ready to enter a different sort of fray.
The lawn was full of familiar faces, a kaleidoscope of colour and stunning designer outfits.
I looped arms with David, and we made a beeline towards Peter, who was standing next to the champagne glass tower.
He gave us a friendly wave and beckoned us over.
I felt incredibly uncomfortable – a fish out of water – which was bizarre considering I’d spent decades mingling with these folk.
I grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, and knocked half of it back. The fizz stung my dry throat.
‘What do you have to do to get a pint around here?’ David mumbled. He was not one for champagne.
A very tall man suddenly appeared in front of us.
‘Amanda!’ he said enthusiastically.
I recognised his face, but couldn’t quite remember his name. Luckily, he saved me the embarrassment.
‘Graham,’ he said, holding his hand out to shake David’s.
I’d met Graham at Peter’s previous summer party; he was professor of something or other at a nearby teaching hospital.
I smiled, politely. ‘Lovely to see you again.’
Before either David or I could say anything, Graham began telling us all about his children. A daughter who had read Economics at Oxford and was now working in the city; a son with a first-class honours degree in . . .
My mind wandered off. I began to feel slightly queasy. I really didn’t belong there.
David bravely interrupted Graham with a comment about Wimbledon, only to have Graham bring the conversation back around to himself.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, throwing his head back and laughing. ‘I used to play tennis for the first team at Guy’s, back in the good old student days!’
I really couldn’t stomach much more of this.
We managed to sidle away from Graham, and David found some friends that he’d been sailing with . . . but I felt strangely empty and lonely as I realised that I simply didn’t belong in this world any more. More importantly, I didn’t want to. I just wanted to go home.
I whispered into David’s ear, ‘I can’t be doing with this any more.’
My values were changing, and my heart was clearly in another place. This old life felt shallow and empty.
*
‘Is this your first time in prison?’ I asked, making my way down the list of questions I asked all the new prisoners.
It was late, close to 10 p.m. Everyone looked tired, but David West’s weathered appearance told another story.
‘Yes,’ he replied, calmly.
So calmly. I glanced up from my screen.
He immediately struck me as different.
He was casually dressed, with messy, sandy-coloured hair, unshaven. At a glance he looked like many of the homeless people I had met, but his demeanour was one of a man of wealth.
He was unnaturally calm for someone who hadn’t been in prison before. I wondered if he was in shock, but as I looked into his grey-blue eyes I didn’t see fear or panic. If I wasn’t mistaken, I saw relief.
I felt compelled to find out more about him.
‘Are you on remand?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, in his unhurried, unflustered manner. ‘I’ve been charged with murder.’
For some reason the nurses had failed to warn me. I stopped tapping my keys and sunk into the back of my chair, giving David my full attention. I sensed that he was keen to explain why he had committed such a dreadful crime, and that he wanted to talk about it, otherwise he would not have mentioned it.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ I asked gently.
I wondered if this was how priests felt when they were taking confession.
He closed his eyes for a moment, reliving the memory.
‘I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t plan it. I was overcome with rage and just grabbed a knife and . . .’ His voice became so quiet that it was hard to hear. ‘I stabbed him, I stabbed my father.’
He stared into my eyes, expecting a reaction. He didn’t get one. I wasn’t fazed by what he had admitted, and I certainly didn’t feel threatened by him. David had a gentleness. His eyes were kind. I wondered what drove a man like him to kill his own father.
‘I’d had enough,’ he continued, his voice quivering a little. ‘He’d bullied and belittled me my whole life. It had been building for years. I just . . . before I knew it, I’d killed him.’
He took a breath, but despite such a confession, rem
ained surprisingly calm. He didn’t appear mentally unbalanced, simply relieved that the years of torment were over.
I smiled sympathetically. What more could I do?
I was certain that the calmness he was exuding meant that the reality of what he had done, and where he was, hadn’t sunk in yet. There would likely be fallout further down the line, especially as he must have been facing a very long sentence for killing his father.
But for now it seemed as if he wanted to brush all of his pain under the carpet and talk about his life. We chatted as if we were friends meeting in the pub. It felt quite bizarre.
He told me that he’d always worked closely with his father and that they’d run a very successful cash and carry warehouse in Calais called Eastenders, selling cheap alcohol and cigarettes, and his father was dubbed the ‘king of the booze cruise’.
I’d been to their warehouse many years ago; David and I used to make an annual trip to stock up on wine and beer. It was slightly surreal to be sitting opposite the man we’d probably bought wine from all those years ago. He continued to tell me of how his father bullied, humiliated and controlled him, and of how he’d made him feel worthless and never good enough.
The saddest thing of all was to see how relieved David seemed to be. That being there in the Scrubs was better than the abuse he’d suffered for years.
Perhaps a lot of people could relate to a time in their life when their family, or a business partner, or a loved one, had pushed them to the brink. But few of us, I would think, have been driven to quite that sort of desperate, all-consuming need to make the aggressor stop. To finally bring the abuse to an end, whatever the cost.
My conversation with David came to an abrupt end. There was an eruption of shouting and clanging gates, as the officers hurried the last of the new prisoners to their cells.
Terry appeared at my door.
‘Locking up time, Doc!’
‘Two seconds,’ I said, buying myself a moment to check one last time that David was going to be okay. It always alarmed me when people were unnaturally calm during their first time in the nick.
‘If you need anything, the nurses will be here all night to help you,’ I reassured him.
He nodded and thanked me. Slowly, he rose to his feet, then disappeared from my room in the same unhurried manner that he had arrived, dragging behind him the plastic bag which contained all he had left from his former life.
The chances of our seeing one another again were slim. But I was glad we had met, and I hoped that he’d find peace.
Terry popped his nose around my door again.
‘Locking up time, Doc!’ he said with a big grin and extra emphasis. ‘You need to get moving.’
‘Two minutes,’ I said, bartering for extra time. Before I logged out of my computer there was something I quickly needed to check.
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Wow!’
I had been right about Abdi being very seriously ill, but was surprised to find out that he was suffering from TB meningitis. Pulmonary TB – when tuberculosis affects the lungs – was not uncommon in the Scrubs, but never, in over thirty years of medicine, had I seen a case of TB meningitis – a much more serious, life-threating disease, that causes inflammation of the membranes around the brain and the spinal cord.
The hospital report stated that he was going to require a lengthy course of treatment. He wouldn’t be returning to the Scrubs; the treatment would outlast the rest of his sentence.
I would never know if he would make a full recovery, but at least my insistence to admit him to hospital had been correct.
‘Come on, Doc!’ Terry had returned to collect me, again.
I unhooked my jacket from the back of the chair, threading my weary arms through the sleeves. I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and gave Terry the nod to lead the way. We were clocking off together, so it was nice to have a bit of company as I walked to my car.
*
I stopped at the service station for a snack. My stomach had been talking to me in low growls for hours. For some reason the air conditioning was on full blast. I buttoned my jacket and hugged myself to keep warm as I waited in the queue.
To my right were rows of chocolate bars and sweets, tempting me to add them to my late-night munchies. Above were the CCTV monitors, flashing images of the pumps on the forecourt.
The man in front of me ordered a pack of Marlboro Lights and a scratch card. We all looked liked zombies, walking around so late at night in the unforgiving strip lighting.
I paid for my sandwich and made my way back through the shop to my car, keen to get back on the road and home.
By the door there were piles of the previous day’s newspapers, bundled together with string, soon to be turned into pulp. Staring up at me, was David West’s face.
Above it read the headline – ‘Son of flamboyant self-styled “Lord” David West is charged with murder after “stabbing to death” the nightclub owner at his Mayfair home.’
I hadn’t realised that David’s father had named his son after himself. In smaller print, the newspaper detailed how David West senior, 70, had died of a single knife wound at his £2.5million home.
I considered asking the cashier if he could cut me free a copy, but I thought better of it. I didn’t need to know any more than David had told me himself. I wasn’t interested in reading about the sordid details.
Instead, I carried on walking, past the pile of papers, through the glass doors and into the night.
Chapter Twenty
‘The black or the blue?’ I asked David, waving a trouser suit in either hand.
Squinting at me, my husband croaked, ‘They look identical to me.’
‘The black one then,’ I decided, slipping the other hanger back into my wardrobe.
He rolled over while I carried on getting dressed. A flutter of nerves danced through my stomach. I sprayed a halo of perfume around my body and crept over to David, who had fallen fast asleep again. I kissed his cheek and he stirred. ‘Good luck, you’ll be fine.’
I hoped I would be. It should just have been a formality that I needed to get through, but I was so nervous. David’s words, as always, had a calming effect on me.
I listened to Classic FM all the way into London, the sound of the beautiful music soothing my soul.
Despite setting off early to beat the rush-hour traffic, it was really difficult to find a parking space. I circled several times before I found one, and with every lap my anxiety cranked up a notch. I couldn’t be late.
I stepped out into the bright sunshine, ironing the creases on my trousers with my hand, and looked up.
But that morning’s view wasn’t the towering walls of HMP Wormwood Scrubs. I was in a tree-lined street of semi-detached houses, in the affluent area of Fulham, West London.
In twenty minutes I was due to give evidence at the Coroner’s Court. Another wave of anxiety rolled through me. I had to get a move on; I’d parked miles away.
I was soon out of breath, and my heart was pounding as l looked left and right along the busy main road.
‘Come on, come on,’ I hissed at the traffic lights, impatient to cross.
I glanced at my watch again. I hated being late.
I saw a clearing in the traffic and took my chances.
I sprinted across the road, but the heel of my shoe caught in my trousers and I tripped up, falling flat onto the hard concrete.
I looked up and, to my horror, a motorcycle was zipping around the corner. I braced myself for impact, but the roaring of the engine turned to a purr as it pulled over beside me.
‘Are you okay?’ the man on the bike asked, flicking up his visor as he dismounted to help me onto my feet.
‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you’ I said, feeling deeply embarrassed. My knees and hands were throbbing as I hobbled to the side of the road.
I thanked the man for being so kind and continued on my way, trying to salvage what was left of my dignity by straightening my jacket and dusting off my trou
sers. The shock of the fall had left me feeling even more shaky and anxious. Coupled with the adrenaline from running late, I was a total bag of nerves. I checked my hands for cuts and noticed they were trembling.
‘Deep breath,’ I said to myself as I walked towards the entrance of West London Coroner’s Court.
It was an ugly red-brick building, which seemed out of place located in the middle of a quiet residential area of pretty houses.
It reminded me of the swimming baths I used to go to when I was little. An equally flustered-looking man was having a last few puffs on his cigarette on the steps. I wondered if he was a member of the deceased’s family. I gave him a nod and then pushed my way through the big black doors that led inside.
The whitewashed corridor was a hive of activity. Solicitors and barristers were milling around. Everyone was looking very serious and official, carrying files of paperwork. There was a small group of smartly dressed people hovering by the door to court one, speaking in hushed tones. I wasn’t sure who they were. Perhaps family. Or worse, journalists.
I searched the crowd for a friendly face, but she found me first.
‘Amanda!’ My boss, Karen, waved.
‘It’s been delayed by fifteen minutes.’ She noticed my flustered state. ‘You look like you could do with a coffee, are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘I just took a bit of a tumble on the way here. I have been dreading today, and hardly slept all night fretting about it.’
‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ Karen reassured me.
I was required to give evidence in court following the death of a man in Wormwood Scrubs about eighteen months previously. He had died in the FNC, and I was the only doctor who had seen him.
Suddenly the court door opened – our cue to go in.
‘It won’t take long,’ Karen said as we queued to enter.
‘I certainly hope not,’ I said. ‘I feel so anxious I can hardly think straight.’
There had been nothing remarkable about Daniel Craven’s behaviour when he had walked into Reception that night, dragging his big bag of belongings.
He was polite and friendly, but the thing I most remembered about him was that, despite looking very dishevelled, he was wearing a smart designer jacket. Somehow the two just didn’t seem to marry up.
The Prison Doctor Page 14