Knowing before anyone else who’d found Joe’s body, he’d managed to get the first interview with Maisie Matthews, a seventy-one-year-old who had been retrieving her dog’s ball from the undergrowth in a park on the edges of Sutton Coldfield.
She had screamed, but the park was isolated and no one heard. It was the dog, a mongrel, Jed, who went off to find another walker further down the path. Thankfully Maisie recovered quickly; she had a strong heart – in more ways than one – and he’d managed to speak to her that evening after Tom Gillespie’s officers had left her home.
An hour after leaving Maisie, Jonathan checked the police computer systems again and, again, knew before anyone else that Michael Hemmings had turned himself in.
He sat down on his uncomfortable office chair and stared at the whiteboard. The name Miriam Saunders, a visitor to Littleworth who had made the initial complaints that eventually led to the internal hearing and Michael Hemmings’ whistleblowing, stared back at him. He’d made a good contact with her. She trusted him. He had a lot of research to do for Littleworth and not that much time – Harry’s deadlines were piling up, as were his bills.
His interview with Sam and Bridget was tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Before he’d left to see Rachel, Miriam had called, telling him about a rumour that Michael Hemmings had received a letter in Littleworth. The letter had ‘destabilised’ him by all accounts. Miriam had found this out on a visit to her brother.
Jonathan hadn’t mentioned his investigations into Littleworth to Rachel but he was aware she knew about them, as her comment about Harry had indicated. He would share more with her when he understood more, because he was worried about her; there was something swirling around in her head. He saw it, like he’d done long ago during the Asian bride case. To the astonishment of all those involved in the case the husband had been allowed free from court with a suspended sentence, but he found himself back at the police station under charges of downloading child pornography and paying for sex with minors. He’d been nailed for that – and it had all been down to Rachel. There had been rumours about how she’d obtained the information, with William Morley being one of the ‘accusers’, although they had died down eventually.
Rachel had been determined to get the husband. One way or another.
His eyes moved back to the whiteboard and Miriam’s name. She’d also told Jonathan another nugget: that Hemmings was having a sexual relationship with one of the nurses on his ward, a Toby Abbs. The corruption at Littleworth was big, and with it he could make not only money but, more importantly, a name for himself.
In his last meet-up with Michelle, which had gone well (they really were turning into good friends), she’d been a mine of information. Information that had helped him in both his phone call to Doctor Patterson, and his initial investigations into Littleworth. He’d mentioned Rachel to her too. Michelle had articulated what he himself didn’t, even to himself. That he liked Rachel too much. Michelle knew these things, she was perceptive and honest, no nonsense. Her job suited her perfectly, she was a psychiatric nurse.
Jonathan was desperate to sleep but knew he’d be awake at three if he succumbed to the fatigue that was washing over him. His insomnia – or was it more his predilection to wake early – had been with him since he could remember. The psychiatrist he’d signed up with in his late teens, a few years before he got his first job with Harry, traced it back to his troubled childhood.
He looked towards the bedroom and the lonely double bed. He opened the door of the airing cupboard and pulled out the spare duvet and pillow. Foreseeing a restless night he made his bed on the sofa. He fell asleep thinking about Rachel.
Putting on new chinos, Jonathan made his way to the kitchen where the ‘Sam and Bridget’ assignment folder was still sitting on the table.
Making fresh but weak coffee – he’d nearly run out again – and finding a croissant, he sat at the table trying to arrange his thoughts. He’d been pissed off that Harry expected the Sam and Bridget piece so quickly but during the night, as his mind flipped over, he began to see it as an opportunity. He might find a clump of something new about the Dune/Hemmings family. He flicked through the slim folder. Nothing new in there, not really. Notes indicating that Bridget didn’t visit her son in the psychiatric hospital, but Sam did sporadically. He stuffed the rest of the stale croissant in his mouth.
He checked his watch, rotated the strap around so the blue face sat exactly in the middle of his wrist. Time to leave.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Arriving earlier than he’d anticipated, he switched the engine off and tried to relax in the uncomfortable car seat.
Harry had said Sam agreed fully to this meeting, although he hadn’t mentioned Bridget’s approval. Harry Broomsgrove’s omissions were as telling as his admissions. Jonathan looked up at their mock-Tudor home. He was halfway up the path when the front door opened.
If it were possible, Bridget Hemmings had grown even fatter, and her hair was pulled too severely from her face. The unease he’d felt in his last interview with Bridget came back, more profoundly than ever.
‘Hello, Jonathan.’ She looked at her watch. ‘On time.’
‘Always on time, Mrs Hemmings.’ He was about to shake her hand, but she kept both arms folded tightly below heavy and pendulous breasts. ‘Nice to see you again.’
‘Good to see you too, Jonathan. Come in. Sam’s here, in the kitchen. You know the way? Go straight through.’
The kitchen was homely, a few token Christmas trimmings dotted around. He’d guess that Christmas wasn’t a good time of the year in the Hemmings’ household. Sam sat at the table, hollow cheeks enclosed in reddened hands. While Bridget had grown fatter since their son’s incarceration, Sam had become thinner and frailer.
He looked up. ‘Hello, Jonathan.’
‘Hi, Sam. You remember me?’
‘Course I do. You were good to us the day you brought us home. We appreciated that. Your boss wants to do a piece on us? Fine with me, but not sure about Bridget.’ He glanced at his wife. ‘Not sure, are you, love?’
‘It might be good for Michael ...’ Jonathan said. ‘It’d put a good public spin on his forthcoming tribunal if you could give me some positive stuff about him ... you know, as a child?’
Bridget grunted.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ Jonathan said to Bridget.
She grunted again.
Sam peered at the book lying on the table. Jonathan took a quick look: Icing a Cake Properly. That was Sam and Bridget’s business. The bakery business. A lot of early mornings. And why Michael had been farmed out in the early years to Margaret Hemmings.
‘You both got on with Rachel, she tells me. Perhaps we can start there. How do you feel about an impending tribunal review for your son, and with how Rachel and Liam ... and Margaret and Alan might feel about it?’
Sam spoke first. ‘I’ve always liked Rachel, although she can come across as a bit cold sometimes, but she’s not, and these days I wouldn’t blame her.’ He paused, rubbing the image of a particularly ornate cake on the front of the book. ‘Of course, we don’t see Rachel that much.’ He looked up at Bridget. She touched an earring and then pulled her jumper across her over-ample stomach. Jonathan’s old Scottish great-aunt would have called Bridget an apple. A very big apple.
‘Do you need me here?’ Bridget said. ‘I’ve got things to do. I’m sure Sam can help with your article. I don’t visit Michael: it’s too much for me.’ She was already slipping on her coat.
‘Do you write to him?’ Jonathan asked.
She looked towards Sam and reddened. Jonathan noticed the dampness of the fabric underneath her armpits.
Sam looked towards his wife, and Jonathan saw a loving sympathy cross his face. ‘Bridget can’t read or write. Not properly.’
Bridget placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. ‘Mind if I leave?’ she said, her face falling into an ill-hidden anxiousness.
‘Not if you need to go, Mrs Hemming
s,’ Jonathan replied. He gave her what he thought was his most engaging smile.
He watched as she adjusted her bra underneath the coat and cardigan and looked away. There was definitely something about Bridget that was making him feel uneasy. Something he couldn’t pinpoint, but he knew it went back to that first meeting when she’d seemed almost unconcerned about Joe’s disappearance.
He glanced at a derelict-looking Sam. His appearance must have taken years to reach this stage, and the root of his ruin was his son, Jonathan guessed.
He carried on. ‘Can I just ask you one question before you leave, Mrs Hemmings?’
‘Be quick.’ Pointedly, she looked at her watch and he was close enough to whiff her body odour.
‘Can I ask why you don’t visit Michael?’
‘I leave that to Sam.’ Her face became drawn, the lines deeper.
Not looking at Bridget, Sam said, ‘It’s been difficult for Bridget ... hasn’t it, love?’
‘I really need to go,’ she glanced at Sam. ‘Someone has to keep our business going.’
Jonathan watched her. She was desperate to get away, and the same question he’d wanted to answer years before formed in his mind again. Did Bridget know something about her son that she’d never admitted? He’d always felt she hadn’t told the truth about not knowing her son had come down from Chester prior to the week he abducted Joe. It had only been a hunch, though, and nothing had come up at the trial.
The claustrophobic kitchen was quiet. Bridget left without expanding on why she didn’t visit Michael.
‘Do you and Bridget get on with Margaret?’ Jonathan asked Sam.
‘We were never bosom buddies, the three of us, but we’re OK.’
‘But you like Rachel?’
‘We’ve both always liked Rachel.’
‘Are they very different – mother and daughter – would you say?’
‘I’d say.’
Sam crossed his thin arms. ‘I know about Margaret looking after Michael when he was young, Sam. You and Bridget owe her a lot, wouldn’t you say?’
‘We probably do. It’s Bridget who has the biggest problem with Margaret, although I was never in love with her either. Strange woman, but my brother – Alan – was besotted from the moment he met her. Unhealthy, really.’ He looked at Jonathan. ‘I always thought.’
‘But you allowed her to look after your only son?’
‘Not a lot of choice back then. Times have changed with childcare, Jonathan. Bridget and I, we both had to work. Margaret offered. We took the opportunity. Why not?’
Still staring at his book, Sam continued, ‘I don’t want to talk about Margaret, and that’s not why you’re here. What do you need to know for your article?’
Jonathan took out his folder and began asking the questions whose answers would fill a good 1500-word article about what it was like to be the parents of a murderer. A murderer who might shortly be released to a less secure step-down unit.
Bridget didn’t return before Jonathan left. And again, as he’d felt five years ago, he left the Hemmings’ household knowing there was something he hadn’t quite got to the bottom of.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Littleworth High Security Psychiatric Hospital,
Merseyside
Michael Hemmings was enjoying his moment of notoriety within Littleworth. There had been talk about isolating him from the other patients, but it hadn’t happened. Hemmings stood at six foot and, while being inside, he’d managed to keep up his fitness. Fourteen stone of hard muscle. There was no one in Littleworth who could overpower him physically. He was safe.
Whistleblowing had come easy; he’d nothing to lose. Nothing at all. Everything to gain. And he’d nailed David Juniper into the bargain. Juniper had been carted off to another secure hospital in the south somewhere, that none of the patients at Littleworth had any desire to go to. Juniper deserved it, the weird, fat, paedo shit. Michael Hemmings didn’t consider himself a paedophile, and had convinced himself he wasn’t one.
Michael was good at convincing himself about a lot of things.
He figured if he couldn’t remember doing it then he wasn’t guilty. And he couldn’t remember. But he’d admitted to it, they said.
The kids’ visits had revolted him. The system revolted him. The establishment revolted him. They were all weird fuckers, the lot of them. He thought about his psych, Doc Patterson; Patterson revolted him less than the others. The few moments of clarity he sometimes enjoyed, and had been enjoying today, suddenly, quickly, fell around him. And the headache came. And the colours. The fucking colours and auras.
Spotting his designated nurse making his way over, Hemmings smiled. Toby Abbs always had a greenish aura, the colour of a highly creative person, apparently. This turned Hemmings’ smile into a grin. Poor Toby. Totally in the wrong job, just as he’d been totally married to the wrong person, of the wrong sex, totally denying his preference for dicks.
Hemmings knew Abbs was obsessed with him, loving him, when Hemmings made Abbs come like a hosepipe in the cupboard where the clean bedding was kept, hating Hemmings when he ignored him, or made fun of him. It was too easy to take the piss out of Toby.
Toby Abbs was indeed green. Naïve and oddly innocent. However, Hemmings felt something for the young runt. Was it what Doc Patterson would call compassion? He knew about Toby’s private life, Toby shared everything with him. Everything. Abbs had told him that his ex-wife had called him a loser and a freak. Hemmings wasn’t surprised – the stupid twat had told her about him, told her he was in love with Hemmings.
She’d left him soon afterwards, taking their two kids with her. Now living in Australia, she’d threatened to go to the director with what she knew if Abbs contested her demands to have sole custody of their children. Did Michael feel sorry for him? A bit.
Littleworth’s director had been on Toby’s back constantly since Michael had blown the whistle. Toby had been in a foul mood for weeks. He was withering, Hemmings could see it. Needed some cheering up did Toby, and he knew just what’d do the trick. A good, full-on blowjob. Make Toby forget his woes.
Hemmings looked towards the end of the ward. It was Tuesday and mail day. Toby and dim ‘Windy’ Miller were sorting through the prisoners’ correspondence with the ward clerk. None of the staff took any notice of what the others were doing. It was a feature of the institution: a closed place with rules that didn’t apply to the outside. A world disconnected from reality – until recently. And that was all due to him.
Hemmings had presence. He had charisma. He now had power. He liked that.
Toby Abbs was opening an envelope with venom. Hemmings watched and Toby looked up, making eye contact. Toby slipped the envelope surreptitiously towards the edge of the table and under his jacket. Windy didn’t notice a thing.
Hemmings heard Abbs say, as he picked up a handful of envelopes, ‘I’m going to sit somewhere quiet to go through these.’
Windy grunted, ‘Well, don’t be long – we’ve got the psych appointments soon.’
Toby Abbs nodded and made his way to an empty office outside the ward.
Hemmings waited. Patiently.
Toby returned to the ward fifteen minutes later and made his way towards him, glancing around once to look at the laundry cupboard at the side of the ward. Hemmings saw Toby’s boner from thirty feet. He could also see the brown aura that surrounded his own body. The unsettled aura, the distracting one. The one that came just before the grey, and grey preceded the most dangerous colour of all. White.
He’d come to recognise the meanings of these colours since seeing Doc Patterson. He couldn’t believe a trained person such as the Doc believed in that garbage. Auras, colours. Patterson explained to him about them; how they could indicate when he might begin to feel angry, unsettled, and to know when the dark thoughts would come.
Hemmings didn’t have dark thoughts all the time. Sometimes his mind was clear and empty. And this emptiness always accompanied stretches of time when he had no inc
lination to hurt people, have sex or attempt to harm himself. At those times he thought of his mother, when he was young, before the meningitis, before he saw the colours. Today though, the brown was dark, deep and muddy.
The old Doc had been exploring a different route recently. Patterson was asking probing questions, prodding into his mind, digging into the day they said he’d killed Joe. Patterson was interested in his relationship with his mum, and Sam, his fucking Dad.
Thinking of being moved from Littleworth, Hemmings’ mind capsized again. It should have made him feel good, but for some reason it didn’t. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to move. He wasn’t certain how he felt.
And an image floated through his brain of what it would be like to have your throat cut.
Would the breathing stop straight away?
Or would it take a while?
Or your dick sliced through.
How had Joe felt?
He’d tried to ask him, but he was already dead. He remembered that, trying to ask – both things.
Hemmings kept an eye on Toby, knowing the nurse wouldn’t approach straight away.
‘Hemmings, time for your session soon,’ Windy shouted from the end of the ward.
Toby Abbs. Five five, slightly built and skinny. The physique of a young adolescent. Black, greasy hair and still with a face full of puss-engorged spots. Giving Toby what he was desperate for wasn’t an inconvenience for Hemmings, because, deep down, in a place that had long ago atrophied he liked Toby; perhaps even loved him a little. David Juniper had given Toby a hard time, and it was another reason he was elated to have grassed Juniper up. He felt almost paternal to the young nurse. Juniper had been a fat bastard with a bald head and a cock as thick as an overgrown cucumber. He hated fat cocks. Almost as much as he hated cunts. He’d kept Juniper sweet for long enough to entrap and then expose him. It had been a satisfying experience and Toby loved him even more because of it.
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