His mind filled with brown. David Juniper – Dirty Dave – was a sick bastard. But now he was gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Hemmings stared at the ceiling. ‘What can I do for you, Toby?’ He tore his eyes away from the ceiling, resting them somewhere along his forehead. He didn’t like eyes, even Toby’s.
Toby pulled the letter from his pocket. ‘If Windy’d got hold of this,’ Toby said, ‘it’d be with Patterson by now.’
Hemmings reached to take the letter.
Toby held it firm. ‘What do I get in return?’
‘Come on, does there always have to be a barter, Toby? Let me have a look.’ Hemmings pulled on his ear and then, suggestively, placed the tip of his thumb in his mouth and sucked.
Toby gave him the letter.
Hemmings slumped back on the bed. ‘You’ve read it, haven’t you?’
Toby shook his head.
‘You fucking have.’
‘OK, I have. It’s nice that you’re getting letters. You don’t get much mail.’ He looked at Hemmings. ‘The writer’s a bit religious, then? Talks about God a lot.’
Hemmings lay flat on his bed, arms at right angles to his body, the letter held upwards. ‘Not religious.’ It was a front, the religious stuff. He could read in between the lines. He could see the promise. The promise that had been dangled in front of him for years.
Toby shrugged his shoulders. ‘Whatever you say. You’re the boss.’
Hemmings tossed Toby a look. ‘Yeah, right.’ He jumped up with the stealth of a cat.
‘Do you like it?’ Abbs asked. ‘The letter?’
Hemmings bit the end of his thumb. ‘Yeah, I like it.’ Did he like it? He wasn’t fucking sure. But he’d love a visit. He would.
Abbs looked at his watch, he was impatient. ‘We don’t have that long before you see Patterson.’
He stared at the laundry cupboard door and at Toby’s expectant face. Hemmings started making his way towards the cupboard, nodding and grinning at the other patients who littered the ward. Fucking lobotomised, most of them.
Drugged, sad and bewildered humanity stared back at him.
Toby waited a few minutes before following him into the large cupboard. Before he got started on Toby, the young nurse asked again about the letter.
‘One day, Toby, I might tell you.’ For the first time in two years Hemmings kissed Toby full on the lips.
Afterwards he told Toby Abbs that he really didn’t think he’d killed Joe.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
At the same time Michael Hemmings was finishing up in the laundry cupboard with Toby Abbs, Doctor Thomas Patterson was trying to terminate his session with his penultimate patient of the day.
He opened the blinds of the small cramped office, indicating the session was over. It was always difficult to get rid of this particular patient because he liked to talk, and today he was in a more irrepressible mood than ever. ‘Garrulous’ was the word Patterson scribbled in his notepad. Patterson wasn’t getting very far with him: the drugs weren’t touching his psychotic behaviour. The patient was already on the highest dose he’d prescribed to anyone. Perhaps it was his bulk. Twenty-five stone of lard.
Patterson glanced at the patient, who was still talking and making strange and pointless free-associative comments from the last line of questioning. ‘Time out now.’
‘Sorry, Doc, did I go?’
‘You did, but it’s fine.’ Patterson smiled tightly.
‘What you smiling at, Doc? You laughing at me?’ The patient lumbered out from his chair, suddenly his soft and open features pinched and hard.
‘No, I’m smiling because it’s been a good session.’
A little flattery always did the trick with this one. Simple and easy. For a simple and easy mind. Patterson had no idea what IQ his patient had been born with, but it was safe to say that many volitional drops on the head by his father forty years before had had some impact on his current IQ of sixty.
Patterson looked at his watch. ‘Well, you have a nice afternoon.’
‘I will, Doc.’
Patterson watched as he shambled out the door. He was incredibly clumsy, too.
Michael Hemmings next.
Patterson thought about David Juniper and furrowed an already deeply lined brow. The internal enquiry had unearthed a shocking laxity in their security system. It had also moved forwards the time frame for Hemmings’ first tribunal review. There was still a lot of work to do with Hemmings, and he felt he was getting close; the tribunal would mess up his work. Had already messed it up.
Hemmings’ case wasn’t all that it appeared. The psychiatrist inside him wanted Hemmings to stay at Littleworth so that he could unravel the mystery that seemed to have been completely missed. Sometimes that is what he wanted, on the days he was not tired. Today Doctor Patterson was feeling very fatigued.
Anyway, Patterson was now on a time limit. The director had given him a few weeks to get his notes up to date and perform a proper handover to Doctor Cohen. Thinking of Cohen, Patterson smirked to himself.
Getting up, he used the phone attached to the wall to call Montford ward. One of the male clerks answered.
‘Is Mr Abbs available?’
The line crunched. ‘He’s not around at the moment, shall I find him?’
‘Yes, tell him to send Hemmings to me as soon as possible.’
Patterson heard more crunching.
‘Doctor Patterson, sorry, was sorting something out. Hemmings is on his way,’ Abbs said.
Abbs sounded as if he’d just run a marathon, ‘Busy?’ Patterson asked.
Abbs gasped. ‘You know how it is.’
Patterson didn’t really know how it was; he left the institution most afternoons to lecture at the university, although since the enquiry, he’d stopped the university lectures, too worn out to think about them let alone give one. ‘I’d like to see you too, come down now.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’
‘OK, give me ten.’
‘Now, Abbs.’
Abbs mumbled a yes and put the phone down.
Patterson had been away on a sabbatical when the young and vastly under-qualified Abbs was appointed. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the nurse; he had no feelings one way or the other, although he suspected Toby Abbs wasn’t the brightest uniform in this enclosed institution. The director was more than worried about staff from Littleworth talking to the press. Patterson could imagine Abbs being a loose cannon.
He knew of at least one journalist who’d got a sniff of what was happening. Jonathan Waters. He’d called Patterson a month ago. Patterson hadn’t called back, obviously. He was already aware that the lid would be kept on the stink until later in the year; until the director had spun his rhetoric. Part of that rhetoric would include Hemmings, and what a good job Littleworth was doing in treating him. Hemmings was to be their mascot. It would be Patterson who would be taking the flak for the scandal.
A gentle knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ Patterson said.
Toby Abbs looked worried. ‘Is there a problem, Doctor? Hemmings is waiting outside already.’
‘No, but I wanted to have a quick chat about Michael ... your favourite patient.’
Abbs coloured. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re quite close to him?’
‘We get along fine, sir.’
‘I have a question for you, Abbs.’
‘Fire away, sir.’
‘It may seem like an odd question.’
Abbs waited.
‘Do you believe Hemmings had absolutely nothing to do with the children coming into the institution?’
‘He had nothing to do with it, sir. Kids really aren’t his thing.’
Patterson rubbed his chin. He had come to that conclusion too, although he conjectured as to how Abbs had.
‘What makes you say that?’ Patterson asked patiently. ‘You are aware of why he’s in here?’
He floundered. ‘Just stuff he
says.’
‘To you?’
‘Not particularly, in general.’
Patterson’s eyes were drawn to Abb’s crotch. ‘By the way, your fly’s open.’
Abbs turned the colour of an overripe tomato. ‘Nipped to the loo – ’
‘The visitor sessions will be resumed soon. Ensure all the visitors and inmates are supervised properly. This is a high-security hospital. A psychiatric institution.’ He peered at Abbs. ‘We don’t want any more Miriam Saunders do we?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good. How is the new gazebo coming along?’
Abbs appeared confused with the change in questioning. ‘It’s finished. The fresh air’ll be good for the patients.’
Patterson didn’t want to point out that no amount of fresh air would aid the sick and sad minds of the inmates within those walls. ‘Ensure someone accompanies these medicinal trips to the gazebo.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Send Hemmings in.’
Abbs left.
Patterson pulled Hemmings’ notes from underneath the pile. A very different creature from his last case. Very different. Two other psychs, including Dr Cohen, had been brought in since the internal investigations to assess Hemmings. Patterson had known then that his career was on the edge of extinction. The director would ensure it. This did not unduly bother him. He was ready to go. He was so tired. But he would have liked to get to the bottom of the Hemmings case, he really would.
A metallic taste emerged in his mouth whenever he reviewed Hemmings’ notes and progress. For a long time he’d had an idea of something, something he hadn’t put his finger on yet. He’d experienced the metal-taste phenomenon since he’d been a graduate, and it always signified a hidden truth in a case history.
He looked up as Michael Hemmings entered the office and sat down confidently in the chair by the window. He seemed bulkier than the last time he’d seen him. Long, firm legs casually splayed in front of him. His chest, free of hair, Patterson could see from the open V of his T-shirt, was solid. His blond hair was styled differently from their last meeting, too.
Patterson couldn’t put his finger on what was different about the hair.
‘Wrong chair, Michael.’ Patterson nodded to the chair placed on the opposite side of his desk.
Hemmings made no attempt to move. ‘I like it here, by the window.’
Patterson could not be bothered to argue. ‘How’s it going, Michael?’
‘Fine.’
‘A lot’s been happening. You’re aware that you’ve been earmarked to attend a tribunal soon?’
‘You going to lose your job, Doc?’
‘We are not here to talk about me.’ Patterson looked at his watch.
‘You on a time limit, Doc? Looking at your watch won’t make time go any quicker.’ Hemmings grinned. ‘I’ve tried it. Fire away, Doc.’
‘Since our last session,’ he rustled through his notes, ‘have you had any more incidences of “colours”?’
‘The auras?’
‘Yes, the auras.’
‘As it happens, Doc, I have one with me today.’
‘What colour?’
‘Dark fucking brown.’
‘And you feel the emotion that goes with this colour?’
‘Distracting. Yes, I feel that.’
‘And are you trying to deal with it?’ Patterson looked up at Hemmings. ‘Have you had any more suicidal thoughts recently?’
Hemmings wiped his mouth in an exaggerated movement. ‘Well, Abbs helps me ... get rid of the colours,’ he grinned, ‘the suicidal thoughts.’
‘Abbs?’
‘Yes, you’ve just seen him, haven’t you? Maybe he told you how he calms me?’
‘No, you weren’t on our agenda, Michael. As much as that pains you.’
Patterson watched Hemmings’ thumb move towards his mouth.
‘I’d like to talk about your father, Sam, today, Michael.’
‘And my mother?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘She left me, my mother...’
Bridget Hemmings didn’t visit her son; it was only Sam Hemmings who travelled north to Littleworth. ‘I’m sure she will visit you,’ Patterson said.
Hemmings’ legs shot forwards from the chair; the lean muscles of his thighs tensed. ‘She sends me letters.’
Patterson scribbled in his notes, ‘delusions of correspondence?’ He wasn’t aware of any letters from Bridget Hemmings, only sporadic ones from the father, Sam, and a few wacko ones from sad women looking for a boyfriend who happened to be a child murderer. He made a note to talk to Abbs again.
Patterson studied Michael Hemmings and felt drained. Today was not a good day.
‘What does she say in the letters?’ he asked finally.
‘She says sorry.’
‘What is your mother sorry for?’
Hemmings’ face was blank. As though in a trance. ‘That I’m in here. That it is a good thing, though, that I’m better off here.’ Hemmings looked up. ‘I don’t think she wants me to leave. Doesn’t want a tribunal.’
‘Well, she might be right. It isn’t the best thing. Do you have the letter, Michael? Could I see it?’ All letters should be censored. He really needed to have a word with Abbs.
Hemmings smiled obtusely. ‘There’s no letter. I’m making it up. Having a laugh.’
Patterson decided to let it go. ‘What colour are you seeing now, Michael?’
‘White.’
Patterson looked up from his notes at his patient. White. The death colour. Hemmings did seem to be confused today. ‘I think we’ll leave this for today, Michael.’
Hemmings’ finger had been in the edge of his mouth for the whole time. He now took it out. ‘OK, Doc, you’re the boss.’ He grinned at Patterson. ‘You can go and find your young pussy now.’
How could Hemmings know about Leanne? ‘I’ll see you in a week?’
‘No problem, I’m going nowhere.’ Hemmings left the room.
Patterson checked when his next appointment with the director was. Papers fell on the floor and he was angry at his own disorganisation. Then he found it. A week. He needed to make an up-to-date report on Hemmings. Would he mention his thoughts? That over the last four years the ‘aura therapy’ was indicating to him that there might well have been someone else at the scene of Joe Dune’s murder. And what Abbs had said – about the children – Hemmings not being interested in them. Although Hemmings had never denied interfering with Joe Dune while the boy had been at the squat, and although he questioned Abbs’ intelligence, he did conjecture if perhaps the nurse might be right. There were things that Hemmings was still holding close to his chest.
Patterson had studied the court case in detail over the years he’d been treating Hemmings and was beginning to slowly draw his own conclusions which were compounded by the ‘letter’ today, whether it existed or not. Although he had no firm evidence. Psychiatry was a protracted business; he needed another two years.
He sat back in the chair, stopping himself from putting his feet up on the desk – a habit he abhorred. He’d managed to stitch together a working hypothesis of Hemmings’ relationship with Bridget and the rest of the family. It would make for a wonderful thesis one day – for someone else. He was well past all that now.
He checked the time. Maybe he would go home before going to see Leanne.
He thought about Michael Hemmings’ white aura as he filed his notes in the battered cabinet. He would put all the data in the computer system tomorrow.
He called Montford ward again, asking Abbs to return to his office. Abbs was knocking at his door within five minutes.
‘Something wrong, sir?’ Abbs asked.
‘Has Hemmings received any letters recently?’
Abbs reddened. ‘No, sir. Why?’
‘He told me today he received one from his mother.’
‘His mother ... that’s what he said?’
‘He told me afterwards he’d made it up. Ask Windy to check t
he mail, and let me know if anything comes in. Anything at all.’
Abbs seemed to relax. ‘Will do, sir.’
Hemmings watched as Toby hurried down the ward.
‘You tell Patterson about the letter?’ Abbs asked meekly.
‘No, course I didn’t,’ he replied easily. He didn’t think he had; he had already forgotten. He rubbed Toby’s groin, in full view of anyone that might be watching. Hemmings knew Toby was simultaneously shit scared that someone would see, or that Windy was nosing, and aroused to the point of explosion that someone could see.
They returned to the cupboard.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
December 23rd 2004
I’d been dreading Christmas for months. It was the worst time of the year, worse than the anniversary of finding Joe’s body, and each year the feeling of dread only intensified. Each year I thought of the swing, of Joe’s happiness that Christmas morning, of mine and Liam’s joy at seeing it. All the remembrances intensified what I had lost, what I would never be able to recover.
Charlotte was standing on her doorstep waiting when the taxi dropped me outside her house. As I lugged my small suitcase along the pavement, she rushed towards me. I’d hardly seen her since my divorce.
‘Rachel!’
‘Charl!’ She pulled her short black faux-fur jacket tight around her slim midriff. ‘Dressed for the weather as usual, I see,’ I laughed.
She hugged me. ‘Let me help you with the case.’ She tried to pick it up. ‘Bloody hell, what you got in here? Come on, Jacob’s got mulled wine on the go.’ She peered at me, ‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘Maybe, but losing those “mother-like” hips can only be a good thing.’
I felt her hand in the small of my back, she rubbed the space soothingly.
‘Lost weight but very muscular, training obsessively, are you?’ Her expression was a mixture of worry and disapproval. I don’t think Charlotte had exercised once in her whole life. It was her nervous energy that kept her trim.
‘Will share my secrets later.’
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