by David Mark
A little shaky, a little tremble in his voice, he turns his attention back to the young girl.
He is trying to think of something to say to her when a small, round-bottomed woman in her late thirties emerges from a corridor, smiling broadly. She extends a soft, plump hand, which McAvoy takes in his. She is wearing what looks a little like a karate suit, but it is a livid blue and has the name of her employers stitched on the breast, next to an upside-down watch.
“I’m Evelyn,” she says brightly. “I’ll be looking after you. Sebastien’s waiting for you. He seems quite excited.”
McAvoy turns back to the receptionist, who appears to be checking that her blouse is sufficiently unbuttoned for a tall man to enjoy the view. He gives a smile that makes him look like a pumpkin lantern, and then scurries away. At six foot five, McAvoy is not built for scurrying. He looks like a giant in chains.
Evelyn leads McAvoy back out through the front door and across the car park where his minivan is still making a worrying whooshing noise. So far, McAvoy has driven well over two hundred miles today, and the car is as unaccustomed to long journeys as he is to squeezing his big frame into such a small seat for so long. Both he and the vehicle are suffering.
“You’ve caught us at an awkward time, Sergeant,” says Evelyn as she points him down one of the footpaths into a copse of trees. “Problems with the drains. We have a septic tank here. Doesn’t need emptying more than twice a decade, provided you use the right chemicals, but we rather forgot to inspect the chamber and it’s really backed up. Not very nice. If we hadn’t got it drained we would have been wading in sludge, and that isn’t what you want when you’re in a wheelchair.”
McAvoy, who stands a good head and shoulders above her, is surprised to find that he has to jog to keep up with her boisterous, bustling progress down the path. He can’t think of what to say, so sniffs the air. Smells rhododendrons and damp grass. Smells earth. Gets a tiny whiff of Evelyn’s antibacterial handwash and Avon perfume. He decides to make no comment on the septic tank.
“Sebastien’s at the end there,” says Evelyn, pointing ahead. She has led them around the building and swipes a keycard on a pad by the glass back door. Stepping inside, she ushers him down a wide, empty corridor, its walls illustrated with pictures of hot-air balloons and birds.
“I don’t really know what you’re expecting of him,” she says neutrally. “He can’t communicate well at all. He can make emotions understood and we know when he’s angry, but other than that it depends whether you’re on his wavelength or not. I’ve helped him write the occasional message on some website or other that has caught his eye, but you have to go through the alphabet with him for every single letter. It’s very laborious, but that’s what we’re here for, I suppose. His computer is his lifeline. Very expensive piece of kit, but it means he gets to know what’s going on in the outside world and I don’t have to spend every moment reading to him.”
McAvoy stops in the corridor, several feet from the room that contains the man who used to enjoy raping women in front of their husbands. He suddenly doesn’t want to knock. He turns to Evelyn.
“So you’re his personal caregiver? Full-time, yes?”
Evelyn brushes her bobbed hair back from her pleasant round face. “I’m his nominated staff member, if that’s what you mean. Each of our patients has somebody who is specifically responsible for their well-being and standard of care. I oversee a team of nurses and health support workers who then assist in taking care of him. Sebastien’s one of our more challenging patients. A lot of our patients are relatively mobile. Sebastien needs round-the-clock care. We have a good staff though and can call on a central agency for support should we ever be short-staffed. He’s well looked after.”
McAvoy nods. He’s not sure he’s overly concerned with how well they are looking after Hoyer-Wood.
“How much do you know about his case history?” he asks delicately.
Evelyn appears to understand the magnitude of the question. “To treat our patients the best way we can, it’s important to know as much about them as we can. We have full access to Sebastien’s case notes. He’s been in the system a long time.”
“And the court case?”
Evelyn looks nonplussed. “The file said he was charged with an offense while exhibiting mental health problems. That was when he suffered his initial injuries, I believe. Those injuries to his brain led to severe epilepsy, and I understand that in turn caused the stroke that left him like this. It was a double tragedy, really, as it appears that he was making good progress with his physiotherapy and speech therapy. Some people just have misfortune thrown at them.”
McAvoy studies the image nearest him on the wall. Admires the fine pencil strokes that have created the wicker basket, hanging below a brightly colored balloon. It is an image that suggests freedom. Release. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off it and step into the room of a man who he cannot picture, but feels he is beginning to know.
“It’s expensive here, I presume?”
Evelyn smiles. “You get what you pay for.”
“And who pays for him?”
She spreads her hands, apologizing for not being able to say. Then she leans in and whispers, as if this will be less of a breach of confidentiality. “His father died. He inherited a lot of money.”
McAvoy breathes deeply.
Coughs.
Blinks.
He can’t put it off any longer.
He takes three steps and knocks on the pine. At his side, Evelyn turns the handle and pushes open the wide door.
Sebastien Hoyer-Wood sits in a low-backed chair in the center of a large, green-painted room. In front of him is a computer monitor; to his right a low sofa facing a television. One wall is all glass, reflecting back the opposite wall, which is stacked with books, CDs, and DVDs. The floor is linoleum, but with a wood-panel effect.
“Would you mind?” says Evelyn, pointing to a small patch of black matting by McAvoy’s feet. “You have to discharge your static on there or it can cause him to have a fit.”
Flustered, McAvoy does as he is told, rubbing his shoes on the odd material until Evelyn tells him he can stop.
“Do I take my boots off?”
“No, you’re fine now. Anyway, this is Sebastien. Sebastien, this is Detective Sergeant McAvoy. He’s come to talk to you.”
McAvoy raises a hand, as if to shake. He looks at his proffered palm. Feels appalled with himself. Drops it back to his side.
Up close, Hoyer-Wood is a melted waxwork; a handsome sculpture left too close to the fire. His face is bottom heavy, locked open in a permanent yawn. A column of thin drool spills from his lower lip to puddle on the chest of his green sweatshirt. His clothes seem to conceal nothing but bones. McAvoy is put in mind of a pirate’s skeleton. He half imagines pulling back the man’s shirt to reveal bare ribs and a cutlass blade.
Evelyn beckons him forward.
“Please, take a seat. It’s best if you’re near him. It might help you better understand.”
Hoyer-Wood’s expression does not change as McAvoy clumsily takes a wooden chair from beside the bookcase and places it next to the patient. He turns his head and looks at Hoyer-Wood’s computer screen. A web page is open, the text size triple the norm. McAvoy glances at it. Hoyer-Wood is reading an essay on a poem by Robert Browning. It is a verse that McAvoy recognizes and admires; ugly language made beautiful. It is written in the voice of a jilted wife, planning to poison her husband’s lover. McAvoy glimpses the words “moisten” and “mash.” Reads the phrase “Pound at thy powder.” It is a poem in which murder is coolly and deliberately planned and enjoyed.
“Browning?” asks McAvoy, turning to Hoyer-Wood, whose eyes are rolling back to stare at the paneled ceiling. “I always enjoyed ‘Lost Leader.’ I like the Beat poets, too. A mutual acquaintance of ours is currently studying Ginsberg.” McAvoy looks at the
side of the other man’s face, trying to capture his gaze, before adding: “Lewis Caneva.”
Next to him, Hoyer-Wood twists in his chair, his mouth opening and closing and a series of unintelligible noises coming from his throat.
“I don’t think that’s one of his favorites,” says Evelyn, sitting down on the sofa.
“No,” says McAvoy. “I got that.”
“He’s very fortunate to have this machine,” says Evelyn, stroking the computer in front of Hoyer-Wood. “It recognizes certain sounds. It has a keypad, too, that he can operate with his finger when the drugs have his muscle spasms under control. At the moment, he’s having quite a rough time. He can surf the net quite easily. We loaded up a lot of favorite sites and he can scroll through them as he wants. He can spell out search words, though it’s a hell of an ordeal. Still, it keeps him out of mischief, eh, Sebastien?”
McAvoy says nothing. He just looks at the man in the chair. The room is warm and bright, but it contains a scent, perhaps a color to the air, that he finds unsettling. It is as though something has died in this room. He smells decayed humanity. Something nearby is rotting. It is a place of moist corruption and slow, damp death.
For a moment, McAvoy is unsure how to proceed. He doesn’t know what he wants or what he expected. It is clear Hoyer-Wood is not faking his injuries. Before he entered the room, he half entertained the notion of tipping Hoyer-Wood from the chair and seeing if he put out his hands to break his fall. Now he sees how unnecessary that would be. Hoyer-Wood is a virtual skeleton. His body will not obey his commands. His mind is a prisoner in a bag of bedsores and rotting flesh. McAvoy feels a sudden rush of pity for the man. Tells himself that whatever his crimes, he is suffering punishments far greater than a prison sentence. He reminds himself that only one case was ever built against Hoyer-Wood and that the rapes he is alleged to have carried out are based on unsigned statements and guesswork. Perhaps the man in the chair was truly a victim. Perhaps he, too, suffered in his youth. Perhaps he acted as he did as a cry for help and that care facilities such as these are a better place for him than a jail cell. He is glad Pharaoh is not here. She would see the softening of his face.
“Sebastien,” he says quietly. “Is it okay to call you Sebastien? Thank you. Sebastien, I’m investigating two murders. Three, I suppose. I don’t know whether you read the newspapers or have much interest in current affairs, but over the past week, three people in the Humberside Police region have been killed. You might remember these people. They saved your life. Philippa Longman gave you CPR the night you almost died. Yvonne Dale applied pressure to your leg wound. Allan Godber was the paramedic who restarted your heart. All of these people have been killed in manners that suggest somebody is not very grateful to them for saving your life. I would ask you to think very clearly and carefully. Now, do you have any thoughts that might be of benefit to our inquiries?”
McAvoy licks his lips and breathes out slowly. Behind him, he hears Evelyn let out a little exclamation of surprise. He wonders how long it will be before she goes and makes a quick phone call to her superiors. When he had rung to arrange to speak with the patient, he had been a little economical with the facts.
Suddenly, Hoyer-Wood begins to spasm. His right arm bounces up and down and his jaw jerks forward so abruptly that McAvoy half expects his neck to crack. His left hand clutches at his own trouser leg and his face looks pained and wretched. McAvoy turns to Evelyn, unsure whether to intercede. She gives him a quiet shake of the head. This is normal.
At length, the paroxysm subsides. Evelyn crosses to his side. She takes a pad from her pocket.
“Do you want to talk, Sebastien?”
A noise. A blink.
Evelyn confirms that he has given his assent. She starts to recite the alphabet. After he has picked four letters, McAvoy interrupts.
“Is he saying he’s sorry?”
The noise Hoyer-Wood makes is clearly a “yes.”
“Sorry they are dead?”
Evelyn looks at him, not understanding. Hoyer-Wood stays silent. Just drools onto his clothes.
McAvoy sighs. He wonders what he can possibly get from this.
“Sebastien, I spent an hour today with Lewis Caneva. You remember him, yes? Your best friend from university. The man who did you quite a good turn? He tells me that there was a time, back when you were a patient of his, that you were getting better. He tells me you were beginning to walk unaided. You could make yourself understood. I wonder, could you tell me exactly what happened to leave you in this condition you are now in?”
Hoyer-Wood’s face stretches open. The top half of his head looks as though it could come off. He turns to Evelyn, and she begins the process again.
McAvoy does not want to interrupt. He crosses to the bookshelf. He examines the spines of some of the novels. There are some classics. A few thrillers. Poetry anthologies and biographies of poets. He tries to find anything useful. Any tome on voyeurism or domination. But there is nothing incriminating.
“Sergeant?”
He turns back. Evelyn is standing with her pad open.
“He says Lewis is his friend. His wife was, too. He misses him. He hopes he remembers what good friends they once were.”
McAvoy waits for more.
“And?”
Evelyn gets up and walks over to McAvoy. Her voice drops to the conspiratorial whisper in which she had shared the details of Hoyer-Wood’s financial circumstances.
“He says I’m to tell you the rest from what I know of his files,” she says. Takes a breath. Rushes on. “The epilepsy got steadily worse in the years after he left the home that you mentioned. The fits became so severe that even if the mental health authorities let him out, he would not be safe to live alone. Then he had what we call a ‘catastrophic’ stroke. There was an incident involving a vehicle he was a passenger in, and the stress of that event was almost certainly the trigger. He came to us shortly afterward. It was such a shame because he had started writing. He was getting fitter. I think he entertained hopes of being allowed to go back to work someday . . .”
McAvoy crosses back to Sebastien Hoyer-Wood. It is impossible to read his expression. His face is too inhuman to convey his thoughts. But for an instant, McAvoy could swear that in that gory mask, between the damp eyes and the rictus set of the mouth, he sees a flash of life.
Unable to stop himself, McAvoy reaches out and touches Hoyer-Wood’s computer screen. He takes the sensor that sits on the smooth plastic tray in Hoyer-Wood’s lap and quickly flicks back to the websites that Hoyer-Wood had been browsing before McAvoy entered the room. He looks at the screen for a moment. Swallows. Drinks in the gaudy colors. The lurid banner advertisements. The image of the young girl on all fours, crying as a man in a mask holds her hair and fucks her roughly; another man tied to her bedpost with a belt and clearly begging the masked man to stop. He wonders how long it took Hoyer-Wood to blink out the word “cuckold.” Whether his nurses allow this indulgence or if he has found a way to keep it to himself.
McAvoy flicks the web page back to the poetry as Evelyn moves back to his side of the screen.
“Erm, Sergeant, I’m not one hundred percent comfortable with this. Would you mind if we took a temporary break while I contacted my superiors? I’m terribly sorry . . .”
McAvoy does not want to cause a scene or get her into trouble. Nor does he want to leave without understanding who the man in the chair used to be.
“You said he was writing again?” he asks innocently.
“Yes, yes, some lovely poetry. A diary of sorts, all about his plans to get well again and the battle with his physiotherapy. It was all sent to us when he moved here, though I believe he asked for much of it to be thrown away during one of his darker days. I read a little myself. Very inspirational. He spoke about the staff at the last care home. How he imagined them at home, in their peaceful, pleasant lives. He wanted that.
Wanted to share it with them. Very moving. Now, please . . .”
McAvoy turns his head to Hoyer-Wood. Slowly, softly, he bends down and places his lips by the crippled man’s ear.
“You’d do it all again, wouldn’t you? You’d get out of that chair and rape women and destroy lives and get off on the suffering. I know you would. Somebody else knows you would, too. I think they are punishing those who saved you, Sebastien, because after you were caught, after your life was saved, you ruined somebody else’s life, too. They can’t punish you, can they? What’s to punish? There’s nothing left of you. So they’re taking out their rage on the people who kept you in the world. Whose life did you destroy last, Sebastien? Whose?”
McAvoy raises his head. Watches the brown of his own eyes swim on the blue irises of the man in the chair.
Slowly, as though using every ounce of his strength, Hoyer-Wood says Evelyn’s name. She crosses to his side. Dutifully takes out her pen. Begins the alphabet afresh.
A moment later, McAvoy stomps from the room, moving as fast as he can. Were he to stay, he would not be able to stop any violence he began.
In Sebastien Hoyer-Wood’s room, Evelyn looks quizzically at the letters on her pad. Reads again what he has told her in grunts and blinks.
“‘Tell me about your wife.’”
• • •
Adam Downey is on his knees, spitting saliva and bile into the green water of the toilet bowl. He can taste blood. Can taste the three slurps of tea that he had managed for breakfast. He can smell the thick mucus that seems to have formed a wall in his sinuses behind his bruised nose.
He snarls as he wipes his mouth. Sneers at his own distorted reflection in the water of the toilet bowl. The act of retching has made his bruised ribs throb with pain, and his already aching jaw now feels as though it has been opened with a car jack.