Delirium (London Psychic)

by J. F. Penn

  "That burgundy leather book as well," Blake said, his voice almost breaking. "It was my father's."

  Jamie pushed the book inside the bag, then turned to help Blake towards the door. There was a doctor's coat hanging there. As Blake pulled it on to hide his patient's gown, he sighed heavily.

  "Are you sure I'm not meant to be in here, Jamie?" He looked unsure. "I saw things when my father died, things that made me wonder whether something is wrong in my head. And my visions here …" He shook his head. "I just don't know what to think."

  Jamie squeezed his hand. "If there's something wrong, we'll find it out together. We'll get help on your terms. People come in here and disappear into the system. Some of them die, whether by their own hand or helped along by RAIN. I won't have that happen to you."

  Her voice betrayed her emotion. For a moment, Jamie thought Blake would kiss her and she longed to feel his lips on hers. Just a moment of connection. But his eyes shadowed again and he nodded.

  "Thank you. Let's go."

  Jamie slowly opened the door of the room, listening for any other noise, but it was all quiet. They shuffled out together into the dark corridor. Blake leaned heavily on her shoulder, his breathing labored as they walked. Jamie relished the warmth of his body next to hers, her arm wrapped around his waist. She could feel the muscles under his skin, realizing it was the first time she had really touched him. Their steps were slow but it wasn't far to the main exit. Just a few more minutes.

  Red flashing lights suddenly illuminated the corridor in a silent alarm. A door slammed, and a roar of frustration echoed down the hallway.

  "We have to run now," Jamie said, tightening her grip on Blake. "Crowther must have made it to the panic button."

  Blake picked up his pace, but his legs were weak and he stumbled. His weight was too much for Jamie and he fell to his knees, coughing. His face was pale and haggard, the after-effect of the drugs pulling him back towards oblivion.

  "You … go on," he wheezed. "Leave me."

  "After all this?" Jamie said. "I don't think so."

  As she began to help Blake up, Crowther charged around the corner. Blood ran down his face from the wound on his head, and his eyes blazed fury. In the flashing red lights, he was a staccato nightmare. He threw himself at Jamie, knocking her to the floor, his weight pinning her to the ground. Blake slammed against the wall, knocked off his feet. The specimen bag fell open, its content skidding across the floor.

  "Bitch," the doctor bellowed, drawing his arm back to smash into Jamie's face. Her police training was automatic and she bucked her hips hard, throwing him off balance as she turned sideways, raising her elbow. She slammed it into him, screaming her effort as she struck him in the side of his head.

  Using the momentum, Jamie rolled fast, pushing Crowther away from her. Blake grabbed the doctor's neck in a headlock from behind, grimacing as he used every last ounce of energy to hold the man. Crowther fought, his fingers scrabbling at Blake's arms. In the flickering red lights, Jamie saw the rage in Blake's eyes, his intention to repay the torture he had undergone. Next to him, she caught sight of the syringe.

  Grabbing it, she pulled the cap off and sat on Crowther's chest, pinning his arms down with her knees, while Blake yanked the doctor's head back, exposing his skin. Jamie thrust the needle against the doctor's neck, watching it pierce his flesh. She pressed down the plunger and he groaned, eyes fluttering in horror. Crowther struggled for a few more seconds and then went limp. The sound of panting breath filled the corridor as the red light still blinked its silent warning. Jamie met Blake's eyes and saw her own exhaustion mirrored there.

  "Now, we really have to get out of here," she said. "He said that drug had amnesiac properties, so perhaps he won't even remember what happened here."

  "I wanted to kill him," Blake said, his voice dull, as he looked at the unconscious body.

  Jamie helped him up. "I know, but we can't leave a dead body here, and I don't think they'll come after us now. This is an organization that lives in the shadows."

  She filled the specimen bag again, taking the empty syringe along with the book and papers. They left a lot of evidence behind, and RAIN could easily find her and Blake again, but somehow, she thought that they might find easier targets after this encounter. Her own involvement in the Matthew Osborne case was high profile enough, and if she was called to give evidence in court – well, she knew enough to worry the higher echelons of the organization.

  Together, they hobbled down the corridor and out into the street, emerging between the arches of London Bridge station. The sky was bright with shades of pink and orange, heralding the dawn across the city. It was quiet and peaceful, as if nothing could possibly have happened here. These doorways held dark secrets but within hours, this area would be teeming with people working normal jobs, oblivious to what lay beneath.

  "It's not far to my place," Jamie whispered. "You need to rest."

  Blake nodded, his eyelids drooping as she helped him on the bike as a pillion passenger. His arms tight around her waist, she drove through the streets back to Lambeth. The events of the last days whirred through her mind, and she knew there was one more thing she had to do.

  Chapter 32

  Leaving Blake in her bed, passed out from exhaustion, Jamie roared back towards New Scotland Yard on her bike. She registered the heaviness in her limbs as the adrenalin of the last few hours subsided. There was an anticlimax after action but the highs and lows were what drove her back to work. A mundane office job would never suit her; she needed this edge.

  As she walked into the station towards her desk, a voice stopped her.

  "Detective Sergeant Brooke. My office, please." Dale Cameron's voice had an edge of steel. He rarely called people by their full rank unless a dressing-down was on the way.

  "Yes, sir." Jamie changed direction and went into his office, her heart thudding.

  Cameron slammed the door shut.

  "The Prime Minister and a load of MPs are in hospital, Missinghall's in there too, and you let Osborne jump," he barked. "Why?"

  "I … he … I couldn't reach him," Jamie stuttered. Of course no one would understand the grief she had shared with Matthew, but who wouldn't let someone in that much agony find relief?

  "You were captured on police helicopter cameras, and the video phones of spectators below. You know how powerful citizen journalism is nowadays and you're clearly shown leaving him to shoot himself as he jumped. There's evidence at his flat but his arrest and confession were paramount." Cameron paused and walked around his desk to sit in his chair. "Jamie, it's been a rough few months for you, but you've repeatedly flouted regulations. You've sent your partner into danger. God knows where you've been overnight when you should have been here working the case." Cameron rubbed his forehead, and exhaled slowly. "You're just not a team player, and I can't trust you anymore."

  Jamie heard his words and it was like witnessing a slow-motion car crash. She could see what was coming, but she couldn't stop it. "I have no choice but to suspend you pending investigation. You're relieved of duty effective immediately."

  Cameron's blue eyes glittered with triumph. By discrediting her and removing her from the task force, Jamie knew she would have no strong position to question his allegiance to RAIN or to make sure the organization was investigated in detail. Perhaps Cameron had been waiting for this opportunity since the Lyceum and the Hellfire Caves, the night she thought she had seen him in the murderous crowd.

  "If you don't make too much of a fuss about this, I'll see you're just demoted and there'll be a decent position outside London. Perhaps it's time for a change, anyway. It might do you some good."

  Jamie's heart thumped against her ribs as she repressed all the things she wanted to say to the bastard. Men like Cameron would always emerge unscathed from trouble and in this male-dominated hierarchy, his kind would always win. But the thought of leaving London disturbed her, for this was her home and memories of Polly lay across the city like an emotio
nal map. She could trace their journey together in the tides of the Thames. Jamie took a deep breath, fighting back her angry words.

  Finally, she nodded, unable to trust herself to speak, and turned towards the door.

  "It's a shame, Jamie." Cameron shook his head. "I had high hopes for you."

  She walked out and slammed the door shut behind her.

  Jamie stood for a moment in the corridor, trying to hold back the tears that threatened, but she would not cry here, not where anyone could see her. Jamie thought of the day she had left her parents on the Milton Keynes housing estate, telling them she would be part of the Metropolitan Police, that she would be someone, she would make a difference. All she had ever wanted was to be remarkable and now, they were pushing her out. She had lost Polly, and now it seemed she would lose the job she loved as well.

  Jamie closed her eyes for a moment, focusing on breathing, trying to remain calm. The rush of the last few days swirled about her. She saw Matthew Osborne's face before he jumped, Missinghall lying prone on a gurney, Blake unconscious in the hospital bed under the archways of London Bridge. She had a feeling that the investigation into RAIN would be stonewalled from higher up, perhaps the clinic was being emptied even now. Matthew Osborne's actions in Westminster were tainted by the murders he committed, and, as there could be no trial, he would soon be forgotten.

  The hubbub of the police station surrounded her, sounds she had always associated with her place in the world. But suddenly Jamie knew it was time to move on. Her old life had died with Polly, and the police held too many memories. There were people she couldn't trust anymore, and Jamie knew she couldn't change it from the inside.

  She turned and pushed into Cameron's office again. He looked momentarily surprised and then angry.

  "I thought I told you …"

  "I resign," Jamie interrupted, her voice strong, with no hint of hesitation. She pulled her warrant card from her pocket and put it on Cameron's desk, her hazel eyes holding his. He broke the gaze first and she could see he understood what she knew. She spun on her heel and walked out of his office, down the corridor and into the day, a lightness in her step.

  She steered the bike down to the Thames, parking near Tower Bridge where Matthew Osborne had ended his life. Jamie looked out over the fast-flowing water, feeling the breeze on her face as she gazed at the Tower of London on the north bank. Its strong walls had stood there while the inhabitants of London had gone about their mad lives for centuries, and it would continue to stand when she was gone.

  This life was a puzzle and sometimes the pieces didn't fit, but the attempt was still worth it. Sometimes pieces were lost, as Polly was lost to her, but London was all about reinvention and rejuvenation, and tomorrow could be another life. She thought of Blake, asleep in her bed, and a smile flickered across her face. Jamie inhaled deeply, feeling more alive than she had for months.

  Thanks for joining Jamie and Blake in this adventure.

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  Author's Note

  The themes of Delirium were born years ago when I studied psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. I took classes in neuroscience and clinical psychology, as well as learning about issues of gender, individual differences and the history and abuses of psychiatry.

  History of mental illness

  The Tranquilizer chair used as a method of murder in the Prologue is a real device. The person's head was encased in the padded box to block out light and sound, the legs and arms were pinioned and then hot and cold water applied to the head and feet. The other treatments mentioned are also historically accurate, although the story is, of course, fictionalized.

  Bedlam, as Bethlem Hospital was known, moved to different locations over time. It was once at the site of the Imperial War Museum as described and is now in Beckenham, South East London. I visited the museum at the current hospital, and it's a lovely, leafy campus with an art gallery as well as a cafe for visitors. The Labyrinth painting in the gallery scene is based on William Kurelek's The Maze, which I saw in the museum: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/258605203576785283/

  Three generations of the Monro family ran Bedlam, during which time it acquired its reputation as a kind of hell. For more, read Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and mad-doctoring in eighteenth-century England, by Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull (2001). Bryan Crowther was a surgeon at Bedlam in the eighteenth century, rumored to have dissected the brains of dead inmates and to have donated their bodies to the resurrectionists, whose anatomy work I covered in Desecration.

  I wanted to have a scene in Broadmoor because it's as well known in Britain as Bedlam once was. The men incarcerated there are extreme cases and in fact, very few people with mental health issues actually harm other people. They are far more likely to harm themselves, or commit suicide, than hurt others. You can learn more about Broadmoor through the NHS videos here: http://www.wlmht.nhs.uk/bm/broadmoor-hospital/about-broadmoor-hospital-video/

  Research into Advanced Intelligence Network (RAIN) is based on the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA) http://www.iarpa.gov/ This real American agency "invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs that have the potential to provide the United States with an overwhelming intelligence advantage over future adversaries." I'm sure the British must have an equivalent!

  Personal note

  I have the utmost respect for people who are on the diagnosed spectrum of mental illness, and for those who care for them, and so this book is more about the exploitation that has dominated the history of psychiatry. Whenever we consider people to be 'the Other,' there will always be abuse.

  I also believe there is a spectrum of madness in all of us, it's just a matter of degree. We all have moments of craziness, inspired by life situations or through the influence of drugs, illegal or prescribed. Like many of us, I have caught glimpses of what some would call mental illness in my own life. I share these thoughts honestly, as a mentally well person living happily in society. I hope to demonstrate that the continuum is a slide we all move up and down, and perhaps help you reflect on where you sit. Here are some of my experiences:

  If I drive at night, I want to steer into oncoming headlights. I have an almost overwhelming attraction, perhaps a compulsion, to smash into them. I have to tighten my hands on the steering wheel to stop my desire to turn into the path of death. For this reason, I don't drive at night unless I really have to.

  When my first husband left me, my anger and grief caused me to want to self-harm. I wanted to hurt myself so badly that he would be driven back to me out of guilt. (That was years ago and I am now happily married again!)

  I sometimes feel untethered from the world, as if my physical body is nothing and I could just leave it behind. I have moments of detachment where I don't care for anyone. I feel like an alien put on this planet and nothing matters. I look around and it could all disappear and I wouldn't care.

  When I write, I sometimes read my words later and I ca
n't remember writing it. I didn't even know I thought those things and I don't know how they arrived on the page.

  I have experienced religious conversion, spoken in tongues and I once believed the world to be teeming with angels and demons. Perhaps I still do.

  All these moments have passed over me in waves. They are seconds in a life of nearly forty years as I write this, and UK statistics show that one in four people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the space of a year. I'm not on any medication and I don't think I'm 'crazy,' whatever that means. I move up and down the spectrum and I expect to continue doing so during my allotted span.

  My biggest fear in terms of mental health is to become demented and for my brain to die before my body does. Fantasy author Terry Pratchett's descent into early-onset Alzheimer's started my investigation into the choice to die. It is a writer's responsibility to think about the hard issues and suicide is certainly a contentious one. I support the charity Dignity In Dying, campaigning to change the law to allow the choice of an assisted death for terminally ill, mentally competent adults, within upfront safeguards. You can read more about it here: http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/

  If you want to read more on the themes of this book

  Bedlam: London and its mad – Catharine Arnold

  The Locked Ward: Memoirs of a psychiatric orderly – Dennis O'Donnell