by Steven Dunne
Jason Donovan Wallis woke clutching his throat, panting for his last breath, trying to staunch the blood from a wound inflicted many times before. His gasps slowed as recognition dawned and he became aware of his surroundings. His heart rate levelled but with relief came the tears, slow and unwelcome but above all silent. All signs of weakness were ruthlessly mocked in White Oaks, so inmates cried with the mute button on.
Jason lay back on his bunk. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat so he tore it off, wiped it around his tear tracks and slung it on the floor. He sat up on his bunk and tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths, as softly as he could manage so as not to wake his roommate.
The sun slammed in through the grimy curtain-free window, flat like a searchlight in a watchtower across the quadrangle. He shielded his eyes. Was this it? His life. Every morning, waking up in a fug of moisturised panic, remembering the old woman begging for mercy, or the sheet-covered trolleys of his butchered family, or, worst of all, the faceless psycho chasing him, killing him. What was it Father Donetti had told him after Sunday Service? Cowards die many times. How many times, he hadn’t seen fit to mention. Jason hoped it wasn’t too many more.
At least here the only danger was from other inmates, young offenders keen to seek out those weaker than themselves so they could pass on abuse from further up the hierarchy. So far he’d managed to keep his head down and hang tough in all the right places.
Jason stood and pulled his blanket over his pillow and tiptoed over to his bag, already packed for his release. He pulled out a fresh T-shirt, dragged it over his head and crept to the window to look out at the chill of the morning. It was early but he still had to screen his eyes from the low sun. He looked over the grounds, which were covered in a light frost, down the drive to the main gate, and then across at the outbuildings, which housed most of the workshops where the day staff tried to teach some of the inmates a trade.
For the first time since his sentence began, Jason was invaded by a pang for freedom, a yearning to get out of the block and wander round the site. He could have it to himself. He could even walk down the drive to the gates and peer at the world outside. If he really wanted, he could open the gate and walk out. If he wanted …
Hudson and Grant stood either side of the sheet-covered steel trolley. The two women were huddled in position, the younger slightly behind the elder, holding onto her arm with both hands. Hudson nodded to the mortuary technician, who peeled the sheet back from the corpse.
The older woman screamed and collapsed to the floor, the younger woman’s flimsy grip on her arm insufficient to keep her upright. Hudson managed to grab her and haul her up. The young girl ignored her plight and stared open-mouthed at the body of Tony Harvey-Ellis.
‘Oh God, no,’ she said, tears streaming down her face, her breath coming in short hard bursts. ‘Oh God. Oh God.’
A second later the girl seemed to become aware of her surroundings. Her arms sought her mother and gathered her into an embrace, each wedging their tear-stained face onto the shoulder of the other.
Grant nodded at the technician, who re-covered the body with appropriate solemnity.
Hudson posed the superfluous question. ‘Is that your husband’s body, Mrs Harvey-Ellis?’
‘I don’t understand.’ Amy Harvey-Ellis wrung the damp handkerchief around her fingers and stared at the untouched coffee that she’d accepted on her arrival, without understanding any part of the transaction. The tears began to well again. ‘I don’t understand. He shouldn’t even have been here.’
Her daughter Terri grabbed her forearm and wrapped it in hers. ‘Mum,’ she said, for no reason other than to remind her she was there. ‘Mum.’ And as always, whenever comfort is offered to the tearful, the dam burst and Amy Harvey-Ellis began to shake with anguish once more.
Seated on the other side of the interview room, DCI Hudson and DS Grant lowered their eyes in a well-oiled show of respect for distress.
‘Why shouldn’t he be here, Mrs Harvey-Ellis?’ ventured Grant, after an appropriate pause.
Amy looked up at Laura Grant with a desperate look in her eye. ‘He wasn’t supposed to be in Brighton. He should have been at a conference in London until tomorrow night.’
As discreetly as they could manage, the two detectives exchanged a knowing glance. ‘Can you think of any reason why your husband would come back to Brighton early?’ Hudson asked, fighting to keep an inquiring note in his voice.
‘And why he might want to conceal his return from you?’ added Grant.
Terri stopped consoling her mother and looked hard at Grant, tears beginning to gather in her own eyes. ‘Can’t this wait? We’ve just lost somebody we loved. We’ve just had to identify his body.’ Without waiting for an answer, Terri gestured her mother to stand and led her to the door. Hudson made a show of getting out of his chair to usher them out. Grant didn’t move.
At the door, Amy lifted her face away from her hands and spat out, ‘My husband would never kill himself. Never! It’s absurd. He loved us.’
‘Please sit down, Mrs Harvey-Ellis. I know this is difficult,’ said Grant. After a momentary pause, Amy Harvey-Ellis returned to her seat, accompanied reluctantly by her daughter.
‘It’s procedure. We have to explore all possibilities until we can rule them out,’ added Hudson. ‘I mean, there was no note with his clothing so the chances are it’s an accidental drowning. He goes for an early morning jog, works up a sweat and fancies a swim. Something goes wrong, he gets into difficulties …’
‘Did he have any health problems at all? Maybe a bad heart?’ Grant spoke softly, probing gently as all the grief counsellors had advised.
‘Nothing like that. He played rugby, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Okay,’ murmured Grant. ‘And you can’t think of anyone he might have been staying with near the spot where we found his running gear?’
This time it was Terri who answered. ‘We’ve told you, we don’t know anyone who lives near there.’
‘Okay, Miss Harvey-Ellis, I think that’s all for now. Take your mother home,’ said Hudson.
‘Brook. My name is Terri Brook. Tony was my stepfather.’
‘So you weren’t blood relations?’ asked Grant.
‘Can I take my mother home now?’
‘How old are you, Terri?’ asked Grant.
Terri Brook looked at her, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead. Even Hudson raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m seventeen, whatever that’s got to do with anything.’
‘Just for the records,’ nodded Grant, taking a note.
‘Now can we go home?’
Hudson turned to Amy. ‘One more thing, Mrs Harvey-Ellis — how did your husband travel up to London?’
Jason Wallis stood and accepted the hand offered by the grey-haired priest, whose intense blue eyes fixed Jason as they shook hands.
‘Cheers for our talks, Father Donetti. They were a big help.’
‘A pleasure, my son. And I hope you’ll remember what we said. No more shoplifting. I don’t want to see you back in here.’
Jason smiled. ‘No probs. And I’ll try to go to church every Sunday, Father.’
The priest laughed. ‘No, you won’t, lad. But the Almighty is everywhere. Just ask him for help wherever you are. He’ll answer you.’
Jason picked up his bag and turned to the large doors that would lead him to the drive and the gates beyond.
He walked down the drive, enjoying the crunch of the gravel underfoot. As he walked he could feel eyes on him, watching his progress. Without stopping, he turned to look. He couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean some of his new acquaintances weren’t following his exit, wishing they were in his place. He looked back at the buildings with something approaching affection. The dreams had stopped for a while. But now being spat out back into the world that had chewed him up, the dreams had started again.
He reached the gates, hoping there’d be no one there to greet him. He’d told his aunt not to bother — it was a long
traipse with a toddler. He turned one last time to face the buildings that had offered him sanctuary these past months and then stepped outside the gates.
‘Yo! Jace! MoFo. Over here, blood.’ Three young men standing beside a cream-coloured stretch limo shouted in unison at him from across the highway. All were dressed for sport — baseball caps, sweatshirts, trainers. Only the jeans would betray them on the field of dreams, slung low as they were to flaunt grubby Calvins. The Stella cans they all carried were drained, crushed and discarded on the pavement with a sly look at the limo driver, in the hope of catching an expression of disgust.
Jason tried to look pleased to see them but the old fear started gnawing at him. He’d been warned by Brook.
Grass up his crew or face The Reaper.
He now adjusted his posture and his walk, showing he was dangerous, aggressive, best avoided. He shook out a cigarette and lit it with a macho pull. To finish his repertoire, he spat on the ground as if he hadn’t a care in the world and rolled over to knuckle-tap his crew, a battle-hardened grimace glued to his face.
‘Grets, Banger, Stinger. Gimme some skin. S’guarnin, blood?’
‘Same old, same old. Smokin’ the peng, dodgin’ the leng. How was it?’
Jason grinned, taking in another massive drag of tobacco. ‘Piece of piss, fam. I can do the time standin’ on mi head.’
‘Fucking holiday camp, yeah?’ grinned Banger.
‘We was gonna bring you a squeeze in case you’d turned fag,’ said Grets, laughing.
‘You keep your booty zipped, man?’ joked Banger.
‘What you chattin’?’ laughed Jason in mock outrage. ‘I only saw one guy who was blatant fag,’ he shouted. ‘He tries to gimme a tea-bagging and I tear him a new one.’
‘’Cept he probly enjoy it,’ cackled Stinger. ‘You shoulda sun-flowered his ass, blood. That’d learn him.’
‘I hear that.’
The telephoto lens gazed steadily from the bushes a few hundred yards down the road, whirring rhythmically as the posse’s likenesses were stored. It was lowered once the boys had ducked into the stretch, Jason bobbing in after a final nervous look around as if he expected someone else to be there.
‘Poisoned? Are you sure, Doc?’
‘There’s no mistake,’ said Dr Hubbard, sitting back in his cramped office and contemplating Grant and Hudson with his hands behind his head.
‘So he was dead before he went in the water?’
‘No, he wasn’t. That’s the clever bit. His lungs were full of water. He drowned. Without a post-mortem it looks like an accidental death. But I’ll be telling the coroner murder.’
‘We’re listening,’ said DS Grant.
‘Scopolamine.’ The doctor beamed at them as though expecting Hudson and Grant to slap their foreheads in recognition. ‘Also called hyoscine. Dr Crippen was a big fan. Killed his wife with it.’ When their expressions remained vacant, he ploughed on. ‘It’s in the Pharmacopoeia. It’s a cerebral sedative which was used to treat epilepsy and other manias — I’m talking over a hundred years ago. Then around 1900 it was combined with morphine to create an anaesthetic which was used in the Great War. It brings on a condition called “Twilight Sleep” in which the patient is conscious but effectively paralysed and has no response to, or memory of pain. Very dodgy stuff though.’
‘And was there morphine in Harvey-Ellis as well?’
‘There was, Sergeant.’ The doctor pulled a photograph from a pile on his disorganised desk. ‘This is the victim’s neck.’ They peered at the picture. ‘You see that pinprick? That’s a puncture wound. He was injected.’
‘Injected?’ asked Hudson.
‘Could it have been self-administered?’ ventured Grant.
‘Good lord, no. Even if he’d had the pharmaceutical knowledge, which is unlikely in his line of work, it’s the angle. Somebody stuck a hypodermic into him, as though standing above him. Like this.’ The doctor demonstrated the angle of the injection.
‘So Harvey-Ellis may have been sitting on a bench on the seafront when he was attacked?’ mused Hudson.
‘Perhaps.’
‘If he was out jogging he could have been tying a shoelace or getting his breath back, guv,’ added Grant.
‘Also possible,’ nodded Hubbard. ‘And the effects would have been very fast acting, particularly with his pulse and heart rate elevated. Harvey-Ellis would have begun to feel groggy almost immediately. Depending on dosage, he might even have been hallucinatory. Either way he’s easily handled physically and mentally. It wouldn’t take much to lead him down to the water and help him off with his clothes.’
‘And in the unlikely event there are other people around at that time of day, the killer can make it look like they’re a couple of drunks, guv.’
Hudson eyed Hubbard. ‘So we’re looking for a medical man between the ages of 130 and 160 years old?’
Dr Hubbard stared back at Hudson in blank incomprehension. A sudden explosion startled the two officers as Hubbard guffawed and nodded with genuine appreciation.
‘Very good, Inspector. I’ll have to remember that one for the dinner party circuit.’ Hudson darted a quick glance at Grant. They waited for the mirth to subside. ‘Well. It’s difficult. I mean, older medical men, and particularly chemists, might be familiar with the narcotic qualities of these two drugs to some extent. Scopolamine is a derivative of the nightshade family so anywhere that you find those plants could be a source. My research tells me that the drug is used a lot in Colombia, some tree over there contains it, but it’s not recreational like cocaine. It’s used in rapes and abductions, stuff like that. And it’s colourless and odourless so very difficult to detect.’
‘Are the two drugs used in combination for legitimate medical purposes?’ asked Grant.
‘I can’t think of a single medical circumstance these days,’ said Hubbard. ‘Separately, yes. Morphine is used in the relief of severe pain as you’ll know, and scopolamine in minute doses is used to treat things like motion sickness. Combined? No. No reputable physician would prescribe it. It was last used in the sixties during childbirth but sometimes there were complications when patients were unable to feel and report pain.’
‘Which means any mention in the profiling database will definitely be worth a follow-up, guv,’ nodded Grant.
Hudson sighed. ‘Okay. It’s a murder inquiry. Thanks a lot, Doc.’
Hubbard grinned, shaking his head again as they left. ‘A 160-year-old doctor,’ he chuckled. ‘Very good.’
Jason woke with a start and ran his hand over his throat as he sat up panting. He took several deep breaths to calm himself, darting an eye to his bedroom door to be sure the chest of drawers was still in place. Jason threw back his duvet and padded to the window, tearing off his soaking T-shirt and throwing it down on the floor.
He pulled the curtain aside as minutely as he could and flicked a glance up and down Station Road. A light wind was blowing and the brown and withering leaves of the trees were shedding as the seasons waged their inexorable campaign. Branches swayed with gentle eroticism against the backdrop of the streetlamps. Nothing else moved.
He moved the chest of drawers away from the door and tiptoed to the bathroom. He drank from the tap to counter the dry stickiness of too many WKDs, downed with his crew to celebrate his release. Returning to his room, he fancied he heard a noise so he lifted the chest of drawers back into place as quietly as he could manage.
He flicked at his mobile. It was four in the morning. He pulled the curtain further back, opened his window and took a long pull of chilled air, faintly scented with decay and the sharp promise of winter.
He heard the creak of a floorboard and froze. His eyes darted around the room, at the dark shadows of the wardrobe, the blackness of an alcove. He could imagine The Reaper hiding there, waiting to strike. He flung himself back into the still damp bed and pulled the duvet over his head.
Finally, he poked his head out from his cocoon and heaved a timorous sigh.
Was this all he had to look forward to — cowering in this gloomy old house, waiting to die? Waiting for The Reaper to spring from his hiding place and cut him to pieces?
He was invaded by an urge for the outdoors and dressed quickly. He padded downstairs to the kitchen to pull on his Nikes. He took a pinch of the barely eaten welcome-home cake baked by his aunt and crunched down on the icing. Kicking aside one of the three deflating balloons mustered for his homecoming, he tiptoed softly to the door. A minute later he was out on Station Road, hunching himself against the breeze in his too thin jacket, heading towards the bridges — one for the river and one for the railway that no longer stopped in Borrowash. He crossed the road that fed traffic across to the scrubby flood plains of the Trent and beyond, heading towards the path from which he’d occasionally fished as a young boy, and further on to the grounds of Elvaston Castle, dilapidated and long since abandoned to its fate by the council.
As he approached the railway bridge, Jason was halted in his tracks by a noise, which might have been a car door slamming. He turned to face the line of parked cars resting beside the pavement from their daily labours. Nothing moved. No one stood outside their car ready to disappear into their home and no engine was started by a driver making an early start.
Jason stood back against a hedge, completely still apart from his eyes, which flicked frantically around in the gloom. Then he spotted the cat wandering down the pavement towards him, bobbing along, not a care in the world. He breathed more easily but wondered whether leaving the safety of the house was a good idea. The Reaper could be out here, waiting for his chance. But that was exactly why he had to get out. In the open air he could see all comers. In bed, death lurked behind every curtain, every door.
He turned to resume his walk but before he could take another step the cat, now just a few yards away, swerved away from a gate and froze, staring at something behind a hedge. Jason tried to follow the cat’s gaze but could see nothing. He crossed the road as stealthily as he could manage and continued to stare after the creature.