Dead Scared

by S J Bolton

  Then the room went dark and the floor seemed to fall from beneath me.

  *

  ‘You all right? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Can someone get a chair?’

  I was on the floor of the Buttery serving area with no memory of having reached the front of the queue. A boy and a girl were crouched next to me; behind the counter several kitchen staff looked more interested than concerned. Nothing they hadn’t seen before.

  A chair appeared and I let them lift me up and put me on it. ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I said to the pale-faced girl with scarlet glasses who’d helped lift me. ‘Don’t miss your breakfast. I’ll just stay here for a bit.’

  Gradually, they left me alone. An older, kind-looking woman behind the counter offered me a drink. After a few minutes I felt better.

  I caught Tox just as she was about to leave.

  ‘Sorry about last night,’ I said. ‘Did I scare you?’

  She shook her head, but didn’t quite meet my eyes. I’d scared her. ‘It must have been talking about what happened to Bryony,’ I said. ‘It must have been playing on my mind. I don’t normally dream at all.’

  She glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes to nine. She’d have to rush to make nine o’clock lectures. ‘Bryony could never remember anything in the morning,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t at first,’ I said. ‘I just felt rough, like I’d drunk too much and slept too little. It started coming back to me just now.’

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I was awake,’ I said. ‘In my dream, I mean. But I couldn’t move. I knew exactly where I was, I just couldn’t move a muscle or open my eyes. And someone was standing over me, watching me. Was I noisy?’

  ‘Not as bad as Bryony could be,’ Tox replied.

  But bad enough, judging by the look on her face.

  ‘I remembered something about Bryony’s dreams,’ Tox said. ‘There was this one time when she was sobbing that someone had cut her face to ribbons, that blood was pouring out of her. It wasn’t, of course, she was perfectly fine. Just freaking out.’

  At that moment my phone buzzed. A text from Evi wondering if I could see her at noon, in her rooms. There was something she needed to talk to me about.

  ‘I’ll see a doctor this morning,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it’s just being in a new place, talking about what happened to Bryony and that business with the boys on Tuesday night. But if it happens again, I’ll move out.’

  At that, Tox looked a little ashamed of herself. Which was exactly what I’d planned. ‘You don’t need to do that,’ she said.

  ‘You should go,’ I said. ‘Thanks for being so sweet. I’ll catch you later.’

  ‘NICE ROOM,’ SAID Laura Farrow, standing just a pace or two inside it, looking round at the walls of pale, uncovered stone and arched stone-framed windows.

  ‘My official room in college,’ said Evi. ‘Where I see my students, as opposed to my patients.’

  ‘Who’s the stiff?’ asked the detective, her eyes rising to the oil painting above the hearth.

  ‘Some twit in a black gown and curled wig,’ replied Evi, as a spark jumped out of the fire and landed on the worn rug. Before Evi could even move, Laura had stepped forward and crushed it under foot. Then she almost lost her balance, stumbled and recovered.

  ‘There’s a hook behind the door,’ said Evi. ‘Have a seat. You might need a notebook.’

  Laura took off her jacket, gloves and scarf, sat on the winged chair opposite Evi’s own and took a student pad and pencil from her bag. When she looked up, her pupils were too large.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Evi asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Laura, a little too quickly. ‘Don’t I look it?’

  Evi took her time. Natural poise aside, Laura really didn’t look well. Her make-up seemed to sit on her pale face, rather than blending in naturally.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well,’ Laura added. ‘The student blocks can be quite noisy at night.’ Then she seemed to force a smile. ‘And the truth is I’m not nearly as young as I’m pretending to be.’

  Evi decided to let it go. She picked up a file from a small table by her side and opened it. ‘I found something that worried me,’ she began, flicking through the first few pages. ‘Shortly after we met on Tuesday. I didn’t mention it straight away because I wanted to think about it and I certainly didn’t want to put it in an email.’

  Looking up, she saw a tiny flake of mascara high on Laura’s left cheek. Oddly, it suited her, like an old-fashioned, painted beauty spot.

  ‘You have to understand this is very difficult for me,’ Evi went on. ‘Patient confidentiality is sacrosanct in the medical profession. At least it should be. Talking to you at all without clearing it with – well, with the world and his wife, frankly – is putting my career at risk.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Laura.

  ‘You picked up on Bryony’s fear that she’d been raped,’ Evi said after a moment. ‘Bryony is a very troubled young woman with all sorts of problems. I just wondered why that, of everything in her case notes, struck you.’

  Laura dropped her eyes. ‘It’s an interest of mine,’ she said. ‘I joined the police to work on violent crime against women. So it’s natural it would strike a chord.’

  Evi half considered asking if violent crime was something of which the detective had personal experience. Bad idea. She was letting her interest in Laura Farrow herself get in the way of the job both of them were trying to do. She nodded at Laura to go on.

  ‘But it was more than that,’ Laura said. ‘Everything else going on in Bryony’s life, the problems sleeping, the stress over workload, her feelings of worthlessness, they were all of her own making, if you know what I mean. I’m not trying to minimize her problems, far from it, I’m just trying to say that they were … oh, help me out here, you’re the psychiatrist.’

  ‘Of an internal origin?’ suggested Evi.

  ‘Exactly. Rape, though, is quite the opposite. Rape is inflicted upon you by an external aggressor.’

  ‘If the rape was real,’ Evi reminded her, and saw a flash of annoyance in the girl’s hazel-blue eyes. ‘As opposed to something Bryony either imagined or invented. Are you sure you’re OK, Laura? Your hands are shaking.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Laura, a bit faster than was strictly polite. ‘Thank you. I know the counsellor on your team wasn’t convinced by Bryony’s story, but my instinct when a woman says she’s been raped is to give her the benefit of the doubt.’

  This young woman had been abused, possibly even raped, herself. Evi was now sure of it. She wondered if her superiors in the police service were aware of her history.

  ‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘So if I told you that four other students claimed to have been raped, in a manner very similar to that which Bryony reported, in the months leading up to their taking their own lives, you’d consider that significant?’

  Evi watched Laura nod her head slowly, saw the spark leap into her eyes.

  ‘We’re talking a period of five years,’ Evi went on. ‘No proof in any case. Nothing to corroborate the women’s stories.’

  ‘Tell me about them.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Evi. ‘That’s the problem.’

  ‘They’re dead,’ Laura argued.

  Evi shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Then how on earth do you expect me—’

  Evi held up a hand. ‘Three years ago,’ she said, ‘a patient of the clinic, we’ll call her Patient A—’

  ‘Just give me first names,’ said Laura.

  ‘If I give you first names, you’ll be able to identify them from newspaper reports.’

  ‘OK, tell me what happened to Patient A,’ said Laura, who was almost certainly thinking she could probably do that anyway.

  ‘Patient A reported bad dreams, problems sleeping, and a fear of someone entering her room at night,’ Evi said. ‘One night, convinced she’d been raped, she went to the police. There was no physical evidence at all. She ki
lled herself six weeks later.’

  Laura wrote in her notebook.

  ‘A few months before that, Patient B, a medical student, reported similar fears,’ said Evi. ‘Bad dreams of a sexual nature, waking up feeling hungover and sluggish, even though she claimed she hadn’t been drinking or taken anything. Patient B never used the word rape. She felt as though she was being violated repeatedly, but she thought it was her own mind that was doing the damage.’

  ‘That’s creepy,’ said Laura. ‘She killed herself too?’

  Evi nodded. ‘At the start of that same year, another girl, Patient C, reported her fears of ongoing rape to the police,’ she said. ‘Excessive levels of ketamine were found in her bloodstream that she swore she hadn’t taken. Other than that, though, no evidence. The police were sympathetic but had nothing to go on.’

  ‘You said four,’ Laura reminded her.

  ‘Patient D attempted to kill herself five years ago,’ Evi said. ‘Similar history. Bad dreams, trouble sleeping, vague recollections of sexual abuse.’

  ‘Attempted? You mean she’s still alive?’

  Evi said nothing. After a moment, Laura stood up and crossed to the window. ‘Since you found the figures on suicide attempts,’ she said, over her shoulder, ‘our list has gone up to twenty-nine.’

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed Evi.

  Laura turned back to look at her. ‘You know who they all are?’ she asked.

  Evi nodded.

  ‘But you won’t tell me?’

  ‘I’m not ready to be struck off just yet,’ Evi told her. ‘Besides, there are other ways you can get the information. There’ll be coroner’s reports on the actual suicides. The police can access those, as long as you prove to the coroner you have good reason.’

  Laura didn’t look convinced. Her lips pursed and her eyes fell to the floor. Then she seemed to think of something. She looked up and forced a polite smile on to her face.

  ‘I do understand,’ she told Evi. ‘Thank you for telling me what you have. I’ll discuss it with my senior officers. If they think it important, I’m sure they’ll take it further.’

  Laura Farrow was up to something she shouldn’t be. There was a glint of excitement behind those eyes now. And she was looking at the back of the door where her jacket was hanging.

  ‘Let me know if anything comes up, won’t you?’ Evi asked her.

  Laura agreed that she would but she was already mentally somewhere else. She crossed the room, pulled down her jacket and put it on. A second later she was gone.

  VISITING TIME HAD just started but there was no one in the small, private room with its tropical microclimate except Bryony herself. As I approached the protective tent, I could see that the cadaver’s face had been fastened to Bryony’s own flesh with centimetre-long steel staples. They ran around her eyes and her mouth, along the top of her head. Frankenstein, I couldn’t help thinking. Frankenstein stitched dead people together to make a living creature.

  Bryony’s ventilator had been removed again. All that was left was a small length of plastic pipe attached to her throat in case the staff needed to hook her up again quickly. For the moment, she was breathing unaided.

  I would rather be dead. I would a million times rather be dead than spend a single day looking like this.

  The door closed behind me and, at the faint swishing sound it made, Bryony’s eyes opened. She looked at me and blinked.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  Her eyes were bright blue. Beautiful eyes, hardly touched by the fire, but seeing them move beneath dead skin was like watching an animated corpse. I pulled the bedside chair a little way from the bed and sat down. I think I’d been hoping I’d no longer have to see her eyes. It didn’t work. She turned her head and those eyes were fixed on me again.

  How could I ever have thought this was a good idea?

  ‘You’re probably wondering who I am,’ I said, making myself look directly at her. ‘And the truth is, I’m not sure what to tell you.’

  Her lashless eyelids closed briefly, then opened again. I had no means of knowing what, if anything, she was taking in. She might be awake but her pain medication would still be very strong.

  ‘I can’t even tell you my name,’ I went on, ‘because I’m not allowed to tell you my real one. And I don’t want to lie to you.’

  Something in those eyes. It could have been curiosity. It could have been fear. I really didn’t want to frighten her.

  ‘If you want me to leave,’ I said, ‘I will. I don’t know whether you can talk but if you blink your eyes at me very rapidly, I’ll take that as a signal to go. OK?’

  I didn’t really expect a response, but Bryony moved her head up and down.

  ‘I’m living in your old room,’ I said. ‘Sharing with Talaith. But I’m not a student. I’m pretending to be one, but I’m not.’

  What on earth was I doing? If Bryony had any way of communicating with people, I’d just blown it. I’d destroyed my cover, wrecked the case and was probably on the verge of jeopardizing this girl’s recovery.

  ‘I’m here,’ I went on, knowing I was committed, ‘because people are concerned. They think someone might be harming students. Maybe not directly, maybe it’s all quite subtle, but it’s dangerous all the same.’

  Bryony raised her right hand from the bed. It was heavily bandaged. She pressed her forefinger and thumb close together and waved her hand around in the air.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Can I get you something? Do you need the nurse?’

  She let her hand fall back to the bed. Her breathing had quickened, her chest rising and falling beneath the bedclothes. In spite of what Nick had told me the other day about sedatives, she seemed to be in pain.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I really don’t want to upset you and I’ll go the minute you ask me to.’

  I stopped, looking for the rapid blinking that would be my signal to beat it. I was half hoping to see it. She just looked at me. Waiting.

  ‘OK, here’s the thing,’ I said, just wanting to get it over with now. ‘I’ve read your case notes and I know what you think was happening to you in your room at night. I also know that at least four other women students have reported very similar things happening to them.’

  Her eyes seemed to widen.

  ‘Four young women talked about bad dreams, of someone coming into their rooms at night. They talked about being raped. All the things that happened to you.’

  Her eyes didn’t leave mine for a second.

  ‘Bryony,’ I said, ‘do you have any idea who it was that was coming into your room?’

  Bryony closed her eyes and moved her head from side to side. She didn’t know. It was several seconds before she opened her eyes again. I was tiring her.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you get some rest now.’

  Her right arm was off the bedclothes again. Thumb and forefinger clenched together, she was waving her hand around.

  ‘I’ll get the nurse,’ I said.

  Heading for the door I was stopped in my tracks by urgent sounds coming from the bed behind me. The sort of sounds you make when you can’t speak but you really want to make a noise. I turned back. Bryony had half raised herself from the bedclothes. She was still making that odd, jerky movement with her hand. Then, exhaustion getting the better of her, she collapsed back on the bed and moaned softly. I walked round to the right side of the tent, to the vents the nurses used to get close to her. Dangling from beneath the one closest to her hand was a small, rectangular piece of white plastic and a fibre-tipped pen.

  ‘Bryony,’ I said to her, ‘can you write?’

  A short, sharp nod of the head answered me. I pulled a sterile glove from a box by the bedside and, as gently as I could, slid the pen between her thumb and forefinger. Then I held the plastic up to meet her hand.

  Holding the pen and moving it around was a huge effort, I could tell from the way her eyes narrowed and little gasps escaped from her throat. Feeling hopeful and guilty at the s
ame time, I watched as she traced out a letter.

  W

  It took her a long time but at last her hand fell to the bed again and there were two words on the pad.

  WATCHING ME

  Movement outside. The handle of Bryony’s door started to turn then stopped again. Footsteps walked away. I looked back down to see Bryony had written something else.

  SCARED

  ‘What are you scared of?’ I asked, in a voice I’m not sure she could have heard, then leaned closer to read the final word she’d written. Her hand fell back on the bed covers. She’d written BELL.

  What kind of bell? Why on earth would a bell scare her? I had to bite back a dozen questions. Bryony had had enough. Even I could see that. I made myself smile at her, took a step towards the door, and remembered the last time I’d been in this room.

  There’d been a bell here then. Nick Bell. And he’d been watching her.

  SAD. HOPELESS. DESPAIR. These were the sorts of words you expected from a young woman who’d attempted suicide. Not Watching me. Not Scared. What on earth had been going on in Bryony’s life to lead her to such a drastic step? If she wasn’t either delusional or making it up for attention, this was a whole different ball game. And where did Bell fit in?

  All the way back to my room, I desperately wanted someone to talk to. I’d always thought of myself as a solitary creature, not given to sharing. How wrong I’d been. In the police there was always someone to report back to, to bounce ideas off. For the first time in years I had too much going on in my head and no one to turn to.

  Bell didn’t necessarily mean Nick Bell. It wasn’t a common name, but even so I would not let that particular cat out of the bag just yet. There had to be other Bells in Cambridge. I opened up my laptop and started searching the university websites for someone else called Bell, looking first through the list of undergraduates, then postgraduates, then research fellows, fellows, honorary fellows, masters and staff. In a community of over twenty thousand people I found three others, two of them women. The third was a man called Harold whose brief biographical details told me he’d been retired for some time.