Pendulum

by Adam Hamdy

  She led them through one of the heavy double doors, into a security booth. They were encased on three sides by thick glass, which Wallace suspected was shatterproof. Grace ran a card through a reader and the inner door opened, allowing them to enter the lobby. A middle-aged woman sat behind the reception desk, and nodded at Grace as she passed. Wallace and Ash followed Grace across the flagstone floor, walking beneath large Edward Hopper-style watercolours of lighthouses and beach scenes that hung on bare brick. A thick visitors’ book rested on a high plinth and a sign invited people to use it to share their experiences of the center. The room felt more like the innards of a design studio than a hospital, and Wallace suspected that, just like the Maybury, the trendy modernity would be reflected in the Cromwell’s treatment methods. Another card reader guarded a door at the other end of the room, and Grace swiped their way into the corridor beyond.

  ‘Everywhere seems pretty secure,’ Wallace observed as they walked down the long, windowless corridor.

  Grace looked puzzled by the remark.

  ‘So I was wondering how secure the secure unit is,’ Wallace explained.

  ‘Ah. The secure unit is for our more troubled patients, ones who present a threat to themselves or others. People with a history of violence,’ Grace replied. ‘It’s called the secure unit because of the special protocols we use to keep the patients safe. I hope that answers your question, Mr . . . ?’

  ‘Porter,’ Wallace offered hurriedly. ‘William Porter. I’m helping Special Agent Ash with her investigation.’

  The corridor ended with a white mesh gate. Next to it was a small black window, which opened as they approached to reveal a large orderly in a white uniform. He sat inside a tiny room lined with shelves that were laden with box files and paperwork.

  ‘Afternoon, Miss Kavanagh,’ he said. ‘Gonna need your guests to sign their stuff in.’

  Ash stepped forward and leaned through the window to sign the deposit sheet.

  ‘Thank you, Special Agent Ash,’ the orderly said, reading the names Ash had written. ‘You and Mr Porter will need to leave any weapons, pens, pins, belts, jewellery or any other potentially hazardous items with us.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Ash asked.

  ‘It’s for your protection,’ Grace advised.

  Ash shook her head as she removed her pistol from its holster. She popped the clip and placed it next to the gun in the plastic tray proffered by the orderly. She emptied her pockets, depositing a small wallet, a billfold of cash, a phone and a pen, while Wallace unthreaded his belt and dropped it into the tray with his wallet and the key to their hotel room.

  ‘Thank you,’ the orderly said. ‘You can collect your stuff on the way out.’

  He pressed a button located beneath the adjacent shelf and the lock on the wire mesh gate buzzed open. Grace pulled the handle and ushered Wallace and Ash into the corridor beyond, before using her key card to get them through another security door at the end of the corridor, where they emerged into a large, open space that was devoid of people. There were no hard edges in the room; even the pastel blue walls were curved, and where they met the soft rubber floor the natural join had been rounded into a smooth contour. Rubber monoblocs and ramps peppered the room and Wallace could see that they were secured to the floor by smooth, recessed bolts. A curved line of mesh-covered windows hugged the high ceiling and ran the length of one wall, flooding the space with light.

  ‘This is the unit’s exercise area. We keep our secure patients separate from the others. They’re not allowed outside until they are well enough to join the general population,’ Grace explained. ‘Max will probably be in the day room.’

  They followed Grace through an arch on the far side of the room, and walked along a pastel yellow corridor that stretched into the distance. A short way down, Grace branched right and led them into a large day room that was full of nurses, orderlies and patients. The twenty or so patients sat on long moulded benches that were bolted to the floor. Eight nurses clad in purple smocks and trousers sat or hovered nearby, attending to any patients who required attention, while half a dozen orderlies propped up the walls, paired in quiet conversation. A television played at the front of the room, shielded behind a thick plastic screen, but Wallace wondered if anyone was actually watching; most of the men and women in the pale green patients’ uniform seemed too detached to register anything.

  ‘This way.’ Grace led Ash and Wallace towards a shaven-headed, emaciated patient on the back row. A young male nurse sat next to him. ‘This is Max,’ Grace said. His eyes were completely glassy and a stream of drool extended from one corner of his mouth. He’d lost so much weight that Wallace hardly recognised him from the photos in Philicia Byrne’s office.

  ‘What’s he on?’ Ash inquired.

  ‘Anti-psychotics, sedatives, muscle relaxants,’ the nurse replied.

  ‘This is Ethan Moore,’ Grace introduced them. ‘He leads Max’s team.’

  ‘Can he talk?’ Ash asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Ethan revealed. ‘His sister’s death hit him hard.’

  ‘Max had a patchy history of mental health problems, but his sister’s passing pushed him to a very dark place,’ Grace explained.

  ‘We’ve got him on a high-dosage combination. Every time we try to taper him off, he becomes extremely violent. Not sure what’s going on in there,’ Ethan indicated Max’s skull, ‘but unfortunately this case is more about management than cure.’

  ‘How long’s he been here?’

  ‘Last month was his second anniversary,’ the nurse replied as he used a piece of gauze to wipe away some of the drool from Max’s mouth.

  ‘Any visitors?’ Ash asked.

  Ethan shook his head slowly. ‘No. A friend booked him in, but his folks never visit. I guess it got too hard for them to see him like this. They’ve already lost one kid.’

  ‘He say anything to the New Haven agents?’ Wallace saw Ash studying Max, scouring his face for anything that might help them.

  ‘No,’ Ethan replied. ‘It took us two days to taper his meds. He was jumpy, but when they started asking him questions about his sister, he became extremely distressed. We were worried he’d get violent, so we had to sedate him again.’

  Ash turned away from Max in exasperation.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ Grace asked.

  Ash looked at Wallace, who felt as though she was willing him to think of something. ‘No. Thanks. You’ve been very helpful,’ Ash said at last.

  ‘In that case, I’ll show you out,’ Grace replied.

  They collected their belongings from the orderly and followed Grace back through the building. Wallace was relieved when they reached the exit and cold air whipped at his cheeks.

  ‘Here’s my card,’ Grace said, handing it to Ash. ‘Give me a call if there’s anything else you need.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ash replied. ‘I appreciate it.’

  Grace withdrew inside and shut the door behind her.

  ‘What now?’ Wallace asked, as they descended the stone steps towards the waiting cab.

  Ash pursed her lips and shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I need to think.’

  ‘You know any bad motels?’ Ash asked the cab driver as they climbed into the vehicle. ‘Somewhere cheap. We lost all our money getting mugged by a New York cabbie.’

  ‘Very funny,’ the cab driver said, casting a sardonic grin in the rear-view mirror. ‘Anyone nuts enough to take a New York City cab on a three-hour trip to Hicksville deserves all the mugging they get.’

  41

  The sun was being devoured by the horizon when they reached the Best Value Inn, a run-down motel on the Wilbur Cross Highway. Ash paid the driver his extra fifty bucks before climbing out to join Wallace in the parking lot. They stood and watched the cab pull on to the highway and speed into the distance, and when it was gone, Wallace turned for the motel, but Ash caught his arm.

  ‘There’s no such thing as too paranoid,’ she told him, pointing
to a cluster of neon signs some distance away. ‘Driver’s gonna remember a four-hundred-buck fare. I don’t want anyone knowing where we are.’

  Wallace nodded, and the two of them set out along the busy highway. Trudging through the filthy snow-covered gutter, their eyes burned by the glare of oncoming headlights, their ears thrumming with the noise of whirling tyres on gritty asphalt, their bodies fighting the fierce freezing wind, they walked on through the fading light. After heading south for half an hour, past a few industrial units and fast food restaurants, they finally came to a motel that was part of a large national chain. It looked too salubrious and would almost certainly have smiling, well-trained staff who might remember a couple of weather-beaten pedestrians with no luggage. They walked on and, three blocks later, reached the Mount Wilbur Inn. It was a single-level, timber-framed building with a red-brick fascia and tile roof. The timbers were peeling and the paintwork moulding. The motel was connected to a tumble-down general store that had a ‘We Buy Gold’ poster in the window. Wallace and Ash left the highway, crossed the potholed parking lot and entered the motel through a door marked ‘Office’.

  ‘Evenin’,’ said a thin, grey-haired man with a lined, leathery face. The name badge pinned to his pressed polyester shirt read ‘Tucker Dale’.

  ‘You got any rooms?’ Ash asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Tucker replied. ‘Double OK?’

  ‘Twin,’ Ash said. ‘I’m saving myself.’

  Tucker smiled as he produced a registration card from a folder. ‘Fill this in, please.’

  ‘You handle this, honey?’ Ash asked Wallace. ‘I need to make a call.’

  Wallace approached the counter and smiled awkwardly at Tucker as Ash stepped out of the office.

  Ash took one of the burners out of her pocket and dialled Hector.

  ‘Solomon,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Ash.’

  The roar of passing traffic filled the silence.

  ‘You need to turn yourself in,’ Hector said finally. ‘I got a call from a researcher at Nightfile asking me about Alice Silberstein.’

  Ash froze, gripped by her hideous past, its dark claws reaching up and tearing at her innards. She doubled over, fearing that she was about to be sick.

  ‘Chris?’ Hector asked. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ash’s forced response was pained and clipped.

  ‘Is it true?’ Hector continued.

  ‘I . . .’ Ash tried. Despair gave way to bewildered anger. It was impossible, but somehow someone had discovered her secret. ‘I was a minor, Hector. Those files were sealed. I was under no legal obligation to disclose anything.’

  ‘No legal obligation? Every case you’ve ever worked is gonna be re-examined in light of this. And the Washington kill? Shit, Chris, what did you do?’ Ash could sense Hector’s concern.

  ‘I did my job. I’m still doing my job.’ Ash kept her anger at bay and her tone as even as possible.

  ‘No. They’re running the story tonight. You need to come in,’ Hector advised. ‘You’ll be suspended pending a full inquiry.’

  Ash leaned against the wall beside the office door and put her head in her hand. She felt soiled, her body permeated with the filth of failure. The world became distant and unreal as her mind tumbled further into despair. She knew she was finished.

  ‘You’ve got to come in,’ Hector insisted. ‘Where are you?’

  Ash looked at the ugly world surrounding her: the rundown motel, the highway covered in frozen slurry, and the filthy vehicles that roared along it. Success was not found in such squalor, she admitted inwardly. She was not one of life’s winners, she thought before she started to speak. ‘Connecticut, just off the—’ She was cut off by Wallace, who slapped the phone out of her hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked agitatedly. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Hector,’ Ash replied, wiping the moisture from her eyes. She watched Wallace pick up the phone and disconnect the call. The phone started ringing almost immediately, so Wallace popped the battery out.

  ‘I trusted you,’ he protested. He seemed genuinely hurt.

  ‘I know, but I’ve screwed everything up. I need to turn myself in.’

  ‘No. If I go back, I’m dead. This guy has reached me in hospital, in jail, fucking everywhere. This is the safest I’ve ever been. You might be reckless, but you’re also smart enough to stay one step ahead. Who else would walk two miles in the freezing cold on the off chance that a cab driver might tell someone which motel he took us to?’ He held Ash’s shoulders and gently pulled her towards him. ‘I don’t need witness protection. I need you,’ he said emphatically.

  Ash gave him a weak smile.

  ‘I’m frozen. Let’s get inside.’ He held out the key to their room. ‘Room twelve. Round the back.’

  The walls were clad in pine veneer, but age had chipped it to reveal the dirty yellow plastic lining underneath. The beds were bowed and lumpy, but the linen was clean, as was the old carpet. The hard-to-reach corners of the tiled bathroom were lined with antique black mould, but the aged fixtures had all been well bleached.

  Ash seemed distracted as she switched on the TV and selected a channel that was broadcasting the last few minutes of a Jim Belushi sitcom. Wallace guessed she wanted something vacuous to take her mind off their troubles. It was clear that her conversation with her superior had not gone well, and she seemed tearful and depressed, but Wallace had no idea what to say or whether he could trust her. She’d been about to give her boss their location, but self-preservation required Wallace to do whatever he could to help keep her at his side.

  ‘I’m going to see if I can get us something to eat,’ he said, looking to buy himself some time to figure things out. ‘Do you want anything?’

  Ash shook her head.

  ‘I won’t be long.’ Wallace hurried through the door and locked it behind him. He couldn’t risk leaving Ash on her own for long – she might try to call her boss – but he needed to work out how to encourage her to stay with him and think about what their next move might be. He walked round the motel, past the office and into the general store, which faced the highway. Glaringly bright strip lights shone on half-empty grey shelves. Wallace didn’t recognise any of the brands, but he could tell from the cheap packaging designs that this shop stocked value items. He grabbed some sack-sized bags of nacho chips, a couple of turkey sandwiches from a leaking old refrigerator and four bottles of Coke. A vacant man in his early twenties took his money and methodically put his purchases in a brown paper bag. Wallace eyed the shelves behind the cashier which were stacked with branded liquor and cigarettes. He hadn’t had a drink since leaving London, but felt that alcohol might ease the situation.

  ‘I’ll take a bottle of Jack Daniels,’ Wallace told the cashier, who reached for a bottle and pushed it across the counter.

  ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  Wallace shook his head.

  ‘Forty-six ninety,’ the cashier told him.

  Wallace handed over a fifty, took his change and hurried back to the room with the supplies. When he stepped inside, he found Ash pacing in front of the television in a state of agitation.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said bitterly.

  Wallace turned his attention to the screen and saw Ash’s face staring back at him. Her Bureau photograph was accompanied by a lower third title that identified her name and rank, alongside a branded Nightfile ident.

  ‘Special Agent Christine Ash was the subject of a recent FBI investigation following the fatal shooting of Marcel Washington,’ the female reporter’s voiceover was earnest and urgent. The on-screen image changed to file footage of the aftermath of the FBI raid on the Hopeland Family’s Dover Plains compound. ‘Mr Washington was killed last August during an FBI raid on his property. What makes his death particularly troubling is Special Agent Ash’s background.’

  An elderly African-American woman’s face filled the screen. Next to her was a young African-American woman with long flowing hair. Both women look
ed as though they’d been crying. The lower third title identified them as Cleo and Donna Washington, mother and sister to Marcel.

  ‘She’s got no business being in the FBI,’ Marcel’s mother, Cleo, spoke in strained tones. ‘She’s lied about who she is.’

  The image returned to the file photo of Ash.

  ‘Nightfile has learned that Special Agent Christine Ash was born Alice Silberstein, and that, as a child, she gave evidence against her father when he was accused of her mother’s murder. Her father was Nicholas Silberstein, who, it later emerged, was the leader of a notoriously violent cult, the Mulholland Clan. It seems that Special Agent Ash concealed her background from the FBI, so tonight on Nightfile we ask the question, when do the private lives of law enforcement agents make them unfit for duty?’

  A sudden flash of colour and thump of dramatic drum-laden music signalled the transition from the show’s intro to its overly theatrical opening credits. Wallace realised he’d been mesmerised by the revelations and when he looked away from the screen, he saw that Ash was badly shaken, so he switched off the television and sat next to her on the bed.

  ‘I saw him do it,’ Ash admitted at last. She shook with grief as she recounted her long-buried past. ‘He said my mom had tried to stab him during a fight, but there was no fight and no knife. He just shot her. The jury believed him. Social services gave me back to him. Nobody knew what he was really like. I was the only one.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Wallace placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  Ash wiped her eyes and the shaking subsided. ‘Nobody knew,’ she said. ‘I was a minor. My files were sealed.’

  ‘Your dad?’ Wallace asked.

  ‘Maybe, but he disappeared years ago and I don’t believe in coincidences. The timing makes me think it’s got something to do with this case,’ Ash said flatly. ‘My face is all over the TV, and Hector’s gonna have no choice but to put out an APB on us. They’ll take us both into custody. Who does that help?’

  Wallace saw the sadness in her eyes turn to resolve.

  ‘This story leaking now, it’s designed to bring us down,’ she explained with increasing certainty. ‘I get suspended, you go back into WitPro, where you become a target.’ She paused, following her thoughts to their natural conclusion. ‘The only way to be sure is to find out who tipped off Nightfile.’ She took a moment to compose herself and then gently touched Wallace’s hand. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll be OK. So, did you get anything to eat?’ she asked in a tone that was full of bravado.