Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01]

by The Worm in The Bud (txt)

  So now he knew. There was no Mariner junior inhabiting the planet and oddly he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. If pressed he’d have tended towards the former, but either way he wasn’t about to take any more risks with that prescription. Taking it out from where he’d stuffed it in his pocket, he screwed it into a ball and dropped it into the ashtray. For some strange reason, he felt an urge to call Anna Barham.

  But Anna had already left work, and was at the day centre collecting Jamie, prior to visiting the residential home recommended by Mark. She’d specifically been asked this time to take Jamie with her.

  ‘The social worker came this morning,’ Francine informed her.

  ‘What social worker?’

  ‘I assumed it was to do with your last visit.’

  The Beeches. Anna was surprised, she hadn’t expected things to move quite so fast, but she wasn’t about to complain. ‘Did she want to see Jamie?’ She recalled the questions about ‘challenging behaviour’, hoping that Jamie hadn’t done anything that might have put the social worker off.

  ‘It was a “he”,’ Francine said. ‘And no, he didn’t want to see Jamie. Said it was unnecessary at this stage. He just asked the usual questions, particularly about Jamie’s communication skills, level of understanding, that kind of thing.’

  It was years since Anna had had any experience of this and even then it wasn’t first hand. Her parents had always arranged everything and she’d given it minimal attention. It seemed odd that no one had contacted her first, but then it was probably the protocol, eliminating the opportunity for any advance preparation.

  ‘I hope it was all right for me to talk to him,’ Francine said, suddenly concerned. ‘I kept everything very positive.’

  ‘Yes, of course it was. Thanks Francine. Come on Jamie, let’s go.’

  Unlike The Beeches, Manor House was out of town, set deep in the Worcestershire countryside, and though based around an old manor house, included modern purpose-built facilities in acres of wooded grounds. According to a commemorative plaque in the lobby it had been opened in 1995 by HRH Princess Anne.

  Run by the Autistic Association, it was designed specifically with the needs of autistic adults in mind, subscribing to the principles of the Higashi Institute in Boston, with a focus on physical exercise and a rigidly structured timetable. In addition, a number of different therapies and approaches were favoured, including the use of various functional communication aids. Wherever there were signs in words, there were pictures and symbols too. Colours were muted and displays kept to a minimum, with no strip lighting. Special attention had been given to sound absorption, too, creating a calm and relaxed atmosphere.

  Anna didn’t detect all this on her own, some of it she read in the glossy prospectus she was given while she and Jamie waited for ‘one of the team’ to show them around.

  All the staff, she read with interest, were trained in the use of alternative communication, including PECS, the picture exchange communication system. This was more like it.

  And above all, there were no funny smells.

  ‘Miss Barham?’ Anna was greeted by man of around thirty-five, blond and tanned, who introduced himself as Simon Meadows, ‘One of the team of care staff.’ His accent had an Australian twang to it.

  Anna noticed from the picture board on the wall that Simon was actually the senior member of that team, but she liked that he hadn’t said that.

  ‘And this is Jamie?’ he asked.

  Anna nodded.

  ‘Jamie, hello.’

  Jamie responded with a fleeting glance, which Simon answered with a thumbs up sign. ‘That’s good looking.

  Thank you.’ He turned to Anna. ‘Shall we go?’

  Their first stop was ‘the gym’, which turned out to be a Wacky Warehouse for grown-ups, with ball pools, climbing apparatus and ‘soft’ areas.

  ‘It’s the letting-off-steam area,’ Simon explained.

  ‘Essential for the clients and the staff. Jamie probably doesn’t want to do the boring tour, so he can stay here.’ He called over one of the care-workers and assigned him to watch over Jamie. ‘He’ll be leaving at quarter past four,’ he said. ‘You can start counting him down when you’re ready.’ Counting him down. Anna had seen Francine doing that with Jamie, preparing him for the end of an activity so that he wasn’t upset when it stopped or changed.

  They began the tour. Simon was friendly but pragmatic, and not in the least bit ingratiating. The building was busy with other people, but often Anna was hard pushed to tell the difference between staff and clients. Overall the age profile was much nearer to Jamie’s own and relationships looked friendly and easy. Facilities for men and for women were clearly delineated and there were self contained facilities for individual independence training.

  Instead of a heavy question-and-answer session at the end, Simon Meadows gently elicited information as they walked around.

  ‘How old is Jamie? Where is he living right now? That must be hard, how is he doing? How is his eating, and his sleeping?’ Anna was so impressed with the place, she would have told Meadows anything, and she had no qualms about being completely honest with him.

  ‘His sleeping is awful,’ she confessed. ‘He’s up several times every night, but I don’t want to resort to medication.’

  No harm in making it clear from the start.

  ‘Neither do we,’ said Meadows. ‘Though I have to say that in extreme cases we do consider it. In isolated cases the use of medication can be highly successful, but we have to have tried everything else first.’

  Anna was pleased to hear it. ‘So when can he start?’ she asked, straight away, only half-joking. They’d arrived back in reception.

  Simon Meadows smiled. ‘Let’s just jot down a few details,’ he said, as if he hadn’t just extracted everything there was to know from Anna. ‘We try to operate like a community so we do try to take clients who will be compatible.’

  He handed her a short concise application form. Full name? Easy. Date of birth? Anna even had that off pat now, too. Seventeenth of the third, 1970. At the end of the document was a small section requesting permission for the staff to administer appropriate medications to regulate sleeping and behaviour.

  ‘As I said, it’s when all else fails,’ said Meadows, seeing her hesitation. ‘Why don’t you think that part over, and give us a call.’ Finally he handed her a list of charges.

  Anna did a double take. ‘This is for a year?’ she asked.

  Meadows made a sympathetic face. ‘No, it’s quarterly. I know. It’s expensive, but the work we do involves very high staff ratios. That’s how we can avoid the use of medication. I think you’ll find that’s not unusual.’ So that was the catch.

  Meadows glanced up at the clock. It was fourteen minutes past four. ‘Now, we’d better not keep Jamie waiting.’

  Late in the afternoon, as he walked back into Granville Lane, Knox confirmed Mariner’s worst fears. ‘Crosby’s alibi checks out, sir. We’ve got a whole pile of witnesses who saw him at the track on that Sunday night, including some of our blokes who were down there keeping an eye on things. He had a successful run apparently and was throwing his money around. Laurel and Hardy were with him, too.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘It’s not conclusive though, is it? Even if the blood tests turn out to be negative Crosby could easily have hired some temporary help.’

  ‘Maybe, but unless we can identify who that might be, it isn’t enough to pull him in either. And if that sum of money in Eddie Barham’s bank account wasn’t about blackmail then what was it?’

  ‘For what it’s worth, these are the e-fits Kerry came up with.’ Knox passed him the crudely assembled photographs. They could have been anyone. In fact one of them had the look of Pope John Paul about it. Mariner wondered what His Holiness was up to last Sunday night.

  The other had a neat, dark moustache. ‘No black mouth,’ said Mariner, almost to himself.

  ‘Sorry?’ asked Knox.
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  ‘No black mouth,’ Mariner repeated. ‘It was what Jamie shouted when we took him back to the house. I think he was telling us that one of Eddie’s attackers had a moustache—a black mouth.’

  ‘That rules out about nine tenths of the population,’ said Knox, helpfully.

  ‘We’re almost there, then,’ Mariner replied, matching his sarcasm. The fact of the thing was that it was now almost two weeks since Eddie Barham was murdered and every hour took them further from the likelihood of finding his killers. Their one tenuous lead had come to a dead end and they were left with virtually nothing. If they had any suspects, they could arrange a line-up based on Kerry’s descriptions, but he wouldn’t know where to start. Who the hell else wanted Eddie Barham dead?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Despite the careful preparation, Jamie wasn’t too thrilled about leaving Manor Park, and moaned all the way home.

  Anna had been so impressed with the place that she was tempted to just ring Simon Meadows and tell him that she’d reached her decision, but the cost had taken her breath away. Selling her parents’ house would make all the difference, but their will had made it patently clear that in Jamie’s lifetime that just wasn’t an option. Renting it out might be one creative solution to the problem, but she’d have to be certain of a long-term let and even that could prove to be messy to maintain. Jamie could live to be a very old man, at a time when she herself would be getting older and looking forward to an untroubled retirement.

  The enormity of the responsibility was overwhelming, as it must have been for Mum and Dad. There was some hard thinking to be done about the medication issue. Even to be considering it made her feel the family traitor, but DI Mariner was right. Times were changing. Drug therapy was becoming more commonplace because the medicines used were more sophisticated and reliable. And if Manor Park wasn’t affordable in the long-term it was no good to her, so alternatives would have to be considered. Eddie had clearly been thinking along those lines too because once you started looking at cheaper residential care there seemed little choice. He’d been backed into the same corner.

  Retrieving the handouts from Professor Fellowes’ talk, Anna spread them out on the kitchen table before seeking out the package that Eddie sent her. She took the blue folder out of the drawer in the lounge. The effect on Jamie was startling. He jumped up from where he was on the floor and hovered a few feet away, giving the folder his customary sideways ‘anxious’ look. He was muttering to himself and initially Anna couldn’t hear what he said, but then she made out,

  ‘No Sally-Ann, no Sally-Ann,’ Puzzled, Anna thrust the folder towards him and he immediately backed off, chanting more loudly. Anna laughed. ‘What on earth is the matter, Jamie? It’s only a folder,’ she opened the lid to show him. ‘Paper. There’s nobody in here.’

  But even so, it was some time before he would settle again. As she’d noticed before, the folder comprised a collection of photocopied sheets and printouts, some of them downloaded from the Internet. Cross-referencing them with Professor Fellowes’ information there were several common names: Ritalin, Fenfluramine, Imipramine. For most, there were chemical formulae, along with descriptions of recent studies that had been carried out relating to their effectiveness. She tried reading one of the articles, but was beaten back by the jargon: ‘Opioids have long been known to reduce serotonergic transmission by stimulating the presynaptic auto receptors,’ she read. ‘A drug which, unlike serotonin itself would selectively stimulate the post synaptic receptors, could be of value in controlling aggression and sleep patterns.’ Of course it could.

  A common factor seemed to be that the drugs apparently acted on the serotonin system, as Professor Fellowes had said, and Anna now wished that she had paid more attention to the talk. She didn’t even really know what serotonin was.

  Systematically, she worked her way through the Internet printouts and every story was the same, doubts raised about the effects of long-term courses of treatment using the drugs mentioned.

  The only deviant from this pattern appeared to be something called Pinozalyan, but that was mainly because of the dearth of information on it anyway. All Anna could find was a none-too-clear photocopied paragraph from some kind of medical journal. But interestingly, Eddie had double starred it. Did this mean that it was the one he had settled on at the end of all his research? Anna sifted through the paper and sifted back again. There didn’t appear to be any further printouts. And there was nothing amongst the notes from Professor Fellowes. She would have to do her own research. She plugged in her laptop and logged on to the Internet. There was at least some information about the other drugs, again mainly in the negative, but nothing on Pinozalyan. Strange.

  Yawning, Anna was overcome by a sudden, unexpected wave of fatigue and, glancing up at the clock, saw with a shock that it was twenty past eleven. The flat seemed unnaturally quiet. Jamie! Jamie? He was sprawled on the floor, having fallen asleep where he sat, still clutching a video box. The tape had come to an end, leaving the TV scrolling scratchy horizontal lines, as fuddled as Anna’s brain felt right now. Pinozalyan would have to keep until tomorrow.

  It might be time to pay Dr Payne another visit, to see if he could enlighten her.

  For a moment, Anna considered whether to wake Jamie and put him properly to bed, but decided against it and instead tucked a pillow under his head and arranged his duvet around him. He’d be awake soon enough anyway.

  She was right. Woken at six thirty by Jamie poking a video in her face and tugging at her arm, Anna groaned. What wouldn’t she give for a good night’s sleep? Driving Jamie in to the centre, she couldn’t shake off the feeling of exhaustion and despondency. Where was all this leading? In the cold light of day Manor House seemed an impossible proposition, too. It was enormously expensive and, despite what Simon Meadows had said, they did employ drug therapy, which her parents would have disapproved of, and on top of that it would mean taking Jamie away from the day centre, at least for some of the time, when the thing he needed most of all was consistency.

  As a matter of interest, Anna asked Francine about any other clients at the centre who were taking medication.

  Francine knew of at least two who were on Ritalin and another who took Impramine, but she hadn’t heard of Pinozalyan either. ‘Could be something new,’ she suggested. They’re always trying things out.

  Anna tried to contact Professor Fellowes, but was told by his secretary that he was lecturing in London and couldn’t be reached.

  She waited until mid-morning before going to the surgery in the hope that the morning rush would be over. Even so, there were still half a dozen people waiting to see Dr Payne or one of his partners.

  The doctor seemed surprised to see Anna again so soon.

  ‘Is everything all right with Jamie?’

  ‘Yes, he’s fine,’ Anna reassured him. ‘Although it is about him that I’ve called.’ Anna explained about her visits to the two homes and the references to medication. ‘The one Eddie seemed to have been focused on is called Pinozalyan. Have you heard of it?’

  Dr Payne frowned and shook his head doubtfully, ‘No. I can’t say I have.’ But there was something else on his mind. ‘Are you sure this is the right thing to be doing Anna?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Considering medication for Jamie. Many of these drugs haven’t had time for the long-term effects to be known, and may lead to problems with dependency and side effects.’ So he felt that way too. ‘Your parents and I discussed it at length over several years and I know that neither of them wanted to put Jamie at any kind of risk. Naturally it’s your own decision, but…’

  But. Always a but. Just when she looked as if her life was back within grasp, something swung by to knock it out again. She left the surgery despondent and depressed.

  On top of that, she had to go into the office today. There was a mountain of post waiting for her, but seeing Becky provided an immediate distraction. ‘Is Mark at work today?’

  ‘
I hope so,’ said Becky. ‘Unless he’s swanned off somewhere for some secret passionate affair he hasn’t told me about.’

  ‘Do you think I could phone him for some information?’

  ‘He’d love it. He’s always had a soft spot for you.’

  ‘He can keep his soft spots to himself. I just want to talk to him.’

  Becky reeled off the number of Mark’s surgery. She seemed edgy and Anna soon found out why.

  There was a knock on the door. It was Jonathan, looking astonishingly naked. He’d shaved off his goatee. ‘Anna, how are you?’

  Any cooler and Anna would have shivered. ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she responded, icily. Two can play at that game.

  ‘Well, it’s good to see you back again.’ His voice lacked a certain sincerity, but he was gone again before Anna could allude to this.

  ‘What happened to the facial hair?’ she asked Becky instead.

  Her friend had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Melanie doesn’t like goatees.’

  ‘Well, that puts me in my place then, doesn’t it?’ said Anna, cheerfully.

  Alone again in her office, Anna ignored her bulging in tray and keyed in the number Becky had given her. ‘Hi Mark, it’s Anna.’

  ‘Anna, how are you? Has Becky got you checking up on me?’

  ‘No, you’re perfectly safe. I wanted to pick your brains on something.’

  ‘Pick away.’

  ‘I wondered if you’d ever come across of a drug called Pinozalyan? I think it could be something used in the treatment of autism.’

  ‘Pinozalyan? Can you spell that for me?’ Anna did.