by Nick Louth
These early morning sessions were artistically very important to him. His unfettered mind roamed the ether at night and the wisps and shreds of ideas that he retained from these voyages were the inspiration for his art. But there were more practical reasons for the timing too. He had been nurturing Dawn Evans for almost two years now, and the first half hour of his studio days were the only chance for them to make their assignations with privacy. Few other patients were yet free from their rooms, other staff were busy with breakfast and could anyway be heard approaching. There was in this new annexe only one CCTV camera, and it covered only the area around the doors.
Dawn was setting up his easel when he arrived on Wednesday. She had been off rota for two days, but now she set out the paints and brushes, and his sketchpad. He knew these were just the small tasks to still her beating heart.
She was twenty-seven years old, decidedly plain and a little pudgy, with shoulder-length mousy hair. Her shy little grin entertained him. For all the fact that she had a BSc in clinical psychology from some dull suburban former polytechnic, she was an innocent. Better still, in the nervous twisting of her St. Christopher and her subtly submissive posture, she radiated loneliness and insecurity. How charitable of West London Mental Health Trust to cast this succulent and innocent morsel to the consummate predators of Broadmoor. Mordant had first noticed her at a clinical reassessment meeting in 2012 when he was first being considered for moving to Boxhill Ward from the more onerous restrictions of Cavendish Ward. Did the shrinks not realise? At every meeting when they were looking at and trying to understand him, he too was effortlessly logging and understanding them. He assessed their strengths and limitations, their nervous tics and irritabilities, their vulnerabilities and phobias. He could see them all.
He had seen Dawn across the table that first time. Like most of those present she avoided eye contact with him. Only Harrington and Lamb had ever managed to return his level gaze for more than a few seconds. Dawn had constantly changed the position of her legs, which were crossed, with the higher knee in a tight position which indicated her foot, though hidden from his sight by the table, was tucked behind her calf. Beyond the rustling of papers he had detected too, the slight tapping of a narrow heel, a feminine shoe, nervously thrumming against the chrome of her metal chair leg. Knotted legs, oscillating foot: uptight, nervous, maybe frightened too. She would presumably never have been allowed to read his confidential file, the one that Mr Justice Kirby had ruled should never be put into the public record. But she may have seen the redacted summary that Lamb probably had. His own barrister had shown it to him after the trial. That alone would terrify anyone.
The clincher was Dawn’s lack of professional assertiveness. During the meeting she had been sucking her pen, and was making intermittent notes on a copy of the senior shrink’s assessment report on him. Although Mordant couldn’t read what she was writing, he could see that her notes were made on the corners of each page, at a slant, as if they were somehow a supplicant’s addendum, not worthy of inclusion in the conventionally-written level text. Mordant’s vulnerability radar latched onto it immediately. He had decided to watch Dawn Evans and wait for his moment.
That moment arrived a few weeks later when Dawn took her turn on the Tuesday afternoon group art sessions. Mordant was irritated that these sessions were largely time-killing exercises for the uglies. Those patients that appeared receptive were filtered off for small group art therapy sessions, led by Professor Ronald Shapiro, a consultant shrink from Reading University who instructed them in how to let art open up their childhood problems. Mordant had no intention of discussing his early life with some nosy academic. But by refusing to take part he was left in the company of a rump of the most troublesome, paranoid and delusional patients, and with poorer art equipment. Back then it had meant cheap watercolours, thin non-absorbent paper, and artificial fibre brushes that failed to retain their shape. They were not even allowed sharpeners for their ridiculously blunt pencils, for fear someone would unscrew the tiny blade and make a weapon.
They were supposed to be either drawing or painting a pair of colliery boots, crumpled and stained and full of character, which Dawn had placed on a stool in the centre of the class. While he quickly sketched them out in charcoal and chalk, Mordant had noticed that Dawn’s gaze kept skating over him. It wasn’t surprising, it happened a lot. Not just the female staff either. He was fit, tanned and healthy, wearing a fresh tight white T-shirt every day, pressed chinos and, despite the irritating ban on shoelaces, polished brown brogues. He had used some of his meagre allowance to get the hospital hairdresser to put highlights in his blond wavy hair. No wonder Dawn’s eyes were drawn to him, when the alternative visions were of shuffling overweight wrecks with straggly beards and halitosis, oversized acrylic sports shirts, food-stained jogging bottoms and scuffed trainers.
She had walked over to see what he was drawing. She complimented him on the charcoal drawing and picked it up. As he’d intended, a pencil sketch beneath slid to the floor. He picked it up quickly, but made sure she had seen it. It was a sketch of her, a little slimmer, a bit more upright and with a tad stronger cheekbones. Flattering but not false. Mordant had never mentioned to anyone in Broadmoor that in a previous life, and under his original name, he had briefly attended Goldsmiths College of Art. Anyone who had access to the confidential files would know that his long-dead father, Sir Anthony Hooksworth, was a famous society portraitist. Only a handful of people knew the truth.
He and Dawn fell into conversation about art, and she professed an interest in the Pre-Raphaelites and Impressionists. He stressed that it was impossible to paint properly without the right materials. He particularly pleaded for acid-free, buffered paper with a high rag content. ‘Or even just a single size four sable-hair brush. If I don’t get a proper brush, I think I’ll go insane…Oh.’ He put a hand over his mouth in mock horror at his joke.
She laughed, but said nothing.
The next week she slipped onto his easel a slim tissue-wrapped object. Inside was a Winsor & Newton sable No. 4. He looked up and gave her his most winning smile. She raised a brief finger to her lips: say nothing. Which of course meant that she hadn’t found it in the art therapy cupboard but had bought it herself and smuggled it in. A thin skein of complicity was thus spun between them, a tendril that Mordant would imperceptibly shorten and strengthen in the following months into friendship, conspiracy and finally, dependency.
The following week Mordant noticed that she was wearing a little make-up. Just a touch of eyeshadow and blusher. Subtle but, to him, obvious. Her lipstick, previously a coral-colour was now a little more scarlet, generously applied. Her teeth were a little pink where the colour had strayed. Did she know the anthropological origin of reddened lips? Perhaps not. Her psychology course wouldn’t have covered lipstick’s promised echo of an inviting engorged vulva.
He had all the time in the world to let their friendship blossom, and give her the illusion that he was the more reticent. If she felt in control their collusion could deepen more quickly, unaware that she was merely a transitory and disposable instrument in his long-term strategy. He had so much more experience of seduction than she, it was so easy as to be almost boring. The hardest part of his strategy had been to feign enthusiasm and passion.
Only by gradually revealing his artistry was he determined to be bold. While she had in the early days been unable to get him better quality paper, she had at least got him larger sheets, A1 cartridge paper almost a metre wide, perfect for drawing. With a larger easel, borrowed from art therapy, he was able to do something to show his gratitude. The drawing he came up with was a huge pair of hands four times life-size, cupping a grimy almost medieval key. They were the hands of an old labouring man, thick knobbly knuckles, liver-spotted, massive worn fingers with chipped nails, calloused tips and ingrained dirt. He made use of the full tonal range of the pencils, from the solid black shadow beneath the key, to the highlights caught on its time-burnished bow and shank.
He tormented Dawn by covering the drawing whenever she came near. That didn’t stop him calling her over every few minutes so that he could use the pencil sharpener that was connected to the key chain at her belt. At those moments they were very close, and as he sat on the stool turning a pencil that he could so easily have stabbed her with, he could feel her cool breath on the top of his head.
The drawing took several weeks, but when it was finished, the key had a power that demanded the viewer reach out and grab it. For once, he was fully satisfied. When he finally unveiled the drawing, named Proffered Freedom, Dawn was astounded. Not least because he had drawn it entirely from imagination. The drawing was then framed, shown to the great and the good, the visiting consultants, the shrinks and the director. Everyone wanted to be his friend. How nice. The consultant psychiatrist from Reading had even asked to see him, one-to-one. Here, after all, was a chance to make art therapy snag a big prize. To redeem the irredeemable. Mordant recognised Professor Shapiro’s professional hunger, and played with him, deferring the meeting time and again, eventually demanding to see him at the obtusely inconvenient time of nine on a Sunday bank holiday evening.
That meeting was to Mordant, hilarious. This eager man, stiff with paper qualifications and thwarted ambition, sat opposite him at a table with the drawing between them. But the professor could not sit still. Despite the presence of two beefy male nurses at the door of the interview room, he sweated a pungent fear. Mordant instinctively felt that this man had been allowed to glimpse his detailed records.
‘So William,’ Shapiro had said, failing to make any eye contact. ‘You can go a long way with your art. In the future it can be sold, for the benefit of the psychiatric hospital system and to raise awareness of the talent that would otherwise lie rotting away…’
‘I don’t regard myself as rotting, do you?’ Mordant said, staring at the professor.
‘No, of course, I don’t mean actually…,’ Shapiro said, staring down at his notes. ‘Erm, more like, um…’
‘I would suggest latent, or inchoate. Not rotting.’ Mordant touched his fingertips to the tabletop. ‘Why are your legs trembling, Professor?’
‘It’s nervous energy, when I’m concentrating.’
‘Something in common with the patients, then. They are a frequent symptom among those nurturing a psychosis. Medication can help, you know.’
‘But about your artwork…’
There was a knock at the door. Trevor let in a young female nurse whom Mordant had never seen before. ‘I’ve got a message for Professor Shapiro,’ she said, and passed it straight to Mordant.
‘Umm, I’m Professor Shapiro, actually,’ Shapiro said sharply, snatching the message and waving his lanyard.
‘Oh, sorry, I just thought…’ Mordant watched the nurse’s glance flick from him, upright and poised in his sharp grey jacket and brilliant white open-neck shirt, across to Shapiro who slouched in a baggy worn-out suit, with his straggly moustache and greasy spectacles.
‘That’s perfectly alright,’ Mordant oozed, holding her gaze. ‘It’s an easy mistake to make. He’s been consorting with nutcases for an awfully long time. Don’t worry about it.’ The nurse grinned at him as she turned away.
Despite offending the professor, Mordant found that concessions began to be seen. He was granted his own easel and paper supply in his room. His own pencils and, after six months and an intervention from Dawn, oil paints so long as he painted in the art room. Linseed oil for mixing colours, alas, was forbidden as was white spirit. Flammable solvents were a step too far. This meant that poor Dawn had to clean his brushes. Soon after the Künzler Trust sold his first two drawings, Proffered Freedom and Remembrance of Seaside, a portrait of his own bare feet resting in a bowl of bowl of water, for eight hundred pounds. Realising where this could take him, Mordant found a rush of artistic energy. Director Richard Lamb agreed that a portion of the cash from sales could go to providing art equipment throughout Boxhill Ward. Mordant’s colourful portrait of Clive Harrington, his first oil painting on proper stretched canvas, was snapped up before the trust could even display it.
That was when the Bishop of Uxbridge first came to see him, with news that a foreign buyer was interested in commissioning work from him, a large oil painting. Though the bishop said he couldn’t betray confidences, he had been told that this was one of the world’s most savvy collectors, who already owned paintings by Holbein, Delacroix, Titian and Van Gogh.
‘He said you exhibited the craft of an old master, which is now so very rare. But he would like to know what type of paintings you would be prepared to create.’
On a whim Mordant said, ‘I’m inspired to make a devotional work.’
‘Really?’ the bishop had said, all soft brown eyes, Hush Puppies and forgiveness. ‘Have you been feeling a connection with the Lord?’
Mordant adopted a pained expression and hesitated. ‘You know, I was reticent. For many years I drifted in a moral wilderness, not listening to what my soul was telling me.’ He opened his eyes wide and stared intently at the bishop. ‘Do you know, there was a time when I could extinguish a human life with less regret than a half-burned cigarette?’ He crushed an imaginary butt on the table. ‘Can you believe that?’ Mordant watched the bishop’s throat contract. Yes, he could.
‘I understand you were originally imprisoned for murder,’ the bishop said. Mordant had rarely heard a more naked attempt to elicit information.
‘Yes,’ Mordant whispered, shaking his head. ‘Horrible murders, unforgiveable.’
‘There is always forgiveness in the Lord,’ the bishop said gently. ‘If you truly repent. There is always hope.’
‘I saw a vision, you know. In my room. A few weeks ago. I saw the cross, and the suffering of Christ. I saw him die to save me, there in my own room. And I heard a voice.’
The bishop reached out for his hand, stroking it. ‘What did this voice say?’
Mordant hesitated, closing his eyes and raising his head, whispered: ‘It said, “there is mercy in the Lord”. It was then that I knew I had to paint, for my own spiritual salvation.’
All that had gone very well indeed. Mordant had established a track record of impeccable behaviour, and he had insinuated himself into the soul of a bishop who he now knew would champion his moral rehabilitation through art. He had also been able to get Dawn to do extraordinary things for him, to get to the next stage of his plan.
Today, though, he was going to have to be very careful. As soon as he saw Dawn, he could tell that she was upset with him. He knew exactly why. There had been a different atmosphere in the ward for the last few days after Lucy’s ‘accident.’ There was a stiff formality in the staff, and he wanted to find out if his expectations were correct.
The moment he arrived, with smouldering eyes, she turned her back to him. ‘Dawn,’ he whispered. ‘My muse, I’ve been dreaming about you.’ He took her arm gently and pulled her into the corner of the studio, where no one passing the reinforced glass door could see them.
‘You had better leave me alone,’ she said. ‘I am in so much trouble, Will, because of you.’ She bit her lip. ‘I should never have let you come with me to the security room on Sunday.’
‘But kitten, what an opportunity! All the night security staff were with Lunatic Lucy at hospital, and just you to mind the screens for a couple of hours. It is the only room without CCTV coverage. How else are we to tryst, my darling, without being observed?’ He put his bare arms around her, and felt her soften a little. ‘Was it not wonderful?’ A small smile played on her lips and she looked up cheekily. It was, he knew that. Mordant instinctively knew that she had never had a lover who spent time to give her pleasure, after pleasure, after pleasure.
‘But Dr Lamb’s on the warpath. Did you muck about with the computers when I was in the loo?’
Mordant kissed her neck and whispered into her ear. ‘I did tell you that I would have to overwrite the video that showed me walking in.’
‘
I don’t remember you saying that.’
‘Of course. That’s why you photocopied the CCTV manual for me. It was only to protect you. You could lose your job, and then I couldn’t see you anymore. You do understand that, don’t you?’
‘Mmm,’ Dawn sighed, putting her arms around him. ‘But Will, they rang me up on Monday and asked about the database overwrites. I told them the truth. I’ve never been trained how to do the overwrites. I only know how to use the monitoring console. I don’t even know the password.’
‘If you don’t know the password, then it couldn’t have been you, could it, Puss?’
‘They did accept what I said. They’ve also interviewed Tyrone Mgonwe and Nigel Robb. They both were trained in the system. But now there’s a formal investigation and I’m really worried.’
‘You’ve done nothing to the computer so you have nothing to worry about.’
Mordant himself had had no trouble cracking the six-digit password. Geoff Featherstone was a man of no imagination, and his untidy workstation at the back of the security room was a pastiche of family pictures, including the dog-eared christening invitation for a grandson, Daniel, born 17 April 2008. The date was underlined in felt tip. Mordant had typed in 170408, and got straight in. Had it failed, Featherstone had left plenty of other clues. Featherstone’s P60 was in his unlocked desk, giving his date of birth, national insurance number and his address in Crowthorne. His office diary had a reminder for his wedding anniversary. Lots of dates to go on. He memorised them all just in case he ever needed to get out in a hurry, or trade information for something even more precious. Perhaps the most valuable nugget, gleaned from a local newspaper cutting on the pinboard, was that little Daniel went to Abbotsmead Primary School in Wokingham. Perfect if he ever needed to exert a little pressure on Featherstone. He had friends outside who could help.