Mirror Mirror: A shatteringly powerful page-turner

by Nick Louth

  The fattest files were over allegations of defamation. Bloggers who had claimed Mira had undergone cosmetic surgery, online columnists who suggested she had taken illegal drugs, and one middle-aged woman from the Orkneys who persistently posted that Mira was sleeping with her husband. They were each sent firm and formal letters about the legal risks they were running. About half seemed to go quiet, though not Eileen from the Islands.

  Japan seemed to be the source of some of the most over-enthusiastic fans, some of whom wrote asking for her discarded underwear. One it seemed had cut out the middleman by actually trying to steal some from her hand luggage on an overnight flight from Osaka to London. The man had lost his job at a major Japanese airline. The manga cartoon books had generated literally millions of tweets, Facebook posts and other comments on online forums. The lawyers had blithely advised that there was very little if anything that could be done to monitor yet alone influence this, except where messages were personally directed to Mira.

  Foreign trouble was generally ignored, there being little possibility of pursuing anything that wasn’t clearly criminal. The former bodyguard, Curtis Hyde, was an exception. A case against him in New York was pending. Likewise, an American multiple rapist, serving a 248-year term, had been able to make lurid threats against her via Facebook. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation breezily confirmed that they would now remove his Internet access. Virgil was amazed he was ever allowed it.

  There were no files mentioning the man in Broadmoor who had sent her the card. Yet something about such a man had alarmed her enough to track down a cutting. But who was this mysterious man, and what had he done?

  Finally, Virgil got round to examining the countdown website. Based on the domain name, it was called Lovely Dia. Virgil was baffled. There were no links visible. Maybe there was something hidden. He moved the mouse around, trying to see if the white arrow would turn into the pointing finger that denoted a hyperlink. Nothing. Then he defined and copied the entire page to a Word document, and set the font colour to black. No text became visible. All he had to go on was the website address www.lovelydia.xyz. Virgil knew that ‘day’ in Spanish was ‘dia’. In a few other languages perhaps. But what was the point in a website called lovely day? Then he realised that it wasn’t lovely dia. It was love Lydia, Mira’s real name. And what would happen once it had counted off the days to zero? Virgil decided to monitor it daily.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ONE HUNDRED AND TWO DAYS

  The Right Reverend Harry Fielding, Bishop of Uxbridge and passionate prison reformer, was in civvies today to lead a personal preview of the Reform Through Art exhibition at Halifax Town Hall for Baroness Earl of West Bromwich. He excused his chinos, grey fleece and what might be termed urban walking gear, as he was heading off for an outdoor weekend in the Yorkshire Dales as soon as he’d finished, and because he knew from long acquaintance that the baroness wouldn’t mind. The Künzler Trust, of which he was a trustee, had invited her to make the train journey up from London because she was opposition spokesman on prisons, but Harry admitted that like many members of the Lords, it was a pleasure just to be in the company of a woman of such energy, passion and intellect, not to mention her rather shapely legs. To see her there in the grand entrance to the hall, in a russet knee-length coat which matched her copper hair, black tights and high-heeled boots it was hard to believe she was at forty-seven a life peer, and chair of the cross-party Parliamentary Committee on Prison Reform. A Labour MP since 2005, she had in the previous government briefly been Under Secretary of State, Minister for Prisons, Probation and Rehabilitation, an appointment brought to an end by the 2010 election. However, she was elevated to the Lords the following year as a working peer. For years before she had been a pioneering immigration barrister in Birmingham, specialising in political asylum and extraordinary rendition cases. She had many admirers and a few enemies. Some in Parliament, having seen her devastating debating skills firsthand, were both.

  After greeting her with a peck on both cheeks, Harry led her up the stairs towards the galleries.

  ‘You’re going to see a bit of everything today, Suzy, the good the bad and the very ugly. The point of it is whether the art helps the offender, rather than whether it is good art per se,’ Harry said. ‘Though one could suppose there are exceptions in both directions.’

  As he had conceded, much of what was on show was mediocre: puerile erotica, badly-drawn figures, garishly coloured canvases, and sometimes the over-detailed imagination of some startlingly disturbed psychiatric patients.

  ‘This I think you will enjoy,’ Harry said, stopping by a rather fine ink and charcoal study from an offender at HMP Lincoln. Entitled simply Cellmate, it was of a heavily tattooed prisoner, whose gaunt frame and flat vacant eyes conveyed volumes about the endless futility of incarceration. The orange sticker on the frame indicated that it had been sold. He next pointed out the prolific work of a patient at Rampton. They were a series of photographically precise portraits of children, winsomely and deftly executed in acrylic paints.

  ‘Very sad case. She drowned her own babies, and now imagines them still growing up. Lots and lots of catharsis required,’ Fielding muttered. ‘But I hear she has stopped self-harming, finally.’

  Harry led her over to the giant double doors of the Victoria Hall. ‘Now this is really what I wanted you to see. I’m rather keeping it under wraps until the Art with Conviction auction in three months.’

  He eased open the doors into the huge hall, reaching up to a mansard roof. There in the centre under three spotlights was an enormous oil painting, fifteen feet wide by nine high. Or more precisely it was three paintings, because the rectangular form was split from bottom corners to top middle into three separately framed triangular canvases.

  ‘My God,’ Suzannah said. ‘It is astonishing.’

  ‘A work of genius, without a doubt,’ said Harry.

  Dominating the central panel of the triptych was the Crucifixion, angled from below against a star-emblazoned ultramarine night sky. Christ was immense, handsome, well-muscled and nude, handcuffed to a cross in the form of a living oak tree. He was being embraced by a viridian-cloaked female centurion, gracefully depicted with an arm cupping his head while her sword simultaneously pierced him low on the abdomen. Sweeping low flying behind the tree, laying a cerulean cloak across the breadth of the piece was the figure of God. He was bearded, majestic and tattooed, His arms out in support of his son. So powerful was the projection of those mighty hands that they seemed to leap from the canvas, three times life-size, and superbly executed. The crown of thorns, cruelly depicted as razor wire, was framed into a halo that itself wrapped the setting sun. The left panel took its point of view from Christ, looking down on the disciples, depicted as prisoners, heads bent in supplication. Only one, a young woman right in the foreground, looked up, offering a cup of water. The darker right-hand panel, was dominated by a raven-haired Madonna, eyes heavenward, wearing a violet cloak and offering up a steaming bowl of some kind.

  ‘Who on earth painted this?’ she whispered.

  ‘He signs himself as Wōdan, and he’s in Broadmoor.’

  ‘But who is he, really?’

  ‘Ah yes, well that’s an issue. They are very ticklish about the privacy of patients, I think you are aware of that.’

  ‘I presume this was the same man who painted a version of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus? I saw it in the Guardian a few months ago.’

  ‘Yes. That sold for over a million dollars at Sotheby’s in New York in October, a record sum for a piece of work by a psychiatric patient. But this is in my view worth more.’

  ‘Has he produced much other work?’

  ‘Enough for several exhibitions. Last year we were lucky enough to secure the use of a Bond Street gallery, and sold a portrait of a prison officer for thirty thousand pounds.’

  ‘I think I recall seeing that. Wasn’t it called ‘Screw. You’ or something like that?’

  ‘I
ndeed it was. The trust has been talking for months to a foreign buyer who is interested in buying more, not surprisingly, so with a developing oeuvre of this maturity, I believe Mr Wōdan could help bring the cause of art and indeed art therapy centre stage for the benefit of the entire secure psychiatric system.’

  ‘What are the financial arrangements?’

  ‘With Künzler sales, a quarter of all the money goes straight to victim support. Where it is possible to identify actual victims, a direct payment can also be offered. In the prison service, the arrangement is that prisoners can have some limited cash as a reward, with any larger amounts reserved by the director. In mental health institutions it is always at the discretion of the director. But in this case, the artist has said that half of all the money raised can go to funding art in psychiatric hospitals, so long as any sale is free of gallery commission.’

  ‘Someone in secure psychiatric dictating terms!’

  Harry gave her a slightly patronising look. ‘Oh yes, he’s very assertive. Two galleries have agreed to waive commission, so long as there is widespread publicity for their generosity.’

  ‘Have you met him?’

  The bishop paused. ‘Yes, I have met him.’ She noticed his Adam’s apple bob at the memory. His features were not quite controlled.

  ‘And you do know his real name?’

  The bishop looked down at his watch. ‘Well, he changed his name by deed poll several years ago. I know what he is called now, but not what his real name is, or was.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  The bishop didn’t answer immediately.

  ‘Come on, Harry. I do need to know.’

  He stroked his chin. ‘Well, obviously, he has committed some really quite questionable acts. But his behaviour these days is quite impeccable.’

  ‘Was it murder?’

  ‘Good heavens, yes. Several, I believe.’

  ‘You will undoubtedly appreciate that I can’t possibly begin to mass the kind of political oomph required to get more support for art in psychiatric hospitals without having the full details of what we’re dealing with. If he’s changed his name, if we can’t find out what his real name is, then obviously he’s done something quite horrible.’

  ‘I actually don’t know the details. Richard Lamb wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘It’s an important aspect. I mean you’ve got to think tabloid, Harry. I’m a reformer, you’re a reformer, but we can’t risk headlines like “Labour offers art therapy for mass-murderers”.’

  ‘Well, these people are sick, Suzy. But they can be cured, they can make a contribution to society to atone for their errors of judgment.’

  ‘There are many, many people out there who believe we cannot take the chance,’ she said. ‘And they all have a vote.’

  Bishop Fielding didn’t reply, but instead turned to the central panel of the triptych. ‘Without going all Thought for the Day on you, Suzy, just take a look at this. God made us all with free will, yes? Every day every single one of us could, possibly, choose to murder. The weapons are just to hand. To stab a partner, a child or a stranger. Most of us never do, because we have a functioning moral compass. The choices we have, the immense power whether to stab or to talk to those who are troubling us, is what makes us human. To err is human, but so is to forgive. Redemption, in the sight of God, is what the Crucifixion is all about. This is what Wōdan has so brilliantly personalised.’

  ‘I won’t deny his brilliance. But what about his mind?’

  ‘He really has showed enormous remorse. In our conversations, which have gone on now for two years, he has gradually come to embrace God. Indeed, it is only since he has done so that he has produced this quality of art. There is perhaps a divine pathway being illuminated here.’

  ‘What might that be?’

  ‘Well, it’s undoubtedly a controversial view, but, if he continues to make progress like this, I think he should be released.’

  * * *

  ONE HUNDRED DAYS

  Dawn Evans and her best friend Sue were getting their breath back in the changing rooms after their usual Thursday evening Badminton session. ‘You were on killer form today,’ Sue said. ‘I couldn’t get close to some of those shots.’

  Dawn smiled. ‘I’m feeling quite good about myself at the moment. I’ve lost some weight too.’

  ‘I thought so. Do I detect the presence of a man in your life?’ Sue enquired.

  Dawn grinned, and grasped Sue’s arm. ‘Yes. Three years since Simon and I’ve finally got someone!’

  ‘Wow, Dawn! I want to hear all about it,’ Sue said. ‘How long has it…?’

  ‘For a few months. It started slowly, but it’s got more…serious recently.’

  ‘A few months! And you only just told me! C’mon, what’s he like?’ Sue’s eyes were almost popping out.

  ‘He’s very romantic, and very clever. He gives me poetry, oh, and he’s a great artist.’ She opened her bag and took out a carefully rolled piece of paper. ‘He did a drawing of me.’

  Sue unrolled the drawing and stared in amazement. ‘Bloody hell, Dawn. This is like Leonardo! You’re beautiful. Omigod. Are you in love?’

  Dawn’s smile was more wistful than ecstatic. ‘I am, but…it’s complicated.’

  ‘He’s married isn’t he?’ Sue said.

  ‘No, but he is someone from work. He’s a fair bit older.’

  Sue put her hands on her hips and said with mock offence: ‘Now, Dawn Christine Evans, are you sleeping with the boss?’

  Dawn laughed and shook her head. ‘It’s worse than that.’ Sue continued to pepper her with questions, but Dawn knew she had already said too much. Like many staff at Broadmoor she had never told family or friends exactly where she worked.

  ‘When can I meet him?’

  Dawn gave a wan smile. ‘I really don’t know.’

  * * *

  Broadmoor director Richard Lamb had got nowhere trying to prove who had injured Leonard Lucifer Smith, nor indeed how. The mental health trust had requested his report, but at this stage it didn’t look like being the comprehensive one they would expect. He knew that he couldn’t avoid declaring that a crime had been committed, which would mean he would lose control of the investigation. Whatever report emerged would be bound to blame him. It would certainly damage his career.

  So what did he have so far? Blood tests had shown that Smith had been drugged with the date-rape drug Rohypnol, but he was no further along in identifying which members of staff could have been complicit. Everyone had plausible denials. While he was prepared to believe that a patient would have had as strong a motive as any member of staff to hurt Lucy, they would have needed help to nobble the CCTV system. But Dawn Evans, the staffer who radiated the most guilt, didn’t even know how to use the system that was interfered with. Any attempt to link her with Smith’s half dozen known enemies among the patients, including William Mordant, foundered on that irrefutable fact.

  It was early afternoon by the time Lamb got around to opening his post. Right on top was a Jiffy bag he’d just been sent by Dr Choudary of Frimley Park Hospital. Security had already opened it, and he soon discovered why. There inside a plastic bag, folded, cleaned and sterilised, was the section of razor wire recovered from inside Lucy. The doctor’s accompanying letter was fascinating. Since the operation on Smith, Choudary had obviously scoured the literature for similar cases, because he’d dug up an article from the Italian Journal of Medicine back in 1962, and enclosed a photocopy.

  A gastro-intestinal specialist working in Naples had in a ten-hour operation removed a length of barbed wire from a middle-aged male patient. The process involved lubricating a piece of sterilised garden hose and carefully pushing it into the patient to envelop the wire. The wire of course had to be carefully stabilised to prevent it moving. Once the hose was fully in, the entire assembly could be drawn out. The surgeon noted that it was merely the reversing of the process by which the wire was inserted. Having read the article, Lamb was still baffled as to
why anyone would want to do something so horrible. Then he noticed a footnote:

  *The forcible anal insertion of barbed wire is occasionally recorded as a punishment by the Camorra, the Naples-based mafia, for breaking the code of silence known as Omerta.

  Lamb looked at the final paragraph of Choudary’s letter, which referred to something having been engraved onto the blades of the wire. He held it up to a desk light, where he could see some neatly-wrought scratches. They were too small for him to discern. He took out a magnifying glass, only bought last week to examine details on CCTV stills. Leaning forward and using his lamp he could just make out the words, beautifully and professionally engraved on both sides of the blades. Once he’d read them he recoiled as if struck.

  And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see! (Revelations 6, v1)

  * * *

  Richard Lamb was a scientist, a realist and a man of rational disposition. But only now did he realise that he was up against an intelligence of extraordinary malice, one that named him, and aimed to destroy him. The only ‘seal’ that made sense, that he in any sense controlled, was the gate out of Broadmoor. Of the more than two hundred patients under his management, half would do anything to get out. Of those there were probably fewer than five, all dangerous psychopaths, who would have the patience, the cunning and the resources to engineer this attack. Because this wasn’t just an attack on Lunatic Lucy, it was an attack on him, and a warning to the entire secure psychiatric system.

  Of those five, perhaps only three had the educational background and the technical skills to have engraved those words so neatly into the blades of the razor wire. There was no proof of course, because of the absence of CCTV footage, and the perplexing lack of witnesses to Lunatic Lucy’s departure from the recreation lounge. But if Lamb had to choose a culprit, it was William Mordant. The man remained an enigma, perpetuated by officialdom.