by R. N. Morris
‘Leave Henry alone.’ Silas said it very quietly, almost whispering it into Mr Ince’s ear. And then he released his grip.
Mr Ince drew the key fob in. There with all the keys was a gleaming silver whistle. He raised it to his lips and blew with all the force he could muster.
He kept his eyes on Silas all the time.
THIRTY-SEVEN
They had the straitjacket on him now, his arms strapped tightly across his front.
There were four of them marching him along the corridor. Mr Ince to the front, one orderly on either side, another behind, penning him in with a diamond formation. They kept a meticulous distance from him and handled him impeccably now. No brutality, no swearing, not even the occasional shove to hurry him along.
They had won. He was defeated. There was no need to assert their dominance over him. It went without saying.
And strangely, perversely even, he was content. He had felt the fight go out of him as soon as the shrill piercing blast of Mr Ince’s whistle had drawn the other orderlies crashing into the greenhouse. He had not resisted as they wrestled him to the floor. He had even welcomed their assault, and welcomed the hard, sharp bite in his cheek as they ground his face into gravel.
He had surrendered willingly.
His struggle was over. And it was a relief.
He sensed a buzz of excitement in the air. It was always the same when there was an incident. The inmates picked it up and transmitted it through every ward and common area. The staff grew more than usually on edge.
He had been told that there were six miles of corridor in the Colney Hatch asylum. It seemed that they were intent on making him walk the full extent, as if they were taking him on some kind of procession. It was a public display of their power.
At last they came to a metal-reinforced door, into which was set a panel with a T-shaped slot. While Mr Ince found the key for the cell, Silas had time to read the writing on the panel.
POCOCK BROTHERS LTD
235 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD
LONDON, S.E.
THIS ROOM IS FITTED WITH IMPROVED INSPECTION
REGISTERED NO. 812993
ALSO IMPROVED SANITARY LEAD GUTTERS
REGISTERED NO. 812994
The heavy door swung open and the inside of the cell was revealed. A pungent stench rushed out, as if it had been long cooped up and was making a bid for freedom. It was the smell of blocked lavatories. Silas looked down at the drain that ran around the edge of the floor, the improved sanitary lead gutters. They were clear of any solid matter for now, but stained with dubious residue here and there. However effective they were at carrying away the secretions of those who were locked in the cell, something of their accumulated misery lingered.
The walls and floor were lined with what looked like the leather mats used by gymnasts. They did not strike Silas as scrupulously clean. What the lead gutters did not drain, the padding no doubt absorbed.
‘Take off his shoes,’ Mr Ince directed one of the orderlies.
Silas maintained his passivity as his laces were undone and his feet lifted out of his shoes.
‘In you go,’ said Mr Ince. His voice was chipper, as if there was a great treat in store for Silas.
Silas complied with a nod.
Mr Ince shared a joke with the other orderlies, but it was cut off by the door slamming shut.
A moment later, he heard the lock turn with a crisp finality.
He was alone with the stench.
There was a small window high in one wall, which there was no way of opening. A single bare lightbulb was fixed to the ceiling, surrounded by a wire frame.
He took a few paces across the cushioned floor and slumped down against one wall.
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, gently touching the leather padding.
He had no future but this room. And it was hard to believe he had ever had a past before it.
He felt strangely calm.
The stench was inescapable. But necessary.
It was the reality of his situation forcing itself on him. Otherwise he might be lulled into thinking this was just another dream that he would wake from.
But there were no dreams any more. There was nothing other than this cell and its insistent, hectoring stench.
Nothing else mattered now. It was his only reality.
And the only way to survive it was to accept it.
He allowed it to envelop him, connecting him with every other suffering soul who had ever been confined in that space.
It was so palpable that he felt it soaking into his hair, tickling his scalp and layering itself over his face.
Was it the effect of Leaming’s treatment? By rights, he ought to have been afraid. His life was closing down. Parading him through the asylum like that had been done as much to taunt him as to warn the other inmates. As if to say: This miserable existence – this is the only freedom that you are allowed and you are about to lose it. You are going to a place worse than this. And you will only come out when we decide you can.
He ought to have raged. He ought to have been distraught. He ought to have wept tears of panic and impotence.
But he was content instead to sit and wait to see how things would turn out. He had become a spectator in his own life.
Nothing could get to him. Not even the smell, or the tears it induced. They were not tears of self-pity or remorse. They were a simple physiological reaction. He could not wipe them away, of course, as his arms were bound by the straitjacket. But he had reached a state of such passivity that even that did not trouble him. He simply let the tears cascade from his eyes until they were done.
And the stench no longer disturbed him, because now it was in him.
The cushioned floor yielded beneath his bony backside.
Nothing could harm him.
And he couldn’t harm anyone.
It was difficult to know what he could do about anything anyway. He couldn’t stop Leaming.
He was not sure he wanted to any more.
To relinquish all ambition, to relinquish all will, to relinquish desire – there was a kind of freedom in that.
Who am I to question my government?
I am sick. My perspective on everything is distorted. I cannot rely on myself. Whatever I think about something is inevitably wrong.
And I was drawn into this by a lunatic. A murderer. The last man I should trust about anything.
He had caught sight of Medway’s face as he had been led away from the greenhouse. What had he read in his expression? There was certainly no sympathy there. A faint smile even curled on Medway’s lips, as if he were enjoying Silas’s plight.
For the first time, Silas chafed at his confinement.
As if in response to his change in mood, he heard the peephole cover slide open and felt himself observed. A moment later, the cover was slammed closed again and the lock to his door turned.
The door opened and Dr Pottinger came in. His normal priestly look had hardened into something steely. He was a priest whose faith had been questioned and who did not take it well. ‘I must say, this is very disappointing, Silas. And just when Dr Leaming tells me you were beginning to respond to his therapy.’
Silas considered giving his side of the story, but the idea of speaking wearied him.
‘Do you not have anything to say for yourself?’
Dr Pottinger waited. Silas tried to shrug, but the straitjacket made even that difficult.
‘Perhaps you were provoked? Or you were trying to defend yourself? Or someone else?’
Silas looked Pottinger in the eye. He thought he detected there a softer look than he had first suspected, perhaps even something imploring about his gaze. Had Medway told him what happened? The idea that the asylum superintendent might be guided by the most notorious lunatic in his care was absurd. But no more absurd than using Medway in a therapeutic programme.
Or was it simply that Pottinger knew exactly what Mr Ince was like?
‘It’s all ri
ght, you can speak freely.’
Silas couldn’t suppress a bitter, sardonic bark of laughter. He made to pull his arms apart, testing the ties that restrained him.
‘Ah, yes. I see. Of course. I think we can dispense with that. Mr Drummond?’
The nurse must have been waiting just outside the cell. He presented himself instantly. His face signalled a solicitude that was more than professional.
‘Remove Silas’s straitjacket, please.’
Drummond’s eager nod suggested he approved of the instruction. He gently encouraged Silas to lean forward so that he could reach the straps behind his back. With each buckle that was undone, Silas felt a welcome easing of tension. At last he was able to raise his arms above his head, allowing the straitjacket to be lifted off him. Nurse Drummond whisked the humiliating object out of the room with exemplary tact.
Silas looked down at his newly restored hands as he flexed them. Blood had dried into a coppery stain across the knuckles of one.
Silas rewarded Dr Pottinger by finding his voice. He knew how these things worked. ‘What do you want me to say? Ince is a brute.’
‘Is that why you tried to kill him?’
‘I just wanted him to stop.’
‘To stop what?’
‘He was attacking Henry.’
‘Mr Ince maintains that Henry Hicks was behaving in a threatening manner and had to be forcibly restrained.’
‘Henry threatening? That’s ridiculous. And how is swinging a key fob in his face restraining him?’
‘Mr Ince is called upon to do a very difficult job. Sometimes he has to use whatever tools come to hand.’
Silas instantly knew that he had misread the situation. He certainly should not have let the accusation that he was trying to kill Ince go by unchallenged.
Silas shook his head wearily. Let them do whatever they will do.
‘I see that you are still agitated. It will be hard for you alone in here tonight.’ Dr Pottinger sniffed distastefully and winced. ‘A mild sedative will help. In the morning, we can talk more about what has happened. Perhaps you would benefit from a tonsillectomy and full teeth extraction.’
Pottinger turned and moved to the doorway, where Nurse Drummond was again waiting. Silas didn’t catch the murmured conversation between them but Dr Pottinger returned with a tumbler of what appeared to be his usual bedtime medication.
‘What is that? No one has ever told me.’
‘Potassium bromide. It’s nothing to worry about. Just something to help you sleep, that’s all.’
Silas looked around the cell. ‘There is no bed in here.’
‘Yes, I am sorry about that. Unfortunately, that is how it has to be. There are some patients who would hurt themselves on a bed. Or would use it to hurt the staff who are trying to help them. For that reason, we cannot allow a bed in here. However, with this sedative, you should be able to sleep on the floor. Indeed, you will be able to sleep anywhere.’
Dr Pottinger held the tumbler out to Silas. ‘Drink up, there’s a good chap.’
Silas downed the draught in two swallows to diminish the foulness of its taste. He shuddered as he handed the tumbler back to the psychiatrist.
As soon as the door was closed on him once more, he leapt to his feet. He stood with his head bowed against the cushioned wall, leaning over the improved lead gutter.
Then he inserted a finger into his mouth and pushed hard, probing the softness at the back of his mouth. His finger tasted of the greenhouse. The fingernail scraped his soft palate, rapidly stimulating the gag reflex.
Two retches – the same number of gulps it had taken to swallow it – and the liquid was out of him, warmer and thicker and cloudier than it had gone in. His vomit hit the wall with some force. He felt its backsplash in his face and watched its viscous descent towards the gutter.
He swallowed down the salty after-burn, a lumpy ache lingering in his throat.
He would have welcomed the oblivion that the sedative offered but there were too many unanswered questions nagging him. He needed to think.
But mainly it was instinct that was driving him.
He settled down on the floor, his back against the padded wall, watching the last embers of the day burn out in the high window.
At some point he lay down, consigning his bones to the floor’s meagre comfort.
There were times in the long hours of absolute darkness that he regretted vomiting up the sleeping draft.
The clarity that he had hoped for eluded him. His head buzzed and ached. And instead of rational thoughts progressing towards a deductive breakthrough, he experienced a flickering motion picture show of disjointed images. His mind replayed the crucial incidents of the day just gone. Over and over. But with gratuitous distortions that he knew to be false. And so the seeds he planted with Henry sprouted instantly, pushing forward writhing shoots. And Henry spoke not his usual gibberish but perfectly formed and coherent sentences, in a surprisingly plummy accent. And this time when he punched the slate that Medway held, the tile shattered into countless pieces. And this time he felt no pain. And this time he squeezed Ince’s throat until the life went out of him. So that when he let go, Ince fell limply to the floor. No, no, that wouldn’t do. His mind replayed the encounter again. This time, when he let go, Ince apologized and promised to mend his ways. No, no … This time Silas didn’t grab his throat but merely reasoned with him. And the encounter ended with Ince saying, ‘I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree.’
It was all nonsense. Perhaps he was even dreaming.
If so, these were deeply unsatisfactory dreams, for they never once transported him to anywhere outside that stinking cell. And he was all the time acutely, painfully aware of the floor.
When he saw Henry Hicks standing in the centre of the room, he knew that he was hallucinating. It was the exhaustion, he supposed. All the same, he appreciated the company. Henry’s presence was as reassuringly undemanding as ever.
‘What’s going on, Henry?’
But it seemed that Henry had lost the power of speech entirely.
THIRTY-EIGHT
He must have drifted off eventually. Because he was aware of being wrenched back into the reality of being in the cell, most likely from a dream of being in the cell. Or perhaps it was the other way around.
What had roused him was the click of the lock mechanism.
The first light of dawn flared softly in the high window.
Silas hauled himself to his feet and went over to the door. It was an inch or so ajar. The door yielded heavily, with a resistant groan.
He peered around it, out into the corridor. No one there. He could think of no reason not to leave the cell.
As the door swung to behind him, he noticed the key was still in the lock. It was part of a large fob of keys, attached to a long chain.
This must be the dream, after all.
The clamour of the birds as he crossed the lawn was almost deafening. Were they startled by his presence, or was the breaking of every day such a shock to them? Their alien voices made him feel more alone than he had ever felt before.
As dawn expanded overhead, the writhing tree appeared frozen in the act of warning him off. If this is a dream, he was aware of thinking, its branches would be moving. And I would not feel the damp grass against my bare feet.
He started to call out when he got within ten yards of the pump house. ‘Medway? Timon?’
No answer. Thousands of frantic beaks swallowed his cries.
And then he remembered that Medway refused to answer to his own name.
‘Isaac! Sir Isaac Newton! Jeova! God!’
He picked up his pace and began a trotting circuit of the pump house.
He had not gone more than five paces when a formless shape on the ground pulled him up short. He had seen enough dead bodies in his career to know immediately what it was.
The body was face down, half on the floor of the colonnade, its legs protruding stiffly on to the grass.
&
nbsp; Silas bent down and put a hand under one shoulder to lift it. His second hand came down to complete the turnover.
The face was oddly dark and glistening. There was enough light now for him to make out that the features were pulped to a bloody mess.
Even so, from the size and shape of the body, and the orderly’s uniform, he recognized the dead man as Stanley Ince.
He heard footsteps on the concrete and looked up to see Timon Medway standing over him.
‘My my, what have you done?’
‘I have done nothing, as you well know.’
‘It doesn’t look that way. You have blood on your hands.’
Silas looked down. It was true. ‘I just turned his body over. It’s covered in blood.’
‘That’s a nasty wound on your knuckles there. Consistent with beating a man to death, I would say.’
‘You know how I got it.’
‘Do I?’
‘I see. Your word against mine.’
‘You’ll find my word carries a lot of weight in here.’
‘You’re forgetting there was a witness.’
‘Old Henry Shabbadabbalabba, you mean?’ The gourd of weightless husks was shaken.
Silas stood up. ‘You killed Ince. And I will prove it.’
‘Oh, but I didn’t. How many blows must it have taken to make that mess of his face, do you think?’
Silas looked back down at Ince. It was a curious question, but typical of Medway. Typical of his mad obsessions and his arrogance. Silas sensed that he was playing with him. Some instinct urged Silas to pursue it. ‘I don’t know. How many would you say?’
‘Perhaps a thousand? Or maybe fewer? Shall we say seven hundred and sixty-three?’
There had to be some reason why Medway had chosen this number. ‘Seven plus six plus three is sixteen. Six plus one is seven. The number on the back of the cards.’
‘I’m impressed.’ Medway held out his own spotless hands. ‘So I ask you, does it look like I’ve landed seven hundred and sixty-three blows?’
‘You could have used a weapon.’
‘I think you’ll find the blows are consistent with manual impact. Fisticuffs. A good pathologist will be able to tell you that. Besides, if there was a weapon used, you will first have to find it. And find my fingerprints on it. And I can assure you that you never will.’