by Rod Madocks
They grasped him awkwardly by the hips, feet slipping in the mess and lifted him up. A staff nurse found the ligature buried deeply in the neck and slid it up and away. It was a knotted boot lace, slipped through the narrow crack by the door hinge. The knot held the weight despite the design of the cupboard which was aimed at reducing ligation points. Poynton came and a security team crawled over the room, the ambulance was summoned then sent away. Photos were taken and the Redford police informed. LeGryce, the hospital police liaison officer, came and looked the scene over and talked to Poynton. The ward notes were examined. Patients were interviewed but did not report anything significant. Nothing further could be got from JJ who became abusive when they pressed him, and gestured them away. There was suspicion on Hobman, but Andre said they were playing cards together all of the late afternoon. The other patients were jumpy, Grimpen saying “I told yer. I told yer”. That night an autopsy was held in the hospital mortuary with Bartram standing uneasily by the table, for hospital rules insisted that the consultant should attend their own patient’s post mortem, an old rule designed to ensure that prompt action was taken within the wards should a homicide be detected.
This I learned on the following day at the ward debrief where we all had gathered. Poynton was there, documents in front of him, watching us as we came in. He chaired the meeting as it was seen that clinical matters gave way to security business.
“Let’s see what we have,” said Poynton, waving the papers and looking round the room. “The PM indicates vagal inhibition as the cause of death. The greater horns of the hyoid bone were fractured by squeezing from the ligature. There were fine scratches on the palms of both hands and excoriations on the dorsal aspect of the left forearm. There was a graze on the left, fifth knuckle and evidence of a broken nail of the third digit of the left hand. These injuries are not really commensurate with defence injuries, and are more likely to be involuntary movements during strangulation by the ligature.”
He looked up then announced, “The PM seems to indicate suicide.”
“I can attest to that,” said Bartram, “I must protest however to the medical committee about this old fashioned rule that consultant attend the post mortem, it’s really too much to see one’s own patients flayed before one’s eyes.”
Poynton went on as if Bartram had not spoken, “There was no suicide note and no evidence of a recent deterioration in mental state. No history of deliberate self harm. He had been on the ward only four days and staff here had not got to know him. The only unusual element was his insistence, that afternoon, on taking his dinner in his room. He had not done that before, as far as we are aware, so why then? We can only presume he wanted to be alone or wanted to avoid someone. LeGryce in liaison is satisfied that this is a suicide. I would like to look more closely at the patients to see if someone had a grudge against Kress or if a patient had put pressure on him. It’s hard to see why they would hold something against a newcomer. Of course we had the Lazaro incident earlier in the year, Hobman, however, says he knows nothing and has a witness to support him.”
“Any thoughts?” said Bartram.
“Is it sexual?” asked Irina the psychologist, looking down, her face hidden by her hair. “Is it auto-asphyxia of some sort?”
“Could be, but there is no history of self-ligation, is there, Mr Keyse?” said Poynton, looking at me. I shook my head.
“I sometimes think we know so little about our patients. ‘The heart that lives alone, housed in a dream’, eh?” mused Bartram. “I really hope this will not be a case of hic occultus, occulto occisus est?” The ward review staff stared back at him warily then after a pause he said with a hint of a smile, “It’s a well known epitaph, it means — ‘here lies an unknown, killed by an unknown’.”
And that was it; the hospital would hold its enquiry, although suicides were quite common, numbering maybe eight a year out of six hundred patients. Hospital social work located Kress’s father who was still living on the island. There had been no contact with his son for twenty years. They took him back home to be buried at Canvey cemetery on the higher ground overlooking the Pitsea Marshes and the estuary out to the sea.
And CID and Beekeeper were informed that their former suspect could no longer be interviewed.
A week or so later, I was sitting in my office, writing up notes, when I heard a quick pacing tread on the stairs and the chinking of a key holder. It was Poynton who entered quickly after knocking, his eyes flickering over the things in my office.
“Mr Keyse, do you have a moment?” It was not a request.
He perched on the edge of a file cabinet, slightly above me, and folded his thin arms over his starched, white uniform shirt and fixed me with his watery, pale eyes.
“There had been developments with the Kress thing.”
“Oh yes?” I replied, keeping my voice low.
Poynton took out a small plastic bag and flopped it onto the desk in front of me. Inside there appeared to be a brown paste-like substance that looked like dried yeast. “We found this in Kress’s door lock. It’s some sort of home-made glue made of animal fat or suet scraped from dinner plates. Someone poured it in the lock, the key turned a bit but the tongue did not go home. Old Kress was locking himself in but the door was not secure.”
Poynton was referring to the patient’s own room keys on the treatment wards. Unlike on the assessment wards they could lock themselves in to their own cells for privacy on Eaton. This protected them from the other patients but the staff held master keys that overrode the patient’s own cell lock when they required to enter.
Poynton continued, “Kress was new, he probably didn’t realise that the lock was not working properly.”
“That is interesting. What is the significance of this?” I gestured at the plastic bag.
“And another odd thing,” he said, ignoring my question, “the door hinge on the cupboard looks like it’s been forced or pried open a little to increase the gap so that a ligature could be inserted. Although, it could have been Kress’ weight pulling it out I suppose. Now the PM said suicide, but just supposing there was a very strong man, he could get the noose around the neck, tighten, elicit unconsciousness, then haul him up.”
He paused for effect and stared at me. I remained silent. “I’m thinking of Hobman. Nothing happens on that ward which doesn’t involve him. I have kept my eye on him since the Lazaro thing. Even though Lazaro is long transferred to the C blocks he is still frightened of returning to Eaton for some reason. You saw Hobman, I believe, just before Kress transferred, did he say anything of interest in that session?”
“No, just routine,” I replied. “he expressed his usual delusional ideas about the White Lady and wanted his letters to his sister released by Dr Bartram, the usual stuff.”
Poynton leaned forward to pick up the sealed bag on my desk and stood looking at me and then said, “That’s all, just thought I’d ask. Can you write it up? Exactly what Hobman said to you that day, and forward the details to me? We are going to transfer him anyway as a security precaution. LeGryce and Redford CID are satisfied, but just thought I’d ask.”
He turned as if to go then asked, “Are you settling in alright here? Where was it you came from before us?”
I gave a few anodyne answers and wondered if somehow the Beekeeper team had spoken to Poynton, then I sighed with relief as his footsteps sounded on the stairs as he departed, and I waited for the dull boom and clank of the outer office door closing.
After he had gone I paced my office thinking of the afternoon in the clinical review room ten days before. I had spoken to Hobman as he sat facing me in one of the worn-out easy chairs. He had hunched himself forward, his face in shadow.
I had said to him, “Hobman, can I tell you how you recognise a nonce?”
And I remember him looking at me in a surprised way, with a hint of a smile, his eyes fixed on mine, “How boss? Suppose you tell me.”
“By his tattoo, Hobman, his tattoo on his arm, of a little
girl dead, with a halo, her name was Annie.”
“Is that so?” he said, “And when will I see that tattoo, boss?”
“Soon, very soon, Hobman,” I had answered.
PART TWO
2001
Chapter Four
When Black Snow Falls
It had begun with the mundane tasks of a September day, or as mundane as anything could be in that strange place. I had walked with an escort team to the chapel to pick up a patient who was going to a review. I recall looking at my dim reflection in the perspex of the chapel notice board as I leaned against the opposite wall in the corridor. I could just make out my purse-lipped expression, the jaw line melting into middle age. I remember the escorts murmuring to each other, the sound of keys chinking, the hiss and sputter of their radios and the muffled calling and hooting of patients in the nearby hospital swimming pool. Inside, the imam’s reedy voice could be heard, calling noonday prayer to bear witness to Mohammed, the messenger of Allah. “Ash’hadu anna Muhammadar — rasulullaah,” his voice rising and then falling to a dying cadence. Inside could be heard the rumbling chorus of the worshippers in reply. Allahu Akbar.
The escorts made wry faces to each other and looked at their watches as the chanting went on. A smell of chlorine drifted through the bars of the gate that led to the swimming pool area. A group of learning disability patients emerged with their guards from the pool changing rooms. They passed us in silence then started whooping and screaming at each other as they moved away down the blocks. At last the sound of chanting ended in the chapel, the door opened and there was a shuffle of slippers as the Muslim patients emerged. There was Razaq the Somali, a few Mirpuri Pakistanis — mainly honour killers — and some Caribbean converts with small kufi prayer caps on the backs of their heads. All were marched off to their wards and the robed imam was taken back to the lodge gate. At the last came Yunus for whom we were waiting.
Yunus was a Turk from Ismir, a pudgy man in shirt sleeves. He was thirty-five years old. His name meant “dolphin” in Turkish. He grinned obsequiously at me with his head tilted to one side.
“They have all arrive-ed, sir?” He asked, anxiously checking that his solicitor and translator had turned up for his annual review.
“Yes, Yunus — all are ready for you,” I replied.
His solicitor and translator had indeed arrived, and also representatives from advocacy, security, day services, psychology and Dr Bartram himself. They sat waiting for us, ranked in a circle, in one of the new review rooms off the blocks’ corridor. This was the usual style of the hospital now. Patients were given a large forum for reviews although, in reality, the key decisions always fell into the same hands. Bartram chaired the meeting, older now, a little more plump and grey but still with the sartorial flourish of a maroon-coloured bow tie, still making his dry, precise little gestures, adjusting his sleeves fussily and pulling at his grey, lamb chop whiskers. I remembered as I looked at his soft features that he had once told me that he was a vegetarian, “because there is enough blood in my world.”
Yunus’s dark eyes moved anxiously as he surveyed the assembled clinicians. He held his head slightly to one side for he had developed a torticollis, a wry neck, due to the neck muscles being twisted by the dystonic side effects of medication. He was requesting transfer to a Medium Secure facility in London and believed that he would be granted this despite being advised to the contrary by staff. He also continued to deny his offence in a naïve, dogged, continued protestation. He had killed a young, sick prostitute in the rooms that he rented with some other migrant workers in Kentish Town five years before. He had picked her up and allowed her to sleep on his bed after using her, and then smothered her as she lay. He carried her to his bathroom, put her in his bath and stabbed her with a kitchen knife.We had no idea why he killed her. He revealed a mass of paranoid beliefs when he was first admitted. His victim had been found in the bath by another lodger. I visualised her floating there in the dark water like Ophelia as I listened to the debate going on around the review room.
“No sir, I did not do that thing,” he continued to protest his innocence even during the review.
His solicitor, a sweaty, pale Englishman, tried to intervene and speak for him.
“Under Article Eight of the Human Rights Act, my client has the right to home and family life and we can argue that he should be transferred to the London area so that he can be nearer to friends and family.”
As the solicitor continued to plead for his client, Bartram leaned over and whispered to me, “Can’t we deport him? Hardly a cockney sparrow is he?”
I smiled grimly, for Bartram had come to recognise that we shared something unspoken between us, a retributive stance towards patients. We listened to the solicitor’s presentation, then Yunus gave a long peroration in Turkish about a miscarriage of justice which was translated back by the young interpreter while Yunus continued to interrupt him in English, “You must understand, me, I am a sick man! An innocent man!”
The other representatives of the hospital delivered their reports of progress, some added anodyne comments like a school report that does not want to offend the pupil. Others were more damming. The solicitor fenced and quibbled when clinicians mentioned his client’s poor motivation, his denials and his reluctance to engage with therapy. He was going nowhere.
At the close, Bartram addressed the meeting. “I think the clinical team are in agreement.” He paused and looked at me, “I think this patient needs to remain on a treatment ward for a further year, he needs to do offence-focused work and to do so in the sustained treatment context of the high secure setting.”
I nodded and said, “I must concur.”
As this was translated back to him, Yunus began to scream and point at us with his eyes bulging in his contorted, lopsided face. He shouted in English, “You are oppressing me! You are oppressing me! I should be cared for by men of my faith! It is you who will be punish-ed.”
Bartram signalled to the escorts to lead him out, two nurses stepped forward and held him by the wrists ready to armlock him but he shuffled out between them, still shouting, “Listen to me, you must listen … this is a wrong … this is a wrong thing!”
I walked back to the office compound after the review along with one of the junior medics, a new registrar, a tall, handsome, woman in her late twenties. She had all the confidence of her training, but she was an innocent in the secure world in which she found herself. I could see that she kept a pack of Silk Cut cigs in her key pouch. I never ceased to wonder at the stress and exposure a woman could feel under the daily stare of the sex offenders although some female staff perhaps enjoyed that frisson. Ahead of us, I could see Bartram walking alone with a sheaf of documents under one arm. She asked me about the black prisoners and the growing industry of equality and rights workers, translators and advocates. I told her that nearly thirty per cent of the prisoners could now be identified as being different in ethnicity or culture. My voice betrayed no sense of what I felt about that, for I was a spy in this house and I thought of Bartram saying to me once “You know, Jack, few of us transcend the simple need to belong and to be with our own kind and our prisons and mad houses hold the casualties of our society’s wilful dismissal of that fact.”
Orange and yellow hawkbit flowers blazed on the lawns in the compounds as we walked, a lone plane droned high in the blue above and flecks of straw from the recently harvested fields clung to the fencing wire. The patients may have changed with the world outside but the staff here had remained much the same. Local men and women made up the bulk of the nursing auxiliaries, Midlands white working folk, fathers and sons, and daughters now also coming to work here. The few foreign nurses never lasted very long here, although Bill Ponds still remained on Eaton. We passed lines of escorted day unit patients returning for their lunches. The canteen now provided vegetarian, halal, kosher and diabetic meals. We went by a group of patients who had been allowed out to sit in the sun next to one of the villas. They had thro
wn some bread on the grass for the sparrows and were now encouraging the ward cat to catch the birds. This cat was one of the few sanctioned animals in the hospital, apart from the sniffer dogs which were sometimes taken out to check visitors and staff for drugs. The patients fell silent as we passed and the cat crouched with flattened ears and lashing tail. I sensed the patients’ eyes probing the outline of the young registrar and they moved their faces in the sunshine as if scenting her sex as she walked along beside me. The sunlight shone through her skirt and her hair gleamed in the sunlight. I imagined them weighing her up as a sexual being and for a moment I too was aware of her legs swishing under the long skirt. Her conversation faltered under the combined impact of their stare and we walked on in silence.
A single leaf fell from the beech tree by the path, spinning down ahead of us. The leaf had come from a tree that had been a sapling when I first came to the hospital, now it stood thirty feet high, its lower branches lopped at the insistence of security.
We arrived at the canteen gate and caught up with Bartram as he fiddled with his keys. “Are you joining us, Jack?” he asked.
I declined his invitation, although we sometimes sat together for meals at work. We had developed a mutual, wary familiarity, a respect for each other that had grown over time. When we ate together we would often talk of forensic history and famous cases but we never mentioned personal matters. Both of us chose to be prisoners here for our own private purposes. Much of the arrogance had gone out of Dr Bartram these last five years after his son’s death from meningitis in his first term at university medical school. He came straight back to work after the funeral, seeing patients and chairing clinical meetings as he always did. His bowed shoulders spoke of his grief but few dared ask him about it. When I offered my condolences, I remember him pausing in the corridor and his grey eyes flickering up to meet mine.