Go Not Gently

by Cath Staincliffe

  She moved past me and into the gap. Carefully she edged down into a kneeling position. Hurry up, hurry up. I crouched beside her. The fire door swung open.

  I held my breath. Heard his. Panting. How much did the trolley hide? Was he listening? I counted. One, two, like hide and seek but don’t giggle, three, no game this, please, help me, please, four, with a cut there is always that delay, the gap between the knife cutting the flesh and the brain realising, sending the messages, admitting the pain, spittle on his lips…

  The door swung shut.

  ‘Get up!’ He leant back, his large frame covering most of the door.

  I uncurled, helped Agnes to her feet. Goulden stood, breathing noisily, his head tilted back, hands in his pockets, staring at us through half-closed eyes. We waited. The danger was palpable. Could he smell my fear? Had Tina Achebe waited, cornered like this, time suspended, her senses lucid and singing bright with premonition?

  He pushed himself away from the door and moved towards us.

  ‘Wait,’ I began, ‘can’t we just…’ God knows what I was going to say, some platitude about talking about things reasonably, I suppose. He came right up close to me, put his hand behind my back. I caught a whiff of his lemony aftershave and the rank odour of sweat. He stepped away suddenly, some thing white in his hand, not the knife. As he moved I felt the burning sensation. Like a wasp sting. And with it a sense of outrage at being hurt, righteous indignation. Then I panicked. What had he injected me with? A sedative? Something worse? Must ask him. I tried to speak but my tongue was stuck, swelling. Would I die? What a crummy way to die. Tell me. Can’t move my lips. Head floating, falling, dissolving.

  Cold air. The smell reminded me of school.

  Agnes was cradling my head in her lap. That was nice. Her woollen coat was warm on the back of my head and a little itchy on my ear.

  ‘Sal?’ A whisper.

  I moved to sit up. It was harder than I’d remembered. Everything shook. My muscles hurt, like the flu or the trembly exhaustion after giving birth. My trousers were damp. I must have wet myself.

  ‘Oh, Agnes.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ I was hoarse. I finally got myself into a sitting position. My throat felt as though it had been sandpapered. My tongue was so dry, sore. And my head, there was a piercing pain in my temples.

  ‘Where are we?’ I looked around.

  ‘Malden’s,’ she replied, ‘in the warehouse. This is all paper goods.’ We were in a large, featureless room. No windows, one door. The walls were lined with shelving which held boxes of paper towels, toilet rolls and the like. Paper and card, the smell of the school store cupboard.

  ‘He drove us here from the hospital,’ she said. ‘No one stopped him?’

  ‘He put you on that trolley and made me walk next to you. He put on a bedside manner. If anyone had overheard him it would have sounded as if he was taking you to casualty and reassuring me about your condition. He wheeled you all the way to his car.’

  ‘The injection -what was it? How long have I been asleep?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some sort of sedative or anaesthetic. I’m afraid I’ve lost all sense of time. How do you feel?’

  ‘Terrible.’ I lifted my hand to my nose, touched it gingerly, the pain made my eyes water.

  ‘Do you think it’s broken?’

  ‘I don’t know. Oh, I hope not. I don’t want to look like a prize-fighter. I’m so thirsty. What about you?’

  ‘I ache a bit,’ she smiled.

  ‘Where is he? Is he out there?’

  ‘Yes,’ she kept her voice low, ‘at least I haven’t heard his car drive away. Earlier on I could hear him pacing up and down but it’s been quiet for a while.’

  I listened. The silence was profound.

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘No. I asked him, when we got here, what he was going to do with us.’ Her voice swerved. ‘He didn’t like me asking. He hurt me.’

  ‘Oh, Agnes,’ I scanned her face for bruises, ‘are you all right? What did he do?’

  ‘He slapped me, then he kicked me. I expect I’ve got some pretty colourful bruises but I’m still in one piece.’

  ‘He probably hasn’t got a clue what to do with us. He’s dug a hole for himself and now he’s stuck.’

  ‘If he was going to kill us,’ Agnes said, ‘he’d have done it by now, wouldn’t he?’

  At that moment I had total recall of several murder cases where the victims had been held for some time before being killed.

  ‘Hostages,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hostages. If we can persuade him that we’re more use alive than dead, gives us a chance to build up some relationship with him. But we need to talk to him first.’ I made my way quietly over to the door. Peered through the keyhole. It was hard to focus, the pain in my head was pulsing. The space beyond was practically dark. I thought I could make out a figure huddled at the far side but I couldn’t be sure. I called his name, banged on the door.

  ‘Dr Goulden, we need to talk. We can work something out.’ I watched through the keyhole. The figure moved. ‘The longer this goes on the worse it will be. If you let us go, they’ll take that into account.’

  ‘No.’ He sounded as though he were in pain too.

  ‘If we can just talk about it…’ I carried on. ‘After all, it wasn’t just you, was it? Simcock played his part, and

  Montgomery, they ought to take some responsibility too. It just got out of hand, didn’t it? The search for a cure?’

  ‘Shut up,’ he shouted. ‘There’s nothing to say. You can’t trick me. I’m not stupid.’ Suddenly his tone changed, the emotion replaced by a distant practicality. ‘It won’t hurt. I’m not a cruel man, I get no pleasure from violence. But I need to be careful.’ I could hear his footsteps coming closer. ‘They have such clever ways these days, don’t they, of catching people. But they don’t catch all of them. And without evidence, especially without a body, it would be very hard to prove anything.’

  I preferred his anger to this quiet, logical reasoning.

  ‘They know you were at Agnes’,’ I bluffed. ‘I told my family when I was leaving that you were there. They’re bound to think of you. And what about Simcock? He knows you brought us to the hospital. If you harm us it will make things much worse.’

  ‘No!’ He thumped the door. ‘I know your game. But it’s too late. There’s not much time. There’s things I need. Yes.’

  I heard him move away and shouted after him. ‘Dr Goulden, wait, please wait. Let’s just talk about it. Dr Goulden.’

  I heard the rattling of a corrugated shutter and then more distantly the car engine.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Agnes.

  I stared back at her, my heart full of dread.

  ‘Now we’ve got to get out of here.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ‘I’ll try brute force.’ I used the heel of my foot and bashed as near to the lock as I could. Nothing. It looks so easy on the telly but the door wouldn’t budge and every time I tried it the throbbing pain in my face made my eyes sting with tears. I lunged again and again, getting more and more desperate, my aim becoming wild with my increasing frustration. My nose started bleeding again. Great crimson splashes on the floor.

  ‘Sal,’ Agnes put a restraining hand on my arm, ‘it’s not working.’

  But we’ll die, I thought. We can’t just wait here for him to come back and slaughter us. Oh God. Maddie and Tom. My stomach twisted with worry. Ray would be back by now. What if Vicky had forgotten to give him Agnes’ phone number? I thought of Tina Achebe, of the little terraced house with its dayglo scene-of-crime tape, of the headlines, photographs, quotes from the neighbours. Which photograph would they use for me?

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ I railed. ‘We waltzed into the consultant’s office at a major hospital with no problems, but getting out of the paper store of a warehouse is like escaping from Alcatraz.’ I trembled, swayed against the wal
l. ‘At least I can wipe my nose.’ It was a pathetic attempt at humour. Agnes made a pathetic attempt to smile. I found a box of paper towels and pulled some out to staunch the blood.

  ‘Right.’ I tried to clear my throat, my voice was getting more and more hoarse. ‘We have to work something out for when he comes back.’ My heart dipped at the prospect. What chance did we have? A tired old woman and a weak and wobbly younger one. ‘He’s not going to talk and it’s unlikely we could both run away from him. We need to surprise him, stop him for long enough to get help. What have we got that could hurt him?’

  We looked at all our potential weapons: car keys, earring wires, Agnes’ brooch pin. Weedy or what? There was precious little likelihood of getting near enough to Goulden to plunge a pin accurately into his eyeball or his Adam’s apple.

  ‘We need something we can knock him out with,’ I said, ‘something heavy. Something big so we’ve more chance of hitting him with it.’

  It was bracketed to the far wall. Big, red, shiny and extremely heavy. We debated briefly whether it would be better to spray him with the fire extinguisher or clout him. Clouting had far more going for it.

  ‘The foam might just make him wet. What happens when it’s all used up?’ I said.

  I practised lifting the thing above my head. I remembered log-splitting on some faraway holiday, the stance, the importance of watching the target instead of the tool, the satisfying thwack as the logs split and the shock that rippled back up arms and shoulders if the angle was wrong and the axe bounced off.

  We rehearsed our moves, The door opened inwards to the right. I would stand behind it. We needed to get Goulden into the room far enough for me to move out and take a swing at him. There would only be one chance. If he remained on the threshold it wouldn’t work.

  ‘If he does that,’ I told Agnes, ‘don’t leave the room. He can’t force you to, not unless he’s got a gun. But I don’t think he’s going to come back with a gun.’

  ‘If he can only see me then he will realise that there’s something strange going on, he will know that it is a trap.’

  ‘OK.’ I pulled my jacket off. ‘Get some paper towels. We’ll make a guy.’

  Agnes caught on quickly, screwing towel into balls and stuffing them into my jacket. Meanwhile I peeled off my damp trousers and started on them.

  ‘We can use this inside the hood.’ She held up a long roll of paper sheeting like they cover examination couches with. She formed it into a big ball for my head. When my dummy was stuffed I dragged boxes of paper off the shelves and constructed a sort of cardboard sofa we could sit on. We arranged the dummy beside Agnes and I surveyed it from the door. It was too obviously not a real person. ‘Lie it down, like I was before I came round. That’s better. Tuck the feet away. Yes.’ The paper face was hidden now and from the door it looked like I was lying prone, pretty much as I had been when I’d regained consciousness.

  ‘When he comes you’ll have to say something like I’ve passed out again or I haven’t come round. Something to make him think he’s only got one of us to worry about. If he does want us out of here he’ll have to carry me out. Tell him you can’t wake me.’

  There was little else we could do. My stomach was rolling with anticipation. My sweatshirt covered my bottom but I felt exposed as well as cold without my other clothes. There was no heating at all in the room. I’d no intention of losing Agnes, or myself, to hypothermia.

  ‘We must keep warm,’ I said. ‘Paper’s a good insulator. Here, put some of this on your head.’ I handed her an armful of the paper sheeting. We both draped our heads. ‘Very stylish.’ I tore more off to use like shawls. I wrapped sheets around my hips like a skirt. We sat on the sofa.

  She adjusted some of the paper sheeting over her legs like a blanket.

  ‘I’m so hungry. I was about to eat when you rang.’

  We leant close. I could feel myself warming up where we shared our body heat.

  ‘Somewhere,’ she muttered as she fiddled through her coat pockets. ‘Aah.’ She held out two sweets. ‘Barley sugar or Murray Mint?’

  Oh, Agnes. ‘Barley sugar.’

  We unwrapped our sweets and sucked.

  How long would he be? What things had he gone to get? He’d never let us go now, would he? We knew so much.

  ‘When did you realise,’ I asked Agnes, ‘that they’d deliberately made Lily demented?’

  ‘Once we knew the high dosages were deliberate. Why else would they do that to her? But I couldn’t fathom out what was behind it all. Then when Dr Goulden was talking, I realised there were two lots of patients involved. Remember when you found out what had happened to them, Mr Theakston at Homelea and the other ones from Aspen Lodge, I can’t recall all the names.’

  ‘Never mind, it doesn’t matter. They all had Alzheimer’s, progressive dementia, like the textbooks. All except for Mr Braithwaite, he was a bit different.’

  ‘Yes, and he was the one who had surgery,’ she said.

  ‘For the tumour.’ I sucked on my sweet, turning it from one cheek to the other. ‘They did a biopsy. A bogus operation, like Lily’s. And he was on medication,’ I pointed out. ‘His daughter said something about it.’

  ‘To make him appear senile. He was healthy, he was one of their guinea pigs. Like Lily.’

  ‘Two lots of patients,’ I continued piecing it together, ‘the healthy ones who were made mad, then operated on, and the others the ones who really had Alzheimer’s.’ I paused. ‘Their brains went to Malden’s for research. Oh God.’ I felt sick. Barley sugar was supposed to be good for travel sickness, but what about other forms of nausea? ‘They were using material from those brains. That’s what he meant when he said they’d introduced tissue–diseased cells.’

  ‘They can do all sorts, can’t they nowadays, clone things, transplant things, use genetic material?’ She spoke softly.

  ‘Oh, Agnes, it’s horrible.’ My mind grappled with the scenario. Everything seemed to fit. ‘And if they can develop the disease, they can study it, see how it behaves.’

  ‘That’s what they do with animals, isn’t it? Grow tumours in mice and monkeys and what not.’

  ‘Do you remember when he was talking to his wife, that bit about the drug companies? That was what they were after. Research that would help them produce a drug. That pathologist I talked to, he said something similar, you’d make millions. Be like inoculations, everyone would want it. Oh, Agnes. Poor Lily.’

  ‘There must have been others too, like Lily and Philip Braithwaite. People they thought no one cared about very much, healthy people getting ill suddenly, having unexpected operations. Lily was their breakthrough, he said, she hadn’t rejected the…’ She stopped abruptly, emotion taking charge. She snuffled.

  ‘And no one would have been any the wiser if you hadn’t been so suspicious.’

  ‘Because we’re old, do you see? We’re not people, we’re pensioners or OAPs,’ she stretched the initials out, ‘old biddies. No one’s surprised if we get demented, it’s almost expected.’

  ‘Oh, come on . .

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘And the donors.’ I shivered. ‘They were all transferred when they were very ill. Montgomery could send them to Simcock for scans…’

  ‘He would make sure there was plenty of material to harvest,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘And once they died the doctors could take the brains, ship them off here, to Malden’s. Get the cells they’d cultivate for use on the healthy patients. Yes. And I bet the relatives were only too happy to agree to samples being taken after death, hoping it would help someone in the future.’

  I wondered which of the people involved had first come up with the idea for their covert experiments. And why? Had it started off as scientific interest, an altruistic desire to relieve suffering by finding a cure, or had the prospect of money been the beacon from the start? Had all four of them slept easy in their beds?

  My toes had begun to go numb. I circled my ankle, trying to
keep the blood moving.

  ‘Are you warm enough?’ I asked her.

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘I’m freezing. If only I had a mobile phone we could ring for help.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t have let you keep it, not if he’d known about it.’

  ‘What happened, before you rang me, when he came to your house?’

  She told me how he’d barged in. He’d insisted Agnes ring me. She’d protested it was late but he was emphatic about it. ‘I sensed then that it all wasn’t as it should be – the atmosphere more than what he actually said. Then he took me through to the phone. I hoped he’d calm down once I’d made the call but he was so jumpy. He took some of those pills. I asked him to leave and he went completely barmy. Shouting and swearing, he pulled down the old creel, pulled off the rope…’

  ‘Tied you up.’ I stretched, the paper rustled, I started on the other ankle. ‘It must have been so frightening.’

  ‘And when he pulled the phone out.’ She tutted. ‘But do you know what went through my mind after fearing for my life? I thought, it’s going to cost ever such a lot of money to be reconnected.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Isn’t that ridiculous?’

  I smiled, began writing the alphabet with my foot. ‘If we’d only got the results sooner, got on to them sooner…’

  ‘Then maybe Lily wouldn’t have died. But we don’t know that. You did your best, Sal.’

  ‘But it wasn’t enough,’ I complained.

  ‘We didn’t save Lily but we have found out what’s going on. Once we get out of here they’ll be stopped, they won’t be able to do it to anyone else. They’ll be punished.’

  ‘I suppose so. But I am sorry, about Lily.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Once we get out of here, she’d said. If we get out of here. How would he try to kill us? Another injection? Did he really think he could get away with it if Agnes disappeared and I did too? There were several people who knew of our recent involvement with him: Moira, for a start, and the police she’d talked to; Matthew Simcock who’d been appalled by Goulden’s violence – he’d come forward, surely. Where was Goulden now? On his way back here? He said he’d hide our bodies. How? Bury them? Burn them? Chop them up?