Mystery Man 04 - The Prisoner of Brenda

by Bateman

  I slept; I tossed; I sweated. I was vaguely aware of voices – the prick of a needle – Devil babies and being trapped in a cage with cannibal gerbils. And then I was in the kitchen and Mother and Alison were preparing dinner and they brought the roast out of the oven and it was Page, ready for carving, just a little crisp on top and I screamed and screamed and screamed and an orderly was in the doorway telling me to shut up and I sat up and yelled at him and he Tasered me – or did I dream that? There was night, and then there was day and I was lying on my back, on top of the bed, and I felt like I had been knocked down by a bus but the fever had broken and the same orderly was in the door with a breakfast cart and he being perfectly pleasant. He asked if I wanted eggs and I said yes even though I was allergic to them and I knew my head would swell up to the size of a Spacehopper but I ate them anyway and was surprised when it did not, not even a little bit, and I lay there some more and then I heard a piano playing in the distance and I knew it was The Man in the White Suit and then suddenly I was back to thinking about the case and whether I’d fooled them all or whether they had, in fact, fooled me.

  This much was clear: or, indeed, unclear. I had created a pattern of unhinged behaviour and allied it with my acting skills to ensure that I was carted off to Purdysburn, thus keeping to the bargain I had struck with Nurse Brenda not to reveal to anyone that I was going undercover, even her. But now there was the unexpected irony of being outfoxed by the very people I was trying to fox.

  The more I thought about it, the further back I could trace it, and the more people I could figure into a back-stabbing plot. Perhaps it had begun on the very day that Alison first walked into No Alibis claiming to be interested in Brendan Coyle’s creative writing class. I had stood up and fought for her to be allowed to join, even though it was oversubscribed, and Brendan had acquiesced – after what now appeared to be a token show of defiance. What I had thought was a bond between us could in fact be an alliance between them and others designed to seize control of No Alibis and to gain influence over the future direction of mystery fiction, which was, after all, a billion-dollar business, or multi-million if you subtracted Stieg.

  I held my head and tried to stop it from spinning. But I could not. Someone had removed the bolt from my neck, and now it just kept going round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round – and then I was thinking that somehow Alison had found out about the influence Nurse Brenda had had on me as a teenager, and met up with her, and they had hatched this scheme to have me locked up. Alison had repeatedly scorned my medication and constantly belittled my illnesses and doubted my allergies, and when we fought over important issues like patterns in tiles and the dangers of spice racks, she often cried that I was as mad as a box of frogs, and now I knew that this was all a result of that.

  Nurse Brenda had used Gabriel as the bait to draw me in. Jeff was involved as well, he had to be. He’d always fancied Alison, and she could wrap him round her little finger. They were probably having the sex, and had been all along. Page was Jeff’s baby. Or DI Robinson’s. The only reason he kept hanging around the shop was to see Alison. He didn’t want between my covers, he wanted between hers. He had played along with the Gabriel story. He knew that by warning me off, it would only encourage me to get in deeper. And between them all they knew that the frustration of being denied direct access to Gabriel would drive me to take matters into my own hands by going in undercover, and now they had me exactly where they wanted me.

  Quite possibly, Francis Delaney’s death had nothing to do with Gabriel at all. The only evidence of Gabriel’s involvement came from DI Robinson himself, and from Nurse Brenda. Perhaps Gabriel wasn’t even suspected of Fat Sam’s murder; he was just some poor sap who didn’t know who he was, and because of that, he could become anyone; perhaps he didn’t even exist, and the newspaper articles had been fabricated, or he had been identified months ago and quietly released, but the plotters had perpetuated his story so that they might gain the ultimate prize: control of No Alibis. And the little sideshow to that was that Alison was having sex with Jeff and DI Robinson, probably at the same time, one at either end, while Page, the experimental baby, was relentlessly probed by scientists looking for evidence of ancient alien civilisations.

  A very tall man at the door said, ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps.’

  I said, ‘Do you work here?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  He was middle-aged and paunchy and unshaven and he had bags under his eyes the size of teabags. I am allergic to tea. I was not allergic to him, per se, but I was prepared to be. He was wearing blue jeans that hung low because belts weren’t allowed; he had on a grey sweatshirt and blue canvas slip-on boating shoes.

  I said, ‘I’m new.’

  He said, ‘I know that. JMJ said I should give you the tour. Ready?’ My gown was soaked through with sweat and dribble. I peeled it out from my body and made a face. ‘Your clothes will be in your drawer there. When you come in they delouse them. They’ll be a bit starchy. I’ll give you five.’

  He ducked back out of the room. I pulled the covers back and sat up. My head was numb. My legs and arms were sore, but somehow a different sore to what I was used to with my arthritis and rickets and fibromyalgia. I stood up and tested my weight and then stumbled across to the small bathroom which came with the room. There was a shower. I prefer a bath. It is next to impossible to drown yourself in a shower, and God knows I’ve tried. There wasn’t even a plug in the sink. There was an electric shaver, already plugged in. Apparently safety razors were not deemed safe enough. I showered, holding onto the walls for support. The water was lukewarm. I found my clothes, neatly pressed, even my days of the week underpants. I sat and stared at them. The single pair I had with me was for a Tuesday. I had no idea what day it now was, apart from the fact that it was no longer Tuesday. Normally, if I wore the wrong day it would mess with the space-time continuum and I would not have been able to leave home until the crisis had passed or the correct underpants were produced. But now, I pulled them on with only a little hesitation. I slipped into my shirt and trousers. I pulled on my trainers, although without the laces they were too loose to do anything other than shuffle along in; when I stepped out into the corridor I discovered I was not alone, that we were a community of shufflers.

  The tall man was waiting.

  ‘I was just coming to get you,’ he said. He pushed a hand out towards me. I hesitated, and he saw it, and withdrew. ‘Name’s Bertie, and I’ve been in here fifteen years, so there’s nothing I don’t know about this place. Walk this way.’ His voice had the haggard rasp of cigarettes. I fell in beside him. He asked me my name and I told him. He asked what I was in for and I said assessment. He said, ‘No, what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Pedo?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Well, watch yourself, this place is full of them. He’s one.’ He pointed at a short, balding man in his thirties, with glasses perched on the end of his nose, sitting on a stool reading a Kindle. I nodded. ‘Morning, Jock,’ said Bertie, and introduced me. Jock grunted back without looking up. Bertie rolled his eyes at me and we continued on.

  ‘This is the corridor,’ he said needlessly, ‘and it continues on down here and then in a loop right back to the entrance, though of course it’s not a loop, it’s a straight corridor, with junctions and angles, if you get my drift. These are the toilets – you’re lucky, you have one in your room, not all of us have though. I don’t for example. I have to go in here, with the pedos. Have to be constantly on my guard.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’re pedos.’

  ‘But surely they’d only be interested in—’

  ‘Just along here, this is the recreation room. The rec room.’

  It was large, open-plan, well-windowed (and barred) with a widescreen television, three computers, a pool table, a small library of p
aperback books and a dozen chairs set out in a circle, with one in the middle. There were four other men in the rec room. Two were playing pool, one was sitting typing at a computer, and the other was staring at the TV, which wasn’t switched on.

  Bertie stood in the middle of the room and cleared his throat. When nobody paid any attention he barked: ‘Listen up!’ and told them my name. ‘He’s the new chap, here to replace poor Francis. Back up to the round dozen!’

  He indicated the men at the pool table. ‘Fella with the bandana there, that’s Raymond.’ Raymond nodded at me. He had a Village People moustache and a capless white T-shirt. ‘Pedo,’ Bertie whispered under his breath. ‘Fella he’s whipping is Morris.’ Morris was a skinhead with bulging eyeballs. He also nodded. ‘Pedo,’ added Bertie.

  We moved along to the computers. A much younger man, looking no more than eighteen, with floppy hair and big, square glasses, was typing furiously.

  ‘Patrick, say hello,’ said Bertie. ‘He’s writing the great Irish novel.’ Patrick raised a hand, but didn’t look round. Beside me, Bertie mouthed, ‘Pedo.’

  Trying to be friendly, I said to the back of Patrick’s head, ‘What’s it about?’ and moved a little closer to look.

  He immediately covered the screen with his hands and snarled, ‘Fuck off.’

  I stepped back.

  Bertie said, ‘They take a little bit of time to get used to strangers.’ He indicated the man sitting staring at the TV. ‘Andy’s been here longest of us all, pushing twenty years. That right, Andy?’

  Andy didn’t respond, but kept on watching the TV. He looked to be in his sixties – with sallow skin, hanging off him. He was the only one of my fellow patients I’d met so far who was wearing the dressing-gown and slippers ensemble.

  Bertie turned and began to lead me out of the rec room.

  ‘Andy is . . .?’

  ‘Pedo,’ nodded Bertie.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ I said as we moved on down the corridor, ‘that’s a very high proportion of pedos.’

  Bertie ignored me as he pushed through two sets of swing doors and then sturdier ones which took us outside and onto a flat roof, which was used as an exercise area and was set out with a running track, a small five-a-side football pitch and a basketball hoop. It was surrounded by a high fence with a wire net across the top to prevent the balls, and presumably the patients, from falling to the car park below. There were four more men kicking a ball around, with another in nets. One of them, rounder than the others, took a shot and scored and then took off in celebration, his arms raised and yelling in joy.

  ‘Look at them,’ Bertie growled. ‘They think they’ve got a great little team, but they’re never going to play anyone else, unless there’s some kind of Pedo League.’

  I sighed.

  Bertie called out to them, several times, and they eventually stopped their game and we went through more introductions.

  ‘I had a trial at Leeds,’ said Joe, the rotund goal-scorer, soaked in sweat.

  ‘In the High Court,’ Bertie whispered.

  Malachy was in nets. When Joe had shot, Malachy had turned his back while simultaneously covering his head with his arms to avoid being struck by the ball. He was wearing a pair of mittens so thick that they looked as if a pair of oven gloves had been cut in half. Later I discovered that they had been.

  The third player was Scott. He was the only one wearing a full football kit, with expensive-looking trainers. He was lanky, with dank, sandy hair and a hooked nose. He avoided eye-contact.

  ‘Scott would play footie all day every day, if he could,’ said Bertie. ‘JMJ has to order him off the pitch at lunchtimes.’

  The fourth player was Michael. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled down low and an enormous pair of earphones which didn’t seem to be doing much to confine the sound of heavy bass and beats. He couldn’t have heard my name, but he gave me the thumbs-up anyway.

  The fifth was Pedro.

  ‘He’s Spanish,’ said Bertie.

  ‘Sí,’ said Pedro. He ran to rescue the ball from the back of the net.

  ‘He’s not really,’ said Bertie, ‘he’s from Portadown, but he was in a car accident. Brain damage. He thinks he’s Spanish and we play along. The only word of Spanish he knows is sí. He speaks English, but with a Spanish accent. He runs around like a headless chicken and never passes. Last week, they tried to murder him.’

  Joe, the goal-scorer, called over: ‘Hey – you any good? You want a game?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘C’mon,’ he continued, waving me over. ‘You can’t be any worse than these spastics.’

  ‘No, really,’ I said, ‘I have Brittle Bone Disease. It could kill me.’

  He looked at me doubtfully. ‘I had a trial at Leeds,’ he said.

  Bertie ushered me back inside. It was nice to be back in the heat. We moved down the corridor again. He pointed out the canteen, which was just a small room with a table set for twelve. ‘We eat lunch and dinner here. Don’t be late. JMJ doesn’t like it and won’t let anyone eat until we’re all there. Once she kept us sitting there for an hour and a half until Scott could be persuaded in from football. Our potatoes got cold.’

  We arrived back in the rec room. Raymond and Morris were still playing pool. I observed that there was no white ball. It did not seem to be hindering them.

  A female voice behind me said, ‘There is no white ball because it causes dissension.’ I turned to find a nurse, a Sister, in a blue uniform with red epaulettes, similar to what Nurse Brenda wore. ‘And dissension is the enemy of placidity. You must be . . .’ And she looked at her clipboard and read out my name. ‘I am Sister Mary, and I heard you screaming last night, and had to administer an injection, though I don’t suppose you remember that.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you were crying like a baby. But you’re up now, right as rain. Our job is to make you as comfortable here as possible.’ She moved closer to me. She was small, with a short, flat nose and a crinkled brow. Her skin was very white, and her eyes confident. ‘As you may have gathered, most of our patients here are longterm. We are hoping that you will be in and out in a matter of weeks. Good discipline, manners and the right attitude will speed things along nicely for you. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ I said.

  Behind me, Raymond suddenly let out a screech, leaped around the table and grabbed Morris by the throat. He pushed him back against the wall, while continuing to throttle him.

  Sister Mary raised a hand and clicked her fingers and two orderlies appeared from a side room. She pointed at the struggling pair and the orderlies dragged them apart. She then moved forward to examine the pool table. There was a long tear in the green baize.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ said the Sister. ‘Would you look at that, and it was only repaired the week before last. Right – you two, to your rooms and not a peep or there’ll be no lunch for either of you.’

  ‘But he . . . !’ Morris began to cry.

  Sister Mary turned to him, and he immediately fell silent. The orderly waited for the nod from the nurse before releasing him, and Morris then tramped unhappily away.

  ‘You too, Raymond, and please don’t let me down again.’

  ‘Yes, Sister Mary,’ said Raymond, and he was also released.

  There was another shout, and then pained screaming, but from further away, and the orderlies were suddenly charging towards the swing doors.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ cried Sister Mary, taking off after them. ‘There’s no rest for the wicked!’

  ‘JMJ,’ I said.

  ‘JMJ,’ said Bertie. ‘C’mon, I’ll show you the—’

  ‘Shhh.’

  I stood in the middle of the rec room, with my eyes closed and my arms spread. I could hear raised voices from the football field; I could hear the clatter of plates being set out for lunch; I could hear the subtle hum of the air conditioning; the ping of the elevator as it stopped outside; the tap-
tap-tapping of Patrick’s typing as he composed the Great Irish Novel; even the harsh suck and blow of Bertie’s ravaged lungs. But what I could not hear was the original cast recording of Les Misérables.

  ‘What?’ said Bertie.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ I asked.

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘The sound of nothing.’

  My tinnitus was gone.

  24

  I had not felt so healthy for a long, long time, possibly ever, and it worried me greatly. I knew that, quite often, before people die, they suddenly feel better, maybe just for one night, or a few hours. Now, not only was my tinnitus gone, but the relentless pain in my limbs had subsided, the gagging reflex I usually suffered when I swallowed or encountered a Presbyterian had eased, and as for the voices, the voices had vanished. But I had seen Zulu – and I knew they would be back, and in greater numbers. It was important to strike now, while the iron was hot, and before I suffered a cataclysmic final breakdown and death.

  JMJ supervised the lunch at least until the food was served and everyone was seated, with the exception of Raymond, who hadn’t been able to stop whining about the pool table. She said Grace. Everyone closed their eyes. Mine remained open until I realized JMJ was staring at me. We had mash and sausages and beans. Everyone but Andy seemed to be enjoying it. He sat there staring at his plate with the same concentration he employed when watching the TV, but he made no effort to eat. After five minutes JMJ departed, leaving two orderlies to oversee us. Immediately forks reached across the table and scooped up Andy’s mash and beans and speared his sausages. When JMJ checked in on us again, she patted Andy on the back and said, ‘Good man, finished first again!’ before ducking out again.