‘It’s exclusively for people between the ages of forty and sixty, and it says there will be an equal number of men and women on the cruise.’
‘Yes, that is what it says,’ I agree.
‘But you can’t be more than thirty.’
When you’re thirteen years old, you resent the hell out of someone knocking a year off your age, but if you’re thirty-one when it happens, it’s a different story entirely, and, despite knowing it means nothing at all, I experience a momentary flush of well-being.
‘I’m older than I look,’ I tell her, ‘but, you’re right, I’m not old enough for that.’
‘So it’s no good to you, is it?’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I agree, ‘but then it’s not my name on the ticket.’
I hand her the envelope.
She looks down at it.
‘Open it,’ I say.
She takes off her glove, opens the envelope and extracts the ticket. As she reads what it says, her eyes widen.
‘It’s in my name!’ she says.
‘That’s right.’
‘I can’t possibly accept this. I really can’t,’ she says, holding the ticket out to me.
‘You can please yourself,’ I tell her, folding my arms, ‘but the ticket’s already paid for, and the money’s non-refundable.’
‘But … but I can’t just go on a cruise,’ she moans.
‘Why not? Have you used up all your available holiday time?’
‘No, no, it’s not that. As a matter of fact, I haven’t used any of it at all, because my mother doesn’t like to go—’
‘Well, then, if you’re owed the time, just what is stopping you?’ I interrupt her.
‘Could my mother come along?’ she asks.
‘Certainly,’ I reply, ‘as long as she pays her own way, there are still places available, and she’s under sixty.’
‘But she isn’t …’ Annie says. She pauses for a second, then continues, ‘You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I promise I’m not.’
And then I feel a little bit guilty, because a small, unworthy part of me has been doing just that.
‘My mother’s over sixty,’ she says. ‘You must know that.’
I nod. ‘I can do the maths.’
‘Well, then?’
‘In my own awkward way, I was trying to make a point. You need to be doing things that women of your age do, Annie – not things that women of your mother’s age do. Can you understand that?’
‘But I can’t just leave her on her own for a whole two weeks, can I?’ Annie asks.
‘Can’t you?’
‘Well, no.’
‘Well, I’ve bought the ticket, and that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned,’ I say. ‘What happens next is up to you.’
She shivers. ‘I’m not sure I’d have the nerve,’ she says. ‘Even the thought of it frightens me.’
‘Most things that are worth doing in this life are a little bit frightening,’ I reply.
‘But do you think I could do it?’ she asks, almost pleadingly.
‘I’m sure you could,’ I tell her.
And then, looking over her shoulder, I see someone in a bright red duffle coat walking up the street.
‘I have to go,’ I tell Annie.
‘Couldn’t you just …?’
‘No, I really have to go.’
‘But I haven’t decided …’
‘You’ll have to make your own decisions, Annie,’ I call to her, over my shoulder.
I sprint up the street, but I soon discover there’d been no need to hurry, because the figure in the red duffle coat has stopped to look at the televisions on display in an electrical store’s shop window.
I tap her lightly on the shoulder and she turns to look at me. She is probably the same age as the suspected killer, but her face is much thinner, and her nose considerably larger.
She looks terrified.
‘There’s no need to be alarmed, madam,’ I say soothingly. ‘I’d just like to know where you bought that duffle coat from.’
Her thin lips move up and down, but for several seconds, no sound comes out of her mouth. Then she rasps, ‘We’re not supposed to talk to anybody on our first few times out.’
‘What do you mean, “your first few times out”?’ I ask.
But instead of answering the question, she hunches her shoulders and scurries away.
I notice one of the shop’s employees standing in the doorway. He is disguised as Santa, though the grey flannel trousers and black shoes which project from beneath his robe sort of give him away. He has stepped out of the shop to smoke a cigarette – which would have been much easier and safer if he hadn’t been wearing a cotton wool beard and whiskers – and I can tell he has enjoyed the unexpected entertainment he has just witnessed, because his fluffy beard does nothing to hide the superior smirk which has spread across his face.
‘My function is nought if not to amuse you, good sir,’ I say – remembering I’m in Shakespeare’s Southwark, and accompanying the words with an elaborate stage bow.
‘You what?’ he says, proving – though no such proof is necessary – that he is not a man of wit and erudition.
‘The woman I was just talking to – does she belong to some sort of order of nuns?’ I ask.
There seems to be no end to my ability to entertain him, and he laughs so much that it brings on a cough.
‘An order of nuns?’ he says, when he’s recovered himself. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘So she isn’t?’
‘Nah, she’s not a penguin.’
Get it? He’s pointing out that nuns look like penguins! What a joker he really is.
‘So if she’s not a nun, what is she?’ I ask, wondering how well his beard is glued on, and how much it will hurt if I decide to yank it off.
‘She’s one of the loonies from up at St Dims,’ he says.
The building has a high brick wall all around it, and two massive iron gates set in the middle of that wall. Next to the gates is a small brass plaque which reads St Dymphna’s Institute. There is nothing on the plaque stating the nature of the institute, and if you do not already know that St Dymphna is the patron saint of mental illness, you might well conclude it is a scientific research centre or some kind of financial organization.
When I ring the bell, a large square porter with a bushy beard and a blue uniform appears, looks me up and down through the gap in the ironwork, and says, ‘We’re not buying anything.’
‘Then that’s fortunate, because I’m not selling anything,’ I reply, a little miffed to be taken for a travelling salesman.
I hand him one of the business cards on which I’ve promoted myself from reporter on the Oxford Mail to special correspondent for the famous – and notoriously muck-raking – national Sunday newspaper that goes by the name of the News of the World.
‘I’m writing an article on the more enlightened of our mental institutes,’ I say, ‘and I’d like to talk to your director.’
He retreats into his little lodge by the gate and emerges again a minute later. ‘The director doesn’t give interviews,’ he says, with a superior sneer. ‘And he especially doesn’t want to talk to anybody from a scandal sheet like the News of the World.’
‘How interesting,’ I reply. ‘Then try this: tell him if he doesn’t talk to me immediately, I’m ringing the police about this institute’s involvement in the murder of Grace Stockton.’
Behind the beard the porter pales, which instantly removes from my mind any possible concern that I’m on the wrong track.
‘I can’t tell the director something like that,’ he says, trying – and failing – to sound as decisive as he did just a few moments ago.
‘Oh, you can’t, can’t you?’ I ask. ‘Well, I suppose you must please yourself – after all, it’s your job that’s on the line here.’
And I turn and start to walk away.
‘Wait!’ he calls urgently after me.
‘Wait just a minute.’
I wait.
He is inside his lodge for considerably more than a minute this time, but when he comes back out he presses a button which opens a side gate and says, ‘You’re to follow me.’
There is a driveway running along the wall on the right-hand side of the building (I’m guessing it probably leads to the tradesmen’s entrance) but most of the area in front of the institute is occupied by an unexpectedly pretty garden, which has a path snaking through it towards the impressive front door.
I’m half-expecting my bearded minder to escort me down the driveway to the tradesmen’s entrance, but instead he gestures – with a lack of grace he must have been working on – that I should follow him up the path.
The garden is nothing like stately home-sized, but for somewhere in a built-up area like Southwark it is impressively large. There is a lily pond, though there are no lilies to provide cover at this time of year, and the brightly coloured fish which I see darting back and forth are dangerously exposed to any passing heron. There are flower beds and a rose garden, carefully trimmed hedges and a small copse of trees. And there are wood and metal benches, on which inmates of the institution, lured out by the recently emerged sun, sit basking alone or in pairs.
The men, I note, are all dressed in blue jeans and blue shirts, the women in sapphire blue dresses with pockets just below the waistline.
I have had an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach for the last half hour – a feeling initially set off by my learning about the very existence of St Dymphna’s Institute – but now that I see the women’s blue uniforms, it is all I can do to avoid throwing up.
The institute is housed in a large Victorian building which might once have been the home of a prosperous merchant. It looks forbidding from the outside, but once through the door, I see that an attempt has been made to brighten it up with pastel walls and brightly patterned carpets. Still, whatever they do, nothing can hide the stern dignity of the high ceilings and gothic staircases.
My mind is racing as we climb the steps to the first floor, and by the time we reach the director’s office, I have a pretty clear idea of what must have happened, though I have no way – as yet – of proving any of it.
The porter knocks and the director calls, ‘Come in!’ The porter opens the door and then steps back – and I enter the lion’s den.
The director is not a very scary lion. He is in his fifties, with a receding chin and a disappearing hairline. He is wearing an expensive suit to show that he is in charge, and a white coat to remind us that he is still a doctor. I would be prepared to thoroughly dislike him, were it not for his eyes. They are kind and caring, and give the impression that he does not let his patients suffer alone, but goes through the agony with them.
Nevertheless, he’s undoubtedly the enemy at the moment, and must be treated accordingly.
‘Take a seat,’ he says, ignoring the comfortable armchairs in the corner of the room and pointing to the straight-backed chair in front of his desk.
I sit, and he takes up his commanding position behind the desk.
‘I have rung the News of the World, and talked to the editor himself,’ he says. ‘No one there has ever heard of you. You are nothing but a fraud, Miss Redhead – a delusional fraud.’
‘So why have you agreed to see me?’ I ask.
We both already know the answer to that. I am here so he can assess just how much I know, and thus, how much of a danger I am to the institute.
But he can’t come right out and say that, can he?
‘You are here because I think that you probably don’t quite appreciate the damage you can do to this wonderful institution by spreading these wild stories of yours, and I’d like to take this opportunity to explain it to you.’
‘If they’re so wild, I don’t see why you’re worried,’ I say. ‘And you are worried, aren’t you?’
‘I will not deny it,’ he admits. ‘I am worried because there are some people who are always willing to jump on anything which will discredit our work, however incredible that anything may be.’
‘I saw one of your inmates out walking on Borough High Street today,’ I tell him.
‘One of our patients,’ he corrects me censoriously. ‘Patients is a much less degrading term than inmates to apply to these unfortunate people, don’t you think?’
‘I stand corrected,’ I say – because he is right, and I am a little ashamed of myself.
He looks down at the notes on his desk.
‘It would be Edna that you saw on the High Street. It was her third time out.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I ask, knowing he’s trying to distract me, and – for the moment – quite content to let him.
‘It is our policy, once the patient shows signs of being ready for it, to reintegrate him or her into the community. On the first two or three occasions, they have a medical orderly by their side, and then the orderly keeps his distance, until, eventually, there is no orderly at all. It is one of the ways we have of building up our patients’ confidence, and I have to tell you that it has proved to be remarkably effective.’
‘So there was an orderly watching Edna today?’
‘Yes, and he reported back to me that she handled your intrusion into her privacy very well indeed.’
Intrusion into her privacy! That makes me look like the bad guy, you see. Clever!
‘And that’s why you dress them up in bright red duffle coats, is it?’ I ask. ‘So it’s easier for your orderlies to maintain visual contact?’
‘Yes, it seemed like no more than a sensible precaution.’
‘The police couldn’t find a single company which sold bright red duffle coats,’ I say.
‘How do you know that?’ he asks, suddenly sounding more worried.
‘So since none are available commercially, what did you do?’ I ask him, ignoring the question. ‘Do you dye them yourself?’
‘We have them dyed,’ he says. ‘We hand them over to people who are professional within their sphere, and leave them alone to get on with it, just as we hope that other people will allow us to get on with the tasks that we are professionally trained to deal with.’
This is another dig at me. This man is not half-bad at defending his little kingdom, but we have reached a stage in the investigation where half-bad simply isn’t good enough.
‘So one day, one of your patients does a runner,’ I say. ‘She travels to Oxford and kills Grace Stockton. There are CCTV pictures of her on the television and in the newspapers, but no one in Southwark – that is to say no one in Southwark outside this institution – recognized her. But that’s hardly surprising, is it, because she was probably locked away in this place for years. And as for her distinctive duffle coat – well, CCTV is in black-and-white, and if you see a black-and-white image of a bright red duffle coat, it loses its distinctiveness and there’s nothing to distinguish it from every other duffle coat.’
The director stands up. ‘I’d like you to leave now, Miss Redhead,’ he says shakily.
I stay firmly in my seat. ‘Throw me out now, and I’ll go straight to the nearest police station,’ I say. ‘They’ll be here within the hour, checking through your records, and they’ll soon discover that one of your patients is missing. And how will you explain that to them?’
‘That’s really none of your concern,’ he says, and I can see the sweat forming on his forehead. ‘Please go.’
‘On the other hand,’ I continue, more soothingly and reassuringly, ‘if you tell me everything I want to know, I just might be able to keep you and your institution out of it.’
‘How could you possibly do that?’ he asks, incredulously. ‘Molly killed that woman, and …’ A look of horror fills his face. ‘I didn’t mean …’ he splutters. ‘I wasn’t suggesting …’
‘The reason I can probably keep you out of it because I don’t believe Molly did kill Grace Stockton,’ I say. ‘And because I’m almost certain she’s dead herself.’
And that’s no bluff – no line of bullshit to keep him talking. There are so many things that I still don’t know – the main one being that I still have no idea why Molly should have wanted to kill Grace – but I do know that the woman found in the shallow grave in the bluebell wood was wearing the same dress as the women I saw earlier, in the institute garden.
The doctor is still standing there, hesitant.
‘Please sit down,’ I say. ‘Just looking at you hovering there is making me tired.’
He flops back into his seat, exhausted.
‘Why didn’t you inform the police at the time when Molly went missing?’ I ask.
‘I called a full staff meeting and we discussed it for hours, but in the end, we decided the consequences of reporting it were just too awful to contemplate. This institute pioneered the idea of releasing patients into the community for limited periods, you see, and the results have been little short of miraculous. But once we came out and admitted Molly was one of our patients, the experiment would be over – not just for us, but for all those other hospitals which had taken us as a model. And the doctor who authorized her limited excursions – a brilliant, caring young man – would have his career destroyed. The authorities might even have closed the place down. So we said nothing.’
‘But you must have known it would all come out in the end.’
The doctor shrugs. ‘Perhaps, but by keeping silent, we bought ourselves three more years, didn’t we? And we’ve accomplished remarkable things in that time. Besides’ – suddenly he’s sounding very uncomfortable – ‘we thought there was always a chance that she’d drown herself.’
‘She was suicidal?’ I demand, outraged. ‘You let her out, knowing that she was suicidal?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ he says, holding up his hands to pacify me. ‘She had been suicidal in the past, it’s true, but she hadn’t talked about drowning herself for years. Everyone agreed she’d got past that stage in her recovery.’
‘How many times had she been allowed out on excursions before she went missing?’ I ask.
‘She’d been out twice before.’
‘So there was still someone watching her?’
‘Yes, but she managed to lose him in Borough Market.’
Daughters of Darkness Page 19