by Caro Savage
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘And when you get out of here you want to go straight, right?’
‘Sure. I just want to go straight. No more trouble.’
‘So you could help me out with my shop. I could do the tattoos and you could do the numbers. I know you must be good at it if you managed to embezzle all that money.’ And then she added with a laugh, ‘although I’d obviously prefer it if you didn’t get up to that kind of thing in our business.’ She paused, serious once more. ‘How does that sound?’
Now it made sense why Poppy had shown so much interest in the accounting aspects of her cover story. She’d seen long-term potential in their relationship.
‘I’m really touched that you’re asking,’ said Bailey. ‘I’d love to help you out.’
For once, Bailey wasn’t lying. Although she found it unlikely that she would actually go into business with Poppy, she was certain that once they were both out of this place she could find a way to lend her some sort of assistance with her business without ever needing to reveal that she was a policewoman. After all, she did possess the requisite skills.
‘That would make me really happy,’ said Poppy. ‘I get out in six months. Good behaviour and all that. I know you’re in here for a bit longer, but I can come and visit you and we can work on the business plan together. And who knows, maybe you’ll get out early with good behaviour as well.’
Bailey frowned. ‘But what about the ABC?’
‘What about them?’
‘It’s blood out, right? Even when you’re outside prison, you’re still a member, aren’t you?’
‘Sure, there’s stuff you’re expected to do for them now and then. But it’s not going to stop me from opening my tattoo shop. And it doesn’t have to interfere with your plans for going straight either. I reckon we can probably get out of doing anything too serious.’
‘I guess that sounds fine,’ said Bailey. ‘I admire your determination and I’m looking forward to helping you.’ She paused a moment. ‘But we’re just doing this as friends, right?’
‘Sure,’ said Poppy. ‘Friends.’
82
The ringing bell jolted through Bailey’s head and woke her from her nightmares. She lay there breathing heavily, relieved to be awake. Leaning over, she reached to switch off her alarm clock. And then she remembered that she didn’t have an alarm clock. And then she realised that the ringing was way too loud to be from an alarm clock anyway.
It was a fire alarm.
Bailey had no idea what time it was, but the sky was still dark outside. She fumbled for her watch and squinted at the little screen. It was 3.10 in the morning.
And then she smelt the burning smell and she knew it wasn’t a drill. Acrid, sharp, biting into the back of her throat and nasal passage. Something was definitely on fire.
She sat up sharply. She pulled back the sheets and jumped out of the bunk. With a surge of panic, she realised that she was locked in the cell. She could burn to death or die of smoke inhalation if she was trapped in here.
She ran to the door and heard the commotion outside. Other inmates were panicking in the same way, banging on the doors and shouting.
Then there was the sound of a key rattling in the lock. Her door was flung open. A female prison officer stood there.
‘This is not a drill,’ she announced. ‘Go to the end of the landing and follow the fire evacuation procedure.’
Bailey faintly remembered the fire drill instructions she’d been given when she’d been inducted into the prison, something about stairwells and meeting points.
She walked out of the cell. The burning smell was a lot stronger out here and the landing had a thin layer of smoke filling it. All of the other cells were open or in the process of being opened. The inmates milled about chaotically, both jittery and befuddled, coughing at the smoke, some pushing each other aside in an attempt to get out faster. The prison officers were barking instructions, trying to get them to evacuate in an orderly fashion, but the feeling was one of barely contained panic and Bailey was worried that it would degenerate into a stampede. Fortunately, it didn’t and she joined the crowd as they descended to the atrium and made their way out into the prison yard.
Outside, a spattering of stars twinkled across the clear black sky. The inmates clustered in a large groggy mass, the prison looming over them like a shapeless stone behemoth. In the semi-darkness, she couldn’t immediately make out anyone she knew.
The murk of night seemed to amplify the general mood of dread that shrouded the prison and the inmates huddled together instinctively for self-protection, casting fearful glances into the huge black triangles of shadow cast by the corners of the giant house-blocks, whispering amongst themselves, speculating perhaps… was this something to do with another murder?
The prison officers herded them around, shouting at them to line up according to wing and landing, so they could count them off floor by floor.
Not too far away, she noticed Dylan moving the inmates into line, walking up and down, eventually coming to a halt in the shadows by the wall.
He presented an enigma to her. And the thing about enigmas was that she was never satisfied until she’d solved them.
He seemed affable enough, but he was a little too closed for her to get a proper sense of what he was really like. He came across as smart-looking and professional, yet he was breaking the law by having an affair with at least one of the inmates. On top of that there was the intimation of mental instability and the circumstantial possibility that he was a vicious and sadistic killer.
She needed to find out more about him, and now was as good a time as any.
She sidled up to him.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
He looked down at her blankly for a few moments, then a twinkle of recognition lit up in his eyes.
‘Satpal set her mattress alight. Again. This is the third time this year. She’s in for arson. Guess the rehabilitation’s not working.’
‘How long before we can go back in again?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Probably be here quite a while. We’ve got to wait for the fire brigade to get here and declare it safe. At least it’s a warm evening.’
He was right. There was a definite balmy feel to the air. She lit up her digital watch to look at the date. It was 2nd July. It was getting into summer. The idea of being cooped up in this place over sunny summertime didn’t hold much appeal for her.
‘Jesus,’ she muttered to herself.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘I’ve been in here a month and a half already.’
‘Time flies when you’re having fun,’ he said with a smile, his eyes crinkling in that way she liked. She couldn’t help but smile back.
She studied him for a few moments. Perhaps here in the darkness he’d have less inhibition about talking to her. Maybe he’d open up a little. She drew closer to him.
‘What was Afghanistan like?’ she asked.
He looked at her silently for a few moments. In the shadows it was hard to make out the expression on his face.
‘You don’t want to know,’ he muttered.
‘You fought the Taliban, right?’
At her mention of the Taliban, he made a derogatory spitting sound and looked away. But she persisted.
‘They sounded pretty barbaric from what I saw on the news.’
He turned to face her again. ‘That’s an understatement. They didn’t take no prisoners, that was for sure. And when they did capture our guys…’ he paused, his jaw clenching and unclenching, ‘…they did some terrible things. Tortured them. Mutilated them. Cut bits off them. They hung body parts in the trees to provoke us, to taunt us. Legs, arms, heads. All booby-trapped so you couldn’t do anything about it.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘You didn’t hear about it back home. Bad PR if you know what I mean.’
‘Urgh! I had no idea,’ said Bailey.
She was horrified by the images he was conjuring up, found
it shocking to think that the man standing right in front of her had seen and experienced these terrible things. As a policewoman, she’d seen her fair share of unpleasant scenes. It was to be expected to a certain extent when you signed up for that kind of job. However, she’d seen nothing remotely as gruesome as what he was describing.
She looked at him as he gazed off into the distance at the prison towering above them. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, then turned to look directly at her, his face taking on a steely set.
‘To fight an animal, sometimes you have to become an animal. You’ve got to give back what you get, and more… if you want to survive. No room for the Geneva Convention in a place like that. They didn’t abide by it and neither did we.’
Her curiosity was piqued now. ‘Like what did you do exactly?’
‘Nothing they wouldn’t have done to us.’
His blue eyes flickered with a cold harsh emptiness. He turned to look away, up into the black void of the night sky.
Now he made more sense to her, at least in terms of his past. Not only had he killed in the service of Queen and Country, it sounded like he’d also been driven to participate in some pretty brutal atrocities. Dylan certainly didn’t seem quite so happy-go-lucky any more.
She suddenly noticed Toni and some of the others standing together a short distance away. She didn’t want them to think she was too friendly with the prison officers for fear of being perceived as a snitch, so she moved away from Dylan, melting back into the crowd of inmates.
He turned as if to talk to her, then saw that she was gone. He glanced around, puzzled by her sudden disappearance. He looked a little crestfallen. Or perhaps that was just a trick of the light.
83
Doctor Bodie reflected on how surprising it was to see Bailey Pike back in his office. Considering her general reticence on previous occasions, the fact that she had voluntarily booked an appointment with him marked a significant turning point in her progress.
‘You know, I’m over the moon to see you here, Bailey. To have decided to come here of your own accord, that’s a big deal.’
She was sitting opposite him, arms crossed, her hair hanging down in its customary way over the left side of her face. She smiled thinly at him in that impenetrable way of hers.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you were saying last time,’ she began, ‘and I thought it made sense to come and chat to you about it.’
‘I’m glad you finally feel ready to open up. Talking is the best form of therapy after all.’
‘Last time I was here, you mentioned post-traumatic stress disorder. I just wanted to understand a bit more about it.’
At last, she was taking steps to acknowledge her condition. Maybe today he’d get to find out how she had got that nasty scar. He flexed his knuckles with relish.
‘I’m very pleased you asked, Bailey. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD as it’s commonly known, happens to be one of my specialist areas. It can affect anyone who’s undergone a particularly traumatic experience.’
‘Like a combat veteran, for example?’
He sensed that she was deflecting, not quite wanting to talk about her own situation just yet.
‘Yes. Precisely. They often suffer from the symptoms. Nightmares, amnesia, flashbacks…’
He paused and studied her for a few moments. He spoke gently.
‘If you’re suffering from these kinds of symptoms, Bailey, and I suspect that you are, based upon what you said in our last session, then the first step in getting rid of them is to try and talk about the experiences which caused them. Shall we do that?’
She dropped her head and chewed her knuckle. She appeared to be thinking about something. Then she looked up at him.
‘Could a person do something in a flashback that they wouldn’t normally do, perhaps even be unaware of?’
‘By all means. Flashbacks are dissociative by their very nature.’
He wondered what she was getting at.
‘In cases of really serious trauma,’ he added, ‘people can even fall subject to conditions such as dissociative identity disorder.’
‘Dissociative identity disorder?’
‘Sometimes known as split personality. A most fascinating condition, from a clinical viewpoint, but not so pleasant for the person experiencing it.’
She moved closer, onto the edge of her seat. He could see that she was very interested, but he wasn’t sure why because he was fairly certain that she herself didn’t suffer from dissociative identity disorder.
‘Tell me more about it,’ she said.
‘I feel we’re moving off-topic here, Bailey. This session is supposed to be about you.’
‘Doctor, I’ll get round to talking about myself soon enough. I promise.’
‘Well… it’s not unknown for the personality structure to fragment as a result of particularly traumatic experiences.’
‘Fragment? How?’
‘It breaks into two or more sub-personalities – distinct identities with their own individual patterns of thinking and behaviour. All the bad stuff that the person experienced or did during the traumatic experience is compartmentalised into one of these sub-personalities.’
‘And that sub-personality could suddenly take over?’
‘Yes. It’s like a severe form of flashback. It would probably be triggered by some kind of environmental cue or stressor. During this state, the sub-personality takes control of the person’s behaviour.’
‘Is the person aware that this is happening?’
‘Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.’
He watched her as she sat there digesting what he’d just told her.
‘Thank you, Doctor Bodie,’ she said. ‘That’s very interesting. You’ve been most helpful.’
She started to stand up.
‘Wait a minute!’ he said. ‘You said you’d talk about yourself.’
‘I will, Doctor. Next time.’
She turned and left the office, closing the door behind her.
He clenched his fist in frustration. Why did he get the funny feeling she’d been using him in some way?
She truly confounded him. Doctor Bodie had seen hundreds, if not thousands, of inmates over the considerable time he’d spent as a psychologist in the prison system, but, out of all of them, Bailey Pike had to be one of the most puzzling he’d ever come across.
84
Bailey watched Detective Superintendent Frank Grinham as he observed the controlled chaos of the visit hall. His customary cold detached look was accompanied today by a slightly clenched jaw and agitated twitching fingers. These signs, she knew from experience, meant that he was nearing the limits of his patience with her. She’d only just sat down and already she was feeling apprehensive about talking to him.
They were sitting in their usual seat in the far corner, their conversation conveniently drowned out by the bawling of children and the intermittent barking of the prison officers as they reprimanded both inmates and visitors for infringing visiting guidelines by sitting too close or touching each other.
‘That’s him,’ said Bailey. She nodded at Dylan, who was currently standing on the other side of the visit hall.
‘That’s Dylan?’
Frank surreptitiously studied Dylan, sizing him up with a professional policeman’s eye.
‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Convince me. And it had better be solid.’
She glanced around to check no one was listening and leaned forward across the table. She laid out everything in a low urgent voice, explaining how she’d progressed from Sharon to Agata, and then from her to Dylan, describing in detail her subsequent encounters with him, along with a summary of her chat with Doctor Bodie.
Frank listened without interrupting, occasionally nodding as he did so. When she had finished, he sat there looking down at the table, mulling over what she had said. She waited tensely for his approval. He finally looked up at her.
‘So you’re basically saying that he’s this Je
kyll and Hyde character who’s reliving some kind of battle trauma when he’s committing these crimes?’
‘I think he’s capable of doing very bad things. When he talked about Afghanistan, he implied that he did the same things to the enemy as they did to his fellow soldiers. He mentioned mutilation and cutting off body parts.’
‘Did he explicitly state that he took scalps?’
‘No, but I think it’s highly plausible that he did.’
Her most recent conversation with Doctor Bodie, combined with her insights into Dylan’s military past, had reinforced her belief in his culpability.
‘You’re just speculating now,’ said Frank. ‘Like you were before, with the Hairdresser.’
She found his scepticism frustrating but not unexpected. Frank had never been a fan of hunches.
‘But you have to admit it makes perfect sense when you consider his background and the nature of the crimes being committed in here. And it’s all backed up by Doctor Bodie’s explanation. And you yourself checked the rota – he was on duty when all four of them were murdered.’
‘I find it hard to accept that someone who has been committing these kinds of crimes would also be able to sustain what is basically a regular sexual relationship with one of the inmates.’
‘That’s my whole point. One part of him is conducting a normal relationship with Agata, but another completely different part of his personality is doing the murdering and the scalping.’
Frank frowned and chewed on one of his fingernails. She could tell that he wasn’t convinced.
‘I don’t think he’s completely aware that he’s doing it,’ she said. ‘That’s because this other sub-personality takes control of his behaviour when he—’
She felt Frank suddenly kick her under the table. She broke off and glanced around. Dylan was approaching their table on his circuit of the visit hall. He walked slowly past. As he did so, she looked up at him. He smiled pleasantly at her, the tanned skin around his pale blue eyes crinkling in that distinctive way. He nodded politely at Frank and continued past their table.