by Alex Walters
'It’s just that—well, with respect to your colleagues, my experience of dealing with psychologists inside wasn’t that great. Present company excepted, of course. From what I’ve seen, I’ve no reason to think it’ll be better now I’m out.'
'I appreciate that, Kevin. But I can’t talk to you in any professional capacity. I don’t think it would be ethical. I should probably report this contact.'
There was a longer pause. 'I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in this position. It’s probably best we both forget it. Forget we ever had this conversation. If you’re prepared to do that.'
'Kevin, just tell me why you made contact? Why now?'
'I’m struggling,' he said, finally.
'It was always bound to be hard, Kevin. I can’t begin to imagine—'
'It’s not the day-to-day stuff,' he said. 'I’ve got a new life. I’ve been lucky. That’s worked out better than I could have hoped so far. It’s not that.'
'So what is it?'
'I’m scared.'
'Scared?'
'I keep having dreams,' he said. 'I’m running through a wood. I’m running forward, threading my way between the trees. I’m heading somewhere. I know it’s important, that I’ve got to get there. But I don’t know where I’m going or why it’s so critical.' She heard him swallow. 'I feel a hand in mine, as I’m running. A child’s hand. As if a child is running along beside me, as if we’re both running towards the same destination.'
'Who’s the child?' she said, knowing she was already getting herself too deeply involved, recognising the risk of being manipulated.
'I don’t know. I try to see who’s holding my hand, but for some reason I can’t. He’s always just out of vision.'
'He?'
Another silence. 'I don’t know. I mean, like I say, I can’t—'
'But you said "he"?'
'I suppose that’s the impression I had. I don’t know why.'
'It doesn’t matter,' she said. 'Go on.'
'That’s really it,' he said. 'Just that scene. Over and over.'
'Why does it scare you?'
'It was the last dream. The last time I had it, I mean. I felt as if I’d reached my destination, finally. There was a clearing. A bright ring of sunlight. And a child’s body on the ground. I wanted to help—it, him. But when I reached down he grasped my wrists and pulled me towards him. The next thing I knew my hands were around his throat—the child’s throat—and he was pulling them tighter—'
'Is that where the dream ended?'
'No. There was more. I felt a hand on my shoulder. An adult hand, I think. And that’s where it stopped. Something woke me.'
'Why did this scare you?'
'I’m afraid it’s the truth. That this is my memory finally coming back. That I really did do what everyone says I did.'
'It’s not necessarily that simple, Kevin. In fact, it’s not usually that simple. Our dreams are rarely straightforward memories.'
'But my circumstances aren’t usual, are they?'
'No, but the dream could have all kinds of significance or, more likely, could mean nothing at all.' She wasn't even sure she believed this herself.
'So why do I feel scared?'
'I don’t know. You’re scared of the future? You’re scared of not knowing where you’re heading? It wouldn’t be difficult to put that interpretation on the dream.' She stopped, wondering whether she should ask the next question. 'Do you have any other reason to think your memory might be returning?' she asked, finally. 'Do you remember any more than you did in those last sessions.'
'I don’t know. I've a sense that something is stirring. That was what struck me in the dream. It wasn’t so much the obvious stuff. My hands on the child’s throat. It was the clearing. The sunlight. The sense I might finally see something. That’s what scared me. That I was getting close to the truth.'
'OK,' she said, speaking carefully. 'But that doesn’t necessarily mean the truth is bad. It’s understandable that you'd be anxious.'
There was silence at the other end of the line, as if Wickham was weighing up what he should say next. 'When I spoke to you, in those last sessions, I felt as if I got closer than I ever had to opening things up. No-one else has been able to help me like that.'
She hesitated. 'If you really think that, then perhaps we should talk. Talk about it properly, I mean.'
'I don’t want to put you in a difficult position.'
'I appreciate that. I can deal with that. I don’t want to risk compromising you, though. It’s your future that matters.'
'I need to talk about this,' he said. 'I need to work out where things stand. Otherwise, I’m not sure I have a future.'
'OK,' she said. 'Let’s meet. Where are you living now?'
He told her, and there was another silence. 'Jesus,' she said, 'that's weird. Yes, I know the place.' Knew it only too well, she thought. It was close to where she was living now, and just a mile or two from where Ryan was killed. In the weeks after his death, she'd driven over there a few times, passed through the village up into the hills. She'd stood by the roadside, looking down into the valley, wondering how it could have happened, how he could have lost control that night. Wondering why he'd had to die.
'There’s a question I want to ask you, too,' she said. 'I was just going to check the files about it, funnily enough.'
'Ask away.'
'You were moved to a Youth Offenders' Institute at one stage. I remembered that from your file. I wasn’t sure which one.'
'Yes, that’s right,' he said, 'Weston Grange.'
'That’s what I thought,' she said. 'It seems to have been quite the place to be.'
'I don't understand.'
'No, neither do I. It's not important. We can talk about it when we meet.'
They agreed to meet early the following week, lunchtime in a pub in Stockport where no-one was likely to know either of them. Kate knew she’d stepped over a line. Whatever the rules might say, meeting Wickham in this way was unprofessional, unethical. If her career was already in trouble, this might be enough to push it over the edge.
But Wickham’s answer had confirmed the thought that had been nagging at her mind the previous evening. When Hulse had mentioned the YOI where Greg, Graeme and Ryan had all worked, it had rung a bell. She knew all the prisons in the north at least by reputation, and she’d visited a number of them in the course of her career. Even though Ryan had been working there when they'd first met, she’d never been there and she’d had no other contact with the establishment as far as she could recall. But she knew she'd come across the name somewhere, quite recently.
It was as she’d finally been dropping off to sleep that the answer had popped into her mind. As sleep stole over her, she’d suddenly visualised the detail that had been troubling her—typewritten, in a file. Part of a list, with background papers attached. Carl’s file. She’d been through the file repeatedly during those weeks when she’d been working with him, searching for some clue or trigger that might help her make progress. She must have half-registered the coincidence at the time, but had thought little of it.
The timing would have been about right. As far as she could recall, Carl had been in there up to his 21st birthday. He’d begun his prison career in a secure children’s unit, reflecting the original notoriety of his crime. But for some reason he’d transferred into the standard prison system as he reached adulthood. That decision, Kate guessed, would have been influenced by cost. It was much cheaper to keep a prisoner in a YOI than a specialised secure unit. Which would have been in Carl’s best interests was an interesting question, but no doubt largely irrelevant to the powers-that-be.
So it was quite possible that Carl had been in the YOI at the same time that Greg, Graeme and Ryan had been there. Perry had never mentioned that he’d encountered Carl before, but it was possible their paths hadn’t crossed directly even if they’d been at the same establishment.
In any case, from what she now knew, there were plenty of things that
Perry hadn’t bothered mentioning to her.
But even if Carl had been there at the same time, so what? She hadn’t come across Carl until she’d begun to deal with him in the Open. She hadn’t even remembered his name from the original news reports. He’d suffered a brief period of infamy at the time of the original arrest and trial, but, after a year or two, it had been the victim’s name that lodged in the public’s mind. The name of the perpetrator, however much it was splashed across the tabloids at the time, had become the stuff of pub quizzes. As she worked through the files, the original story had come back to her. Two children. One, a year or two older, had apparently strangled the other in some sort of argument over a games console. Tabloid shock and disbelief that this could happen, now, today, and not in some inner-city slum. But at a Catholic holiday centre on the North Wales coast with both children, victim and killer, from respectable working-class backgrounds. Kate’s primary memory, as a teenager herself, only a little older than Carl, had been of an array of pontificating experts on the TV news. Social workers, cultural commentators, academics, police officers and—inevitably—psychologists, giving their largely unevidenced views on how or why this had been allowed to happen.
Kate was never fully able to reconcile her recollections of that news story with the Carl who'd sat in front of her. He'd been presented by the prosecution as an evil and sadistic young man. Yes, he’d been quiet and generally well-behaved at school but they'd teased out some instances that suggested a different side to his character. An attack on a fellow schoolchild, apparently unmotivated; some supposedly inappropriate sexual discussion and contact with another young girl on his school bus; an instance when he’d talked to schoolfriends about torturing animals.
From her own experience as a witness in other cases, Kate knew enough about the adversarial nature of such trials to take much of this with a heap of salt, but there was enough to paint a picture which the jury had been content to accept. The defence team had made some effort to challenge this depiction of Carl’s character, as well as highlighting reasons for mitigation—the recent death of his mother, the traumas of her protracted illness. Despite the blank in Carl’s own memory, no-one seriously questioned that he was responsible for the killing. He was found sitting next to the body, his hands still holding the other child’s shoulders. There were no other serious suspects.
The only question-mark was Carl’s apparent amnesia. He could offer no explanation as to why he’d committed the act. He claimed to have no memory of how or why he and the victim had come into the woodland, no recollection of what had prompted the killing. The prosecution’s case was that the killing had resulted from an argument over the handheld games console found lying in the grass at the scene. A witness claimed to recall the boys squabbling over the console some days earlier. Carl’s father admitted under oath that he’d had to tell Carl he couldn’t afford to buy a similar console for his birthday. Several more witnesses testified that Carl had been behaving oddly over the previous few days. He’d seemed moody, withdrawn, reluctant to interact with others staying in the centre.
The jury had eventually convicted Carl of murder, and he’d been sentenced to detention at Her Majesty’s Pleasure with a recommendation that he should serve at least fifteen years. In the event, he’d served that and more. There’d been no attempt to appeal against the conviction or the sentence, and Carl had made no effort to seek an earlier release, although his record inside might have justified it. For the most part, he’d moved through the system as a low-key, well-behaved prisoner. This was the individual Kate had encountered. She’d seen no sign of the disturbed, sociopathic character depicted by the prosecution.
From the next room, she heard the sound of Jack shouting something excitedly to his grandmother. Kate flicked through the numbers on her phone until she found Hulse's mobile. Just a quick conversation, she thought. See how he is today. Ask him whether he had any recollection of Carl’s time at the YOI, whether there was any connection with what they’d been discussing the previous night.
She dialled the number but the call went straight to voicemail. That was unusual. Hulse generally left the phone on at all times when he was off-duty in case there was an incident at the prison. Perhaps he was simply on another call.
She ended the call without leaving a message, unsure what she really intended to say. Hope you’re not too hungover? Hope you’re feeling better about the future? Do you really believe all the things you told me last night? Are you OK?
That was the real question, she thought. She’d never had reason to call his home number before, but Hulse had given it to the management team to help ensure he was always contactable. She hesitated for an instant, and then dialled the number.
A female voice answered, sounding anxious and suspicious. 'Yes?'
'Mrs Hulse?'
The voice sharpened. 'Who is this?'
'It’s Kate Forester. I work with Tim—'
'Do you know where he is?'
Kate felt the same chill of fear she’d felt the previous evening. 'I just wanted to speak to him about a work matter. I assumed he’d be at home.'
'He’s not here. He didn’t come back last night.' There was no obvious emotion in the tone of voice, nothing that Kate could easily interpret.
'I saw him in the pub. After work. Just briefly. He’d had a few. Maybe he stayed over with someone.'
'That’s not him. He doesn’t do that.' Kate could hear the trace of a north-eastern accent. 'He’s always contactable. It’s the job, you know. He has to be.'
'Perhaps there’s something wrong with his phone.'
'He’d find a way to call. He knows I worry.' She paused. 'And the way things are at the moment—well, he’s not been himself.'
'He seemed fine when I spoke to him last night.' The words sounded unconvincing, but Kate could offer no other response. 'Like I say, he’d had a few to drink—difficult not to at a do like that, isn’t it? He wouldn’t have been in a condition to drive. I imagine he spent the night on someone’s sofa.'
'We’re not that far away. He normally gets a taxi after a night out. And he’d have phoned—' It was clear she’d spent the night and morning running through all the possibilities over and over in her head. 'I’ve been calling his mobile all morning. It just goes to voicemail.'
'I’m sure there’s some straightforward explanation,' Kate said. 'Maybe there’s been some incident at the prison. He might have had to go straight in, been too tied up to let you know what’s happening.' She didn’t even believe this herself. If there’d been that kind of incident, she’d have been informed. In those circumstances, it was all hands to the pump, even if you were just a psychologist.
'I called the prison. Spoke to the Duty Governor. He hadn’t seen Tim. I didn’t like to say he hadn’t been back last night. I kept thinking he’d phone at any moment.' There was a long silence. 'Do you think I should call the police?'
Kate’s every instinct was telling her that this was exactly what the woman should do. She recalled going through exactly this herself, working through all the possible scenarios, trying to find one that would explain why Ryan hadn’t contacted her. Knowing finally there could be no explanation other than the worst possible.
She recalled her own hesitations. It was too early, the police wouldn’t take her seriously, they’d assume she and Ryan had had some kind of tiff. She’d delayed long enough that in the end she hadn’t needed to call. Later that afternoon. she opened the front door to find a policeman and policewoman standing there, and she knew instantly what they’d come to tell her.
'You know Tim,' she said, finally. 'I mean, you know what he’s like. If you really think this is out of character, you should call the police. If nothing else, they’ll be able to give you some reassurance.'
'They won’t think I’m over-reacting?'
'I’m sure they won’t. If you really can’t see any reason why Tim hasn’t been in touch, they’ll take that seriously. They’ll help you track him down much quicker than
you’d do on your own.'
'I’m sure I’m just being stupid, but you read such stories.'
'I’m sure it won’t be anything like that, but you need to know.'
'I didn’t catch your name—'
'Kate. Kate Forester. Head Psychologist at the prison. Don’t forget when Tim finally turns up to tell him I want to speak to him.' The flip comment felt inappropriate, but she’d wanted to end the conversation on as upbeat a note as possible.
'I will. I’ll make sure he calls you straightaway.'
'You do that.'
As the call ended, Kate stood listening to the cheerful sounds of her mother and Jack in the kitchen. The cakes, it seemed, were nearly ready. In her head, she was praying that Hulse's wife would do the right thing, would call the police straightaway, would get them to take this seriously.
But, somehow, she was already convinced it was too late.
She heard nothing more that day. She wondered, once or twice, whether she should call Hulse's wife again to find out if there’d been any further developments. But if Hulse had turned up, whatever the circumstances, neither party would be interested in talking to her. And if he hadn’t—well, that didn’t bear thinking about, and there’d be nothing she could do but offer worthless platitudes.
She got up late on Sunday morning. The sun had returned, but there was a definite chill in the air. Summer was over. The trees that lined the residential street outside were rapidly shedding their leaves, the crimson-brown drifts accumulating between the parked cars.
Kate showered, dressed and made her way downstairs. Jack and Elizabeth were in the kitchen. 'Mum. We’re doing blueberry muffins for breakfast!'
'That’s great,' Kate said. 'Though it’s probably brunch by now.'
'Turned a bit chilly,' Elizabeth said. 'What time do you want to be off?'
'Up to you. The drive’s only a couple of hours. We can get a takeaway tonight, so there’s no rush.'
'It won’t take me long to sort things out. By the way, your mobile was buzzing away earlier.'
'Was it?' Kate had left her mobile recharging in a corner of the living room. A call and a voicemail, both from the same unfamiliar number. She thumbed to the voicemail menu. 'Kate, it’s John. Hodges. Can you give me a call? Use this number. It’s my personal mobile.'