Rabbit Hole Page 3

  Graham is probably pushing fifty and always wears Fleet Ward’s limited edition and stylish pale-blue pyjamas. He is very tall and very thin; a bit . . . spidery. His face never changes much and he’s not exactly chatty. In fact, that might have been one of the longest conversations I’ve ever had with him.

  ILIAS, aka The Grand Master. The chess thing, right? Greek, I think, or maybe Turkish. Ilias is early thirties, I’m guessing . . . dark and squat and properly hairy. I know that, because he’s fond of walking about with his shirt off, and sometimes his pants, no matter how often the staff tell him it’s not really appropriate. He can lose his temper at the slightest thing and when that happens it’s like he really hates you, but ten minutes later he’s crying and hugging you and, frankly, that can wind you up a bit. I’m talking about massive mood-swings, when you don’t know whether you’re coming or going. I’m no expert, but my guess is that he’s a proper schizo; I mean like bipolar to the max. He certainly comes out with the weirdest shit of anyone here, just out of nowhere. Stuff that can make you fall about one minute, then something else that makes you feel like you need to stand under a hot shower for a while. I say that, but basically he’s a big, stupid puppy most of the time and, if anyone was to ask, I’d still tell them Ilias was my mate and that I think he’s probably harmless. Obviously, nobody in here is completely harmless, I mean tell that to Kevin, but you know what I’m saying, right?

  He’s harmless enough.

  ROBERT, aka Big Gay Bob. Robert, who’s, I don’t know . . . forty? . . . isn’t particularly big – he’s actually a bit on the short side, and a lot on the bald side – and I have no evidence whatsoever that he is even remotely gay, but sometimes it’s how things go. What everyone around here does know is that Bob talks about the women he’s slept with constantly. I promise you, he’s got shagging on the brain, and if you find yourself in a conversation with him – and he does like a chat – it’ll end up on your brain, too. I swear, you could be talking to him about anything – football, steam engines, the fucking Holocaust – and he’d find some way to crowbar in a story about the things he once got up to with some ‘pneumatic blonde’ in a hotel room in Brighton or the ‘foxy redhead’ he got seriously fruity with in a pub car park in Leeds. I don’t want you to think he’s sleazy though, because he’s really not. It’s more comical than anything, actually, a bit . . . Carry-On. All that happened was that one of the women – maybe it was Lauren – pointed out that constantly banging on about your success with the opposite sex is a clear sign that you’re actually preoccupied with your own. A closet-case or whatever. So, that was when the nickname first got thrown about for a laugh and it stuck. It’s all a bit of fun and the truth is that Bob seems to like it, plays up to it even, as if he’s secretly thrilled to have an . . . identity, you know?

  And the truth is that, actually, he is rather camp.

  SHAUN, aka The Sheep. Yeah, he’s Welsh, so shoot me for being predictable, but it’s actually a boss nickname because he’s a . . . follower, you know? Shaun’s one of the younger ones and he’s just a bit lost, I think, but the fact is he’ll do pretty much anything anyone tells him to and believes whatever you say to him. Literally, anything. I’m secretly a multi-millionaire. I was on Love Island. You name it. Who knows if he was that gullible before whatever happened to him happened, but something’s got messed up in his head and now it’s like he’s a blank page or just something that other people can twist and mould into whatever suits them.

  The other thing you should know is that Shaun can be a bit needy. Almost every day, he’ll come up to you more than once and point to some tiny blemish on his chin – a spot or whatever – and ask, ‘Am I going to die, am I going to die, am I going to die?’ Once he’s been reassured that he’s not likely to pop off any time soon he’s right as ninepence, but half an hour later, he’ll be panic-stricken and asking you again. I mean, my mum’s a bit of a hypochondriac, but that’s ridiculous.

  He’s not daft though, I really don’t mean that, and he’s probably the person I’ve had the nicest conversations with . . . the most normal conversations. He’s pretty bloody lovely as a matter of fact, but he was very angry for a while after what happened to Kevin. They were close, those two, I might as well tell you that. I’d thought they were just mates, until one lunchtime when I saw Shaun with his hand on Kevin’s cock under the table in the dining room, so I suppose it’s understandable that he was a bit upset. He hasn’t stopped being upset, actually. He still cries, a lot.

  TONY, aka The Thing. Now, the thing you need to remember about The Thing is that he isn’t actually the Thing. He’s just called The Thing because the Thing is the thing he’s obsessed with. The Thing is what scares him to death twenty-four hours a day. The Thing is . . . his thing. You also need to bear in mind that Tony is what a lot of people would think of as seriously scary himself. He’s a massive bloke from Croydon who looks like Anthony Joshua, if Anthony let himself go a bit. I’m telling you, he’s built like a brick shithouse, but just the mention of the Thing . . . seriously, just one malicious whisper of the name . . . is enough to reduce him to a gibbering wreck. Screaming, trying to climb out of the nearest window, the full works. So . . . the Thing – according to the World of Tony – is an evil entity of some sort that, for reasons none of us can or particularly want to understand, is trying to kill him and – here’s the crucial bit – has the special power to transform itself into anything it wants. Anything or anyone. The Thing could be me, then the next day it might be one of the staff. Or a dog, or a daddy-long-legs, or a pair of shoes. The Thing is a hugely powerful and endlessly cunning shape-shifter.

  My ex-flatmate Sophie came in to visit me one day and found herself alone with Tony in the music room for a few minutes. To this day, I don’t know what he said to upset her so much, but a few days later she sent him a postcard which read: Dear Tony, it was lovely to meet you. Oh, and by the way, I have transformed myself into this postcard. Have a nice day. Lots of love, the Thing x

  Tony did not leave his room for almost a week afterwards.

  FIVE

  I can’t say it was the most restful night’s sleep I’ve ever had. I was far too excited by what was likely to be happening on the other side of the ward, though to be fair it probably had more to do with the fact that I’d set an alarm on my phone to wake me up every half an hour. I wanted to see what was going on.

  Why wouldn’t I?

  I didn’t want to miss anything.

  The first time I crept out, Femi ushered me back to bed as soon as she saw me. I didn’t make a fuss, just told her I needed the toilet on the way and, after lurking in the bog until I thought she’d probably got bored, I managed to sneak another few minutes before she collared me again.

  Eyes like a hawk and ears like a bat, that one.

  The corridor that Kevin’s room was on had been cordoned off with crime-scene tape. Just seeing that familiar ribbon of blue and white plastic was a proper buzz. Made the butterflies start to flutter a little, you know? Kevin’s room was at the far end, so I couldn’t hear anything that was actually being said or see much beyond the odd figure wandering in and out of the bedroom in question, but that didn’t matter. I knew what was going on, obviously. I knew what stage they were at.

  A Homicide Assessment Team. Just a couple of officers, probably, there to examine the scene and try to establish whether or not a sudden death was actually a suspicious one. There to decide if they needed to bring in detectives, CSIs, all the rest of it.

  There was a local uniform standing just in front of the cordon and I picked my moment to try and grab a few words. Femi had gone back to the nurses’ station and from where I was standing I could see her and George drinking tea and talking to Debbie. Femi laid a hand on Debbie’s shoulder as she was still clearly upset at finding the body. When I was sure they wouldn’t see me, I darted across to see what I could get out of the uniform. Like a bloody ninja, I was.

 
; ‘Oh,’ he said. The poor lad had obviously been told that all the patients were safely tucked up out of the way and clearly hadn’t got the foggiest what to do, confronted with me. He actually jumped a little and began looking around for help.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ I asked. ‘The HAT team going to call it?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m Job.’

  He looked at me: nodding up at him, all business, in a ratty dressing gown and slippers. He said, ‘Yeah, course you are,’ then began waving over my head to try and attract the attention of someone in the nurses’ station.

  I could happily have slapped him, but I knew I wouldn’t be doing myself any favours and I guessed I didn’t have long. I saw an officer stepping out of Kevin’s room, so I raised a hand and shouted past the uniform.

  ‘Tell Brian Holloway that Al says hello.’

  My DCI. One of the decent ones. A good mate, as well.

  The officer at the far end of the corridor glanced my way, ignored me, then stepped back into Kevin’s bedroom. I don’t really know what I was expecting, because Hendon isn’t my team’s area anyway, so I wasn’t likely to know any of this lot and there was next to no chance they would know any of mine. It was annoying, all the same.

  I turned back to the uniform. ‘Holloway’s my guvnor,’ I said. ‘We’ve worked a lot of cases together.’

  Now, the bloke had his arms spread and his size tens firmly planted, like he was expecting me to bolt past him at any moment. He still hadn’t got a clue what to do with me, that much was obvious, but before I could make things any harder for him Femi and George arrived to save his bacon, giving it ‘Come on, Alice’ and ‘Back to bed, there’s a good girl . . .’

  I couldn’t help but smile at the look of relief on the woodentop’s face as I trotted back towards my bedroom like a very good girl. I wasn’t that bothered, because I already knew how things were going to pan out. The next steps on the investigation’s critical path.

  I’d taken those steps myself plenty of times.

  They’d be bringing in the big guns soon enough, and I’d be there when they did.

  Maybe being stuck in here’s thrown my timing off a little, because an hour or so later – I’d decided to leave it a bit longer, in case Femi and the rest were keeping an eye out – when I snuck out of my bedroom again, things had moved a lot faster than I’d reckoned on. The most irritating thing was that I’d missed them taking Kevin’s body away and that’s not because I’m ghoulish or anything, but because that’s a moment that counts for something as a copper. Should do, anyway. It’s about paying the proper respect, besides which, as someone who’d cared about the victim – and I’d already decided that’s what Kevin was – I had no way of knowing when or if any of us would get the chance to say a proper goodbye.

  I’d wanted to be there when they carried that body bag out.

  By now, the forensic bods were busy doing their thing, coming and going with toolkits and evidence bags, decked out in their plastic bodysuits and bootees, same as the detectives. It was easy to tell who was who though, because, as usual, the detectives were mostly standing around and nattering, looking uneasy, waiting for the CSIs to finish. I’d found a spot just inside the doorway of the dining room where I knew I couldn’t be seen directly by anyone in the nurses’ station and I watched one of the CSIs on their way out. I guessed all the emergency vehicles were parked outside the main entrance. I watched him – I think it was a him – signal to the nurses’ station, then wait at the airlock for one of the staff to open up. A minute later, Malaika – one of the healthcare assistants – came running towards him brandishing the keys.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘No rush,’ the CSI said.

  Not for poor bloody Kevin, at any rate.

  For the half a minute or so the CSI was standing inside the airlock waiting to be let out the other side, it was like something out of a science-fiction film. I imagined he was an astronaut about to step into the blackness of space or on to the platform of an orbiting station, and not just that grim brown lobby and the stinky lift down to the car park. I remember thinking it would be fun to tell people that, wondering who would get the biggest kick out of it. I could probably convince Shaun that I had seen an astronaut, of course.

  I was also wondering exactly what that CSI was carrying away in his Styrofoam evidence box; what they’d found in Kevin’s bedroom. A weapon, maybe? Was there a lot of blood? Debbie had certainly screamed like she’d stumbled across something horrific, and, trust me, it takes a lot to give a mental-health nurse the heebie-jeebies.

  A knife would have made sense, I decided. Easy enough to pinch one from the kitchen or even bring one in from the outside. Yes, they’re supposed to search you if you’ve been out, but on the rare occasions they bother to pat anyone down, it’s always a bit . . . sloppy.

  They’re more hands-on at the average airport.

  When I looked away from the airlock, I could see that one of the detectives was standing near the men’s toilet staring at me, so even though I knew I wouldn’t be given very long I wandered out into plain view, shoved my hands into the pockets of my dressing gown and stepped across to have a word.

  ‘Who’s the SIO?’ I asked.

  ‘Excuse me?’ He had his hood down, so I could see the confusion. He was forty-something, with a shaved head and glasses. Like a football hooligan trying to look clever.

  ‘Only, you can tell whoever’s running the show that I’m around if they want a word.’

  ‘I’ll pass it on,’ he said.

  It was hard to tell if he was taking the piss or not, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘I’ve got intel, make sure you tell them that.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  ‘Inside intel.’

  ‘Right.’

  I nodded and he nodded back. I said, ‘You know where I am, yeah?’

  Sadly, it quickly became clear that Femi and George knew where I was, too. They loomed behind the detective who immediately stood aside when he clocked what was going on.

  ‘Alice,’ Femi said. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  I shook my head and pressed my wrists together, like I was waiting to be cuffed. I glanced at the cop to see if he appreciated the joke, but he didn’t seem to find it any funnier than Femi and George did.

  George began guiding me back towards my own corridor. He said, ‘This is getting silly, now, pet. You do know we are dealing with a very serious situation.’

  ‘Of course I know. Why do you think I’m out here?’ I looked back at the cop who was watching them lead me away. I shook my head, like, Isn’t this ridiculous? Like, They just don’t get it.

  When we were outside my bedroom door, George said, ‘If we catch you out of your room again, we’re going to have a problem. You understand?’

  I knew he was talking about changing the status of my obs. At that time I was on hourly observation, like most of the others, but he could easily change it to fifteen-minute intermittent obs if he thought I was playing up, or within eyesight observation, or even the dreaded within arm’s length, which would mean someone being in my bedroom with me. Nobody in their right mind wanted to be on WAL.

  I told him I understood perfectly and leaned across to give Femi a hug.

  ‘She’ll be good,’ Femi said. ‘Won’t you?’

  Half an hour later, when I opened my bedroom door again, Femi was sitting outside, smiling at me. Half an hour after that, she was still there and, this time, she didn’t even bother looking up from her magazine. I told her she was an ugly bitch and slammed my door and shouted for a while, but I knew she wasn’t going anywhere.

  I didn’t sleep much for the rest of the night, but I didn’t try and leave my room again.

  It wasn’t a big deal, because I’d seen what I needed to. I’d put a word in wh
ere it mattered, I’d made myself known. I kicked off the duvet and lay awake thinking about Kevin and my ex-partner Johnno and about knives twisting in bellies. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be the knife. Sliding and turning, hard and sharp and wet.

  I knew that, by the morning, Kevin’s bedroom would be sealed off and that the staff would be doing their best to get things back to normal. Ilias, Lauren and the rest of the gang would be mooching around, curious, but none the wiser. I knew that the crime-scene tape would have been taken down and any crucial evidence logged and locked away. I knew that the homicide team would be gone.

  It was cool, though. It was all good.

  Because I knew they’d be back.