Fall From Grace (30 page)

‘Stricker didn’t know her name?’

‘He said he overheard Preston calling her Kay.’

‘K-A-Y?’

‘Presumably.’ She took a long, deep breath. ‘The only other thing Stricker said he could recall clearly was this one fight they had, just before they moved out in September 2010. He said he remembered overhearing an argument about going to a hospital.’

‘Hospital? Was Preston ill?’

‘No. I looked through the autopsy notes. He was on his way to screwing up his liver and lungs with all the shite he was putting in his body, but he wasn’t hospital bad. So maybe they were talking about the woman he lived with.’

‘Who we can’t find.’

‘Right.’

But then, unexpectedly, I felt a buzz of familiarity, the sense that I’d made some sort of connection without knowing it. Slowly, the outline of a memory emerged from the darkness. My eyes drifted back to the wall, to the board full of faces, to the house on the Old Kent Road where Reynolds was holed up.
What is it? What am I seeing?
Murray was studying me now, as if she’d noted the realization in my face, the shift in my thoughts.

And then it hit me like a train.

The two photographs Reynolds had in his flat.

One had been of a cavernous, abandoned Victorian building, with a spire and stained-glass windows, fenced in, with a glimpse of a river or a lake in the background.

The second was of a corridor with glass blocks either side of it, its walls peeling, a thick arched door partially open at its end. Through the doorway, there had been some kind of metal stand, coated in cobwebs. Somehow, it had looked out of place in a church, as if it didn’t belong there, but I hadn’t been able to put my finger on why at the time.

Now I knew: it was a stand for an IV drip.

Because it wasn’t a church in the photographs
.

‘It was a hospital,’ I said quietly.

‘What?’

‘Did you do a search for “Kay”?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. I didn’t find anything.’

‘Nothing related to Preston, or Reynolds, or Franks?’

‘No.’

‘What about when you searched for “Kay” and “hospital”?’

‘Nothing,’ Murray said again. ‘This woman’s a ghost.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We can find her.’

A frown. ‘Why, do you know her?’

I removed my notepad, trying to zero in on the drawing that Franks had made on the scrap of paper. I’d copied down a rough approximation of it – and now, finally, I knew why, every time I’d looked at it, a vague sense of recollection hit me.

‘You remember I asked about this?’

I turned the sketch to Murray, so she could see it.

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Paige thought it was a stick man.’

‘It’s not?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘This rogue triangle on the top there – I know it. I recognize it. I think it’s a greenhouse. This is the layout for a building.’

As I said that, my mind flooded with memories: a fuzzy, sun-bleached flicker of images from an August in 1978 when my mum and I had stood on the edges of the sea, looking out into the English Channel.

‘What is that place, Mum?’

She looked out at the channel, unsure how to respond
.

‘Mum?’

‘It’s … It’s, uh
…’

‘What? What is it, Mum?’

And then slowly, automatically, she brought me into her, pressing me to her hip, and she said to me, ‘It’s somewhere bad, sweetheart. It’s somewhere very bad.’

I looked at Murray.

‘Whoever Kay is,’ I said, ‘I think she was a patient at Bethlehem.’

Bethlehem

November 2010
|
Three Years Ago

The sea lapped at the wheels of the vehicle as it crossed the causeway. Further out, it was choppy, waves rolling in, ceaseless, unyielding, consuming each other as they raced for the shore – but here, on the other side of the sandbank, it was almost still, like a sheet of frosted glass. The only thing disturbing it was the vehicle’s wake, fanning out in a cone
.

She looked ahead of the ferry, to the hospital
.

Bethlehem
.

This early in the morning, most of it was just a silhouette, grey and indistinct against the sky, its T-shaped wings gripping the curves and chasms of the tidal island. As the sun rose to the east, the colour drained from its western side, and the banks of windows – running in three lines, one on top of the other – somehow seemed to blend with the walls and appear to fade from view. Once they did, she always thought the western wall became more ominous: black, monolithic, sinister
.

Mesh fencing traced the entire circumference of the island, side to side, north to south, its undulation, its flow, and was topped with two cords of razorwire and a guard tower, giving it the feel of a prison camp. At the jetty, security guards stood sentry at the main gate; another two were stationed fifty feet further in. Beyond that, the road snaked around a knot in the island and up to the front of the main hospital building
.

There were no cars parked outside
.

There were never any cars. The hospital had been built at a time when most people didn’t have a vehicle to get around in. It wasn’t a problem one hundred years ago
.

It was now
.

These days, most employees crossed the causeway on a second, separate vehicle – both vehicles referred to as ferries, even though they weren’t boats – once in the morning, once again at the end of the day: it came across twice, specifically for them, and was kept at a farmhouse half a mile inland. The patients never got to ride that one
.

Theirs – the one she was on at the moment – was more stripped back, basically just seats and windows, everything screwed down and reinforced to ensure it couldn’t be used as a weapon. It was almost comical to look at – a reconditioned bus carriage sitting on top of a huge trailer, pulled by a tractor with oversized wheels – but she’d been coming here so long, it didn’t seem strange any more. Despite how it looked, it was effective: she’d read that they’d only had one serious incident in the entire forty-six years the ferry had been crossing the causeway – which was just as well because, once a week on a Friday, they ran the secure transfer. That was different from the days she came. That was when they brought in the killers, the people who were never going to be released. In hushed whispers, she’d heard some of the non-medical staff call it ‘Psyday’ instead of Friday
.

Because that was when the psychos arrived
.

Back at the start, she’d spent almost a year at the hospital as an inpatient, looking out across the sea from the inside of those windows, listening to her first doctor – Poulter – trying to talk her back from the edge. After she got better, she began returning to Bethlehem as an outpatient, three days a week to start with – and when Garrick replaced Poulter, it was reduced to Tuesdays and Wednesdays
because that was when Garrick was in. He’d speak softly to her, like she was easily frightened, trying to get her to talk about Lucas, about her divorce from Robert, about her suicide attempts. Despite everything, she enjoyed the routine, coming back to this place when he was in, having a conversation with someone who wanted to listen. Sometimes she’d held things back from Garrick, other times she’d tried to trade with him, telling him she was ready to open up if he told her more about him. She trusted him, but there were still things – even five years on – that she’d chosen not to tell him
.

‘So, it’s been two months since Simon left.’

She roused herself from her thoughts and looked across the room at Garrick. He was leaning forward, one hand clutching his fountain pen, one handing her a glass of water. She thanked him and took the glass, placing it down on the table between them
.

‘How would you say that time has been?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t miss him, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I didn’t really expect that to be the case.’ He smiled at her. ‘Has Simon been in touch with you since he moved to London?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘I couldn’t care less.’

Garrick nodded, and noted something down. ‘You told me once that you never loved him. If that was the case, why did you stay with him for five years?’

‘I suppose he helped numb my pain.’

‘You mean Lucas?’

‘I mean, Lucas, Robert
…’

‘What else?’

She stopped; a small, sad smile. ‘My dog.’

‘How did he help you forget those things?’

‘By just being himself. Simon was a snide, selfish bastard, so when
I was with him, that took my full powers of concentration. It was good for me. It stopped my mind from wandering. Plus I got a roof over my head. I paid him a little rent, from the money I earned working at the shoe store, but it wasn’t much. As I’m starting to find out, even if you want to live in abject squalor, you still have to pay for it.’

‘How is the new place?’

‘It’s been two months. It’s not so new any more.’

‘Of course. So how is it?’

‘It’s okay. As much as you’d expect when you’re renting a small room in a small house. Four walls. A bed. It’s better than being on the streets. The old woman who rents it to me is deaf as a post, though, so I sit in my room at night and have to listen to her guessing answers on game shows.’

Garrick nodded. ‘It’s an adjustment.’

She didn’t say anything
.

‘Is there something else bothering you?’

She glanced at Garrick. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d read her so easily – not after all this time. At the start, even until recently, she’d been able to hold her thoughts back from him, disguise them, and he’d always fail to see the concealment in her face. But not now. Now the two of them were so familiar with each other
.

‘Simon …’ She stopped. ‘Simon found something.’

‘When was this?’

‘Two months ago. Before he kicked me out.’

‘What did he find?’

‘My box of regrets.’

If Garrick was surprised by the news – by the fact she hadn’t mentioned anything until now – he didn’t show it
.

‘Did he actually open it up and go through your things?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did that make you feel?’

‘Annoyed. I’d got sloppy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was tucked away, into a corner of the loft, and he never went up there because that was where all my crap was dumped, and all he cared about was that none of it took up space in his house. But then, when he put the house on the market without even telling me, and especially after he sold it, he started to prepare for the move, and he went up there … and he found it.’

Garrick shrugged. ‘He knew about Lucas already, though.’

‘That’s the thing
…’

‘What?’

‘That box was about more than Lucas.’

‘So what else was it about?’

She paused. ‘It was about Pamela Welland.’

Garrick sat back in his chair, a frown creasing his brow. ‘I don’t understand why that should matter, though? I think I understand why you stayed with Simon. I get that your relationship with him was …’ He took a long breath as he tried to find the right word. ‘Convenient, for whatever reason. I hope, one day, you will share more on that particular subject.’

She didn’t reply
.

When it became clear she wasn’t going to help him out, he continued: ‘I get that you didn’t trust Simon enough to share all of your past with him. But he knew about Lucas. He knew you lived and worked in London before you moved down here to Devon. What difference does it make if he knows about Pamela Welland? That case is over. The man who killed her is in jail – and has been for fourteen years.’

Again, no response
.

Garrick tilted his head. ‘Kay? Why is that girl’s murder so important to you?’

She glanced at Garrick
.

‘Why does it matter if Simon found out about Pamela?’

‘It’s not her,’ she said
.

‘Not her what?’

‘None of this is about Pamela Welland. Not really.’

‘What are you talking about?’

She looked up at the window, at the endless sky, at the seagulls squawking as they glided past. Then she turned back to Garrick. ‘Pamela Welland’s just where it starts.’