The Man on Hackpen Hill Page 27

  Jim glances again at the needle. The other man is holding it across his chest like a pistol. The last thing he wants is to be drugged by whatever’s in it. BZ, VX, maybe even LSD. He needs to stay focused, keep his wits about him until the story’s out and he’s been released, hailed a hero, a true public servant. One day, in a lucid moment, his dad will understand what he’s done here, why his son had to break ranks. He will be proud of him. And they will hunt prime numbers together again, and race to finish Rubik’s cubes.

  Jim nods at the man, swallowing hard as he is wheeled down the ramp into the night.

  ‘Welcome back,’ a familiar voice says, sending Jim’s body into another spasm of fear.

  Dr Haslam.

  92

  Silas

  Silas pulls up in the visitors’ car park outside Cranham Hall and looks over towards the main building, lit up against the evening sky. It must have been a country house once, complete with a sweeping drive leading up to a gatehouse, beyond which is a gravel courtyard. The windows of the house appear soulless, dark and foreboding. A high and illuminated brick wall runs around the boundaries of the estate – once for keeping intruders out, now for keeping patients in.

  ‘I prefer somewhere a little cosier myself,’ Silas says to Strover, sitting next to him.

  ‘Built circa 1850 in the Tudor Gothic style, with a Jacobean themed staircase, it was home to the first Duke of Temple Grove,’ she says, reading from her phone, ‘then an all-boys prep school, a drugs rehab centre and finally a psychiatric hospital in 1992.’

  ‘Catering to the aristocracy’s every need,’ Silas says. ‘Let’s talk to security and take a look round.’

  Five minutes later, Silas and Strover walk across the courtyard and enter the main reception area, where a woman behind a desk takes their names and asks them to wait for the duty manager, who will be down in a minute. No patients are in sight and the place is eerily quiet, smelling more of old furniture polish than hospitals. Silas doesn’t expect the manager to say much, suspecting that the grinning fool of a CEO didn’t buy into their trip to Newcastle and has already put in a call to warn staff of their arrival.

  ‘I’m sorry to delay you.’

  Silas looks up to see a woman walking down the formal staircase. She strikes Silas as an unemotional, disciplined manager, hair tied in a neat bun, blue medical uniform crisp and clean. Which makes it more of a surprise when he notices that she’s been crying.

  ‘DI Hart, DC Strover, Swindon CID,’ Silas says, turning to his colleague. ‘We’ve come about Jed Lando.’

  ‘I know, I’ve just been told,’ the manager says, casting her eyes down at the wooden herringbone floor. The CEO didn’t hang about.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Silas says. ‘You knew him well?’

  She nods, wiping at her nose with a tissue that she tucks away in her sleeve.

  ‘What was the nature of his work here?’ Strover asks, stepping in with a more sympathetic tone. Silas isn’t good with tears.

  ‘He was our boss,’ she says, turning away. Her accent is Scottish, maybe Borders. ‘Until last week, anyway.’

  ‘Before he left the company?’ Silas asks.

  The woman nods. ‘He was on holiday.’

  Silas can sense what she’s thinking. Shabby to fire someone when they’re on holiday.

  ‘And he had an office here?’ Strover asks.

  She nods again. ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Mind if we take a look?’ Silas asks.

  His tone makes it clear it’s not a question. He glances out of the window onto lawned gardens as they follow the manager up the Jacobean staircase to Lando’s office. The CEO must have told her to be accommodating to the police.

  ‘Are you full at the moment?’ he asks, making a poor attempt at small talk. It sounds like he’s asking about a bloody hotel.

  ‘We’re always full,’ she says.

  ‘Just that we haven’t seen any patients around.’

  ‘The women’s wing is in lockdown right now – everyone’s in their rooms. We’ve a separate ward as well, a high-dependency unit. They’re more secure.’

  Silas doesn’t ask the reason for the lockdown. It could be anything from a blown fuse to an escaped patient, if Conor’s experience of secure units is anything to go by. He’s in a very different facility in Swindon, less secure but somehow more medical. At least it felt that way under the old management. Purpose-built, modern. This place doesn’t feel right, too many echoes of a Victorian asylum.

  ‘But patients can wander around, inside and outside?’ he asks.

  ‘Some can,’ she replies, smiling thinly. ‘It depends how well they are.’

  Jed Lando’s office offers no clues, nothing obvious to suggest his previous career as a pathologist. Nothing to point towards a life beyond work. No family photos or handwritten letters on the wall from young children, like Ward has from his godchildren. Some unopened mail and a couple of invoices on his desk, along with a colourful patchwork of Post-it notes with phone messages that will never be answered. He hadn’t cleared his office because he thought he was coming back. The only curiosity is an old Remington typewriter on a filing cabinet in the corner.

  ‘Do you have mortuary facilities on site here?’ Silas asks, trying to make light of the question.

  ‘A mortuary?’ the manager asks, surprised. ‘There’s a cold room in the basement but—’

  ‘Who has access to it?’ Silas interrupts.

  ‘The duty manager, senior nurse. It’s very rare that we need it.’

  ‘Did Jed Lando have access?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you do?’ Silas asks, making it clear that once again they will need to take a look.

  The manager hesitates for a second and then heads for the staircase. Silas is about to follow her out of the office when a small photo, cut from a newspaper, catches his eye on the wall above Lando’s desk. It’s of a bearded man and there’s a caption below it: ‘Stefan P. Kruszewski, clinical and forensic psychiatrist.’ Silas peels it off the wall and follows her down the narrow spiral steps to the basement.

  It’s hard to imagine a body being manoeuvred around the staircase’s tight bends. Almost impossible. He glances at Strover as the manager stops at the end of the dark corridor and juggles a bunch of keys. Is this the lock that the key fits? Selecting the right one, she opens a heavy door and turns on a light. The room is a fraction of the size of the Great Western mortuary and much cooler, like a cold store. Maybe it was used by the house’s kitchen staff before electric fridges. A place to store game pies and plucked pheasants. Silas feels hungry at the mere thought. A stainless steel table runs along one side and various tall cupboards and chairs have been stacked up against the far wall.

  ‘We use it as a storeroom, as you can see,’ the manager says.

  ‘When did the last person die at Cranham Hall?’ Silas asks, taking in the room. Strover shoots him a look. ‘The last patient,’ Silas adds.

  ‘Three, maybe four years ago,’ the manager says. ‘Just before I joined. The place was under different management.’

  ‘What’s through here?’ Silas asks, looking behind a large wardrobe at an old door in the brick wall – and at its lock in particular.

  ‘Through where?’ the manager asks, coming over to Silas. She’d make a lousy actor. He nods at the door. Hard to miss but in fairness it looks as if it hasn’t been opened for a while.

  ‘I wasn’t aware of a door here,’ she says. ‘It must lead outside.’

  Silas glances across at Strover. There’s no need to say anything. She reaches into her pocket and holds out a small, clear plastic bag with the old key in it. Silas slips on a pair of purple forensic gloves, removes the key and slides it into the keyhole.

  93

  Jim

  Jim recognises several of his fellow scientists as he’s wheeled into the modern, whitewashed common room where he used to go for a break from the test chambers. His former colleagues all look in bad shape, worked to th
e bone. Jim smiles at a man he used to know quite well, but he stares back at him, his eyes two pools of emptiness. Soon Jim will be at their mercy, a volunteer for whatever experiments they have in line for him.

  Jim’s agreed to come quietly, fearing the needle, but he has a sudden urge to address these people, to tell them the game’s up and the world will soon know what’s happening here. The two MI5 officers in the ambulance assured Jim that he would be treated well if he cooperated, but he knows his fate. His plan is to wait until the time is right, and then tell his former colleagues about Bella and the information he’s given her. They won’t like it, the loyal ones, but others will be relieved that this hell might finally be over.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Jim asks, as he leaves the common room behind and is pushed down a long, familiar corridor. The high-containment facility’s walls are sterile and white, punctuated with metal doors on either side, reinforced glass panels allowing a view of the test chambers inside.

  The man pushing him leans down to his ear. ‘To your old room,’ he says.

  Jim’s arm muscles start to spasm beneath the straitjacket, pressing against the canvas ties. It’s not a room. It’s a test chamber, the place where he worked, day and night, week after week, conducting experiments on his volunteer. Only this time, others will be experimenting on him.

  ‘I need to see a lawyer,’ Jim says, rocking from side to side in his wheelchair. ‘I demand to see a lawyer.’

  He would have seen one as a matter of course if MI5 had taken him directly to a police cell. But here, hidden away at Harwell, the law suddenly feels very distant.

  ‘You’ll get the needle if you don’t shut up,’ the man says, waiting as the door to his chamber is unlocked and he is wheeled in. Not much has changed. A simple mattress, whitewashed walls. The only new feature is a mirror and basin.

  Two well-built men walk into the chamber behind him and together they unstrap Jim from the wheelchair and extricate him from the straitjacket.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jim says, but he knows they haven’t freed him out of kindness. He shakes the numbness from his arms, rubbing where the straitjacket’s thick canvas has chafed his elbows. There’s no point trying to make a run for it. These men are too strong, his own body too heavy with adrenaline. And they are already tying his hands together with a leather strap and fastening them with a tether to the bed, before they file out of the chamber and lock the door in silence. Jim looks over to the observation window, wondering who will soon be watching him, what they will do to his mind.

  It doesn’t take long to find out. Moments later, the door is unlocked again and a big bulk of a man enters, whistling a delicate tune. He’s wearing blue overalls and has a floor mop in one hand and a huge grin on his face. Everything about him is oversized: his bony frame, sloping forehead, dark, hound-dog eyes. Jim recognises him at once as Vincent.

  ‘Yo! Our resident scientist,’ Vincent says, revealing a mouth full of oversized teeth and a south London accent. ‘I heard you was back. Nice to see you again, Jim-boy. Meant to clean this room before you arrived but we’ve had a lockdown in the old wing and I’m running late.’

  Jim doesn’t fall for the room-cleaning routine – or the pally tone. He’s seen it before, used a similar approach himself when he was trying to surprise his own volunteer.

  ‘I don’t need my room cleaned,’ Jim says, shifting to the edge of the hard bed. The tether from his hand strap to the bed frame is about two metres, allowing him to stand up and reach the middle of the room.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Vincent says, sniffing the air. There’s a hint of Italian in his voice too. ‘A little bit ripe in here, isn’t it? Not sure why they put you in this room, to be honest. Might just give the place a quick freshen up.’

  Jim’s eyes widen as Vincent pulls out an aerosol spray from the leg pocket of his overalls.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouts, lunging forward to try to grab the can from the man. His tied hands make him more clumsy than usual.

  ‘Easy now, Jim-boy,’ Vincent says, holding the can above Jim’s outstretched arms as if he’s playing with a dog on a lead. Jim’s tall but Vincent is even taller. His cheery smile has gone, replaced by a taunting smirk.

  ‘Do not spray that in here,’ Jim orders, breathless, still trying to reach up to the can, his hands held back by the harness.

  ‘Security,’ Vincent shouts casually, as if they’ve entered the next stage of a game. The two men begin to wrestle, Jim still trying to take the can off him. Vincent hits a button on the wall and an alarm starts up. ‘Security!’ he repeats, calling out with more urgency now.

  The sound of running feet in the corridor. And then the room is full of men, who throw Jim onto the floor and pin him down.

  ‘You didn’t tell us it was our old friend Jim,’ one of the men jokes. Jim recognises the voice – the same man who had held his face down in the mud beside the bench, outside the high-containment facility. ‘Turn that bloody attack alarm off will you, Vince.’

  ‘Let me go,’ Jim shouts.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ the man says.

  ‘I was only trying to freshen up his room,’ Vincent says.

  ‘Let me go,’ Jim shouts. His left leg is being bent out sideways at an increasingly awkward angle. ‘Let me fucking go.’

  But it’s too late. He hears his knee socket pop and screams out in agony.

  ‘Alright, that’s it,’ the man says. ‘Give Jim a shot.’

  ‘Can I spray the room now?’ Vincent asks.

  ‘Shut it, Vince.’

  Jim squints up from the floor, where his cheek is pressed against the ground. His glasses have been crushed again, fragments of lens cutting into his cheekbone. Why do they always break his glasses? Someone has started to grind their knee into the base of his skull.

  ‘You’re hurting my neck,’ he cries out. His own knee is also on fire with pain.

  It’s probably BZ in the aerosol can. Maybe the Boomer. At Edgewood Arsenal in 1964, the Americans considered taking out an entire trawler ship with aerosolised BZ. Code name? Project Dork. All Jim knows for certain is that a needle has pierced the skin of his thigh and the world is starting to fade.

  94

  Silas

  The key turns easily in the lock and the first thing Silas sees is the floor-to-ceiling refrigerated cabinet in the corner of the hidden room.

  Strover comes through the door behind him, followed by the manager.

  ‘Do you have a warrant?’ she asks.

  ‘Anyone in the chiller?’ Silas replies, ignoring her. ‘Seems like Cranham Hall does have its own mortuary facilities after all.’

  ‘I need to speak to… to someone in authority,’ the manager says.

  ‘Like your American CEO?’ Silas offers.

  ‘I had no idea about this room,’ she continues. ‘And you have no right to be in here without a search warrant. It’s a place of rest, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Except that apparently no one’s been at rest for four years. I’ll come back with a warrant, don’t worry. But before I leave, we need to see who’s in there.’

  He nods at the cabinet in the corner. Warrant or no warrant, he’s allowed to enter and search any premises to ‘save life and limb’.

  ‘No one’s died here, detective,’ the manager says, as Silas walks over to the unit.

  ‘In that case, there’s nothing to hide.’

  He takes hold of the chrome handle, sleek and long like an American fridge’s.

  ‘I must insist that you show some respect,’ the manager says.

  ‘Jed Lando was murdered,’ Silas says, turning to face her. ‘He’s a boss I sense you were fond of. We’re trying to find his killers. Let’s show him a little respect too, shall we?’

  Silas opens the heavy door, releasing the rubber seal with a sucking hiss. A blast of cold air hits him, followed by the faint smell of bleach. For the second time in twenty-four hours, he finds himself looking at a stack of five body trays. Only this time there
aren’t any corpses. Maybe the manager was right about no recent mortalities at Cranham Hall.

  Silas stares at the trays. They might not always have been empty. Is this where the victims were kept before being taken by Lando to the crop circles? It won’t be straightforward for forensics to establish. The cabinet is for the long-term storage of cadavers – minus 50 degrees, according to a display screen – but it’s the smell that worries him. Bleach is one of the easiest ways to degrade DNA.

  Back outside, Silas and Strover stride across the floodlit courtyard, watched by the manager. He’s beginning to doubt whether she did know of the hidden mortuary, even though it has outside access, double doors leading onto a small service courtyard.

  ‘Were you expecting to find other bodies?’ Strover asks, struggling to keep up with Silas.

  ‘Not if they knew we were coming,’ Silas says. ‘They could have been moved elsewhere between our visit to Reading and arriving here – it certainly smelt like it. Get on to TVP and ask for uniform backup. I’ll call the boss and sort a warrant. We need this whole place searched from top to bottom.’

  TVP – Thames Valley Police – won’t be happy that their Wiltshire colleagues are on their patch. Ward won’t be too pleased either.

  ‘How about patient records?’ Strover asks. ‘We could see if anyone called Erin stayed here.’

  ‘If Erin died at Cranham Hall, they might not even have recorded it,’ Silas says. ‘It’s one of the great scandals of our time – the way deaths in places like this are investigated. Or not.’

  Silas was once asked to look into a suspicious fatality at a psychiatric hospital, and was shocked by the lack of an independent investigation at the pre-inquest. The coroner had to rely on evidence gathered by the very hospital that was under investigation. And that was a death the coroner had actually got to hear about. If the deceased were homeless, had no family or friends, as seems to be the case with the two crop circle victims, their passing might go unrecorded, their lives never missed.