"I was interested, looking through your files, in how you had reacted to other episodes of stress in your life."
"If you want to compare me being held prisoner by someone who wanted to kill me with bits of my life where I broke up with a boyfriend or where I had some kind of eczema that took about two years to go away have you reached that bit of the file? well, then, all I can say is that there is no comparison."
"There is one thing they all have in common, which is that they happen to you. And I look for patterns. This has become an event in your life. Like everything that happens in your life it will change you in some way. I hope I can help you to make sure it doesn't affect you in a bad way."
"But there are things that happen in life that are just bad and that is one of them. It's always going to be bad. I can't turn it to good. The only thing I can think of that's really important is for this incredibly dangerous man to be found and locked away where he can never do this again to anyone else." I looked out of the window. Over the buildings I could see a clear blue sky. I couldn't feel the cold outside but somehow I could see it. Even looking at it made this hateful room unbearably stuffy. "There's another thing."
"What?" said Irene.
"I need to leave here. I really do, or I'll never be able to. I need to be in ordinary life again. I suppose I can't just get up and put on these borrowed clothes though, come to think of it, I don't know why not but I'm going to track down Dr. Burns, or leave a message with his secretary, and tell him that I'm leaving tomorrow. I'll leave a forwarding address with Jack Cross. And if you still feel that it's worth talking to me, then I can come and meet you at any place you suggest. But I can't stay here any longer."
Irene Beddoes always reacted as if it was always just what she had been expecting me to say, and that she quite understood.
"That may be right," she said. "Could you do us one favour? As we've talked about before, you're being seen by all sorts of different people and departments. I'm sorry about all the delays but as you can imagine it's a logistical nightmare getting everybody together at the same time to agree on a decision. I've just heard that there's going to be a meeting tomorrow morning with absolutely everybody. We're going to talk about where we go from here. One of the obvious issues is about you leaving."
"Can I come?"
"What?"
"Can I come to the meeting?"
For the first time ever Irene looked at a loss. "I'm sorry, that's not possible."
"You mean there are things I might not want to hear?"
She smiled her reassuring smile. "Not at all. Patients don't attend case conferences. It's just one of those things."
"It's just that I think of it more as an investigation in which I'm involved."
"There's nothing cloak-and-dagger about it. I'll come and see you straight away."
I wasn't looking at her. My gaze was drawn to the window once more. "I'll have my bag packed," I said.
I didn't get Jack Cross that afternoon. He was too busy. I got a less important detective called Detective Constable Lavis. He was one of those men who was so tall that he was constantly ducking as if he was about to bump his head, even if he was in a room like mine that was about nine feet tall. He looked very much a stand-in, but he was friendly too, as if it was me and him against everybody else. He sat down on the chair next to my bed, which looked ridiculously small under him.
"I tried to contact Cross," I said.
"He's out of the office," Lavis said.
That's what they told me," I said. "I hoped he'd give me a call."
"He's a bit busy," Lavis said. "He sent me."
"I was going to tell him that I'm leaving the hospital."
"Right," said Lavis, as if he had hardly heard what I'd said. "I'll pass that on. I've just been sent along to talk about a couple of things."
"Like what?"
"Good news," he said cheerfully. "Your boyfriend. Terry Wilmott. We were getting a bit worried about him, but he's turned up."
"Was he working or was he on a binge?"
"Bit of a drinker, is he?"
"From time to time."
"I met him yesterday. He looked a bit pasty but he was all right."
"Did he say where he'd been?"
"He said he'd been ill. He'd been staying in some cottage in Wales that a friend of his owns."
"That sounds like Terry. Did he say anything else?"
"There was nothing much he had to contribute."
"So the mystery is cleared up," I said. "Idiot. I'll give him a ring."
"So he hasn't been in touch?"
"Obviously not."
Lavis looked ill at ease. He reminded me of the sort of adolescent who blushed when you asked him the time.
"The boss has been sending me out on some inquiries," he said. "I called at your company, Jay and Joiner's. Nice people."
"If you say so."
"We were attempting to establish the sort of period when you disappeared."
"Did you?"
I suppose." He gave a sniff and looked around as if checking out an escape route. "What are your plans?"
"I already said. I'm planning to leave tomorrow."
"What about work?"
"I'll get in touch with them. I haven't really felt up to it but I suppose I'll go back in the next week or two."
"You'll go back to work?" he said. He sounded surprised.
"What else? I've got a living to earn. And it's not just that. I've got to get back to normal life while there's a life for me to get to."
"Yes, right," said Lavis.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I know that my personal problems aren't really your business."
"No," said Lavis.
"I suppose you've got your hands full with the investigation."
"Pretty much."
"I know that I haven't been giving you much to go on."
"We're doing what we can."
"I'm really sorry that I couldn't find the place where I'd been held. I'm not exactly the greatest witness in criminal history. But I feel completely in the dark. Have there been any other developments? I suppose they must have checked out those names I gave Cross. The names of the other victims. I was hoping that would give them a clue. Have they found anything? I assume they haven't because if they had they would have told me. Except that nobody tells me anything. That's one of the problems about being in this bed, in this room. I think that if nothing else I've gained some kind of insight into what it's like to be old and ill. People just treat you as if you were slightly thick. Do you know what I mean? They come in here and they talk slowly and ask extremely simple questions as if I have a mental problem. And they don't believe I need to be told anything. I honestly think that if I didn't have a tantrum every so often, they would forget me altogether."
The reason I was babbling on and on was that Lavis was shifting in his seat looking trapped and not answering, and the longer I babbled on the more trapped he looked. I felt that I'd become like one of those people in the street who walk along muttering to themselves and every so often they manage to stop someone and rant to them about their problems and about how everybody is out to get them.
"I haven't been able to tell you very much," I said. "I mean, I've said loads but it hasn't been much use."
"No, that's fine," said Lavis, as he stood up. He was about to make a break for it. "I just needed to check a couple of things. As I said."
"I'm sorry that I've been going on and on and on," I said. "I'm a bit stir crazy."
"That's fine," said Lavis, as he edged away from me towards the safety of the open door. But he didn't contradict me.
The St. Anthony Hospital NHS Trust
Date: 28 January 2002
Subject: Case Conference Abigail Elizabeth Devereaux, Room
4E, Barrington Wing. Hosp. No. 923903
Cc. Detective Chief Superintendent Gordon Lovell, Laurraine