A difficult question, and one to which Jan does not reply.
‘And what can we really know about one another?’ the doctor goes on. ‘If you were to meet a man walking along this corridor, Jan, could you tell if he was good or evil?’
‘No... but I suppose I would assume that he wished me well.’
‘Good,’ says Högsmed. ‘Trusting others is mostly a matter of how secure we are in ourselves.’
Jan nods and follows him through the hospital.
Högsmed is ready with his magnetic card once more. ‘This is actually the quickest way to the pre-school,’ he explains as he unlocks the door. ‘You can go through the hospital basement, but it’s a tortuous and not very pleasant route, so we’ll go back out through the gate.’
They leave the hospital the same way they came in. As they pass the security guard’s office Jan glances at the thick safety glass and asks quietly, ‘But some of the patients here must be dangerous, surely?’
‘Dangerous?’
‘Yes — violent?’
Högsmed sighs, as if he is thinking of something tedious. ‘Well, yes, but they’re mostly a danger to themselves. Occasionally they might be violent towards others,’ he says. ‘There are of course certain patients who have destructive impulses, antisocial men and women who have done what you might call bad things...’
‘And can you cure them?’ Jan asks.
‘Cure is a big word,’ says Högsmed, looking at the steel door in front of him. ‘Those of us who are therapists do not attempt to enter the same dark forest in which the patients have lost their way; we stay out in the light and try to entice the patients to come to us...’ He falls silent, then continues: ‘We can see patterns in the behaviour of those who have committed violent crimes, and one common denominator is childhood trauma of various kinds. They have often had a very poor relationship with their parents, with frequent instances of abuse and lack of contact.’ He opens the outer door and looks at Jan. ‘And that is why we run this particular project, the Dell. The aim of our little pre-school is to maintain the emotional bonds between the child and the parent who is a patient here.’
‘And the other parent agrees to these visits?’
‘If they themselves are well. And still alive,’ Högsmed says quietly, rubbing his eyes. ‘Which isn’t always the case. We are not usually dealing with socially stable families.’
Jan refrains from asking any more questions.
Eventually they are back outside in the sunshine again. The doctor blinks in pain at the bright daylight.
They walk towards the high wall. It hadn’t occurred to Jan before, but the air seems so pure on this autumn day. Dry and fresh.
‘After you, Jan.’
The gate in the wall slides open and Jan steps out. Out into freedom. That’s actually the way it feels as he stands there in the street, even though he could have left the hospital whenever he wanted to, of course. No guards would have tried to keep him there.
The steel gate closes behind them.
‘This way,’ says Högsmed.
Jan follows him, gazing across towards the outskirts of the town to the south. Beyond a wide, freshly ploughed field he can see several blocks of small terraced houses. He wonders what the owners of those houses think about the hospital.
Högsmed also glances across at the houses, as if he can hear what Jan is thinking. ‘Our neighbours,’ he says. ‘In the past the town wasn’t quite so extensive, of course, so the hospital was more isolated out here. But we have never had any problems with protests or petitions, unlike some other psychiatric units. I think the families over there know that our operation is secure... that the safety of all concerned is our number-one priority.’
‘Has anyone ever escaped?’
Jan realizes this is a provocative question.
But Högsmed raises his forefinger to indicate the number one. ‘Just one patient during my time here. It was a young man, a sex offender, who had managed to build a rickety structure out of fallen branches in one corner of the grounds. He simply climbed over the fence and disappeared.’ Högsmed looks over towards the houses again and goes on: ‘The police picked him up in the park that same evening, but by then he’d already made contact with a little girl. Apparently they were sitting on a park bench eating ice cream.’ The doctor looks up at the electric fence on top of the wall. ‘Security was tightened up after that, but I’m not convinced that anything nasty would have happened. Sometimes those who run away seek out children simply because they are looking for security. They are small and frightened inside.’
Jan says nothing, he simply keeps on walking along the track in front of the wall. He has guessed correctly; they are heading towards a wooden building north of the hospital. The Dell.
The wall curves away before they reach the Dell, crossing a grassy area before it disappears behind the hospital. There is only a low fence around the pre-school. Jan can see several swings, a red playhouse and a sandpit, but no children. Presumably they’re indoors.
‘How many children do you have here?’ he asks.
‘About a dozen,’ says Högsmed. ‘Three of them are staying here on a permanent basis at the moment, for various reasons. Six or seven come during the day. Then there are a few more whose attendance is more sporadic.’ He opens his folder and takes out a sheet of paper. ‘We do have a small number of rules when it comes to dealing with the children. Perhaps you could read through them now.’
Jan takes the sheet of paper; he stops by the gate leading to the pre-school, and begins to read:
1. The children at the Dell and the patients at St Patricia’s Regional Psychiatric Hospital are to be kept apart. This applies AT ALL TIMES OF THE DAY AND NIGHT, except for pre-arranged visits to the parent of a child.
2. Pre-school staff do NOT have access to any of the wards inside the hospital. Only the administrative departments of the hospital are to be visited by pre-school staff.
3. Pre-school staff are responsible for escorting the children through the sally port between the Dell and the visitors’ facility within the hospital. The children are NOT allowed to go alone.
4. Under NO circumstances are staff to discuss hospital visits with the child, or ask questions about the child’s parents. Such conversations are to be conducted only by doctors and child psychologists.
5. In common with hospital employees, pre-school staff are obliged to maintain TOTAL CONFIDENTIALITY with regard to all aspects of St Patricia’s Regional Psychiatric Hospital.
There is a dotted line at the bottom of the page, and when Jan looks up he sees that Högsmed is holding out a pen.
He takes it and signs his name.
‘Good,’ says Högsmed. ‘As I said, I thought it was best if you had a look at it before we go in. All pre-schools have their own rules and regulations, after all. You’re used to that, no doubt?’
‘Absolutely.’
But Jan has never come across any of these rules before. And the order from those in charge at the hospital is crystal clear:
Keep quiet about St Psycho’s.
No problem. Jan has always been good at keeping secrets.
Jan had started work at the Lynx nursery when he was twenty years old, the same hot summer when Alice Rami’s debut album came out — the two events were linked in his mind. He had bought her record when he spotted it in a shop window; he took it home and played it over and over again. Rami and August was the title of the album, but August wasn’t a person’s name; it was her band, which consisted of two guys playing drums and bass guitar. There was a picture of them with Rami, two guys with black spiky hair on either side of her angel-white head. Jan looked at the picture and wondered if either of them was her boyfriend.