An Empty Death

by Laura Wilson

  ‘Do you know how he arrived there?’

  ‘No. He’d been there quite a few hours, you see, so if he had got off a train the other passengers were long gone, and none of the staff could remember anything.’

  ‘Was there nothing to identify him? Belongings? His ration book?’

  ‘Not a thing. No identity card, nothing. He had a suitcase, but the only things in it were clothes, a razor…the usual sorts of things. We wondered if he might have been robbed, but he said he couldn’t remember.’

  ‘And no left-luggage ticket, or anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘His distress – could it have been put on?’

  Dr Rice shook his head. ‘He had several episodes of weeping, he was sweating profusely, trembling…I really don’t think so. Most of my experience is with children, but I believe I can tell a man in the last stages of mental and physical exhaustion, Inspector.’

  ‘I see. And what happened after that?’

  ‘Well, he calmed down a lot over the next few days, but he appeared to have no autobiographical memory – nothing before he arrived at my niece’s house. He wasn’t able to tell me his name or anything about himself – family, occupation, and so on. He didn’t seem aware of external events, either. With concussion, these things generally go off, given time, but there seemed to be no change over the course of a week.’ Rice shook his head. ‘All very difficult. You see, Inspector, memory is – if you like – the bones of thought. Without it, there is nothing else – no past, and no future, either, because there’s no anchor for it. There’s no identity, and no real chance of building any sort of relationship with another person, so it’s very isolating for the sufferer.

  ‘He asked me a lot of questions – some of a personal nature, some about my work. At first, I was rather taken aback, but I think he was looking for something to build on. Something he could remember, so that it would be a place to start. I must say, I rather liked him. He certainly wasn’t sub-normal in any way – quite the reverse, in fact. Intelligent. And a good sense of humour. My niece really took a shine to him.’

  ‘Did you notice if he had any distinguishing marks?’

  ‘A scar,’ said Dr Rice, promptly. ‘One of his hands. Can’t remember which, but it was quite noticeable. At the base of his thumb.’

  Up till then, Stratton had hoped, but hadn’t allowed himself to feel certain. Now, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Piece by piece, it was falling into place…‘Did you believe the memory loss?’ he asked.

  ‘That it was real, yes. As to the cause…There are many reasons for amnesia, Inspector. I’m sure it was absolutely genuine in the early stages, caused by some stress or pressure on him, or some external source. After that, who knows? Things usually do come back, but sometimes there are episodes that the person simply doesn’t want to remember, so he blocks them out. The result, to the sufferer, can be just as real as a loss of memory.’

  ‘And what happened after that?’

  ‘He vanished. Quite suddenly. It was a couple of days before I was due to go back home. We had reported his appearance to the local police, with a description, in case anyone was looking for him, and naturally we told them he’d gone, but we never heard from them, so…’ Rice shrugged.

  ‘Did he take anything with him when he left?’

  ‘Stealing, you mean? No, nothing from the house – no money or silver. My niece checked.’

  ‘And from you?’

  Dr Rice hesitated, looking less sure of himself than before. ‘I don’t know. You see, I’d taken some papers with me – things I needed to work on – and when I’d finished, I put them away, and had no reason to take them out again until a month or so after I returned home. It was only then that I noticed a few of the papers were missing – letters, and such. Nothing very important, except something relating to my new position at the Maudsley. I wrote to my niece asking her to look for them, but she couldn’t find anything. It was easily remedied, and to be honest I didn’t think any more of it.’ He gave Stratton a shrewd look. ‘You think he took them.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ admitted Stratton.

  ‘May I ask if you’ve found him?’

  ‘Not yet, but we will.’

  ‘Well, when you find him, I shall be interested to know his story. He sounds like a fascinating case.’

  More than you know, chum, thought Stratton, as he descended the great staircase. Standing at the top of the steps, beneath the huge porch with its fluted pillars, he remembered Rice’s words about memory being the bones of thought. Without it, there is nothing else…

  Fancy names aside, he thought, it was Jenny who’d come closest to understanding what was wrong with Mrs Ingram when she said she didn’t feel in her heart that Mr Ingram was her husband – or, to put it another way, she’d lost her emotional memory. And he’d thought she was being illogical. What an idiot.

  He stood quite still, feeling the anger – against Dacre, against himself, against the world – boil up inside him. This time, he told himself, there would be no mistake. He’d get a warrant for obtaining employment under false pretences, and then he was going up to Northfield Military Hospital to nail the bastard. And, he decided, this time he was going alone. He had a score to settle, and – whatever the outcome – he’d fucking well settle it.

  Seventy-Four

  The train was stuffy and crowded. Soldiers jammed the corridors, rifles and kitbags lay everywhere, and the air was blue with smoke and obscenities. Eventually, Stratton managed to find a free seat next to a rowdy group of sailors.

  For some reason, most of the servicemen departed at Rugby, so he had the compartment to himself as he tried to collect his thoughts. He wondered if Chief Superintendent Dewhurst would have enough for a fingerprint match from the mortuary. He’d said there was a partial palm print and fingertips on the office bookshelf, but there might be more elsewhere. He’d just have to hope they didn’t clean the place too thoroughly. Of course, that wouldn’t prove that their man had killed Dr Byrne, and, if Ballard was right, Reynolds and Leadbetter – but it would prove that Todd, Dacre and Rice were the same person, which was certainly a start…‘I’ll have you for Byrne, mate, if it’s the last thing I do,’ he muttered. ‘You are going to fucking swing.’

  Northfield Hospital proved to be a five-mile journey from Birmingham on a rickety tram, followed by about a mile’s walk uphill, and by the time Stratton reached the gatehouse he was tired, sweaty, and not best pleased to be told that it was another mile down the tree-lined drive to the building itself. As he walked closer, he suddenly stopped, turned to the side and retched. Head hanging down, hands on his knees, he told himself forcefully that there would be no Mrs Ingrams here: this place was not an institution for the criminally insane, like Broadmoor, but a place for shell-shocked soldiers, and therefore entirely different.

  The main tower became visible before the rest of the institution, which turned out to be a vast and forbidding pile of Victorian red brick. As Stratton trudged towards it, working saliva into his mouth to try and remove the bitter taste of bile, he could hear intermittent bursts of machine-gun fire issuing from somewhere in the distance. He passed a group of men in PT singlets and shorts, who, apparently oblivious to the racket, were standing in the middle of a lawn, throwing a medicine ball around in an unenthusiastic manner, and several more, clad in bright blue serge suits and red ties, who were shuffling about aimlessly amongst the flowerbeds that bordered it. One of them, staring fixedly down at a row of petunias, was rubbing his groin vigorously enough to set his trousers on fire.

  The florid orderly who opened the door to him explained that the gunfire was from the automatic weapon testing range at the Austin works across the valley. ‘Very soothing,’ muttered Stratton. The man led them through a maze of echoing stone corridors floored in cracked mosaic tiles, past enormous, barely furnished wards with rows of iron-framed beds.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, halting in front of some imposing double doors. �
��Harley Street. The psychiatrists’ rooms, sir. Dr Reinhardt’s at the end.’

  When Dr Reinhardt, a mop of silver hair and a zealot’s gleam behind glittering pince-nez, greeted him in a strong German accent, Stratton had to try very hard not to think of the mad scientists that he’d seen at the pictures. The iron bed covered by a grey blanket beside the desk – ‘Sometimes we hypnotise a patient’ – did nothing to help this impression. Stratton deliberately hadn’t informed him of his visit, and his manner was intensely suspicious – not that he could be blamed for that. The man had probably been interned for Christ knew how long in some hell-hole or other. Stratton had visited a few aliens’ camps in the early years of the war, and they weren’t exactly the Ritz, with draughty wooden huts, straw bedding, and no stoves in winter.

  He did his best to calm the psychiatrist down, showing the warrant and explaining about the stolen documents and fraudulent references, but before he could get very far, Reinhardt intervened. ‘There must be a mistake. Dr Rice impressed me greatly. We are developing a therapeutic community here, Inspector, and he has been helping to pioneer our group analysis, encouraging self-expression. It is at a critical stage and I cannot have it disturbed.’

  Stratton didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about, although he didn’t think that ‘self-expression’ sounded much like the army. ‘We have very good reason to believe that Dr Rice may not be genuine,’ he said.

  ‘Nonsense, Inspector. I would know.’

  ‘He’s fooled people before, Dr Reinhardt. And,’ Stratton placed both hands on the psychiatrist’s desk and leant forward for emphasis, ‘we have good reason to believe that he may have done worse.’

  ‘Worse?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, sir. But it’s serious.’

  ‘His qualifications are impeccable.’

  ‘They aren’t his, and the reference – the one you have, that is – is false. I have spoken to the professor concerned, and I can assure you that there is no mistake about that. Apparently, it wasn’t checked.’ That, Stratton thought, is one in the eye for you, chum.

  ‘I did not think it necessary.’

  ‘That’s a pity. Of course,’ continued Stratton, blandly, ‘we don’t wish to cause embarrassment to you or your institution, but this does – potentially – put the army in rather a difficult position, and, as you say, you wouldn’t wish to jeopardise your operation…’ He paused to make sure that Reinhardt had registered the threat.

  ‘You are telling me that he is not qualified at all? That he is an imposter?’

  ‘That’s right. Now, perhaps you could give me a physical description of him.’

  ‘But surely you know…’

  ‘It’s easy enough to alter one’s appearance, Dr Reinhardt.’

  ‘Well…he’s of medium height…the physical build is average…he’s clean shaven, the hair is fair…I cannot say that there’s anything particular about him.’

  ‘Any distinguishing marks? Scars?’

  ‘I have not noticed…’ Dr Reinhardt shook his head sadly. ‘He is so good with the patients, Inspector.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Stratton, grimly. ‘Where is he?’

  Dr Sturgiss, a younger man with hair as untidy as Reinhardt’s who clearly had no idea of the seriousness of his errand, ushered Stratton back down the corridor and into a dark quadrangle, where a group of blue-suited men were tending to a stunted-looking tree. ‘Is that part of the group therapy?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Sturgiss. ‘Gardening, and carpentry and so on, are occupational therapies. But we like to encourage groups, because it gives them a common purpose.’

  ‘I can see how it might,’ said Stratton. ‘How do the men react to Dr Reinhardt?’

  ‘To be honest, a lot of them aren’t too keen. The foreign accent, you know.’

  ‘And Dr Rice?’

  ‘Oh, they like him. Even the dullards. You might say he’s the star of the show. There’s a much more lively atmosphere with him here.’ Sturgiss opened a door and took Stratton into a large room where groups of men, this time in khaki, were sitting about playing cards and smoking, watched by a couple of orderlies. Although the atmosphere appeared, at first sight, to be fairly relaxed, when Stratton looked closer he could see that the faces were strained and the eyes apprehensive.

  The ones nearest the door stopped talking when they entered, and a nervous silence spread through the room. When a man sitting alone in front of a jigsaw puzzle looked up, Stratton saw that he was missing an eye and half his face was covered in a graft, thick, shiny and yellowish, like the skin on custard. What had that poor fucker been through? Stratton wondered. Surely no psychiatrist, however learned, could hope to understand his state of mind unless he’d been through something similar. The man next to the jigsaw-puzzler, who had been frantically scribbling when they came in, stared at Stratton with intense hatred for a moment, then bent again to the inky hysteria of his paper. The rest remained as stiff and alert as dogs that sense a threat, and the silence seemed to crackle with hostile electricity.

  ‘Dr Rice is in there,’ said Sturgiss, indicating a door in the far wall, ‘conducting a session.’ They crossed the room, footsteps echoing on the parquet floor, and Stratton peered through the small glass window in the door. He saw eight men sitting in a circle, and, slightly apart, a man who looked – hair colour aside – remarkably like Dr Dacre. For the first time Dr Sturgiss, who had not asked any questions, looked apprehensive. ‘Could you wait?’ he asked. ‘Dr Rice will be finished in…’ he glanced at his wristwatch, ‘five minutes.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Stratton, who thought that, if the patients inside the room were anything like the ones surrounding him, bursting in there would probably be suicidal. ‘I don’t want to interrupt.’

  The men continued to stare at them, and Stratton, feeling uncomfortable, gazed down at the floor. The electrical quiver in the room intensified, as if the air itself was unstable. He was, he told himself, in a confined space with around thirty potential murderers, all trained in the art of warfare, and, despite the group therapy and all the rest of it, any one of them might spark off at any moment. A corpulent orderly, sitting on the far side of the room, got heavily to his feet and came towards them. ‘Is there a problem, Dr Sturgiss?’

  ‘No, no…’ Sturgiss’s voice was hearty. ‘This gentleman just needs a quick word with Dr Rice.’

  The orderly nodded, then walked about amongst the groups of card-players, bending over tables, clapping a shoulder here, a back there. ‘All right, lads, as you were. Nothing to worry about.’

  This reduced the tension in the room somewhat, but the men, although they resumed their card games, remained watchful, glancing round at Stratton every few seconds.

  Was Mrs Ingram in a room like this? wondered Stratton. Was she playing cards or doing a jigsaw? When he thought of her, he always imagined her howling in a padded cell, beating at the walls in a blind, insane fury, but perhaps that wasn’t the case. And, separated from him only by a wall, was the man who’d killed Byrne, who’d wanted to kill him, who’d saved his life, and tried to save Jenny’s, who’d encouraged Elsie Ingram in her delusional state by telling her that he was a policeman…He felt a black weight of confusion press in on him, as his resolve slipped its moorings and his brain began to spin. He clenched his fists hard, trying to steady himself. Why the hell hadn’t he brought Ballard with him? He’d have given anything for some support, a friendly face…

  He heard the sound of chairs being pushed back in the next room, and tried to collect himself. After a couple of seconds, the door opened and khaki-clad men began filing past them, casting curious looks in their direction before mingling with the card-players. This is it, thought Stratton. Just do your job, he told himself. Don’t think of anything else.

  Sturgiss waited until the last man had exited, then entered the room, Stratton at his heels. Dr Rice, still seated, was writing notes, but looked up as Sturgiss cleared his throat. ‘M
r Stratton to see you,’ he said, and withdrew, leaving Stratton and Rice staring at each other. There was a tiny, almost imperceptible flicker of recognition in Rice’s eyes, and then, as if a shutter had closed behind them, a blandly polite gaze. ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ he said. In one swift movement he rose from his chair and went to the open door. For a split second, he stood ramrod straight in the manner of a sergeant-major, and then, before Stratton – who’d registered, too late, what was about to happen – could act, he bellowed, ‘Attack!’

  Seventy-Five

  The pandemonium was instantaneous. In a fury of shrieking whistles as the attendants tried to summon help, each man, recalled in a flash to the booby-trapped, mined nightmare of his memory, the private bombardment with the long-dead officer jumping like a jack-in-the-box inside his head to bellow commands, leapt into action. Some ran, in a crouch, across the room, zigzagging from side to side and looking wildly around them. Others screamed, and, goggle-eyed with fear and paranoia, began to barricade themselves behind the furniture. Others clambered onto tables and chairs, as if they had been ordered to advance, then stood, bewildered and blank-faced. One man, howling, banged his head repeatedly against the reinforced glass of a window pane and another, a giant, launched himself at Stratton, who collapsed flat on the floor under the weight, painfully winded and fearing that his back was broken. The man lay full length of top of him, scissoring his kicking legs and raining down blows on Stratton’s face with his fists until the two orderlies, armed with leather cuffs, managed to haul him away.

  As he staggered groggily to his feet and looked around at the mayhem Stratton spotted Rice running across the quadrangle. He sidestepped as a man fell in front of him, head hitting the wooden floor with a crack, back arched and eyes rolling up, juddering and twitching, and set off in pursuit.