Platform Seven

by Louise Doughty

  I go down and along the platform and see him immediately, at the far end, the man. He’s sitting on the metal bench, of course.

  It is broad daylight, and yet he has the same hunched posture he had at 4 a.m. when I tried and failed to stop him throwing himself in front of the freight train, the folding-in of the body designed to minimise his surface area against the cold but the coldness inside him is defiant. The pale winter sun above us means nothing to him. For him, it is pitch dark and 4 a.m., again and again. He isn’t free-floating like I am; he is reliving those final moments. He is always on the station, always entering, climbing the stairs, trudging across the covered walkway, always huddled on that bench.

  This thought gives me courage and I approach him. He is wearing the heavy jacket, the donkey jacket. He has the hat pulled down low, just as he did then, and in the second before he turns towards me, I know that when he does, he will have the sea-green scarf covering the lower half of his face, just below the bulbous nose, the large and watery eyes. He turns without movement, swivelling as he sits. The watery eyes stare at me. He doesn’t pull down the sea-green scarf or move any part of his face but he speaks nonetheless. I hear him quite distinctly. His tone of voice is soft, mocking, almost – but not quite – as if he pities me. I have never felt so cold.

  ‘You think it will all end, don’t you?’ he says, and his voice is leaden with pain. ‘You think it will all be over, forgotten, but there’s no forgetting for the likes of you or me.’

  I can feel a grim smile beneath the scarf, a pleasure in my horror. ‘Haven’t you worked that out by now? Your little fancies won’t change that, my girl.’ He can read my mind, just like I can with the living. Even though he is motionless on the bench, it is as though he is enlarging. I am so cold.

  ‘It’s just going to go on and on and on … not just for us, or them, for all of them.’

  So he can see the others too. I back away and he shrinks a little.

  ‘I’m not like you.’ I say it calmly but I know he can hear me and my voice is crystal clear, a ringing bell. ‘I’m different. I didn’t do what you did. I’m not the same.’

  The eyes above the scarf are still staring and cold. ‘Oh really? Is that what you think? Then why are you stuck here?’

  I don’t have an answer for this. I only know that he disgusts me. I am not like him.

  It’s all I can say, but even as I say it, I can hear in my own thoughts how feeble it sounds as a retort, how flimsy a defence of my existence. ‘I know I am not like you.’ It is a row of seven monosyllables and it is all I am certain about.

  ‘Are you sure?’ He has moved towards me again, enlarged again. ‘I hate to be the one to break it to you but we do have something in common.’

  He is very close to me now, his heavy face, the large watery eyes. ‘I bet you were a cutie when you were five or six,’ he says. ‘I bet you did that tarty thing you all do, big eyes looking up as if you don’t know what you’re doing.’

  And then I guess.

  *

  PC Akash Lockhart is sitting at a small desk, in front of a computer in the British Transport Police building opposite the station. He is collating the information on Thomas Warren. Usually, the Coroner Liaison Officer would do it but she’s on long-term sick leave with a bad back. It’s an extra job but he doesn’t mind. He’ll be able to add the task to his CV and it will prove useful for his online MA.

  Cambridgeshire Constabulary have sent him the crime report against Warren. He is feeling not so much disgust as a kind of blank bafflement. There is something in his head that just baulks at what he is reading – that a man could do that to his own daughter. He is reading the girl’s statement. It started when she was five years old. Five, he thinks. How is that possible? Thomas Warren and his wife divorced when the girl was eight, and she and her brother went to stay with their father every other weekend. After that it got much worse. The girl disclosed to her mother when she was eleven, but no action was taken. She developed an eating disorder and had a history of mental health problems, self-harm and so on, and dropped out of school when she was fifteen. There was a period in foster care. She had convictions for shoplifting and possession, a termination when she was seventeen. In her late twenties, it would seem she managed to turn things round for some reason and did some secretarial training and now works as a receptionist and admin assistant in a veterinary practice in Parnwell. At the age of thirty-one, she finally walked into Thorpe Wood Police Station and made a criminal complaint against her father.

  After that, things got more complicated. Thomas Warren was questioned under caution. He denied the allegations, said he was shocked anyone could say such things about him and it was well known his daughter had had mental health problems her whole life. The mother was dead by then but the brother was interviewed and knew nothing about it.

  Historic crime, Warren’s word against his daughter’s, no corroboration – it was all going to depend on how reliable she was as a witness and that wasn’t looking very good. There was her history of mental difficulties, the substance abuse. One Saturday night she had been arrested for drunk and disorderly – the officers had had to put a spit hood on her. In her initial statement, she got some key dates wrong, including the one when her father moved out of the family home, which was pretty essential. Thomas Warren had a steady employment history as a delivery driver. He paid his child maintenance regularly after the divorce. There were no other allegations against him. (At this point, Lockhart thinks, if it had been up to him, he would have wanted a good look at Warren’s computer, but you can’t do that without a search warrant and you don’t get one of those out of a magistrate unless he or she thinks there’s good reason.) The investigation stalled and if anyone involved had been asked at that stage, they probably would have said it was going nowhere.

  Then in October, the girl attended Thorpe Wood again but this time with her brother in tow. Turned out the bastard had done it to him too. Thomas Warren was arrested and informed of the additional allegation. A week later he walked into Peterborough Railway Station at 4 a.m., saving his children the distress of giving evidence and the public purse a great deal of money.

  I hover by the wall to one side, reading what Lockhart is reading on his computer.

  Thing is, until there was corroboration, Lockhart is thinking, he would have had his doubts about this one too – not because he is a cynical or disbelieving sort but because Thomas Warren seems like such a normal, regular guy. Lockhart thinks about his little niece, who he adores; the twin boys his cousin in Ruislip had in the new year, eleven months old they are now, and there’s a picture of them on the family’s Facebook page sitting in high chairs opposite each other clutching plastic spoons in their fat little fists and trying to feed each other. The idea that anyone could hurt a child, let alone his own child … doesn’t every fibre of your body scream against it? How is it physically possible? As he sits there, Lockhart shakes his head.

  It is literally unimaginable, a man who looks just like his uncle or his cousin or his favourite teacher at school: it is so much easier to believe that a troubled young woman is a bit nuts. Some people just are, after all – like most police officers, Lockhart spends half his job dealing with people’s mental health issues. And it’s not like Warren was a TV celebrity or anything, when he reckons half of them are only jumping on the bandwagon in the hope of making a bit of cash off the tabloids – no, Warren was just a regular Joe, and that’s what makes it so hard to believe. Lockhart stares at the photo of Warren on the computer, his driving licence shot. He sits back in his chair and sighs; then he leans forward and picks up the phone.

  When the number answers he says, ‘Can I speak to the Mortuary Manager?’

  He’s on the phone to Peterborough City Hospital, which is where the mortal remains of Thomas Warren will be sitting in a fridge while his ghost continually enters the station, climbs the stairs, crosses the walkway, descends the stairs to Platform Seven and heads for the metal bench.

/>   ‘Hello, this is PC Lockhart from the British Transport Police …’ Lockhart explains he is calling to see if the pathology report is ready as he needs it to collate his information and send it all on to the Coroner’s Office.

  A woman is explaining to Lockhart that the report is all ready, just needs printing up and putting in its folder.

  ‘Great. Can I just ask, has anyone from Cambridgeshire Constabulary been making enquiries?’ Lockhart says. Inspector Barker has asked him to make sure that it stays firmly within their remit. Because Thomas Warren was under investigation, the Home Office boys might be poking their noses in. On occasion there can be a bit of dispute if something happens on the boundary line but this one took place actually inside the station: it’s definitely theirs.

  ‘No, not the lads,’ the woman says, pauses, then adds a phrase that is always guaranteed to make an investigating officer’s ears twitch. ‘It’s probably nothing, but …’

  ‘What?’ asks Lockhart.

  ‘Dunno, odd, but one of our registrars seems a bit obsessed with this one. Came and asked me a lot of questions, about exactly what happened, then came back a couple of days later and asked to view the remains. He got quite, well, not upset exactly, more …’ Lockhart knows when to stay silent and let someone finish a sentence. It’s a quality that will serve him well when he becomes a detective. ‘More sort of, I’m not sure of the right word, fascinated. If I didn’t know better, I’d’ve thought he’d just taken something.’ She gives a little snorty laugh, to indicate this is a joke. She doesn’t want this police officer to think their junior doctors go round dropping tabs or mainlining oxytocin.

  ‘Any relation to the deceased?’

  ‘I don’t know, he didn’t say, but I worried a bit after, maybe he was and I shouldn’t have let him. Tricky though, when he’s a doctor, you know, you just assume it’s something professional. I suppose I should’ve asked.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Dr Goodison, works in the Fracture Clinic.’

  Lockhart recognises the name immediately – he’s read the Coroner Liaison Report on Lisa Evans. Matthew Goodison was her boyfriend. He gave evidence at the inquest into her death.

  ‘Look, um, if the report’s being printed, any chance I could swing by this afternoon and pick it up in person?’ Lockhart asks then.

  ‘Sure,’ the Mortuary Manager says. ‘Make sure it’s after I’m back from my lunch break, one thirty, I’ll check it’s been collated.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  *

  Lockhart prints out some papers from the computer, adds them to the small pile on the side of his desk, then opens the top drawer on the left-hand side. It contains his handcuffs in dull black metal, a canister of CS spray in its holster and a half-eaten chocolate-covered flapjack. He takes out the flapjack. It’s hot in the office, Victorian heating pipes on full, non-adjustable. The chocolate coating sticks to the plastic wrapper and comes away as he unwraps the flapjack: he frowns, takes a bite. The flapjack disintegrates all over him but he doesn’t notice as he is too busy using his front teeth to scrape the chocolate away from the plastic wrapper when Barker comes in, the door to the office swinging open so swiftly that Lockhart is caught with chocolate on his teeth and oats on his shirt.

  ‘Ugh,’ says Barker, ‘how come you eat so much of that crap?’

  ‘Sir,’ says Lockhart, swallowing.

  ‘Why don’t you go over and get a pasty for God’s sake, they’re much more healthy for you. I hope your mother raised you to brush your teeth regularly.’ Barker stops where he stands and his expression takes on a philosophical air. ‘When you think about it, all we really are is teeth.’

  Lockhart gives Barker a querying look.

  ‘Yes, think about it, son,’ Barker says, warming to his topic. ‘DNA doesn’t count because that’s everything, and invisible, it’s just science, and I know there’s fingerprints but think how quickly they go – decomposition I mean.’ Lockhart has an image of insects, many types of insect but blowflies mostly, hiding in eyes and mouths and nostrils. Thanks for that, sir, he thinks. ‘So discounting fingerprints,’ Barker continues, ‘it’s really all about teeth.’ Barker bares his own teeth in a grin that has only a fleeting relationship with mirth. ‘Show me yours.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Show me your teeth.’

  Lockhart runs his tongue over his teeth and pushes his lips letterbox-shaped.

  ‘Thought so,’ says Barker. ‘They aren’t any whiter than mine, it’s just the skin contrast. You’re lucky, you know, you lot, must save you money on cosmetic dentistry.’

  Lockhart wants to say, that will be You Lot with a capital Y and a capital L then, meaning all Asian or part-Asian people all over the world who regardless of age, class or geographical location all have the same characteristic because we just do. He does not share this thought with his boss. Instead he says mildly, ‘I must admit I’ve never thought of it that way, sir.’

  Barker claps his hand on Lockhart’s shoulder. ‘Stick with me, son, you’ll learn a whole load of things you’ve never thought of.’ He is sort of taking the mickey out of himself at this point. ‘How’s the report coming along?’

  Lockhart swivels in his chair and taps the pile of papers with his forefinger. ‘Nearly there. Off to the hospital to pick up the pathology report, then we’re all done.’

  Barker hitches his right buttock onto a neighbouring desk and folds his arms. ‘And what about that other one, find anything out?’

  Lockhart is pleased he is asking, knowing his boss to be a little sceptical about his interest in the other death.

  ‘Spoke to CID,’ Lockhart says. ‘They checked her phone records. She didn’t call anyone in the moments before but she’d left a suicide note, boyfriend saw it too late.’

  Barker looks at him. ‘And …’

  ‘And something about it still doesn’t smell right.’

  Leyla.

  Barker gazes at his young PC. I watch the way he looks at him and I know that he is thinking of his younger self, how the one thing he learned was to trust his own instinct, to follow his nose. There are some young officers, perfectly decent ones, who just want to come in and do their hours and get the pay cheque, which is perfectly understandable of course, and there are some who have a nose, and having just speculated on Lockhart’s teeth he is now thinking about his nose – physically a slender, rather fine nose. It’s a good nose.

  ‘Go ahead and do whatever you need to do, never let it go,’ Barker says, seriously.

  Lockhart looks at him and knows he is being trusted and says, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Barker rises from the desk. Before he can leave the office, Lockhart asks, ‘The boyfriend, gave evidence at the inquest, he was a doctor. Matthew Goodison, works at the hospital. Name mean anything, sir?’

  Barker shakes his head. ‘Nope, nothing to me.’

  *

  Peterborough City Hospital is part of a huge out-of-town complex that includes sports grounds and factories. There’s always a queue of traffic going up to the main entrance, on account of all the people who have to get lifts or minicabs – I remember being stuck in it when I went there that day to see Dr Barnard, not long before I died.

  Lockhart parks in the service car park round the side and walks up to the main atrium, vast and vaulted, with a round information desk. As he goes past the Costa franchise where I didn’t buy myself a coffee that day, he is filled with a sudden and overwhelming desire for a coconut flat white. Unlike me, he indulges the impulse. While he drinks it, he stands in front of the atrium wall and studies the A–Z Wayfinder – otherwise known as a map. The mortuary isn’t listed but he knows it’s at the back of the building. The Fracture and Orthopaedic Clinic is on the ground floor – it’s part of A & E. It’s 1.15 p.m. He’s a bit early for the mortuary; he’ll only be sitting around.

  At Fracture Clinic Reception, he asks for Dr Goodison. The receptionist looks him up and down and says the doctor is with a patien
t but he might be able to pop out in a minute. ‘Tell him it’s not urgent,’ Lockhart says. You can’t really turn up in uniform at someone’s workplace and ask to see them without causing a bit of a stir.

  He sits on one of the plastic chairs arranged along a wall in the waiting room. There is a smell of disinfectant and the parts of his trousers between the chair and the backs of his thighs become ever so slightly damp.

  ‘Officer?’

  A tall young man with slick dark hair and a pale face has materialised in front of Lockhart. He must have moved quietly. He is standing quite close, looking down at him, with a greyeyed, assessing gaze. He is wearing a doctor’s coat.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Lockhart looks up and would stand at that point but hesitates because the doctor is so close to him, almost toe to toe, that if he levered himself upwards they would be nose to nose, which would feel oddly aggressive.

  ‘Are you the officer who asked for me?’ As if there were any other officers in the vicinity. The four patients ranged on other chairs are all staring at them.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Looking up at the doctor is giving Lockhart a crick in the neck and making him feel at a disadvantage so he stands and, as he does, the doctor takes a step back and Lockhart’s unease is dispelled.

  The doctor extends his hand and his grip is warm and firm. He looks Lockhart right in the eyes and says to him, with a slight smile, ‘How can I help you?’ He runs a hand through his hair, which is ever so slightly greasy, and Lockhart notices the lock of white at one temple. He glances around and takes a few steps out into the corridor, to ensure they can’t be overheard by the people in the waiting room. The doctor follows.

  Lockhart says, ‘I’m here to pick up a pathology report on a Thomas Warren. Lady at the mortuary said you’d been asking about him. I was just wondering why the interest, did you know him? Former patient?’