Beyond the Blood Streams

by Ben Oakley

  My heart virtually dropped as I hid myself again behind the tree, thinking he had seen me, and also wondering what I was going to do. This wasn't a movie, I wasn't gonna win a street fight with him, although I would have put everything into it. I took one last peek, the son-of-a-bitch was headed right towards me.

  I heard him come closer and there was only one thing to do. I had to time it just right otherwise he'd get away from me. I fired myself up and readied an attacking stance. As soon as I felt he was right there, I lunged out from behind the tree pushing him with all my might.

  I managed to shove him forcefully enough to send him to the ground in an awkward fashion. I had pushed him over so hard he collapsed onto the back of a bench that was four metres away from the tree. He crumpled to the ground, turned to me and shouted out in pain.

  His hand shot up to his upper right arm and he cradled it as if he was in a sling. I could tell straight away he had dislocated his shoulder. As much as I really did feel slightly awful I'd hurt someone in that way, I also felt kinda good, as I had incapacitated him with one shove.

  And so my own fear fell away and a confidence took over.

  I stepped towards him and knocked off his cap.

  “Get up, sit on the bench,” I said.

  He grimaced, “you broke my shoulder.”

  “It's not broken, it's dislocated. Get up or I'll drag you to your feet with your bad arm.”

  He struggled to his feet and called out in agony, “I didn't do anything!”

  He managed to step around the bench and stood in front of it. He moved his hand to his wrist to comfort the pain in his shoulder and then pulled it closely to his chest.

  “Sit down,” I said nudging him with a little tap.

  He groaned again as he dropped to the bench but finally found a position where he could be mildly comfortable.

  “Please, help me get my shoulder back in,” he cried out, before looking up at me. “Well look at that, it's Harrison Lake.”

  “It's no coincidence you know me is it? Michael Drake.”

  “Yeah, I'm him, so what? I ain't done nothing wrong.”

  “I don't think right is in your vocabulary.”

  “Oh you know that do you? You don't know what I've had to do. What I've done to change. You don't know me.”

  “But you know me. Where is she?”

  “Where's who?”

  “I swear to God, when the others get here they ain't gonna be so light on you. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them dislocates your other shoulder. You're not getting off this lightly.”

  “What do you think I've done?”

  “Where is she?”

  He tried to sit back and I could see his shoulder was now lower than the other one. I thought back to my own dislocation when I was younger. I knew the pain he was in and it wouldn't get any better until it was reset.

  “I don't understand who she is?” he said again.

  “Detective Megan Paine! Where are you keeping her?” I was about to lose my rag.

  There was something about him I couldn't quite put a finger on and it was bugging me. He didn't look like a killer but I supposed no one looked like a killer. His record backed it up, the way he ran off, the Pink Panthers connection, the witness.

  “Who... you mean the woman in the other kayak?”

  “So it was you. You were watching us go into the tunnel.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Because you threw away evidence in there and were watching us to see if we'd find it. You were watching Paine and planning to take her as the next victim.”

  “No, no, you got it all wrong, I wasn't there to spy on you. What the hell do you think I am?”

  I leaned forward, “you were seen on a canal boat and then on the side of the canal. You were watching me at the hospital and you have close access to young women who work at the club.”

  He tried to raise his hands but couldn't because of the pain. “Wait, you've got it all wrong, please.”

  I threatened to hit him, even though it wasn't in my nature, “where is she?”

  “I wasn't spying on you!”

  “You were following us all that time!”

  “I wasn't following you!”

  “Don't lie to me. You were watching us.”

  “I wasn't watching you.”

  “Yes you were,” I shouted.

  He shouted back with intent, “I was watching him!”

  Thirty Nine

  The fire drained from within me and I frowned at him. I also frowned at myself, cocking my head to the side as if I had misheard him. What was this? Was this part of his game?

  I tried to shake the thought from my head but I remembered back to what Miss Jameson had said about the guy, that he was standing there just staring at us. I tried to speak but struggled to formulate a sentence. Finally it came out and I fell into his game.

  “Watching who?”

  Drake nodded, “Doctor Foster.”

  Suddenly the panic rooted me to the ground and I struggled to take a breath.

  “What did you say?” I sat next to him.

  “I was following Doctor Foster.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I suspected he was up to no good. Why the hell else would you want to follow someone?”

  I scratched my head and looked into the distance where I thought I saw an unmarked patrol car pass by. The others would be here soon enough. Was Drake playing me or actually telling the truth?

  “How would Doctor Foster be involved in this?”

  “He didn't seem right when I was under his care.”

  “When the hell would you have been under his care?” I asked the question but the answer had already clicked in my head. “When you had to spend a month in hospital as part of your sentencing?”

  “Jeez, I wasn't sentenced to psychiatric care. I needed it. I was out of my mind and I can't excuse myself from that but I have followed every course of action available to me to better myself and help others around me. You think I get paid for working at the football club? Every Saturday I go there and work at the ground for free because it's a community project and I wanted to give back to the community. I've served my time and I live with the regret of what I did every single day of my life.”

  He was sounding honest at the very least but I had to press ahead. “What happened at Linden?”

  He shook his head and looked around with apprehension and worry. He grimaced again and tried to take deep breaths. But he was still skirting around the question.

  I continued, “they're coming to arrest you as you're suddenly their number one suspect. I put you here and I can get you out of it but not until the real killer is caught. They will not believe you. So tell me what you know? What happened at Linden?”

  He nodded, “alright. I was there seven years ago for about a month after my mental collapse. I was there at the time they split the girls and boys.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I arrived it was a mixed sex hospital, wards were shared, public areas were shared and it felt a little bit nicer. But a new law had come in and so they pretty much divided the hospital in two, just a week after I'd been there. Girls on one side, boys on the other. I was there when they sealed shut the middle door. The only time we saw girls after that was if we had a psychology group on our timetable.”

  “What are you getting it? Be quick here, man, they're gonna be here any minute.”

  “When I arrived I got on well with two of the girls and was pretty sociable with them. The following week, I saw them in a psychology group and they were different. Nothing about them was right, all the girls there were drained of any soul they once had. They couldn't remember my name, they looked like zombies and wouldn't speak to me about anything much at all. They couldn't.

  “A few days later I got out through the smoking area. I climbed over to the girls half and spied on them through the windows. I needed to know what was going on there. Why the hell they were so doped up and unresponsive
?

  “Then a light came on and I saw Doctor Foster walk along the corridor and stand outside one of the rooms. He pulled back the privacy shutters on the window and stared in for what seemed like ages. Then he opened the door, without turning off the light. As the door closed slowly, I saw one of the girl's inside, shaking her head at him in fear.

  “I knew the girl, there was nothing wrong with her before she got into Linden but I think she was his first. Anyway, he reached into his pocket and took out a syringe. Then he held her down as she tried to fight him off but she was too sedated so he injected her just before the door shut. I was terrified and scrambled back over the wall.

  I gulped, there could have been a number of reasons why any doctor was entering a private ward. There had never been anything untoward about Doctor Foster, only his smoking and his desire to help me.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing for a few years, I got out and bettered my life. I had found hope, and lived my life holding onto this secret with no one to tell. Then I met her again last year.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl in room 18.”

  “How did you meet her again?”

  “Luck, chance, fate, destiny, whatever you wanna call it.”

  “And?”

  “She looked different and had a new name. She told me she had been abused by Foster for years but somehow managed to pull herself away from him. She said she found salvation in the most unlikeliest of places. We then began a relationship and fell in love.

  “When the bodies started being pulled out of the canal, we both remembered what Foster had done. Then I knew of someone who lost a sister to the Blood Streams and it was then I realised it could have been Foster. I just had a gut feeling something was wrong with the guy. More than a gut feeling really but together we couldn't prove anything.”

  I never shied away from a gut feeling, it was what drove me onwards sometimes. Michael Drake was believable and suddenly Doctor Foster was in my mind and I couldn't get him out. He did have access to patients and people of ill mental health.

  “So you followed him?”

  “A few times I did yeah, I thought he might have been the killer so I tracked him from the hospital to his home in Kensington.”

  “He lives in Kensington?”

  “I think it was rented, I had a feeling he lived outside of London but couldn't track him anywhere else. So one night, not too long ago, I followed him and he got on a small rowing boat and started rowing through Maida Hill Tunnel. I thought it was strange as you hardly ever see boats moving on the canal after dark. Then he threw a few items into the water, I couldn't see what they were though.”

  “Then you saw us go in there on the kayaks?”

  “Yeah but that was luck, it was a few weeks later when more bodies had been found that I realised there was an investigation taking place. I was following Detective Paine but not for any other reason than I wanted to see if you really were after Foster. I just happened to be spying on you when you entered the tunnel. That's it, man.”

  I scrunched up my nose and sighed, taking in a deep breath.

  I glanced around and saw Berg enter the top of the park on the north end. He was walking briskly towards us followed by four officers. I stood and put my hands on my hips.

  Looking back to Michael with urgency I said, “what does you gut tell you?”

  He nodded in appreciation, “Doctor Foster is the Blood Streams killer.”

  “I can't prove that, Michael.”

  “You have to – for all of us.”

  “I'm going to Linden in the next hour. Tell me what I need to be looking for?”

  The question threw him a bit. “They're not gonna give you free reign up there, you'll be cast out like the rest of us. But if you manage to snoop around then get to the files in the Red Ward, I'm positive all the victims will have been through there at some point. My girlfriend was in room 18, but she wasn't my girlfriend at the time. Not until a few years later. Check room 18. Look at it from my perspective, you'll see I'm telling the truth.”

  “What's your girlfriend's name?”

  He shook his head and looked away. “All we ever wanted is a better life for the both of us, on the shoreline of a new ocean in a better world.”

  I would want to keep her a secret too but if I didn't find anything there, then I was going to need her name. Still, he had given me more than I expected, even if it had thrown me off on a complete curveball.

  I reached in and placed my hand on his head. “Thank you. And I'm sorry about your shoulder.”

  He grimaced and looked at me, “well, it was a good shove.”

  Berg ran into the situation and patted me on the back, the officer followed quickly behind. They assessed the situation and Berg pointed at the officers to arrest Michael.

  “Wait,” I said, “be careful, I broke his shoulder.”

  “I take the pat back,” Berg said. “Now he's going to have to go the bloody hospital.” He took out his radio, “can I get an ambulance over to Camden Square gardens, suspect injured.”

  “Berg?” I said, pulling him to one side.

  “What is it, Lake, haven't done enough damage for one morning?”

  I heard Michael cry out in pain as the officers tried to get him too his feet. They then stopped what they were doing and decided it best to wait for the ambulance. Dammit, I told them not to move him. I glanced at Berg who was looking at me with his eyebrows raised extraordinarily high.

  “Get him over to the UCH,” I said, “and bring Doctor Clive Foster into custody.”

  “What for?”

  “This Michael Drake isn't the killer, he's just named Foster in all of this.”

  “That doesn't mean anything. People point the finger all the time,” Berg said.

  “Foster is now a suspect in this case. Jeez, you're the damn detective, do I need to spell everything out for you?”

  “You're believing this guy?”

  “I'm listening to my gut.”

  Berg took a step closer to me, sniffed and scratched his cheek. He glanced over at Drake who was in more pain as time went on.

  “You believe your gut?” Berg said, before looking back at me.

  “It hardly ever lets me down.”

  “Give me a percentage?”

  “You seriously want me to come up with a percentage of how many times my gut leads me in the right direction?” He didn't respond so I entertained him. “Ninety over ten.”

  “90% your gut is right?”

  I nodded, “we're running out of time. Paine dies in approximately fifteen hours from now if we don't catch this guy.” I pointed to Drake, “this is not the Blood Streams Killer but he needs to be under protection at the same time. Are you hearing me?”

  “I hear you, Lake, loud and clear.”

  I walked off in a northerly direction across the park and noticed some of the local residents watching us. They were either standing outside on their porches or peering intently out of the window. I'm sure it wouldn't have been the first time they'd seen police in Camden Square. I'm also sure that most were on their social media accounts right at that moment, providing a running commentary of the latest incident.

  Berg called after me, “where are you headed to?”

  There was only one destination left; “Linden Psychiatric Hospital.”

  Forty

  Linden Psychiatric Hospital was in Arnos Grove, about three miles north of Camden Square and within my circle of restriction. It was just off Arnos Park, a public gardens just a few hundred metres from the Tube station.

  I had accosted one of the officers to take me there in an unmarked car and we didn't speak about anything at all on the journey. I asked him to drop me on the other side of the park so I had time to think about things before I entered the site. He did ask if I wanted him to wait and I thought it was a good idea, so he parked a couple of roads away.

  I got on the phone to Salt.

  “It's Lake, has Foster been ar
rested?”

  “Mr. Lake, the warrant has only just gone live. Someone is about to head over to the UCH now to pick him up. He's your suspect, am I right?”

  “One of many but he's in my top ten.”

  “You have more than ten suspects?”

  “Like you wouldn't believe. Never try and explain something unless you're sure it happened first.” I had Daisy the waitress to thank for that one.

  “Who else is on your list?”

  “Keeping that close to my chest.”

  “You don't think we can help with that?”

  “It'd take longer for me to explain why they are suspects than it would to actually get out there and do some detective work. However, Foster has to be our prime suspect at the moment. He needs to be picked up.”

  “Are you headed to Linden?”

  “Outside now.”

  I hung up on him, probably not the best thing to have done but I did it anyway. I strolled across the park not entirely knowing what to expect. I had seen the building in pictures only. From aerial drone images it looked like a giant circle with a thick middle line and open space on either side of it. Almost like a stop sign but coloured white with streaks of brown in the natural wood that adorned some of the frontage.

  I'll be honest, it looked pretty decent and relaxing as far as hospitals went. But then this was a long-term care hospital, anything from 72 hours to six months and even longer. It had to have an air of the residential to it, to placate the patients and the families of the patients.

  I had sifted through deadcalm1978's research material and learned the layout of the hospital and the staff details before I went in. I had to make them believe they had the upper hand and use it to my advantage.

  Just before I got to the other side of the park and the entrance to Linden, my phone started playing out the classical ringtone again. Had I pissed off Salt that much for hanging up?

  But it wasn't Salt.

  I answered, “Stansey? What have you found?”

  “Harrison, the names on the list.”

  “What about them?”

  “It's amazing what you can find on the internet. I searched social media for the names and discovered they had received psychiatric treatment at some point in their lives.”