by Knight, Ali
He struggled out of the water, the thin bathmat failing to cope with the water draining off his long limbs. He used his foot to sweep the dishcloth of a bathmat around the soaking floor. He wrapped a towel round his middle and padded downstairs, shaking water from his hair like Chester after a dunk in the park pond.
Mum was reading a card, a friend expressing her sympathy probably, which had come with a gift box of lotions and potions. She was staring absent-mindedly out of the window, rubbing cream across her knuckles.
She turned and appraised him. ‘Goodness, look at you. It’s funny, I forget that you’re so tall.’ She sighed, a faraway smile appearing. ‘So strong. I never thought I’d see a six-pack again! You’re lucky your genetic heritage isn’t ours. Evanses are short and Michaelses are stubby.’ Darren’s heart constricted as he saw what he thought was fear on her face. ‘Maybe you’ll avoid this fate too.’ She tapped her chest and held up the card.
Darren felt goosebumps stand up proud on his arms as if a door was open somewhere. He sat down next to her on the sofa and put his arm round her shoulders. He felt a desperate tenderness for her that he couldn’t express. He wanted to take away some of her pain, to soothe her, if only for a moment. ‘Mum, I’ve got a job interview.’
Her tired eyes widened in surprise and her face creased into a smile. ‘That’s great. Where?’
Now Darren wished he could take it back. This was typical of him; he had acted on impulse to try to make things better and had not thought through the consequences. His mind had drained of every word except the one he couldn’t say: Roehampton. He struggled to think of a job that would please her and cast around the room, hunting for inspiration. He saw a crown on the front of a pack of Tarot cards on the table. ‘At King’s College Hospital. In the records department.’ He didn’t even have the ambition to think of a creative lie, he thought.
‘That’s fantastic. It’s a start. Think of that debt you’ve built up.’
‘You only pay off the student debt when you start earning enough.’
‘Well, they’ll be waiting a long time, eh?’ She stood up, ruffling his hair fondly, and left the room.
Darren picked up the card next to the gift box; it was from one of her friends. The loopy writing said, ‘A little something to help you face the battle that is to come.’
Darren put the card back on the coffee table, berating himself for his dull, stupid lie. In a couple of days he would have to tell Mum that he hadn’t got the job, which would make her feel worse, not better. He would seem even more of a failure to her. His eyes came to rest on the picture on the shelf by the fire, a photograph of Carly, Mum, Dad and him, on a beach in Devon, taken by a kindly dog walker. It had been shot the last summer before she was ripped from them. He had been happy then, a different person, a better person. The Witch had changed and reduced them all.
He got up fast and came out into the hall, grabbed his jacket that hung from the banister and went upstairs to his room. He rifled through his jacket looking for ID. He found a student card with a photo and his former student address on it, the name Darren Evans clearly printed across the middle. He glanced at his full-colour, top of the range printer, bought as a Christmas present by his parents for his artworks.
He opened his computer and began to work, days of inaction now replaced by a feverish concentration on forging an ID card. He played around with fonts, downloaded new ones that were subtly different. Four hours later he was placing a new ID card back in the worn plastic student card cover. He was proud of his work; it looked realistic. He knew that this card alone wouldn’t be enough to get the job – he needed a passport or driving licence too, and those were beyond his artistic skills. But he had to admit it felt good, it felt like he was taking action. It would get him in the door of Roehampton for an interview. It would get him closer than he had ever been to the woman who had murdered his sister.
6
Friday dawned hot and still as Darren cycled across south London to the hospital. Roehampton was uglier and shabbier than it looked onscreen. The woman at the front desk was in civilian clothes and made him fill out a pass, gave him the top copy and told him to pin it to his chest. He sat down on a plastic chair and watched people coming and going past a security checkpoint at the other end of the lobby.
He waited for ten minutes before Kamal, a big, north-African bruiser with eyes like bitter olives, collected him and took him through a swing door down a featureless corridor to his office, which looked like every other office Darren had ever seen: a desk, a chair, a computer, too much paper and the inescapable air that hours and hours of a life had been wasted on something pointless.
‘Sit down.’ Kamal tapped on the keyboard and looked at the screen. ‘Documents?’
Darren smiled and tried to look efficient, even though he was nervous. ‘Here’s something with my address on it.’ He handed Kamal his student ID card.
Kamal gave the document a careful look. Darren held his breath, panic beginning to build. On the wall behind Kamal was a large sign stating that anyone providing false information would be prosecuted.
If he had been put on the spot as to why he had come to Roehampton, Darren wouldn’t have been able to give a coherent answer beyond that he wanted to see where Olivia Duvall lived, smell what she smelled, see what she saw.
Kamal handed his ID card back. Darren breathed easier. ‘There are fifteen hundred people who work at Roehampton, including fifty-five cleaners, who I hire. Recruitment and retention are a big problem, my friend.’ He paused and stared at Darren. ‘Why do you want to work here?’
Darren swallowed. ‘I need a job.’ How lame did he sound?
‘How reliable are you?’
Darren shrugged. Not very, that’s what everyone said. ‘Very.’
‘If you don’t turn up you don’t get paid, you clock in and out, so if you’re late you’re deducted. It’s £7.50 an hour and you have to provide your own latex gloves, the uniform is provided by us but you have to wash it. Eight-hour shifts, with two breaks.’ Kamal was hurrying through everything, as he’d probably done a hundred times before.
Now he was staring at his hair. ‘What is that on your head?’
Darren put his hand protectively up to his dreads. ‘I can cover it, if that’s a problem—’
‘Cut it off.’
Darren shook his head. ‘I’m really sorry, but I can’t do that.’
Kamal made a scoffing sound. ‘You tell me, my friend, it’s your religion or something?’
Darren shrugged helplessly as Kamal tapped on the computer again. ‘A fine art degree.’ He gave Darren a sly look. ‘Can you draw an eight?’ He laughed at Darren’s stricken face. ‘It’s how you mop a floor.’ He stood up, balanced one fist on top of the other and made a quick figure-of-eight motion.
‘Oh yes, I see,’ Darren said.
‘Hand your tag in at reception on your way out. I’ll contact you if a position becomes available.’
‘Oh. OK. But don’t you need the checks and other documents?’
‘Of course. You can get started on that.’
There was a pause and Kamal looked up, as if surprised to see him still there.
Darren needed to ask one more thing. ‘Tell me, just so I know what to expect. Do you ever see, I mean will I have any contact with …’ Darren wasn’t sure even what to call them. ‘With the prisoners?’
‘With the inmates?’ Kamal narrowed his eyes. ‘They won’t stop you working.’
Darren sat in the chair expecting more, more grilling about his life, more opportunity to back out. But nothing happened, so he stood up and retraced his steps, making his way out of the building back to the car park and his bicycle. He almost burst out laughing as he unlocked it. What was he thinking of! He could never work here! It would become a mad story he’d tell his mates when he saw them later.
He got on his bike and coasted round the car park to the exit gate. He only saw the car screeching round the corner of the line of parked cars at
the last minute. The driver jammed on the brakes as Darren clipped the car’s bonnet and half fell off his bike, ending up with his bum on the tarmac.
The driver’s door opened. ‘God I’m so sorry, are you OK?’ A girl with bouncy blonde curls and a tight white T-shirt jumped out. Before Darren could say anything she continued. ‘I drive too fast, I know, I’m really sorry. Are you sure I didn’t hurt you? I’ve knocked you off.’
‘I’m fine I think.’ He stretched his legs and checked his bicycle. ‘The bike’s OK.’
‘This piece of crap car!’
He looked at her clapped-out Mazda, dented and scraped on every corner, but he really wanted to look at her. She had big blue eyes and sounded breathy, as if she had been running rather than sitting still.
‘I’m Chloe. I like your hair. They let you get away with that in there?’ She lifted her chin and thrust it at the building behind him.
Darren waited for the funny and clever reply that never came. ‘So you work here, yeah?’ he managed, eventually, getting to his knees on the concrete.
‘Kitchens. Shit I’m late, sorry, sorry, I need to run.’ She bent down and pulled at his hand. Her grip was tight and he got to his feet. He didn’t want to let go of her hand so he shook it instead.
‘I’m Darren.’
‘I owe you. Ride safely.’ She winked at him and ran back to the car. He watched her screech off to a parking space near the low red building, slam the door, run towards the entrance and disappear inside.
7
Darren slept easier for the next two nights than he had for a long time. He felt his boil of curiosity about Olivia had been lanced; but then it began to grow again, larger and more intrusive, and he spent increasing amounts of time on the internet reading every scrap of information he could find about Olivia.
After breakfast one morning, he knew he needed to look at something. ‘Mum, I want to see Carly’s stuff.’
Darren felt Dad stiffen, tea mug frozen an inch away from his face. ‘Your mum and I were going to go to visit Auntie Jackie …’
‘You don’t have to be with me when I look at it.’
Darren knew that the attic in the house was Carly’s space, where all that was left of her was stored, a makeshift mausoleum pressing down on their lives. No one was allowed to go in there unless Melanie was present; it was like she was guarding it, protecting the pathetic remnants of her daughter from being rifled over by family or police or, God forbid, journalists.
‘Well, I can help you when we get back from Jackie’s,’ Melanie said, ‘but I need to clear the bedroom so we can spread things out. Andy needs to move the blanket box – I can’t do that on my own, it’s too heavy, and I’m just too tired at the moment.’
‘Mum, I don’t need your help. I just want to … look at her things.’
‘Melanie, does it matter if he has a look at it?’ Andy asked.
‘I don’t want him to, not without me. I don’t want anything damaged.’
‘Mum, please!’
She rounded on him. ‘Is this about the dog? Chester’s death has got to me too, it unsettles a person, that sort of thing.’
‘I just want to – just look at what’s left.’
He saw his mum’s face go stony. She picked up one of the pillboxes that had appeared shortly after the cancer diagnosis and shook it in his face. ‘You know what this is?’ The pills rattled and bounced around their plastic prison like Lotto balls in a Saturday night draw. ‘This is my failure.’
‘Melanie baby—’
‘Andy, please. A mother does one thing. She looks after her child. Keeps her safe. These are the sign that I failed Carly. That I’m going to end up down there –’ she jabbed a finger melodramatically at the floor ‘– before I find her.’ Darren reached out to hold his mum’s hand but she pulled away. Her illness had brought on bouts of aggression mixed with a terrible passivity. ‘Oh, go up there if you want,’ she said, before leaving the room.
Out of respect for her he waited until she and his dad had left the house before he climbed the ladder into the stifling loft.
The contents of the first box were pathetic really, some schoolbooks with Carly’s handwriting in them now faint and at times indistinct, as if with every passing year she faded away a little more. Her skateboard poked out of another box that also contained storage boxes filled with jewelry and photos of her as a baby. There was a pile of images of her with her best friend Isla Bukowski, tongues sticking out, and back to back and hands aloft like Charlie’s Angels, brandishing imaginary guns.
Propped up in the corner of the attic was her surfboard. He ran his hands across the wax that still clung to its surface, brittle and flaking with age. He put his cheek on the graffiti tag she had designed and had painted on to the end of the board. It was her initials winding round each other, the C enclosing the E in a curly topographic embrace. Maybe she would have grown to be an artist; maybe he had become one because of his sister’s influence. So many what-ifs.
‘Where are you?’ he whispered. ‘Where in God’s name did you go?’ He wanted an answer to that question more than he wanted anything. He hugged the board like it was her body and he cried. He had not cried over Carly for a long time, years in fact. It wasn’t finished. More than anything, he needed to finish it, to get his sister a place in a graveyard before breast cancer carried his mum away. A grave was timeless, body after body in serried ranks in the grass, a stone angel gazing down. It was where she belonged. He laughed through his tears. Fighting to get into a graveyard, battling even for that.
His fingers traced over the bumps of wax and he thought again about Roehampton. He wouldn’t find any answers sitting in a stuffy attic in Streatham. But there was one person who knew exactly where Carly was. Just one.
8
With no job and no dog to walk, Darren found himself staring at a weekend that looked as long as a prison sentence. He needed to distract himself and began a self-imposed exercise regime – chin-ups on the bar in his bedroom, a run round the neighbourhood, yoga when he got home. As his mum got weaker, it was as if he was trying to defy her illness by getting stronger.
On Monday he drove his mum to her hospital appointment and cleaned the house for her. He was reading an article on the internet about serial killers when his phone rang – number unavailable. He answered cautiously, wondering if it might be Kamal.
It was. He was short and to the point. ‘Two people have left with no notice, I need you tomorrow. It’s a simple yes or no.’
Darren didn’t even hesitate. ‘When do I start?’
Darren arrived at Roehampton at 9.30 as instructed and locked up his bike, scanning the car park for Chloe’s car. He couldn’t see it.
He spent some time with a silent woman in an office next to Kamal’s, getting a pass with a photograph. He balked at seeing the name Smith, but didn’t have time to dwell on it as he followed her outside to a large cupboard where uniforms of varying sizes were stacked on shelves. The uniform was scratchy nylon and comprised a loose-fitting short-sleeved top with the Roehampton logo on the front and baggy trousers with an elasticated waist, with no pockets. He was handed a pair of disgusting white plastic shoes like surgeons wore.
He lined up with a small group of fellow cleaners and Kamal came out of his office to talk to them. ‘We’ve got a new recruit today, so I’ll tell you all the rules again. In the unlikely event that you meet a patient, don’t touch them. Don’t accept anything they give you. They have been told not to hand things over, so if they try, don’t think they’re being friendly – they’re not. You’re not to eat anything you find in the facility. Anything. Don’t chew gum. Wear your protective gloves at all times. All mobile phones must be put in the lockers. They are not to be carried at any time. Anyone found with a mobile phone will be dismissed and prosecuted. Take your watch off. It makes the time go quicker.
‘What goes in on the trolleys comes back out that door on the trolleys.’ He pointed to the door down the corridor. ‘No cleaning ag
ents, mops, wipes, scourers, are to be left anywhere in the facility.’
Kamal paused. ‘Let’s talk about the cells. Don’t touch or turn the mattress. All sorts of nasties have been found in there – syringes, razor blades, used Tampax. They have a plastic cover, but things get in.’ He let the sentence hang, probing a molar with a finger. ‘They remove the bedding themselves, so don’t be persuaded by them to touch it. Remember, they know all these rules, so don’t let them play you. You don’t want to be the individual who ends up on the news because of a simple thing you forgot. Now go and get changed. You’ve got a minute and a half.’
They filed into the changing room and Darren put his stuff in one of the lockers. Three other men were changing in the room as well and they looked at him with tired eyes and total disinterest. They all filed out and Kamal led them down a long corridor to a door, which he unlocked with a large bunch of keys clipped to his waist. Darren looked up at the security camera pointing down at an angle from the ceiling.
The group turned right down another corridor with windows on to the car park and walked past a locked door and a set of stairs. Kamal opened a service cupboard and turned on the light. Metal buckets on wheels and mops were lined up neatly against the wall. A non-brand bottle of cleaner containing a yellow liquid the colour of urine hung off the side of each bucket. ‘You change the water in the bathrooms, old water must be disposed of in the toilets, not in the sinks. We clear? They say there are seventeen miles of corridor in this place,’ Kamal said. ‘And every bit of it needs to be cleaned.
‘Now, Darek, you take Newman ward, Yassir, you’re on Forsyth ward and the dayroom. Darren, you can do Porter, a nice easy way to get acquainted.’
Kamal walked away and the four men waited by the locked door. There was a loud buzzing noise and the door slid open automatically. They passed through and the door clanged shut behind them.
They were in a different world. The corridor seemed to have had the air sucked out of it and there was nothing but a smell of cleaning fluid and plastic. A big man in a dark uniform walked towards them, a large bunch of keys jangling at his waist. ‘Good day, gentlemen. Let’s rock and roll.’
