by Adam Hamdy
‘Sorry,’ he croaked.
‘It’s OK,’ Bailey said with genuine sympathy. ‘Take as long as you need.’
Wallace lost track of how long he lay there without saying anything, fighting to tame his fear of the moment he almost died.
‘He kicked chair away,’ he said, finally pulling himself together. ‘Hung there. Tried to pull myself . . .’
Another moment of panic, followed by more patience and sympathy from Bailey.
‘Tried to pull self up,’ Wallace eventually continued. ‘Couldn’t hold weight. Let go.’
He broke down utterly as he recalled his abject failure. His life had literally been in his own hands and he’d dropped it. Fear, shame, anger and regret all swept over him as he sobbed in his hospital bed. His eyes were red and sore and his throat burned. This is important, he told himself. This policeman needs to believe you. He needs to get out there and find the man who did this to you. Anger took over and gave him the strength to continue.
‘Blacked out. Came to. Beam had snapped. Stood up. Pulled noose off. Killer came back.’
‘He was still in your flat?’ Bailey asked.
Wallace nodded.
‘Why? He must have thought he’d killed you,’ Bailey observed, puzzled.
‘Blocking door. Pulled something – Taser? Couldn’t fight – jumped out window.’
‘You jumped out of the window?’
‘Two floors. Killer followed. Got to bus. Safe. Now here.’
Bailey digested Wallace’s story for a moment, and then asked, ‘Can you think of any reason someone might want to kill you?’
Wallace shook his head.
‘Ex-lover? A business deal gone wrong? You ever associate with any dangerous people? Criminals?’
Wallace shook his head again. ‘Not many lovers. Live alone. Work alone. Films, mostly. No danger.’
‘Anyone get angry with you recently?’ Bailey pressed.
‘No,’ Wallace croaked hesitantly. ‘Was part of Masterson Inquiry,’ he conceded eventually.
‘I knew I recognised your name,’ Bailey remarked. ‘You think it might have had something to do with that?’
‘Long time ago,’ Wallace replied. ‘Was discredited. No threat to those soldiers. No threat to anyone.’
‘OK,’ Bailey conceded. ‘I’m going to check this out, talk to your neighbours and find out if anyone saw or heard anything. Is there anyone you’d like me to call for you?’
Wallace shook his head. Until he was in a firmer frame of mind and knew who’d tried to kill him, he wasn’t inclined to see or trust anyone.
‘Do you want me to let the hospital know?’ Bailey asked.
‘No.’
‘I only ask because you’ve been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. The doctors believe you pose a risk to yourself. If they knew all this, it might make a difference to how they assess you.’
Wallace smiled darkly. ‘Don’t believe me?’
‘You’ve obviously been through a terrible ordeal, but my job is to find out exactly what happened,’ Bailey replied. ‘I’m taking what you’ve told me very seriously.’
Wallace gave a small shrug; it was the best he could hope for in the circumstances.
‘So do you want me to tell them?’
‘No. No one. Safer.’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ Bailey said as he walked towards the door. ‘Feel better.’
As Wallace watched the young policeman exit he realised that he’d put all his trust, and his life, in the hands of a stranger. He prayed that it would pay off before pressing the call button. He needed the nurse. He longed for sleep. Whatever they had him on, he wanted more. He didn’t want to lie in his bleak hospital room haunted by the harrowing memories of his murder.
4
The girl’s toes reminded Wallace of the fallen columns he’d photographed at Karnak. Each digit comprised of three prominent phalanx bones lying haphazardly in line, joined by the past, being slowly eroded by the future. Wallace studied her face. Angular, almost jagged cheeks thrust out from pale, pockmarked skin. Sunken eyes, ringed by dark shadows. Lank blond hair falling in matted tresses that hid much of her face. Sharp angles all the way down, from her collarbones, their skeletal outline punctuating her narrow neck, to her bulbous ankles. Her name was Heather, and she was talking, but Wallace was barely listening. He had heard her story many times before and knew that her words held no secrets. Instead, he was trying to find meaning in her fragile, distorted beauty; her ribs, which cascaded down her torso like the arched keys of a macabre glockenspiel, their painful outlines visible underneath her thin white blouse, elbows and knees all raw, the skin stretched tight around the joints beneath, twin bones running along the forearm, broken only by the sweat bands on her wrists. Occasionally Heather would nervously play with one of the sweat bands and Wallace would catch a glimpse of the white scars hidden beneath.
Heather, the saddest girl in the world, too fragile for happiness, too resilient to escape. Had she been born unhappy? Or had the storm of life weathered her soul, grinding it down until only misery remained? Wallace watched her thin lips as they moved slowly, signposting her thoughts, but never revealing the truth. He looked up at Heather’s eyes. There, past the shadows, beyond the red rims, was the truth: Pain. Life brought Heather nothing but pain. It trapped her in suffering, but her lips, the purveyors of comforting lies, would never share the truth with the group. Maybe she harboured the hope that she’d get better. More likely she didn’t want to reveal the darkness within to Dr Taylor, who might never clear her for release and forever deprive her of the ability to make one more attempt to escape the pain.
The group meant that it was either Tuesday or Thursday. Wallace was having trouble with the days. The group. Five broken individuals. Six including Wallace. Seven including the doctor. Wallace would watch Taylor, his shining, full-bodied wavy hair, his pressed shirts and polished shoes, his Mont Blanc pen and Gucci glasses, all signets of his sanity. Great seals of civilisation that notarised the fact that Taylor was a functioning member of society. Only Wallace knew the truth. As the one vaguely sane person in the group, he could see the signs: the doctor’s hesitant questions, the doubt in his eyes, the fear in his voice. Taylor’s lips lied better than Heather’s, but Wallace knew the doctor was just as broken as his patients. He had to be. No sane person would choose to be surrounded by such sorrow. He’d have to be mad to believe these people could be saved. This was Wallace’s fifth, no, sixth – got to keep on top of time – session with the group and already he knew that Heather and her cadre of survivors were beyond help. The best any of them could hope for was to be patched up for a few more years of maladjusted misery. The bleak burden of what those people shared in that room weighed heavy on Wallace’s heart. Taylor could not be sane and remain unaffected by it. The doctor’s leery, bright-toothed smile and mind full of learning couldn’t do anything for them; to think otherwise was lunacy.
Taylor had chastised Wallace in an earlier session – third, definitely the third. Stay on top of time, John. The doctor had felt compelled to highlight Wallace’s lack of engagement. He spoke about the danger of distance and had begun to explore the perils of evasiveness before Wallace had been able to send his mind somewhere else. Distance. Disengagement. These were words he’d heard before, spoken by softer lips. Connie had initially accepted the distance. Learned to live with the long periods when he’d retreat into his mind and utterly ignore the world around him. But the more she’d accepted him and the closer she’d become, the further Wallace had withdrawn. Connections brought nothing but pain, and the people in this room were the starkest evidence of that truth.
He was finding it increasingly hard to keep track of abstract concepts like truth and identity. Robbed of the context of life, he was adrift. The very environment that was meant to cure these people made it all the more difficult to anchor the mind on something solid. Wallace had been medicated with a powerful cocktail of pills since admission. A miniature Tetris tray
of oddly shaped pills that would all fit together in his gut to make him a whole, happy person. Taylor had explained what each would do to his body and mind, but the conversation now seemed too distant to recall in any detail. In the cinema of his mind, the screen was cracked and faded, and the audio a low monotone of indecipherable phrases. Maybe the pills were making him drift? Maybe they broke his mind down to a malleable mass that could be reshaped into a sane whole by the dedicated Doctor Taylor?
That’s how it gets you, Wallace told himself. Dark, insipid thoughts. The product of a drugged mind that has nowhere else to go. You’re the same man you were four weeks ago. Except Wallace knew that he wasn’t. Someone had tried to kill him. He wasn’t able to close his eyes without seeing the mask. He wasn’t able to sleep without reliving the moment. The only difference between the dream and the reality was that in his dreams he died. But instead of painless oblivion, his death sent him hurtling through the most miserable moments of his life. Every single regret replayed and magnified by his nightly nightmare. When he was taken for his morning wash, the face that looked back at him from the mirror wasn’t his. He’d declined the services of the hospital barber and the ragged hair and scraggly beard that had materialised in the intervening weeks – three? four? definitely four – made him seem wild. When Wallace looked in the mirror he hoped he would have his eyes back. More than the sunken cheeks, the haunted expression or the pale skin, Wallace wanted rid of these eyes. Like Heather’s, they spoke of his pain. The tips of black icebergs, Wallace’s pupils were the start of a heavy darkness that plumbed the depths of his very existence. Everything about who he was, what he did, what he believed, the world around him – everything was a sham. His death. The noose. His final breath. That was reality.
‘Are you OK?’ Wallace became aware of a voice that wasn’t his own. It was Taylor, leaning forward, his face a picture of concern. Perhaps that was why Taylor chose this life; being surrounded by the most fractured specimens was the only way he could feel good about himself. ‘John?’
Wallace saw Heather look at him, her eyes brimming with pity. He touched a hand to his cheek and felt wet tears.
‘Did Heather’s story resonate with you?’ Taylor asked in a treacly voice that oozed with concern.
Wallace looked round the room. There was Rodney, who had tried to gas himself in his garage. Tina and Ken, who had both tried to overdose, and wheelchair-bound Martin, who had jumped off a bridge. These sad, broken spirits looked at him with overplayed pity. He had taken the heat of Taylor’s attention away from any of them and Wallace knew that they would applaud and encourage any attempt to keep it firmly fixed on him.
‘I’m OK,’ he replied. He wasn’t about to open up. Not now. He wasn’t about to tell Taylor that the source of his tears was his recently discovered never-ending river of self-pity. Guilt. Regret. Existential crisis. All markers of a breakdown, but he was not about to discuss them here. He looked at the attempted suicides and found new resolve. He was not one of them. Someone had tried to kill him. A random event that had wounded him, physically and mentally. He might even be experiencing a breakdown, but unlike the people around him, he was not yet broken. Time, not some smiling doctor, would heal him.
‘Are you sure?’ Taylor countered. ‘It’s been five weeks . . .’
Five! No. It’s been four, Wallace thought as he suddenly wondered whether Taylor was playing games with him.
‘. . . and you still haven’t shared anything with the group,’ Taylor continued. ‘I normally give people a maximum of eight sessions before insisting they tell their story. This is your tenth, John, and we still don’t even know your full name.’
‘I’m just John,’ Wallace replied. Someone had tried to kill him, and until he knew who that was, no one would know his identity. ‘You know I can’t tell you my name.’
Taylor looked as though he wanted to roll his eyes, but his training prevented him from doing anything so unprofessional. ‘I know why you think you can’t tell us. But once the police investigation is complete, we’re going to need to know. If necessary we’ll start canvassing for your name. Identity gives us context in life. It will enable us to help you get better.’
Wallace smiled. ‘I don’t need help. I really don’t belong here.’
‘You keep saying that, John,’ Taylor countered. ‘But how can you expect any of us to agree with you if you don’t tell us more about yourself?’
Wallace looked around the room. Why would he want to share anything with these strangers? Rodney’s eyes were vacant, the result of spending too long in his monoxide-filled garage. His movements were like a distant swell, slow and languid, his arms and legs carelessly rolling, as though his brain was struggling to retain control of them. What could Wallace hope to gain by sharing anything with this damaged man? Wallace was not a suicide. He had nothing in common with these people.
‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ Wallace responded.
Disappointment flashed across Taylor’s face. A lesser mind would have felt the pressure of guilt and sought to please Taylor by spilling its contents, but Wallace was wise to the doctor’s manipulation and simply stared at him defiantly.
‘Perhaps next time,’ Taylor conceded. ‘Heather, why don’t you carry on?’
Disappointment also clouded Heather’s face, but she lacked Wallace’s resolve in dealing with the doctor, and her lying lips continued their slow work. Wallace turned his thoughts to the future and wondered how he would secure his release without divulging his identity. Even if he told them who he was, they would never believe him without any evidence. He tried to recall the police officer who had visited him in hospital, but the man’s name remained beyond the haze of drugs. If Taylor was right and he’d been institutionalised for five weeks he might as well give up hope of the police coming to his rescue. Like everyone else, the detective had probably dismissed Wallace as a failed suicide. He wouldn’t have even bothered to follow up Wallace’s story. Whatever the future held, Wallace almost certainly faced it alone.
Ellie had chewed him out, but Bailey didn’t really give a shit. For all the advances in technology, forensics were there to support real detective work, which meant they did what they were told. And if he told them to sweep the home of an obvious suicide, that’s what they had to do. But they’d come up empty and Ellie had given him verbals for wasting her team’s time. Fuck her. Never, Bailey thought. Too geeky, with a pastiness that comes from spending too much time indoors. Bailey preferred his women fiery and tanned. His relationships didn’t last long, but they kept life interesting.
He parked in a resident’s bay on Hamilton Terrace. When he climbed out of his Vauxhall, he realised how out of place it looked, flanked by a Range Rover and a Bentley. Growing up in Streatham, Bailey had dreamed of being rich. But I’ll never be rich, Bailey thought as he crossed the pavement and started up the black-and-white tiled pathway that led to number 61 Hamilton Terrace. The converted red-brick church was one of the more modest buildings on the broad, tree-lined street. Next to it, concealed behind high walls and solid black gates, was a giant white mansion with opaque sky-blue windows. Here, in this fine neighbourhood, that pile would set a person back at least twenty-five million. Bailey felt a pang of jealousy, but consoled himself with the thought that he never had to worry about anyone breaking into his one-bedroom flat in Hackney. No threat of home invasion. No concerns about being held at knifepoint while the house was ransacked. Still, it would be nice to have the choice, the freedom to drop twenty-five mill on a pad. The guy who owned the white palace probably wouldn’t even notice the dent the purchase price made in his wallet. There were some people out there with way too much cash. Whiners ain’t winners. Bailey recalled his grandmother’s advice, which was doled out to him and any of his siblings whenever they complained they were getting a raw deal.
He focused on the job at hand: one more witness to interview. He’d made three visits to Hamilton Terrace over the past month. The first was to canvas the neighbours and fin
d out if anyone had seen or heard anything. He’d interviewed Steve Kent, the banker who lived in the basement, the Wilsons, a young family who rented the ground-floor flat and the Levines, a retired couple who had the flat on the first floor. But he hadn’t been able to reach Leona Stiles, the woman who lived directly above Wallace. Mrs Levine had told him that she was some sort of showgirl, who had left a few days after the incident to spend a few weeks working in Dubai. She wasn’t due back until the end of October. Beyond the immediate neighbours, Bailey had canvassed three homes either side of number 61. He’d only been able to talk to the staff in each of the adjacent properties and was told that the owners were away. No one with money spent autumn in London. Like the first ancients, these absentee landlords were sun worshippers. The only difference was that they had the resources to chase it around the globe.
None of the residents or staff had seen anything, suggesting that Wallace’s story was a work of fiction. Bailey’s second visit had been with Ellie and the forensics team, and, as he’d watched their meticulous work, he’d studied the collapsed beam and questioned whether a failed suicide really would follow an unsuccessful attempt with another immediate bid. It would take a particularly unhinged mind to leap out of the window after an abortive hanging, and, while Wallace had seemed distressed, he did not come across as unstable.
Even though the forensics team didn’t find anything to suggest attempted murder, Bailey couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Wallace had been telling the truth. The man had been deeply shaken and seemed genuinely convinced that someone had tried to kill him. So Bailey made a third visit just over a week ago to walk the course. He had checked the walls, gardens and outbuildings around number 61, invoking the ire of more than one security-conscious neighbour and the attention of the local uniforms. He had found nothing. No trace of a supposed intruder either inside or outside the property. With a certain amount of satisfaction, Ellie had told him that her team had concluded that John Wallace had attempted suicide, first by hanging, and then, when the decorative beam had collapsed, by jumping through his second-floor window. Nonetheless, Bailey’s instincts told him that the man had been telling the truth, so he had waited patiently for the return of the only remaining witness who could corroborate Wallace’s story.
