by H K Thompson
Richard Rowntree began to speak:
“I think that this is a very good outcome for Tess Dawson. She was obviously a troubled young woman and it seems to me that Mrs Doyle has done a very good job. I think we should accept Mrs Doyle’s recommendation and, in the light of the investigation into her brother’s death, which I understand is drugs related, we should reiterate her point about a witness protection programme. We must do whatever we can to rehabilitate her in safety. These people are mad and violent from what I hear and she could be facing their madness and violence on her own as soon as she leaves here. A trial will be an ordeal for her and I want her to know that we understand that and that we want to safeguard her security.”
His head moved round the table to address everyone in turn, including the Director who continued to avert his eyes and gaze into the middle distance. It would be his job to arrange for the Board’s recommendations to be negotiated and, if agreed, implemented.
The Board endorsed her recommendations and the Director was charged with the negotiation which he accepted without argument or comment. He left the meeting before tea and the usual social time that the Board members shared when meetings ended. Evelyn Doyle remained there, unusually, to chat. The members stood with cups and saucers in hands, firstly in silence and then with the quiet chatter of those who have been thrown together by circumstance and who found that they shared more with each other than they had thought. There was a subdued aura of responsibility that hung over the gathering. Sir Alex boomed as the late afternoon came, reassuring everyone by the manner of his bonhomie that what had happened had been just. Evelyn thought to herself that by Summer the Director could be gone, his days now numbered by the growing antipathy and frustration of the Board towards him.
*
Tess’s morning was taken up with her meeting with Inspector McKenzie, which was late in starting and Ann McKenzie was apologetic. Matters at the police station had held her up and, although she had phoned ahead to alert Tess of her late arrival, Tess had become fretful and anxious, trying to read the paper in the common room but failing. Instead she’d finally resorted to going to the office, enquiring whether someone could phone the Inspector and find out what was happening. In the end Ann McKenzie was over an hour late and Tess was at her wits’ end, angry and in tears, her anxiety elevated to breaking point. An apology came and went almost unnoticed by her, meaning little to Tess. By this time she was completely distracted. It took half an hour for Ann to talk her down and by then she was afraid that Tess would be unable to concentrate on the task in hand. Eventually Tess came back to earth and began to engage in the process, but it was not until after lunch that she could concentrate again and that her distress finally dissipated. It was evident to Ann McKenzie that Tess was fragile and that this encounter with the world outside the unit had pushed her towards the limits of her resources. She almost wished that Tess would not be able to identify her brother’s killers from the file of photos she had brought with her on the laptop. If she did she had to be given witness protection.
After lunch the two women began the delayed process of the electronic identity parade. They sat together in a small room at the top of the house where they would not be disturbed and where no one would see them. Concentration and discretion were both important. A veil of secrecy was already beginning to fall over Tess and she felt reassured by it. She felt oddly at home in the attic room, sitting to attention in front of a laptop looking at pictures of unknown men in the dimly lit space. She had grown to trust the Inspector to some extent, but she was cautious and guarded with her now. She knew that Ann was not like Evelyn or the members of staff at the unit. Her motivation was different. Tess felt that she cared about her but that she had a job to do and here, today, people to be recognised as one image was followed by another.
Each new face was scrutinised and left an impression on her. There was an accumulated effect and after the first twenty or so images she was beginning to feel burdened by the growing weight of human failings and despair that was paraded before her. Most of the men seemed unwashed, with shadowed faces and blank, belligerent or defeated eyes. They seemed unkempt and wild, unloved and wasted. She began to wonder whether these were her projections onto them because she knew that every one of them had a criminal record. She began to feel depressed by the procession of lives and faces scarred and imprinted with misery, defiance and lack of fulfilment. At times she had to look away to ward off the gazes of these sad and empty men. She saw one or two who reminded her of Stephen and grimaced to herself. He could have been here in this gallery of hopelessness, she thought. And then, suddenly, as she pressed the space key, a face flashed up in front of her and she saw what she had half-hoped she wouldn’t see: one of the men who had beaten and then probably killed her brother. She flinched and gasped and, like a child, pointed at the picture, speechless and suddenly breathless. She knew instinctively at that moment that her life had taken a new turn, so radical and so unwished-for that it took her a moment to focus her eyes and to say to the Inspector:
“He’s one. Not the main one, but one of the ones who beat Stephen.”
“Thank you, Tess.” She noted the reference number in her notebook and said:
“Let’s carry on and see if you can identify anyone else. Is that OK?”
“Yes. I’ve come this far.”
Tess pressed the space key and continued. There was no going back. She called up more faces and stopped again, less alarmed this time but still affected by the sudden recognition. She knew that she was dealing with a world that she feared and that was shocking. Stephen could have been among these faces. There was no difference between victim and perpetrator. She felt suddenly angry at the suffering that these men had inflicted and at their failure to understand themselves. Like Stephen they didn’t want to. It was easier to inflict pain on others and put off the moment when they would feel it for themselves. On impulse she pulled down the screen to blot out the images and said:
“I’d like a break. The last one I looked at. That was the other one who did the beating.”
Ann McKenzie pulled up the screen and said: “This one, Tess?”
“Yes. That one.”
“Thank you. Let’s take that break. Would you like to go down to the common room or shall I fetch you some tea and you can have it here?”
She suddenly needed to get away from the small room into a different space. She wanted some air and daylight. She stood with the Inspector and walked to the door, grabbing the handle and propelling herself through the opening into the spaciousness of the landing and the stairs, catching the rays from the skylight above. They walked together down the two flights of stairs in the direction of the common room.
*
Later, Tess resumed her search but found no other faces that fitted her image of the other man, the boss, the cold, taunting one who gave the orders. That meant, she thought, that he probably didn’t have a police record. She felt a little cheated, that he would go scot-free and only his henchmen would be caught and punished. She could feel the contempt rising in her chest, anger making her face hot and she said to the Inspector:
“The one who was the boss isn’t here. Only his two henchmen, the ones who followed orders. I suppose they count for something. He had to have someone to do his dirty work. I hope you find them and lock them up.”
“We can only do that with your help. They’re a start. We’ll know who they’re associated with and there’s every possibility that when we catch the third man you’ll be able to identify him too.”
“I’ve come this far,” she said again, as if she felt impelled by the inevitability of her role in the drama. “I can’t really stop here. It frightens me and I don’t look forward to what it all means. But I can’t stop now.”
“If this does go to Court and you are able to give evidence then we’ll do what we can to protect you. You know these people are dangerous. You saw it for yourself. We will offer you the witness protection programme.”
&nbs
p; Tess turned to look at her and said: “I’m sure it’ll all be alright.”
She felt suddenly dreamy and centred. She felt certain that, if she did this thing that she feared, everything would turn out for the best. She had no rationale for the feeling, only a gathering sense of wellbeing that had come, unprompted, into her body. She was beginning to feel that these unexplained and spontaneous feelings were part of her now. This, she had concluded only recently, was the new order of things, her new identity that embraced qualities she had never even imagined before. Her one real anxiety about leaving the unit and, more particularly, Evelyn, was that she would lose the ability to live in this new way and she would lose everything she’d gained.
For a long moment she knew that, come what may, this new way of being was more important than any danger in the outside world. She had come to value these sensations and her new knowledge far more than threats to her life or the menaces of the mean and violent nightmare world that now impinged upon her. She knew she was vulnerable and that her life could be easily extinguished. And still that core of her and a sense of being unshakeable continued as she sat in silence with Ann McKenzie. In the end she said:
“I mean, it’ll be OK and I sort of trust you and Wellbridge House to look after me until this bad thing is over. I must do this.”
Her conviction took root in her as she spoke. She was sealing her own fate and seemed determined. She said:
“I hope you find the other man, the boss.”
Chapter 27
From the moment Ann McKenzie reported to the Director in the late afternoon of that Monday things began to change at an accelerating rate. Peter Archer, still smarting from the Board meeting, was feeling irritable when he heard the knock on his door. When he had returned early from the meeting he instructed Mona that he wanted to see no one except Inspector McKenzie who he was expecting to visit him that afternoon. Mona could tell from his dismissive tone that things had not gone well and she was left to speculate about what had happened. She knew that the other Board members were still in the boardroom, which was unusual, given that the Director had left before tea. Later she remarked that the meeting didn’t break up until after five o’clock. She was intrigued as to why the Director had left and closeted himself in his office. At 4.35pm Inspector McKenzie came in and said that she was now in a position to report to the Director. She was referred on to his office. At her knock she heard Peter Archer say “enter” in his usual way and, when seated in front of his desk, she began her report to him.
“Tess Dawson and I have just completed our identity parade and she’s identified the two men who she saw beat up and probably kill her brother. She couldn’t identify the third man, the one in charge, from the shots we have, which is a shame. We think we’ll be able to pursue him through the contacts we have, given that we now have positive idents on the other two.”
She paused and then continued. “There is, however, the issue of Tess Dawson’s safety. She is clearly at risk, given who the two men she identified are. If she’s able to identify the third man as a consequence of our investigations then she will be in even greater danger. In my report to my Superintendent I’ll be recommending in the strongest terms that Tess goes into a witness protection programme. I’ve had some initial discussions and we’re beginning to conclude that the boss man responsible for Stephen Dawson’s death is almost certainly a big wheel in the organised drug scene and that if we can find evidence against him his successful prosecution will be a major achievement for us. Tess is a rather valuable asset at the moment and we want to make sure that she can give evidence.”
Peter Archer seemed pleased that he had an asset within his walls. Such talk perked him up. He straightened perceptibly in his chair.
“I see. Well, I think she’ll be safe enough whilst she’s here but, of course, I’m just about to start writing a report that tells my superiors that I’m recommending that Miss Dawson should be released from here as soon as the formalities are completed and that she should, as you say, go into witness protection. The Board was unanimous on both counts.”
“How long do you think it might be before she could be released?”
“For wheels to turn at the Ministry it could be at least six weeks, I should think. We don’t want to keep her a moment longer than we have to, for her sake as well as for the sake of the space here that is so much in demand. Can she be accommodated by witness protection in that time? It sounds to me as if it’s imperative that she can be.”
“I think we’ll have to make sure that she can be, don’t you?” she replied. “I’ll start things moving at my end. I take it that Tess doesn’t know yet about her probable discharge.”
“No she doesn’t, but I’ll see her before I leave tonight and prepare her for the probability.”
“She’ll need time to prepare herself. She is quite fragile, in my view. Leaving Wellbridge House and appearing in a trial at some point and feeling threatened by the men who killed her brother are going to test her resources, to put it mildly.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he replied curtly.
Ann McKenzie pursed her lips and stood up.
“Well, I have nothing more to report so I’ll leave you to get on.”
He jumped to his feet and held his hand out across the desk. She was perplexed and briefly confused by his mixed messages. He reminded her of a moody teenager trying to make amends. She shook his hand briefly, turned and left the room, relieved that the meeting was over.
*
Peter Archer summoned Tess Dawson to his office before supper that evening. She looked at him briefly and with some disdain, a look reserved only for him. She had hardened her dislike and mistrust of him over her time there, partly due to her growing self-confidence, partly because she now knew him better. When he told her about her probable release she found it difficult to believe him. She considered later, when she thought about it in the solitude of her room, that she hadn’t believed him because she was protecting herself. She was going to lose Wellbridge House and everything that it had given her: security, sanity and care. As she contemplated this new looming reality she felt firstly afraid.
Then she felt sad. Wellbridge House had been a home to her. It had given her the home she had never had earlier in her life. She regarded this as a privilege and one that she would always be grateful for. There was already a strong sense of impending loss and a shaky recognition that she might fail in the challenge of leaving. There, in the Director’s office, as he outlined the procedure he was about to embark on, she thought for the first time about freedom, about having served her time and about how she might live the rest of her life. She thought about the idea of the witness protection programme and the prospect of a new life, a new place, a new identity. She smiled to herself as she thought about how appropriate, now she had made so many changes, the idea of a new identity was. It appealed strongly to her as she considered the double meaning of it. In the weeks that followed it became her private joke, shared only with Evelyn during the last sessions of their time together.
Peter Archer told her he would keep her informed and liaise with Mrs Doyle about the discharge procedure and that he would expedite it as quickly as possible. She was not alarmed by his apparent haste, but she did feel as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of her. And then he abruptly ended the meeting and she found herself standing in the hallway reeling from everything he’d said and feeling as if she were floating two inches above the tiled floor. The supper bell had rung and she had heard it in his office perhaps ten minutes before. She walked to the dining room in search of food to restore her blood sugar level after a long and demanding day. She remembered that she would see Evelyn tomorrow and she felt better.
*
Reporting for her session the following day felt like coming home after a long and tiring journey. The therapy room was like an island of peace, the air palpably thick with stillness as she walked into it and sat down. In the last two or three sessions she’d no longer looked down
at the blue circled rug, collecting her thoughts and finding her point of departure. She looked at Evelyn and said:
“It seems like a long time since the last session because so much has happened. I’m going to be leaving here. I don’t know when but I think it could be soon. I expect you know that, though.”
She looked as if she were searching for some sign in Evelyn’s face that would tell her that she too knew and that she was prepared for what was to happen.
“Yes, I do know. It became apparent in the Board meeting yesterday that your discharge could be soon. I don’t know exactly when. We have to wait for the Ministry to assess the new information and make their decision. It isn’t a foregone conclusion, Tess, but the Board did unanimously recommend that you should be discharged and that you should be released into a witness protection programme.”
“Inspector McKenzie said something about that. I would prefer that but I feel OK either way. It’s strange, but when I’m not terrified at the prospect of leaving here and facing being a witness in a trial, I feel as if it really doesn’t matter, as if everything will be OK and will work out in whatever way it will. I wanted to say that to you. I’m not being brave or anything, just reconciled to whatever happens. I think it’s because I’m doing something important for my own conscience. As a matter of fact, I don’t really feel as if I have a choice, it just has to be done. It’s a good feeling, a powerful feeling. I’d be terrified if they came after me but here and now I feel OK with it all.”
She looked down at her knees, still and contained. Evelyn said:
“As I see it, we more than likely have only a few sessions left before you might leave. But I think we should wait for confirmation and not cross any bridges just yet. Let’s carry on as before in the knowledge that things might change rapidly but that at the moment nothing is certain.”
