Lost Summer

by Stuart Harrison

  ‘I see what you mean. Do they know who it was?’

  ‘Not yet.’ The constable flicked his butt towards the water. ‘They might never know. And I don’t suppose they’ll ever find who did it.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Stands to reason doesn’t it? Whoever it was has been in there a bloody long time. No evidence see.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Adam stood up. ‘Well, the crowd should be gone now, so I better get going myself.’

  The constable suddenly appeared to regret having said so much, as if Adam was betraying his confidence by leaving.

  ‘On holiday you said?’ His tone was a little more officious.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  He left the constable looking vaguely worried about having said more than he should have. He started off through the trees heading back towards the road where he’d left his car. His knee still ached, and he was conscious of limping.

  His mobile phone rang as he was driving towards town and when he picked up it was Angela.

  ‘Did you hear what they found at Cold Tarn?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ve just come from there.’

  ‘I’ve been watching it on the news; they think it’s a body.’ She paused and then as if it had just occurred to her said, ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘The people that found it are staying at the pub. I was curious.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The line went silent, and he thought he’d lost the connection. ‘Angela?’

  ‘I’m here. I was thinking about something.’

  ‘You sound tired.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep well.’ Another long pause, and then she said, ‘David didn’t come home last night. I called the sawmill earlier but nobody’s seen him since yesterday.’

  ‘I saw him this morning. He was up at the lake.’

  ‘David was?’ She sounded puzzled. ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘No.’ She was silent again, no doubt wondering why not. ‘Look, what are you doing today?’ he asked impulsively.

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing specific I suppose. I’ve asked the mother of one of Kate’s friends if she could stay for a few days.’

  ‘I’ve got a few things to do, why don’t you come with me,’ he suggested.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered uncertainly. ‘I don’t want to get in the way.’

  ‘You won’t. I’d be glad of the company.’

  ‘What are you doing anyway?’

  ‘There are a few things I have to check on.’

  ‘Is this to do with the story you’re working on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He could sense her thinking about it, and he also sensed some underlying conflict in her. In the end she agreed though, and he told her he’d pick her up in half an hour.

  Carisbrook Hall had been built in 1825. Renovations were under way but it would be some time before the building would appeal to the kind of upmarket buyer the developer was hoping would be lured by the old red brick façade. The giant billboard adjacent to the main road promoted period features and a chance to own a slice of history as well as a secure investment. The interior of the building was to be gutted and the new apartments would be state of the art. An artist’s rendition of the finished landscaped exterior made the place look like part of a country estate. At the moment though, the building, which was all that remained of the original hospital, looked dark and grim. The windows were mostly broken, the brickwork stained and blackened by a hundred years of grime, and the towers that topped each wing gave it a gothic, fortress-like appearance. High brick walls flanked the remains of the huge wrought-iron gates that had once barred entry to grounds that were now overgrown and littered with abandoned waste. Adam wondered about the people who had once been incarcerated here. What had they thought when they first viewed the place? It must have been a forbidding and terrifying sight when they passed through the now broken gates.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ Angela asked.

  They hadn’t spoken much on the way to Carlisle. Angela had seemed distracted, caught up in her own thoughts. He thought he sensed a trace of coolness towards him. He showed her the papers he’d recovered from the wreck in Nick’s yard. ‘I think they’re the patient records of somebody called Marion Crane, who was being treated for some kind of psychiatric illness in the mid-eighties. Possibly here, since it was the main psychiatric facility for the area at the time.’

  After making a few phone calls Adam had discovered that Carisbrook Hall had been part of the old general hospital then.

  Angela frowned as she read what was still legible. ‘How do you know it was in the mid-eighties? I don’t see any date here.’

  He explained about the use of Clopalmazine mentioned in the notes, and how the days and months corresponded to the year 1985.

  ‘I don’t understand. What does this have to do with the accident?’

  ‘I found these notes in their car in Nick’s yard.’ He explained how he’d broken in the night before.

  ‘Why did you have to break in? Why not just go when Nick was there?’

  ‘Because somehow I didn’t think he’d want me nosing around. The other day I was at the district council offices. They have a model of the Forest Havens development there. Did you know they’re going to demolish the cottages where Nick lives to build a boathouse?’

  ‘Yes, I think I remember hearing something like that,’ she said.

  ‘I’d love to know how much Forest Havens paid for that land. I wouldn’t mind betting it was a hell of a lot more than it was worth six months ago.’

  She thought about what his tone implied. ‘What exactly are you saying, Adam?’

  ‘You remember what I said about the rumours surrounding the planning application? And maybe Ben and his friends had proof of something that if it got out could have stopped the development?’

  ‘You think Nick was involved?’

  ‘He had a motive for wanting the development to go ahead.’

  ‘So, when you broke into his yard you were looking for proof?’

  ‘I didn’t know what I’d find. But if they did have some kind of proof it has to be somewhere.’

  ‘And this is it?’ Angela held up the photocopied records.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Adam admitted.

  Angela was silent. She avoided looking at him directly. ‘The other day,’ she said after a while. ‘When you mentioned the rumours about some of the committee being bribed, you were hinting that David was involved too, weren’t you?’

  ‘You have to admit he has a motive for wanting the development to go ahead, and he doesn’t deny that he lobbied the council.’

  ‘I asked him about it.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  She shook her head, a gesture of frustration and disenchantment. ‘We had a fight. He denied it at first.’

  ‘At first?’

  ‘Then he started trying to justify himself. He said nobody had been bribed, I don’t know, he was making it sound as if this kind of thing goes on all the time.’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Tenders leaked, contracts agreed with a nod and a wink I suppose.’

  ‘So he admitted it?’

  ‘In a way.’

  He knew she had to have guessed what he was thinking; that if David was involved with corruption, and if that had anything to do with the accident that had killed Ben Pierce and his friends, then perhaps he was involved with that too. She didn’t say anything, however. Instead she seemed to withdraw from him.

  He parked the car outside the new unit that had replaced Carisbrook Hall. It consisted of a number of smallish square buildings built around a central grassy mound where seats had been placed for the patients so that they could sit outside when the weather was fine. Though the design of the buildings themselves was drab and generally uninteresting, the flowerbeds and a few trees gave the place a f
eeling of normality. Perhaps that was the whole point, Adam thought, comparing it to the old Hall. Maybe the buildings had been deliberately designed to be unimposing and functional. Certainly the unit looked more like a collection of council offices than a facility for the treatment of the mentally ill.

  At the reception desk Adam asked to speak to somebody senior on the staff and the woman he spoke to asked them to take a seat in the waiting area. A woman, who was perhaps in her early forties, eventually approached them. She introduced herself as Dr Grafton, the assistant director, and led the way to her office.

  ‘Now, how can I help you?’ she asked, when she was sitting at her desk.

  ‘I’m trying to locate somebody who might have been a patient at Carisbrook Hall before it was closed,’ Adam said. ‘I was hoping that perhaps somebody here might be able to help.’

  ‘I see. The person you want to locate, this would be a relative?’

  ‘No.’

  Dr Grafton folded her hands on her desk. ‘Then I’m afraid that you’ve had a wasted journey. You see even if we did have the information you want, I wouldn’t be able to give it to you. It’s a matter of patient confidentiality.’

  Adam had expected this and, unable to think of a way around it, he’d decided simply to play it by ear. He seized on a phrase she had used. ‘You said even if you did have the information? Does that mean you don’t keep the records from the old hospital here?’

  ‘Actually, there was a fire at Carisbrook the year it closed. Almost all of the administration records were destroyed.’

  ‘I remember that now,’ Angela said. ‘It must have been about four or five years ago.’

  It was a setback Adam hadn’t expected. ‘You mean all of the patient files prior to that time were destroyed in the fire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, there’s no way of telling whether somebody was treated there or not?’

  ‘Unless their files were sent on to another facility or to a patient’s own doctor, as sometimes happened, yes.’

  Adam took out the copies of Marion Crane’s files and passed them across the desk. ‘Doctor, I understand your point about patient confidentiality, but could you at least tell me if these notes could have come from Carisbrook?’

  She picked them up and scrutinized them. ‘May I ask where you got these?’

  ‘I found them among the effects of somebody who recently died,’ he said, simplifying the truth.

  She put them down. ‘There’s nothing here to indicate which hospital they might have come from. If indeed they came from a hospital at all. What makes you think they were from Carisbrook?’

  ‘Only that it was the main facility here during the time that Marion Crane was treated.’

  Dr Grafton looked again at the documents and Adam anticipated her next question. ‘The use of Clopalmazine and the dates there suggest the year 1985.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, and Adam took her barely perceptible nod as agreement.

  She folded her hands on the desk and regarded him thoughtfully. ‘What precisely is your interest in the patient referred to here? I believe you said you were looking for her?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He struggled to come up with a plausible explanation, but off the top of his head he couldn’t think of anything that he thought she would believe. ‘The truth is it’s possible Marion Crane, whoever she is, may have information that I’m interested in. More than that I can’t say, because frankly I don’t know any more.’

  Dr Grafton considered this before she commented. ‘You know, it’s curious but you’re the second person to come here recently with questions about Carisbrook Hall.’

  ‘Why curious?’

  ‘That person was also interested in a specific year: 1985 in fact.’

  Adam’s pulse quickened. ‘When was this?’

  ‘It must have been in August sometime. Near the beginning I think.’

  ‘And was the person you spoke to a young woman by the name of Jane Hanson?’

  ‘Yes, I believe that was her name.’

  ‘Did she also ask about somebody who had been a patient at Carisbrook?’

  ‘No. Actually she wanted to know where she could find Dr Colin Webster.’

  ‘Is he somebody who works here?’

  ‘No. But he used to be the director of Carisbrook. He retired when it was closed down.’ She gestured to the document that still lay on the desk. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in my telling you this much. This is indeed, as you’d guessed, a copy of part of a patient file from Carisbrook.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ Adam asked.

  ‘For two reasons. The first is that I worked at Carisbrook myself for several years.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘I recognize the handwriting. It’s Dr Webster’s.’ She smiled enigmatically. ‘I assume you’ll want to speak to him. You’ll find his number in the phone book. He lives in a village just north of the city. Though I should warn you he’ll probably tell you the same thing I did, that patient confidentiality prevents him discussing any specific case. And another thing, it might be better if you didn’t mention that I sent you.’

  ‘Do you mind if I ask why?’

  ‘Let’s just say that Dr Webster and I didn’t always see eye to eye.’ She smiled and rose from her seat. ‘And that’s really all I can tell you.’

  She showed them back out to the reception area, where they shook hands.

  ‘One other thing,’ Adam said. ‘Do you know why Jane Hanson was looking for Dr Webster?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him that,’ she said, and with a faintly enigmatic smile added, ‘Good luck.’

  Outside they fastened their coats against the bitter wind and walked towards Adam’s car. Angela was deep in thought, her chin buried in the upturned collar of her coat, her eyes on the ground. When they got in the car Adam turned the heater on full.

  ‘Who is Jane Hanson?’ Angela asked.

  As he pulled out of the car park Adam explained her link to Ben Pierce and told her about the arrangement Jane had with Janice Munroe at the Courier.

  ‘Which is why you think those lads may have had some kind of proof of council corruption?’

  ‘Basically, yes.’

  ‘But why don’t you just ask this Jane Hanson herself?’

  ‘Because she’s somewhere in London, but I don’t know where yet, and I can’t wait to find out. Besides, there’s no guarantee she’ll talk to me. Hang on a sec.’ Adam called Directory Inquiries on his phone and asked for a number for a Dr Colin Webster in the Carlisle area. After a moment the operator said she had a listing for that name in Staveton. When he hung up he asked Angela if she knew the place.

  ‘Yes, it’s a village not far from the airport. Just go back out the way we came in and then turn north at the big roundabout.’

  Adam headed back towards town and followed the road around past the castle.

  ‘So, why do you think Jane Hanson didn’t ask about Marion Crane directly?’ Angela asked.

  The same question had occurred to Adam. ‘Maybe we’re working from opposite directions. It could be that she knew something that eventually led her to Marion Crane’s patient file. We have the file, but we don’t know what it means.’

  He picked up his phone again and called the number Directory Inquiries had given him and when a woman answered he asked for Dr Webster.

  ‘My husband isn’t here at the moment,’ she said. ‘He won’t be long though, he’s just taken the dog for a walk. Can I take a message?’

  He asked her if she thought her husband could spare him a few minutes of his time. He was vague about his reasons, saying only that he was interested in Carisbrook Hall. She seemed quite happy to agree.

  ‘To be perfectly honest I think Colin gets a little bit bored with my company every day.’ She laughed. ‘I expect he’ll be glad to talk to you.’

  He thanked her and hung up. They passed the airport and a little further on a sign indicated a left turn to Staveton, though
Angela didn’t even notice. She was absorbed with her own thoughts. He had the feeling that she had withdrawn from him again. He took the turn anyway and when half a mile further they came to a small pub on the edge of another village he pulled over. Angela looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Let’s get something to eat,’ he said.

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything. Inside she sat at a table while he ordered sandwiches and drinks at the bar but when he brought them over she didn’t touch hers.

  ‘Something’s bothering you. What is it?’ he asked.

  She fixed her gaze on him. ‘What do you think happened to those three lads, Adam?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘But you suspect something. You think somebody killed them because of what they’d found out.’ Her voice rose angrily. ‘Dammit! You think David is involved don’t you? Is that why you told me about the rumours surrounding the committee? Were you hinting at more than just bribery?’ She stared at him, shaking her head at the answer she saw in his expression. ‘You wanted me to confront him! Christ, I feel like an idiot. All morning I’ve been thinking about it. I kept hoping I was wrong. But I’m not am I?’

  ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t want you to do anything,’ he protested.

  ‘No? I don’t believe you. Why did you hint at David’s involvement then?’

  ‘Look, maybe it’s true I wanted to see how you reacted, to see if you knew about the rumours, I probably even wanted you to think about it.’

  ‘And now you want me to think about whether my husband is capable of murder, is that it? Is that why you asked me to come with you today?’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t,’ he said, though she was partly right.

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I just wanted to see you.’

  Her eyes widened fractionally, a reaction not so much to what he’d said as to something she detected in his tone. For a few seconds they were both silent and then she started to get up. When she spoke she didn’t sound angry any more, but her voice was coldly controlled.

  ‘You’re wrong, Adam. You’re talking about murder. How could you even think David is capable of something like that? You don’t even know that it wasn’t just a terrible accident. And even if it wasn’t then there are hundreds of people who want that development at least as badly as David. What about Nick? Or the people at Forest Havens or somebody on the council committee? For God’s sake, why would you think it could be David?’