The Edge of Sanity

by Sheryl Browne

  All of it. His mother’s suicide. The abuse.

  The fact that Daniel Conner had broken his own father’s spine.

  That he’d killed his baby daughter.

  Daniel’s heart lurched. That bastard was going to drag it all out in court. No! No more. Daniel couldn’t do it. No way would he put his family through more psychological torture. But he didn’t know how to fight it. The only way out, as far as Daniel could see, was to remove the source of it.

  Wincing, he pulled the drip from his hand, eased his legs over the bed and got unsteadily to his feet. He was here somewhere. Daniel laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. DI Short hadn’t said where, but he was here, Daniel could sense the disgusting little freak. Here in this hospital, pending transfer to a secure facility. Miracle was it wasn’t him being transferred.

  Christ! He had to get out. Now! A knot tightened in Daniel’s stomach. No more. He couldn’t do this. If he stayed, he would find Charlie-fucking-Roberts and he would finish the job.

  Daniel tried to quell his growing panic and keep himself upright. To get dressed. Get out, before the confined space buried him. No way, he repeated it over. No way would he let Jo and Kayla face that sick psycho in court where he was the accused. Or come to see him, Daniel Conner, world’s greatest husband and father, in prison. He had no choice. He had to go.

  He’d talk to Jo from a safe distance, where she wouldn’t have to feel obliged to stand by him lying injured in a hospital bed. But she didn’t. Did she? Daniel swallowed hard, heading through the hospital for the exit. He knew Jo well enough to see she wasn’t by his side through some sense of obligation. Didn’t he? Daniel tried to be rational, to think through the fog in his head. Where was he going to go? How was he going to talk to Jo, if he couldn’t get his thoughts straight? Talk to her at all when … God help him, Roberts was right. He hadn’t got the courage.

  Jo didn’t need him to screw up the rest of her life. She’d be better off without him. Did he really believe that? Daniel didn’t know. All he knew was he needed to get away from the madness, which seemed to be all around him, and inside him.

  ****

  ‘He’s discharged himself?’ DI Short asked incredulously, his mobile pressed to his ear, his fish supper in hand, and money to pay for it still in his pocket. Damn. He turned to push his way back through the queue in the shop then waved his chips gratefully as the owner motioned him off.

  ‘No, not discharged,’ Joanne answered him, and by the sound of her voice she was trying very hard to hold it together. ‘Gone as in gone, left the hospital without telling anyone.’

  Including her, obviously, DI Short surmised. ‘Look, Joanne, don’t panic.’ He tried to calm her. ‘I’m on it. He can’t have got far.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ Joanne’s voice faltered ‘ … why did he do it? And where has he gone?’

  DI Short had a shrewd idea about the why. The news about that scumbag Roberts had pushed Conner too far. He’d been balancing on the edge of sanity on the back of that boat. The news about Roberts had tipped him right over. Why the hell hadn’t he alerted someone to Daniel’s state of mind when he’d left him at the hospital?

  As for the where, DI Short’s instinct told him he might just know, but he wasn’t about to share that with Joanne and drive another member of the family insane with worry. ‘Look, Joanne, go back to Kayla,’ he urged her, throwing himself in his car and dumping his chips on the passenger seat. ‘I’ll get every available man on it, I promise. We’ll find him. And as soon as we do, I’ll call you.’

  He would get every man he could on it. That much he’d promised and that much he’d do. But not until he’d followed his proverbial hunch, DI Short decided, flicking his blues and twos. Daniel might have gone voluntarily missing, but his reasons why, DI Short suspected, put him in the medium to high vulnerability risk category. First off, he’d been the victim of a serious crime. Secondly, thanks to the nasty little perpetrator of that crime flying true to colours and hounding him even in his hospital bed, Daniel Conner might well be a threat to himself.

  All of which meant that DI Short should follow procedure and call it in, which would mean the Superintendent would be obliged to call in a Senior Investigative Officer, which might mean media involvement and Christ knew what else.

  No, if Daniel had gone to the place DI Short thought he had for quiet contemplation, then he aimed to find him before there was plod all over the place, which would do the man no good at all.

  ****

  Kayla watched her mum pretending to watch Skyfall. Normally, she’d be salivating over Daniel Craig, which Kayla thought was totally juvenile, but not tonight. She’d looked at her watch more times than she’d looked at the TV.

  ‘What’s up, Mum?’ she asked for the second time.

  ‘Nothing,’ Jo snapped.

  ‘Sorr-ee, I am sure.’ Kayla folded her arms and fixed her gaze back on the telly. She actually felt like crying, but guessed that might be pretty juvenile too. Her mum obviously had a lot on her mind, but she really hoped they weren’t going to go back to the “You do as I say, young lady” scenario.

  ‘Oh, Kayla, I’m sorry,’ Jo said wretchedly, coming to sit next to her. ‘It’s nothing. I’m just a bit overwrought, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Kayla wasn’t convinced. ‘If you chew anymore nails you’ll have to start on your toes.’

  Jo forced a smile.

  ‘Is it Dad?’ Kayla asked guardedly. She was supposed to be seeing him tonight and suddenly it was off. Her mum had come back early, so Kayla supposed that Detective Inspector guy must be seeing him about stuff, like Jo said. Still, she couldn’t help wondering if maybe this was a ploy on her mum’s part to get her to go to this counselling thing. She had said her dad was considering it. Was he? Worked out crappily last time, didn’t it? Or was her mum bluffing, trying to get her to agree to go and then work on him?

  Kayla twiddled an eyebrow stud pensively. Had he taken a turn for the worse and her mum wasn’t saying? She glanced worriedly at Jo, who was checking her mobile signal for about the bazillionth time.

  ****

  Joanne had tried to sit and wait for DI Short’s call, but she simply couldn’t. No more than she could keep up the pretence to Kayla if she stayed around her. She’d had to do something.

  Anything.

  Now, here she was inside the door of Daniel’s room at the New Inn. He wasn’t here. She couldn’t believe he ever had been. It was awful. Sparsely furnished with a single chair and flat-pack dresser that had seen better days, and so dingy. White painted woodwork turned yellow and tobacco-stained walls. The window frame looked so rotten it was a wonder the grime-covered glass still hung in it.

  Oh, Daniel, she sighed heavily, glancing at the bare bulb in the ceiling and trying the light switch. No electricity. It wasn’t fit for a dog. Had Daniel really undervalued himself this much?

  She sighed again, and then almost shot out of her shoes as a voice behind her said, ‘I think he was hoping it was temporary.’

  ‘Blimey,’ the man let out a slow wolf-whistle as Jo stilled her rattled nerves and turned to face him, ‘no wonder the bloke walked around with a face like a wet weekend. I would, if I had a wife like you I couldn’t go home to. John,’ he introduced himself as Jo opened her mouth and closed it, not sure what to say. ‘I live downstairs. It was my car Daniel came racing to your rescue in. How’s he doing?’

  ‘Better.’ Jo smiled. ‘He, um …’ She glanced down, feeling very close to tears. She’d been nurturing the tiniest hope that someone here at the New Inn might know something. That he might have been back. Now that that hope had evaporated, she had no other avenue to pursue. Nowhere else he could be. ‘He’s disappeared,’ she said in a whisper, ‘from the hospital. I don’t know where he is.’

  John scratched his head, looking shocked and puzzled in turn. ‘They impounded my car, you know,’ he said, after a while.

  ‘Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. I’ll try to find out—’

&
nbsp; ‘No, no.’ John waved away her concerns. ‘It’s only a lump of metal, isn’t it?’ he said magnanimously. ‘What I meant was … Well, he cares about you, doesn’t he? Frantic, he was when he knew you were in trouble, out of his head with worry, poor bloke. He’ll be back. He probably just needs some space. Look, why don’t you come down to my room and have some tea or something? You look all done in.’

  ‘No,’ Jo declined, with a smile. ‘Thank you, but I have to get back to my daughter.’

  John walked Joanne back down the stairs, telling her how Daniel had spent most of the time he’d been there out walking. That he probably didn’t even notice the state of the room. ‘I’ll call you if I hear anything,’ he promised, waving Jo off.

  Jo waved back. He was a sweet man. A bit of a boozer, she suspected, but nice nevertheless. At least Daniel had had him for company in that dismal place. No wonder he’d preferred to be out walking. He hated being shut in. Fair weather or foul, Daniel had always had the windows flung wide at home.

  He’d tried to hide it, of course, typical Daniel. She should have wondered why more. Would a man who didn’t mind joining his daughters at dolly’s teatime worry about being seen as less than a man? A man who didn’t mind stopping off for all sorts of girly things along with the weekly shopping, worry about his image?

  No was the short answer. She should have pressed him more. She hadn’t known how bad his claustrophobia was, though, until she saw the signs on the boat.

  Dear God, where was he?

  Jo caught a sob in her throat and prayed hard that Daniel was all right. That he would come back to her. They needed each other now like never before. She could, and would, be there for him—if only he’d let her in.

  ****

  DI Short parked illegally, and then nipped over the low wall to the closed cemetery. No point being a copper if you didn’t take advantage of the few perks of the job.

  Bingo. He stopped short of the plot where he’d paid his own brief respects on the bleak day of the burial. Daniel was there, sitting with his back to the stone, his head bowed and his hands hanging loosely between his knees. DI Short offered up a short prayer of gratitude and hoped to God the man hadn’t done anything stupid.

  Slowly, he skirted around until he could approach Daniel from the front, and then walked carefully towards him. Didn’t want to give the man a coronary and finish him off.

  ‘Nice night for it,’ DI Short said. Diplomacy, he thought, might be better than calling the man a twit for leaving a nice warm hospital bed to sit on the damp grass in the rain, to say little of scaring his wife witless.

  Daniel dropped his head lower and scratched his forehead with his thumb. He laughed at length, a tight, slightly strangulated laugh. ‘I thought this was the last place anyone would look for me.’

  ‘First place I thought of, actually.’ DI Short strode forward with less trepidation now that he could see no evidence Daniel had harmed himself, not externally anyhow. Daniel glanced up, and what DI Short saw in his eyes rocked him to the core. His expression might not be giving much away, but in his eyes … absolute, unadulterated terror. It was Daniel who was scared witless, he realised. Like a rabbit in the headlights, the guy didn’t know which way to turn.

  ‘It’s good to grieve, Daniel.’ DI Short eased himself down next to him. ‘I come here all the time, to see my wife. She’s over there on the opposite side,’ he carried on chatting in the absence of any response from Daniel. ‘Never miss an opportunity to tell her all my troubles. Serves her right, I tell her. Never missed an opportunity to nag me half to death, bless her.’

  Daniel shook his head.

  DI Short twisted to look at him. ‘The man smiles.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Daniel dragged his hands over his face. ‘Not much lately though.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Does Joanne know I’m here?’

  ‘Nope, not as far as I know.’ DI Short felt for his mobile in his pocket, ready to ring whoever might be needed at short notice, including Joanne. ‘It’s just me, I’m afraid.’

  Daniel nodded, obviously relieved, then leaned back to rest his head against the cool of the stone.

  ‘Do you want to talk?’ DI Short ventured.

  Daniel didn’t answer.

  ‘Don’t go in for it much, do we,’ DI Short fixed his attention on a non-existent bit of fluff on his jacket, ‘talking?’

  Silence.

  DI Short waited.

  ‘I can’t,’ Daniel said throatily, folding his arms across his chest, which was probably hurting like hell, DI Short guessed. ‘Not about this.’

  DI Short nodded slowly. ‘Roberts, you mean? Or other stuff?’

  Daniel said nothing, just tightened his arms around himself.

  DI Short watched him, gauging him carefully. Had he taken anything? Pills of some sort? He hoped not. Hoped that once Daniel had thought it through, he would have realised how much more painful that would be to his family than anything Roberts might do now.

  Daniel bowed his head again and pulled in a breath, a cold shiver seeming to run through him.

  ‘I do know about the other stuff, you know, Daniel. I am a policeman.’ DI Short pressed on, trying to illicit some response from the man, even if it was only to tell him to bugger off and mind his own business. A spark of anger would at least indicate Daniel Conner was still willing to fight.

  Daniel massaged his temples.

  ‘You have to go back, Daniel. Don’t give up.’ DI Short went on gently. Don’t let that bastard win, hey?’

  Still Daniel said nothing.

  Now DI Short was seriously worried. ‘Daniel,’ he started cautiously, his own voice tight in his throat, ‘you haven’t done anything silly, have you? Because if you have, I have to make calls. You know that, don’t you?’

  Daniel shook his head.

  Resolutely, DI Short noticed, breathing a sigh of relief. A delay before that response, and he’d have had to assume that he had.

  ‘Right, well, that’s a bloody relief.’ He blew out a breath. ‘I didn’t much fancy giving you the kiss of life in the dead of night in a graveyard, Daniel. Might look a bit iffy.’

  Daniel didn’t respond.

  Stone walls, DI Short thought despairingly. The man had been erecting them since he was knee high to a grasshopper. He wasn’t easily going to be persuaded from behind this one.

  ‘Bloody hell, this wet grass is a bit cold on the old posterior,’ he remarked suddenly. ‘Enough to freeze the brass whatsits of a monkey.’ DI Short eased his hindquarters from the grass, then himself to his feet. ‘If we’re here for the long haul, I need to pee. Don’t go anywhere, Daniel,’ he warned him, wishing the man would at least make eye contact with him, ‘or you’ll leave me no choice but to call for assistance.’

  DI Short marched off, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Daniel stayed put as he went.

  ****

  ‘Where is he?’ Kayla asked almost before Jo had got through the front door.

  Jo closed the door and leaned against it, the soles of her feet aching, but her soul aching more. What on earth was she going to tell Kayla? Had Daniel thought about that when he’d …? Stop it! Of course Daniel hadn’t thought about that. He’d barely been capable of thinking at all when she’d last seen him.

  Dear Lord—Jo squeezed back the tears threatening to spill over, please let him get through this. Let him be safe somewhere, and alive. Jo’s heart almost jolted to a stop, now she’d acknowledged he might not be.

  ‘Where is he?’ Kayla demanded, eyeballing Jo with a mixture of belligerence and bewilderment. ‘Mum, tell me! I’ve rung the hospital,’ she shouted desperately from where she stood on the stairs, her expression that of an angry young woman and a frightened little girl all at once.

  Jo took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know, Kayla.’ She took a step towards her. ‘He left the hospital. We’re not sure—’

  ‘Wha’d’y’mean left!?’ Kayla looked terrified now. ‘Left to go where? Why did he leave?’

  ‘I don�
�t know, darling.’ Jo felt her heart twist painfully inside her. Kayla was shaking. Physically shaking and Jo had no idea what to say to stop it. ‘I think … The doctors think he might have had some sort of a breakdown.’

  ‘Breakdown?’ Kayla paled, and sank heavily down on the stairs.

  ‘Oh, baby …’ Jo stepped quickly towards her, and then stopped dead as her mobile rang. Her eyes holding Kayla’s, she fumbled the mobile out of her pocket and clutched it to her ear.

  ‘Joanne?’ DI Short said.

  ‘Yes.’ Jo nodded, continuing to hold Kayla’s gaze.

  ‘DI Short. We’ve found him,’ he said, answering her prayers. ‘He’s okay,’ he added quickly.

  Jo closed her eyes, relief flooding through her and leaving her weak in its wake.

  ‘That is, he’s physically in one piece, but … he needs a quiet moment, I suspect, Joanne. To collect his thoughts, you know?’

  Jo did know. Her mind was screaming with questions. But she did know. She hoped. Prayed he hadn’t run away from her again. No, he needed time; that was all. She tried to convince herself. Thinking things through was Daniel’s way.

  ‘Has he said anything?’ Jo tried to keep her own thoughts straight in her head.

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid. He’s confused. The medication on top of everything else, I imagine. I’m right by his side, Joanne.’

  Jo nodded, her heart plummeting. He’d shut it all in, determined to cope with it alone, again. How could he, though? The weight was too much for one person to carry, the pain, the grief, the bewilderment, all stuffed inside. She wouldn’t let it crush him. Would not let Daniel slip away from her. Not again. ‘Where is he?’ she asked, trying to imagine where he could be. How DI Short had managed to find him.

  DI Short hesitated. ‘Not in a great place at the moment, Joanne, if you want an honest answer. And to be brutally truthful, I think he’d rather not see you until he’s pulled himself together.’

  ‘Has he …? Will he be …?’ Jo caught a sob in her throat.

  ‘Joanne, he’s all right,’ DI Short assured her. ‘I wouldn’t tell you he was if he wasn’t. He just needs some space to get his head together, that’s all. I’ll be here with him, Joanne. I won’t leave until he does. I give you my word.’