by Phil Walden
“All the records were sent here, remember,” Olivia said.
“Everything relating to her treatment prior to and during her coma,” Thorne confirmed.
“What about the police report at the time?” Start queried.
Olivia shook her head. “They told me all they knew. It was a long time ago.”
“When she was first admitted, would she have been taken to A and E?” Start asked Thorne.
“Of course,” he replied.
“They’d do a preliminary assessment of her condition, right?”
“Yes, but I don’t recall ever seeing it.”
“Could it be in a separate file?” Olivia enquired.
“Possibly. It’s customary to sift through all the information relating to a patient. But the psychiatrist is only concerned with what’s relevant to any ongoing mental condition,” Thorne said.
“So it could be here?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Start demanded.
And so the psychiatrist found himself perched on a small step ladder, rummaging through a dust laden mixture of psychiatric journals, folders and other paraphernalia, pausing occasionally to inspect the contents of anything which might remotely be linked to the object of their quest. The nurse had gone straight to the row of filing cabinets to double check the records already examined by Olivia.
The two journalists felt pretty redundant, whilst what seemed an increasingly futile pursuit went on. Olivia took the opportunity to press Start for information. “I still don’t see what the full moon’s got to do with it.”
“Whatever happened to her, at the precise moment it occurred, two things burnt into her memory,” Start explained.
“Like what?”
Start snatched the tablet from her grasp. His finger touched the screen several times until he had located a picture of the symbol Angel had carved onto the glass. He thrust it under her chin. “Look at it.”
“I’ve done that a hundred times already.”
“Just look at it again!” he insisted.
“Okay! Alright!” She scrutinised it for several seconds. She shrugged and sighed. “I’ve told you before. It looks like the Venus sign but upside down.”
“Suppose it’s not meant to be one symbol. Say she drew two. That would make the top one a cross, the lower one a circle.”
“I don’t see how that helps.”
“Remember all three incidents involving Angel happened at the time of a full moon.”
“So?”
“Each time we know the skies were clear and the moon was at its brightest. The light from it must have flooded her room. She couldn’t have missed it. What if the circle she drew is meant to be the moon?”
“I can see the logic of that.”
“And it must have been low in the sky because the cross is drawn on top. It could be on a building or a structure somewhere.” Start shook his head at Olivia’s still puzzled expression. “It’s simple. Don’t you see? Something occurred that was so traumatic, her mind’s been paralysed for years. She can’t tell us what it was or who was involved. But maybe, just maybe, she’s trying to tell us…”
“…where it happened!” interrupted a wide eyed Olivia.
They stared at each other intently, so much so that, at first, they failed to hear Thorne’s cry as he jumped off the steps clutching a folder triumphantly in his hand. “Voila! I think I’ve found something!”
He had indeed found something. Stored and long forgotten, the folder included the results of the initial examination of Angel upon her arrival at the hospital that night. Olivia seized it and read for what seemed like an eternity before she began to report back.
“It says her clothing felt wet,” she observed.
“Hardly surprising. That night it rained heavily. She’d been outdoors for several hours,” Start said.
“She had no possessions on her at all, not even a handbag. No coat or shoes either. And this bit’s interesting. Apparently she threw up on four occasions in the first hour. She suffered bad diarrhoea too. Lab reports identified a parasite in her vomit.”
“Let me see,” Thorne said, leaning over.
“Also, they found leaves trapped in the folds of her clothing, oval in shape and translucent.”
“Good heavens!” Thorne exclaimed.
“Thorne?” said Start.
“The parasite.”
“What about it?”
“To cause sickness and diarrhoea it has to be cryptosporidium. And the leaves sound like P. perfoliatus.”
“I don’t think we’ve time for a biology lesson,” Start complained.
“Both are common to the rivers and streams in this area.”
“What are you saying?” Olivia asked.
“Don’t you see? Whatever she was doing, one thing’s for sure. That night, at one time or another, our Angel had been in a river!”
*
When Start rang to say that he was on his way to see him, Jack Deacon was intrigued. Joe never came in voluntarily. He had to be nagged, bagged and dragged to cross the threshold of the Eastern Mail’s offices. And he had sounded enthusiastic, the tone of his voice eerily reminiscent of the young reporter he had hired almost twenty years ago. What a reputation that young reporter had acquired. The tabloid sleaze label was unfair. It masked a skilled and tenacious practitioner. Whatever stories he ran, were obtained legitimately. Rules were stretched, even occasionally broken, but he never strayed into the “hooky stuff” so prevalent today. In those early days Start had never examined the contents of a rubbish bin, never knowingly used hacked information or tapped a phone in his life. That wasn’t his way.
But over the years the public’s increasing appetite for salacious stories, the ferocious competition and the demand for increased copy had seen the pressure grow. You became only as good as your last story, and the next one had to be bigger, better, more sensational. No one was considered off limits. The rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the worthy and the worthless, it did not matter. The moral compass had gone AWOL. Respect and common decency were absent from any discussion in the headlong descent into the gutter. Only tomorrow’s headline mattered. The only consideration was whether it would sell copy. Deacon was as much to blame as anyone. Appointed by Coburn as one of the youngest ever editors of a national newspaper, he had been largely responsible for turning the ailing middle of the road broadsheet The Globe had traditionally been, into the country’s best selling tabloid, thereby spearheading a culture change for the entire industry.
The harassment came from the top, from Coburn right down through the ranks. Editor in turn passed it on to journalist. All existed in a state of perpetual fear and uncertainty about their jobs and future. It did not matter how you got the story as long as you got it. It became intolerable but tolerate it they did. They learned to exist in a delusional bubble where demands for freedom of speech and for the public’s right to know allowed any intrusion and justified any excess.
But Start’s particular speciality had always been to expose the wealthy and the corrupt and if that took him into some sordid places, that was their choice not his. They may have espoused certain standards and placed expectations on the general public but woe betide them if they failed to live up to those values themselves. Sadly, in the years since, the need and greed for ever more lurid exposes had seen his targets become not just the privileged and powerful but the poor and vulnerable. Attacks on tax dodgers were shunned for a concerted assault upon benefit scroungers. If he felt any sense of shame or disillusion, he did not show it. The Shark continued to bite.
And bit he had with his last ever story for The Globe. There was a certain irony that after all the sleaze of recent years, he was back on the familiar turf where he had cut his investigative teeth and earned his credentials. He had picked up rumours that a minister in the government and prominent peer of the realm, Lord Bailey, was in the habit of procuring prostitutes at hotels in remote parts of
the country, when away from his family and the capital. More to the point this was a minister who regularly spoke of the need for moral and spiritual renewal, urging a return to basics, to the good old fashion values based upon family, hard work, thrift and mental fortitude.
Start and Deacon had agreed that such sanctimonious clap trap invited a set up and a showdown, but neither envisaged that they would become the victims. Two willing young ladies had been hired, a venue chosen, a concierge bribed. With Bailey lying half undressed on a bed with a naked girl either side of him, Start and a photographer had let themselves into the hotel room. A succession of flash lights went off in one startled noble face before Start invited him to comment. Culprit nailed, job done and lead story firmly in the bag.
Or so they thought. It had gone through the usual channels before being signed off by the night editor, who had come under pressure from Start to go with it. If only he, Deacon, had been there that night, as he invariably was, to oversee the proofs before going to print. This was a big story with the potential to cause a scandal right across the political classes. His preference would have been to contact the peer, inform him of the intention to print and invite him to cooperate. The story would thus become a confession, the tale of a misguided and flawed man, desperate for help and support, the newspaper merely his charitable conduit to the outside world.
But, with the cries for increased regulation of the Press becoming ever louder, some scandals were now best avoided altogether. Certainly Max Coburn had thought so. Looking at the first rushes of the next day’s issue, posted early to him via the internet, he had exploded. Printing was immediately stopped, all copies pulped and the sackings began, he and Start being chief amongst them. Rumour had it that, later, extensive damages to Lord Bailey were quietly paid.
Both men were personae non grata in London, their careers in the capital over. Deacon struggled to find any work but finally obtained the editorship of The Eastern Mail, relegation on a par with a football club dropping four leagues at a stroke. He wasn’t happy but then he was sixty two and content to serve out his time if only the hard pressed paper survived that long. Start, however, suffered badly. Not only did he lose his job but separation from his wife followed soon after.
Trisha had become increasingly disillusioned. Joe was not the man she had married; no longer the famed, campaigning journalist who exposed the wrongs of society and sought to use his undoubted skills in the creation of a better world. Gone was the caring and principled human being with whom she had first fallen in love. The more base the stories he chased, the more sullied he seemed to be. The relationship, already rocky, nosedived after his dismissal. Disgusted with the paper, London and himself for what all three had become, and already a heavy drinker, he hit the bottle even harder. Trisha’s career, her happiness and her wellbeing were threatened. And so she threw him out. Start responded by going to ground. Friends searched across the capital for him, dropping into all his old haunts but to no avail. The man had disappeared.
Imagine, then, Deacon’s surprise when the shabby figure of his old colleague had presented itself at the Eastern Mail’s offices several months later. He was penniless and desperate. Deacon felt obligated to help. The only vacancy he had was as the paper’s country correspondent, stuck out in the sticks. It was a post everyone strove to avoid and thus traditionally the preserve of the latest, poor, unfortunate rookie. Start had bitten his hand off.
So, here he was on the flat roof of the building, waiting. Deacon liked it up here. He could think more clearly, away from the constant pressure of ringing phones, frequent interruptions and the need to make decision after decision. Sometimes he came close to envying Start’s solitude camped out in the swamps but knew, deep down, he would be bored rigid. He was a city man through and through. Another reason for meeting on the roof was that they could smoke. He thought Start would appreciate that. He struck a match, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply as he looked out across the town below. Only the cathedral stood out as any significant size and the low slung buildings surrounding it soon petered out into miles and miles of sprawling empty fields.
The door onto the roof swung open and Start strolled over to him. “Bit nippy to be out here, isn’t it?”
Was it him or did Joe look a little smarter these days? Deacon offered him the packet of cigarettes. “One of these fuckers will soon warm you up.”
“No thanks. I’m trying to give up.”
Deacon raised his eyebrows. “She’s persuasive, our Olivia, very pretty too.”
“Go screw yourself, Jack.”
“So, don’t tell me. You’re going to do as I asked. Move your skinny arse back here.”
“About as likely as me working for Coburn again.”
“Never say never.”
“He wouldn’t touch me with the proverbial barge pole.”
“Ditching you was his loss.”
“I won’t rest until I know why.”
“No point dwelling on it, Joe. What’s done is done.”
“You sound just like someone else I know.”
“Trisha?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you should listen.”
“I can’t. However many times I go over it, the whole thing just doesn’t stack up. The crushing of the story, the damages paid out of court. It reeks of a cover up.”
“The story’s gone. You’re never going to get to the bottom of it.
“And who for? A here today, gone tomorrow mid ranking minister who could have been, should have been hung out to dry. Let’s face it the government was hardly going to fall on the basis of his dodgy behaviour.”
Deacon gave a resigned shrug. Start wasn’t going to stop. Any mention of London tended to spark this angry and bitter rant. He had learned that it was best to just let it take its course. The tempest eventually blew itself out. “More likely the spin doctors would have wanted the story to run. They could have used his dismissal to claim the moral high ground.”
“Then why didn’t they? He was at the hotel for three days. Three days! It can’t have been just for the women.
“They must have been the light entertainment,” suggested Deacon.
“So what was the real reason he was there?” Start paused. “Look. I’ve never told you this before. The two prostitutes we used in the set up. I tried to trace them.”
“Jesus, Joe. What the fuck for? Fancied stirring the shit again?”
“I thought Bailey might have said something, you know, during the heist. But they’d disappeared. Working in Las Vegas I was told. So I tried the concierge at the hotel. He’s no longer there, took a new job in Scotland within days apparently. No one could recall exactly where. Something wasn’t right, Jack. I could smell it.”
“Why are you telling me this now, after all this time.”
“Because it reminds me that justice is important.”
“You’re a bit late for that.”
“Not for me, for her.” Start thrust the e-fit of Angel in front of him. He began to go over the facts of the investigation so far, starting with the young girl’s discovery, her long hospitalisation, the many years of comatose trauma through to her reawakening and subsequent actions.
Deacon listened. But he was less impressed with what he heard than the manner in which it was expressed. This was the Start he used to know. There was passion and determination in his voice, confirming his immediate reaction to the initial phone call, which had set up this meeting. But surely Start could see the story didn’t have legs?
“To be honest I’m not convinced. So she fell in some water. Show me where and why and I might be interested.” Deacon exhaled, the smoke mingling with Start’s condensing breath, so close was his face.
“Come on, Jack. This could be the big story you want, the one you need.”
“Some fucking fruitcake no one’s bothered to claim for twenty years. It’s hardly front page news.”
“Whatever happened to Deacon the rebel, the gambler?”
“
You got him sacked, remember?” Deacon sighed. He knew further resistance was futile. Anyway, perhaps this little mystery might help the paper, boost its sales and possibly take the pressure off its editor. But, most of all, it might begin the rehabilitation of his friend. “I must be mad.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Haven’t I always gone with your instinct?” He threw the cigarette to the floor and ground it into the roof felt. “You’ll have your photo fit of Angel in this week’s issue.”
*
Olivia, over the last few months, had grown used to the long, dreary drives across the endlessly flat plains but even she was forced to admit there was a chilling beauty in their current guise. The floods that autumn had been more frequent and more widespread than ever before. Shallow inland seas spread across vast swathes of the Fens, particularly where the line of the old and new rivers converged. The effect was to make the landscape seem unpredictable, dangerous and more desolate. The distant rows of wind turbines spun in balletic symmetry, and the few houses and barns which were scattered across the fields appeared distant and out of reach. There was little or no sign of human life or activity. Even the telephone lines stood wary, tiptoeing on poles across the saturated ground.
A vivid rainbow erupted on the horizon, bending into a dark mass of low lying clouds. Another, a mirror image but fainter, stood alongside, doubling the fantasy, inflating the hope. But still it rained. And still she couldn’t see the point of this wild goose chase. Okay, so the symbols gouged onto the window were possibly an attempt to communicate by Angel and the idea that they might represent the moon and a cross could not be discounted. Of course, he had sent her off to do the donkey work.
“Get down to the Records Office,” he’d barked. “Make a list of any buildings or structures, located by a river, which have a plain cross on them.”
Well, she thought, how about half the churches in the area! However, the visit had proved to be revelatory. The local archivist had said that the shape was likely to be a Puritan cross. These were prominent on official buildings, bridges and by the side of thoroughfares during and immediately after the Civil War in the seventeenth century. They stood as a declaration of the eastern region’s loyalty to the Puritan cause and a warning to any with Royalist sympathies of the hostile welcome they could expect, if they dared to set foot in their domain. But he was positive all had been removed by legal decree at the time of the monarchy’s restoration in 1660. Certainly, he was not aware of any that had survived. Anyway, Olivia thought to herself, it was pure supposition on Start’s part that it was a religious symbol. It was far more likely that Angel had neither the time nor the artistic skill to scratch anything but a long vertical line with a short crossbar. It could be anything.
