by Jo Bannister
He said, “Who?”
“You know very well who!” snarled Rosie. “Shad Lucas – the poor sod you meant to carry the can for you. You told him there was a way of getting through his memory block, didn’t you? You brought him in here, strapped him down, wired him up, turned up the power and cooked him. You thought we’d never know. You’d say he’d gone into spontaneous fugue, it must have been the guilt catching up with him, and nobody’d ever be able to prove otherwise.
“Only it didn’t go quite to plan, did it, Doctor? When he was somewhere between dead and alive you turned the machine off, unstrapped him and went for a wheelchair” – it was standing abandoned just inside the door – “so you could get him back to his room. But he wasn’t where you left him. He shouldn’t have been capable of any activity, beyond maybe curling up in a ball and sticking his thumb in his mouth; but somehow he’d clawed together enough physical control to get off the bed. You thought he’d fallen down behind it, didn’t you, and went to check. But he must have been” – she glanced round – “waiting behind the door. As you passed he grabbed you and ran you into the wall. Then he got the hell out.
“So when was this? How long’s he been missing? What kind of a head start does he have?”
Cunningham shook his head bemusedly but he understood well enough: he was playing for time. Time to be sure, to make his woolly head focus on what he had to say and do to protect himself. “The clipboard. Pass me the clipboard.”
It was hooked over the bottom of the couch. She did as he asked.
“You’ve got it wrong,” he said, enunciating carefully. “I discussed ECT with Shad as a last resort and he wanted to try it. He signed a consent form. See? He wanted answers more than anyone. But something went wrong. Not because of anything I did, but because Shad’s brain is different to yours and mine. He should have slept it off peacefully. Instead he woke in a panic, lashed out at me, and now I gather he’s missing. That’s unfortunate, Ms Holland, but it isn’t anyone’s fault.”
“No one’s fault?” she exploded. “Cunningham, if you want to pass that kind of power through somebody’s brain and get away with it you have to turn the damn machine back down when you’ve finished! This wasn’t therapy that misfired – it was attempted murder. And the only reason you’d try to murder Shad is if you murdered Jackie Pickering. You’re going down, Cunningham. All you can do to make things easier for yourself is to cooperate. It’s five past six now: how long has Shad been missing?”
She watched as Andrew Cunningham thought about confessing. There were things he could have said, not to justify his actions but to explain them. ‘I’m not a bad man,’ he could have said. ‘I’m a doctor. Debbie Burgess and the others – I treated them to the best of my ability. The False Memory phenomenon only came to light as a result of these cases – I wasn’t flying in the face of known hazards, I was working at the sharp end of psychiatry, breaking new ground, making as I believed important advances.
‘When I realised I’d been deceived,’ he could have said, ‘I was horrified. But I’d been doing my best in the light of current knowledge – I shouldn’t have been pilloried for it. Ground-breaking surgery fails again and again before it succeeds. Organ transplants would still be an impossible dream if the surgeons hadn’t had the courage, and the support, to try again. I was entitled to the same support. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
‘Instead of which she set out to destroy me,’ he might have said. ‘The Pickering girl. She was going to build her career on the ashes of mine. She worked in entertainment, my job is mending sick minds, but she had the power to ensure I would never work again. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, and I went to that meeting to make her see that. But she wasn’t open to reason – she knew what she wanted and she was going to have it, whoever suffered. And the sense of outrage burgeoned inside me and, in a moment of madness, I put a stop to her. Everything that followed derived from that one eruption of righteous fury.’
It didn’t explain the knife he had been carrying; it did nothing to justify how he used the innocent man who stumbled into his hands; but it would have won him a little sympathy. Poor Doctor Frankenstein, who tried to distil perfection from corruption and instead created a monster.
But he didn’t want sympathy, he wanted to get away with it, and he still thought there was a chance. Rosie saw the moment he decided to go for it. Lucas was on the run. None of them knew how badly his brain was damaged. He might run under a bus or off a bridge; he might simply disappear and turn up months or years later as a rotting corpse that had tried to bury itself in some undergrowth before it died.
Even if they found him alive, what could he tell them? Probably nothing at all. Even if he could still communicate, nothing he said would alter the fact that he had signed a consent form for electro-convulsive therapy. The power output? He must have stumbled into the machine, knocking off the settings, as he fled. Who could prove otherwise?
“I don’t know,” said Doctor Cunningham.
Rosie snatched back the clipboard. For a moment Detective Superintendent Marsh, who had been holding his tongue while there was a chance Rosie could get answers to questions he couldn’t even ask, thought she was going to hit the man with it and he moved, reluctantly, to intervene. But she wanted to see the paperwork.
She was right. He’d been so intent on covering his back that he’d filled in the forms as he would have done for any patient. He’d lied about the voltage – he’d entered it as 85 – but there was no reason for him to fabricate the time of treatment and he’d entered it as commencing at 5.45 p. m. He’d been on the floor, and Shad on the run, for perhaps fifteen minutes.
“We have to find him,” said Rosie, turning to Marsh.
“Of course we do. Where do we look?”
She gave an elephantine shrug. “He shouldn’t have been able to get off that bed, or walk across the room. But plainly he did, so an excess of electricity flashing across his temples didn’t have the same effect on him that it would on you and me. Well, we know his brain’s different to ours. We still don’t know how different.
“I don’t know how far he could have got. Maybe he’s still in the building, or the grounds. Or maybe he’s running like a scalded cat because he knows something terrible happened to him here and he has no idea what. Superintendent, we have to find him! He desperately needs help.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Matt didn’t want Alex to go home to an empty flat. “Who knows what Rent-a-Mob’ll do next? It wouldn’t take much ingenuity to follow your car. I don’t like the idea of you being in on your own.”
If she was honest, Alex wasn’t keen either. It was the middle of the evening now, all but the most persistent of the crowd had gone home and Chief Inspector Gordon had indicated that the risk of a confrontation had passed and they could leave in safety. In fact, there were now more policemen in Moss Street than there was crowd to control. But the episode had left a nasty taste in her mouth, and Alex wasn’t someone who shrugged off unpleasant experiences. She worried. Mostly she worried that she hadn’t handled matters as well as she might have. Tonight, though, she was worried about getting a brick through her window.
Her hesitation was all the encouragement Matt needed. “Let’s go and get some supper. Then we’ll go back to my place.” Matt’s flat was the top floor of the old Warwick & Worcester Assurance building, higher than even Tessa Sanderson could have hefted a brick.
The hesitation was still there. He smiled. “I’ll sleep on the couch if you’d prefer.”
Alex thought about it, then she shook her head. “No, I don’t think I’d prefer that at all.”
They went out to his car in the yard.
The restaurant was just round the corner from the WWA building so Matt parked in his own space in the courtyard. He helped Alex out of the low car – she didn’t need help but was gracious enough to accept it anyway – and they headed for the wrought-iron gate on to the street.
Three men came in through it, cl
osing it behind them.
All Matt’s instincts yelled, ‘Trouble!’ He knew everyone who lived in the building and most of the people who visited, and he’d never seen these three before. But even if he’d been a stranger here he’d still have known they meant trouble. Army officer training isn’t primarily about using the right cutlery. It isn’t even about weaponry: on any battlefield the senior NCOs know more about the armaments, their own and the enemy’s, than the officers. No, the greatest skill an officer can master, the greatest contribution he can make, is learning to read a situation. Knowing how to fight is useful; knowing what to fight with is useful; but knowing when to fight is vital.
Matt Gosling had excelled at the practical aspects of soldiering, but he hadn’t been bad at the theory. Leading patrols in Bosnia and Northern Ireland honed the theory into a reliable sense of when he was likely to get shot at and when he wasn’t. He knew these men were trouble because once it had been his job to know.
Neither the car nor the back door to the building were close enough to be of help: Matt didn’t run too well these days and Alex was in high heels. The street was only a few metres away but three men and a shut gate blocked the way.
Matt slipped Alex his car keys. “If you get the chance,” he murmured, “call the police.”
She stared at him as if he were mad. “Why?”
There was nothing remarkable about any of them: aged in their late twenties, dressed in denims and jackets, they might have been on their way home from any of the town’s factories via a handy pub. They were decent-looking men, not dirty or drunk or wild of eye, but they blocked the exit as if they meant it.
The nearest of them stepped forward. He had short sandy hair and a stubborn expression, as if what he was doing embarrassed him but he thought it needed doing anyway. “You’re from the local rag.”
Matt breathed steadily. “Most of our readers call it the Chronicle. I take it you’re not a fan?”
“’S all right,” muttered the second man, staring at his boots.
“Sport’s good,” offered the third helpfully.
The first man glared them to silence. “Where is he?”
Matt knew exactly who they meant. But he wanted them to say it for any additional information it would give him. “Where’s who?”
One of them said, “Shad Lucas,” and another said, “The freak.”
Alex breathed lightly. Matt breathed slow and deep, feeding oxygen to his muscles. “How should I know?”
“He works for you.”
“No,” said Matt, “he doesn’t.”
The man clucked impatiently. “All right – so he works for Rosie Holland and she works for you. And there’s a girl dead because of a feud between her TV station and your rag, and when she was found that freak was standing over the body. Now, to any fair and reasonable man that sounds awfully suspicious, and you’d think he’d be sweating under interrogation down at the police station.
“But he isn’t, is he? He’s not under arrest, he’s not being grilled, he’s not even helping police with their inquiries. Why not? Because he has influential friends. Because the Skipley Chronicle thinks he’s something special. Because you’ve used him in the past and now you can’t afford to have him recognised as the dangerous freak he is. That’s why I think you know where he is. Someone’s protecting him, and nobody else has a reason to.”
“You’re wrong,” Matt said calmly. “I’m not protecting him. He’s sick, he’s in hospital – and don’t ask where because I’m not going to tell you. In spite of that, he is helping with police inquiries, and they haven’t arrested him because they don’t believe he killed anyone. He wasn’t found with the body. They only knew the girl was dead because he told them. Any fair and reasonable man,” he added sardonically, “would wonder if that was the action of a murderer.”
“Well, you would say that,” snarled the man. “Tell you what – I’ll visit him in hospital, talk to him myself. If he can persuade me he’s innocent we’ll send him some grapes.”
Matt laughed out loud. Alex was startled by the roughness in his voice. “You can’t really be that stupid. You can’t really think I’m going to let you and your thugs torment a sick man. I’ll tell you one thing: he’s no longer in Skipley, he hasn’t been for days. You’re not going to find him; and if you did you still wouldn’t have the man who killed Jackie Pickering. Leave it to the police: they know what they’re doing.”
“As far as I can see,” retorted the man with sandy hair, “what they’re doing is bugger all. I think they know who killed her. I think it just suits them better not to say. I think they’re scared of dealing with him. Well, we’re not.”
“Fine,” snapped Matt, “then go and do it. But don’t do it here – you’re on private property, and you’re in my way.” Grasping Alex’s hand he took a step towards the gate.
It wasn’t a good move. He was putting them in the position of having to either step aside or stop him, and it was too soon, they were still too wired up to step aside. The man with sandy hair spread a broad hand against Matt’s chest. One of the others gripped Alex’s arm.
He wasn’t hurting her but it was an escalation. She favoured him with her coolest stare, determined that he shouldn’t see her fear. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why is this so … personal to you? Crime happens all the time, even terrible crimes – even murder. Three weeks ago an elderly man was beaten to death in his own flat by thieves, who got away with his television and his toaster. Where were you then? What is it about this particular episode that brings people who don’t know Shad and didn’t know Jackie on to the streets?”
The man who was holding her arm said it again. “He’s a freak.”
She stared at him. “That’s it? That’s all there is? He can do something you can’t, so you want to tear him limb from limb? I can do something you can’t: I can knit Fair Isle. Does that make me a freak too? Do you want to hurt me because of it?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he growled; but there might have been a note of uncertainty in it.
“Shad is a dowser,” explained Alex patiently. “He finds water – for farms that need it, for industry, for anybody who needs a well.
That, essentially, is what he does. That’s what you’re scared of?”
“What about them bodies?” asked the third man.
Alex drew a breath and then nodded. “That’s right. If somebody needs him to, he can find other things. That’s how he’s been able to help the police in the past. The case you’re referring to, they had a man in custody for the abduction of several small children. But without bodies they were going to have to let him go. Shad found the bodies for them and the man went to prison. Now you tell me: how does that make Shad Lucas public enemy number one?”
Almost, she won them round. She was so plainly a good and honest person that it was almost enough for them that she said Lucas had done nothing wrong. Perhaps if she’d been alone it would have been. Perhaps they would have let her pass if the only alternative had been roughing her up.
But that wasn’t their only choice. There was Matt too, and though Matt was also an honest and decent person he looked robust enough to take a little pushing and shoving if it meant they could go back to their friends with a swagger in their step.
The one with sandy hair still had his hand on Matt’s chest. He looked at it as if he’d forgotten it was there. Then he looked up at Matt, who was taller, and flicked a humourless smile. “Sorry, not convinced. It’s too much of a coincidence that every time your freak shows his face somebody ends up dead. You’re going to tell me where he is. You’re not leaving here till you do.”
“Don’t call him that,” said Matt quietly.
The man blinked. “What?”
“A freak. He finds it offensive. So do I.”
Alex’s eyes widened at him. The situation had been coming under control. All they needed to do was hang on to their patience and not make things worse. Now Matt was stoking the quarrel over a word. She di
dn’t like it either, but this wasn’t the time or place to make an issue of it.
The man barked a surprised laugh. “Offensive? Really?” He pushed hard with the heel of his hand so Matt staggered back a step, off-balance. “Gee, I wish you’d said before …”
Afterwards Alex tried to tell herself that the situation had been on a knife edge, it could have spiralled out of control whatever she and Matt did. The men would have become more offensive and more aggressive and ultimately they would have resorted to violence however little provocation they were given. But the fact was, they didn’t have the chance to because Matt had had enough.
He brought a clenched fist up sharply under the elbow of the man’s extended arm. There was a nasty clicking sound and a howl of startled agony. In the same moment Matt gripped the hand now locked against his chest, twisted and forced it up the centre of his opponent’s back. The man was still snatching breath for a second yell when Matt pivoted – less than graceful on his prosthetic foot, but a model of ruthless efficiency compared with anyone who has not had professional training – and landed his good foot in the small of the other man’s back. There was a third and diminishing cry as the man cannoned away from him and crashed to the ground. By then Matt had moved on to the next.
The man holding Alex’s arm knew that dropping it was the most urgent item on his agenda; even so he couldn’t get it dropped fast enough. Matt repeated the hammer blow to the elbow, so that the man’s hand shot up into the air, and in the same move kicked out sideways to his shin. Another satisfying clunk, another gratifying wail, and the odds were down from three-to-one to evens.
No – the numbers were, not the odds. The odds had been near enough fair at the start: three macho men from the Skipley Sheet-Metal Works versus a trained soldier missing a foot. But for that misfortune Matt might have felt constrained to fight with one hand tied behind his back and the outcome might have been in doubt for a good thirty seconds longer.
