The Devil's Landscape

Prologue

Dr Owen Barrowman thought that the long stretch of cracked and broken track was never going to end. It seemed an age since he’d left the main road, having almost missed the small, neglected turn-off sign for Moorlock Hall and was now surrounded on all sides by barren moorland. It had been raining heavily and there was no way of estimating the true depth of potholes filled with water until his wheels hit them. The rain had stopped but fog was drifting across the track, varying in density and prompting him to wonder why anyone would want to build a hospital in the middle of nowhere, but of course, he knew. It had been constructed when Queen Victoria was on the throne and Hansom cabs had plied their trade on cobbled, gas-lit streets, a time when polite society preferred not to acknowledge the existence of unpleasant things. Moorlock Hall had been built to house the criminally insane — out of sight, out of mind.

Society had changed, but Moorlock Hall hadn’t. Fourteen men whose insanity had caused them to commit almost unimaginably heinous crimes were being held there and where they would remain until they died. They had been deemed beyond redemption, not only by a public outraged at their crimes, but also by the practitioners of psychiatric medicine who had done little more than assign vaguely descriptive labels to their conditions and nothing at all to cure them.

Barrowman, a post-doctoral research fellow at London’s Capital University, was here to complete his study of psychopathic killers after getting special permission to approach the Moorlock Hall authorities with a request that their patients might assist his research. He already had samples from patients in Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth hospitals in England and from the State Mental Hospital at Carstairs in Scotland when he belatedly became aware of the existence of Moorlock Hall.

The research group Barrowman had joined after getting his PhD from Edinburgh was led by Professor Dorothy Lindstrom who had recently returned from Yale University in the USA. She and her new group were currently existing on limited start-up funding from a pharmaceutical company and what temporary accommodation the university had provided. Expansion in terms of staff and equipment would be dependent on attracting UK government support in the upcoming round of grant applications.

Barrowman had never heard of Moorlock Hall but a careless remark let slip by a government official at a scientific meeting had alerted his old supervisor in Edinburgh to its existence and he had passed on the information as being a possible source of more volunteers for his study. According to the official, Moorlock Hall was ‘for the real baddies’.

Professor Lindstrom had not been too keen on him making the approach, sensing that there might be problems if no one was supposed to know about the place, but his assertion that the inmates of such a place were exactly what he was looking for and the fact that interviewing a few more study subjects and collecting samples from them wouldn’t require much in the way of finance had gained her reluctant permission to go ahead. After initial interest from the inmates however, only one had agreed to co-operate. The others had backed out after learning that there would be no quid pro quo. No privileges would be on offer and any possibility of parole would definitely remain out of the question.

Barrowman crested a small rise and the building came into view. He expected it be of its time, but wasn’t prepared for something that pushed the boundaries of ‘forbidding’ to the limit. Perhaps it was its sheer size that took him by surprise for it had obviously been built to house many more than it currently did with three stories and towers at both ends of its front elevation and its stone walls blackened by well over a hundred years exposure to wind and rain.

He stopped the car some way short of the building, feeling the need to prepare himself and gather his thoughts. The fact that there were no standard hospital signs displaying directions to clinics and departments, no ambulance bays and no busy car parks gave the impression that the building was deserted, but of course, it wasn’t. In Barrowman’s mind, the invisible residents had an undeniable presence.

There was a row of cottages to the left and at right angles to the main building, which Barrowman thought might be staff accommodation. One of them boasted a washing line, its clothes hanging limply in the still air but providing welcome assurance that there was some normality to be found here for there was precious little else to suggest that he wasn’t on the set of some Gothic horror movie. There were only four vehicles parked outside the main building. He made it five.

Pushing the button by the door resulted in an electronic hiss as a grill on the wall sprang into life.

‘Yes?’

‘Dr Barrowman. Dr Groves is expecting me.’

Barrowman winced as a steel slat in the door slid back with a bang and a pair of eyes darted over him before the small door inset in the substantial main one was opened. He was admitted, but only as far as a gate house some two metres beyond where he waited until the main door was secured behind him.

‘Sorry,’ said a middle-aged man wearing green hospital scrubs, ‘we have procedures.’

Barrowman put his briefcase down and stretched out his arms for a security pat-down.

‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to open your case, sir.’

Barrowman felt embarrassed. His black leather case with the gold combination locks and his initials — a present from his wife Lucy at Christmas — contained nothing more than a copy of The Guardian and a plastic box containing the detritus of what had been his pack lunch — sauce-stained sandwich wrapping, an apple core and a crushed Coke can.

‘Thank you sir,’ said the man without change of expression although Barrowman felt sure he’d be telling the tale over supper. ‘Snazzy case, all leather and locks and do you know what he had in it?...’

‘And now your fingerprints, sir...’

Barrowman complied without comment and was then submitted to an iris recognition procedure. He was finally led through another locked door, which gave access to the ground floor of the main building where he was escorted along a corridor, as far as a further door protected by a number code before stopping there and being shown into a room leading off to the right and marked, Medical Director. It was empty.

‘Dr Groves apologises. He’ll be with you shortly, sir. Please make yourself comfortable.’

Comfortable was the last thing Barrowman expected to feel. He was in an office with a desk, a computer, a swivel chair for the desk user and a static one for visitors, rows of medical journals along one wall, a painting of yachts under sail and a wildlife calendar on another. The thing that made it so oppressive apart from its sparseness and institute-green walls was the lack of a window. Above him, a high ceiling bedecked with cobwebs suggested that spiders were the only things to have made contact with it in a long time. There was also a marked absence of sound, no hum of machinery, no air conditioning or distant sounds of activity. There was silence until the door opened and Groves entered, uttering apologies for having been delayed.

Barrowman rose and shook hands with a gaunt man of around six feet tall with a sallow, lined complexion and a comb-over hair style. He wore a brown suit that had seen better days and a faded college tie that secured a shirt collar a bit too large for his wrinkled neck. Barrowman noted that Groves’ mouth drooped on the left side and his left arm seemed limp. He guessed at a stroke in the not too distant past.

‘Quite a red-letter day,’ said Groves. ‘We don’t get many visitors,’ he added with an attempt at a smile. ‘Sometimes I think we’re the place that time forgot.’

Barrowman felt slightly uncomfortable. He thought he’d detected an undertone of bitterness in the comment. ‘You’re certainly off the beaten track.’

Groves managed a lop-sided smile and moved on. ‘I take it you know that only one of our patients agreed to your request?’

‘I had heard.’

‘The others didn’t feel inclined to assist medical research after learning there was nothing in it for them I’m afraid.’

‘And the one who did?’

‘Malcolm Lawler, curious I should think.’

Barrowman nodded.

‘I understand this is a preliminary visit so you can tell Lawler about the project and what you need from him?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Barrowman. ‘Actually, I was rather hoping you might be able to give me a heads-up on him.’

‘A heads-up?’ repeated Groves and Barrowman noticed his change of tone to vague distaste. ‘Don’t you know what he did?’

‘Well, I’ve read the trial transcript of course and the newspaper reports of the time. I suppose I was hoping for a more personal slant. You must know him better than anyone.’

Groves stared at Barrowman for a long moment, the droop in his mouth exaggerating a look of annoyance. ‘The trial record will have told you that expert opinion at the time decided that Lawler was a paranoid schizophrenic who was incapable of feeling guilt or remorse. He tortured, raped and murdered five people and would do the same again if released. I don’t think I have anything to add to that.’

‘Well, I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t just call it a personality disorder,’ said Barrowman.

There was an awkward moment when Barrowman thought he might have gone too far and Groves was about to take offence, but it passed and to his surprise the man appeared to relax.

‘I take it that you, like me, do not hold the practitioners of psychiatry in high regard?’

This time Barrowman could not keep the surprise from his face. The ‘like me’ was a bit of a show-stopper.

Groves noticed. ‘Yes, I’m a psychiatrist, but I understand and even sympathise with what many people feel about our specialty,’ he said. ‘In many ways, it’s at the stage medicine was a hundred years ago. My own mistake was in voicing this opinion to my colleagues — in particular to those blessed with more self-confidence than common sense.’

Groves took an exaggerated look around his surroundings. ‘And you can see where it got me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Barrowman, but it seemed painfully inadequate. ‘I suppose I’m just finding it hard to believe I’m hearing this from a psychiatrist.’

Groves nodded but didn’t comment.

‘The people you have here...’ began Barrowman.

‘Have had the key thrown away.’

‘That bad?’

Groves nodded. ‘I’m sure human rights lawyers, given the chance, would milk the cash-cow but that isn’t going to happen. These people are going nowhere.’

‘Lawler?’

‘Worst of the lot.’

Barrowman swallowed and Groves noticed. He said, ‘I thought you’d be pleased. Isn’t he exactly what you’re looking for?’

Barrowman smiled weakly and said, ‘Well, of course... in an academic sense, but...’

‘Real life is different?’

‘I suppose,’ Barrowman conceded. ‘I take it Lawler didn’t managed to convince the colleagues you spoke of that he should be freed?’

‘I’m sure he would have if circumstances had been different,’ said Groves with a pained look that suggested old wounds had been re-opened. ‘But he didn’t get that chance, thank God. A fellow Broadmoor prisoner at the time, Clifford Sutton — a name you may remember — beat him to it. He was returned to society a changed and contrite man according to my erstwhile colleagues... only to resume his career of rape and murder. Ironically his last victim was one of the panel who had freed him. When asked why, he replied, “She voted against”.’

Barrowman grimaced. ‘And that’s where Moorlock Hall comes into the picture?’

‘Yes, it was that case which made me speak out. The Daily Mail whipped up public fury after I suggested to my colleagues it could happen again if people like Sutton and Lawler and a number of others who were capable of manipulating the system were subject to regular review by people who weren’t as clever as those they were reviewing. It didn’t go down too well and I hope you appreciate the irony now that Lawler and I are locked up together.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘How did you find out about Moorlock Hall? It’s supposed to be a secret.’

‘Someone enjoying the hospitality of a drug company at a scientific meeting let the name slip and my old supervisor made a note of it. He thought you might be an interesting final source of volunteers for my project. I jumped at the chance.’

‘Tell me about your project,’ said Groves.

‘Progress in genetics has uncovered several genes which appear to be linked to extreme psychiatric conditions. I’m a biochemist. I’m working in a group who hope to find out more about what these genes do and how they’re controlled by looking at DNA sequences and spotting enzyme differences in the blood of very different types of people.’

‘Lawler is certainly different.’

Barrowman nodded and said, ‘Because the work is at a very early stage we’re obliged to look at extremes of human behaviour, comparing people who seem absurdly happy and optimistic with others who only see the dark side of life. We’ve got people looking at those who devote their lives to religion — praying for the salvation of others — and, of course, my interest in people who apparently kill without compunction.’

‘As you seek to populate the epigenetic landscape?’ said Groves thoughtfully.

Barrowman smiled. ‘I see you’re familiar with the jargon. You obviously read the journals.’

‘I have time.’

Barrowman nodded.

Groves said, ‘I remember reading that less than twenty percent of our DNA comprises actual genes. What does the rest do?’

‘For years it’s been called junk DNA,’ said Barrowman, ‘simply because no function could be assigned to it, but recently, biochemical activity has been credited to at least some of it. There is wide disagreement about how much, so I think the answer to your question at the moment is... we don’t know.’

‘Not something one hears too often from academics,’ said Groves. He glanced at his watch. ‘Perhaps it’s time for you to meet Mr Lawler?’

The smile disappeared from Barrowman’s face and he gave a less than enthusiastic nod.

‘We’re all on the ground floor here,’ said Groves as they left the office. ‘A modern prison unit inside a Victorian shell. The rest of the building is sealed off and uninhabited apart from the rats and the rolling tumbleweed of times past.’

Groves stabbed numbers into a key pad on the wall and the steel door opened to reveal a brightly lit corridor.

‘I’ve asked that Lawler be put in the interview suite. He tends to have the television on all the time in his own accommodation and there would be extraneous noise from those adjoining. You won’t be disturbed in there. It’s private. You can speak on a one to one basis.’

Barrowman felt a hollow appear in his stomach. Being left alone with a serial killer was not exactly top of his wish list.

Groves read his mind. The room will be under camera surveillance. Lawler will be under restraint.

Barrowman pretended he’d never imagined anything else.

They stopped and Groves spoke into a grill on the wall. ‘Groves with Dr Barrowman.’

‘Password three please.’

‘Pine tree.’

The door opened and a tall, thickset man wearing the uniform scrubs of a male nurse but displaying the physique of a nightclub bouncer ushered them inside.

‘This,’ said Groves walking over to where a man in his fifties sat in a chair, ‘is Malcolm Lawler.’ Barrowman immediately took in that the chair was bolted to the floor and its occupant had his wrists and ankles restrained by straps securing them to the frame.

Had he met him under different circumstances Barrowman thought he might have taken Lawler to be a professional man. He seemed to exude an air of quiet self-confidence, the sort that UK public schools worked so hard to instil in their pupils, understated but definitely there — the kind of assurance that got you the job when exam results might have dictated otherwise.

The hollow in Barrowman’s stomach grew more insistent as he recognised that he was about to come face to face with a monster. The moment their eyes met would be significant. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it had something to do with the relinquishing of anonymity. He would no longer be a face in the crowd. Lawler would know him. He would register as someone known inside a killer’s head.

He looked at the hands resting limply over the ends of the chair arms. These hands had carried out acts that had made him gag in horror when he’d read about them in the trial reports, but when he looked up, the face gave no clue.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mr Lawler.’

Lawler’s eyes moved over Barrowman appraisingly. Eventually he said in a well-modulated voice, ‘You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t get up.’

Barrowman smiled weakly at the joke. ‘I understand I may be interrupting your television viewing?’

Lawler’s lip curled. ‘I don’t watch television; I have it on. The game-show idiots, the clothes-horse presenters, the endless bickering in soaps... they all serve to remind me what I miss so much about society...’

‘I see,’ said Barrowman, chilled by the humourless smirk that appeared on Lawler’s face.

‘Do you? Do you really?’

‘I suppose not,’ admitted Barrowman, deciding to face the challenge head on. ‘There’s really no way I could.’

Lawler gave a slight nod acknowledging both agreement and approval.

‘I’ll think I’ll leave you now,’ said Groves turning towards the door. He and the nurse left the room.

Barrowman was hyper-aware of the sound of the door closing behind them.

‘I understand you’re a scientist,’ said Lawler. ‘What kind? Groves didn’t think to say.’

‘PhD in biochemistry.’

‘Ah, a PhD,’ purred Lawler, ‘a specialist. You learn more and more about less and less until finally you know absolutely everything about fuck all.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it I suppose,’ said Barrowman, beginning to feel as if he were sitting some sort of test with Lawler as examiner.

‘And what exactly does a biochemist want from me?’

‘I’d like to take a few samples, nothing too invasive — a few millilitres of blood from time to time and some scrapings from the inside of your mouth.’

‘With a view to?’

‘Analysing them.’

‘Who’d have thought?’

Barrowman bit his tongue and paused before responding. ‘Medical science is coming ever closer to understanding what makes us all tick as individuals, Mr Lawler, identifying which genes are responsible for which traits and how they are controlled and regulated.’

Lawler snorted dismissively. ‘It’s one thing knowing which gene causes which condition, quite another being able to do anything about it.’ said Lawler. ‘You can’t change an individual’s DNA.’

‘True,’ said Barrowman feeling slightly uncomfortable at Lawler apparently knowing about the drawbacks inherent in gene therapy. ‘But people are working on that.’

‘So you think you will discover why I am... what shall we say?.. alternatively blessed to the good folks on the Jeremy Kyle show?’

Barrowman had been making a point of looking Lawler in the eye when replying, but had found nothing there to support the possibility of establishing any sort of rapport with the man. He was looking into stagnant pools. ‘Yes, that sort of thing,’ he said.

‘Sounds fun.’

Barrowman shuddered inwardly at the thought of what ‘fun’ might mean to a man like Lawler, but also realised why he was continuing to feel so uncomfortable. It wasn’t the fact that he was alone with a rapist and a murderer, it was that Lawler was intent on establishing himself as his intellectual superior.

‘Blood and scrapings, is that all you want from me?’

Barrowman hesitated before risking, ‘It would be useful if you might consider conversation from time to time, talking to me, telling me about yourself... about anything really... just what you feel about things in general...’

‘My hopes, my dreams, my ambitions...’ said Lawler, making a point of looking up at the walls and then at the bindings securing his arms before assuming his superior grin. ‘What exactly do you want to hear from me? What exactly are you hoping for? What do you need for your results? Just tell me and I’ll play along... Psychopath? Schizophrenic? Paranoid schizo? I can do them all. Remorseful? Contrite? Born-again Christian? — that’s my favourite. Just say.’

‘I’m not interested in pinning labels on anyone,’ said Barrowman. ‘It’s data I’m after.’

‘Of course,’ conceded Lawler. ‘I forgot. You’re not a psychiatrist, you’re a scientist, cold, unemotional, observant, but ultimately seeking a scientific truth you can never understand.’

Barrowman looked at him quizzically.

‘The big question, Doctor. What’s it all about?’

Lawler used his eyes to create an arc above his head. ‘It’s the one question waiting at the end of the line for all you scientists, the one you can never answer because it’s beyond comprehension. Everything is derived from something else. The law of conservation of matter. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Correct? And yet, science proceeds like a hamster on a wheel, carefully examining the running surface in minute detail as it continues on its way to the end of a journey that isn’t coming. How could the first molecule arise if there was nothing there to begin with? The big bang? What exploded if there was nothing there to explode? Maybe that wasn’t the beginning of our universe, Doctor. Maybe it was the end of another... and where did that come from? Same problem.’

Lawler seemed pleased to have Barrowman’s rapt attention. ‘Or maybe it’s all down to a man in the sky with a long white beard. Yes, that’s it. That’s what the chaps in frilly dresses and pointy hats would have us believe so why not? There we are. Sorted. Anything else we should talk about?’

‘I’m sure there’s lots,’ said Barrowman, uncertain if that were true, but feeling slightly mesmerised.

‘Maybe next time,’ said Lawler. ‘Deal or no Deal will be on shortly; I’d hate to miss that.’