Poppet

Mulder and Scully

AJ HAS SURPRISED himself by managing another two hours’ sleep. The night shift are going home now, but he’s stayed in his office, drinking industrial-strength coffee, trying to wake up. By seven a.m., when Melanie arrives at the unit, he is buzzing and alert. He stands at his window and watches her cross the car park, the security lights picking out the silvery bullets of rain sweeping past her. Dressed in a beige raincoat and red wellingtons, she holds a newspaper over her head and ducks as she hurries towards reception. As soon as she’s inside he withdraws from the window. Scratches around trying to keep himself awake with coffee and paperwork – giving her twenty minutes or so to get her head together.

At seven twenty he gathers himself. Straightens his clip-on tie and walks resolutely down the corridor. Knocks on her door.

‘Yes?’

‘AJ.’

There’s a pause. A slight sound of something moving in there. Then: ‘Come in.’

He opens the door. She is sitting at the desk behind a pile of papers, her glasses on. She’s taken off the wellies and rain-spattered coat, and now she is wearing a blouse with drooping, lace-embellished cuffs that make her look like something from the court of Louis Quatorze. The reason for the cuffs, of course, is the bandaged hand. Putting the lid on the rumour mill.

‘AJ?’ Her smile is kind, but reserved. ‘Thank you for yesterday. You were a marvel. Have you been working all night?’

‘Can I come in?’

‘Of course.’ She nods at the seat in front of her desk. ‘Please.’

He comes and sits – feeling again like a pupil in the head-mistress’s office. She was sleeping with one of the OTs, mate. Don’t forget that. Getting down and dirty with one of the great unwashed. Not quite as professional as she seems …

‘I’ve got some results from the Home Office on those tribunals last week,’ she says brightly. ‘Good news – we’ve got a free bed on pre-discharge tomorrow.’

‘Oh?’

‘Isaac Handel. We thought he’d be going – they’ve rubber-stamped it. So I guess we’ll want to be thinking about who’s coming out of Acute and where the next referral will come from, so I …’ She breaks off. Tilts her head to one side. ‘AJ? Is that what you were here about?’

‘No.’ He clears his throat, uncomfortable. ‘No – actually, I, uh, I wanted to talk about – you know – about what we were talking about yesterday. The delusions – among the patients. The M-word.’

She lets out a long sigh. ‘Oh, OK.’

‘We – I mean, the unit – we’ve always taken a middle-of-the-road attitude to it. We’ve reached our conclusions and stuck with them. Easy conclusions to reach if you’re dealing with this population: mass hallucination, hysteria, etcetera.’

‘Are there any other conclusions to reach?’

‘Yes. There are.’

She lowers the paper she’s holding and stares at him, her cheeks suddenly red. Her eyes are magnified behind the glasses. ‘AJ,’ she says levelly. ‘Or Mulder, should I say? Is this you crossing over to the dark side? Jacking in your sceptic credentials? Are we now a Maude believer?’

‘No. In fact the ugly sceptic in me has just drunk a case of Red Bull and carjacked a Ferrari. I’m Scully, Scully to the hilt. More Scully than Scully is. Scully could have been based on me.’

She takes her glasses off and lays them carefully to one side. She clasps her hands together and leans forward, looking at him like a judge. Eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation.

‘A power cut,’ he says. ‘Every time The Maude appears, there’s been a power cut. There was a power cut the night Zelda self-harmed and the night she died.’

‘I know. Sometimes I watch Ashes to Ashes and think, Wish I could do that – rewind to the eighties when the unit was being built. There are a few people I’d have a full’n’frank with. The electricians, to start with.’

‘And I think there may have been a power cut when Moses wrote those things on his walls. I remembered he said he smelled burning fish.’

‘From the kitchen? I don’t remember that bit.’

‘Well, I thought about the kitchen – but have you ever smelled a fuse blowing?’

‘Yes, it’s like …’ She frowns. ‘Like burning fish.’

‘Some of the security staff think there was a power cut when Moses had his episode. Do you remember?’

‘I wish. I can’t remember my own name these days – let alone back that far.’

‘Who has records of things like that?’

‘Maybe maintenance – except, no, their records get cleared every year.’ She shrugs. ‘Christ knows. Ask Moses?’

‘Have you tried asking Moses about anything that happened that day? It’s as if this is Guantanamo, and you’re going to water-board him.’ She shrugs again and reaches for her glasses, as if she’s about to lose interest. He sits forward and says, ‘A power cut equals no CCTV – the emergency generator doesn’t feed the CCTV, I’ve checked with central security. Delusions, hallucinations and fantasies? The Maude? That’s Mulder’s world – independent of the nuts and bolts of reality. But cruelty and power cuts? That’s Scully stuff. My camp.’

Melanie sets the glasses down again, leans forward, her ridiculously blue eyes locked on his. ‘AJ,’ she says calmly, ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘No CCTV – no evidence.’

‘I still don’t get it.’

‘Well, duh, Melanie, sorry to be rude, but think about it. Moses was a nuisance – so was Zelda and so was Pauline. They pissed people off. What I’m saying is – could it be the delusions aren’t delusions? Could it have happened the way they said? Could it be someone in the unit – a real live human – one of the other patients, or the staff even, trying to shut them up?’ He pauses, letting the implication settle on Melanie. ‘I mean, Moses? Zelda? Pauline? Who wouldn’t?’

‘No, AJ – what crap, if you’ll excuse the expression. They would have told us.’

‘It was dark – how could they see who came into their room? And what if someone had titted around with their medication? They’re already dosed up to the eyeballs anyway – what if they’d been given even more sedative than they usually had? Have you not thought about that unattributable heart attack? Secondary to obesity – was that what it went down as? I’m sure the pathologist wasn’t looking for crush injuries to the heart, because who would have said anything?’

‘Crush injuries?’

‘Yes – like someone sitting on her. And I don’t mean a ghost sitting on her, I mean a person. A person.’

‘They would have checked, wouldn’t they? That’s the first thing they look for: signs of injury from restraint.’

‘Maybe. But it could have been a stress-induced heart attack. Stress because someone was tormenting her. Did anyone check whether the writing on Zelda’s arms was actually hers? The writing on Moses’ walls – Pauline’s legs? We all assumed they’d done it themselves, but who checked? I certainly didn’t. Be thou not one of them that committeth foul acts? Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart? Avoid idleness and intemperance? Moses might have committed adultery a hundred times, but would he know that word? And where did Zelda learn a word like intemperance? I’m not even sure what it means.’

‘Greed. It means greed.’

AJ raises an eyebrow. ‘Impressive.’

‘I looked it up. I saw it written … somewhere. On one of the pictures, I don’t know …’ She peers up at her etching of the workhouse, as if groping for a memory. She shakes her head. ‘Anyway – whatever – I looked it up. It means greed.’

‘Sort of fits then, in Zelda’s case.’

Melanie puts the glasses on, frowns tolerantly over the rims. ‘AJ, remind me – what was Zelda’s DSM classification again? I can’t remember.’

‘She was … probably schizophrenia, axis 2? BPD, I guess and—’ ‘Basically, she’s suggestible. Has auditory and visual hallucinations?’

‘I’m asking you to keep an open mind, that’s all.’

‘I have got an open mind, AJ. In fact, I am about as open-minded as they come in this job. And I will promise you this: it didn’t happen. It’s impossible. I’d rather that freaky little dead dwarf came and sat on my chest than have to believe what you’re suggesting.’

‘I think we should look into it. Speak to the police even.’

‘The police have been here all week. They’re as fed up with it as we are, they won’t want us digging it all up again.’

‘I meant a different part of the police? One of the specialist teams. Remember those detectives we met at the Criminal Justice Forum the other day? Major Crime? You were speaking to one of them – you could give him a call, talk in confidence.’

‘AJ, I understand your concerns, but dragging the police back in? Especially when we don’t know what happened. At the moment it looks as if it’s all going to drift, and I for one am more than happy to let that happen, to let the unit slowly settle back to normal. Forgive me – I just don’t think I can handle the police coming back. Not with everything else that’s going on.’

AJ sighs. Sits back and massages his temples. Maybe she’s right – maybe he’s just exhausted and saddled with an overactive imagination. He’s spent far too long in this place over the last seven days – he has time in lieu backing up to next month. He’s got to get some time off.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Sorry. You’re right.’ He pauses, looks at her hand. ‘And you? How’s your hand?’

She glances down at it. ‘It’s fine. But I suppose you think I’m an alcoholic now.’

‘No. No – like I said, I think you’ve got a lot on your plate. And Jonathan going? That must be hard.’

The words are out before he realizes what he’s said. But it’s too late. Her chin jerks up and a small hint of the emotion he saw in the car yesterday evening creeps into her face. Like cochineal dropped in a lake. ‘I’m sorry? I beg your pardon?’

‘Yes – I, uh – nothing. Nothing.’ He begins to get to his feet. ‘I’m going – forget I said it.’

‘No. Wait. Did I hear you right?’

Now it’s AJ’s turn to feel the colour rising in his face. He stays where he is, half standing half sitting, not knowing where to put himself. ‘Yes – I was only checking you were OK. That’s all.’

‘Does everyone know?’

‘Not exactly everyone.’

‘Jesus.’ Melanie drops her injured hand on the desk and shakes her head. ‘Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. What a bloody awful mess.’