Poppet

Triumph

CAFFERY HAS SLEPT badly again and wakes aching all over. He drinks coffee, takes paracetamol, showers, dresses and drives through the Bristol traffic, hearing police sirens and car horns, drive-time on the radio. No mention of Misty Kitson this morning. She’s there, regardless, somewhere behind the headlines and the jingles and the music. Misty is always going to be in the public’s consciousness.

Flea says the body isn’t at the bottom of the quarry. That it’s more complicated than that. Is that the truth? Diving is outside his experience, it’s an intricate and highly technical world, but there have to be other people who would be able to tell him. He digs his fingernails into the leather-covered steering wheel, considering this – seriously considering it. There are other police diving teams. And commercial divers too. Where do you start? The irony isn’t lost on him – if he’s prepared to involve someone else then why has he kept this a secret up until now?

He wonders who he’s more fucked off with – Flea? Or with himself for carrying around this tiny remnant of faith that eventually she’ll change her mind.

When he arrives at work the superintendent is waiting for him in reception. From his smug expression it’s clear a new case has come in. He’s waiting under the framed photograph of the late chief constable, one hand resting nonchalantly on the water cooler, a patient, faintly triumphant smile on his face. Next to him stands a dark-haired guy – mid-forties, dressed in a suit that seems to be making him uncomfortable. Caffery recognizes him vaguely from somewhere.

‘Jack – allow me to introduce Mr LeGrande. He’d like a word with you.’

Caffery offers his hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Mr LeGrande.’

‘Mr Caffery.’ They shake.

LeGrande has already been given a visitor’s pass, hanging from one of the new-issue MCIT lanyards, decorated comically with silhouettes of Sherlock Holmes and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. ‘Call me AJ. We met at the Criminal Justice Forum?’

‘Yes – I recognize you.’

‘Jack!’ The superintendent has the air of a well-polished political campaigner as he touches both men on their arms, encouraging them. He’s riding this triumph like the wind. ‘Why don’t you take Mr LeGrande on upstairs? Let me know how it goes?’

They make their way to his office, and as they walk the corridors, in his head Caffery is going through the probabilities of what AJ wants. Please, not some jobsworth: Mr Caffery, good of you to see me. I wanted to follow up the discussions we had at the forum. I’ve written up a proposal for you on implementing smoother transitions from the custody suite … blah de blah …

In his office he makes them each a cup of coffee – AJ looks as if he needs it almost as much as Caffery does, maybe more – and they sit, AJ on the sofa, Caffery at the desk.

‘So, AJ, what can I do for you?’

AJ puts his hand to his mouth and gives an embarrassed cough.

‘Well, uh – before we go any further – this has to be in confidence.’

Caffery raises an eyebrow. ‘In theory that’s OK. But no promises until I know what we’re talking about.’

‘It’s extremely important no one knows I’m here.’

‘Someone’s threatening you?’

‘No, it’s not that – it’s …’ He hesitates, then says in a rush, ‘Something’s going on where I work. Or rather, it was going on. We’re a high-secure unit, if you remember, and things have been happening that don’t feel right … I’m uneasy.’

Caffery takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes tiredly. ‘Just for future reference, Mr LeGrande, “I’m uneasy” is not a phrase cops are fond of. Don’t expect to be welcomed if you go bandying it about. Has an unwelcome ring. But go ahead anyway.’

‘OK. This is going to sound a bit nuts – but there you go, I work in a nuthouse, so what can I say.’

‘Are you allowed to call it a nuthouse?’

‘I am, you’re not. You’re on the outside. On the inside we have special privileges. Believe me, we deserve them.’ He gives a brief smile. ‘It’s a loony bin. And in our particular loony bin, ever since I can remember, there’s been an even loonier myth doing the rounds. It’s a …’ He sighs, half embarrassed. ‘A ghost story that kind of circulates amongst the patients from time to time. They’re suggestible – you can imagine. We try to keep a lid on it where we can. But it’s popped up a few times, and at least three times I know of, what’s ended up happening has been a bizarre cluster of DSH cases.’

‘DSH?’

‘Sorry – deliberate self-harm. People cutting themselves, that sort of thing. A few years back it escalated to a death – maybe a suicide, we don’t know for sure. Then a week ago there was another death – a heart attack, according to the doctors. But it doesn’t feel right.’

Caffery taps his pen thoughtfully, studying AJ’s face. It’s a sad story, one he’s heard before. Suicides in a secure unit always make the senior staff unhappy – deeply unhappy – but they rarely turn out to be anything MCIT needs to be interested in. Maybe this can be moved through the system quickly.

‘One guy put his own eye out.’

‘Nasty.’

‘Nasty, though not that uncommon in a, you know, loony bin. But he had the same hallucinations – just like the patient we lost last week. Her heart attack was after delusions. And it was the same a few years ago, when the other patient died. She’d convinced herself she’d seen The Mau— Sorry, I didn’t explain: they call this thing “The Maude”.’

‘The Maude?’

AJ shakes his head. ‘It’s a long story. But whatever was going on in this one patient’s mind was so bad that one day she walks out of the unit and no one sees her again. Not until months later when they find her body in the grounds. The autopsy never did say for sure how she died – I think everyone had it in the back of their head it was a suicide, but it got moved on down the tracks.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Pauline Scott.’

It rings vague bells for Caffery.

It was before his time, but he’s fairly sure it’s a case Flea mentioned, notable because it was embarrassing for everyone concerned: Beechway, for letting a vulnerable patient wander out, and the police search advisor, the POLSA, on Flea’s unit, who was tasked with the search and didn’t quite extend the parameters far enough. So easy to miss someone a few metres outside. He doesn’t move his eyes, but his attention trails across the room to Misty’s face. A search like that? Metres, even centimetres, can count.

‘Except,’ AJ says, ‘I think it’s a case of the Scooby-Doo ghost.’

‘A case of the what?’

‘Scooby-Doo. You know – Scooby and Shaggy and the gang always catch the ghost, pull off its mask and turns out to be … I dunno, the local property developer or something? Wants to make people believe the place is haunted so the land prices drop? That’s what I call a Scooby ghost – something that’s real but it’s made to look supernatural. I reckon we’ve got one haunting the corridors of Beechway.’

‘And you’re Shaggy—’

‘No, I’m Velma. I’m the brains. And I’m Scully, by the way, because sometimes I get asked that too.’

‘Velma. Scully. The stage is all yours. Hit me.’

AJ nods. If he had nerd glasses he’d push them up his nose.

‘OK. I can’t find out for certain, but I’m pretty sure every time it’s happened there’s been a power cut.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Power cuts put the CCTV system down.’

‘Have a lot of power cuts, do you?’

‘No. Two, maybe three – that’s all I can remember in the four years I’ve been there.’ He puts his rucksack on the floor and unzips it. ‘I’ve got something I want you to see. It won’t mean anything to you, but to me …?’ He gives a small, pained smile. ‘Well, it frightened the daylights out of me.’