Poppet

Poison

IT’S BEEN AN hour and a half and AJ cannot, cannot, keep still. He stands in the security pod shaking, but so far only two people have noticed. One is the Big Lurch, who has put a hand on AJ’s back – left it there just long enough to say: I know, mate. I know what’s happening to you. And though I’m not going to acknowledge it publicly, please believe I’m with you on it. The other is the support-group sergeant, a woman with wiry blonde hair and very blue eyes. Although she is dressed for business in a bulletproof vest that bristles with equipment and radios, she’s sensitive enough to have noticed. He’s felt her eyes on him. She knows.

On screen, men in black uniforms and riot vests are trying doors, checking cameras, doing risk assessments and scrutinizing the blueprints of the building and its fire-response system. When they stand still, they do so with their legs slightly apart as if to suggest their limbs are so muscled it’s impossible to close them properly. Their shoulders and noses and arms are so wide and strong that AJ feels completely inadequate.

The other screen shows the grey canvas tape. Nothing has changed. The volume of the speakers has been turned up in the team’s attempts to catch every nuance of what is happening in the seclusion room. But it’s just silence bearing down on them – a complete and utter lack of noise.

The egg timer flicks itself over again. And again. Maybe it helps Linda concentrate. All it reminds AJ of is the sort of thing Mum would instinctively shield her eyes from – knowing it would trigger an epileptic episode. Each time it tips over, another minute has passed in which Isaac Handel has had carte blanche to do whatever he wants to Melanie. And there will be lots of things – AJ is sure of that. He recalls the way Handel used to watch Melanie going through the corridors. His eyes narrowing to slits in his face. He’ll be playing out all those things he’s thought about doing.

AJ hopes and prays his imagination is better and crueller than Handel’s.

DI Caffery is out of signal range. AJ would feel so much better if Caffery was here. I am so so sorry, I’m so sorry, he mouths to the screen with the tape on it. Melanie, I am so sorry …

Suddenly Handel removes the tape he has used to muffle the microphone. The sound is deafening, startling everyone. The security supervisor comes in and hastily leans across Linda to flick the volume down. The team hold their breath. Next to AJ, the senior negotiator lowers his face, touches his finger to his forehead. Linda puts her hand over her mic – as if she doesn’t want a single whisper or movement feeding itself to the hostage and the hostage taker. AJ leans silently against the wall, hoping the people behind him haven’t noticed that his legs are shaking again.

Then the tape is removed from the screen. There’s a blinding glare of light as the camera adjusts to the sudden brightness. Then the image of the room flashes up.

Melanie is sitting on the floor, her back to the wall, her head bent. AJ leans forward and scans her frantically, taking in the details. She is dressed. She is wearing the clothes she was wearing when she came in. Nothing is ripped or torn. Although her shoulders are drooping, she is alive. Breathing. From this angle he can’t tell if she is injured.

Handel stands in the corner of the room, his head made larger by the foreshortening effect of the lens, the holdall on the ground in front of him. He is stepping from foot to foot, convulsively wiping his hands, his eyes roving restlessly from Melanie to the door to the camera. His jeans are too big for him, they hang around his skinny frame – but they are, at least, AJ notes, zipped up. And there’s no sign of blood on his clothing.

In the doorway the senior negotiator leans into the staffroom and conveys all this to the commander in a whispered voice. AJ hears snatches of what they’re saying: Give it time – see what develops – implement delivery plan. He tries to control his breathing – keeping it silent. It takes a monumental effort of will not to make a sound.

Melanie lifts her head and looks at the camera. Her face is unharmed, there are no bruises, no blood. But her eyes are like black holes.

‘Can you hear me?’ she says.

Linda switches on the mic, draws close to it. ‘I can hear you. My name’s Linda.’

Melanie nods. ‘I know. We’ve been listening to everything you said.’

‘So,’ Linda says. ‘Am I talking to you or to Isaac?’

‘You’re talking to me,’ says Melanie. ‘Are you police, Linda?’

‘Actually, you know what – technically, I am. But that’s not my role at the moment. I’m not here as a police officer, I’m here to help you and Isaac. I know at this point we may be a long way off you coming out, but my job is just to talk to you and discuss how that will happen. So Isaac, if you were thinking about coming out, I’m the one who can discuss it with you.’

‘That’s OK,’ Melanie says. ‘It’s all going to be straightforward.’

In the corner, Isaac nods fervently. He is getting more and more agitated, rubbing his hands together faster and faster.

Linda shoots a look at AJ. It was the word he used earlier. Isaac’s not always as straightforward as he seems.

‘Straightforward?’ she repeats into the mic.

‘That’s right.’

‘OK, Melanie,’ Linda says slowly. ‘Tell me a little more. We’re all working towards you and Isaac coming out of there happy so we can put this behind us.’

‘Yes.’ Melanie nods slowly. ‘And all you have to do is listen.’

‘That’s what I’m doing.’

‘And who is there? Who else is listening?’

‘Do you want to make this more private? I can ask them all to go, if you want.’

‘No. I just want to know who’s there.’

‘OK, there’s me and I’ve got a colleague here from London. There’s two members of your security team. There’s …’ She looks at the commander, who stands next to the door, arms folded. He gives his head a quick shake. ‘And then,’ Linda continues, passing over the commander and his tactical advisor with barely a hesitation, ‘there’s your ward coordinator.’

‘AJ?’

‘Yes. AJ.’

‘Hi, AJ.’ Melanie raises a hand to the camera, does a solemn little wave. ‘Hi.’

AJ looks at the senior negotiator. Opens his hands to say, What do I do? Do I answer? The guy nods and AJ crosses the room, bends to speak into the mic. He can smell Linda’s perfume he’s so close – she’ll probably be able to hear his heart thumping.

‘Hi, Melanie. I’m here.’ He pauses, his eyes on the screen. Then, instinctively, he says. ‘Hi, Isaac.’

Isaac knows AJ’s voice. He lifts his hand in acknowledgement. Linda moves the microphone slightly away from AJ.

‘Melanie – what was that you were saying about this being straightforward?’

‘That’s right.’ She glances at Isaac. ‘Yes,’ she says slowly, deliberately. ‘All I have to do is admit my “crimes”.’

‘Your crimes?’

‘Namely the following. That I …’ She pauses and swallows – as if the words are difficult to get out. ‘That I tortured my, uh, my patients. That I inflicted harm on them, which I later explained away as self-harm. That I …’ She sends a wavering glance in Isaac’s direction, as if seeking a prompt on the rest of a script. ‘That I, er—’

‘Hurt them,’ he says dully. ‘You hurt them.’

‘That’s right. I hurt them.’

‘You put ideas in their heads.’

‘I put ideas in their heads. And ultimately, unlikely though it sounds, in two cases, ultimately I …’ She gives another painful swallow. Then finishes in a hurry: ‘I drove them to their deaths.’

‘And that’s what you want to tell us?’

‘Yes. It is.’ She gestures to where Isaac is rummaging through the holdall. ‘That’s what I wore when I did it, so I wasn’t recognized.’

Isaac straightens and produces a Perspex mask. It’s a radiation mask – AJ recognizes it instantly. Some of the people at Mum’s neurology clinic used to wear them. He thinks of the picture Zelda drew, and of what he saw in Melanie’s back garden. That smooth, eerie, skittle head.

There is a long silence. Linda clicks off the mic and uses her heels to wheel her chair back so she is nearer the senior negotiator. ‘Into surrender plan?’

‘Yup – hold for one – I’ll clear that.’

He turns to the staffroom and hisses to the commander. ‘We can start on a surrender plan, it’s looking good.’

The sergeant with the sweet face turns to leave the room, speaking into her radio as she goes. There’s a palpable notching down of tension in the security pod. Linda and the senior negotiator go into a huddle and on screen the men in riot gear begin to move away from the seclusion room. On the second camera, Isaac is working at removing the screws and the iron rods he has used to barricade the door. AJ stares at Melanie on screen. He stares at the radiation mask.

In the room there may be a release of tension but there’s something else too: a kind of disappointment that it’s all come and gone so easily – that Isaac isn’t the deranged man they’d prepared for but a schizophrenic effortlessly defused by Melanie’s ‘confession’. No heroics and no door battering and no hostage situations. Just another wacko.

Only AJ isn’t happy.

‘Sir?’

Everyone in the staffroom stops what they are doing and turns to AJ. He holds the commander with his eyes. ‘Can I speak to him before he comes out?’

The commander cocks his head on one side. ‘The situation is winding down. We’re into a surrender plan, I think we know what we’re dealing with now.’

‘Do we? Are you sure he won’t try something when that door opens?’

‘The team are trained.’

‘And I’m trained too. I’m trained really well with this one patient in particular. He’s bluffing – I know him. I’ve been in this position with him before and I’ve known things go seriously wrong at this point.’

The commander thinks about it. Then he nods at the senior negotiator. ‘Let him have a go.’

‘Thanks.’ AJ checks his phone in its belt holster. He’s waiting for Caffery to call back. He’s sent six texts and left three voice messages, updating him as the situation has unfolded – so far, no reply. He tucks the phone away and goes to the desk. Linda is frowning at him – not happy at all, but eventually she gets up and bad-naturedly pushes the chair towards him.

‘Don’t you cock this up for me now …’ she whispers. ‘Please don’t.’

He nods. Sits and switches on the mic. ‘Isaac?’ he says. ‘Isaac – it’s me.’

On screen Isaac stops what he’s doing. He tips his head back and stares up at the camera.

‘AJ?’

‘Yes. It’s AJ. Isaac – I’ve got a question for you. Did you stand outside Ms Arrow’s window four nights ago?’

Isaac’s eyes are wandering, the way they often do when he’s stressed – the way a blind person’s eyes will wander, unable to hold any sort of contact. It gives the impression Isaac is answering someone he perceives behind his own eyes. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I did.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Um.’ He closes his eyes and opens them. ‘Because she had to be frightened like they were.’

‘Like who was?’

‘Like with Pauline and Zelda and Moses when she sat on their chests. I wanted her to be frightened too like they were.’

Linda clears her throat. When he turns she’s hurriedly scribbled on a notepad the words: Don’t challenge. Go along with it. Collude with him is fine. Objective = get the hostage out.

AJ nods. Then he clicks the microphone on again. This time he allows his hand to rest protectively over the button so Linda can’t switch it off. ‘Isaac?’

‘Yes, what?’

‘Did you poison my fucking dog?’

Linda draws in a sharp breath. She stands next to him, staring meaningfully at him.

‘Answer me, Isaac,’ AJ says hurriedly. ‘Why did you poison my dog?’

Isaac moves his head from side to side, as if he’s hearing something so surreal and inexplicable it’s almost beyond wonder. ‘Poison?’ he murmurs. ‘I don’t think I did that, AJ. I wouldn’t do that. I like dogs, I do.’