The Devil's Landscape

Four

‘Well, here we are again,’ said Malcolm Lawler as Owen Barrowman was shown into the interview room at Moorlock Hall where Lawler had been strapped to his chair in preparation.

Barrowman felt his teeth go on edge, reading more into what on the surface was a polite greeting. What was it? Mockery? Derision? A patronising acknowledgement that someone mildly amusing had arrived?

‘Afternoon, Mr Lawler.’

Although this was their eighth meeting, Barrowman stuck doggedly to formality, something Lawler had made easy for him with his smug air of superiority. Barrowman loathed the man but also found him spell-bindingly interesting. It was like speaking to a creature from another planet. There was much to learn.

‘So, what has science learned from my blood, doctor? Is a ground-breaking paper about to rock the British Medical Journal?’

‘Too soon for that, Mr Lawler, but there are certain enzyme levels that look interesting. They just need more investigation.’

‘Ah, that’s always the way with science,’ mused Lawler. ‘More research needs to be done... progress always lies round the next corner.’

Barrowman smiled. Lawler’s preliminary blood results from samples taken on the last three visits had revealed more than he cared to talk about, least of all to Lawler, but it needed checking — thorough checking. Publishing conclusions which later proved to be wrong could end up in scientific crucifixion. Scientists liked seeing what they expected to see: they liked hearing what they expected to hear. Beware. Check, check and check again.

As a researcher, Barrowman knew the importance of being observant — perhaps that above all else. In the early stages of an investigation there was no way of knowing what was important and what was not. The smallest detail could be the key to a much bigger truth. When they’d first met, Groves, the medical superintendent at Moorlock Hall, had complained bitterly that Lawler could fool psychiatric assessors by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear and making sure they saw exactly what they were looking for. When later, Lawler had bragged to him personally that he could assume the persona of whatever psychiatric label he cared to assign to him, Barrowman had put him to the test. He had manoeuvred the conversation around to the difficulties inherent in psychiatric diagnosis and Lawler had taken up the challenge to demonstrate his skills in faking mental conditions.

Barrowman had not only made a point of flattering Lawler over his ability, he had collected lab samples immediately afterwards. His plan had been to compare the biochemical profiles of someone pretending to suffer from a recognised psychiatric condition with those he’d already obtained from officially diagnosed cases in other institutions. He hoped that, as a side interest, he might be able to establish a blood test to expose the fakers — those who sought to use mental illness as a way of escaping the full weight of the law when it came to punishment.

Barrowman had spent the previous evening examining Lawler’s biochemical results — which had just come back from the lab — with those he had on file from patients in Broadmoor and Rampton. What he saw had excited him and then caused him to stop and wonder. The most likely explanation for what he was seeing was that there had been some kind of mix-up in the specimens he had given to the lab — embarrassing as he’d been solely responsible for this, but it had to be checked. Earlier this morning he had taken up what was left in the fridge of Lawler’s blood sample from the date and time in question and asked if the lab might hurry through repeat tests as a favour. Barrowman could be very charming when it suited him, the results would be ready when he got back.

‘So, what is it today?’ asked Lawler. ‘How are we going to progress the great discovery? More blood?’

‘Of course,’ Barrowman replied a little hesitantly, ‘but to reach any firm conclusions I’d like to understand more about you. I need to differentiate between nature and nurture. I don’t want to waste time looking for a genetic reason for behaviour that is really down to an experience you had in childhood, if you know what I mean?’

Lawler gave Barrowman a withering look. ‘I’m perfectly familiar with the concepts of nature and nurture, thank you.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be patronising. It’s just that I know so little about what makes you tick. I know why you’re here of course and I’ve heard your views on mental illness and the people who treat it, but I need to understand... more about what goes on in your head as a person... what you think about when you’re alone... when you’re not performing for your own amusement...’

Owen saw the expression on Lawler’s face darken and sensed that he’d got it all wrong.

Lawler saw his unease and paused to revel in it. He leaned forward in his chair, the restraints on his arms forcing him into the body shape of a cat about to spring. ‘What you really want to know is why I did it,’ he snapped. ‘Just like all the rest. How could anyone bring themselves to do the things I’ve done? How could anyone in their right mind — woops, but I’m not, am I? — even conceive of some of the things I’ve done? My god, Marjorie’ — Lawler affected a posh matronly voice — ‘it makes me quite ill to think about it.’

Barrowman felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and a feeling of trepidation engulf him as Lawler’s unblinking stare transfixed him. He made a weak attempt at arguing that this wasn’t the case but Lawler ignored him. ‘What goes on in my head, Doctor? What goes on in my head?... all right.’

Barrowman heard the last two words as his ticket to a place he really didn’t want to go to.

Lawler, still straining forward, said quietly, ‘I think about fear, doctor. Fear is the key to my world. Sweat glistening on skin, gasps for breath — music to my ears. My god, let me tell you, doctor, the smell of fear is quite intoxicating, but it’s only an aperitif, a joyous hint of what’s to come as you strip away every veneer, every vestige of dignity, every scrap of belief and hope from... your subject.’

‘I don’t want to hear this, Lawler. Stop there!’

‘But you must, doctor,’ hissed Lawler. ‘You’re a cold, dispassionate scientist, remember? You have to hear it or you’re no longer a genuine investigator. You’ll be a fraud. You’ll be leaving out the bits that YOU have decided should not be recorded. You’ll be left with flawed data, doctor. FLAWED DATA, the enemy of science.’

Lawler took Barrowman’s nervous swallow as acquiescence and continued as if he’d only been momentarily distracted. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes, pain, I was coming to pain. Drugs are fine but they are as nothing compared to the high you can reach in the presence of someone in complete and absolute agony... Mona Styles for instance.’

Barrowman knew that Mona Styles had been one of Lawler’s victims and had read with horror what had been done to her. He had no wish to hear the perpetrator go through it in detail, but Lawler had engineered the situation perfectly. He couldn’t get up and leave without losing credibility. FLAWED DATA, the enemy of science.

Barrowman fought the urge to vomit as Lawler guided him through a tale that touched the outer limits of depravity.

It was obvious to him that Lawler was feeding off his disgust, stage-managing his revelations with the deliberate introduction of pauses which forced Barrowman to fill in the blanks for himself before trumping him with yet more horrendous details.

‘The moment when she realised there was yet more to come, doctor.... yet another level... of exquisite agony to encounter... Let me tell you, I touched the stars...’

Lawler relaxed his grip on the chair arms and closed his eyes, leaning back to relive the moment as if caught up in some hellish rapture.

Barrowman sat, immobile and wide-eyed like a waxwork, waiting for Lawler to return to the present before steeling himself to say in as controlled a fashion as he could, ‘I’ll take your blood sample now, Mr Lawler.’ He managed it without a quaver in his voice, a triumph of self-control over utter revulsion.

The merest suggestion of doubt appeared in Lawler’s eyes. He had been expecting a different response, some overt sign of disgust, at best a complete collapse of professional demeanour, perhaps even a descent into abusive rant, but it didn’t happen.

Two nurse/attendants came into the room, opened the mesh barrier and stood by while Barrowman took a blood sample from Lawler’s arm before thanking him as matter-of-factly as he could. He left the room and paused while the door was closed behind him before half running, half stumbling along the corridor to the staff toilet where he threw up helplessly into a wash basin. Every thought of what he’d heard resulted in yet another retch until the pain from his stomach muscles made him wince. He was still holding the plastic blood sample tube in one hand as he struggled to turn on the taps with the other to wash away the mess and the smell... the smell of fear, Doctor, an aperitif.

The sound of Groves’ voice behind him startled him. He hadn’t heard him come in.

‘I understand our Mr Lawler has been entertaining you with his trips down memory lane, doctor...’

Barrowman shook his head, risking taking it out of range of the basin to stand up and turn around. ‘I’m sorry, that was... unprofessional.’

A slight smile appeared on Groves’ lips. He said, ‘The day when feeling like a decent human being is less important than being professional will be a very sad one indeed. I keep a decent malt in my desk drawer for when things just become... too much. Join me?’

Back in his office, Groves handed Barrowman whisky in a glass tumbler with a chip out of the rim. ‘Do you really think this is going to be a worthwhile exercise?’ he asked.

Barrowman examined his glass in silence. It seemed to match his surroundings perfectly, he thought, noting that the rim on Groves’ glass had more than one chip out of it. There was an awkward moment when he raised the glass to his lips and the strong aroma of the whisky threatened to provoke another protest from his fragile stomach, but the moment passed and the fire in his throat from his first sip seemed to signal an end to the nightmare. ‘God, that’s good,’ he exclaimed.

‘Ardbeg,’ said Groves. ‘A reason to live.’

‘In answer to your question, I wasn’t counting on what happened today. That was something else. but I’ve been getting some interesting data from Lawler’s blood results. I have to stick with it.’

‘You don’t think you just might end up with a new label for someone like Lawler?’

‘That would be the very worst thing that could happen. Labels are pointless in my book: They don’t change anything. Learning that the man who’s just murdered your daughter suffers from a condition involving twenty-three syllables and a silent “p” doesn’t change a thing. She’s still dead and that bastard killed her.’

Groves tipped his glass slightly in agreement. ‘There are those in my profession for whom labels are an end in themselves and then of course, there is the legal profession.’

Barrowman smiled. ‘Who will extend proceedings as long as possible to accommodate long-winded and often contradictory expert opinions.’ He declined the offer of the whisky bottle and shook his head. ‘I have to drive.’

‘There does seem to be a reluctance among both professions to acknowledge even the possibility of the existence of evil,’ said Groves.

‘But you do?’

‘I’m surrounded by it. Evil has a presence, doctor... a very real presence.’

The look in Groves’ eyes asked a question which Barrowman answered with a slight nod. He knew exactly what Groves meant. He’d started to feel it too. His mind had filled with disgust, terror, but with a degree of alertness he’d never experienced before.

The drive back to London left him feeling all over the place. He had completely failed to compartmentalise Lawler — something he’d always managed with the other killers he’d dealt with. There seemed to be nothing he could do to escape from what he’d heard from Lawler and it left him feeling exposed and damaged in terms of self-confidence. Despite that, he could appreciate the irony in Lawler having been the one who’d reminded him of the cold, dispassionate nature of science when, here he was, floating like a cork in a maelstrom of mixed emotions. He detested Lawler yet was still transfixed by him. He felt sorry for Groves and understood his decline into self-defensive cynicism, joking about he and Lawler being locked up together. But it was no joke. It was so evidently true and, what was worse, Lawler had got the better of the deal.

It had gone five when Barrowman drew into the university car park and people were leaving. He planned to do exactly the same after putting away Lawler’s blood sample in the lab fridge, but he met one of the junior technicians, Molly Bearsden, on the stairs.

‘Hi Owen, Dorothy was looking for you earlier. I think she’s still in her room.’

The prospect of a debriefing session with Dorothy Lindstrom when he desperately just wanted to go home did little to fill him with joy. He even considered slipping away after he’d stored the blood, but then thought better of it, He went along the corridor and knocked on Dorothy’s door.

‘Come on in, Owen. Sit down. How was your day?’

Barrowman struggled for words. His reluctance to relive the interview with Lawler was overriding everything else. He shook his head and gestured with his hands to suggest he didn’t know where to start.

‘No matter,’ said Dorothy, ‘You’ve obviously had a long day. We can talk about it tomorrow. What I did want to tell you is that I had some rather wonderful news today.’

‘Really?’

‘I’ve got funding.’

‘You’re kidding. Wow, that’s great news. How much are we talking about?’

‘A lot,’ said Dorothy, putting her elbows on the desk and leaning forward conspiratorially. ‘Enough to keep the university happy for the foreseeable future, enough to make everyone in the group secure and enough to expand the lab to at least twice our size. We can even have our own biochemistry section, working exclusively for us instead of having to wait our turn to have things put through the analysers.’

‘So, who’s come up with that sort of cash? Did the drug company have second thoughts?’

Dorothy seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying, ‘No, it’s all a bit mysterious, but the funding organisation wishes to remain anonymous for the time being.’

Barrowman was dumbstruck for a few moments. ‘I don’t understand. Why on earth would they want to do that?’

‘I don’t know, but you know what they say about looking a gift horse in the mouth.’

‘How long is the agreement for?’

‘They’ve agreed to support an expanded group and equip it for three years.’

‘That’s what you asked the government for. This is wonderful, but what do these people hope to get out of their investment?’

Dorothy made a vague gesture with her hands.

Barrowman was clearly bemused. ‘I’m sorry... I feel as if I’m being asked to believe in Santa Claus. There must be strings attached, conditions?’

Dorothy approached her answer as if walking on broken glass. ‘They insist on seeing our results before they’re submitted for publication.’

‘And?’

Dorothy broke off eye contact and looked down at the table. ‘They would have the final say over what gets made public and what doesn’t.’

‘What?’ Barrowman exclaimed, prompting Dorothy to raise her hands in a mock defensive gesture.

‘Calm down, think about it. It’s not going to be a problem. Why would they want to hush up important findings if they were actually funding the project?’

Barrowman fell silent for a few moments, feeling that this was all a bit much to take in after the day he’d had. Eventually he confessed, ‘This is giving me such a bad feeling.’

‘Frankly, I’d happily take money from a baby’s piggy bank right now,’ said Dorothy. ‘Look, if our research went well, these people would probably just want to make sure their contribution was fully recognised in the papers we publish.’

Barrowman shook his head. ‘I hate the idea of other people — anonymous people — people we don’t know anything about — having control. It could be a money laundering scheme.’

Dorothy looked extremely doubtful about that suggestion.

‘All right, I don’t know what a money laundering scheme is, but we could work for years on something and if they didn’t want our findings made public that would be an end to it — and probably the careers of all those of us involved.’

‘Oh, come on, Owen.’

‘So what aspect of our research attracted them?’

‘Yours.’

Barrowman’s mouth fell open. It had been a pretty awful day, but unbelievably it was getting worse. ‘How could they possibly know what I’ve been doing?’

‘I told them.’

‘You told them?’ Barrowman exclaimed.

‘Look, the university requested that I meet with some people who might possibly be interested in funding cutting edge research to use their term. These people weren’t introduced to me by name or organisation so it was obvious they had little to do with the usual funding bodies. That suggests that they would be more interested in investment rather than scientific progress — venture capitalists if you like. I gave a talk about the work going on in my research group — I felt I had nothing to lose. I’ve just about run out of grant money and the technicians are already applying for other jobs. Why would I refuse?’

Barrowman ignored the question. ‘How much did you tell them about what I’m doing?’

‘I told them about your PhD work and said that I thought you might be on the trail of some interesting connections between genes associated with certain psychotic disorders and, if all went well, how they might be controlled.’

‘I see.’

Dorothy picked up on the annoyance in Barrowman’s voice. ‘Owen, you’ve had a hard day: you’re not in a position to think clearly. Why don’t we stop here and get a good night’s sleep, we’ll have a full group meeting tomorrow and talk things through rationally.’

Barrowman gave a reluctant nod before getting up and leaving without further comment.

Lucy Barrowman looked on in bemusement as her husband headed straight for the whisky bottle — a half full bottle of Bell’s which had lain largely untouched since New Year time — and poured himself a large measure before swilling it down.

‘Well, hello to you too,’ she said accusingly. ‘I take it we’ve not had the best of days?’

‘Sorry,’ grunted Barrowman, fighting the fire in his throat. ‘Shit awful. I think I’m going to be looking for a job.’

‘Well?’ Lucy prompted as the silence continued. ‘Are you going to tell me why?’

Barrowman told her.

‘Does it really matter where the money comes from?’

‘Of course, it matters. These anonymous donors could screw up my whole career.’

‘Does that matter more than being out of a job?’

‘I expected more support from my wife.’

‘The baby and I will be expecting some support too.’

‘What bab... Oh Christ, I forgot, you were seeing the doctor today. You’re pregnant. Oh God... that’s... wonderful.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lucy, getting to her feet and leaving the room.

‘Oh, come on Lucy,’ Barrowman called out. ‘C’mon, you know I’m delighted... It’s just been such an awful day and not just because of the funding thing... this guy at Moorlock Hall... he’s really getting to me.’

The bedroom door slammed.