The Suspect

13

At that hour of the morning it takes me only fifteen minutes to reach Charing Cross. Peering through the main doors of the hospital, I see a black janitor pushing a mop and bucket around the floor in a strange waltz. A security guard sits at the reception desk. He motions me to the accident and emergency entrance.

Inside the Perspex swinging doors, people are scattered around the waiting room, looking tired and pissed off. The triage nurse is busy. A young doctor appears in the corridor and begins arguing with a bearded man who has a bloody rag pressed to his forehead and a blanket around his shoulders.

“And you’ll be waiting all night if you don’t sit down,” says the doctor. He turns away and looks at me.

“I’m Professor O’Loughlin.”

It takes a moment for my name to register. The cogs slip into place. The doctor has a birthmark down one side of his neck and keeps the collar of his white coat turned up.

A few minutes later I follow this coat down empty corridors, past linen carts and parked stretchers.

“Is he OK?”

“Mainly cuts and bruises. He may have fallen from a car or a bike.”

“Has he been admitted?”

“No, but he won’t leave until he sees you. He keeps talking about washing blood from his hands. That’s why I put him in the observation room. I didn’t want him upsetting the other patients.”

“Concussion?”

“No. He’s very agitated. The police thought he might be a suicide risk.” The doctor turns to look over his shoulder. “Is your father a surgeon?”

“Retired.”

“I once heard him speak. He’s very impressive.”

“Yes. As a lecturer.”

The observation room has a small viewing window at head height. I see Bobby sitting on a chair, his back straight and both feet on the floor. He’s wearing muddy jeans, a flannel shirt and an army greatcoat.

He tugs at the sleeves of the coat, picking at a loose thread. His eyes are bloodshot and fixed. They are focused on the far wall, as if watching some invisible drama being played out on a stage that no one else can see.

He doesn’t turn as I enter. “Bobby. It’s me, Professor O’Loughlin. Do you know where you are?”

He nods.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I don’t remember.”

“How are you feeling?”

He shrugs, still not looking at me. The wall is more interesting. I can smell his sweat and the mustiness of his clothes. There is another odor— something familiar but I can’t quite place it. A medical smell.

“What were you doing on Hammersmith Bridge?”

“I don’t know.” His voice is shaking. “I fell over.”

“What can you remember?”

“Going to bed with Arky and then… Sometimes I can’t bear to be by myself. Do you ever feel like that? It happens all the time to me. I pace around the house after Arky. I follow her, talking about myself constantly. I tell her what I’m thinking…”

At last his eyes focus on me. Haunted. Hollow. I have seen the look before. One of my other patients, a fireman, is condemned to keep hearing the screams of a five-year-old girl who died in a blazing car. He rescued her mother and baby brother but couldn’t go back into the flames.

Bobby asks, “Do you ever hear the windmills?”

“What sound do they make?”

“It’s a clanking metal noise, but when the wind is really strong the blades blur and the air starts screaming in pain.” He shudders.

“What are the windmills for?”

“They keep everything running. If you put your ear to the ground you can hear them.”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“The lights, the factories, the railways. Without the windmills it all stops.”

“Are these windmills God?”

“You know nothing,” he says dismissively.

“Have you ever seen the windmills?”

“No. Like I said, I hear them.”

“Where do you think they are?”

“In the middle of the oceans; on huge platforms like oil rigs. They pull energy from the center of the Earth— from the core. We’re using too much energy. We’re wasting it. That’s why we have to turn off the lights and save power. Otherwise we’ll upset the balance. Take too much out from the center and you have a vacuum. The world will implode.”

“Why are we taking too much energy?”

“Turn off the lights, left right, left right. Do the right thing.” He salutes. “I used to be right-handed but I taught myself to use my left… The pressure is building. I can feel it.”

“Where?”

He taps the side of his head. “I’ve tapped the core. The apple core. Iron ore. Did you know the Earth’s atmosphere is proportionately thinner than the skin of an apple?”

He is playing with rhymes— a characteristic of psychotic language. Simple puns and wordplay help connect random ideas.

“Sometimes I have dreams about being trapped inside a windmill,” he says. “It’s full of spinning cogs, flashing blades and hammers striking anvils. That’s the music they play in hell.”

“Is that one of your nightmares?”

His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “Some of us know what’s happening.”

“And what is that?”

He rears back, glaring at me. His eyes are alight. Then a peculiar half smile passes over his face.

“Do you know it took a manned spacecraft less time to reach the moon than it did for a stagecoach to travel the length of England?”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

He sighs triumphantly.

“What were you doing on Hammersmith Bridge?”

“I was lying down, listening to the windmills.”

“When you came into the hospital you kept saying that you wanted to wash the blood off your hands.”

He remembers, but says nothing.

“How did you get blood on your hands?”

“It’s normal enough to hate. We just don’t talk about it. It’s normal enough to want to hurt people who hurt us…”

He’s not making any sense.

“Did you hurt someone?”

“You take all those drops of hate and you put them in a bottle. Drop, drop, drop… Hate doesn’t evaporate like other liquids. It’s like oil. Then one day the bottle is full.”

“What happens then?”

“It has to be emptied.”

“Bobby, did you hurt someone?”

“How else do you get rid of the hate?” He tugs at the cuffs of his flannel shirt, which are stained with something dark.

“Is that blood, Bobby?”

“No, it’s oil. Haven’t you been listening to me? It’s all about the oil.”

He stands and takes two steps toward the door. “Can I go home now?”

“I think you should stay here for a while,” I say, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

He eyes me suspiciously. “Why?”

“Last night you suffered some sort of breakdown, or memory lapse. You might have been in an accident or had a fall. I think we should run some tests and keep you under observation.”

“In a hospital?”

“Yes.”

“In a general ward?”

“A psych ward.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “No fucking way! You’re trying to lock me up.”

“You’ll be a voluntary patient. You can leave anytime you want to.”

“This is a trick! You think I’m crazy!” He’s yelling at me. He wants to storm out, but something is keeping him here. Maybe he has too much invested in me.

I can’t legally hold him. Even if I had the evidence I don’t have the power to section or detain Bobby. Psychiatrists, medical doctors and the courts have such a prerogative, but not a humble psychologist. Bobby’s free to go.

“And you’ll still see me?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He buttons his coat and nods his approval. I walk with him down the corridor and we share a lift. “Have you ever had absences like this before?” I ask.

“What do you mean, ‘absences’?”

“Gaps in your memory where time seems to disappear.”

“It happened about a month ago.”

“Do you remember which day?”

He nods. “That hate had to be emptied.”

The main doors of the hospital are open. On the front steps Bobby turns and thanks me. There is that smell again. I know what it is now. Chloroform.