Acid Lullaby (41 page)

‘He’s sedated now,’ Pike continued. ‘Interviewing him has been a virtual impossibility.’

‘Why?’ Underwood asked.

‘He seems unable to speak. He won’t reply to questioning. He refuses to eat. We have had to feed him intravenously as he seems incapable of chewing his food.’

‘Has he had an episode, you know, a stroke or something?’ Dexter asked.

Pike shook his head. ‘No. We have run a series of scans and blood tests. His brain chemistry is unusual: he has been eating psychoactive drugs as if they were smarties for months. However, he has not lost motor control. In fact he has started spitting.’

‘Spitting?’ Underwood looked at the pathetic figure tied to the bed.

‘We had two female nurses working with me here, I have had to move them to a different ward. He became agitated in their presence and started to spit,’ Pike explained with unpleasant enthusiasm.

‘Any idea why?’ Dexter asked.

‘I’ve read the notes made by Jack Harvey during his consultations with Fallon,’ Pike said. ‘Also the report that you kindly provided Inspector Underwood regarding the crime scene at Fallon’s house and his attempt to impregnate the female victim he abducted. Based on that, I would say the spitting has a sexual connotation. The spit represents ejaculate. I’d keep your distance if I was you,’ Pike warned Dexter.

‘Thanks for the tip,’ she replied grimly.

‘Is there an office or somewhere that we can talk?’ Underwood asked.

‘Sure.’ Pike gestured towards the steel door.

Fallon heard noises, snippets and abstractions of conversation wash over him. He had no clear idea where he was. His legs seemed to have fossilized into cold, white stone. His arms had somehow been immobilized. Perhaps he had become a statue of himself: a great, stone devotional colossus of the Soma. Truly then, he was immortal. The stone god: a great conscious, omniscient statue. He would accept fossilization for perpetuity. His dry, staring eyes watched a spider descending from the grey stone sky. It edged ever closer. The
Soma slowly opened his great stone mouth and waited to receive the messenger.

Underwood sat opposite Pike in the small meeting room outside the observation ward.

‘What’s the bottom line, then?’ he asked.

Pike paused before he answered. He was choosing his words carefully. ‘The report that the independent advisors and myself will be handing over to the Crown Prosecution Service will say that Fallon is not mentally fit to stand trial.’

‘Shit,’ said Dexter bitterly.

‘He has no sense of his own identity. He is unable to form answers to questions. I have to answer two or three basic queries in a case like this. One: is he fit to plead his case? The answer to that is a clear “no”. Two: was the suspect mentally disordered at the time of committing the crimes? The answer to that is a resounding “yes”. Three: Was his mental condition such that he had no conception that what he was doing was criminal or morally wrong? In my professional opinion the answer to that is also “yes”.’

‘The point is that he was mentally disordered because he knowingly took drugs that altered his perception of reality,’ Dexter argued.

‘No. The point is that the drugs so dissolved his conscience and identity that he had no idea what he was doing.’

‘I’m sorry, I just don’t buy that,’ said Underwood. ‘The crimes were ordered and planned. That requires a degree of mental discipline and organization. If that’s the case he is criminally responsible.’

‘Look,’ Pike said. ‘We can argue this if you want to but the basic fact is that Max Fallon is mentally imbalanced. He is not fit to enter a plea. He has no idea of who he is. Wherever the drugs have taken him, he’s not coming back in a hurry.’

Underwood sat back in his chair and let out an exhausted sigh. Pike was probably right but it still felt like a defeat.

‘Think about what these drugs have done to him,’ Pike continued. ‘Have you ever poured salt onto a snail?’

Dexter nodded.

‘Looks terrible, doesn’t it. The salt attacks the moist
membranes of the animal: they bubble and and fizz and turn into pulp. Now Mr Fallon in there has done a similar thing to the surface of his brain. It’s bubbled and it’s fizzed and now it’s pulp.’

‘That is a disappointment,’ Dexter said after she had absorbed the image. ‘He killed two coppers. They were friends of ours.’

‘I’m sorry, but the law affords him protection too. A trial would be a shambles. His mind is so stewed the prosecution could suggest almost anything and he’d have no idea whether he’d done it or not. Frankly, he’d have no idea where he was or why he was there.’

Underwood and Dexter left a few minutes later under a cloud of disappointment. Pike returned into the Observation Ward and sat down in a chair next to Fallon. He looked at his patient closely and felt a thrill of excitement: it was like having a shark in a fish tank. Fallon’s mouth had closed. The great God Soma had consumed.

‘Is that what you’ve done, Max?’ Pike asked him quietly, poking the shark with a stick. ‘Did you put salt on your brain?’

Fallon turned his head slightly to focus on the source of the voice.

‘Did you put salt on your snail brain and make it bubble in its shell?’

The image skewered Fallon’s consciousness: it terrified him. There were snails inside his head. He could feel them crawling across the grey undulations of his brain. The salt was making them froth, making them drive their sucker feet further into his mind. He opened his mouth and screamed silently.

David Pike sat back and smiled in satisfaction.

Doreen O’Riordan sat alone on a concrete balcony high above the shimmering grey Ionian Sea. The heat of early evening was making her sweat. She could hear music drifting up from the Acropolis Bar. It was a Greek Theme night with dancing and a traditional buffet. However, the extra cost – 25 euros per person – had deterred her from attending. She was running low on cash. She made do with a cheese sandwich and a packet of crisps. She watched the sea and wished away the loneliness of time.

The small party of mourners walked up the driveway to the Harveys’ house. The front door was open in anticipation of the group. Rowena had arranged for a simple wake. She had only moved back into her redecorated house the previous day and was almost relieved to have it filled with people, regardless of the occasion. Reconstructing her life was going to be difficult. Keeping her mind occupied was a vital first step.

Jack’s funeral had been an uncomfortable experience for Underwood. Two things had troubled him: the first had been the irksome knowledge that Jack’s remains inside the black coffin were charred and desecrated. Underwood had wondered grimly whether the earth would accept such a pitiable sacrifice. He then thought of Mary Colson and her insistence that Jack’s spirit had been present at one of their meetings. Was Jack watching them now? Underwood mused. Was he passing amongst them as they trudged back along the gravel pathway to the car park? Had he peered into the hole as his coffin had been lowered?

The second unnerving element had been the presence of his ex-wife.

Rowena Harvey had invited Julia Underwood to the funeral. The pair had been friends before Julia left New Bolden the previous year. Underwood had watched her closely during the brief service. Now as he poured himself a whisky in Rowena Harvey’s living room, he tried to excise her from his thoughts, to expel the lingering doubts from his mind. He had told himself in the long and miserable months of his estrangement that letting her go was the best way he could help her. Now, confronted with the woman he had loved for most for his adult life, quietly beautiful in a straight black suit, he felt confused. Half of him wanted her: half of him hated her.

‘Nice service,’ Dexter observed from behind a glass of red wine.

Underwood remembered the wind drifting through the trees during the burial, like the tide hissing back across sand.

Underwood shivered. ‘Never liked cemeteries,’

‘I don’t think you’re meant to like them, John,’ she replied.

Underwood looked around him, studying the photographs and ornaments that were all that remained of Jack Harvey.

‘Funny to think we’ll all end up like Jack. I can’t imagine dealing with eternity. The last forty-odd years have been long enough,’ he observed.

‘I’m not being buried,’ Dexter asserted. ‘Cremation for me. I don’t fancy rotting in a box.’

‘Death is a process. Let’s hope consciousness isn’t invited.’

‘I’m not taking the chance. Burn me, please.’

Underwood watched Julia enfold Rowena Harvey in her arms. He remembered how that felt.

Dexter saw his gaze shift from Julia to the carpet and then back again. ‘Why don’t you go and have a word? I don’t mind waiting around.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘You’ll think of something.’ Dexter turned away from
him and pretended to study the painting of Rowena Harvey that had been re-hung in the living room after its recovery from Yaxford Hall.

Underwood walked across the room, holding back until Julia had finished her conversation with Rowena and was standing alone.

‘It was good of you to come,’ he volunteered.

‘I felt I had to,’ Julia replied. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not, he was your friend too. I should have invited you myself.’

‘I understand. Rowena said you were hurt, when you found her.’

‘Nothing much. I’m better now.’

There was uneasy silence as each tried to read some meaning in the other’s courtesy.

‘I suppose I should be off soon,’ Julia said after a brief eternity. ‘I’m back at work this afternoon.’

‘They wouldn’t let you have the whole day off?’ Underwood asked.

‘We’re very busy,’ Julia smiled softly. ‘We always are.’

‘I know that feeling. It must be difficult for you: building a career again.’

Julia was uncertain how best to answer. ‘It’s not easy, but then things that are worthwhile rarely are.’

‘I’m pleased it’s working out for you, though,’ Underwood said.

‘Why didn’t you call me back, John?’ Julia asked suddenly. ‘I wasn’t being difficult or playing a game, I just wanted to see if you were all right.’

‘I’m fine,’ Underwood lied.

‘It would be nice if we could stay in contact,’ Julia continued. ‘Maybe catch up from time to time.’

Underwood saw a slight nervousness in her. She was the lonely girl at a disco asking a boy to dance. He wasn’t sure how to respond: dance and disappoint her or stay hiding in the shadows.

‘I’d like that,’ he said eventually.

‘Great,’ she sounded relieved. ‘Well, I’ll call you then.’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

So
this
was
the
way
forward,
he
told
himself.
We
have
established
a
framework:
constructed
a
paradigm
of
polite
friendship.
We
will
treat
each
other
with
respect
and
acknowledge
our
shared
past
without
allowing
it
to
crush
us
or
divide
us
totally.
If
we
have
to
be
imprisoned
by
the
past,
then
let’s
at
least
make
the
prison
cell
comfortable.
Loneliness
drives
us
into
strange
corners.
Underwood
had
to
decide
whether
it
would
be
better
to
sit
in
the
dark
or
to
dance
the
loveless
dance
of
desperation.

Better
to
dance.

Julia stepped over and kissed him on the cheek.

Alison Dexter watched them quietly. She felt a sudden surge of pity but was uncertain at whom it was directed. A moment later, Underwood rejoined her as she finished her glass of wine.

‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

‘Friendly,’ he replied.

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Underwood looked uncertainly at her. ‘What do you think, Dex? You try and break away, start again. And the past keeps overtaking you. Do you think it matters?’

‘We’re nothing without memories, are we? Just a consciousness trapped in a body. Like a fucking goldfish.’

‘Sometimes I wish I could just wipe it all away. You know, leave stuff behind and pretend it didn’t happen?’

Dexter shook her head. ‘You have to pick what’s important then dump the rest. If you break your television you take it to a rubbish heap and get shot of it.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘You don’t have to sit and watch a dead screen every night.’

Dexter suddenly felt ashamed of her hypocrisy. She wondered whether she had the courage to act on the words herself; whether she truly possessed the courage to become someone new. She had always prided herself on dealing in realities and yet she had allowed herself to become ensnared
by an imagined past. The false memory of a father who had deserted her: the false memory of a man who had used her; the false memory of a child who had never existed. Her desperation had painted pictures on the dead screen.

She thought for a second of a photograph: faded and dog-eared, fluttering away from her through a forest of scuffling feet. She remembered blindly reaching out for it. She remembered the agony of her hand being stamped on.

That memory contained a message.

Finally, she understood it.

The Yeare’s Midnight