Bedlam (5 page)

Chapter Nine
 

“What happened?”

McNeil sat on the edge of the gurney and stared vacantly ahead, as if he’d been dragged from a deep sleep and hadn’t quite caught up. His head pounded. He was sick to his stomach. He was aware of subdued voices, fragmented images, a firm hand on the back of his head and the sting of a needle. He raised a hand to fend off the doctor and was promptly restrained.

“You had some kind of seizure, Joey. One minute you were talking to the witness, the next you were on the floor, convulsing. You hit your head on the way down. Sit still while they stitch you up.”

“Look at me.” The doctor shone a light in McNeil’s eyes, checking his reactions.
“Any flashing lights?”

McNeil scowled.
“Only the one in your hand.”

“Sorry.
Any headache, nausea?”

“Some.”

“Can you remember falling?”

“No.”

“Can you remember anything before you fell?”

Dennis leaned in too close. McNeil edged away and the doctor muttered and pulled him back.

He remembered everything with crystal clarity, right up to the point when he had taken her hand, but as he understood none of it, he kept his mouth firmly shut and shook his head. He had a sense of something else, just beyond his reach, something important that he’d missed. The feeling crept over him along with the nausea, cloaking him in a fine film of perspiration.

“Do you have any history of seizures, blackouts or fainting?” The doctor drew blood from his arm and he watched distractedly as it filled the syringe. His mind was elsewhere, trying to make sense of the jumble. Trouble was, she was in there too, taking up space. He inhaled, struggled to focus. It wasn’t Kit - he was used to her, comfortable with her sharing his thoughts, keeping him company. The doctor waited, watching him closely.

“No …” he stammered, “no history of falling over or falling down.”

“Are you taking any medication, prescribed or otherwise?”

“No.” He had been, in the beginning when he had first lost Kit and had been scared to sleep in case he missed her call. But then he’d discovered her again in his dreams, and the little blue pills had been consigned to the bottom of a drawer.

“Could you have eaten something contaminated in the last forty-eight hours? You’re sweating, running a temperature.”

McNeil shook his head. He couldn’t remember eating anything. Maybe that was the problem.

“Could he have picked something up from the girl?” suggested Dennis. “She was covered in all kinds of shit. You remember, Joey, you were spitting out slime.”

McNeil didn’t need reminding. Cold skin, pale lips and striking violet eyes. He couldn’t get the image of her out of his head. She was vying for space. He bit down hard on his bottom lip and used the pain to try and shut her out.

The doctor nodded. “It’s possible, but unlikely. We’ve had a few incidences of food poisoning …” He withdrew the syringe and stuck a plaster over the puncture site. “Or maybe you just had a heavy night drinking?” He focused on McNeil’s discoloured left eye and raised a questioning brow. “Have you had a recent head injury, maybe a time when you couldn’t remember what you’d done or where you’d been?”

Oh sure
, thought McNeil, he’d had plenty of occasions when he couldn’t recall his own last name, but they had nothing to do with a head injury and everything to do with the drink. He shrugged belligerently and ignored Dennis’ ‘I told you so’ expression. He didn’t need confirmation that he was a wreck. He just wanted them both to step back before he threw up all over them.

“We’ll see what the blood results tell us,” continued the doctor. “I advise you to see your own GP in a day or two, but in the meantime, just take it easy. Drink plenty
of fluids - non-alcoholic. If it’s a bug, it’ll take a couple of days to run its course. If you experience any more problems, your GP will organise further tests.”

McNeil slid unsteadily from the gurney. The two men invaded his space, crowding him. Unwelcome panic rose inside, hot and frantic. In his head a little warning voice chided him, not words, just a whispered breath, and he clamped down hard on it. “So is that it?  We
done?”

The doctor nodded. “Stitches need to come out in seven days, till then be careful. No contact sports …”

“Hear that, Dennis?” McNeil forced a smile. “Looks like I’m off the football team, doctor’s orders.”

Dennis waited until the doctor was out of earshot. “Never mind the bloody football. I’m sure the lads have managed perf
ectly well without you and your tackle for the last twelve months. Let’s not get side-tracked. What did she say?”

What she hadn’t said was more significant. McNeil wasn’t so spaced that he couldn’t recall the way she had watched him, played with him, unnerved him. But he knew none of that would interest Dennis and would more than likely fuel concern over his current mental health. “Didn’t you catch what the doctor said? I have a serious head injury. I can’t remember things.”

Dennis snorted, “Head injury? Alcohol poisoning, more like, and I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that I was watching through the window. She spoke to you. I saw her.”

McNeil pushed him aside. “I need to find the gents.”

“You need to tell me what she said first.”

“Before or after I throw up on your shoes?”

Dennis tossed him a scowl. “Bloody hell, Joey, the clock is ticking here. I’ve got a killer running around out there and two flea-bitten bodies in the morgue. That reporter from the ‘Herald’ is chomping at the bit for something to write, and you know as well as I do that if we don’t give her something she’ll just make it up. I need to know what you know, and pretty sharpish. You haven’t got time to succumb to the bloody vapours every time a girl holds your hand.”

McNeil blinked slowly. The memory still tingled in his palm. He clenched his fist to suppress it. He wondered how much Dennis had actually seen.
Maybe nothing, because there was nothing to see. Ghosts and shadows. It wouldn’t be the first time his mind had played tricks on him. He needed to be left alone in a darkened room with his paranoia and ‘what ifs’, but he knew that wouldn’t happen unless he gave Dennis something, anything.

“Horse meat,” he offered with a half-smile.

“What?”

“It’ll be that lasagne I had the other night that’s done me in. I should sue them. It’s supposed to be full of veterinary happy juice. No wonder I’ve got the trots. It was all over the news. Didn’t you hear? Selling horsemeat as beef, it’s a disgrace.”

Dennis swung his head in disbelief. “You think this is a joking matter? I’ll give you bloody horse meat. What did she say?”

“She said she was in danger.”

“Well, bugger me, there’s a surprise. Case closed, let’s all go home. In danger from who? A bloody phantom who slits throats and hangs his victims up for later?”

“Some bloke called Jacob.”

“Last name? Description?”

McNeil dipped his head and took a breath. “Dennis, I don’t know, I didn’t get that far. You ask her. She talks in riddles. Have they done a
tox screen? If not, I think they should. You want my opinion: she’s crazy.  I’m not even sure she knows what she’s saying.”

“Crazy or not, she’s our only witness, and we need more than that if we want to tie this up quickly. And believe me,
Joey, we need a quick turn around on this one.”

“Yeah, well not from me. I’m done. You heard the doc. I need to take it easy. My brain is fried, my guts are headed straight for the pan, and then I’m gone, out of here and home to my bed. Do me a favour, Dennis, don’t call me. Send your report to Mather if you must, but don’t call me.”

“What about the investigation? Are you dropping the ball?”

“I never had the ball. I thought I was off the case, a liability.”

“You’re off when I tell you you’re off.”

McNeil shrugged. “Make your bloody mind up. Her name is Nell. She’s running from a man called Jacob. That’s all she told me. That’s all I know.”

That wasn’t entirely true. He recalled everything she’d said. It replayed in his head jerkily like an ancient VCR on fast forward. Not just the words, but the lilting inflection, the look in her eyes, the expression on her face when she spoke. And then suddenly his mind hit freeze frame on the twin-headed serpent tattooed at her wrist.

“Did she give a description? I mean, who is this man?
An old boyfriend? A pimp? Come on, Joey, she must have said more than that.”

McNeil paused, one hand on the men’s room door. “You’re right, she did. She said, thank you.”

When he re-emerged from the bathroom, the hallway was empty. Dennis had given up and left, no doubt to chase up the rest of the team after finally accepting that McNeil was a step too close to the psyche couch than was beneficial to the case. He was relieved, not least because he was sick of Dennis breathing down his neck, but essentially because he agreed with his diagnosis. He couldn’t help his obsession, took comfort from it, but was the first to admit that it was affecting his judgment. Even now, despite his inner voices screaming at him to walk away, he was drawn back. He needed to speak with the
girl for his own reasons, and this time he didn’t want any witnesses.

Chapter Ten
 

Her eyes were closed when he entered. A lunch tray lay untouched at her side. He drew his jacket closer, aware of how cool the room seemed, which was odd in a hospital that was otherwise stiflingly overheated. Perhaps she’d opened a window, or maybe it was just him and the virus he’d apparently fallen foul of.

He crossed quietly to the internal viewing window and closed the blind within the double glazed panel. This visit was off the record and he wanted to keep it that way.

He still felt wired. The dominoes lining up in his head were all set to tumble. He needed to get home where he felt secure, where he felt Kit’s reassuring presence more strongly. And he would, as soon as he was certain about Nell.

When he turned ba
ck around she was watching him, her violet eyes unblinking, and he wavered beneath her gaze, his resolve dissipating, his curiosity, like the virus, growing exponentially.

“How are you, Joe?” she breathed, lingering as she softly sounded out his name.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as if she had run her fingers across his skin. He contained the resulting shiver and stepped closer.

“I’m fine,” he lied. This was madness. She was a witness, he was a policeman, all he had to do was clarify a few points and get things straight in his head. But caught as he was, like a stunned rabbit in the glare of her gaze, all thoughts of his planned questions began to fade and muddle in his head.

“Are you quite sure about that? You don’t look it.” She shuffled up on the bed, tucked her legs up beneath the covers and rested her elbows on her knees. “What’s wrong, Joe McNeil? You can tell me.”

“I … I’m not here to talk about me.” He screwed his eyes shut, scrubbed at them with the heel of his hand and tried hard to think about why he was actually there, why he was standing next to her hospital bed going through the motions, pretending to do his job when inside he was slowly dying.
For a drink. For an end to the torment. For Kit.

When he reopened them she was still watching him. “I told you, I’m fine,” he said, for his own benefit as much as hers.

He stepped away, turned slowly on the spot, gathering his composure as he made a casual inventory of the stark room. All the while she watched him like a cat with a mouse, flexing her claws as she waited. He turned back and caught her raised brow. She didn’t believe a word he said, and why should she? He’d been living a lie since the day Kit had gone. Lately he’d even been fooling himself, tying himself up in ever-tightening knots of hopes and dreams, white lies and black lies … lots of dirty black lies. It was little wonder that his sincerity and sanity was in doubt.

“Don’t worry, Joe,” she purred soothingly, “the effects will soon wear off.”

His concentration, shaky at best, wavered further as he struggled to get past the hypnotic rhythm of her breathless sound to the actual words beneath. “The effects? You’ve lost me. What do you mean?”

“Of course,” she continued with a soft sigh, “it requires a strong will. However, I’m sure you have one, Joe, or you wouldn’t be here now.”

Strong will? She couldn’t be further from the truth. If she’d offered him a drink, he would have taken it. If she’d offered him a gun, he would have gladly put it to his own head.

She held his gaze, unblinking and he had a real urge to rub his palm where they had touched, to erase any trace of her from his skin. Had she poisoned him, infected him? Was there a yellow flag outside the door that he’d overlooked?
Get a grip
, he murmured silently. She was playing games and he was allowing it.

“It’s the same with any addiction: once in your head, under your skin, it’s difficult to relinquish it, to withdraw and accept that it’s over and time to move on … don’t you agree?”

She wasn’t referring to alcohol, and they both knew it.

“My head and what might be in it has nothing to do with you,” he muttered. “I … I just …” He cleared his throat, forced himself back on track. He needed information and that was all, nothing else. “You implied earlier that you were in danger, that you needed my help. That’s why I’m here, the only reason I’m here. Do you want me to help you or not?”

She inclined her head briefly.

“Good, then you need to tell me what happened beneath the viaduct. Just take your time and start at the beginning.”

She sighed gently and began to twist the corner of the sheet between finger and thumb. Her skin appeared almost translucent under the harsh hospital lighting, and although he tried to concentrate and to stick to the questions, he found himself distracted by the pale blue veins.

“In the beginning
… now that is profound, but I’m afraid it would take far too long, and we simply don’t have the time.”

There were faint marks on her arms and in the soft depression at the crook of her neck, track marks maybe, which would certainly explain her dislocated behaviour. He dragged his eyes from her skin and his attention back to her
face. In truth he wasn’t concerned about how she’d found herself face down in the mud. He was more interested in the man she claimed was still after her … and him, and in the strange tattoo at her wrist.

“We have plenty of time. You’re not going anywhere. What did you mean before, about Jacob, about being in danger?”

Draping the covers haphazardly around her shoulders, she slipped from the bed and padded to the window, trailing the sheet behind her. An angel wrapped in her downy wings or a demon in a shroud, McNeil couldn’t decide, nevertheless he studied her, absurdly fascinated, as she placed her palms against the glass and gazed out at the world.

“I know what Jacob is, what he did, what he still does.”

Her breath misted the glass as she spoke, the condensation expanding and receding like a living thing with every exhalation.

“And what did he do?”

She sighed, leaning forward to rest her forehead against the cool glass, humming gently to herself. “The unthinkable, the unforgivable.” She added the words to a tune McNeil recognised as a nursery rhyme. It distracted him as he struggled to remember the name.

“Did he kill those men?”

She turned to him and raised one brow quizzically. “Perhaps.”

“Did you see him do it?”

“We don’t need to see, to believe something is so, isn’t that right, Joe? Ask those who flock to church every Sunday or face Mecca when called to prayer. We all have things which we hold dear and we do so regardless of evidence to the contrary. An unbeliever will always look upon the devout as a fool, simply because they lack the capacity to open their mind to possibilities. Jacob is evil. I believe it, therefore it is so.” She left the window, stepping closer, her head angled as she studied him. “Do you hold someone close to your heart, detective? Do you cling to possibilities in the face of disbelief?”

Despite his best intentions, despite his absolute resolve not to bring Kit with him into the room, he could not prevent it. She was there always, in his head, and Nell smiled as if she knew it. He accepted defeat, submitted to the lure and took the bait. “What possibilities?”

“The possibility that you are right and they are wrong, and someday soon the truth will be known.” A slight twitch to her lips betrayed her amusement at the game. His heart sank, resolve hardening instantly. He had no desire to play, not with something as precious as hope.

“The truth,” he continued bluntly, “a short word with endless possibilities. So let’s start with that. What were you doing in Bedlam?”

“Running.”

“Running from what, from whom?”

“Life, death, eternal torment. Take your pick.”

Eternal torment
, he knew all about that. He wore it daily like a horse hair shirt.

“How did you get there?”

“I jumped.”

“Be serious. If you’d jumped, you’d be dead.”

“Exactly.”

The moment stretched between them, a vacuum that sucked out all reason. Nell blinked slowly, dusty lashes on pale skin. McNeil swallowed. He dropped his gaze, following the pale blue veins from her neck all the way to the pulse at her wrist. His palm burned and he clenched his fist to dispel the pain. He closed his eyes and recalled her cold lips as they’d been warmed by his. When he re-opened them, she was a step closer, her eyes narrowed, assessing, calculating. He took a breath and a matching step back.
Get a grip.

“Tell me the truth about Jacob,” he muttered. “Who is he?”

“A monster.”

“That’s not enough, Nell. I need a full name, an address, something that can help me find him.”

“And is that what you intend to do - find him?”

“Of course.
That’s my job.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you understand? There’s no need to go looking for him.
He
will find
you
.”

“No, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this, or you. Why would he be looking for me?”

“We don’t have time for this, Joe. He will soon be here and we must be gone before he arrives.”

“I asked you a question. What has this to do with me?”

She fixed him with her violet eyes and shook her head impatiently. “We must hurry.”

“
We?
There is no
we
. You are the victim of a crime. I’m investigating that crime. That’s the only connection we have. Playing games, for whatever bizarre reason you feel is justified, won’t help you.”

“You think this is a game?”

“You tell me.” He took a step towards her. “How do you know my name? Why did you ask for me?”

“I told you, you’re responsible for all of this.” She gestured vaguely with her hand. “Only you can put it right.”

She spread her arms and glanced down at the hospital gown, as if recognising for the first time her precarious position in the here and now. His own gaze followed. Her feet were bare, her toes scarcely healed. Wherever she had come from, she had walked a long way. She inhaled gently, arched her back and allowed the sheet to slip from her shoulders. He stooped to catch it. Her hand skimmed his and her hair brushed his cheek.

“Thank you,
JoJo,” she whispered.

McNeil jerked away, stepping backwards until the closed door prevented further retreat. Had she spoken out loud or was the voice in his head? He couldn’t be sure. His heart pounded, perspiration prickled suddenly on his skin. There was only one person who had ever called him ‘
JoJo’, and she had been gone for the last twelve months.

“What did you say?”

She approached him slowly, placing each foot carefully as if she walked a tightrope. He watched, mesmerised, unable to resist, as she slid her hand beneath his jacket and placed her palm flat against his chest. He felt her coolness through the thin fabric of his shirt, inhaled her scent as it wrapped around him and his heart slowed its frantic response.

“Don’t be scared, Joe,” she whispered. “Trust me.”

He felt himself falling, the edges of reality blurring as he struggled to regain his focus. Reaching out, he grabbed her slender shoulders and shoved her away, forcibly breaking the connection.

“Who are you?” he hissed.

“The best friend you’ve ever had.”

“No!” He shook his head in denial. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. This is either some kind of crazy game or I’m going mad, but whichever it is, I won’t do this anymore. I … I’m leaving.” He held her at bay with a raised hand, gut-churning panic rushing in to fill the space left behind as hope vacated.

“You can’t walk away and leave me here, Joe.”

“Just watch me.”

He felt the imprint of her palm, despite its removal. The coolness still lingered, his skin continued to tingle. He turned and pulled open the door. “I can and I will. There’s an officer posted at the nurse’s station. You’ll be quite safe. When you decide to give a proper statement, the twenty or so people who are currently flogging themselves to wrap up this investigation can get on with their job and put Jacob, or whoever is responsible, behind bars.” He took a step into the corridor. “Of course, if you continue to play games then … who knows what will happen?”

“If you leave, you’ll never know the truth.”

“The truth?” He hesitated with one hand on the door handle.
Please, Kit
, he begged silently,
help me
. But for once the voice in his head remained silent.

He inhaled slowly, headed off his panic attack and finally, when he had some measure of control, he raised his head and looked at her.

“The truth about what?”

“The truth about you.”