Mo Hayder - Poppet

AJ frowns at the screen. This is something else he’d forgotten – when he came in to give evidence he’d noticed several pages of the tribunal bundle – the reports and medical documents collated by the MHA administrator – had been stamped with the words: ‘ Not to be disclosed to the patient without the express permission of the tribunal .’

Put simply, Isaac could not, for his own protection, be reminded of the acts that put him into the mental-health system fifteen years ago. It isn’t the first occasion AJ’s come across the wording; at the time it didn’t seem unusual or noteworthy, but maybe Jane Potter had seen whatever was in the reports of Handel’s sectioning and that’s what had distressed her.

He skips down the page, stopping at the point where the panel were going through the Clinician’s Report.

GU: Mr Yeats – can you give us a snapshot of where the appellant is with regard to medication.

BY: Yes, of course. Isaac has had a range of adverse reactions to antipsychotics over the years, but last year he was put on new meds which he tolerated well. He’s suffered mild cognitive impairment as a result of his illness, however his recent IQ scores on these meds are ten points higher than any previous measurements – for him, these meds simply don’t cause what the patients usually term ‘brain fog’. Added to that, the method of administration was changed to depot injections – which ensure compliance.

GU: Because a patient can’t forget or refuse to take the meds, once the depot is in place?

BY: Exactly. Now if you turn to page 33 of my report you’ll see I’ve outlined his response to the anxiolytics and antidepressants used to lower his anxiety. Also his history of responses to a range of antipsychotics – and we’ve tried many. Haloperidol, droperidol, Stelazine, flupenthixol, and chlorpromazine, which are first-generation antipsychotics, also called typical antipsychotics—

GU: I know what antipsychotics are, but perhaps for the benefit of us all you would …

BY: Yes, of course, they’re a quite commonly used medication – their purpose is to … Their purpose is … Mrs Potter?

GU: Mrs Potter, are you … ? A drink for Mrs Potter perhaps? Can someone … some water …

JP: I’m sorry – sorry – I just …

GU: Please, will someone get Mrs Potter a …

JP: I’m fine.

MA: Bryony, open a window. Are you OK, Jane? Here – take a sip …

JP: Thank you.

GU: Should we adjourn this …

JP: Please, no – keep going. I’ll be fine. Please keep going.

GU: Are you sure?

JP: Yes – it’s just – looking at Mr Handel’s original sectioning – what he did – what the pathologist said about it is … well, a bit … I didn’t know any of it. I shouldn’t have read it – I realize it’s not relevant.

GU: Yes – the clinicians want to keep certain aspects from the patient. Perhaps they should have extended the same concern to the panel members.

LT: Is this entirely necessary? There’s a reason for a non-disclosure clause and—

GU: I think it’s time we adjourned this meeting I …

JP: Please, I mean what I say. I’m fine. It’s just that I used to live near Upton Farm … I don’t remember seeing it in the papers. They never reported the details.

LT: My client was a minor at the time. It’s a shame it wasn’t noted that you, Mrs Potter, had some personal connections that might affect your position on the review panel.

JP: I DON’T have personal connections. I happened to live nearby, that’s all. I’m fine now. Please continue.

GU: Thank you, Mrs Potter.

LT: Well, with your permission, I’d like to remind everyone present that the details of my client’s sectioning are provided for context only, and that your deliberations should and must be focused on Mr Handel’s current state of mind.

GU: Absolutely. Absolutely.

MA: Naturally.

LT: So, do I have everyone’s agreement – we concentrate on that?

GU: Yes yes – now, where were we? Doctor Yeats, I believe you were giving us an overview of antipsychotics …

Sitting with his cup of froth in Starbucks, AJ cannot drag his eyes from the screen. Like Jane Potter, he knows Upton Farm. It’s only about four miles from Eden Hole Cottages. He’s known for years that something happened up there, but he’s never been sure quite what. And he’s certainly never connected it to Isaac until now – he didn’t even know that Isaac was local.

All these years he’s never wanted to know what his patients have been in the unit for. Now he’s starting to wonder exactly how smart a decision that was.

THE MENDIPS IS a range of limestone hills, running east to west, about twenty miles south of Bristol. The hills have been mined for two thousand years, until the late nineteenth century, mostly on a small scale. Less than a fifth of the original sites are still quarried and many of the abandoned workings, now flooded, shelve steeply twenty metres from water’s edge to clifftop, and up to sixty metres more below the teal-blue surface of the water. One string of quarries is connected via underground channels to a network of natural caves known as the Elf’s Grotto, featuring pillars and curves and twisted ceilings – like the catacombs of an ancient cathedral – carved not by man but by the water that floods the entire system.

Quarry number eight sits at the end of the chain of quarries. Situated deep in the woods, it is largely forgotten and rarely visited. There is no public road leading down here – only a rutted and potholed limestone track so seldom used that wildlife have adopted it as their own. Tonight, however, they scurry into the shadows as a car appears, its headlights bumping and flashing off the undersides of the overhanging trees. It’s a small car – a Renault Clio – a city runabout, designed for metalled roads and tight parking spaces, not for off-roading. The branches squeal as they scrape over its roof. It jerks out of the lane and on to the track that circles the quarry. Near the base of a towering mound of hewn rock cubes – abandoned here for so long that trees are growing in their crevices – the car stops. The engine dies. The headlights dwindle to twin glow-worms reflected in the water.

Flea Marley opens a window and sticks her head out – listening for any sign of movement: a cough, a shuffle of feet, a tell-tale patter of stones tumbling from the rock face. The quarry is silent. It’s bitterly cold out here – freezing. She uses her binoculars to scan the horseshoe-shaped amphitheatre of rock. At the distant end of the quarry mounds of powdered limestone seem to give off their own faint glow. The stars and the clouds reflect in the motionless water.

Over forty-five metres below this surface – an unimaginable depth, equivalent to a twelve-storey tower block – in the lightless, frozen water, there exists an unmarked and unrecorded hole in the cliff face. It does not feature on any of the quarry schematics; this opening can be found by memory and blind instinct alone. Once entered, it leads to a passage that travels three metres into the sheer rock then dog-legs back upwards – a natural, water-filled bore hole. One metre wide, the tube ascends forty-six metres vertically – opening into caves that cannot be accessed any other way. Part natural, part burrowed into by ancient Roman workings, the caves are unstable and impenetrable – except by this one clandestine entry route. For a diver inside the rock chimney there are only two directions to go – up or down. It’s too narrow to change your mind and jack-knife back – once you’ve decided to go you’re committed. With the immense water pressure, you have to be extremely skilled to ascend safely.