Mo Hayder: Poppet

‘We agreed you weren’t going to talk about it again? Do you remember?’

‘But, AJ, it’s back. It’s come back. It got Zelda.’

‘Don’t you remember what you said, in High Dependency? I remember you saying: “it doesn’t exist. It’s just a made-up thing – like in the movies.” Remember?’

She nods, but the glisten of fear in her eyes doesn’t go.

‘That’s good, Gabriella. And you haven’t been talking to the others about this, have you?’

‘No.’

‘Great – that’s great. You did the right thing. You keep it to yourself – I know you can. I know you can do that. Now we’ve got your care-planning meeting in the morning – I’ll mention this to the consultant – see what he says. And I’m going to put you on level four obs – just for tonight – OK? I’ll look in on you myself. But, Gabriella … ?’

‘What?’

‘You gotta put that … that thing out of your head, my sweetheart. You really have.’

IT’S FUNNY, TO the Monster Mother, how AJ can’t see what’s happening. He can’t even say the words, ‘The. Maude.’ AJ is kind and he’s smart but he hasn’t got the extra eye – he can’t see the real things that are going on in this unit. He doesn’t believe her – that The Maude is out there. Scouting for someone else to hurt.

AJ can’t see the lengths Monster Mother has gone to, just to be safe. Maybe if he could he’d understand how serious it is. But he can’t see her stripped muscle and tendon. He cannot see the white of her skull or the glinting twin orb eyes without their lids. He is so blind to what is happening. ‘Good night,’ he says. ‘I’ll check on you – I promise.’

She slides the sheets back up over her. They rasp at her exposed nerves and skinless muscles. She lays her raw skull on the pillow and tries to smile – using just her cheek muscles. ‘AJ?’

‘Yes?’

‘Please be careful.’

‘I will.’

He waits for a few moments, as if he’s thinking, then he steps outside and shuts the door. The hospital is silent. She can’t close her eyes, she has no eyelids. But at least she is safe from The Maude. If it comes in it’ll go straight to her skin on the bedpost.

No one is going to sit on Monster Mother’s chest tonight.

DI CAFFERY KNOWS everyone in the restaurant is monitoring him for signs he’s going to react to the woman throwing wine on him. He can sense their universal disappointment when he isn’t pulled that easily.

He takes his time with the hamburger – refusing to be harassed or hurried. Occasionally, as he chews, his eyes go casually to the door – to the backs of the two bouncers – legs planted wide, arms folded, facing the glass doors. Beyond them the woman – now on her feet – staggers around on the pavement, hurling abuse at the doormen.

Caffery has spent the dullest lunchtime and afternoon at a Criminal Justice Forum: discussing liaison practices between custody suites and mental health unit admissions ward – he’s fed up with talking about stuff he’s not interested in, schmoozing and being nice to people he doesn’t care about. But this woman – her name is Jacqui Kitson – this woman has, at the eleventh hour, kickstarted an ordinary day into something extraordinary.

Extraordinary. Not pleasant. It’s what he’s been half expecting for a long time.

She has given up hectoring the door staff and is sitting in the gutter, her head in her hands, crying. By the time Caffery has paid his bill the staff have opened the doors again – allowing in the customers who’ve had to wait outside. They shuffle in edgily, casting cautious glances at the woman – only pausing to stand aside for Caffery to make his way out.

He puts his wallet in his inside pocket. The bill was forty pounds. Extravagant for a meal alone – but he doesn’t have much to spend his money on these days. He’s always tinkering around for a hobby to take his mind off work, but it doesn’t come naturally and he knows dining alone isn’t going to be the answer. Maybe if there was someone to eat with? There’s one woman he’d prefer to be with, but the complications there are taller than a mountain. Jacqui Kitson doesn’t know it but she is deeply connected with those complications.

‘Jacqui,’ he says, standing over her. ‘You want to talk.’

She turns her head to check out his shoes. Then she raises her face – half blind. Her eyes are swollen and there are long streaks of mascara down her cheeks. Her head isn’t steady on her neck. She has been sick in the gutter and her handbag is lying half in the road, straddling the double-yellow lines. She’s a total mess.

He sits next to her. ‘I’m here now, you can yell at me.’

‘Don’t wanna yell,’ she murmurs. ‘Just want her back.’

‘I know that – we all do – we all want her back.’ He pats his pocket for one of the silver-and-black tubes he’s been hauling around for months – V-Cigs – trying to break his old bad habit, which, after years of pressure from the government and friends, he has at last done – replacing it with fake steel replicas. He clicks the atomizer into the battery housing. He is still faintly embarrassed by the gimmickry of the V-Cig. If he was sitting outside himself and watching he’d be tempted to make a scathing comment. The passing motorists and pedestrians let their attention brush briefly over the pair sitting on the pavement. A pink Humvee stretch limo crawls by, the blackened windows open. A woman in a pink cowboy hat and strapped on L-plates leans out and waves at Caffery.

‘ I loves you ,’ she yells as the Hummer passes. ‘ I do!!!! ’

Caffery sucks in the nicotine vapour. Holds it and blows it out in a thin stream. ‘Jacqui, you’re a long way from home. How did you get here – are you on your own?’

‘I’m always on my own now, aren’t I? Always on my fucking own.’

‘Then how am I going to get you home? Did you drive here?’

‘Yeah.’

‘All the way from Essex?’

‘Don’t be a fucking idiot. I’m staying here – in a hotel. My car’s …’ She waves her hand vaguely down the hill. ‘Dunno.’

‘You didn’t drive like this, did you?’

She focuses hazily on the V-Cig. ‘Can I have one of them?’

‘It’s not real.’

‘Gimme one out of my—’ She squints, searching for her bag. Then slaps her hands down – feeling around in panic.

‘Here.’ Caffery passes her the bag from the road. She pauses, scowls accusingly at him and grabs it – as if he was on the point of stealing it. She starts rummaging through the contents, but every time she lowers her head the alcohol sets her off balance and she has to put her head back and take deep breaths.

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘it’s all going round and round. I’m arsed, aren’t I?’

‘Close your bag, Jacqui. You’re going to lose all your stuff. Come on.’ He gets to his feet. Holds a hand out to her. ‘I’ll drive you back to your hotel.’

AT BEECHWAY’S HEART are the remains of the workhouse – extensively redesigned to rid itself of the stereotypical asylum image: the old water tower – a common safeguard against asylums being set ablaze by inmates – was remodelled and given a huge clock, as if to justify the tower’s existence. The layout of the wards, which deliberately or inadvertently had been designed to resemble a cross from above, was thought to have religious overtones, so some bright spark on the Trust came up with the idea of turning the cross into a four-leaf clover. Much more organic .

Each arm of the cross was extended, laterally, into the shape of a clover leaf to make Beechway the place it is today. Each ‘leaf’ is a ward, with two floors of bedrooms, glass-fronted communal rooms on one side, and managers’ offices and therapy rooms on the others. The windows are large and smooth and the walls rounded. There’s a ‘stem’ – a glassed corridor that leads from the wards in the clover, down through a central garden, known as the courtyard, to the long arced block that contains all the administration offices. Everything – every ward, corridor, room, bathroom – is named after a flower.