Mo Hayder - Poppet

Someone else involved. Caffery parks the idea in the corner of his head. He’ll come back to it later.

He stands in the room at the Avonmere Hotel, absorbing it all. It’s just big enough to squeeze in a single bed, a bedside cabinet, chest of drawers and wardrobe. The curtains are thin; the carpet, a hardwearing cord, looks as if it has been cleaned recently. Everything is neat, well ordered: the bed is made, there is no clothing on view except for a pair of slippers. The chest of drawers is piled high with magazines. Caffrey flicks through them: What Hi-Fi , Computing , Computer Weekly , two Maplin catalogues, and one from Screwfix. There is no TV in the room, just an iPod docking station.

Caffery opens the bedside cabinet and takes out a brown pharmacy bottle. Seroxat – it’s in Handel’s name. He shows it to Hurst and gives it a shake to demonstrate it’s empty.

Hurst spreads his hands wide. ‘Don’t look at me – speak to the mental-health team.’

‘Yeah, we’ve got a department like that in the police. The SEP unit.’

‘What?’

‘Someone Else’s Problem.’

Hurst narrows his eyes. He’s beyond disgruntled now. ‘I don’t get a cop’s salary,’ he says. ‘No early retirement and a pension either – index-linked or otherwise.’

Caffery puts the pill bottle back in the cabinet. He checks under the bed, pushing his hand up between the slats and the mattress. He runs his fingertips along the top of the curtain rail and then across the empty coat hangers in the wardrobe, making them clatter. He has absolutely no idea what he’s looking for – he doesn’t even know why he’s doing this, except to prove a point to Hurst. How many people like Handel slip through the net, he wonders. In places like this it’s probably a daily occurrence.

He stops. In the bottom of Handel’s wardrobe is a stack of folded carrier bags. He squats down and presses his hand against them. They’re all from Wickes. A hardware store is not the most reassuring place for someone like Handel to be shopping – particularly in the context of what he did to his parents.

Caffery pulls the bags out and carefully shakes each one. They are all empty, except for the fifth, which contains a receipt for the iPod dock and the box it came in – now empty.

‘Most of our clients spend their allowances on sweets and crisps.’

‘I’m sure that’s exactly what they spend it on,’ Caffery says drily. ‘Mind if I keep this?’

‘He might want it for the guarantee.’

Caffery gives him a long look.

Eventually Hurst shrugs. ‘Be my guest.’

IT’S SEVEN FIFTEEN. AJ sits on the bench outside the ladies’ locker room, feeling shittier and shittier by the second. He has drunk two cups of coffee from the machine and eaten a Mars bar and now all there is to do is stare at the notices on the board and rub his toe against a piece of chewing gum that clings resolutely to the floor. It’s been forty-five minutes, and although plenty of women have come and gone in that time, giving him surreptitious looks that make him feel like a prize pervert, none of them has been Melanie. Either she can sulk for Britain, or she’s climbed out of the locker-room window.

He regrets what he said, the way he said it. He’s texted her three apologies, but the signal’s not good down here so there’s no knowing whether they’ve arrived, or if she’s ignoring him. He’s about to fish the phone out and try again when the door opens and Melanie comes out.

She’s changed into a simple white wool dress and furry suede boots. Her hair is still slightly damp from the shower. She’s got no make-up on and she’s so lovely his heart almost stops.

‘Melanie—’ he begins, standing up. But she puts a finger to her lips, shakes her head. She drops her bag and sits on the bench about a foot away from him, studying him intently.

‘AJ.’

‘Melanie, I’m sorry.’

‘That’s not for you to say – I’m the one who should be sorry. I did lie. It’s just … sometimes you look at the patients, who’ve sometimes made just one mistake, a mistake they’ve paid for over and over again by being in the unit, having to jump through all the hoops we set them, and you know they deserve a chance to get out and live a normal life. But at the same time there’s one vital piece of the jigsaw missing – a box ticked in the wrong-colour biro or some tiny detail that will make the great bureaucratic engine spit out their application and refuse discharge. Through no fault of their own, the patient will be back to square one, facing the prospect of being run through the spin cycle all over again.’

AJ rests his hands on his knees and taps out a drumbeat. He doesn’t agree with Melanie that every patient, no matter who, deserves a chance. A lot of the people in the unit have taken away someone else’s right to life; in any other facility they’d be called murderers. Some of them are beyond rehabilitation. Especially the ones whose crimes are as memorable as Isaac Handel’s.

‘AJ? Have I said something wrong?’

‘No, no. I don’t blame you. Especially not with the amount of pressure the Trust are heaping on you over performance targets.’

He’s talking about the ‘intractable’ patients, the long-stay patients, the bed blockers. Those that can’t be recycled out into the community because relatives are unwilling to accept the patient back into their lives. Or those who have no desire to leave the unit and start facing up to the responsibilities of the real world, so they throw obstacles in the way of their own discharge. Such patients form a giant plug in the pipes of the system, and in an effort to clear the blockage, the staff at Beechway are bombarded with directives from above reminding them of the need to lower the ALS – the average length of stay. Melanie, most of all, must get hit with it constantly.

‘Believe me, we all feel that pressure, Melanie. There isn’t a nurse or therapist in the unit who wouldn’t be tempted to take part in a little off-the-rule-book activity if it meant patients moved faster through the system. And you – well, you must be feeling it harder than any of us.’

There’s a pause – then Melanie lowers her head. ‘Oh God,’ she says miserably. ‘Honestly, I just looked at Isaac and …’ She laces her fingers into her hair, as if she’s got a headache. ‘Shit – OK, I’m just going to be honest. I thought he hadn’t been any trouble for years and years, he’d completely toed the line – he’d be a good candidate. Fuck.’ She digs her heels back into the grille under the seat. ‘Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. You’re right, AJ – it was Isaac in my garden. Two nights in a row. I couldn’t bring myself to admit it before.’ She gives a long sigh. ‘There – I’ve said it. I suppose this means curtains for our little dalliance. You must hate me now.’

‘Hate you? Christ!’ He lets out a short, ironic laugh. ‘ Hate you? Jesus, if you only knew …’

‘Knew what?’

‘Melanie,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Come on, beautiful woman – I am insane about you. I’m like Monster Mother on a lilac day all the time just thinking about you. I’m like Moses when he hears it’s sausages for breakfast. I am like Fred Astaire dancing – I am NUTS. About. You.’

‘Seriously?’

‘I told you – I’m a wimp around you, pathetic.’

She gives a hopeful little smile. A quick sniff – as if tears had been close. ‘I’m sorry – it’s all driving me mad.’

‘I know.’

‘And I’m scared. If that was Isaac in the garden – then why? What does he want?’

AJ doesn’t answer. A memory flashes up in his brain like a giant billboard – Isaac watching Melanie walk down the corridor.