Mo Hayder: Poppet

At that, the whispers went viral. Hysteria spread like wildfire, everyone was talking about The Maude and the hauntings. Hitherto stabilized patients went into crisis, screams rang out through the wards, Control and Restraint teams raced through the corridors. Half the pre-discharge patients got hauled back up to Acute, the rest were denied communal time, leave and privileges. There were staff shortages, long and involved cross-departmental meetings, new directives and general mayhem.

The clinical teams got involved. They had a battle to put a lid on it but, slowly, by targeting individual patients in therapy sessions, gently reinforcing that The Maude was nothing more than a delusion and a rumour, they eventually managed to restore the calm. The unit went back to running smoothly. Four years went by without a murmur. Not a solitary soul mentioned the haunting and it was starting to seem that the legend of The Maude would disappear without a trace. Then three weeks ago Zelda Lornton woke up screaming, her arms covered in writing. And bam – the hysteria took hold again.

The kettle boils. AJ scoops two heaped spoonfuls of instant coffee into the cup, tops it up with water, milk and sugar. He carries it to the window and stands there, sipping thoughtfully, watching the day creep into the courtyard. The storm has passed and the garden is sodden. The spot where the social worker reported seeing the dwarf all those years ago is now covered in broken branches and leaves. To one side, barely visible beneath the trees, is a gravestone – the resting place of a child who died here in Victorian times. An unknown philanthropist at the end of Victoria’s reign put up money for this memorial to ‘an unknown child of God’. It’s the only stone left – the other graves were dug up and moved when the 1980s remodelling took place. That reinterment – according to the mythology in the hospital – is when The Maude’s tomb was moved. Her ghost was disturbed and eventually, years later, found its way back inside the unit.

So, AJ thinks. Time to start the whole process of putting Maude back in her grave.

He gets the tie he discarded last night and clips it back on, using the computer screen as a mirror. He takes a deep breath and runs his hands down the lapels of his cheap suit, studying his reflection. The name on his birth certificate is not AJ at all – the name was given to him years ago by some cocky consultant who used to come in and snap his fingers at the nurses when he wanted something on a patient’s drugs round changed; if AJ didn’t respond, he’d yell across the ward: ‘Hey, you – yes, you – average Joe – AJ – I’m talking to you.’

Average Joe. AJ. The name stuck. He is Average Joe. Average height, average age (forty-three), average salary. AJ LeGrande. It sounds like the name of some rapper. Actually, he has got a little black in him, from his grandmother, though you wouldn’t know it: his dark hair hasn’t got a kink in it, his skin isn’t even coffee-coloured, more of a Mediterranean olive, and he’s got one of those straight European noses. The one thing he’d have really liked is black-guy legs – long, strong footballer’s legs, the kind Big Lurch has got – the sort of legs that make you look forward to summer so you can show them off. But he hasn’t – he’s got ordinary, hairy white-guy legs. What’s the point in having a black ancestor if you didn’t get any of the cool shit passed down? Sometimes people tell him that if he resembles anyone at all it’s Elvis Presley – from some angles and in certain lights. AJ wishes it were true – if he had a tenth of Presley’s looks, talent or magnetism he wouldn’t be employed here. And he certainly wouldn’t be working up a big anxiety about having to explain to the clinical director, in the calmest, most rational of terms, that there’s a ghost in the unit. That he, as senior nursing coordinator, has failed to put a lid on the mania.

Tired and heavy, he makes his way down the corridor, swiping through the various airlock doors. The director, Melanie Arrow, has ruffled everyone’s feathers by insisting that her office space be moved out of the admin block into the clinical area. She has commandeered a room on the mezzanine overlooking the central hall between the wards. It has been renovated and knocked through to provide her with a bathroom and a kitchen, and is equipped with a trestle bed that she often spends the night on. This is a hideous abuse of the unspoken rules, because it means the nursing staff have an eavesdropper in their midst. One who has a habit of appearing at the most unexpected moments to catch them dozing or watching porn.

At the foot of the stairs he hesitates. There’s a light coming through the bottom of her door. He doesn’t know if it means she’s spent the night in her office on the trestle bed, or if she’s just come in mega-early. If there is one person guaranteed to make him feel inadequate it’s Melanie Arrow. She is the only staff member who’s been at Beechway longer than him, and she is notoriously hard-arsed and professional. ‘Ice Queen’ is the name that gets whispered behind her back. Funnily enough, in the days when he was still a nurse, AJ never had a problem with Melanie; he didn’t need to deal with her directly at work and his only face-to-face encounters were at office parties when everyone’s guard was down – there was even a best-forgotten drunken night when he convinced himself she was flirting with him. Now that he’s a coordinator, however, he has to liaise with her a lot more. He’s definitely starting to see where she gets her Ice Queen reputation from.

He climbs the stairs slowly and knocks, a little irritated with himself for his nerves. There’s a long pause, then ‘Yes?’

‘AJ.’

‘Come in, AJ.’

He opens the door and steps inside, smiling confidently, his eyes focused on a point about a foot in front of her face so he doesn’t have to make eye contact. She is at her desk, the computer screen lighting her face, her tiny wire-framed glasses perched at the end of her nose. He knows that she put in a twelve-hour day yesterday – she was at the Criminal Justice Forum with him and went straight to a Trust meeting afterwards – but she shows no signs of tiredness. She’s a cool, cool blonde – ordered and contained. AJ may have African blood in him, but Melanie definitely has a touch of the fjords in her – her hair is liquid silk and her skin is so pale, ethereal, that the sprinkling of freckles over her nose stands out like face paint. As always, she is wearing a simple white blouse and a sensible schoolmistress skirt, giving her a clinical, authoritative look. There is a great body under the clothes – AJ and probably most of the male staff are fairly certain about that – but no one would mention it, even in an off-guard moment. Lightning would strike them – it would be like passing comment on the Virgin Mary’s figure.

‘Yes, AJ?’ When he doesn’t speak – tongue-tied as always – she slides the glasses further down her nose and studies him over the rims. ‘Did you want something?’

She’s not fierce or arrogant or impatient – she doesn’t yell or bark orders like some directors of psychiatric units – in fact, she has a soft, understated voice. It’s more her crispness that makes her seem brisk and professional. She says as little as she needs to get information across, then she stops. For someone as woolly and generally undisciplined as AJ, that’s incredibly intimidating.

‘There’s a problem,’ he says. ‘Regarding Zelda Lornton.’

Melanie nods but otherwise doesn’t react.

He shakes his head, doesn’t know how to put it. ‘It’s the heart attack. People are saying …’ He rubs his neck in embarrassment. ‘People are saying it’s odd – can’t be natural, someone that young, just dying.’