Mo Hayder - Poppet

Still Melanie doesn’t react. This is how she always is – she carefully considers everything before she speaks, never worries how long the other person is kept waiting.

Eventually she says, ‘We don’t yet have the results of the postmortem. At the moment heart attack is only what the paramedics told us. In due course the review process will tell us how odd or natural her death was.’

‘But I take it you know what everyone is thinking. You do know the rumours are back?’

‘The rumours?’

‘Yes. About the … well, the supernatural things the patients sometimes entertain ideas about.’

This time, although her face is absolutely motionless, a tiny spread of colour comes to her cheeks. The last time The Maude came to the hospital it proved a long, stressful and complicated process to get things back on track. Melanie was at the helm of that initiative. ‘The delusions, you mean.’

‘Yes. They’re back and the effect is spreading – to the staff. There’s been forty per cent absenteeism on nights this week. It’s a whole repeat process of what happened with Pauline Scott and Moses.’

‘So, AJ, what do you propose to do?’

‘What do I propose to do?’ He opens his hands, helpless. ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe I should just look it up in the protocol – the “Ghost Stalking the Corridors” protocol. Probably it starts with “Include in weekly board report”. Then I guess it’s “Fill in requisitions in triplicate to the council’s Trust-related ethics committee with special reference to subsection 17.” Then I guess it’s—’

‘I didn’t ask for sarcasm.’ Her eyes are as clear blue as the sky. ‘I asked you what you propose to do about the spread of a delusion.’

AJ is silent for a moment. She’s so curt. Her professional mask is genuinely scary, and in her mouth the word ‘delusion’ rankles for reasons he can’t quite define. Maybe it’s the way it seems unfair on Monster Mother to dismiss her fear so lightly. Or maybe it’s his own dream which still feels so real. Little hands, little face. His eyes stray to the window, the trees stark and old, forking up from the frosty ground. Then over to the window where Melanie’s trestle bed is tucked in a gap between the shelves. He wonders if she sleeps well when she’s here at night. If she has dreams.

‘I thought you might tell me,’ he says at last. ‘That’s what I was hoping.’

She taps her finger thoughtfully on the table, taking in his face. It’s like being inspected by the headmistress. ‘OK, OK.’ She pushes the glasses back up her nose and makes a note on the large pad on her desk. ‘Leave the clinical route with me – I’ll deal with the consultants. We’ll do what we did last time – target each individual during therapy – no group meetings. In the meantime I’ll leave it to you to deal with the nursing staff. Fair?’

‘Thank you,’ he mutters. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

He has his hand on the door to leave the office when he thinks he hears Melanie’s voice behind him. He turns. ‘Yes? Sorry?’

She is studying him. There is something in her face he’s never seen before – something he can’t read. It’s as if she wants to speak but doesn’t know how to begin.

‘Yes?’ he repeats.

‘Do you find the unit spooky?’ Her eyes flicker briefly. They go to the bottom of the door. Then just as quickly she averts them, and clears her throat. ‘By which I mean I hope you don’t ever feel the need to call in sick?’

‘Of course not.’ He gives his shoulders a small, dismissive shrug. ‘I mean, what’s to be scared of?’

‘Exactly. Nothing.’ She turns back to the computer and taps in a few words. ‘Just keep me informed of what happens.’

WHEN CAFFERY WAKES after five hours’ sleep, Jacqui Kitson is still snoring on the bed. He rolls on to his side and watches her. He can’t go on for ever telling the lie about her daughter’s disappearance. Not for ever.

‘Hey,’ he whispers across the room. ‘You were right. I am a shithead.’

She doesn’t react, merely carries on snoring. He sits up, aching from a night on the cramped sofa, ties the hotel robe he’s slept in. He can see the headlines if he gets up undressed: Missing Misty: Senior Detective Gropes Mum in Sleazy Hotel Romp .

He crosses to the bed and watches Jacqui – monitoring her breathing. She’s going to live. He pads into the bathroom. He showers, makes coffee, tries to shave with the hotel razor, cuts himself and has to use Jacqui’s perfume to seal the wound. His shirt is just about wearable, a little creased and damp on the collar. He checks his reflection. He looks, frankly, like someone who has spent the night on a sofa. Smells as bad too. As he leaves, he books an alarm call for nine in case Jacqui sleeps through, then he slips out – closing the door silently. Outside, the streets are quiet. A bus appears – a moving light cube of empty seats, two middle-aged women in the back, both fast asleep, their heads jiggling gently with the movement. He waits for it to pass then crosses the road to the White Lion, where beer crates are piled in the doorway. The high, sweet stench of alcohol, honey and acid reminds him he didn’t drink last night. The first time in months. It must be that holier-than-thou thing kicking in. Seeing Jacqui so wasted. Feeling righteous drinking Badoit.

There’s a grille in the pavement which most people don’t realize leads to an underground river that flows endlessly beneath the streets. He imagines the long swish of water under there – what it carries in it. He knows because he’s seen. Broken plastic chairs, dead cats, crisp packets, floating cans. They all fetch up a few hundred metres on, in the teeth of the grille that lets out into the harbour. Like a great baleen whale – holding back the filth. The things that are hidden. The things we walk over. Under. Past. Every single day of our lives, and never notice. A hundred places a body could be hidden for ever.

He could tell Jacqui Kitson exactly where her daughter Misty is. He could and he hasn’t. Because he’s protecting someone. Someone who needs a little slack. A little slack, he tells himself. As opposed to a lifetime of leniency. Does thinking this mean it’s time to act? To cross the bridge he’s been avoiding?

He pulls out a V-Cig, clicks the cartridge, and sucks in the fake smoke. He takes it out of his mouth and inspects the thing. Shit. It’s really shit. It still makes him feel he’s being poisoned. He uncaps the cartridge and drops it through the grille. Feed the whale.

No point in driving home – he’ll go straight to work. He turns in the direction of the place his car is parked. Over the roofs daytime is bleeding in – thick and milky. Another day. The church is lit by floodlights, one or two dead leaves are whipped in a spiral around the steeple. He stops in his tracks. Turns slowly to look through the gate into the graveyard. He can see waste baskets and dog-shit bins and chewing gum spotting the path. He can see plastic flowers on graves, all grimed from the city fumes. Two marble-sided graves with those glassy green pebbles they all seem to use. Beyond them is a Victorian grave – an angel praying on it – mossed and crumbling.

Jacqui says Caffery has no idea what it’s like not to have a body to bury. That’s where she’s wrong. He knows exactly what it’s like. In fact he’s a past master. When Winnie Johnson, mother of the missing Moors victim, died not knowing where her son was buried, Caffery took the day off work and sat in his kitchen, staring out of the window. He’s lived in the same hole as her and Jacqui for years. And years.

In Caffery’s case it isn’t a son or a daughter – it’s a brother. Maybe that’s why he keeps it so close to his chest. The rest of the world understands that the loss of a child can never be overcome, but the loss of a brother? After thirty-five years? He should have got over it by now. There have been plenty of clues, plenty of avenues he’s nosed up, but none of them has led him to that tangible evidence – the body. Maybe if he had a body to bury he’d get rid of that itch. That constant, plaguing voice. He understands Jacqui so much better than she knows.