Stephen Leather - Once bitten

"Almost. But he's still alive, Jamie. Maybe not exactly alive and kicking, but definitely alive.

You want the address, or what?"

"Way to go, Archie!" I said. Shit, I was as pleased as he was. He told me that Greig Turner was now in an old folks home outside Big Sur, about six hours drive from Los Angeles on the way to San Francisco.

Six hours in a 1966 Sunbeam Alpine is not the most pleasant way to spend a day but as soon as I'd thanked Archie from the bottom of my heart I grabbed the photograph of Terry Ferriman and drove up to Big Sur. I had to stop for directions when I saw the first giant redwoods and by five o'clock in the afternoon I was driving up to a large white stone house, the sort of place that very rich city-slickers retire to at weekends for a spot of hunting, shooting and fishing. It was composed of a main block and two wings, and behind were the rugged mountains of Los Padres National Forest. It was a good place to retire to, I thought as I climbed out of the car. The air was fresh and good and the place had a tranquil aura and it looked as if it would take a fair amount of money to buy your way in.

I went in through the main entrance and found the administration office and introduced myself to the resident physician, a white-haired guy in his fifties called Dr Gerard Lyttelton. He wore a starched white coat with three pens neatly lined up in the breast pocket and with his swept back hair and steel-rimmed spectacles he looked a bit like Einstein. I thought I was going to have problems convincing him to allow me to speak to Greig Turner but it turned out that he was a fan. Of mine, that is, not of Greig Turner. He'd read a couple of papers I'd written on the Beaverbrook program and was keen to talk to me about it. I hadn't brought the computer with me, unfortunately, but I discussed a few case histories with him over a cup of weak tea before I turned the subject around to Turner.

"What is your interest in him?" he asked.

"I'm trying to trace a friend of mine," I said. "Somebody he used to know."

"Ah," said Dr Lyttelton thoughtfully, replacing his cup in its white saucer. "Dr Beaverbrook, you must realise that he is a very old man." he said.

"Jamie," I said. "Please call me Jamie. He's in his nineties, yes?"

"He is, but chronological age is not the most crucial factor. There are some people who live to be a hundred and never lose their faculties. Others can be virtually senile in their sixties."

"And what exactly is Mr Turner's state of mind?"

He sighed and walked over to a tall, grey filing cabinet. "He has senile dementia of the Alzheimer type, but that is really to be expected in a man of his age." He pulled out a pale blue file and walked back to his desk. He didn't open it but toyed with it as he sat down. "You know about Alzheimer's Disease, of course."

I nodded. "Memory disorders, delusions, dementia," I said.

"Then you know that as the patient's memory lapses become more marked, there is a tendency to fill in the gaps with guesswork. Or fantasy. But Mr Turner's case is made more complex by late paraphrenia, a form of schizophrenia in which the most obvious manifestation is the delusion of persecution. He periodically hallucinates, he hears voices, he feels that forces are out to kill him.

At times he can appear quite lucid, and he is quite capable of taking real conversations and events and slotting them into the most complicated fantasies. If you are planning to ask him for information I'm afraid you are going to have your work cut out."

That wasn't what I wanted to hear, but nonetheless I wasn't going to leave without speaking to Turner, ga-ga or not. "I'd still like to try, if that's all right with you."

He drummed his fingers on the file. "Of course, of course. I'll take you to him."

He took me out of the office, along a green-carpeted corridor and into a pleasant conservatory full of lush green plants and cane furniture. A group of residents, two men and two women, were engrossed in a game of poker, and a young girl in a white uniform was serving them with what looked like cocktails. The place was more like a high-class health farm than an old folks home.

We went through French windows, over a stone-flagged patio and onto a beautifully-manicured lawn where a game of croquet was underway. We skirted the edge of the game and then walked through a clump of willow trees. I heard the gentle burble of a stream and then saw a wheelchair in the shade of one of the trees. A pretty blonde nurse was sitting nearby reading a paperback book and she looked up as Dr Lyttelton and I approached.

"Good afternoon, Jean. How is Mr Turner today?"

"We're fine, Dr Lyttelton. We had a good lunch and later we're going to watch some television."

She was an attractive girl, her hair tied back in a neat bun, big blue eyes and high cheekbones. She looked at me curiously but the doctor didn't introduce me, just led me by her so that we stood in front of the wheelchair.

The figure sitting there bore little or no relation to the smiling movie star in the photograph in Terry's apartment. It looked for all the world like a turtle out of its shell, wrapped in a thick wool blanket despite warmth of the afternoon sun. All that remained of his black hair, so immaculately groomed in the photograph, were a few wisps of white, and the scalp was pockmarked with dark brown moles and liver spots. The forehead was furrowed and there were deep lines around his pinkish, watery eyes. There were huge bags under the eyes which gave the impression of being full of a bluish liquid, and his nose appeared to have grown more bulbous. The skin of his face was drooping as if it had been made of wax and he'd been sitting in front of a hot blazing fire, and it had lost most of its colour. His mouth was slack and slightly skewed as if he'd had a small stroke some years earlier and there was a trickle of saliva running down his chin. His eyes were blank and he showed no signs of noticing either the doctor or myself.

"Jean," said Dr Lyttelton, and raised his eyebrows.

She put the book down on her chair and came over. "Oh, Mr Turner, we're dribbling again," she cooed and took a white handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed his chin. When he was dry she went back to her book. Turner didn't appear to react at all.

"So, how are you today, Mr Turner?" the doctor asked.

For the first time Turner seemed to become aware of us. Something flickered in his eyes and he forced a smile. His voice, when it came, was as dry as his ancient skin.

"Dr Lyttelton?" It was a question, and the doctor nodded. "Life goes on," said Turner. I thought he was making a joke, and I smiled. "And on. And on. And on," said Turner. He was definitely joking.

"Have you had any visitors today?" the doctor asked.

Turner shook his head. One of his hands came out from behind the blanket and rested on the side of the wheelchair. It looked like a mummified claw. "No visitors," said the cracking voice.

"No one left. Just me." He seemed to be making sense, though I didn't doubt Lyttelton's diagnosis.

He obviously knew his stuff and he'd cleverly picked my brains about the Beaverbrook program in his office. He'd given me a few good ideas for further research, too, and suggested a few papers that would be worth reading. So if the good doctor said that Turner sometimes went a bit loopy, I believed him.

Lyttelton put his hand on my shoulder. "Mr Turner, this is Dr Beaverbrook. He would like to talk to you for a while." Turner looked at me and smiled. He dribbled again.

Lyttelton turned to me. "I'll leave you alone with Mr Turner," he said. "Nurse Orlowski will be close by if you should need her. Just bear in mind what I said earlier." He patted me on the back and then walked through the trees towards the house. The nurse looked at me, smiled, and then resumed her reading.