THE SMALL MEDICAL ward had barred windows and four beds, all of which were occupied. That wasn’t unusual. By their very nature prisons were unhealthy pressure-cooker environments locked down tight. People got sick. Was it any wonder, with hundreds of repressed men forced to live cheek by jowl – all vying for a place in the pecking order – resentful of being under the microscope 24/7?
Hell-bent on corrective measures, successive governments had spent substantial sums building and improving institutions like HMP Northumberland in an effort to curb criminal behaviour and punish wrongdoing. But within the walls of prisons, a subculture of aggression reigned. Racism was rife. Violence and hostility between individuals and groups was commonplace, resulting in physical as well as psychological damage to inmates, some of whom required hospital treatment from time to time.
Emily scanned the room.
Three patients were sitting up in bed: two reading, one staring into space – almost catatonic. In the bed furthest from the door, Fearon lay pale and childlike, both wrists bandaged, a male medic keeping observation from a nearby desk. A short, stocky, Asian man of indeterminate age, he smiled at Emily as she crossed the room. He didn’t question her turning up on spec, just advised that Fearon’s prognosis was favourable. His wounds had been sewn up and he was otherwise fit and healthy. He’d live to fight another day and would be back on the wing before she knew it.
‘Tonight, in all probability,’ he added.
‘That soon?’ Emily was appalled. ‘Surely not!’
The medic levelled steely eyes at her. ‘You didn’t buy that crap, did you? It was a con.’
‘I saw it with my own eyes.’
‘You saw blood, Emily. It always looks worse than it is. His wounds were superficial. He’d have run the blade the length of his arm if he really wanted to end it all, but these cuts were lateral. Disfiguring, yes, but carefully choreographed. No question. Designed to shock, to draw attention. Who knows what’s going on in that depraved mind of his.’
‘He was unconscious!’
‘Was he?’ The medic smirked. ‘He cut over old scars, Emily. He knew exactly where to do it and he knew that it wouldn’t kill him. Pathetic. Anyway, we need the bed.’
We need the bed?
She took that as a euphemism for the medical team not wanting Fearon on the hospital wing for any longer than was absolutely necessary. And who could blame them? This particular patient was an unknown quantity – unpredictable in the extreme – an individual who could flip at a moment’s notice. It was a question of ward security; the needs of one patient balanced against the safety of the other three.
The medic was warning her off, just as Stamp had done.
Emily felt a shiver run through her.
Watch out.
Fearon is trouble.
She took a deep breath. ‘Despite what you say, I insist you place him on suicide watch tonight. I want assurances. If he’s sent back to B-wing before I come in tomorrow, please make sure the night shift get the message.’ She was leaving nothing to chance. ‘I’d be grateful if you would write my request down too.’
‘As you wish.’
Emily waited for a note to be made. ‘OK if I sit with him?’
The medic nodded. ‘Be my guest.’
She turned away and walked over to Fearon’s bedside. Lying there, he seemed so ordinary: asleep, peaceful, innocent, a young man without a care in the world. Looking at him now, it was hard to imagine that beneath those closed eyelids lurked the hardest, certainly the coldest, pair of steel-grey eyes she’d ever seen. Eyes that looked through you like you weren’t even there: the manifestation of a psychopath. And yet he was not much older than her only child.
Emily looked at her watch. Four p.m.
Despite the fact that it was her first day back at work, she was in no rush to get home. After their terrible row that morning, Rachel had gone off in a huff and sent a text informing her mother she would be staying overnight at a friend’s place. She hadn’t said which friend. That would be far too easy. When Emily called to find out, Rachel got stroppy all over again, reminding her she was nearly twenty years old.
Whatever.
It wasn’t like her to be so secretive. She’d spent a few nights out lately and Emily had a feeling she might be seeing someone new, although Rachel had refused to confirm or deny it. As far as she was concerned, there could only be one explanation for that. Whoever it was, you could bet your bottom dollar she wouldn’t approve of him. Emily had spent many a sleepless night recently going over the possibilities in her mind: an undesirable rogue, an older man, a manipulative freak who might be taking advantage of her daughter’s vulnerability.
Or was she the weak one, unable to face the prospect of going home to an empty house? It was bad enough with Rachel in it, but it was totally insufferable being alone there. So, in the vain hope that a gesture of kindness might do some good, Emily sat down to keep vigil at Fearon’s bedside, taking a book from her bag in order to pass the time.
Within a matter of minutes she became so engrossed in the exploits of a fictional hero that she was oblivious to her surroundings. Which was a little unfortunate because the patient in the bed was awake and watching her.