Teeth

IT’S KIND OF fitting that Halloween is coming – the time when pumpkins get scooped out and displayed – because that’s the way AJ feels just now. Like someone has ladled out every piece of hope and light and love his body could contain. What’s left in the place he was holding Melanie is nothing.

When Jack Caffery has accompanied her, cuffed and escorted by two cops, to a waiting car, the Big Lurch comes by and puts a hand on AJ’s arm. He squeezes it. Doesn’t say anything, but AJ gets the message. I understand. When you’re ready to talk, I’m here.

AJ nods. Mutters a ‘thank you’. The Big Lurch wanders off, leaving AJ standing helplessly in the corridor – not knowing what to do with himself, wishing he could sit down somewhere. He thinks about calling Patience. Then he imagines telling her what has happened. She’ll be sympathetic, but there will be an undernote of I told you so in her voice – and he can’t face that. Instead he finds himself back in his office, holding the crude picture Zelda drew – the first thing that sent him on the hunt for Isaac. And now he sees, as he runs his fingers over it, that it has been added to after the original drawing. The paint is higher and fresher than the rest.

He shakes his head. It’s like holding a kaleidoscope to your eye – growing more and more conscious of the intricate possibilities presented. Melanie – sweet, funny Melanie – is like a million different-coloured pieces of glass, reflecting back the colours the observer wants to see. She worked hard to get Handel’s tribunal to release him – hoping he’d walk out of the unit carrying all the stigma of The Maude with him. It never dawned on her that Isaac knew what she was doing.

AJ goes back to Myrtle Ward. Down the corridor to the room where Isaac Handel is sitting, waiting for a psychiatric appraisal before he can be taken into custody. AJ nods at the cop sitting outside, unlocks the door and enters.

Isaac is sitting dejectedly on the bed. He looks up when AJ comes in, but doesn’t speak. He is deathly pale. His jeans are covered in blood and there are twin lines of blood coming from his nostrils. He’s a mess. After they’ve cleaned him up, they’re going to put him through the wringer – drag him in front of a hundred courts and then the system is going to end up putting Handel back in a place just like Beechway. Except this time he’ll be at the head of the chain – in high-dependency Acute, with a very very long wait until he cycles back to discharge. Years, probably.

AJ doesn’t speak at first. Instead he drops back against the wall, his chin lifted, and slides down until he’s sitting on the floor opposite Isaac. He rubs his face a few times. He’s known the guy for years and yet never noticed that actually Isaac is the strangest guy on the planet. He’s tiny. The pudding-basin haircut is freaky and ridiculous. Unbelievable that AJ’s been so nervous about him.

‘Isaac,’ AJ says, ‘tell me something . . .’

Isaac lifts his head. His eyes aren’t on AJ – they are somewhere on the ceiling, as if AJ’s voice is being projected from up there. His hands are clenched. There is so much blood. Everywhere.

‘Yes, AJ?’

‘The dolls,’ he says, almost not wanting to hear the answer. Because he thinks he can answer this himself. ‘Tell me about the poppets.’

‘I lost my poppets. I did lose them. From being bad.’

‘You were bad?’

He nods. His face is so pale it’s almost blue. He is shivering. ‘And so she took them off of me. The Maude.’

AJ stares at the side of Isaac’s face. He flashes back to Melanie’s bathroom. The broken panel. The missing bracelet. Could she have planted the notion of the broken panel as a way to focus AJ’s attention on the bath – just so he’d find the dolls in Handel’s room? The biblical scripts – she could have written them out herself. She’s been so clever pinning this on Isaac – looking back it’s been as dizzying as watching a circus acrobat.

‘OK. And something else. Why did you do what you did to your parents? To your mother and father?’

Isaac answers the question as automatically as a child answering the question What’s one plus one? ‘I didn’t like them biting. Didn’t like their teeth.’

‘Biting?’

‘Uh hmmm,’ he says, nodding. ‘Used to get teeth when I didn’t play the games they wanted.’

AJ is silent for a long time, picturing this. What other cruelty is locked away in Isaac’s head? He wants to say sorry – he wants to touch Isaac, but before he can, Isaac draws in a long, shaky breath. His voice is very small, very distant. ‘Something else, AJ,’ he murmurs. ‘One more thing.’

‘What?’

‘It’s only going to last another few minutes. That’s all it’s going to last. You are going to think it’s finished then. But it hasn’t. The end isn’t here yet.’

‘Isaac?’ AJ tilts his head on one side. Frowns. ‘The end? What are you talking about?’

Isaac doesn’t answer. He’s smiling, but his eyes are glassy. His expression fixed. AJ levers himself up and away from the wall. Stands and crosses to the bunk.

‘Isaac?’

AJ is long experienced. He should have picked up on this like an eagle. But it’s passed him right by. Blood bubbles from Isaac’s mouth. His lips are grey.

‘Isaac.’ He grabs him, but Isaac falls against him, suddenly heavy. His eyes roll back. ‘Isaac – Jesus. HELP!’ he yells. He fumbles for the alarm cylinder on his belt. ‘Paramedics – get the fucking paramedics in here now.’