––––––––
Littleworth High Security Psychiatric Hospital,
Merseyside
Michael Hemmings was enjoying his moment of notoriety within Littleworth. There had been talk about isolating him from the other patients, but it hadn’t happened. Hemmings stood at six foot and, while being inside, he’d managed to keep up his fitness. Fourteen stone of hard muscle. There was no one in Littleworth who could overpower him physically. He was safe.
Whistleblowing had come easy; he’d nothing to lose. Nothing at all. Everything to gain. And he’d nailed David Juniper into the bargain. Juniper had been carted off to another secure hospital in the south somewhere, that none of the patients at Littleworth had any desire to go to. Juniper deserved it, the weird, fat, paedo shit. Michael Hemmings didn’t consider himself a paedophile, and had convinced himself he wasn’t one.
Michael was good at convincing himself about a lot of things.
He figured if he couldn’t remember doing it then he wasn’t guilty. And he couldn’t remember. But he’d admitted to it, they said.
The kids’ visits had revolted him. The system revolted him. The establishment revolted him. They were all weird fuckers, the lot of them. He thought about his psych, Doc Patterson; Patterson revolted him less than the others. The few moments of clarity he sometimes enjoyed, and had been enjoying today, suddenly, quickly, fell around him. And the headache came. And the colours. The fucking colours and auras.
Spotting his designated nurse making his way over, Hemmings smiled. Toby Abbs always had a greenish aura, the colour of a highly creative person, apparently. This turned Hemmings’ smile into a grin. Poor Toby. Totally in the wrong job, just as he’d been totally married to the wrong person, of the wrong sex, totally denying his preference for dicks.
Hemmings knew Abbs was obsessed with him, loving him, when Hemmings made Abbs come like a hosepipe in the cupboard where the clean bedding was kept, hating Hemmings when he ignored him, or made fun of him. It was too easy to take the piss out of Toby.
Toby Abbs was indeed green. Naïve and oddly innocent. However, Hemmings felt something for the young runt. Was it what Doc Patterson would call compassion? He knew about Toby’s private life, Toby shared everything with him. Everything. Abbs had told him that his ex-wife had called him a loser and a freak. Hemmings wasn’t surprised – the stupid twat had told her about him, told her he was in love with Hemmings.
She’d left him soon afterwards, taking their two kids with her. Now living in Australia, she’d threatened to go to the director with what she knew if Abbs contested her demands to have sole custody of their children. Did Michael feel sorry for him? A bit.
Littleworth’s director had been on Toby’s back constantly since Michael had blown the whistle. Toby had been in a foul mood for weeks. He was withering, Hemmings could see it. Needed some cheering up did Toby, and he knew just what’d do the trick. A good, full-on blowjob. Make Toby forget his woes.
Hemmings looked towards the end of the ward. It was Tuesday and mail day. Toby and dim ‘Windy’ Miller were sorting through the prisoners’ correspondence with the ward clerk. None of the staff took any notice of what the others were doing. It was a feature of the institution: a closed place with rules that didn’t apply to the outside. A world disconnected from reality – until recently. And that was all due to him.
Hemmings had presence. He had charisma. He now had power. He liked that.
Toby Abbs was opening an envelope with venom. Hemmings watched and Toby looked up, making eye contact. Toby slipped the envelope surreptitiously towards the edge of the table and under his jacket. Windy didn’t notice a thing.
Hemmings heard Abbs say, as he picked up a handful of envelopes, ‘I’m going to sit somewhere quiet to go through these.’
Windy grunted, ‘Well, don’t be long – we’ve got the psych appointments soon.’
Toby Abbs nodded and made his way to an empty office outside the ward.
Hemmings waited. Patiently.
Toby returned to the ward fifteen minutes later and made his way towards him, glancing around once to look at the laundry cupboard at the side of the ward. Hemmings saw Toby’s boner from thirty feet. He could also see the brown aura that surrounded his own body. The unsettled aura, the distracting one. The one that came just before the grey, and grey preceded the most dangerous colour of all. White.
He’d come to recognise the meanings of these colours since seeing Doc Patterson. He couldn’t believe a trained person such as the Doc believed in that garbage. Auras, colours. Patterson explained to him about them; how they could indicate when he might begin to feel angry, unsettled, and to know when the dark thoughts would come.
Hemmings didn’t have dark thoughts all the time. Sometimes his mind was clear and empty. And this emptiness always accompanied stretches of time when he had no inclination to hurt people, have sex or attempt to harm himself. At those times he thought of his mother, when he was young, before the meningitis, before he saw the colours. Today though, the brown was dark, deep and muddy.
The old Doc had been exploring a different route recently. Patterson was asking probing questions, prodding into his mind, digging into the day they said he’d killed Joe. Patterson was interested in his relationship with his mum, and Sam, his fucking Dad.
Thinking of being moved from Littleworth, Hemmings’ mind capsized again. It should have made him feel good, but for some reason it didn’t. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to move. He wasn’t certain how he felt.
And an image floated through his brain of what it would be like to have your throat cut.
Would the breathing stop straight away?
Or would it take a while?
Or your dick sliced through.
How had Joe felt?
He’d tried to ask him, but he was already dead. He remembered that, trying to ask – both things.
Hemmings kept an eye on Toby, knowing the nurse wouldn’t approach straight away.
‘Hemmings, time for your session soon,’ Windy shouted from the end of the ward.
Toby Abbs. Five five, slightly built and skinny. The physique of a young adolescent. Black, greasy hair and still with a face full of puss-engorged spots. Giving Toby what he was desperate for wasn’t an inconvenience for Hemmings, because, deep down, in a place that had long ago atrophied he liked Toby; perhaps even loved him a little. David Juniper had given Toby a hard time, and it was another reason he was elated to have grassed Juniper up. He felt almost paternal to the young nurse. Juniper had been a fat bastard with a bald head and a cock as thick as an overgrown cucumber. He hated fat cocks. Almost as much as he hated cunts. He’d kept Juniper sweet for long enough to entrap and then expose him. It had been a satisfying experience and Toby loved him even more because of it.
His mind filled with brown. David Juniper – Dirty Dave – was a sick bastard. But now he was gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Hemmings stared at the ceiling. ‘What can I do for you, Toby?’ He tore his eyes away from the ceiling, resting them somewhere along his forehead. He didn’t like eyes, even Toby’s.
Toby pulled the letter from his pocket. ‘If Windy’d got hold of this,’ Toby said, ‘it’d be with Patterson by now.’
Hemmings reached to take the letter.
Toby held it firm. ‘What do I get in return?’
‘Come on, does there always have to be a barter, Toby? Let me have a look.’ Hemmings pulled on his ear and then, suggestively, placed the tip of his thumb in his mouth and sucked.
Toby gave him the letter.
Hemmings slumped back on the bed. ‘You’ve read it, haven’t you?’
Toby shook his head.
‘You fucking have.’
‘OK, I have. It’s nice that you’re getting letters. You don’t get much mail.’ He looked at Hemmings. ‘The writer’s a bit religious, then? Talks about God a lot.’
Hemmings lay flat on his bed, arms at right angles to his body, the letter held upwards. ‘Not religious.’ It was a front, the religious stuff. He could read in between the lines. He could see the promise. The promise that had been dangled in front of him for years.
Toby shrugged his shoulders. ‘Whatever you say. You’re the boss.’
Hemmings tossed Toby a look. ‘Yeah, right.’ He jumped up with the stealth of a cat.
‘Do you like it?’ Abbs asked. ‘The letter?’
Hemmings bit the end of his thumb. ‘Yeah, I like it.’ Did he like it? He wasn’t fucking sure. But he’d love a visit. He would.
Abbs looked at his watch, he was impatient. ‘We don’t have that long before you see Patterson.’
He stared at the laundry cupboard door and at Toby’s expectant face. Hemmings started making his way towards the cupboard, nodding and grinning at the other patients who littered the ward. Fucking lobotomised, most of them.
Drugged, sad and bewildered humanity stared back at him.
Toby waited a few minutes before following him into the large cupboard. Before he got started on Toby, the young nurse asked again about the letter.
‘One day, Toby, I might tell you.’ For the first time in two years Hemmings kissed Toby full on the lips.
Afterwards he told Toby Abbs that he really didn’t think he’d killed Joe.