Harriet Roberts, the senior nurse seconded from Rampton Secure Hospital, continues patrolling the treatment room.
‘We try to give her some routine.’
‘Such as?’
There is a sharpness to her voice, like some of the gym teachers I remember from school. She is thin and elfin, with oak-coloured hair tickling her shoulders. The kindness in her face is at odds with the parade-ground firmness, a disciplinarian forged by decades on the ward. Rampton, like Broadmoor, has shades of the prison house. Innocence doesn’t survive first contact. Gentleness is erased; substituted by self-protection.
‘Curtains open no later than eight in the morning. Lights out at ten sharp. First part of the day is muscle work. Second part of the day is for mental stimulation.’
‘What about the monitors?’
‘Plump the pillows, keep the blood flowing, give her some chat. Those are my instructions from the medical side.’
‘I see.’
I’ve offended her somehow, perhaps just by asking her these questions. That’s the problem with being a psychologist. The neurologists look down on you. The psychiatrists lecture you. And the nurses enjoy belittling you. The medical reference isn’t accidental. Then again, it’s hardly an enviable life. Nurses train to guide people back to health, not massage the legs of murder suspects. I wonder how she ended up at Rampton rather than a normal hospital. What compelled her to treat society’s outcasts, spend her life shadowing the violent and insane.
I decide to ask the question, regardless of her coldness. ‘And you’ve been with the patient ever since she was admitted, is that right?’
Harriet nods. ‘More than four years now. I’ve been the constant point of care. Hard to believe that much time has gone.’
I sense a certain pride in her response. People sometimes think this is just a job. Few ever appreciate how much more it can be. Despite her outward lack of sentiment, Bloom was the one who taught me what true investment means. Not words, but actions. ‘Above and beyond the call of duty. Four years is impressive.’
Harriet smiles. I see some residual emotion now, carefully buried. ‘This has never been a normal job for me. It’s a vocation. The fact she can’t talk back probably helps.’
‘So you were with Anna four weeks ago when those anomalies in the monitors came through?’
She glances at me, newly interested. She sighs. ‘Apparently it was just a technical blip. The doctors checked everything.’
I sense the hesitation in her voice. ‘Did you have another theory?’
Harriet looks mildly embarrassed. ‘Sounds daft, I know, but I thought it might be some kind of external stimuli. But that’s probably just a nurse talking. None of the docs took it seriously.’
‘Such as?’
‘Look, it sounds silly.’
‘Try me.’
‘One of the new cleaners was listening to Spotify on her phone with the shuffle off when she cleaned. The same track over and over. That was the only thing that was different then versus the last four years.’
‘What was the track?’
‘“Yesterday”, the McCartney song.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘The doctors were having none of it, mind. Told me it was a load of psychobabble. I guess they know what they’re on about.’
‘Neurologists, right?’
Harriet nods, coy about talking out of class. ‘Uh-huh.’
‘Were there any other signs you noticed physically?’
‘Her eyes. Usually they’re still. But there was a flicker when the music played, in her right hand too. The docs said it was just muscles spasming, completely unrelated. But I noticed it several times.’
I nod. ‘I can take it from here.’
Harriet finishes her work, then moves away from the bed. ‘Fine. I’ll check back shortly. You have my number if you need anything.’
‘Of course.’
The door closes. The heavy lock snaps into place. It feels so odd being alone in the room like this. Over the years I’ve read all the articles about the case. Even now, there’s still regular commentary-about-the-commentary in the Guardian and London Review of Books damning the entire ‘Anna O’ phenomenon. A symptom of the male gaze. A media creation. The fallen woman. Eve reborn. There’s even a course at Goldsmiths now on misogyny, myth and the media in which Anna’s case features prominently.
For many, the myth of ‘Anna O’ is really an inversion. She is not the villain here, but the victim. I try to imagine Clara’s reaction and decide never to mention it. I am as guilty as all the rest. My main listing on Amazon is for ‘Prince, Benedict. Anna O and Other Mysteries of the Mind (Viking, 2021)’. It is technically a bestseller, but only in Belgium.
I approach the bed now. Monitors flash. Wires curl. Tubes whorl into each other, until the entire thing looks like a giant bowl of spaghetti.
I cough nervously into my mask. The first thing to notice is how small Anna looks in person. The photographs recycled by every media outlet don’t do her justice, or not any longer. This is a different creature from the rebellious politician’s daughter. She is vulnerable here, stripped of all her armour, looking so much older than someone in their late twenties has any right to.
‘Anna O’, I realise, is a figure of tabloid legend. Anna Ogilvy, however, is five foot six and used to weigh just under nine stone. According to her medical file, she had tonsilitis as a child, glandular fever as a teenager and broke her right leg playing hockey in the lower sixth at school. At the time of the murders, she was twenty-five, moderately – if not overly – fit, with a reasonable body-fat ratio and slightly advanced metabolism.
She is, in short, a perfect fit for her chosen method of murder. Stabbing requires persistence rather than brute strength. The weapon used for both attacks was a soft-grip stainless steel carving knife with a twenty-centimetre blade. At the time of the murder it was available from John Lewis for just under twenty pounds. The knife slices through vital organs like a chef chopping meat. Only the number of stabs requires physical effort, suggesting frenzy of some kind.
There is a stool nearby. I sit down by the bed. I watch the monitors flicker and the tubes ripple with activity. I check the cameras and then take out my phone. I scroll through to Spotify and ‘Yesterday’, already downloaded, my gloved forefinger sticky against the glass screen. It’s an appropriate song choice. My diagnostic theory – still entirely embryonic and unproved – is based on using cultural stimuli to rouse a patient through memories of a happier time in their lives. I’ve seen other patients respond to similar cues from their past: music their mother played, old church songs, the jangle of a favourite TV theme tune. The acoustic guitar thrums from the speakers now. I hold the phone near to Anna and keep watch, flicking between the monitor and Anna’s face. Then the vocals start.
There is nothing to begin with. The lines on the monitor refuse to move. Anna’s face remains immobile on the pillow, not even a twitch. I’m about to give up and turn off the music and ascribe it to fluke. Perhaps the neurologists were right after all. Just before I press the pause button, however, I see Anna’s left eye flicker. It is so brief that I almost miss it, convinced my eyes are tricking me. But there it is again, just as the nurse described. There is the faintest kick of recognition, as small as it is surprising.
I glance at the monitor and see the line jag faintly. It is the same blink-and-you-miss-it result as in the file from four weeks ago. I play the song twice over but there is no further reaction. I tuck away the disappointment.
The nurse enters again soon after. I pocket my phone. Strictly speaking, no electronic items other than medical equipment are allowed into residents’ rooms. I wonder, for a moment, if the Ministry of Justice maintains a constant watch, someone in Whitehall monitoring my every action. My skin pimples at the mere idea.
‘We need to feed her now,’ says Harriet, still talking in that clipped, dismissive way. ‘Was it helpful?’
‘Yes,’ I say, deciding not to tell her about my musical experiment. I need more time to think about what I saw. Or think I saw. ‘Thank you. Very helpful.’
I leave the room and walk down to the ground floor. Clara is getting ready to leave. She sees me approach and says, ‘Benedict Prince. Psychologist and miracle worker?’
I smile. ‘Even I’m not that good, or that fast. She’s still sleeping.’
‘You weren’t tempted to grab a quick selfie for the collection?’
It is one of those remarks that reminds me of the murkiest parts of our marriage. The six months after Kitty was born, say, or finding those texts to another man on Clara’s phone. I think of those shocking news stories about serving Met officers taking selfies with dead bodies, or the odious WhatsApp chats fantasising about murder and rape, and I shudder. I wonder what Clara brings back to the house each night. It is one of the reasons I want to get joint residency rather than just the occasional weekends. I am determined KitKat won’t become another victim of the job.
‘Tell me,’ Clara says. ‘All the doctors say her condition isn’t neurological. Every test they run – EEGs, CAT, blood tests, lumbar punctures, you name it – turns up nothing. So how can a healthy brain send someone to sleep for this long? Why has no one been able to break the spell?’
I gather my thoughts, debating whether to tell her about the musical theory. These questions have haunted us for so long. On that fateful night four years ago, Clara was driving back from a late shift at Abingdon Police Station, seeking a quick shower and costume change, when the alert came over police radio about an incident just outside Burford. She was the nearest to the scene and the first on-call. She made a detour, reached the Farm and took charge of the investigation before anyone else could. It was her debut as SIO. For the sake of a late-night drive, her police career – and our lives as a family – were never the same again.
‘Because it isn’t her brain that’s doing it,’ I say. ‘It’s her mind. An altogether more complex phenomenon. Then again, I would say that.’
‘Next you’ll tell me it all goes back to her childhood trauma.’
‘There’s an idea.’
We reach the front door and become formal again.
She says, ‘I thought today was a day off?’
I stifle another yawn. ‘It was.’
‘I meant what I said. Make sure Kitty has a good weekend. School’s been a bit rough lately. She needs a boost. And talk to her about the nightmares she’s been having.’
I feel that gut-punch again. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own mess – the separation, the temporary flat – that I haven’t noticed my daughter’s troubles. So that’s why she doesn’t talk about her new school. Once upon a time I knew every small detail of her life. Now it’s just the brushstrokes.
‘I’ll pick her up at three thirty tomorrow.’ I look at my watch. ‘I mean today.’
Clara nods. ‘Don’t be late. Not again.’
I manage a smile. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be.’