‘What line do we take with Jayne, sir?’ Burton looked troubled. ‘The poor kid’s just lost her aunt.’
‘At this stage, they’re all witnesses, nothing more. But you’re right, Kate.’ Markham recalled Jayne Pickering’s empty, zonked gaze. ‘We need to get her medically checked out before any interview.’
‘Otherwise that Gavin Conors will give us banner headlines. Police Harass Bereaved Teen. An’ Sidney’ll have our guts for garters.’
‘You took the words right out of my mouth, Sergeant.’
Three pairs of eyes watched him expectantly.
He glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock.
‘I know it’s been a long day, but I want to check in with Kate’s contact at the Newman. If Rebecca Shawcross had someone from this centre “in her pocket”, then maybe we can identify who was treating her and why she had to die.’
‘Maybe someone from the centre was meeting her at the Newman.’ Myriad possibilities crowded into Burton’s mind. ‘For some reason they had to meet there . . .’
‘We’ll get to the bottom of it, Kate.’ Markham spoke with a confidence that he was far from feeling. ‘I’ll quite understand if anyone wants to get off. As I say, you’ve had a long day.’
‘No longer than yours, guv,’ Noakes said gruffly. ‘Like them musketeer fellas say, “All for one and one for all” . . .’
‘First the Bard and now Dumas. It’ll be the Open University next, Noakesy.’
‘Oh no, guv,’ the DS said darkly, ‘I saw Educating Rita wi’ the missus . . . it weren’t much cop, to be honest.’ He jangled his car keys. ‘Right, I’m driving.’ He shot Burton a venomous glance. ‘Otherwise we’ll end up listening to that poncey Radio 4.’
Markham realized he had been premature. It didn’t appear the groves of academe would be welcoming George Noakes any time soon.
* * *
The Newman Hospital was a strange mix of red-brick gothic and twenty-first-century modernism situated in the quiet suburb of Medway. A Victorian clock-tower — part of the old workhouse — dominated the forecourt, which was flanked on either side by low, gunmetal grey extensions. The modern one-storey wings bore a disconcerting resemblance to U-boats or futuristic polytunnels. Deceptively compact, they in fact extended a considerable distance, being bounded at their perimeter by Medway Station.
While Markham was completing the formalities, handing in their mobiles and getting issued with lanyards, his colleagues waited in the reception area, a double-height atrium constructed to draw in as much daylight as possible.
‘Creepy as fuck,’ Noakes muttered, looking round apprehensively.
Burton was inclined to agree. Despite the pastel colours and cheery murals (not to mention the various ‘art installations’ they passed on their way into the building), the place had an antiseptic sterility that was somehow more sinister than if they’d been confronted with the usual stereotype of a mental hospital — high walls, barred windows, shuffling inmates and straitjackets.
She ran her eyes over the familiar signposts: Nile, Danube, Volga, Thames and Rhine (all the wards were named after famous rivers), flinching as she came to the last. Rhine. The intensive-care secure unit with its big steel doors, peepholes and plexiglass-reinforced nursing station. It was different from the acres of glass and brightly coloured day lounges which gave the rest of the building a contemporary feel. She hoped fervently they didn’t have to go into the patients’ living quarters. All the skylights, light tubes and ‘garden spaces’ in the world couldn’t take away that strange underwater sensation of moving through a hermetically sealed universe, from which all the oxygen had been sucked out.
Doyle too looked as though this visit was anything but a pleasure. Of course, remembered Burton, he had a learning-disabled sister. Apparently, he’d always dreaded she might end up in institutional care. And God knew, after what they’d discovered during the Jonathan Warr murder investigation — missing and abused patients, illicit lobotomies and medical cover-ups going back years — you’d have to say his fears weren’t entirely unjustified . . .
Presumably the thought had also crossed Markham’s mind.
‘We’ve got a choice,’ he said with a reassuring smile, handing out their security badges. ‘We can use one of the music studios, the multi-faith room or the visitors’ café.’
‘They do Wagon Wheels in the caff.’
Despite her disapproval of Noakes’s disordered eating habits, Burton was relieved to hear the option he’d chosen and she could tell Doyle felt the same.
‘It’s outside normal hours, but I believe they’re happy to arrange tea and biscuits,’ the DI said resignedly. ‘Though I can’t guarantee Wagon Wheels, Sergeant.’
Oh well, any port in a storm. The DS was already lumbering towards a set of double doors, as though impelled by some Pavlovian reflex.
* * *
When they were settled with their cuppas and (oh, joy of joys) Wagon Wheels, Markham admitted to himself that it was a good choice. He’d had more than enough of those swivelling CCTV lenses and winking red sensors on previous visits. The café had been redecorated too, which helped. The ghosts of murder victims past were never far away, but mercifully theirs wasn’t a malign presence — as though the Newman’s victims knew how hard Markham and his team had worked to give them a voice from beyond the grave.
‘Inspector Markham? Ronnie Shaw. Senior staff nurse. I spoke to one of your officers earlier.’
A diminutive, somewhat overweight but attractive blonde paused at their table. Dressed in a white shirt tucked into a pretty patterned turquoise skirt, hair curling on her shoulders, she looked the absolute antithesis of a warder or prison officer. Markham guessed
