‘Got you,’ York nodded. ‘I guess some people still have imaginary friends.’
‘Some people are their imaginary friends.’
Other carers roamed the corridors, some with clipboards and white coats, others in navy blue tunics pushing trolleys of meds. They all looked busy.
‘Here we are, Inspector,’ McCullick declared. ‘He’s had his medication today so he’ll be nice and docile. Just keep your distance and try not to agitate him, okay. I’ll wait right in the doorway.’
Sliding the key into the plain white door, McCullick clicked open the lock and pushed it wide.
‘Evening Arthur,’ said McCullick. ‘I have a visitor for you.’
York stepped into the small room, boxlike, one comfortable looking armchair and one bed made up in crisp white sheeting. Just like McCullick said, Arthur Faulkner was sitting by the window examining the dying sun. He looked to be around seventy years old, the few remaining wispy strands of grey hair matted to his head. He wore only a dressing gown and slippers, a thin tendril of saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth.
‘Not even going to say hello, Arthur?’ said McCullick.
Arthur Faulkner remained still. York wondered if he even knew he had company.
Sitting on the edge of the bed a few feet from the patient, York examined the man’s face. The sepia photograph he'd seen at the Faulkner house was some fifty-odd years old, but there was no doubt that this was the same man. The crescent-shaped eyes, the faint hook of the nose, it was easy to tell that Arthur Faulkner had once been handsome.
In the doorway, McCullick waited, eying the scene curiously. ‘I don’t know, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Maybe you just caught him on a bad day.’
York leaned forward trying to gain an ounce of recognition. ‘Arthur, my name’s Nicolas. Is it okay if I talk to you for a minute?’
Nothing, not an iota of acknowledgement; Frank Blithe’s words echoed hollowly around in his head: When he came back he was broken. I mean he was gone.
‘Arthur,’ he pursued, ‘I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’d like to speak to you about your son, Julian. Would that be alright?’ The patient blinked, blinked. There seemed to be nothing behind those crescent eyes that remained in the real world, but suddenly Arthur Faulkner spoke, his voice cracked and strained. ‘Are you Julian?’
‘No, Arthur,’ he replied leaning in. ‘I’m a police officer. I’m here to talk to you about Julian.’
Faulkner looked confused. ‘Who’s Julian?’
McCullick raised his hands, palms up: don’t ask me.
‘Julian is your son, Arthur,’ he urged. ‘Do you remember him?’
The faintest of nods. ‘Robert. My son, Robert.’
York glanced over his shoulder. ‘Who’s Robert?’ he asked McCullick. ‘He mention that name before?’
‘Ignore it, Inspector,’ McCullick advised. ‘Robert’s one of the carers here who regularly looks after Arthur. He’s quite fond of him. Over time we think Arthur has come to think of Rob as a son.’
‘Arthur,’ said York turning back to the patient, ‘When did you last see Julian?’
‘What did they say to you, Robert?’ Faulkner muttered, his eyes flickering left to right. ‘What did the Nazi bastards do to you? Did they hurt you, did they hurt me? Oh Robert, oh Robert, Robert, how can they justify this. One more day in the box, one more day, one more day, one more day, one more day…’
York waited patiently while Faulkner rambled on senselessly.
‘There’s a police officer here to see you, Robert,’ Arthur Faulkner droned. ‘He wants to throw you in the box again. How can they justify this? How can they justify this? It’s okay, Robert…one more day, one more day, one more day…’
McCullick edged further into the room. ‘I think you’re out of luck. You’re not going to get any sense from him today, he’s in the clouds.’
York sighed and stood to leave when Faulkner suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm, the clear definition of a grizzled swastika-shaped scar on his wrist. His eyes came alive and full of wild angst, meeting with York’s in a cataclysm of torment. In a moment of lucidity, the patient’s frantic eyes cleared. ‘You’ll never catch him, you Nazi bastard! He’s too smart for you, too smart for anyone. He’ll find a way, a way out of this hole. You see if he doesn’t, you Nazi bastard!’
McCullick came charging into the room. ‘Come on now, Arthur, we don’t play like that anymore,’ he said, prizing his patient’s grip from York’s arm. Arthur Faulkner held York’s gaze for an intense second longer, his face full of dark determination.
Fighting with Faulkner’s grip, McCullick pushed him back into his seat with little resistance and as soon as it began, it stopped. Faulkner went back to staring out of the window as if nothing had occurred, eyes glazed like honey.
‘Come on, Inspector,’ said McCullick. ‘That's enough for one night.’
‘Docile my arse,’ York muttered looking into Arthur Faulkner’s eyes.
‘He should’ve been,’ said McCullick defensively. ‘I don’t know what happened.’
‘He murdered his doctor and tortured his son is what happened, Jason! The man is a fucking liability, drugs or not.’
‘Which is why he’s in here!’ McCullick said forcefully.
Physically shoving York out into the corridor, Jason McCullick slammed Arthur Faulkner’s door closed and twisted the key. ‘Just what the bloody hell are you doing here, Nicolas? Is it an official visit to help with an investigation or do you just want to upset my patients?’
He stared back at McCullick silently.
‘I thought so,’ McCullick said. ‘So how about you tell me what’s going on before I call London and report this to whoever it is I report things to.’
*
Back in the reception office York nursed his second mug of coffee. After his visit with Arthur Faulkner, the chill was eating him from the inside out.
Jason McCullick perched himself opposite and
