9
Harrison slid his arms into a starched white coat and led her along the corridor. ‘This ward is one of four in Unit B,’ he said, punching a code into a panel on the wall. A buzzer sounded as the door swung open. ‘A high-security unit, though not as restrictive as Unit A. That section houses our most violent patients.’
The stench of bleach and something else – cooked cabbage, spoiled meat? – stung her nose. Before they reached the dayroom, Harrison unlocked a door and herded her into a space that was scarcely larger than a broom cupboard. A monitor bolted to the wall provided a bird’s-eye view of the patients in the dayroom.
‘I thought it best if your first impression of Tim was on the screen. He tends to tense up when he meets someone new.’
Erin stepped close to the black-and-white image. Would she recognise him? Perhaps a fractured memory from a long-ago summer. She peered at the monitor. In the dayroom, the windows were fitted with bars. No one sat in the scattering of plastic tables and chairs, bolted to the floor. An elfin man, not much more than a boy, with translucent skin and hair like chick fluff, crouched on the linoleum, shaking his fist at someone who wasn’t there. Another man, round as a beach ball, pressed his face against the scratched acrylic box that protected the TV.
Erin indicated a dark-haired man seated on the floor. ‘Is that Tim?’
‘No, that’s Alan. Tim’s sitting at a table by the window.’ Harrison tapped the keyboard. ‘I’ll zoom in a bit, so you can get a closer look.’
A heavyset man swam into view. Lank brown hair, a pale, slack jaw. She blinked hard, waiting for the flicker of recognition that failed to arrive. Instead, the photos of the crime scene flashed through her mind. The mother, her head cleaved in two, splayed on the floor in a pool of blood. Great splashes of blood on the walls and splattered across the cooktop. The two girls stretched out on the beds. Pillows pressed over their faces, and their throats cut with surgical precision.
Alone at the table, Tim hunched his shoulders over a paperback book, pressing the spine flat with his right hand. With his left hand, crabbed around a pencil stub, he made little stabbing motions on the paper.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Sudoku.’ Harrison smiled. ‘He’s quite good, actually. Rather amazing how quickly he can solve them. Whenever he’s not eating or sleeping or in group therapy, that’s what he does.’
Erin studied the angle of Tim’s shoulders, his iron grip on the pencil. She turned away from the monitor. ‘To your knowledge, has he ever shown any sociopathic tendencies?’
The surprise on the older man’s face seemed genuine.
‘What I mean is,’ she said, back-pedalling, ‘have you ever thought that Tim might be… faking his symptoms?’
Harrison tugged his ear. ‘Not in the fifteen years I’ve been treating him.’ He examined a patch of scaly skin on his wrist. ‘From the time of his arrest, he’s always maintained he has no memory of the murders. A sociopath would be more inclined to brag about what he’d done.’ As if anticipating Erin’s next question, he pressed on, ‘If he’d been deemed a violent psychopath on admission, he would have gone straight into Unit A with our more dangerous patients. Since I’ve been here, I’ve never known Tim to be anything other than docile. But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ His smile looked strained. ‘To provide a fresh perspective. I may be too close to Tim to see all the ways he might be manipulating me. To you, he’s a blank slate.’
Surely, there was no such thing. Not in a case like this, where a crime of such brutality cast an epically long shadow.
A glance at the monitor showed Tim still madly scribbling. ‘In the file I received there was no mention of Tim’s eligibility for release prior to this.’ Erin studied his rigid posture, the intensity of concentration. ‘Is this the first time his case has come up for review?’
‘Indeed, no.’ Harrison looked at his watch. ‘There were two previous occasions, but with no one to take him in, or space in a suitable group home, there was little point in petitioning the state.’
‘What’s different this time?’
‘Improved readiness, for the most part.’ Harrison pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. The air in the cramped room was uncomfortably warm. ‘More importantly, we have a sponsor.’
A sponsor? Erin pictured a well-meaning but misguided do-gooder, or an older, churchy woman, coming forward to save a fallen man’s soul.
‘Tim’s father.’
It was impossible to hide her surprise. This was more than she’d bargained for. Why would an elderly man take in the person, filial relation aside, who’d brutally murdered his wife and daughters? Even with Tim’s mental health as a mitigating factor, it was still a shock.
She dropped her gaze, keenly aware of Harrison’s eyes boring into her skull in a poorly disguised attempt to probe her mind. What made her tick? Where was she wounded?
A movement on the screen caught her eye. Tim closed the book of Sudoku and shambled towards the window. While his back was turned, a man with the face of a ferret leapt from his spot in the corner and made a beeline for the Sudoku. As soon as the man reached the table, his hand above the prize, Tim turned and pegged him with an Arctic stare. For several seconds they faced each other, predator and prey, before the ferrety man stepped away and slunk back to his seat.
What was that? A prickle of fear needled her gut. She stared at the monitor. It looked like Tim had been seconds away from lunging at the other man’s throat. ‘Did you see that?’
‘Oh, that’s just Darryl.’ Harrison chuckled. ‘Tim will leave something on a
