The air in the car has a musty, used-up feel, smelling of sweat and artificial warmth. We follow Bath Road into Bristol, hurtling forward between the traffic lights.
I lean back on the greasy cloth seat, staring out the window. Nothing about the streets is familiar. Not the gasworks, girdled in steel, or the underside of railway bridges or the cement grey high rise.
From the main road we turn off and descend abruptly into a wilderness full of crumbling terraces, factories, drug dens, rubbish bins, barricaded shops, stray cats and women who give blowjobs in cars.
Gideon Tyler lives just off Fishponds Road in the shadow of the M32. The dwelling is an old smash repair workshop with an asphalt forecourt fenced off and topped with barbed wire. Plastic bags are trapped against the chain link fence and pigeons circle the forecourt like prisoners in an exercise yard.
The landlord, Mr Swingler, has arrived with the keys. He looks like an ancient skinhead in Doc Martens, jeans and a tight T-shirt. There are four locks. Mr Swingler has only one key. The police tell him to stand back.
A snub-nosed battering ram swings once… twice… three times. Hinges splinter and the front door gives away. The police go first, crouching and spinning from room to room.
‘Clear.’
‘Clear.’
‘Clear.’
I have to wait outside with Mr Swingler. The landlord looks at me. ‘How much you press?’
‘Pardon?’
‘How much you bench press?’
‘No idea.’
‘I lift two hundred and forty pounds. How old you think I am?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Eighty.’ He flexes a bicep. ‘Pretty good, eh?’
Any moment he’s going to challenge me to an arm wrestle.
The ground floor has been cleared. Monk says I can come inside. The place smells of dog and damp newspapers. Someone has been using the fireplace to burn papers.
The kitchen benches are clean and the cupboards tidy. Plates and cups are lined up on a shelf, equal distance apart. The pantry is the same. Staples like rice and lentils are kept in tin airtight containers, alongside canned vegetables and long life milk. These are supplies for a siege or a disaster.
Upstairs the bed has been stripped. The linen is washed and folded on the mattress, ready for inspection. The bathroom has been scrubbed, scoured and bleached. I have visions of Gideon cleaning between the tiles with his toothbrush.
Every house, every wardrobe, every shopping basket says something about a person. This one is no different. It is the address of a soldier, a man to whom routines and regimens are intrinsic to living. His wardrobe contains five green shirts, six pairs of socks, one pair of black boots, one field jacket, one pair of gloves with green inserts, one poncho… His socks are balled with a woollen smile. His shirts have creases, evenly spaced on the front and back. They are folded rather than hung.
I can look at these details and make assumptions. Psychology is about probabilities and prospects; the statistical bell curves that can help predict human behaviour.
People are frightened of Gideon or don’t want to talk about him or want to pretend that he doesn’t exist. He’s like one of the monsters that I ‘edit out’ of the bedtime stories I read to Emma because I don’t want to give her nightmares.
Beware the Jabberwock… the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
There is a yell from outside in the forecourt. They want a dog handler. Descending the stairs, I use the rear door and side gate to reach the workshop area. A dog is going berserk behind a metal shuttered door.
‘I want to see it.’
‘We should wait for the handler,’ says Monk.
‘Just raise the door a few inches.’
I kneel down and put my head on the ground. Monk jemmies the roller door lock and raises it an inch and then another. The animal is hurling itself at the metal door, snarling furiously.
I catch a glimpse of its reflection in a mirror above a wash-basin, a fleeting image of tan fur and fangs.
My guts prickle. I recognise the dog. I’ve seen it before. It came rearing through the door of Patrick Fuller’s flat, snarling and thrashing at the police arrest party, wanting to rip out their throats. What’s the dog doing here?
45
A siren is shrieking abuse at passers-by as the police car weaves between traffic, flashing its headlights like grief-maddened eyes. Old people and children turn and watch. Others carry on as if oblivious to the noise.
We cross Bristol, clearing the streets; down Temple Way, past Temple Meads Station, onto York and then Coronation Road. My heart is thudding. We had Patrick Fuller in custody. I convinced Veronica Cray to let the former soldier go.
Twenty minutes accelerate past me in a blur of speed and screaming sirens. We are standing on the pavement outside Fuller’s tower block. I recognise the grey concrete and streaks of rust below the window frames.
More police cars pull up around us, nose-first into the gutter. DI Cray is briefing her team. Nobody is looking at me. I’m surplus to requirements. Redundant stock.
Maureen Bracken’s blood has dried on my jacket. From a distance it looks like I’ve started to rust, like a tin man in search of a heart. I keep my nerve. My left thumb and forefinger are pill-rolling. I hold my walking stick in my left fist to keep it steady.
I follow the police upstairs. They don’t have a search warrant. Veronica Cray raises her fist and knocks.
The door opens. A young woman is framed by the darkness behind her. She is wearing a sparkling blue midriff top, jeans and open-toed sandals. A single roll of flesh bulges over the waistband of her jeans.
Mutton. Mutton dressed as mutton. A decade ago she might have been called pretty. Now she’s still dressing like a teenager, trying to relive her salad days.
It’s Fuller’s younger sister. She’s been staying at his flat. I catch snippets of her answers but not enough to understand what happened. Veronica Cray takes her inside, leaving me in the corridor. I try to slip past the constable on the door. Taking a step to the left, he bars my way.
The door is open. I can see DI Cray sitting in an armchair talking to Tyler’s sister. Roy is watching from the kitchen through a service hatch and Monk seems to be guarding the bedroom door.
The DI catches sight of me. She nods and the constable lets me pass.
‘This is Cheryl,’ she explains. ‘Her brother Patrick is apparently a patient at the Fernwood Clinic.’
I know the place. It’s a private mental hospital in Bristol.
‘When was he admitted?’ I ask.
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘Is he a full-time patient?’
‘Apparently so.’
Cheryl pulls a cigarette from a crumpled packet and straightens it between her fingertips. She sits with her knees together, perched on the edge of the sofa. Nervous.
‘Why is Patrick in Fernwood?’ I ask her.
‘Because the army fucked him up. He came home from Iraq hurt really bad. He almost died. They had to rebuild his triceps- make new ones out of other muscles stitched together. It took months before he could even lift his arm. Ever since then he’s been different, not the same, you know. He has nightmares.’
She lights the cigarette. Blows a missile of smoke.
‘The army didn’t give a shit. They kicked him out. They said he was “temperamentally unsuitable”- what the fuck does that mean?’
‘What do the doctors at Fernwood say?’
