Delirium (London Psychic) (6 page)

Jamie was stunned, and not in a good way. Cameron's interest was never for anyone else's benefit.
 

"Perhaps he will be able to shed some light on the Monro murder?" Cameron continued, and it seemed he was studiously avoiding the mirrored panel on the wall.
 

"I don't think …" Jamie protested.
 

"As I said," Cameron interrupted, his fist clenching on the table between them. "I want to continue to protect your position on the force, and I'd like to hear what your friend has to say."

In moments like these, Jamie wanted to get on her motorbike and just roar away, leave all this political crap behind. But she loved the job, and she had nothing else to live for but bringing justice to the dead. Perhaps Blake would help with the Monro case, but she had to figure out what Cameron wanted with him. She nodded slowly.
 

"I'll get him down to the crime scene before processing is complete."
 

"Today, Jamie." Cameron's tone was firm.
 

She nodded again and walked out of the room, feeling his eyes on her back, her skin bristling with awareness of someone else watching from behind the mirrored panel. Instead of returning to her desk, Jamie ducked into one of the other interview rooms opposite and waited. She was so sure someone else had been watching, and she needed to see who it was. She pushed the door almost closed so she could see out but remain unseen herself.
 

After a couple of minutes, the interview room door opened and Cameron came out. He pulled open the door to the side room, and said something to the shadows. Another man strode out, taller than Cameron, which made him over six foot two. His head was completely shaved, with a skull that seemed misshapen in some way, a slight asymmetry that made Jamie want to stare for longer. His eyes flicked across to the room opposite and Jamie ducked backwards to avoid his glance, but not before she had seen that he had heterochromia, one eye blue and the other brown. What was this man's involvement with the case, and why did he want Blake to read at the murder scene?

In the car park of the station, Jamie pulled on her protective gear while she considered what she would say to Blake. Her stomach fluttered and she laughed softly to herself at the faint excitement of being with him again. It had been a long time since she had looked forward to seeing a man so much. Jamie took a deep breath and dialed. Blake picked up on the first ring.
 

"Jamie, are you OK?"
 

The concern in his tone made her smile.
 

"I'm fine, and this is actually a work call. I wondered if you might be able to help with another case?" The silence was just a beat too long. "Blake, are you there?"
 

"Yes, sorry. Of course, I'm just a little distracted today. An object came in and I'm having problems with it."
 

"Oh, of course, if you're busy …"

"Actually, I could use a change of scene and I'd love to see you. Where shall we meet?"

"The Imperial War Museum on Lambeth Road. Just wait outside and I'll take you in."

"OK. See you there in an hour."
 

The line went dead as he hung up, and Jamie felt a wave of relief wash over her. Blake's abilities were disturbing, but they also meant that she didn't have to hide with him. He had read her once through a comb that Polly had made for her hair. Blake had seen her daughter's sickness and Jamie's own grief sublimated through tango, a side of her that few had witnessed. He had laid her open and part of her craved his vision into her life. She knew he numbed his own nightmares with tequila, oblivion drowning his darkness, so they were both wounded, both struggling to survive. Perhaps they could at least fight the world together today.
 

Jamie sat astride her bike and pulled her helmet on. The jet-black BMW was her freedom, not meant to be used on police business. But while the long leash Dale Cameron had given her seemed to still be in effect, Jamie was determined to make the most of it. She revved the bike and pulled out into the London streets.

***

The Imperial War Museum was deliberately imposing, and as Jamie pulled up, she saw Blake standing in front of it, looking up at the great facade. His face was troubled. For a moment, Jamie realized that he had been such a support for her in the last few months, but she hadn't asked him what was going on in his own life. He clearly had his own troubles, but right now she barely had enough strength for her own.
 

Jamie dismounted, pulling off her helmet and putting it in the panniers along with her leather jacket. Blake stood watching her as she tidied her hair, pulling stray black strands into her fixed style.
 

"Hey," he said, with a shy half smile, his blue eyes striking against his dark skin.
 

"Hey yourself," Jamie smiled and leaned in to kiss his cheek, avoiding the intensity of his gaze. She touched his gloved hands, briefly caressing the thin material, stunned by her reaction to seeing him after so long. Part of her wanted to break down in his arms and tune out the world, for there was so much unspoken between them. But now wasn't the time.
 

"Thanks for coming," she said.
 

"To be honest, I could really use the distraction."
 

"Really? Anything I should know about?"
 

Blake sighed, shaking his head. "I'm not even sure what I'm doing about it myself yet, but I'll let you know. So what do you need from me?"
 

"I don't want to tell you too much, but this is a crime scene and there was a murder here, so be prepared for that. Dr Christian Monro was a psychiatrist and this place was once known as Bedlam."

Blake looked up at the giant cannons outside the museum. "It still seems to be a house of the mad."

They walked into the museum, Jamie showing her warrant card to the officer on duty. The SOCOs had finished processing the scene earlier, but the place was still secure as the investigation continued. Jamie and Blake eased past the crime-scene tape that was in place within the inner rooms. The quiet was almost tangible after the bustle of the crime scene Jamie had seen early this morning. The smell of the processing materials lingered, underneath it a note of desperation. Or was that just her imagination?

"They're refurbishing the place, so these rooms weren't being used," Jamie said. "The body was discovered by a workman."
 

As they entered, Blake caught sight of the sturdy chair with leather straps.
 

"You want me to read that? Seriously, Jamie. It looks like something from a horror movie."

Jamie stood looking at it. "It's called a Tranquilizer, believe it or not. I understand if you don't want to read. I don't think it will be pleasant."
 

Blake's eyes narrowed as he looked at the device, assessing the challenge. "I'm not sure that it could be any worse than the Hunterian Museum and all those medical specimens." He peeled the glove off his right hand. "Just keep an eye on me, will you? Pull my hand away if I'm under too long." He placed his bare hand on the wooden arm of the chair and closed his eyes.
 

Jamie watched him, fascinated with his gift, although she still didn't quite know what to make of it. She had seen evidence that his visions were true in some sense, and they led to information that could be verified independently. His breathing slowed and there was a moment when Blake became absent, as if his life energy disappeared and there was only a body left, not a mind within. He was totally still except for a slight twitching behind his eyelids that made his long eyelashes tremble. It was hard not to study his features as he stood like a statue, a handsome god who suffered the trials of men. Jamie wondered what he was seeing.
 

***

There was no easing into the veils of memory this time, and Blake reeled as the noise hit him. Like an oncoming train, it started in the distance but rumbled fast into his consciousness, rising to a screech. It was the deafening clamor of people calling for help, moaning their distress, rocking back and forth with self-comforting noises. There was a rattling of chains, and a single voice, deep and resonant, singing a hymn to God, as if the Almighty could step down and open the doors of this prison like he had for St Paul.

The walls around him were damp and, in places, dripping with condensation that made the air muggy and thick. The smell of rotting flesh, of disease and shit and sweat filled the air. Blake became aware of people around him in the room. A skeletal figure, perhaps a woman, was fastened to the wall by a chain attached to a riveted belt around her waist. Her clothes were stained with blood and pus from sores as the restraint rubbed on her skin, and she held a piece of old blanket around her shoulders for warmth. She knelt in the corner, her long, dirty fingernails scratching at the plaster, making little marks. Was she trying to find a way out, or was it just the human need to record the passing of time, the transience of human existence? Another woman sat weeping in the opposite corner, her shoulders shaking with silent grief, and around her, other people rocked back and forward, their moans stifled by fear. The cell was cramped, with no separation between the patients according to their affliction. It was merely containment, preventing these rejects from impinging on polite society.
 

A long howl came from outside the cell, a sound from the depths of despair when words have ceased to hold meaning. The cacophony was part of the assault of this place of madness. Only the civilized are silent, or appropriate in the sounds they make, but when you were shut in here, Blake thought, how could you not cry out?

The howl came again and then the voice broke down in a scream as the noise of thudding against flesh drowned it out. Blake concentrated on the sound and found himself outside the cell in a corridor, watching as two guards beat a man with short coshes. The man was huddled, arms protecting his head, but the guards continued the beating until they grunted with exertion.
 

"That'll learn you, fuckin' loon," one of the men said, giving the man a final kick. "Monro don't like all that noise, especially when the ladies are getting their … exercise."
 

The men laughed, an undercurrent of twisted lust echoing down the halls. Blake started at Monro's name. How could the murdered man be here? These men were dressed in eighteenth-century clothing, and Bedlam Hospital had been moved from this site generations ago. The guards hauled the man back into a cell, his blood leaving a stain on the ground, and Blake followed them down the corridor towards the other half of the building.
 

Part of Blake's mind saw the museum as it now was, pristine cream walls with elegant paintings and no sense of the past. But the walls of this place were steeped in the suffering of the mad, the mental anguish of those chained up and force fed until their teeth broke. People would come to look at them, laughing through the windows of the cells at the craziness within. There were no witnesses here, no one to hear their screams, no one who could act to save them. So the inmates would plug their ears, singing loudly to block out the sound of collective anguish. Some believed they were in Hell, where their punishment was eternal, and now the echo of those times leached from the walls, a manifestation of the past. The air was thick with expectation, and Blake felt a psychic danger here, a darkness that longed for another soul to add to the tortured throng.
 

The passageways of the hospital were dark, cornered with shadow. Blake heard sounds of desperation and pain coming from the cells, but as the guards ran their clubs along the walls, the noises quieted. They came to a brighter area with two tiled rooms and Blake felt waves of agony coming from the place. He leaned on the wall as the sensations assaulted him, and then looked inside for the source.

On one side was a kind of operating theatre, but with none of the sterile trappings of modern hospitals. There was a bed with leather straps and a head brace. A tray full of medical instruments lay next to it, with a length of tubing attached to a pump.

On the other side, Blake saw a room for torture sanctioned by science. A man was strapped tightly on a board about to be lowered headfirst into a water bath by two guards. A doctor stood near his head.

"No, please no more." The man moaned, thrashing his head, panic giving him strength. But the two guards were stronger and held him tight, slowly tilting the board as excitement glinted in their eyes.
 

"Sshh, sshh," the doctor said, his gestures an attempt at calm. "This treatment will shock your system and restart your consciousness. We'll bring you back and you may be well again. This treatment,
usque ad deliquum
, to the brink of death, has been proven to work in many patients at other hospitals. You're so lucky we've chosen you to try it on."
 

The doctor nodded his head and the guards tipped the patient so his head and shoulders were fully immersed underwater. Blake counted the seconds, watching as the man thrashed around, feeling the waves of panic and pain emanate from him. The man finally stilled, his limbs going limp, but still the doctor counted on.
 

"Just a little longer," Blake heard the man say. "We need to make sure the shock is complete."

Blake sensed the victim's spirit lift from his body, exuding relief that this life was over, that he could finally escape. The guards tipped the board up, turned it on its side and released the man's body. The doctor thumped hard on the man's back and the patient vomited up a quantity of water that ran into the central drain. Blake felt the pull of his spirit back to physical life, the resistant despair, and then the patient was coughing and retching, gasping for breath.
 

The doctor nodded, writing on his chart.