Relatively Strange (35 page)

Chapter Forty-One

Ed had doused the headlights. There was a full moon, but with a lot of obscuring cloud, it wasn’t doing anything useful in the way of illumination. As we bumped to a stop and he killed the engine too there was only the metallic ticking of its cooling. Quietly we got out, Hamlet unnervingly gravitating to my side, as if he knew we were the only two mugs going in. I tentatively reached into his head, as warm and dog-smelling as ever. In the chill of the night it was oddly comforting.

“Make a lead.” Ruth murmured and showed me what she meant, a sort of mental chain of interwoven links between my mind and his – typically she’d visualised a shocking shade of pink, still Hamlet seemed happy enough, perhaps he had no colour sense either.

“Take this.” Miss Peacock handed me a heavy black rubber torch. “You shouldn’t need to use it with Glory guiding, but just in case.”

“Hey.” Glory poked me in the back, “You’re shielding too well now, stupid, let me in.” I relaxed and lemon sherbet fizzed in, beyond her I could feel the others, familiar now.

Ed had driven the van onto a grass verge in the concealing shadow of a large oak and as we moved beyond its shelter, there was only the sound of our soft breathing and the occasional skitter of a startled nocturnal creature in the grass. It had rained during the day and although it wasn’t cold, I could feel damp through the soles of my shoes. A dauntingly high brick wall surrounded the back of the building and its grounds, with curled barbed wire running uninvitingly along the top. Where we were standing, there was a large bush of some kind, planted closed to the wall. The trunk of the oak and the bush formed a two-sided small area of shelter, where the others would stay while Hamlet and I did our stuff.

“Go now.” Ruth murmured in my mind, “We’ll help you over, be with you all the way.” And because there didn’t seem to be any point in hanging about and I was getting more apprehensive by the second, I took a deep breath, felt them lend me their effort and rose. Slowly at first, all the balance-maintaining instincts coming back to me and then I was up and over the wall, taking care as I went, not to get feet caught in the razor-sharp wire. After all, we didn’t want situation normal, all fouled up, before I even started.

It wasn’t until I arrived on the grass on the far side of the wall, that I belatedly recalled my travelling companion. I needn’t have worried, a second later he came sailing across, ten stone of dignified, if slightly puzzled dog. He landed gently next to me, waited for a moment to check he wasn’t going anywhere else, uttered a small wumph of relief and shook himself thoroughly. I tugged experimentally on our shocking pink lead and he responded instantly, butting my side with his head.

We were standing, Hamlet and I, next to an unevenly paved pathway, running around the entire outer border of the broad lawns which spread out into the dark, either side of me. To the right was a central path, hedged on either side. It looked as if it followed a winding route, leading up to the modern extension at the back of the building, where the clinic was housed. It was very dark but,

“Don’t use the torch,” hissed Glory in my head.

“Can’t see.” I grumbled.

“Don’t need to, just start walking.” The distance was deceptive, the building further away than it seemed. Sight blunted, other senses were sharpened, filling my nose with the sweetly rotten scent of wet vegetation and my ears with the rustling of the hedges either side of me as they groaned and rattled against a brisk breeze. As cloud ebbed and flowed around and across the April moon, shadows and shapes kept starting out at me. I was making Hamlet twitchy too, he was pressing his massive self close to me, uttering soft little whines and making it hard to keep my balance, let alone my nerve. We were hardly the most intrepid pair.

“Concentrate.” Glory again, “Follow the path.” But I stopped. Heart thumping. There was some very loud, very frenzied barking, getting closer by the minute. From the darkness ahead of us, moving fast, charged two extremely large dogs. Hamlet and I froze as one.

“Stand still, they won’t hurt you.” I was tempted to remind Miss Peacock that people commenting from behind six foot brick walls, could afford to be optimistic. One dog was a full-grown German Shepherd, the other, dear God, a Doberman. They’d both skidded to a stop in front of us, stiff-legged, hackles raised, heads down and there was a lot of deep-throated rumbling going on. Two sets of muzzles were curled back over two truly impressive sets of teeth. My faith in Miss Peacock’s smeared on dog-deterrent was being sorely tried and Hamlet, who was pressed so close he was almost on my other side, was shaking so hard I could feel us both vibrating – or maybe that was just me.

“For Pete’s sake, girl, what’re you waiting for? Oh I’ll do it.” Miss Peacock rapped out a command and the Hounds of the Baskervilles immediately stopped growling and looked sheepish. They both sat down abruptly and the Doberman put his head to one side in a winsome manner. Hamlet relaxed a fraction and uttered what might have been the beginnings of a growl, I gave him a nudge both physical and mental – this was no time for bravado, I wasn’t sure we were out of the woods yet.

“You’re fine.” Glory was impatient, “Rachael’s got them, look they’re a couple of pussycats.” I eyed them warily, where I came from, pussycats didn’t stand quite so tall and certainly didn’t bark so loud. I took a tentative step forward. Both dogs got to their feet. I stopped. They sat down again.

“Go
on
,” Glory and Miss Peacock, in impatient unison. I shifted a nervous foot, the dogs rose. I moved forward and they fell into step behind me. I had to exercise all my self-control – and there wasn’t much left at that stage – to avoid breaking into a trot followed by a shrieking hell for leather run.

“Listen to me,” old peppermint-Pru in my head, sharply, “Pull yourself together, they won’t hurt you, I won’t let them, although you’re perfectly capable of holding them back yourself. Anyway they’ve accepted you as leader of the pack, now get on with it.”

I didn’t have a lot of option, I could hardly stand there all night, so we set off again, all four of us in cosily close formation, the newest members of the party panting at my heels like a couple of asthmatic steam engines. Every now and then, one of them would give a little woof, as if to remind me they were still there – like I could forget. Hamlet, in the meantime, had developed a distinct, my-best-friend’s-the-leader-of-the-pack swagger and even felt emboldened enough to move a couple of inches away from me. I felt like Barbara Woodhouse on location.

“When you get to the end, turn right” Glory instructed, “Good, now a little way along that wall you’ll find there’s a door. Yes, there.” The upper half of the door was glass paneled and opaqued by thin wire mesh and as I approached, I heard the click of the lock being opened, good old Ed. When I tentatively turned the handle, it opened easily and no alarm went off. Laurel and Hardy at my heels whuffed uneasily.

“They’re not allowed inside,” Miss Peacock informed me. Them and me both, I reflected and wondered if the sentence was less for breaking and entering if, technically, you hadn’t done your own lock-picking.

“Get
on
with it.” Glory or Miss P again, wasn’t sure which, they were starting to sound the same.

I shut the door quietly on my pedigree chums who both bore identical wounded expressions – no sooner do you find a pack leader than she ups and offs – and Hamlet and I found ourselves in a green-linoleumed, cream-walled corridor with closed, half-glassed, numbered doors at regular intervals to the left and right of us.

“Left.” directed Glory and I swerved obediently. Everything was as quiet as it should be at that time of night, although I could hear low voices from one room as I passed and there was the constant underlying thrumming of the fluorescent, overhead lighting.

“This corridor turns to the right and then there’s a flight of stairs, take those and then … ” she stopped as a tall, thickset man came round the corner, “Uh oh!”

He had on a blue uniform shirt and was wearing his trousers slung well below a solid paunch. In his left hand was a walkie-talkie which was crackling slightly. He stopped when he saw me,

“Hallo there,” he said, “Where would you be heading this time of night young lady and where the heck did your friend come from?” For a moment I thought he meant Glory, but of course it was Hamlet he was looking at, in some alarm. He was assuming, as I was too young to be staff, I must be one of the patients. If he read guilt in my non-response he only had a short time to think about it because Ruth was already doing her stuff. His expression drifted from inquisitorial to dreamy, his eyes glazed over and she angled him considerately towards a convenient wall, down which he slid gently. Which was all fine and dandy, except there was now an unconscious six foot, sixteen stone security guard, propped up in the corridor. I thought there was a fair chance that might raise the next eyebrow that happened along.

“Well, move him then!” Miss Peacock rapped.

“Me and who else’s army?”

“That room, behind you, open the door, we haven’t got all night.” I felt power from them surge through me and the guard rose a couple of inches from the floor. Still in semi-sitting position, head lolling, he drifted gently into the mercifully empty room, the door closed softly on him and Glory resumed calmly,

“Round the corner, up two flights of stairs, through the swing doors and then you’re in the clinic area.” I moved off, the sooner I got in, the sooner I could get out and frankly, that really wouldn’t be soon enough.

Chapter Forty-Two

Once through the swing doors, marked
‘Strictly No Admittance To Unauthorised Personnel’
there was a distinct change of atmosphere. There was a sign with an arrowed direction to the Clinical Unit to my right and directly ahead of me a door with waspishly black on yellow signs. I wasn’t sure what they all meant but the general tone wasn’t welcoming. There was a
HAZCHEM
and a
BIOHAZ
and a
STAFF MUST AT ALL TIMES FOLLOW STRICT BARRIER NURSING PROCEDURES
. I could feel Glory perusing them through me and sensed her surprise and concern shared with the others, they hadn’t expected this. There was a keypad on the wall and, within a few seconds, a series of internal clicks and churnings somewhere in the middle of the door which, I sensed, was a lot thicker than it looked. The red light above it now glowed green. I had to pull hard, but once the door started moving, it continued smoothly, propelled by its own weight. I hesitated for a long moment, every instinct screaming don’t go in. I went in.

Softer lighting here, the self-absorbed hum of air-conditioning, smell of disinfectant under-laid with something else, something not very pleasant. Hamlet pressed closer again and whined softly.

“Well, don’t just stand there like a lemon.” Glory, urgent, “Don’t know this bit, all new, after my time, but you need to keep going to the end of the corridor and then follow it round – hurry.” I felt the consensus of the others, they all agreed, that was where they could feel him, Sam, I could too.

I pulled the door to behind me and turned and hurried. Moving down the corridor, the scent I’d noticed earlier became stronger. Together with something else, not seen, not heard but insistently there and causing an unpleasant tightening in the pit of my stomach.

They were holding something back – Glory, Rachael, Ruth, I could feel them, doing the mental equivalent of standing close, forming a screen. I wasn’t impressed – I was the one in the thick of things, what the hell gave them the right to decide what I should or shouldn’t see or know. It had something to do with what I thought might be animal laboratories, behind the doors on my right. I walked, sneakers squeaking against lino, along the low-ceilinged corridor, neon-stripped with that infinitesimal flicker which impinges, just at the edge of your vision, vaguely disorientating. But as I hurried forward I could feel that other disquieting pressure gradually easing.

Rounding the corner, a shorter stretch of corridor led to another solid door with a massive circular handle. Opposite that door, the corridor widened into a bay where a nurse’s station held three screens in a monitoring console, alongside a couple of phones. A thin woman, uniformed in white tunic and trousers, emerged from a room to the left of the console. She was concentrating on and gingerly hoisting from hand to hand a polystyrene cup holding something hot. She saw me the second I saw her and, unlike the guard, knew instantly I shouldn’t be there. She reached for the phone. I thought to stop her, but Ruth was there first. The nurse crumpled neatly where she stood, coffee cup flying, Ruth-assisted, from her hand and landing safely on the floor a few paces away,