What the dead want, p.22
What the Dead Want, page 22
More grunting and groaning before the wheel began to spin and the door suddenly swung open, revealing a suited facilities manager still in the airlock area.
‘Sorry, I don’t normally do this. I leave it to the security guards.’
Neither Ridpath nor Niamh answered him, moving quickly out of the biohazard room.
‘I’ll activate the decontamination procedure. It will take five minutes.’
A machine began to hum and a fine drizzle of disinfectant rained down from the ceiling.
‘Well?’ asked Richards. ‘Did I hear you correctly?’
Ridpath decided to let the man stew in his own self-satisfied juices for a little while longer, as he stood under the stream of disinfectant.
Richards turned and repeated his question to Dr O’Casey. She took her cue from Ridpath and didn’t reply.
‘Tell me what’s going on?’ He stamped his foot like a child who couldn’t get his own way.
Finally, Ridpath looked up at him. ‘You’ve got another problem, Mr Richards. And now, so do we.’
Chapter FIFTY-SEVEN
Mr Francis came for him at exactly 11.55 a.m.
If there was one thing the security guard could be trusted for, it was his punctuality. Not a brain cell to rub together, but he was always on time.
‘Come on, Lardner, you got your wish, the trick cyclist is waiting. Mr Harrison will take you to the doctor’s office and bring you back. If you give him any trouble, you’ll have me to answer to. Understand?’
‘I won’t be no trouble.’ The double negative satisfied the guard. Lardner picked up his notebook and stood at the door with his legs and arms spread.
‘Good, you’re finally following the rules, no moaning this time.’
The guard searched Lardner’s body, finding nothing.
‘The book.’
He cracked the spine and checked under the cover for razor blades or sharpened bits of metal.
‘You can’t be too careful these days, Bob,’ he said over his shoulder before handing the book back. ‘You take him, Bob, he’s clean. I’ll go on my lunch break now, just put him back in his room when you return.’
‘Come on, Lardner,’ growled Harrison. ‘You know the way.’
As soon as they were out of earshot, Harrison whispered, ‘Are you ready, Master.’
‘Let’s do it.’
They went through three locked metal doors before finally arriving at the entrance to Dr Mansell’s office in the new wing of the hospital complex. The guard rapped on the door.
‘Come.’
‘Harold Lardner for you.’
He pushed the patient into the room. ‘Shout if you need me, doc.’ He closed the door, standing guard outside.
‘Come in and sit down, Harold.’ The psychiatrist’s voice was as smug and self-satisfied as ever. He continued writing in his notebook without looking up. ‘Now what seems to be the problem. We were due to meet this afternoon, couldn’t it wait?’
Harold Lardner adopted his usual submissive position; shoulders hunched, steps tentative, eyes cast down to the floor. He sat down opposite Dr Mansell, letting his fingers play with each other nervously in his lap.
The doctor looked up, taking in all the submissive clues and instantly relaxed. He took a pencil and inserted it into the sharpener on his desk. The familiar whirring sound filled the small room.
He took it out, examined the sharpened point and then paused, pencil hovering over the pristine white page of his notebook.
‘The dreams have returned, Dr Mansell. Rather than dreams, I should call them memories.’
‘The memories of your post-mortems? Which one is it this time?’
‘The death of the police officer.’
The psychiatrist stopped for a moment, pencil hovering over the page. ‘That wasn’t a post-mortem.’
‘It was a murder.’
‘So you are finally admitting that you were involved in her death?’
Of course I am you fat fool, it’s my last gift to you: the truth. ‘I watched on the monitor as Lesley administered the anti-freeze into her arm.’
A smug smile crossed Mansell’s face. ‘We are making progress today, Harold. I always wondered why you acted through proxies to commit your murders.’
‘It was about control and power. I enjoyed controlling people, making them commit the last taboo in human civilisation: to take the life of a human being.’
‘Isn’t that a—’
‘Do not interrupt me when I am speaking,’ he shouted. ‘I controlled them. I’m still controlling them. They do my bidding out of love, for me and my work. They are still doing my work as I sit here and rot in this prison.’
‘Let us get back to the matter at hand,’ the psychiatrist said nervously. ‘Why is this memory particularly troubling for you?’
It wasn’t troubling, idiot, Lardner screamed inside his head. It was pleasurable. I enjoyed watching her face contort in pain and agony.
Instead he said, ‘I don’t know, it just is.’
‘Did you try to use the tapes I gave you for when these memories come back? Going to your safe place for example.’
Lardner looked down, shaking his head and whispered, ‘They didn’t work.’
‘They will always work if you do them properly and believe in them. Belief is key.’
‘Perhaps I am not doing them correctly.’
‘I will show you. There is so little time left to master these techniques to make the coming days easier. You do understand, don’t you, Harold?’
‘Of course, I do.’
The doctor stood up and taking up his notebook and pencil, walked round to sit next to Lardner. He made himself comfortable and began speaking.
‘Now I want you to close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing, noticing how with each breath you can relax more.’
Lardner closed his eyes and breathed in, slowing his heart rate. It was important to be calm and dispassionate for what he was about to do.
‘And as you continue to listen to the sound of my voice as you relax, I want you to move your attention to your toes and notice any tension and let it go. Aware that with each and every breath you can relax deeper and deeper.’
Lardner focused away from the voice to the sounds outside the window; the tweeting of birds, the faint buzz of traffic, the hum of the air conditioning.
‘Now I want you to move your attention to your feet and let the tension go.’
Lardner did the opposite of what he was told, focusing the tension like the string of a cross bow being pulled back.
‘Now, as you move up to your calves I want you to continue to relax as we move up to your thighs, continuing to breathe deeply…’
The time was now. The doctor was relaxed by the sound of his own voice. His eyes were even closed.
Lardner leant forward, snatching the sharpened pencil from the top of the notebook, grabbing the doctor’s hair and holding the pencil against his throat.
‘Shush, shush, it will be all okay, Dr Mansell.’ He whispered into the man’s ear. ‘Can you feel the point of the pencil against your carotid artery?’
The doctor whimpered, nodding his head.
‘I once performed a post-mortem on a man who had used a pencil to kill another prisoner in Strangeways. The details were fascinating. Of course, nothing happens when you push the pencil in, it’s when you pull it out the fun starts. One hundred millilitres of blood spurts upwards with each beat of the heart. Each spurt as high as two metres above the head. The blood being heavily oxygenated is bright red and, in my particular case, we found spatter on a wall eighteen feet away. Imagine that, eighteen feet? All the while the victim is aware of life ebbing from his body. Do you want to die, doctor?’
‘No, no,’ the man whispered, his body shaking.
‘A little louder for the guard.’
‘No… no… no.’
‘Good, I heard the fear in your voice. Now stand up.’
Lardner hauled the man to his feet, still holding his hair and the point of the pencil stabbing into his throat. ‘Now, call the guard in.’
‘Mr Harrison, I need you in here.’
‘Louder.’
‘Mr Harrison!’
The door burst open and the guard stood in the door. ‘We need to move quickly, Master.’
Dr Mansell’s eyes moved rapidly from side to side trying to work out what was going on.
The guard came into the room and closed the door behind him.
‘We need to strip him,’ ordered Lardner.
‘No, I… please don’t.’
Lardner pressed the pencil deeper into Mansell’s neck. ‘Don’t make a sound, and take off your clothes.’
The doctor began to remove his tweed suit, whimpering all the time.
‘You’ve got to hurry, we don’t have much time, Master.’
‘Get a move on, Mansell.’
When the man was down to his undergarments, Lardner began to dress in his clothes. The hideous garments fitted him perfectly.
Taking off his own belt, the guard used it to secure the doctor’s hands, stuffing a handkerchief into his mouth. ‘Lie still and you won’t be hurt,’ he ordered.
Mansell did as he was told.
‘Now, you need to take my handcuffs and put them around my wrists. We have to make it look like you overpowered me and then killed him.’ Harrison nodded towards Mansell, who began whimpering again. ‘But first I need to clear your exit.’
He took the walkie-talkie off his belt. ‘Harrison to Control, over.’
‘Control here, Bob. Everything okay?’
‘All good, Keith. Looks like Lardner will finish soon. The doctor told me he is going out for lunch afterwards.’
‘Not like him.’
‘Told me, he needs a break from the place.’
‘Don’t we all. I’ll clear him through security.’
‘Right, Keith. I’m taking Lardner back to his room in five minutes.’
‘We’ll keep an eye out for you, Bob.’
‘Over and out, control.’
Harrison switched off the walkie-talkie. ‘You have five minutes to get out. Don’t forget Mansell’s car keys and wallet. He’s driving a BMW 640.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he.’
Harrison sat on the floor. Lardner took the guard’s handcuffs and placed them around his wrists, ensuring they were snapped shut.
‘You need to hit me now, make it look real. Don’t hold back, Master.’
‘I won’t, Bob.’
Lardner picked up one of Dr Mansell’s awards from the bookshelf. He thought it was the one from the British Psychiatric Association, and brought it down on the skull of the guard, feeling the crunch of the heavy bronze biting into the bone.
He lifted the award up and brought it down again, harder this time right behind the man’s ear. Again and again and again he lifted the heavy bronze award, bringing it down on the man’s head, feeling the thrill of pleasure as the metal crunched into the grey matter of the brain.
Finally, he stopped, breathing heavily, wiping a small piece of bone from his lapel. ‘Sorry about that, Bob, but you’ve now outlived your usefulness. Shame really, I quite enjoyed our conversations. I’ve always wanted to bash someone’s brains in with an award from the British Psychiatric Association. It feels apt, don’t you think?
Dr Mansell was curled up in the corner of the room, whimpering like a baby.
‘I’m afraid, doctor, it’s now your turn.’
Chapter FIFTY-EIGHT
The long drive back to Manchester down the M6 was time for Ridpath to think. He’d asked Emily to get behind the wheel so he could spend time with his thoughts.
Before he left TRACE, the scene of crime team had arrived at the facility.
‘We’ve got a biohazard team coming from the university in an hour,’ the scene of crime officer told him. ‘This looks like a long job but I’ll let you know what we find as we discover it.’
‘Use Dr O’Casey as your pathologist.’
‘Niamh? We’ve worked with her before. Mad as a box of hammers but good at her job.’
All the additional expense had to be cleared by Steve Carruthers.
‘Are you sure there are dead bodies inside those containers?’
‘At least one, Steve, confirmed by Dr O’Casey.’
‘So there could be more?’
‘Probably. Frank Desmond made other deliveries we haven’t opened yet.’
‘Jesus.’
‘There are hundreds of hazardous containers in the store, Steve.’
‘You’re not suggesting we open all of them, it could take years and cost millions.’
‘Not yet anyway. I suggest we concentrate on those linked to Frank Desmond first. After that, people like yourself will have to make the decision, it’s above my pay grade.’
‘Above mine, too.’
‘But it is the perfect place to store a body you never want found. Beats putting them in the foundations of a building or the stanchions of a motorway.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I don’t think he’s buried here, sir, but we can have a look if you want.’
‘Very funny, Ridpath. Any ID on the body you saw?’
‘Nothing, boss, but if I’m honest, we didn’t spend a long time looking. Perhaps the SOCOs will find something.’
‘Right, get yourself back here asap. I want a meeting with the team. This is getting far bigger than we ever thought.’
He’d put the phone down and packed up his things, bagging the TRACE logs and the CCTV disks to take with him. He walked back to the main office and was stopped by the sergeant in charge of the police search team.
‘Do you need us any longer, sir? Only there’s a big flap over some incident over in Merseyside and we’re short of manpower.’
‘Nothing your mob can do here until the SOCOs have finished. Leave a couple of constables to guard them. The rest you can send away.’
‘Ta, sir. Control will be chuffed.’
He went into the main office. Richards sat in the corner of his office, head in his hands, whispering to himself. Ridpath had one last question for him.
‘The logs state Frank Desmond made at least four deliveries to the hazmat store in the last six months. Did he ever take anything away? You said research scientists sometimes removed materials for further research?’
Reluctantly, Richards reached for another log book. ‘These are the records of removals from the facility. Not that many as you can see.’ He ran his finger down the columns. ‘Three weeks ago, Frank Desmond removed one container. It was during his last visit here.’
In the car, Ridpath turned over this information in his head. Emily in the driving seat had the sense not to speak. Even the radio was turned off so as not to distract him.
What if, he asked himself, the container had the body of Andy Golding inside? Had he been stored at TRACE for the last four years? And then it struck him. If Andy Golding was removed from TRACE three weeks ago, Ridpath hadn’t started his investigation by then. The Manchester Evening News hadn’t even printed the story that led to him being put on the case.
So why had somebody placed the capsule in his mouth? Without that clue, Ridpath would never have gone anywhere near the place again.
None of it made sense. Ridpath felt he was running in a race where he was continually trying to catch up and the finishing line was continually being moved.
Outside, the grey tarmac of the M6 carved its way through the Lancashire countryside.
Inside the car, Ridpath forced himself to breathe deeply. ‘Go back to basics,’ he whispered.
Andy Golding disappeared on May 22, 2020, just after his grandmother had died at SunnySide. He was last seen in the company of a man with a swallow tattoo on the corner of Palatine Road, minutes from the care home. His body was found four years later in Withington, also not far from the care home.
And just two days ago, Clarence Montague received an unsigned note on headed notepaper from the home indicating the residents were being killed.
‘Why does it all keep coming back to the care home?’
‘I don’t know, Ridpath, are you sure it does?’
Without realising it, he had spoken aloud. ‘I think so, Emily, too many unanswered questions about SunnySide.’
‘I hate to remind you, Ridpath, but we are supposed to be visiting Harold Lardner this afternoon. The meeting was set for four o’clock.’
‘Damn, I’d forgotten all about it. We need to postpone it until tomorrow morning. I’ll ring Chrissy and get her to do it.’
He dialled the number. Chrissy answered immediately.
‘I was about to call you, Ridpath.’
‘Chrissy, can you cancel the meeting with Lardner at Ashworth? Rearrange it for tomorrow morning.’
‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you.’
‘Why?’
‘Have you been listening to the radio?’ she asked. ‘Obviously not. Harold Lardner escaped from Ashworth at one o’clock today. Half of Merseyside and Lancashire police are looking for him. He killed a security guard and a prison psychiatrist in the escape.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘My words exactly Ridpath.’
‘What do you want to do?’
Ridpath thought quickly. It would be pointless for the team to join in the hunt for Lardner, there was probably a thousand coppers already looking for him. ‘The search for Lardner is Merseyside and Lancashire’s problem for the moment, we have a job to do. We need to raid Genepro’s offices asap.’
‘This evening?’
‘Exactly. Can you get Helen to work with Steve Carruthers on it? Hang on…’ He turned to Emily. ‘When will we be back at HQ?’
‘Barring traffic, around five thirty.’
‘Use the blues and twos.’
She pressed a switch on the dashboard. Instantly, the noise of a siren erupted from the front of the car. She opened the window, placing a blue flashing light on the roof and then moved into the outside lane as the car surged forward.
‘We’ll be back as soon as we can. Be ready to move with a tactical team when we do.’
‘Will do, Ridpath.’
He ended the call. ‘Get a move on Emily, we have work to do.’
