The Winter Foundlings (2 page)

‘Do you recognise him?’ Gorski whispered.

On closer inspection I saw that the man’s left wrist was handcuffed to the metal frame of his chair, and when I studied him more closely, I realised it was Louis Kinsella. He twisted round in his seat to face us, and his gaze had a disturbing intensity. He still bore an uncanny likeness to my father. Even his stare was identical, letting me know that I’d failed him without uttering a word. But he’d aged considerably since he’d filled the front pages seventeen years ago. His Eton-cropped hair had faded from brown to grey, and his features were more angular, with gaunt cheekbones and a prominent forehead. Only his half-moon glasses had remained the same. I’d been revising for my GCSEs when Kinsella’s killing spree hit its peak, and his face had lodged in my mind, among the facts I’d memorised. Maybe he fascinated me then because my father was gravely ill. He was being cared for at home, but he’d lost the powers of speech and movement. While his physical powers waned, his doppelgänger had suddenly become Britain’s most prolific child killer – a record that Kinsella still held after almost two decades.

His eyes followed me as we turned to leave. The chill felt deeper as we stepped outside, and when I looked down, I saw what had transfixed him. Snowflakes had melted into the red fabric of my coat, darkening it, like spatters of blood.

2

‘Everyone reacts like that. Some of my staff won’t even stay in the same room. It’s the silence they can’t stand.’ Gorski gave a condescending smile as he watched me shiver.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Kinsella’s choosy about who he communicates with. Most people get the silent treatment. He sends me written complaints occasionally, but he hasn’t spoken in years. It’s a protest, because his last tribunal failed – he wants to finish his sentence in prison.’

‘He thinks he’s cured?’

‘Louis claims that DSPD isn’t an illness. He says it’s a personality trait. Now that he’s learned to control his impulses, he should be released. His lawyer makes quite a convincing case.’

‘But you don’t agree?’

‘Of course not. The only reason he hasn’t killed recently is because he hasn’t had the chance. You must have heard what happened at Highpoint?’

‘He attacked someone, didn’t he?’ I remembered seeing a newspaper headline years ago, but the details had slipped my mind.

‘He gouged out a prisoner’s eye with his thumbs.’ Gorski monitored my reaction, then turned away. He seemed determined to make my introduction to the Laurels as unsettling as possible.

The isolation unit was the next highlight on my tour. The windowless cells were padded with dark green foam rubber. If the intention was to pacify patients with subdued colours, the screams from a cell nearby proved that the strategy had backfired. When I peered through the observation hatch, a young man was hurling himself at the wall, then scrambling to his feet and trying again, as though he’d located an invisible door.

‘One of our new recruits,’ Gorski muttered.

The combined effect of encountering Louis Kinsella, and watching someone ricochet round a padded cell like a squash ball was making me question my decision. Maybe I should have stayed at Guy’s and committed myself to a lifetime of helping depressives lighten their mood.

Gorski came to a halt beside a narrow door, then dropped a key into my hand. ‘This is your office; my deputy Judith Miller will be supervising you. She’ll be at the staff meeting on Wednesday.’

I wondered how long Dr Miller had coped with life at the Laurels. Given her boss’s unpleasant manner, I suspected she must be a lion tamer rather than a flirt. I twisted the key in the lock and discovered that my new office was no bigger than a broom cupboard. A narrow window cast grey light across the walls, and the desk almost filled the floor space, a threadbare chair pressed against the wall. Gorski’s footsteps had faded into the distance before I could complain.

I spent the rest of the afternoon failing to launch my Outlook account. Someone had left me a pile of papers, including a list of therapy groups to observe, and dates of meetings with the care team. I searched through the pages, looking for familiar names, half expecting Gorski to have booked one-to-one sessions with his most famous psychopaths to test my nerve.

Northwood’s staff common room was a million miles from the café at Guy’s, which was always packed with talkative nurses. A handful of staff members were sprinkled round the room, staring thoughtfully into their coffee mugs, and I could understand why. They were on high alert all day, waiting for chaos to break out. A few people stared at me curiously as I crossed the room, before returning to quiet contemplation, and I tried to picture how they vented their repressed tension when they got home. Maybe they put on Nirvana at high volume and head-banged around their living rooms. I collected a drink from the vending machine and stood by the window. The view was another reason for the sombre atmosphere. Snow was still falling, security lights blazing from the perimeter wall, an ambulance waiting by the entrance gates. The place looked as secure as Colditz: a few patrolmen with bayonets and Gestapo crests on their caps would have completed the scene. I glanced round the room again, but no one met my eye.

On the way back to my office, I saw a prisoner refusing to follow instructions. He looked like a textbook illustration of mental disorder. Everything about him was ragged, from the tears in his sleeves to his unkempt beard.

‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he yelled at a trio of male nurses. ‘They’re trying to kill me.’

The man’s claw-like hands kept plucking at his clothes, and I wondered what his original crime had been. An orderly was struggling to grab his arm. From a distance it looked like he was trying to tether a scarecrow to the ground in the middle of a full-force gale.

*   *   *

It was dark by the time I left. Someone had cleared the paths, but the car park was still covered in snow. A van edged across the uneven surface, wheels spinning, before disappearing into the woods. My Toyota was groaning with cardboard boxes, containing everything I needed for the next six months, and I was keen to find my rented cottage. But when my key twisted in the ignition, nothing happened. The engine didn’t even clear its throat. I drummed my fists on the steering wheel and breathed out a string of expletives. In my race to meet Gorski, I’d left the sidelights on. A gust of freezing air greeted me when I wrenched the door open, the hospital lights glittering on the horizon as I hunted in the boot for jump leads, cursing quietly to myself.

‘Are you okay?’ a voice asked.

When I straightened up, a man was looking down at me. It was too dark to tell whether he was concerned or amused.

‘My battery’s dead.’

‘Stay there. I’ll bring my car.’

He parked his four-wheel drive in front of my Toyota, and took the leads from my hands. I felt like telling him I could do it myself, but at least it gave me time to observe him. He was medium height and thickset, his cap so low over his forehead that I couldn’t see his hair colour. All I could make out was the fixed line of his jaw, wide cheekbones, and his blank expression. It was hard to know whether he loved rescuing damsels in distress, or resented every second. He didn’t say a word as the engines revved. Icy water leaked through the soles of my shoes, but he seemed comfortable, wrapped in his thick coat and walking boots. I got the impression that an earthquake would struggle to disturb his inner calm.

‘You’re the new recruit, aren’t you?’

‘That’s me.’ I nodded. ‘I’m at the Laurels, doing research.’

‘Lucky you. Up close and personal with our world-class freaks and psychos.’ His expression remained deadpan.

‘Are you on the clinical team?’

He gave a short laugh. ‘God, no, I’d probably kill someone. I’m a humble fitness instructor.’

The man looked anything but humble. There was something disturbing about his eyes, so pale they were almost colourless. The car purred quietly as he unhooked the jump leads.

‘You’re a life-saver. I owe you one.’

‘Buy me a drink some time. Did anyone tell you what happened to Gorski’s last visitor?’

‘Not yet.’

‘It’s probably best you don’t know.’ He raised his hand in a brief salute then walked away.

I was so happy my car had revived that I didn’t question his statement. He’d disappeared down the exit road before I realised he hadn’t even told me his name.

Charndale looked like a ghost town. I didn’t see a soul as I drove past a post office, a pub, and rows of small houses with picket fences. The minute scale of the place made me question how I’d cope with village life. One of my reasons for accepting the research placement had been to cut my umbilical cord to London. Since the Angel case I’d been partying too hard with Lola, trying to forget all the suffering I’d witnessed. The thing I needed most was to remind myself how to be alone, but the countryside was foreign territory. It was somewhere I visited on holiday, to go walking and eat hotel food.

The sat nav bleeped loudly, telling me to turn left down an unlit track, and my spirits sank even lower. It had been almost impossible to find somewhere to rent – maybe this was the reason why the place was vacant. I edged through the narrow opening and Ivy Cottage came into view. It stood by itself at the end of the lane, white outline highlighted by a backdrop of trees.

I left the headlights on to help me find my way, but the keys the agent had sent were unnecessary. The front door swung open the moment I touched it, as though the place was longing for visitors. The cleaner must have forgotten to lock up, which reminded me how far I was from the city. In London someone would have nicked everything that wasn’t nailed down. The air in the hallway was only marginally warmer than the temperature outside, my breath forming clouds as I hauled everything in from the car. I found the thermostat and twisted it to maximum heat.

The rooms were a good size, but the decor was questionable, with lace doilies on the coffee table and headache-inducing swirls on the carpet. At least my new bedroom had an old-fashioned charm. There was an iron-framed bed, and rosebud wallpaper that looked like it had clung to the plaster for generations. I hung my clothes in the wardrobe then peered out of the window. All I could see were pine trees, and the clearest sky imaginable, the moon hazed by a blur of yellow light. The view was stunning enough to compensate for the cold. Back home I’d grown used to light pollution shrouding the sky, but from here I could make out whole constellations. The boiler interrupted my star-gazing with a loud groan. It sounded as if it was working flat out, but the radiators were only lukewarm.

There were very few comforts when I got back downstairs. I perched on the edge of the settee, still wrapped in my coat. The TV was an enormous black antique, with erratic volume control. A newscaster was describing how a girl called Ella Williams had been abducted, near her primary school in Camden on Friday. She was ten years old but the photo made her look even younger. The kids in Ella’s class probably made fun of her cloud of brown ringlets, and the NHS glasses that shielded her bright, inquisitive eyes. The picture switched to her grandfather – a frail-looking grey-haired man, doing his best not to cry. Ella’s disappearance was the fourth abduction from north London in the space of twelve months. Two girls had been taken a year before, their bodies found months later. Then a third victim, Sarah Robinson, had vanished a few weeks ago, and was still missing. Her features had been blazoned across the front page of every tabloid. She looked like the archetypal Disney princess; the whole nation was familiar with her golden hair, turquoise eyes, and milk-white smile. I felt a twinge of professional regret as I studied her picture. I’d vowed to steer clear of police work, but in the rare cases when children were brought home alive, the satisfaction was incredible.

I looked at the screen again and my stomach lurched into a forward roll. Don Burns was standing outside King’s Cross Police Station, wide shoulders set against the cold, almost filling the screen. He’d lost even more weight since we worked together six months ago, but he was still built on a monumental scale. He looked like a rugby player after a tough defeat. An irrational part of my brain wished the TV had a pause button, so I could see him more clearly. His skin was bleached by the cold, dark hair in need of a comb, but something about him made it difficult to look away. It made me wish that I’d accepted his dinner invitation after the Angel case, but I knew he wanted to compare notes, and I was still too raw to discuss the crime scenes we’d witnessed. By the time I’d recovered, too much time had passed to call him back. But now it was clear that his confidence had returned. His unflinching eye contact with the camera reminded me why I admired him so much. You could rely on him never to bullshit; he was always the truest thing in the room.

Burns had acquired a new deputy. She was a tall, dark-haired woman in an immaculate suit, and there was so little air between them, they could have been Siamese twins. An odd feeling twitched inside my chest. Either the cold was getting to me, or the memory of my last case with Burns was resurfacing. It had started with a man being pushed under a Tube train, followed by half a dozen of the worst murders I’d ever witnessed. At least this time I had the perfect excuse: my research at Northwood would leave me no time to help the Met.

I waited in the kitchen for the kettle to boil. So far it had been a day of mixed blessings: a flat battery followed by an unexpected rescue, a new home that felt like an igloo, and a night sky to die for. I heard a light bulb fizz, then the light failed in the hall. I floundered through the darkness to lock the front door, but the mechanism refused to budge. As I wrenched it open an owl screeched from a tree overhead. The call was so loud and pure, it was impossible to guess whether it was a greeting or a curse.

3

Ella’s thoughts are a solid block of ice. There’s no way of knowing how long she’s been locked in here, without heat or light. The one thing she’s certain of is that the room is made of metal. Flakes of rust litter the floor, scratching the bare soles of her feet, and the only sound is the click of her teeth chattering. It’s so dark that her hand is invisible when she holds it in front of her eyes. The torch he left is beginning to fade, and Sarah hasn’t talked for hours. Her breathing makes an odd sound in her chest, like liquid pouring from a bottle. In the pale torchlight her eyes are stretched open too wide, as though the roof has peeled back and she can count the stars. Ella tries not to flinch when Sarah’s thin fingers grip her wrist.