Slammer (33 page)

He didn't resist.

But, still, they moved him here, a secure psychiatric hospital. A prison, like the Hilton. But unlike the Hilton, this wasn't a modern building. It was Victorian. Dark and cold and gloomy. Full of ghosts. He could see them and hear them and sometimes he could feel them.

Riddell had asked him a question. He'd forgotten what it was, though.

Sometimes he saw … shit, he couldn't remember their names. His wife. His daughter. How pathetic was he now? He saw their faces. Lorna?
Yes.
Caitlin?
Yes.
Flames lit inside his skull, burned his brain clean. It hurt and it felt good, felt
deserved
. He saw them lying in the bath. Lorna's voice. No, not hers.

'She sounded different,' he said aloud.

'Who?'

'Maybe it was the smack on the head. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.'

'Who, Nick? Who sounded different?'

'She sounded like a man.'

'Ah, Lorna.' Riddell spread his fingers.

Glass put his hand to his head. Ran his fingers over his scalp. No lumps, no stitches. Didn't even hurt when he pressed down. He was getting used to the change. He had hair again now too.

'I'd like you to answer some more questions,' Riddell said. 'Would you mind?'

Glass shrugged. Every day, the same routine.

It went like this. Alarm goes. He gets up. He has a wash. He gets dressed. He waits. Nurse brings his breakfast. He takes his pills. Waits. Nurse comes to take him for exercise round the yard. Then back to his cell. He waits. Different nurse brings him his lunch. He takes his pills. Waits. Nurse takes him to see Riddell. He talks about what happened. Riddell asks questions. Back to his cell. He waits. Another nurse brings him his dinner. He takes his pills. Waits. He watches TV with the zombies. He used to be a zombie. He doesn't really remember, but he's been told. It couldn't have been so bad. Sometimes he wishes he was still a zombie. He talks to the few who can talk. Nurse takes him back to his cell. Takes his pills. Reads a few pages of his book.

Sleeps. Dreams. Wakes up. Sleeps. Dreams. Wakes up. Stays awake.

In the morning the alarm screams and it starts all over again.

It was his life, and he was coping with it.

'Back at the Hilton that night,' Riddell was saying. He paused and Glass nodded at him to continue. 'Why did you take Caesar's finger?'

That was easy. All of this was perfectly clear in his mind now. His brain was sizzling, all that fuzz burned off. That's how it happened. Sometimes he'd feel like his head was so heavy with shit that he was about to faint and then almost instantly he'd be fine again, all the crap burned away.

'I'd lost mine.' Glass was aware that what he was about to say sounded crazy. He said it anyway. 'I thought somebody might be able to sew his one in its place.'

'That's not possible. You know that.'

'Of course. But at the time, I wasn't thinking too clearly. I just remember thinking that he was responsible for me losing my finger. Seemed right that I should take his.'

'Do you still think he was responsible?'

'Depends what you mean. I think I cut it off myself.'

'Do you have any idea why?'

'I don't remember.' Glass closed his eyes, puffed his cheeks.

'Don't make yourself sick again.'

Yes, once, he'd spewed. He looked at Riddell, sucked air into his lungs. 'I want to remember.'

'I know.' Riddell glanced away. 'Let's change the subject till you feel better.' He clasped his hands together. 'Tell me about Jasmine and Horse and Caesar.'

Glass paused. He'd shot them, but he hated saying it out loud.

Still, he'd had his fill of self-pity.

He was a murderer. No getting away from it. He went crazy. He was in a psychiatric hospital. And they wanted to understand why. Couldn't blame them.

He wouldn't mind knowing himself.

He blamed the drugs. They were nothing to what he was on now, though. He felt like a pair of dogs had dug their teeth into his shins and were shaking him. Just because he wasn't moving didn't mean it wasn't happening. He could feel it, just like the creatures were there, under the desk, chomping at him. He stretched his legs out, kicked the beasts away.

Riddell asked, 'What about Mafia? Did you shoot him too?'

Now that was a question he had never asked before. Normally he just listened, nodded, asked a question that helped Glass move the story along. Not that it had ever moved quite so far. But this? This was new.

Come to think of it, the last couple of days Riddell had been asking all sorts of weird shit.

Glass tucked his legs back in, away from the dogs' teeth. Stared at Riddell until the shrink leaned back, that milky smell still clinging to him. Glass said, 'That was Watt. Why would
I
shoot Mafia?'

'Mafia strangled himself and then Watt shot him.'

'That's right.'

'Why do you think Mafia killed himself.'

'Because he knew that as long as he was alive, he'd protect Watt.'

'I see. And why did Watt shoot him if he was already dead?'

'I don't know. Why don't you ask Watt?'

'Good answer.' Riddell inched forward. 'If Mafia killed himself, then his body would've been in the flat, right?'

Glass nodded.

'And the police would've found it?'

'I suppose, yeah.'

'They found Watt. Unconscious where you left him.'

'He was still out?'

'Don't believe the books you read. Knock somebody out, they stay that way for a long time.'

'Wish I'd killed him.' Glass sometimes dreamed that when Watt handed him the gun, he pulled the trigger. In the dream, Lorna would be tugging at his arm, trying to wrestle the gun out of his hand. 'Is there a date yet for the trial?'

'No,' Riddell said. 'We'll talk about that another time.'

'Will I be allowed to go?'

'Not now, Nick.'

'Just answer me that one question. It's important.' Riddell had no idea how important. But Glass had to be there. He wanted to hear Watt explain himself.

'Yes,' Riddell said. 'You'll be at the trial. Can I carry on?'

'Sorry, yes.'

Riddell said, 'So the police found Watt. Curled up on the floor. Like you'd expect.' He paused. 'But there was no sign of Mafia.'

That made no sense. 'What are you saying?'

'What do you think I'm saying?'

Glass thought about it. 'You're saying Mafia got up and walked?'

'Am I?'

'I don't know. Are you?'

'That's not very likely, Nick. Dead people tend to stay where they are.' Riddell twiddled his pencil again, tapped it on the desk, tapped it on his chin. He'd grown his beard. There was a streak of grey in it that snagged the light. 'So if we're agreed that he didn't get up and walk, where did he go?'

Took a moment before Glass realised the question wasn't rhetorical. 'How am I supposed to know? I wasn't there. I'd left long before the police arrived.'

'Have a think, anyway. See if you can give me an answer, however far-fetched. Take your time.'

Glass tried, couldn't concentrate. Saw Caitlin's face, heard her voice, she was crying: 'Where's Mo?' She'd lost her teddy. Then, an image from a different occasion, her face white and shocked, and the words: 'Don't argue.' A metal spike slammed into Glass's brain, as fast and solid as a bullet.

Ignore it. Concentrate.

Mafia's body. Riddell wanted to know where it had gone. Dead bodies didn't just get up and walk, so he said. He was right, of course. Even when Glass was a zombie, he couldn't remember getting up and walking.

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said the first thing that came into his head. 'Aliens must have abducted him.'

Riddell smiled. 'Any ideas that are maybe a little less far-fetched than that?'

That was far-fetched? Well, maybe it was. What, then? Hmmm. 'Somebody must have moved him.' Zipped straight into his head. The spike had snatched the thought out of the air, a lightning rod for ideas that would otherwise have struck elsewhere, a chair leg, wastepaper basket, umbrella.

Riddell nodded. 'Who'd move a dead body?'

'Mad Will?'

'You think Mad Will came back, got rid of Mafia, and left Watt lying there for the police to find?'

'Maybe he ran out of time.'

'Are you absolutely sure?'

'Well, no, I've no idea. I'm just giving you my best guess.' Glass stretched his legs out again, asked, politely, 'Can you explain it?'

'No,' Riddell said. 'I meant, are you absolutely sure about what happened to Mafia?'

'Why wouldn't I be? I didn't get hit on the head till afterwards.' Glass wiped sweat off his eyebrow. 'Look, Mafia choked himself to death. And I saw Watt put a bullet in him.' He held out his left hand, clenched his fist. 'I can see the gun like it's here right now in my hand.' He straightened two fingers, formed the shape of a gun. Pointed it at Riddell.

'You going to shoot me with that?' Riddell asked.

Glass spread his fingers, let his hand fall down by his side. His brain flickered. Stayed on, a question stretched across the inside of his head, wrapped around the spike, touching both sides of his skull, curved at one end, a dot at the other. He tried to grab it but it crumbled to dust in his fingers and a wind rose and blew it away. Flickering. He was flickering.

'I have one more question,' Riddell said. 'The day you woke up and found your finger missing and Lorna and Caitlin gone, why did it never occur to you that Watt had kidnapped them?'

'I don't know,' Glass said. 'It just didn't.'

'Don't you think that's odd?'

'No.'

'But Watt had made threats.'

'I didn't think it was odd.'

'Maybe you knew—'

'I didn't think it was odd,' Glass said. 'Get me off these fucking drugs.'

'Maybe we should call it a day.'

'Please.' Glass ran his hand over his scalp, let his fingers wrap round the tip of the spike sticking out of his skull. 'They're screwing with my head.'

'Okay,' Riddell said. 'We'll reduce your dosage a little each day. You'll be off them before you know it.'

'I just want to feel normal for a change.'

'Of course.' Riddell nodded. 'I'll get someone to take you back to your room.'

*

That night, Glass woke up so suddenly and completely that he wasn't even sure he'd been asleep. But his room was darker than before and all he could see now were blobs of colour, mainly greens and oranges.