I wrote recently in this blog about visiting an inmate in a Secure Mental Hospital on Merseyside. Here’s a little more on the same theme. I can’t include any specific detail, but a writer lives and breathes observation and I made use of my habit of paying attention to my surroundings and the people I came into contact with when drawing on past experiences in future novels.
Running a crime empire from a padded cell
The waiting area was not a place I’d like to spend anything other than the absolute minimum of time in while I ‘waited.’
The man I’d come to see wasn’t in a meeting, hadn’t been called away to deal with an urgent call. He was banged up in one of the rooms down the corridor. A metal door, a bed screwed to the floor, a stainless steel toilet and walls designed to minimise self-harm. What the papers called a padded cell.
Alone. Segregated from other residents. At all times. Like a wild animal in a cage.
I was waiting because a scribbled note on a piece of paper said one of the senior doctors wanted to talk to me before I was allowed to visit the man I’d come to see. This was unusual. I’d been here before, more times than I’d have wished, and this was a break in routine. I was happy to wait. For a short time.
I’d been directed to an alcove, part of a communal area. Hard plastic chairs and a scored table, all firmly bolted to the floor. No natural light. No concession to the provision of a dignified sympathetic environment at all. The dividing walls were painted plasterboard. Not solid at all, just thin partitions. The minimal sound insulation they provided would have been a clue, but the hole in the wall next to my face, roughly the size of a human fist, was absolute confirmation. I looked intently at the hole in the wall, feeling the repressed rage that was part of the fabric of the building. A great many unhappy men and women had sat in this room, in this very chair perhaps? Violent people. Tormented people. Desperate people. I felt their presence all around me.
I wondered whether the man sitting opposite was feeling the same thing. He was waiting too, but looked as if he was resigned to a lengthy stay.
The gloomy expression on his thin face had a distinct air of permanence. Seated, his legs appeared awkward, almost as if they belonged to someone else. A wide gap between trouser and sock revealed a slice of pale white skin, mottled like the dead flesh of a plucked goose. Thin to the point of emaciation he crossed one ankle over a knee and jiggled his foot nervously, adding to my suspicions that chemical influences were fuelling his surging metabolism. A battered but expensive leather briefcase was on the chair alongside him. He reached into its depths and pulled out a buff folder. I recognised the form it contained, had seen a fair few in my time. A lawyer, almost certainly way down the pecking order at one of the big city firms. The top men didn’t volunteer to come here. I could have told him he was wasting his time, but his expression suggested he had already reached the same conclusion.
My reasons for being here were very different. The man I’d come to see was a mate. At least, he thought he was. Banged up in here, without contact to the world outside, I hoped my visit would provide some leverage. Persuade him to reveal how he was managing to influence events back on the streets. He was a wealthy man, of course, but it was the logistics that interested me. Who was being paid off, which of his warders were doing very well lately? That would be a start. Three young men had died in the past week. Died in circumstances that no human being should die, whatever the extent of their criminality. The man I was waiting to see had arranged their deaths. Given the order. Even as an inmate in a Secure Mental Hospital he retained the power of life and death.
This place was a sewer scooping up human flotsam. Some form of cleaning product added a smell of pinewoods to the all-pervading mixture of urine and unwashed humanity. The perfume of the cleaning product was sickening, but nowhere near powerful enough to dominate the other smells. A white-coated man rushed by, coat tails flapping. Patients were thin on the ground. I’d only seen one so far. Are they patients or inmates? As I gave the question some thought, a cadaverous young man, shaven headed and barefoot, shuffled past. He flicked dead eyes towards me, seemingly registering nothing, and shuffled on. He was a scary-looking bastard, but seemingly had the run of the place, meaning he must be one of the better residents. The man I’d come to see wouldn’t be walking around. That was an absolute certainty.
‘Sorry to keep you.’
I stood and shook hands with a distinguished looking man in a white coat. The lawyer opposite didn’t even raise his head. He knew he was in here for a while yet.
‘Just a quick chat,’ my companion said as we walked to his office. ‘Hope that’s okay.’
I nodded. It wasn’t a problem. A few extra minutes delay was welcome. The man I’d come to see had last seen me over a year ago. The evening before armed police smashed down his front door at three in the morning to be precise.
I’d been careful. Remained visible in the community while establishing the details of my good fortune in evading arrest for long enough for the word to get about. If the man I’d come to see knew of my part in his arrest and subsequent confinement, my life would be very different. I’d know soon enough. A few more minutes would be neither here nor there.
Gulliver Smith 