The Woodcutter Read online

  Normally in the middle of the day Central London traffic proceeds at a crawl. Occasionally, however, there occur sudden pockets of space, stretches of open road extending for as much as a hundred metres. Most drivers respond by standing on the accelerator in their eagerness to reconnect with the back of the crawl.

  You’d emerged in the middle of one of these pockets. The bus had lumbered up to close on thirty miles an hour. You were flung through the air diagonally on to the bonnet of an oncoming Range Rover whose superior acceleration had got him up to near sixty. From there you bounced on to a table set on the pavement outside a coffee shop, and from there through the shop’s plate-glass window.

  By this time your body was in such a mess that it wasn’t till they got you into an ambulance that someone noticed there was a coffee spoon sticking out of your right eye.

  Both your legs were fractured, the left one in several places. You also broke your left arm, your collarbone, your pelvis and most of your ribs. You suffered severe head trauma and fractured your skull. And you’d left half of your right hand somewhere in the coffee shop, but unfortunately no one handed it in to Lost Property.

  As for your internal organs, you get the impression the medics crossed their fingers and hoped.

  Not that it can seem to have mattered all that much. Until you opened your eye, the smart prognosis was that sooner or later you’d have to be switched off.

  At first you have almost as little concept of the passage of time as in your coma. You exist in a no-man’s land between waking and sleeping, and the pain of treatment and the pain of dreams merge indistinguishably. Brief intervals of lucidity are occupied with trying to come to terms with your physical state. You are totally self-centred with your mental faculties so fragmented that information comes in fluorescent flashes, making it impossible to distinguish between memory and nightmare. So you do what non-nerds do when a computer goes on the blink: you switch off and hope it will have put itself right by the time you switch on again.

  But though you have no sense of progress, progress there must be for eventually in one of the lucid intervals you find that you’re certain you have a wife and family.

  But no one comes visiting. Your room is not bedecked with get-well cards, you receive no bouquets of flowers or bottles of bubbly to mark your return to life. Perhaps the nursing staff are hoarding them, is your last lucid thought before drifting off into no-man’s land once more.

  Next time you awake, you have a visitor. Or a vision.

  He stands at the end of your bed, a fleshy little man wearing a beach shirt with the kind of pattern you make on the wall after a bad chicken tikka. You think you recognize his sun-reddened face but no name goes with it.

  He doesn’t speak, just stands there looking at you.

  You close your eye for a second. Or a minute. Or longer. When you open it again, he’s gone. But the space he occupied, in reality or in your mind, retains an after-image.

  Or rather an after-impression.

  Though still unable to separate memory from nightmare, you’ve always had a vague sense of some unpleasantness in the circumstances leading up to your accident. But even if real, you don’t feel that this is anything to worry about. It’s as if a deadline had passed. OK, you regret not being able to meet it, but once it has actually passed, your initial reaction is simply huge relief that you no longer have to worry about it!

  But the appearance of Medler destroyed this foolish illusion.

  Medler!

  There, you remember the name without trying, or perhaps because you didn’t try.

  And with the name come other definite memories.

  Medler, with his sly insinuating manner.

  Medler whose mealy-mouth you punched. Twice.

  Medler who raided your house, drove your wife and child into hiding, accused you of being a paedophile.

  That at least must be sorted out by now, you reckon. Even the slow creaky mills of the Met must have ground the truth out of that ludicrous allegation after all these months.

  Nurse Duggan comes in. You ask her how long since you came out of your coma.

  She says, ‘Nearly a fortnight.’

  ‘A fortnight!’ you echo, looking round at the flowerless, cardless room.

  She takes your point instantly and smiles sympathetically. She is, you come to realize, a truly kind woman. And she’s not alone. OK, a couple of the nurses treat you like dog-shit, but most are thoroughly professional, even compassionate. Good old NHS!

  Nurse Duggan now tries to soothe your disappointment with an explanation.

  ‘It’s not policy to make a general announcement until they think it’s time.’

  Meaning until they’re sure your resurgence hasn’t just been a fleeting visit before you slip back under for ever. But surely your nearest and dearest, Imogen and Ginny, would have been kept informed of every change in your condition? Why weren’t they here by your bedside?

  You take a drink of water, using your left hand. The two fingers remaining on the right come in useful when words fail you in conversation with Dr Jekyll, but you’re a long way from trusting a glass to their tender care.

  Your vocal cords seem to be getting back to full flexibility, though your voice now has a sort of permanent hoarseness.

  You say, ‘Any phone calls for me? Any messages?’

  Nurse Duggan says, ‘I think you need to talk to Mr McLucky. I’ll have a word.’

  She leaves the room. Mr McLucky, you assume, is part of the hospital bureaucracy and you settle back for a long wait while he is summoned from his palatial office. But after only a few seconds, the door opens and a tall, lean man in tight jeans and a grey sweatshirt comes in. About thirty, with a mouthful of nicotine-stained teeth in a long lugubrious face, he doesn’t look like your idea of a hospital administrator.

  You say, ‘Mr McLucky?’

  He says, ‘Detective Constable McLucky.’

  You stare at him. You feel you’ve seen him before, not like Medler, much more briefly . . . across a crowded room? Later you’ll work out this was the out-of-place drinker in the Black Widow who alerted you to the fact that the police were waiting for you.

  You say, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  He says, ‘My job.’

  You say, ‘And what is your job, Detective Constable McLucky?’

  He says, ‘Making sure you don’t bugger off again, Sir Wilfred.’

  You would have laughed if you knew which muscles to use.

  You say, ‘You mean you’re sitting outside the door, guarding me? How long have you been there?’

  ‘Since you decided to wake,’ he says. ‘The nurse said you wanted to talk to me.’

  He has a rough Glasgow accent and a manner to go with it.

  You say, ‘I wanted to know if there’s been any messages for me. Or any visitors. But I’m not clear why this information should come through you.’

  He says, ‘Maybe it’s something to do with you being in police custody, facing serious charges.’

  It comes as a shock to hear confirmed what Medler’s visit has made you suspect, that nothing has changed in the time you’ve spent out of things.

  You are wrong there, of course. A hell of a lot of things have changed.

  You feel mad but you’re not in a position to lose your rag, so you say, ‘Messages?’

  He shrugs and says, ‘Sorry, none.’

  That’s enough excitement for one day. Or one week. Or whatever period of time it is that elapses before you feel strong enough to make a decision.

  You get Nurse Duggan to summon DC McLucky again.

  You say, ‘I’d like to make a phone call. Several phone calls.’

  He purses his lips doubtfully, an expression his friends must find very irritating. You want to respond with some kind of legalistic threat, but a man not yet able to wipe his own arse is not in a position to be threatening. The best you can manage is, ‘Go ask DI Medler if you must. That will give him time to make sure all his bugs
are working.’

  He says laconically, ‘Medler? No use asking him. Early retirement back in January. Bad health.’

  That confirms what you suspected. You were hallucinating. Funny thing, the subconscious. Can’t have been much of an effort for it to have conjured up Imo in all her naked glory, but instead it opted for that little shit.

  You squint up at McLucky, difficult as that is with one eye. He still looks real.

  You say, ‘Please,’ resenting sounding so childish. But it does the trick.

  McLucky leaves the room. You hear his voice distantly. You presume he is ringing for instructions.

  Then a silence so long that you slip back into no-man’s land. As you come out of it again, you wouldn’t be surprised to find you’d imagined DC McLucky too.

  But there he is, sitting at the bedside. Has he been there for a minute or for an hour? Seeing your eye open, he picks up a phone from the floor and places it on the bed.

  ‘Can you manage?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes,’ you say. It might be a lie.

  He goes out of the room.

  You pick up the phone with difficulty, then realize you can’t recall a single number. Except, thank God, Directory Enquiries. Asking for your own home number seems a sad admission of failure, so you say, ‘Estover, Mast and Turbery. Solicitors in Holborn.’

  They get the number and put you through. You give your name and ask for Toby. After a delay a woman’s voice says, ‘Hello, Sir Wilfred. It’s Leila. How can I help you?’

  Leila. The name conjures up a picture of a big blonde girl with a lovely bum. Rumour has it that when Toby enters his office in the morning, his mail and Leila are both lying open on his desk. You’ve always got on well with Leila.

  ‘Hi, Leila,’ you say. ‘Could you put me through to Toby.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir Wilfred, but I can’t do that,’ she says.

  ‘Why not, for God’s sake? Isn’t he there?’ you say.

  ‘I mean I’ve consulted Mr Estover and he does not think it would be appropriate to talk with you,’ she says, sounding very formal, as if she’s quoting verbatim.

  ‘Not appropriate?’ You can’t raise a bellow yet, but you manage a menacing croak. ‘So when did sodding lawyers start thinking it wasn’t appropriate to talk to their clients?’

  She says, still formal, ‘I’m sorry, Sir Wilfred, I assumed it had been made clear to you that you are no longer Mr Estover’s client.’

  Then her voice changes and she reverts to her usual chatty tone, this time tinged with a certain worrying sympathy.

  ‘In the circumstances, it wouldn’t really be appropriate, you must see that.’

  You get very close to a bellow now.

  ‘What circumstances, for fuck’s sake?’

  ‘Oh hell. Look, I’m sorry,’ she says, now sounding really concerned. ‘I just assumed you’d know. It shouldn’t be me who’s telling you this, but the thing is, Toby’s acting for your wife in the divorce.’

  Elf

  i

  Now this really was interesting, thought Alva Ozigbo.

  He’d moved from the first person past to the second person present.

  Did this bring him closer or move him further away?

  Closer in a sense. The first instalment had been a pretty straightforward piece of storytelling. The detail he recalled, the emotional colouring he injected, all suggested this was a version of that distant morning frequently rehearsed in his mind. In fact, rehearsed was the mot juste. Like a dedicated actor, he had immersed himself so deeply in his role of innocent victim that he was actually living the part.

  She’d done some serious research since she took over Hadda’s case. In fact, when she looked at her records, she was surprised to see just how much research she’d done. She’d turned her eye inwards to seek out the reason for this special interest. Like her analysis of Hadda, that too was still work in progress.

  She recalled Simon Homewood’s advice when she had started here on that dark January day in 2015. It had surprised her.

  ‘Many of them will tell you they are innocent. Believe them. Carry on believing them as you study their cases. Examine all the evidence against them with an open, even a sceptical mind. You understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t understand why you’re saying it,’ she’d said.

  He smiled and said, ‘Because that’s what I do with every prisoner who comes into my care at Parkleigh. Until I’m absolutely convinced of their guilt, I cannot help them. I want it to be the same for you.’

  ‘And how often have you not been convinced?’ she’d asked boldly.

  ‘Twice,’ he said. ‘One was freed on appeal. The other killed himself before anything could be done. I am determined that will never happen again.’

  So she’d gone over the evidence against Hadda in the paedophile case with a fine-tooth comb. And she’d persuaded Giles Nevinson of the prosecutor’s office to do the same. ‘Tight as a duck’s arse,’ he’d declared cheerfully. ‘And that’s water-tight. Why so interested in this fellow?’

  ‘Because he’s . . . interesting,’ was all she could reply. ‘Psychologically, I mean.’

  Why did she need to add that? How else could she be interested in a man like this, a convicted sexual predator and fraudster with a penchant for violence? It was on record that in his early days at Parkleigh he’d come close enough to ‘normal’ prisoners for them to attempt physical assault. His crippling leg injury limited his speed of movement, but he retained tremendous upper body strength and he had hospitalized one assailant. Transfer to the Special Wing had put him out of reach of physical attack, and verbal abuse he treated with the same massive indifference as he displayed to all other attempts to make contact with him. In the end a kind of contract was established with the prison management. He made no trouble, he got no trouble.

  He also got no treatment. While he wasn’t one of those prisoners who staged roof-top demonstrations to protest their innocence or had outside support groups mounting appeals, he never took the smallest step towards acknowledging his guilt. Perhaps it was this sheer intractability that caught her attention.

  With the Director’s permission, she had visited Hadda’s cell at a time he and all the other prisoners were in the dining hall. Even by prison standards it was bare. A reasonable amount of personalization was allowed, but all that Hadda seemed to have done to mark his occupancy was to Blu-Tack to the wall a copy of a painting that looked as if it had been torn out of a colour supplement. It showed a tall upright figure, his right hand resting on a lumberjack’s axe, standing under a turbulent sky, looking out over a wide landscape of mountains and lakes. Alva studied it for several minutes.

  ‘Like paintings, do you, miss?’ enquired Chief Officer Proctor, who’d escorted her into the cell.

  ‘I like what they tell me about the people who like them,’ said Alva. ‘And of course the people who paint them.’

  If there were a signature on the painting, the reproduction wasn’t good enough to show it. She made a note to check and turned her attention to the rest of the cell. Only its emptiness said anything about the personality of its inmate. It was as if Hadda had resolved to leave no trace of his passing. She did find one book, a dog-eared paperback copy of The Count of Monte-Cristo. Seeing her looking at it, Proctor said sardonically, ‘It’s all right, miss. We check regularly under the bed for tunnels.’

  Later in the prison library she asked for a record of Hadda’s borrowings and found there were none. Years of imprisonment with little but his own thoughts for company. He was either a man of great inner resources or of no inner life whatsoever.

  Giles Nevinson during his trawl through the case files on her behalf had come up with an inventory of all the material removed from Hadda’s house at the time of the initial raid. It was the books and DVDs confiscated that she was interested in. There was nothing here that the prosecution had been able to use to support their case, but they suggested that, pre-accident, Hadda’s taste had b
een for the kind of story in which a tough, hard-bitten protagonist fought his way through to some kind of rough justice despite the fiendish plots and furious onslaughts of powerful enemies.

  This could account for his choosing to present the police raid and its sequel in the form of the opening chapters of a thriller with himself as the much put-upon hero.

  But in Alva’s estimate the form disguised its true function.

  For Hadda this wasn’t fiction, it was revelation, it was Holy Writ! If ever any doubts about the rightness of his cause crept into his consciousness, all he had to do was refer back to this ur-text and all became simple and straightforward again.

  But he hadn’t been able to keep it up when it came to writing about his emergence from the coma. Here the tight narrative control was gone. Even after the passage of so many years, that sense of confusion on waking into a new and alien landscape remained with him. His account of it was immediate, not historical. Hindsight usually allows us to order experience, but here it was still possible to feel him straining to make sense of blurred images, broken lines, shifting foci.

  There was some shape. Each of the two sections climaxed at a moment of violent shock. The first, his recognition of physical change; the second, his discovery of his wife’s defection. Nowhere in his account of his waking confusion, nor in the aftermath of these systemic shocks, was there the slightest indication that he was moving out of denial towards recognition.

  But these were early days. She was pretty certain she now had every scrap of available information about Wolf Hadda, but what did it add up to? Very little. The significant narrative of the mental and emotional journey that had brought him to Parkleigh could only come from within.

  Her hope had to be that, by coaxing him to provide it, she might be able to lead him to a moment of self-knowledge when, like a mountain walker confronted by a Brocken Spectre, he would draw back in horror from the monstrous apparition before him, then recognize it as a projection of himself.

  She liked that image, and it was particularly apt in Hadda’s case. From her study of his background she knew he’d grown up in the Lake District where his father had been head forester on the estate of his father-in-law, Sir Leon Ulphingstone. Lots of fascinating possibilities there. Perhaps the almost idealized figure in the painting on his cell wall was saying something about his relationship with his father. Or perhaps it was there as a reminder to himself of what he had been and what he now was.