Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven #3)(2)

A better me, a kinder soul, an empath, a religious man, would show mercy and give Elias the pardon he seeks. Unconditionally. Without question or hesitation. I am not that man.

Dr Baillie swipes a security card and comes to collect me from the waiting room. He is Elias’s case worker. Fiftyish, compact, stern, a psychiatrist with a short-trimmed beard and a greying ponytail that seems to be dragging his hairline higher up his forehead.

‘How is it going?’ I ask.

‘It looks promising.’

For whom, I want to ask, but I know whose side Dr Baillie is on. He assumes I’m with him. Maybe I am.

He waves to a security guard behind a Perspex screen. A door is unlocked and we are escorted along wide corridors that smell of pine-scented floor polish and phenol.

Rampton is one of three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England. According to the Daily Mail, it houses the ‘worst of the worst’, but reporters tend to focus on the high-profile patients, the ‘rippers’, ‘butchers’ and ‘slashers’ who make better clickbait than the bulk of inmates, being treated for personality or mood disorders; illnesses that don’t involve a body count.

We have arrived at a large room where two dozen chairs, most of them empty, are set out in front of a long, polished table. A side door swings open. Elias enters. He is patted down one final time, before being told to sit. He waves to me. Relief in his eyes.

We don’t look like brothers. He has put on weight over the years – due to medications and inactivity – and his hair is now flecked with grey above his ears. He has a round, blotchy face, a thin mouth, and eyes that are brown and intelligent yet strangely vacant.

Today, he is wearing his best clothes, beige chinos and a neatly ironed white shirt, and I see comb marks in his lightly oiled hair. Straight lines, front to back.

I shuffle along the row of seats until I’m close enough to shake his damp hand.

‘You came.’

‘Of course. How are you?’

‘Nervous.’

‘Dr Baillie says you’ve done well so far.’

‘I hope so.’

Elias glances anxiously at the main table and the three empty chairs.

Another door opens and three people enter. The panel. Two men and a woman. They take their seats. Each has a name badge, but they make a point of introducing themselves. The legal representative, Judge Aimes, is a small rather plump man in a pinstriped suit, with greying hair swept back to form a wave that covers a bald spot. The psychiatrist, Dr Steger, is wearing a business shirt, rolled to his elbows, and an MCC tie. His hair is spiked with gel, and he has a heavy silver bracelet instead of a wristwatch. The lay member of the panel, Mrs Sheila Haines, looks like my old kindergarten teacher and I can imagine her jollying along proceedings and suggesting a mid-morning ‘fruit break’.

Everybody new in the room must be identified. Their eyes turn to me.

‘I am Cyrus Haven. Elias’s brother.’

‘Are you his closest family?’ asks the judge.

I’m his only family, I want to say, but that’s not quite true. He still has grandparents, aunts, uncles and a handful of cousins, who have been remarkably silent for two decades. I doubt if being related to Elias is one of their dinner-party stories.

‘I’m his nearest living relative,’ I say, and immediately wish I’d used different words.

‘Are you a medical doctor?’ asks Mrs Haines.

‘I’m a forensic psychologist.’

‘How fascinating.’

Judge Aimes wants to move on. He addresses Elias.

‘Have you been given any medication that might affect your ability to participate in these proceedings?’

‘Only my usual drugs,’ says Elias, in a voice that is louder than the occasion demands.

‘What are you taking?’ asks the psychiatrist.

‘Clozapine.’

‘Do you know what would happen if you stopped taking your medication?’

‘I would get sick again.’ He adds quickly, ‘But I’m better now.’

Judge Aimes looks up from his notes. ‘We have received reports from two consultant psychiatrists, as well as heard oral submissions from Dr Baillie and the ward nurse and two resident psychiatrists. Have you been shown these statements?’

Elias nods.

‘Do you have any questions?’

‘No, sir.’

‘This is your opportunity to make your case, Elias. Tell us what you’d like to happen now.’

Elias pushes back his chair and is about to stand when the judge says he should stay seated. Elias takes a piece of paper from his pocket.

‘I would like to express my thanks to the panel for this opportunity,’ he says, blinking at the page, as though he’s forgotten his glasses. Does he wear them? It’s been years since I’ve seen him read anything apart from the comic books and graphic novels I bring him when I visit. Dad needed reading glasses when he turned forty and I expect it will happen to me.

Elias continues. ‘I know what I did, and I know why it happened. I am a schizophrenic. What I experienced that day – what I saw and heard – the voices, the hallucinations – none of that was real. But I did unspeakable things to my family. Unforgivable things.’

He looks quickly at me and away again.

‘I have to live with that stain on my soul. I broke many hearts – including my own – and every day I pray to God for His forgiveness.’