Free From the World

John Johnson

Description

The 1960s are meant to be progressive, but as a new psychiatrist to Black Roding, Ruth does not find the staff at the large London asylum so. Instead of encouraging her attempts to implement the asylum's Superintendent's ideas, the staff are strangely reluctant to progress the asylum's ways. Challenged at every turn, Ruth is forced to turn to the patients - including Richard Simms, a middle-aged man who proves hard to categorise and seems to have no apparent records of his former life. Although she tries to help, Richard shuns her with an almost desperate denial, similar to the staff who stride the echoingcorridors. Drawn to this anxious man, Ruth digs deeper into his story, eliciting a string of events that can never be buriedagain. Too late to turn back, Ruth is inexorably drawn into the web of Black Roding, remembering too late that the fly veryrarely outwits the spider

Sujets

• City (Londres)
• Psychotherapy
• City of London
• Cité de Londres
• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 13 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838597436
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 John Johnson

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


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ISBN 9781838597436

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For Joanna

I hate the very noise of troublous man
Who did and does me all the harm he can.
Free from the world I would a prisoner be
And my own shadow all my company.
John Clare, The Northborough Sonnets
Contents
Intra Scriptum
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Intra Scriptum
He followed her from the building to the station, crossing the road so that he could watch her from an angle, rather than from behind where one glance back might reveal his pursuit. She was obviously a risk, a risk to his boss and so to him. “Try to stop her taking this further,” was the instruction he had been given. “We need to persuade her to stop.” And so he followed her, watching and waiting for an opportunity, an easy task because she was not walking quickly but more as if in a dream, lost in the events that had just taken place. He had time to think about the best way to discourage her. There were so many possibilities when someone was so unsuspecting.
She did stop after a while, and entered a café. He waited outside. He could see her writing something down as she sat at a table by the front window. Then she suddenly got up, fumbled in her bag for some coins and left them on the table. She looked more than a little lost, he thought, as she seemed to stand still for a while, as if getting her bearings. She did not seem familiar with this area at all. She did not live or work in the city, after all. He could almost see her reconstructing in her mind the route she had taken earlier, and attempting now to plot it in reverse as she looked first in one direction and then in another. The meeting had obviously flustered her, and she was brushed against by one or two passers-by on the pavement as she paused there. She had an undeveloped beauty, he thought, wearing no make-up and a thick coat pulled around her against the autumn cold. She had not been able to disguise the bruising on her face. He’d have felt sorry for her if it were not for the danger she represented, the danger of discovery and revelation, of the inevitable response of authority to what he and his boss had done. Her eyes were lively as she sought to recall her route. But her demeanour was hunched and she seemed dejected. He was a bastard, his boss, and he knew how he might treat a young and naïve woman when they met.
She came to a decision and set off again, this time crossing the road and turning into the next street. An Underground railway station was at the end of the road, he knew, and she must have come by that means. He held back, turning briefly to look at the entrance to another government building so that she would not see his face and recognise him. He had been there at an earlier meeting, though in the background. She might recognise him, he thought, if he was not careful. But that encounter had been in her place of work, where she felt familiar and confident. She did not look as if she felt that way now. She was quickening her pace as she saw the railway sign further down the street, and he had to swerve to avoid people in his way as he tried to reduce the distance between them. He was much closer to her when she turned into the station, and he almost bumped into her when she stopped to search in her purse for her ticket. Lucky, he thought, that he had a season ticket and could pass the ticket collector without having to queue at the small window. He would probably have lost her if he’d had to wait.
She took the ticket from her purse and passed through the gap in the railings that allowed entrance to the platforms. He smiled in scorn as she handed her ticket over for inspection, surprising the collector who usually just waved people through without looking closely and examining individual tickets. He waved his ticket vaguely at the man and followed her onto the escalator, its wooden steps full of cigarette ends and matches stuck between the planks. She stood in the middle of the step, and another traveller jostled her aside as he wanted to pass her. She was so easy to follow, he thought, that she must have no inkling of his pursuit. Whatever he decided to do, she would not be prepared.
At the end of the escalator she checked the two diagrams listing the stations at which trains would stop. Then she walked onto the platform and stopped immediately. She was near the tunnel entrance and standing near, but not too near, the platform edge. Perhaps this was his chance. Journeys through the city were regularly disrupted by incidents in which passengers fell or jumped onto the rails, either electrocuting themselves in the process or being crushed by the trains which could not stop in time. It was the everyday dread of the drivers, he’d been told, that they would have someone fall or jump in front of their train and have to watch helplessly as they advanced inexorably towards the victim – so easy, then, to make it seem like a suicide. And she was clearly distressed after the meeting, as his boss would be able to confirm if he were ever questioned about her. It seemed best not just to scare her but to ensure that she could not cause them any further problems. Once she was out of the way, that other problem could be sorted out.
He took a position on the platform just a little behind her. The platform was filling up with other passengers, and the next train was clearly delayed. She seemed lost in her own thoughts and was looking down on the rails that were in the long gulley next to the platform. She appeared to see something there that drew all her attention. As the minutes passed and the platform became more and more crowded, he pushed past a couple of passengers so that he was directly behind her. Now he could see that she was watching two mice, two small creatures which managed somehow to survive in the tunnels of the Underground and which were scuttling around the gulley beneath the rails. Absorbed in watching the mice, she had even moved more closely towards the platform edge. And now he could hear the vibrations of the rails, the first warning of the imminent arrival of a train. And then he could feel on his cheek the movement of hot air along the platform, pushed forward by the incoming train. As the rails rattled more loudly, people around them started to pick up cases and bags from the platform and to prepare themselves for the train’s arrival. Further up the platform, some edged back a little, knowing the train would still be moving at speed as it passed them before stopping.
He stationed himself directly behind her and turned slightly so that his shoulder was almost in contact with her back. If he kept his hands in his pockets, people could not claim that he had pushed her. It would just be seen as the consequence of an overcrowded platform. In the chaos that would follow her fall, he would just slip away and catch a train on the other platform. The vibration of the rails had now reached its highest pitch, and he knew that the train must be entering the platform at its far end. Now was the time, so he moved one foot forward, and as soon as his shoulder reached her back he pushed forward. She was toppling in an instant. The train was trundling towards the spot where she had been, and a woman screamed further down the platform. He stepped back, reassured that no-one had turned towards him, and moved away immediately All those around were looking in astonishment at the space she had occupied, their last sight of her falling almost headlong before the wheels of the train.
Chapter One
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