Breakdown (4 page)

“Coward.”

Craig looked back over. “What about you, Jack? How do you let off steam?”

He’d read my file. The basics were in there. This was just more psych-play bullshit in order to get me to talk.

“Martial arts tutor, hmmm?” he said eventually, answering his own question. Craig gave me a raised brow. “Fourth Dan, Shotokan Sensei, and teaching kids and adults, too.” The smile that crept to his lips meant
I’ve got your number, mate
. “Explains the physique.” He was looking me over. I’d worked enough Doms to see behind that look. Nothing sexual, just the weighing up, the consequences of knowing that little piece of information.

“You?” I said quietly. “How do you let off steam, Craig?”

He gave that
oh now you’re interested
hard-ass look, then just returned the game of silence. Fucking peachy, that.

“Are you security?” said Craig. “Y’know, within the MC?” That seemed a genuine question, but it opened a door on just how much he knew.

“Master sub.”

Craig came away from the door. “Whose?”

“No one’s,” I said flatly and turned away. I’d given a little, but no more. “Tour, yeah?”

Craig eased past. The first level was designated mainly to the multi-specialist team that he’d mentioned, and again the doors were tagged with room numbers eight through to thirteen. That left the dining room which had enough space to either allow for detainees to eat without banging elbows or, perhaps more; it had space for staff to sit around watching in case anyone kicked off. But now it looked relatively quiet, with six men and women eating their way through their mid-day meals, and I rested against the doorframe, looking in.

“When was the last time you had something decent to eat, Jack?”

My breath felt like it was thumped from me as...

...shuffling came from over by the bay window. I glanced over, just quickly, then looked back at Vince.

“Jack?” Vince followed my look back to the bay window. “Something spooking you, kid?”

Hands bound out of sight, tears streaking down his face, running over the gag in his mouth and falling onto a fine black suit, Jan sat there, propped up against the wall underneath the bay window. Face looked clean, pale, hair looking so soft.

“Jack?”

Vince stole my attention. He frowned at me, but my gaze skirted to Jan, just briefly, before quickly finding my feet.

“Jack—”

Don’t...

“Fine. I’m fine.”

A rub came roughly at my hair. “Yeah? Then merry fucking Christmas, you ass,” said Vince, giving a chuckle. From the kitchen, some BBC station was wishing people Merry Christmas again, then music drifted in on the back of turkey and stuffing.

Turkey... Food. Chair pushed back, I stumbled into the downstairs bathroom, and the porcelain goddess took my homage, the taste that hit my throat was a mixture of liquid acid mixed with that gritty painkiller feel. Looking didn’t help. It had that dog food look, brown mush, with a smell that was just as bad. “Fuck.”

“Easy, easy.” Vince rubbed at my back. I was well into the land of dry heaving coughs and it threatened to tear my ribs and lungs apart. “Soup,” Vince murmured angrily. “I should have just given you soup. Fuck. I’m sorry, Jack.” A strong grip under my arm pulled me to my feet and my weight was taken. “C’mon, back to bed.”

“Jack.” Craig was resting against the doorframe. “Are you aware of what’s just happened?” He looked at the watch attached to his tunic, although that hadn’t been there before, and I frowned, wondering when he’d pulled it out and attached it.

“Jan,” I mumbled, and that internal tug hit hard, just the need to pull him close, let him know it was okay. Hold on. Hide. He’d been there too. He had his own demonic possessions when memories kicked in. Only now he was hiding, taking with him a key that kept me locked up, but still on the outside of Jan’s world. “Need to go, to... work. Need—”

“Jan?” said Craig, quietly. “Seventy-two hours,” he said. “That’s the initial assessment period. He’s been told he can contact me at any time during that period and I will talk to him. As your named relative, he will also be contacted after that time and made aware of the outcome. You’re allowed to speak to him then. Just be aware that the calls will be monitored because of OSA requirements.”

“Bollocks! I have a business to run.” The exit was nowhere to be seen, but the pull was there to run, part of me didn’t want to admit that it was because Jan had already taken that way out and the natural instinct was there to follow. “Two businesses—three. I have three including the dojo.”

“No distractions, no worries from here on in,” said Craig, offering a more trained smile. “Depending on how the next few days go and, of course, on the care plan that Doctor Halliday and his colleagues recommend, you might be allowed your mobile in a few days. But there are no guarantees with that. And conversations will be monitored.”

“I have to be a real good bloke, huh?”

“Do you need to be any different?” said Craig, evenly.

Oh right... so that was how I was supposed to get out of this shit heap. I could play real good, me.

“Your father wanted me to tell you that he’ll arrange cover between him and your manager... Steve? For any business issues with the garages, he said there’s nothing going on that score that can’t be sorted, even your dojo.” He followed my gaze when I tried to find the door again. “You also had a call off a man named Trace. Sounded American.”

I looked at Craig.

“He wants to know if you can call him, when you’re ready.”

“No.”

“No?” Craig gave a raised brow. “No message?” He gave a heavy sigh. “Is there any message you want me to pass on to either Jan or your father if they call?”

“Yeah.” Breathing became controlled, painfully so. “You tell Jan he doesn’t step foot near Gray. He
tells
Gray fuck all. Clear?”

Then I was searching through my pockets, trying to find the notebook, the DVD I’d had on me when I first came in.

“Notebook... DVD.” I was still wearing the same clothes, but—“Where the hell are they?”

“You lost something?”

I stared at Craig. All evidence removed, wiped away. “What the fuck have you done with my things?”

Craig shifted his head back down the corridor. “Nothing. But you’ll need to see that, right?”

“You mentioned a Gray back there.” Craig lifted the suitcase onto the bed and started unzipping it as I stood by the window, looking out. The fear of being left here almost outran the fear of going home. Home wasn’t an option, mine or Gray’s. Not since Vince, not since all of his shit.

“Are you Gray Raoul’s Master sub?” said Craig, his tone a little subdued. I snorted a smile. He knew about Gray.

The gardens here seemed to stretch on for miles. It couldn’t have been farther from Regent Street, where the Master Circle’s main base was, but it had every hallmark of their finery, the gardens’ perfect manicure only adding aesthetics to everything that it hid behind its high walls and locked gates. Off in the distance, a motorway held up under pressure of the mid-afternoon traffic out of London. If asked to swear on a bible how I’d gotten here,
fuck
is probably all I’d manage. That scared the life out of me.

“Didn’t you just spout a load of shit about the Official Secrets Act?” I mumbled, resting my head against the window. “And now you’re asking for personal information on Master Circle staff?”

“I’m asking about you,” he said quietly, then tutted. “And I want to know I’m going to actually keep my balls for looking after his: Gray’s.”

“Not his. Not anymore.”

“Oh.” There was a long stretch of quiet, then a whistle was given. “There were rumblings a few months back that Mr. Raoul had taken a civvy into his home for his M sub. Jan, I take it?”

“You have your hands on my boxers. Do you really need to get any more personal than that?” I hadn’t found the notebook or DVD, but this was the MC. They looked after their own. All evidence locked up and put away.

Craig had lifted a dozen pairs of boxers out and placed them on the bed next to the other clothes. Now he smiled over as he checked the inside of the case. The question was there with why it had taken him two days to do it, but I couldn’t care less. Or maybe that was drugs still trying to dull life.

“Coming into the MC couldn’t have been easy for him. For Jan.”

I found the window again. The view was broken by wrought iron bars on the windows, and the twisted effect of the iron saw that no expense had been spared in making even seclusion look pretty. Downstairs, we’d by-passed a number of detainees’ bedrooms, all fitted with the latest mod-cons: flat screen TV, phone, en suite bathroom, even decent-sized safes to accommodate personal items. But none of those were in this room or the few next to it.

Craig had led me up to the second floor, past another nurses’ station, and into a wide corridor with a number of rooms either side. Bars on windows were the standard up here. Most rooms were open except for the one at the far end, which Craig showed me first before bringing me to this room.

“Seclusion facility,” Craig had said. “We also have two more on the lower floor. These are designated for detainees who feel they need a safe and secure room to calm down.”

It was a decent-sized room, but empty except for a foam mattress. In a small room outside was a hospital bed with straps, to be wheeled in as and when needed.

“It’s also where
you
put people to calm down.”

Craig had nodded, then gone over who my Independent Mental Health Advocate was, then taken me through my rights, complemented by the paper version. Last came the one that trumped all of those: the paperwork for the MC. What went on here couldn’t be mentioned to outside sources, which just about screwed with what little rights I did have. “We do employ a four-point restraint method,” he’d said eventually, and the memory was there of that being said before, “which means straps around ankles and feet, and that will be done in the seclusion room and bedroom if at any time a detainee is perceived to be a danger to themselves or anyone else. We have a clean record for no face-down restraints, but we do reserve the right to use it if deemed necessary.”

Yeah, I could pretty much picture what face-down restraint meant. And the military look behind Craig said there was a zero-tolerance policy in force. Maybe there had to be, working for the MC and its employees. I’d left him there, opting for my room. This one came with a lock too. Yes, to suggest that client could lock himself in and give himself privacy, but also coming with a set of keys to lock patients in from the other side on Craig’s part too.

“Not exactly the Ritz, are they?” said Craig, and I looked back from the window to see him putting my clothes back in the case. I was lucky enough to have en suite, but all pipes and wiring were boxed out of sight, no sharps or wires to end the misery sort of thing. The TV was high up and out of reach, coming in one huge metal box with a Perspex front and ventilation holes to allow the TV some ventilation. At least they provided remote. A bedside table cuddled up close to the bed, but that was bolted to the wall, hell, so too was the wardrobe. Even the little mirror for shaving in the bathroom was unbreakable glass. No phone. And that just left the bed. If there were any straps, I didn’t see them.

“What’s your history with the MC?” I asked quietly, watching him for a minute. “Army? RAF? Serving? Are you ex-service? Wounded? Explains why you’d be given employment here.”

Craig returned my gaze for a moment, then shrugged. “Serving,” he said. “This place is a designated Ministry of Defence Hospital Unit.” He gave a wry smile. “Only if you walk out of those doors, it doesn’t exist beyond the boundary line.”

The MC was a draw for all kind of reasons, secrecy being the major one. “So how did you get to hear about it?”

“I trained at the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps as a Soldier Nurse in Mental Health.” Craig gave a slight look around the room. “Although the location gives me away a touch, huh?”

I didn’t see the funny side to that and Craig just smiled a little more. “I’d been posted wherever British Army troops were deployed.”