The Trial Read online

  The Trial

  S. R. Masters

  Also by S. R. Masters

  The Killer You Know

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

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  Copyright © S. R. Masters 2022

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  Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022

  Cover illustrations © Shutterstock.com

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  S. R. Masters asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008520120

  Ebook Edition © July 2022 ISBN: 9780008520113

  Version: 2022-05-13

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part II

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part III

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading…

  We think you will love…

  About the Author

  One More Chapter...

  About the Publisher

  For Joe and Alice

  Prologue

  PATIENT 3

  Please use this diary to record how you have felt during the day, thinking of your physical health, mental health and overall wellbeing.

  Day 14

  This morning, when the pretty doctor gave me today’s pill with that patronising little smile of hers, I was caught between an urge to run far away from her, to protect her, and an urge to smash her face into pieces so you would send me home.

  Does that help you? Is this the sort of thing you want to hear about?

  You definitely should hear about this stuff.

  Because it’s your pills doing this to me.

  I wasn’t certain at first, partly because of the headaches, which have left me feeling weak and unsure of myself, but also because of the whole opulent package. The private jet, the island setting, the beautiful room with the sea view in front of me now…It beguiled me. Surely anyone with this much money must know what they’re doing. They wouldn’t be giving people a drug with side-effects this bad?

  But I can’t stop these thoughts, these alien thoughts, which worm into my head every day. New perspectives. New connections. New opinions. Like how I felt about the doctor this morning when she gave me my pill. And this maddening disorientation I feel when I consider what I’ve been doing with my life.

  It’s making me want to do things that I’d never do.

  And the headaches aren’t getting better. You promised they would, but they’re getting worse. So much worse.

  How am I then, you ask? Let me be honest with you. Let me really help your research and earn my fee.

  You want to know about my physical health? How about: it’s like I have another person inside here with me. An awful, animal person, with weak, animal appetites, and they’re taking over my body.

  And my mental health? Well, I want to run around your fancy complex scratching a warning into every surface so that any other idiot who comes here won’t believe you when you tell them they won’t feel a thing.

  I want to warn them that you’re going to take their souls.

  And how about my overall wellbeing? It feels like you’ve opened a door in my head that can never be closed. That I’ve seen the world in a way that I can’t ever unsee. And the worst part is, I want to run headlong into this new darkness. Because I know once it consumes me, the light I’m running from won’t matter.

  Yet right now I’m in the doorway, being yanked both ways by two powerful opposites.

  In the last few days I’ve found myself on my balcony here, or on the patio high above the beach, and I think about how the damage might already be permanent. And I think about falling. Obliterating myself beneath this blazing sun to spite the darkness.

  And there have been times where I’ve wanted to go to the kitchen, find myself a knife, and stain your white coats red. Then I’d gather up those pills of yours, take them out to the cliffs, and cast them into the sea before burning this place to the ground.

  Part One

  Recruitment

  Chapter One

  1

  Elle pretended to be absorbed by the glossy holiday brochure open on her lap below the reception desk while just metres away a giant man paced in the lobby muttering to himself and kicking the chocolate-coloured sofas.

  ‘I told them,’ he said to the vending machine on the back wall, ‘you have to watch closely.’

  He returned to the sofa. Smack. Smack.

  Terry was one of the regulars. It had been weeks since she’d seen him around the hospital, and she’d been worried about what might have happened to him. Now, with every sock of the leather upholstery, Elle flinched. She wanted to push her chair away from the desk and into the back office, where she could escape upstairs and get help. But she didn’t want to draw his attention. So instead, she looked at her holiday brochure and tried to keep still. Palm trees. White sand. A crimson cocktail.

  ‘Do they listen though? Do they?’

  Smack. Smack. Smack.

  Terry mostly appeared at reception to access the hospital Contemplation Room, a space set aside for patients’ spiritual needs. Elle would push the little red button on the wall to let him through and he always thanked her. Quiet and shy, something of the local ale uncle about him, he could barely make eye contact, let alone trouble.

  Elle wasn’t privy to the details of his mental health history – her job was strictly non-clinical – but Terry had been doing well enough to walk around without a chaperone. A common story at Parkwood, though, was patients being discharged too early – especially since Core Solutions took over some of the NHS contracts two years ago. They struggled, and sometimes returned unannounced – often in a bad way. She’d had two incidents in the last six months, one of which had needed police involvement because there was no longer any on-site security.

  Something clattered in the lobby. Terry was shaking the vending machine.

  She couldn’t ignore it now. He was going to hurt himself. Elle stood, leaned over the desk, and called through the open glass hatch. ‘Terry, are you okay? Do you need me to call anyone for you?’

  He turned to look at her, recognition briefly in his eyes. Then he yelled, ‘They look at you like goats. You want to watch out.’ He kicked one sofa hard enough to lift it from the ground.

  ‘Okay, Terry,’ she said, ‘I’ll get someone to help you. Just wait there, okay?’

  She slid the glass window closed, locked it, and turned to the phone. After the second incident she’d asked for more training and guidance from Core Solutions. Nothing had been forthcoming, so recently she’d invented her own protocol: Ward, PCSO, police.

  Guessing Terry wasn’t likely to be under hospital care anymore, she called the neighbourhood PCSO. It went to voicemail.

  Elle glanced up to check the lobby again and startled. Terry stood just centimetres from the glass. Despite the November cold, he wore only a food-stained Iron Man T-shirt tucked into a pair of shorts. He slammed his palms against the glass, which shook in its rails.

  ‘Can I get through? I need to get upstairs.’

  Elle took a step back. ‘Okay, let me get you help, Terry.’ She tried sounding assertive yet compassionate. She didn’t want to agitate him further.

  He palmed the glass twice again. ‘I need to see him.’

  Elle could see the illness at work on the surface, his tense posture and dancing eyes. Yet it was in those eyes she could see the other Terry, too, imprisoned and afraid, and almost apologetic.

  Terry spat on the glass. He yelled. He struck again, harder. Then seemingly defeated, he walked away muttering.

  Elle took a deep breath, reached for the phone and tried the number for the PCSO again.

  The reception window shattered, and Elle covered her face as glass shards rained around her. A round coffee table struck the desk, briefly lodging in the hatch before the weight of its legs pulled it back out. The remaining frame of jagged glass didn’t stop Terry from attempting to climb through, and
Elle darted into the back office, footsteps crunching. She turned, ready to shut herself in.

  Terry had one bleeding knee on the desk and was stretching for the red button on the wall. If he pressed the one for the conference facility door he would be free to walk around amongst the fifty or so guests on site. Elle thrust out her arm and got there first, pulling the plastic lever below the switch to disable it. His hand swatted the button a moment after. He didn’t know what she’d done, and retreated through the opening to try the double doors. Elle stepped back and slammed the door.

  On the other side of the wall Terry began to kick out again.

  ‘Terry, please calm down.’ Her voice was so weak he probably couldn’t hear it.

  Elle looked down at the lock. The key wasn’t there. It was in the reception drawer.

  She grabbed the handle again; she could retrieve the key if she was quick. But the thumping ceased. His frustrated grumbling grew louder, followed by the sound of glass and other objects tumbling to the floor. He was entering the reception again.

  Elle turned to flee. Once out in the corridor she could lock him inside, stop him getting upstairs. But at the back door she hesitated. What if he hurt himself in the office? She scanned the room. The stapler, the guillotine, a letter opener.

  Terry kicked the door between reception and the office; he hadn’t yet realised it was unlocked. The thin partition walls shook.

  Was there time to clear the danger? She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if—

  The handle of the reception door squeaked and moved downwards. Before Elle could get out Terry stepped inside, shoulders heaving, a bull about to charge.

  ‘Terry, you shouldn’t be in here.’

  ‘I need to see him.’

  The people upstairs today were on a local authority training course, not clinicians experienced with seriously unwell patients. She had no idea what Terry would do, given his aggressive state, and she was the last line of defence.

  He came towards her, and because the door swung inward she would have to step into him to open it. So instead she stepped away, moving deeper into the office. Only Terry wasn’t interested in the door. He changed his direction and came for her instead.

  Panicking, she grabbed one of the fire extinguishers on the wall, snapped out the safety plastic and pointed the nozzle at him.

  Embarrassed and scared, she said, ‘Terry, please step back. I don’t want to hurt you.’

  He kept coming, shaking his head, muttering about how she didn’t understand. His eyes were so very sad. She ordered herself to squeeze the handle, but…she couldn’t do it. He was unwell. He didn’t deserve to be assaulted.

  She threw the extinguisher at his feet to put it between them, turned, and yanked open the door to the stationery cupboard. She shut herself in, darkness blanketing her. She snapped a lock that she’d only half-believed might be there and reached for the light switch, finding only cool brickwork. The stupid thing was on the outside wall, wasn’t it? Now her only illumination poked beneath the crack at the base.

  She sat with her back pressed to the door, trying to catch her breath. Trying to stop shaking.

  ‘Terry, listen to me—’

  Kick.

  The force jostled her.

  ‘Terry—’

  Kick.

  She tapped the pocket of her trousers. Her phone was still in her bag under the table.

  ‘You need to go outside before I call the police. I’m frightened, Terry.’

  The kicking stopped. Elle waited, listening intently, her eyes teary and her head involuntarily shaking from side to side.

  ‘Terry,’ she said.

  After five minutes which felt more like an hour, she heard rustling at the door’s base and scooted away. Her brochure, picked up that morning from an actual travel agent’s as she cycled to work, slid into the cupboard with her.

  A moment later the light came on.

  She breathed. She listened. Outside a door opened and closed. Silence.

  She stared at the brochure. Huffed a bitter laugh.

  On the cover a sun-kissed couple held hands on a white sand beach, gazing at one another like they’d just been granted immortality in paradise. God, she really needed a holiday.

  2

  Elle’s manager insisted she go home. The Learning and Development Centre had been closed for repair and cleaning anyway, and Elle needed time to recover. But Terry was now over at Marlstone Hospital having suffered deep lacerations on his arms and legs, and Elle wanted to stick around for updates. She’d been right about Terry’s recent discharge, and those in the know confirmed he’d suffered a psychotic episode having abandoned his medication. She wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if she didn’t know he was going to be okay.

  She found a desk in the staff library, motes of dust soaring above her in the light from the high windows. Mostly she had the room to herself, but each time a visitor entered she startled. Her hands shook when she raised them to the keyboard, and she struggled to pay attention to the incident report on her screen. What happened was replaying once again in her mind when a soft voice to her right said, ‘What are you still doing here?’

  It was the head librarian, Winston, a greying man with striking blue eyes and a penchant for attractive waistcoats. He was one of her few work friends – largely down to their shared interest in books. He’d brought Patricia Highsmith and James M. Cain into her life, while into his she’d bought Gillian Flynn and Anne Tyler. He’d heard about what happened downstairs, and looked at her with the pity usually reserved for a sick relative.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  She nodded, and in his office she recounted her version of events while the kettle boiled.

  ‘I should have handled it better,’ she concluded, her cheeks hot with shame. ‘I probably aggravated him.’

  Winston looked amused. ‘Is this you being serious? It sounds like you handled everything extremely well under a lot of pressure.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have engaged him. It was stupid, sticking my head out and telling him off. I should have just run for help.’

  ‘And what would you be saying now, had he tipped that machine on himself?’ He handed her a tea and they sat across from one another at Winston’s desk. ‘Or if a visitor had been hurt in the reception? Terry’ll get the support he needs now, he’ll be okay. Now, what about you? How are you feeling?’

  ‘Guilty.’ She sipped her drink. ‘I pointed a fire extinguisher at him, Winston. I nearly fired it. I could have really—’

  ‘Soaked him? Elle…you didn’t know what was happening. He was in an aggressive and violent state.’

  ‘He probably wouldn’t have hurt me. And what if he’d bled to death?’

  ‘That front hatch should have been upgraded to shatter-proof glass a decade ago.’

  ‘If I’d stayed quiet in the first place, he might have just…walked off.’

  ‘You think?’

  Elle didn’t know. It certainly hadn’t felt like he was close to walking away at any point. ‘Well…I just hope he’s okay.’

  Winston shook his head and his expression darkened. ‘Why do I feel like we’ve had this conversation before?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re very charitable, Elle.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Well… I didn’t entirely mean it as a compliment.’