Читать книгу Guilt: The Sunday Times best selling psychological thriller that you need to read in 2018 - Amanda Robson, Amanda Robson - Страница 22

Sitting in the car on the way back to prison, after the funeral, she is crying. Tears tumble silently down her face. She can’t stop them. She wishes she had died at the same time as her sister. The day her sister died, her life also stopped. If only she had died instead. That would have been easier. This is no way to live. Body and brain numb. She cannot think. She cannot feel. She will never enjoy anything again.

The sight of her grieving mother sears across her mind, painful and corrosive. The sight of her sister’s grieving friends. Of Sebastian’s eyes. Sebastian’s eyes telling her how much he hates her. That he never ever loved her. He always loved her sister.

If she lived in America, they would electrocute her. If she lived a hundred years ago they would hang her. In modern-day UK she needs to find a way to kill herself. She touches the discarded vicar’s belt that is now – after she was uncuffed for a visit to the toilet – wrapped around her waist. Her stomach tightens. She is not quite sure what she can attach it to. But she will find a way. People frequently do, even in prison, in this day and age.

The guard she is cuffed to is watching her. His fingers reach for hers. He squeezes them. ‘It will get easier,’ he says. ‘This will be the worst day. They will help you when you get back to prison.’

His words float in the air, ineffective, meaningless. Help. How can anyone help? Her desperation has gone too far.

Back to Eastwood Park. Back through reception. Back into the holding area, face wet with tears. Into a room where she is patted down gently by an overweight prison officer, who smiles at her indolently, at first. But his search becomes more thorough. His fingers probing and insistent. He finds the rope.

‘What’s this?’ he asks, unravelling it from her waist.

She doesn’t reply. She stands silently, still crying. He presses a buzzer to request backup. Within seconds two more prison officers enter the room.

‘Watch her carefully. Watch her every move.’

He leaves the room, taking the rope. She sits down and continues to cry, while the two backup officers stand by her side, watching her like hawks. The overweight officer, whose thighs snake across one another as he walks, returns and steps towards her.

‘I know this has been a very difficult day for you. We will do our very best to help you. We are taking you to a new cell in the special wing and sending a doctor to see you immediately.’

She is crying and crying, head in her hands.

The cell in the special wing has no sheets, just a blue mattress and a duvet too thick to roll into a ligature. No hooks. No sharp edges. Totally open plan to the bathroom with a large window in the door so that her every movement can be viewed at all times. Suicide watch big time. No privacy.

She has changed out of her own clothes and is wearing paper pyjamas; they have even removed her underwear. She lies on the bed beneath the duvet and continues to whimper. Time has evaporated. Become irrelevant. Somewhere as she floats in its vacuum, the doctor arrives.

The doctor has ginger hair and watery blue eyes. His skin is pale. Almost translucent. Like delicate fine bone china. He is young and slim and riddled with concern. He kneels at her side by the bed.

‘I’m Doctor O’Byrne. I’m here to try and help you. Can you sit up and talk to me?’

She doesn’t move. The crying stops for a second and then starts again.

‘Please,’ he begs. ‘Please stop crying. Please talk to me. Otherwise, after the trauma you’ve been through today, I may have to sedate you.’

A movement beneath the duvet. Her head appears. She is inhaling deeply in an attempt to stop crying, her face blotched red after so many tears.

‘How are you feeling?’ Dr O’Byrne asks, leaning towards her.

‘I can’t live without my sister. I wish I was dead,’ she says, tears still streaming down her face.

‘Is that why you hid the cord? Because you wanted to use it to kill yourself?’

She wipes her face with her hand. ‘Yes.’

‘Were you thinking about your mother? How much she would miss you?’

‘I’ve killed her, as well as my sister. My mother would be better off without me.’

‘No. No. She loves you. She needs you. She will be here to see you as soon as possible.’ There is a pause. ‘I’m starting you on antidepressants, and I am recommending you see a counsellor urgently.’

He fills the plastic cup from her hand basin with water. ‘Here, take these.’