‘But you hold on to your feelings too, I think. So you don’t come across as unprofessional.’ Kristin smiles, her expression open. ‘I suppose we all do it. Even me.’
Travis examines Kristin’s smile for a moment. ‘Just because you’re smiling doesn’t mean you’re not feeling stuff, right?’
‘Of course.’ She looks at him, clear-eyed. ‘I’m not sociopathic, like my brother.’
It’s forty minutes from Philadelphia International in a hired car. They head west of the city, following the course of the Delaware River until they hit the Woodhaven Road turnpike. McCreedy drives assuredly in the dark along roads he’s never navigated before, a skill Travis envies.
Black walnut trees make a shadowy honor guard along Roosevelt Boulevard, and then there’s the turn onto Byberry Road.The white sign markedPHILADELPHIA STATE HOSPITALglows a warning.
One checkpoint at the gate. Farther in, the hospital streets are very ordered. Modern-looking building cubes are all aligned with the curbs, and spotlights illuminate the pathways. It’s hard to get a proper sense of the place at night. They park near N-8 and N-9, the wards housing the criminally insane, and Travis experiences a heaviness in his chest.
Up the concrete stairs, they’re buzzed into the foyer area, a nondescript cream-painted room wider than it is long. Beside an enclosed nurse’s station on the left, a white woman in her forties wearing blue scrubs is examining a clipboard.
‘Uh, hi.’ Travis steps forward. ‘There should have been a call from Special Agent Howard Carter—’
He jumps when the window at the nurse’s station slides open. A matronly white woman in a starched uniform and a nurse’s cap pokes her head out the gap.
‘Loretta, give me the clipboard and go back to your inmate chores.’
The woman in the blue scrubs pouts and makes a dramatic sigh before handing the clipboard over. She walks to the coffee table on the far right of the foyer area, where she collects a feather duster and begins a desultory flicking at the framed paintings on the walls.
The matron examines the clipboard. ‘Your names, please?’
Emma recovers first. ‘Emma Lewis, Travis Bell, and Kristin Gutmunsson, to see Simon Gutmunsson. Special Agent Howard Carter called about the permissions. He said the warden would—’
‘Warden Parrish is at his dinner right now. Can I see yourcredentials, please?’ After she’s seen all their identification, the woman makes a note and takes out three sets of papers. ‘Sign these. This is the women’s facility. I need to call an orderly to escort you to the men’s area.’
There’s only one ballpoint pen, so they have to take turns. The papers say that in the event of a lockdown or hostage situation, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services will not take responsibility for a visitor’s release, which is certainly reassuring.
A white-uniformed orderly arrives from a hallway somewhere on the other side of the nurse’s station.
‘Take these folks down to Secure Men’s, please,’ the matron says. She is checking off the papers.
‘Yes’m.’ The orderly is huge, stacked with muscle. Travis wonders how hard he’d go down in a fight. ‘You want me to take ’em through the courtyard or the tunnel?’
The matron’s expression is displeased. ‘Oh goodness, Chester, use your head. They’d have to go back outside for the courtyard, and they just signed all the paperwork.’
‘Tunnel, then.’ Chester seems inured to the matron’s displeasure. He ushers with his hands. ‘Come this way.’
A series of corridors. Carpet is replaced by linoleum, and then concrete. They pass through two sets of doors, where Chester uses his keys, then downward via a set of stairs; at the bottom, the air is colder. Travis feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Now they have to traverse a corridor underground.
‘Stay to the right, please.’ Like a mother duck, Chester checks to make sure they’re walking single file behind. A yellow line on the floor indicates the path of safety.
Pipes and cable lines stretch like jungle vines above their heads; fluorescent tubes provide dim illumination at intervals. The wall closest to Travis’s right shoulder is white tile. On the left, across the yellow line, a series of dingy white doors, each with a slot to check on the condition of the inmate within.
Travis walks behind Emma and in front of Kristin. He doesn’t usually have a problem with enclosed spaces, but his breathing is tight now. The fluorescent tubes buzz in their fixtures. Far down on the left, someone is talking in a low constant mutter. Another noise, a woman’s pleading. Along the echoing corridor, the sounds of the residents magnify and recede, ghost voices bounced from wall to wall. Travis senses the swirl of many alien minds around him, throwing his balance off.
A hissing from the left. ‘Hey! Hey, buddy!’
Travis glances over on automatic. Through a slot in one of the doors, a pair of bloodshot eyes. The eyes are quickly replaced by another body part – the flash of a brown nipple.
Travis looks away fast. Chester raps on the door with a baton as they pass, and the slot goes empty. Just the residual sound of hoarse cackling.
Travis fixes his gaze forward as they walk on. His cheeks are hot, while the rest of his skin is cold. He’s relieved when they make it to a checkpoint, even though this will deliver them closer to Simon Gutmunsson.
CHAPTER TEN
The checkpoint is a small, white-painted room with two desks, two orderlies, three doors, now crowded with the addition of four extra people as Chester waves Emma and the others inside.
