Chapter 33 Thursday | Afternoon
Thursday | Afternoon
Lily
Lily waited on a hard plastic chair, for a nurse to take her to Callum.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been on a psychiatric ward, but she was struck again by how unlike the TV stereotype it was. There were no patients shuffling along like zombies with wide eyes and caved-in faces. No bars on the windows.
The only thing that felt true to her once-imagined version of the ward was the smell. Sterile, dentist-like.
Two children were playing on a rug in front of their dad, who looked completely at ease, the plastic bracelet on his left wrist the only thing that marked him as a patient.
How was Cal going to cope with the news about Sam? He fell apart when Paige died.
They had all agreed to go to the funeral – Lily, Cal, Sam and Andy.
Lily was living in West London, near her uni, and the tubes were fucked so she was late, stumbling towards the crematorium in her black pencil skirt and low heels. But she never made it to the service, because she found Callum curled in a ball on a bench outside, sobbing his heart out.
It took years after that for them to finally admit they had feelings for each other. They told themselves Paige would be thrilled, that she wanted them to find each other at the funeral, to become friends again, to fall in love.
Paige and Callum had always been close. At the Maudsley, Lily had sometimes been jealous of their bond. She’d never told Cal that.
No one could have predicted Paige’s accident, but David and Sam had been targeted. Maybe even hunted. And the police didn’t seem to know why.
Lily didn’t know how much time had passed when a voice behind her was saying: ‘Do you want to follow me?’
Lily got to her feet.
The nurse was Lily’s age, dark shadows under her eyes.
‘Callum hasn’t eaten, but he has had some water,’ the nurse said, smiling kindly. ‘Hoping to get him to have a lie-down and a sleep. I’ll have to stay with you, I’m afraid. I’m Erin.’
Erin buzzed them through a security door with the badge on her lanyard.
‘He was beyond lucky we had a bed, with all the shortages. He’d have been looked after in police custody, usually.’
Lily watched Erin’s ponytail swing as she walked.
‘But we heard there was a bit of a cock-up at the scene. Better that he’s with us. Okay, we’re just here.’ Erin paused with a hand on the door, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘We don’t usually let visitors into the rooms, but Dr Maxwell has made an exception. I’ll just be in the corner – okay?’
Erin held the door open.
Lily breathed in from her diaphragm, fixed a smile on her face.
Cal was sitting on the edge of the bed, deep in thought, wearing a grey T-shirt and jogging bottoms that didn’t belong to him.
Lily sat next to him and reached for his hand. ‘All right, dickhead?’
He turned to her, his smile on delay. ‘Hey, Lil. Hey.’
His speech was slurred, but Lily was prepared for that. They’d given him strong meds.
A pair of shoes were lined up next to the bed, the kind with no laces.
‘The nurse says you won’t eat anything,’ Lily said, shooting a look at Erin, motionless in the corner on a plastic chair. ‘That’s my trick.’
A long pause.
‘You should eat, Cal. Even if it’s just a biscuit or something.’
Cal didn’t move.
He gazed back at her, seeming to process what she’d said, then pulled his hand from hers and shuffled sideways, away from her.
How was she going to tell him about Sam?
And David – he had to pull through. She couldn’t look after Callum without him.
‘I’m really sorry.’ Lily looked down at her hands. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there last night.’
He sucked in a deep breath, and Lily held hers, waiting for him to say something.
He nodded towards the corner. ‘Spider.’
Lily twisted to follow his gaze. She couldn’t see anything. ‘You need to get some sleep, Cal. You’ll feel so much better, if you can have a sleep.’
Cal was picking compulsively at a thread on the cheap T-shirt, and Lily watched his fingers working at it. They’d been clipped short – either by the staff, so he couldn’t scratch himself – or maybe by the police. She’d seen that on a documentary once.
The nausea that’d sat low in her stomach for days was churning again when Cal finally spoke.
‘I did it, Lil.’
It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
He turned to her, alert now, scratching his buzzed head with those short nails.
‘It was me.’
Lily glanced at Erin, in the corner.
‘Will you tell them?’ Cal demanded. ‘Will you tell them for me?’
‘Cal I—’ She let out a hiss of pain as he grabbed her wrist.
‘You have to, Lil. They won’t believe me; they won’t get it.’
He was squeezing her wrist hard, and pain shot up her arm as she tried to pull it away.
‘But you can make them understand. You can tell them for me.’
‘When you say you think you did it, Cal …?’ Lily chose her words carefully. ‘You don’t think that it was you, who stabbed Sam?’
He let out a bark of laughter. ‘Of course I didn’t stab Sam. I didn’t stab anyone. But it was my fault.’ He spoke so quickly that spit flew from the corners of his mouth.
She had pins and needles in her fingers.
Erin was up, out of the chair, on Callum’s other side.
‘You don’t get it,’ Callum said. ‘The counting, I’ve been trying to stop the counting for months, years—’
‘Let go of Lily for me, Callum, come on,’ Erin said.
‘—and I felt like something bad was going to happen if I did stop and I knew as soon as I saw her. She was outside our house Lil, she was stabbed on our doorstep.’
Callum carried on speaking, words tumbling out of him as Lily finally managed to pull her hand away.
‘I did that to her; I did it. I tried to stop the counting and I was trying to fight it and that’s why this all happened, isn’t it? Will you tell them, Lil?’
Lily hid the red marks from Erin’s view, tears in her eyes. She stood up and held Cal against her. Wrapped him up, head against her chest, and held on tightly. ‘You just need more sleep, Cal. You’re confused. A glass of water, maybe some food. Then sleep.’
Erin still looked concerned, hovering near the door.
Callum nodded in her arms. ‘Will you make them understand that I didn’t want to hurt her, but I must have?’
‘I’ll explain it to them, Cal. I’ll explain it to them.’