Page 127 of No Safe Place
‘That I was bleeding.’
The scratching on the paper was distracting him. He rested his head on one hand, to muffle the sound, an old trick. An old coping mechanism that only half worked because he could still hear the pen. He’d done something to try and block the noise out, and because he’d given in to this small action, his anxiety was already tugging at him, trying to get him to do another.
‘The attacker, were they left- or right-handed, Andy?’ she asked.
He tried to picture it. Put himself back in the moment. ‘Left.’
‘Good, well done,’ Field said. ‘So, you got home, and then what happened?’
He could hardly hear the question over the sound of the pen, but then the writing stopped. Andy breathed again.
‘I don’t know what time it was exactly. I tried to sleep, but the bleeding wasn’t stopping. I was awake most of the night, until I decided to just leave.’
When he got home, his main concern was the blood. Not dripping blood on the carpets or leaving smears on the walls. He was confused and upset, and it felt important, so important, not to leave blood anywhere.
‘And why did you decide to go to Brighton?’ the man asked, and Andy sensed his pen hovering above the pad.
He clenched his fists and focused on the question.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘I knew David had been attacked. I saw it in the news. I didn’t know about Sam, not until earlier when they arrested me.’
Sam.
Sometimes, on the ward, it had felt like Lily and Callum and Paige were all so similar, and soexuberant, that he was the outsider. He didn’t mind – it wasn’t their fault. They never left him out on purpose.
But Sam always made sure he was included.
‘But it was like I could feel that someone was coming for us. I was in my room, and I kept hearing footsteps, imagining they were creeping up on me all over again. It felt important to get somewhere they couldn’t find me,’ he said, looking up at them both.
Field had a closed expression on her face, all buttoned-up. He had no idea whether she believed him.
Chapter 90
Sunday | Evening
Field
‘Fuck.’ Field slammed the door to her office, and it rattled the hinges.
‘It wasn’t him,’ Riley said, again. ‘It wasn’t Levey.’
Field tried to marshal her thoughts.
They’d wasted a full day tracking him down, pouring all their efforts into finding him. It’d felt too easy to track him down because itwas.He wasn’t hiding from the police; he was hiding from his attacker.
‘Unless he’s lying,’ Riley said, and she opened her eyes. He was pacing in front of their main board, one hand over his eyes. ‘Could he be lying?’
The door opened and Wilson stepped in, breathless. She’d been watching the interview over the CCTV. ‘Boss, you’ll want to see this.’
She held up an image on her phone. ‘The Brighton team just found it in his room, shoved behind the bed.’
It was another page of theDisordered Diagnosispaper. Page three, for the third attack in three days.
‘I think he’s telling the truth.’ Field stared at the newly printed photograph of Andrew, underneath the heading “PATIENT C”.
She picked up the whiteboard eraser and wiped away the word “Suspect” below his photo.
‘Riley, get hold of the Old Vic. See if they had a ticket booking for Thursday night under his name, and then I want someone in Waterloo, looking at the CCTV from that night. Wilson, put out a call for witnesses on Blackheath for between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. And get onto the CCTV from that area. There’s got to be decent coverage – it’s high footfall.’
