Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(75)

Peter Conway was being led down the corridor toward the lift at the end with Winston.

Meredith turned. “Could you delay Peter at the lift, please, Ken?”

Her tone told him that it wasn’t a question.



When Peter reached the lift with Winston, the orderly pressed the call button, and the doors pinged and slid open. The lift was empty.

“Can you hold it there, please, Winston?” said a voice crackling through his radio. Winston took a step back and pulled the radio from his belt.

“Okay. Holding position,” he said. The lift pinged and the doors closed. Winston turned to Peter. “We’ve been asked to stop here for a—”

“I know. I heard. I’m right beside you,” snapped Peter. The lift pinged again, and the doors opened to the empty lift. A moment passed, and with another ping they closed. Peter looked up and saw that the lift remained on their floor. He saw Winston check his watch. It was now 11:04. He took out his radio again.

“Waiting for clearance. I have Peter Conway for visiting at eleven a.m. . . .”

“If you could hold there, Winston, thank you,” came the voice.

“I’m going to initiate a strip search,” he heard a voice say in the background. It was a woman’s voice, and Peter recognized it as Dr. Baxter’s.

Peter could feel sweat starting to form under the hood. What was the delay? They were only ever delayed when there was an incident, and the different kinds of incidents had numbered codes. A fight was signaled by 101, 102 was a suicide attempt, 381 was if a staff member had been attacked. He’d only ever heard 904, a riot, used once, a few years back. Winston had been told to halt, but there had been no numbered code given. Something was going on.



Back in the control room, there was another buzz at the door. Ken saw it was Dr. Rajdai, Dr. Baxter’s deputy in the psychology department.

“Please let him in,” said Meredith, keeping her eyes on the big screen. He came in and went straight to join her.

“How are we doing?” he asked, looking up at the screen.

“Enid Conway, she’s been through security checks, full pat down at the main gate. All her belongings and the sweets she’s brought him have gone through X-ray. They are all sealed,” said Meredith. She looked at Rajdai, and he nodded.

“I’m happy to sign off with you, but she could complain,” he said.

Meredith nodded and pulled out her radio. “This is Dr. Baxter. Please can you take Enid Conway out of interview room one and give her a full strip and cavity search.”

“Copy that,” came the voice on the other end. Ken watched as Enid was taken out of the interview room by two female orderlies. He shook his head. Dr. Baxter liked to think herself modern and sympathetic, but she was just as brutal as the old-school doctors.



Peter was held in the corridor for another ten minutes, which felt like they stretched to hours. There was no explanation. Finally, Winston was given the go-ahead, and Peter was taken to interview room one.

When he saw his mother, her eyes looked red from crying, and this shocked and terrified him. He rarely, if ever, saw her cry. He waited until Winston and Terrell had gone and then gave her a hug.

“What’s going on?” he said, sitting opposite her.

“Those bastards. They gave me a full search, latex gloves, and they were rough and all . . . They said if I didn’t submit to it, I couldn’t see you.” She took a balled-up tissue out of her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.

Peter looked up at the security camera and fixed it with a glare.

That fucking bitch, Dr. Baxter, he thought. Just you wait.

“Come here, Mum,” he said. She got up and they embraced, and he held her close, burying his face in the top of her head and smelling her hair. She pressed her face against his chest.

“You’ve lost weight,” she said, stroking at his pectoral with a red–nail varnished hand.

“Yeah, getting fit for, well, the future,” he said. She pulled away and looked up at him. “And I was getting to be a porker.” She smiled and laughed. “There, that’s my girl. You look years younger when you smile.”

The orderly outside leaned forward and knocked on the glass, indicating they should separate.



Back in the control room, Meredith stood with Dr. Rajdai. She watched their embrace on the screen.

“Jesus, we’ve got our own private showing of Oedipus Rex,” said Ken from behind her. “If you ask me, it’s not drugs he wants to slip her . . .”

A couple of the other orderlies manning the computer monitors chuckled. Meredith turned and gave him a withering look.

“Unless you have a clinical opinion, which I doubt, keep things to yourself,” she said. She turned to Dr. Rajdai, who was standing in front of the screen with her. “I want Enid Conway stopped on her way out at the front gate for another full strip search and cavity search. If she objects, tell her we’ll withdraw all visiting rights. And I want Peter searched too.”



When the visit came to an end, Enid held on to Peter for a long time. She ran her hands down his back and squeezed his buttocks, feeling his new trimmer body. She felt him stiffen as he pushed himself against her.

“Not long now, Mum,” he whispered in her ear.

“I love you,” she whispered back. There was a knock on the window, and the orderly signaled she had to leave. She reluctantly pulled away and broke their embrace.