Elias was a teenager, sitting his GCSEs, when the problems began. He drifted away from me like a Poohstick thrown from a bridge. Mum blamed puberty and raging hormones, but I knew it was something more serious. He hid away, spending hours in his room, where he sat on the window sill, smoking hash, blowing each depleted lungful into the night air, while he listened to ‘headbanger’ tapes on his Walkman.
When he did emerge, it was only to eat, or to argue, or to lift home-made weights in the garden. He lost his weekend job mowing lawns, but later bought a whetstone and bench grinder, and began sharpening knives and axes and mower blades. The neighbours were queuing up for the service and Elias would revel in how sharp he could make each tool.
Try as I might, I couldn’t quite solve – or articulate – the mystery of what happened to change him. The slow disintegration. The whispered arguments through his bedroom door. ‘Leave me alone,’ he’d say to nobody but himself. ‘I’m not listening.’
Once he told me that he could control the planets and that without him the moon would hurtle into the Earth and make humankind extinct, just like the dinosaurs. I wanted to believe him. Did it seem any more ridiculous than what I was being taught at Sunday School?
The diagnosis made things easier for a while. The drugs helped, although Elias called them ‘zombie-pills’。 By then, his grades were in freefall. A-levels were out of the question. Weeks passed. His silences grew longer. His isolation. Dad caught him sneaking out at night and not returning until the morning. Twice the police brought him home, his shirt torn and bloody.
We lived like that for two years – up and down – good weeks and bad, never knowing what to expect. Later, I told a counsellor it was like living with a time bomb that I could hear ticking, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, always ticking. Until one day it stopped.
Dr Baillie finds me in the garden, trying to find warmth in a sun that offers nothing but pale, yellow light filtering through the high clouds.
‘Sometimes I wish I was a smoker,’ I say. ‘It would give me something to do.’
He sits beside me. ‘They’re coming back.’
‘Any indication?’
‘No.’
We make our way to the conference room where Elias has been waiting patiently with his hands pressed together between his thighs. The three tribunal members enter in single file and shuffle between the long wall and the table, taking their allotted chairs. They are like a jury returning with a verdict.
Elias didn’t have a trial. A judge found him not guilty on the grounds of insanity and ordered he be ‘detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure’， which meant indefinitely. I remember wondering if the queen took ‘pleasure’ in detaining people. Did she even know Elias’s name, or what he’d done?
My phone is vibrating in my coat pocket. I glance at the screen. Detective Superintendent Lenny Parvel has sent me a message:
You’re needed. Call me.
I ignore it. Carrying a mobile phone still feels foreign to me. Until Evie came to live with me, I used an old-fashioned pager that meant people couldn’t simply call me and talk. I didn’t want to carry a computer in my pocket or be instantly contactable. My job involves human interactions, speaking face to face and reading body language and picking up on physical clues, which can’t be done over the phone or in a text message.
Now, I have a phone that is smarter than me. It can calculate more quickly and knows where I am, and where I’m going, and when I’m looking at the screen. It keeps track of my likes and dislikes, and my Internet history, and can predict the words I’m about to type, which could be human progress or our surrender.
Judge Aimes pours himself a glass of water. He lifts the glass. Sips. Tastes. Sips again. Speaks.
‘We are here to consider an application by Elias David Haven who has been detained under the Mental Health Act since 2001, after his role in the deaths of four people, namely his parents and twin sisters.
‘Upon his arrival at Rampton Secure Hospital, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and found to be suffering from antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. It has only been in the past five years that Elias has come to terms with what he did that night. Psychotropic drugs have led to a considerable improvement, according to the testimony of his psychiatrist and case worker. Elias has also learned coping skills and behavioural modification strategies, which have seen a moderation of his psychosis, so much so that he now presents little or no management problem.’
He raises his head to look at Elias.
‘In the eyes of the justice system, Elias, you are innocent of any crime, and should only be detained until such time as the experts consider you are no longer a danger to the community. The question we must answer today is whether you have reached that point and if you are ready to take your place in society. The safety of the public is paramount, and our decisions must also respect the feelings and fears of those who were directly affected by your offences.
‘We on this tribunal panel are very aware that any decision we make today will be subjective. We are attempting to predict the future behaviours of a latently dangerous mental patient, relying on recommendations from psychiatrists and psychologists who acknowledge that the sciences they study are inexact. Not everybody managing your case has been in agreement. Dr Reid, a resident psychiatrist, expressed the view that you could be cold, distant and unemotional, with a perverted arrogance that is the basis of your paranoid thinking.
‘We have also heard oral evidence from two consultant psychiatrists and your case worker, Dr Baillie, who agree that your psychopathic disorder has been brought under control by medication and therapy.’
There is a pause and Judge Aimes glances along the table at his colleagues. Neither wants to add anything, but there is a trembling quality to the room, as though everything is poised to change. I’m nervous for Elias. I am nervous for myself.
The judge continues.
‘Long-term leave under Section 17 of the Mental Health Act must be approved by the Secretary of State. Our recommendation to the minister will be that you be allowed to leave the hospital grounds on unescorted day leave.’
Elias interrupts. ‘When can I go home?’
‘Overnight leave is the next step,’ says Judge Aimes. ‘Weekends. Holidays. Every stage will be a test.’
‘But I’m better. I’m no longer a danger.’
Dr Baillie leans forward, placing a hand on Elias’s forearm.
He shrugs it away. ‘They called me a model patient. You heard them. I’m cured.’
I hold my finger to my lips, urging him to be quiet. In the next breath, he cocks his head like a bird, watching something in the top corner of the room.
Judge Aimes finishes his statement.
‘The minister will receive our recommendation by close of business today. This is usually a formality and, unless he decides otherwise, you will be eligible for day release once he signs the necessary forms.’
Chairs are pushed back. The panellists rise as one and walk in single file out the side door.
Elias doesn’t react. Two orderlies appear. Big men in short-sleeved tops and dark trousers. They approach Elias carefully, telling him it’s time to go. I expect him to react, but his entire body settles into stillness. He collects his papers, straightens the edges, and tucks them beneath his arm, before turning and bowing to an imaginary audience.