I’m not sure how long it’s been deserted, but certainly years and years. What I do know about its history is that it was once the psychiatric centre. Good grief! My mind starts whirring as I try to imagine what this ‘job’ Ronnie and the others were interviewed for, involved.
Pretty Lanes is somehow connected to this place?
Over the years the weather has got its teeth into the exterior of the building, leaving stripped paintwork and a patchwork of acid pollution. Wild greenery grows high as if to shield it from the world. The walls topped with rusting razor wire and the security-camera fittings that are still visible go beyond the usual measures for a secure psychiatric hospital. As are the markings by the gate where a guard post once stood and the poles for a barrier. This was definitely a treatment centre for the well-being of the mind connected to the main hospital, but something else was going on here. Whatever that was wasn’t meant for prying eyes. It has all the menace of an abandoned maximum-security prison.
‘You came here for a job at night? Didn’t that strike you as dangerous?’ I ask, baffled.
Ronnie looks cross, and I don’t blame her. I raise a placatory hand. ‘Don’t answer that. I didn’t mean to imply that women shouldn’t be able to go out in the dark; it just seems odd to have an interview at night.’
Ronnie softens. ‘It was more like early evening, but let me put it this way, Eva; I was so desperate for work I would’ve turned up at midnight.’
‘I reckon we can get over those gates,’ I suggest to her.
Ronnie’s response is a guttural, ‘I’m not going in there.’
I take her point; the last time she was here she was running for her life. However, someone needs to get inside to investigate. Instinctively, I reach inside my bag to hold the Good Knight . . . My hand freezes; of course he’s not there, lost to me forever in the fire at the building where the Suzi Lake Centre once was.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ronnie looks from my bag to my face.
My hand reluctantly retreats from my bag. ‘Nothing.’ Everything. Everything.
Reaching for the door handle I grimly instruct, ‘Keep your eyes peeled. If anyone comes, blare the horn like your life depends on it.’ Or mine.
A soulless wind stirs as I take out a few items from the boot of my car and then make my way to the gate. Once there I put on a pair of reinforced gardening gloves. Looking up I judge the distance to the top.
I start counting.
One.
Two.
Three.
I spring up, grab the top of the gate and cling on for all I’m worth. With a mini swing I get a footing on one of the camera postings. I climb over and drop down the other side. The courtyard is littered with junk, some of which dances and jerks to the beat of the wind. I see a set of doors I suspect once led into the reception but now they’re behind iron shutters. Everywhere here is shuttered. Blocked. Barracked. Boarded. I’m not fazed; the crowbar I pull out shows I planned for this.
I start work on the reception shutters. Aging rust and metal fatigue are on my side and they roll back. No heavy-duty locks on the doors facing me. I push. They swing open.
Gagging, I cover my nose and mouth with my hands. The place reeks. Stale piss and stinky air mixed with the passing of time. There’s a long corridor yawning before me. Chunks of wall and panelling have collapsed to the ground leaving pipes exposed. The very skeleton of the medical unit is exposed. A carpet of plaster, dust, pools of stagnant water obscure the ground beneath. Walking on it doesn’t look safe to me; but what other choice do I have? A chilly wind grapples with the front of my jacket like an unruly drunk. I grip the door frame and resist. I don’t like this place. I haven’t stepped in and already I’m sweating down my spine, a tingle of disquiet trills over my skin. I don’t appear to be in control of my lungs, an admission no doctor specialising in asthma care wants to admit.
I step inside. The first room I come to has a chair, a row of medical books on a shelf and nothing else. The next, a busted photocopier, but there’s no paperwork. I come to the kitchen where a large steel oven remains. Its door is wide open like a mouth silently screaming. My eyes jerk, dart and sweep the spaces. Then I reach what I know was once a patients’ ward. Surprisingly, a few beds remain and all the curtain dividers are in place. There’s an iron clothes rail with four hangers. A breeze I can’t feel rocks one of the hangers. There are two dolls sat side by side in an old-fashioned wheelchair. Their eyes are broken. I can’t get out of the ward quickly enough, retreating back to the corridor, to the stairway.