‘They took me up there.’
I spin around in alarm to find Ronnie standing behind me. Her expression is strained, but she appears undaunted. With silent agreement we take the stairs. The scent of the air changes to an odour of bleach and disinfectant. And chemical smells too, reminding me of the labs I worked in when I was training.
We reach the top; even though it’s just as much of a wreck as the floor below, there’s something different about it. We walk along the corridor until Ronnie points and says, ‘That was the room they put me in.’
‘Woah!’ I say in shock. ‘You never mentioned that they gave you a room. In fact, what you said was that you pressed the buzzer and then, and I quote, “Got the hell out of there”。’
Ronnie’s warring spirit is back. ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t particularly want to tell you about yet another incident from my life when I was almost forced to do something against my will.’
Because she wears this outer skin of steel it’s easy to forget that Ronnie’s had to spend so much of her life slaying demons.
She tells me, ‘A middle-aged woman greeted me downstairs. Funny thing is, I can barely recall what she looked like. She explained that the job was basic clerical and admin work. They needed someone to start early the next day. I couldn’t believe my luck.’ Ronnie’s voice grows heavy. ‘She said it was best that I spend the night. That wasn’t a problem from my end since I took every chance I got not to go home. And it was a nice enough room.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I still need to give her that choice.
She points at a door. I open it and Ronnie follows me in. It’s empty except for one side of a floral curtain half hanging off the window. ‘I was checked in at reception and then brought up here.’ Ronnie proceeds to paint a picture. ‘There was a bed there and a table. A wardrobe here and a TV over there. It was a nice room actually. Like a hotel.’
She stares into the middle distance. ‘And the screaming came from down there.’
‘Screaming?’ I choke out. It’s as if I can hear screaming now; shrill, echoing and hollow.
‘That’s what I thought I heard. And groaning. Then it was quiet.’
I take Ronnie’s hand and hold it tight. We leave the room and walk hand in hand towards where she thinks the screaming came from. At the end of the corridor, we find a smaller room.
‘In the middle of the night,’ Ronnie speaks barely above a whisper, ‘they came in masks and made me undress and put on a white gown. Then they brought me down here. I had to sit on a chair in there.’
Ronnie guides me through to the next room, a long, oblong space that resembles a laboratory. Or a place where autopsies are performed. Sinks line the walls and in the middle of the room is a raised slab that looks as if it might once have been the final resting place for a corpse. The surfaces are all a clinical white. Antiseptic evil, that’s the stink in here, a harsh abrasive that fails to scrub away nightmares.
Through the touch of our hands, I can feel Ronnie wants to run. I do too.
‘What happened here?’
She tells me. ‘I was waiting next door, I sensed something bad was going on in here and I took my chance to escape. I found the back entrance, scarpered across the courtyard outside, climbed on a bin and over the wall I went. I landed on the other side and ran. A couple of minutes later guys with dogs were chasing me.’
I shudder with horror at the picture she paints. I see a young Ronnie lit up by flashing lights, large dogs behind her. Running, breathing fast, the awful fear of whether she was going to escape. The baying and sharp-toothed dogs getting ever closer.
‘I kept going and didn’t stop. The next couple of days, I ran by night and hid by day until I came to a motorway. I followed it to a service station. In my tattered white gown, I hitched to the next city and let it swallow me up.’
We stand in silence for a moment. It feels like mourning. Ronnie has had enough and leads me outside, and that’s when we hear the panting, huffing breathing behind us. We stare at each other, frozen.
It’s me that turns around. I sag in relief; it is a dog, but it pads towards us in the rhythm of a bored animal pleased to find a distraction. He half-heartedly barks at us.
A security guard appears. ‘Would you ladies like to tell me what you’re doing here? This is private property and you’re trespassing. I suppose it’s drugs, is it? You’ll have to come with me.’
I planned for the possibility of a security guard along with my crowbar. ‘Trespassing? Drugs? I’m a doctor at the hospital.’