‘Best we can do then, guv,’ he said, walking heavily down the stairs.
She kept quiet as Bryant made a noise of trying to secure the front door.
And then silence as he stood at the bottom of the stairs.
Five. Four. Three. Two.
The attic door slid open and a set of stairs fell down.
A pair of feet emerged.
Kim waited until the man was halfway down the ladder.
‘Good morning, Mr Dwyer. I’m DI Stone. This is DS Bryant, and we’re both very pleased to meet you.’
SIXTY-ONE
Kim didn’t need a full appraisal to see that this average blonde man looked awful, and he didn’t smell a whole lot better. Aside from his creased clothes and armpit stains, his eyes were haunted, wary, darting around her as though she was hiding the object of his fear.
Kim had guessed that he was hiding somewhere in the property when she’d seen the back gate double bolted. She knew the front door had been bolted, so if he’d left the house, how on earth had he bolted both exit points? A quick mooch around the kitchen had confirmed that the kettle wasn’t stone cold. He hadn’t long made himself a morning cuppa.
‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ he said as she followed him down the stairs.
Kim got it. He’d been leaving the attic long enough only to do the bare minimum. He’d quickly dropped off his empties, grabbed some more food and then hot-footed it back to his perceived place of safety. He hadn’t showered in days because he was so frightened to be out in plain sight.
Her only question was why.
‘I won’t embarrass you by asking if you’d like a drink,’ he said, passing by the kitchen and leading them to the neater lounge.
‘Mr Dwyer, do you think your actions might be a little extreme?’ Kim asked as she took a seat. She could hear Bryant in the hallway making arrangements to have the man’s door fixed.
‘Not at all. I’ve been terrified. Ever since I wrote that letter. I regretted it as soon as the man left the building. I knew they’d find out it was me and they’d come looking so they could shut me up. Even if they’d forced their way in, they wouldn’t have found me up there. They don’t want anything negative getting out, and I think they’re capable of anything to shut folks up.’
‘What prompted you to write the letter?’ she asked. ‘You’ve worked there for some time and you’re clearly terrified.’
He shrugged. ‘Just all seemed to be getting worse.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll be honest. At first I didn’t take much notice. I’d signed the secrecy form and it was a job. I’d been out of work for almost a year and I would have taken anything. No matter, the wife left me two months after I started, so it was all for nothing except to earn enough so that I could keep the house.’
‘Sorry to hear—’
‘Never mind all that,’ he said, waving away her words.
‘Okay, Mr Dwyer, do you mind telling us what you’ve witnessed at the clinic?’
‘Terrible, awful treatment of people. Locked in their rooms. Taken to the third floor, which is restricted access. Patients are force-fed. I once had to cook enough for a small army. I thought there was a party. It was all taken to one room. Others are starved. One girl wasn’t allowed food for five days. Some are humiliated. One guy, in his early twenties, was forced to lick the urinals until he either puked or cried. He cried.’
Kim felt the rage start to build in her stomach. Convicts who had murdered innocent people weren’t treated this way.
‘Are all the staff aware of what’s going on?’ she asked, hoping that there was someone, anyone, trying to put a stop to it.
He nodded. ‘They’re called practitioners. I don’t know what qualifications they have or what they’re practitioners of exactly, but there’s eight of them and they all follow instructions.’
‘No one questions this abuse?’
‘They all sleep just fine at night because the patients are there voluntarily. No one is forced to stay.’
He looked to her and then at Bryant. ‘Why aren’t you writing this down in a statement?’ he asked.
‘We’re not quite at the point of—’