A dragon in winter

A Dragon in Winter Chapter 14 and Epilogue

Chapter 14 

Next day I was taken to the busy room where I had entered Police headquarters. Lucas, with a thunderous expression on his face, examined the papers Whittaker put before him.

"You slimy bastard, Spencer. Killer, drunkard, and all you get is treatment in hospital. How did you let this happen Whittaker? What about Gail? Who's going to revenge her?"

"Calm down, John. Keep calm. He'll suffer. Perhaps not the way you want. But he will suffer. And revenge isn't really so sweet. Now sign these papers and I'll get him away. And then you go and sort your life out with your wife and kids. It'll be best. Believe me."

"OK. OK."

A signature was scrawled, and Lucas thrust a way through the office, a flurry of dislodged papers falling in his wake.

A PC grudgingly displayed my possessions in plastic bags and I signed for them. The lap-top was in its travel-case.

"Come on."

With Whittaker one side and a PC the other holding my arm I was walked into the brilliant, frosty, azure-blue sunlight of an early February morning. It dazzled my eyes, for so long deprived of natural light. I stumbled over the steps to the white slab shape of the secure ambulance. Inside the emphasis was on security rather than medical assistance. There was a stretcher holder, and a largish first aid cabinet, but otherwise it was a plain padded steel box with barred windows above head height, and a bench seat down each side.

The heating was minimal and the diesel smell suffocating. It was a harsh-springed, noisy ride. During the three hour journey, I could identify roughly where we were. In my driving I had covered these roads across my beloved Yorkshire and Lancashire to my home many times. Often with the warm glow of anticipation of being with Jess to share my adventures or just be in her company. The memories brought pricking tears to my eyes for that which had gone.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeves and hid my face in my hands.

The PC opposite grimaced and said harshly, "Remorse setting in? - Sir."

I sniffed the moisture in my nose, "I didn't kill anyone I've lost so much."

"What have you lost you -"

"That'll do Hawkins. He is a patient now - not a prisoner - nor a criminal. He is just ill."

"Well don't bloody cure him, then, Doctor. That's all I say."

"Enough. I said."

"Sir."

Briefly I saw snowdrops in the sheltered hospital flower bed, their delicate white bells so frail, yet so robust in meeting the cold of winter head-on in the struggle for survival. They always come up again. Then we were into the long stretches of plastic tiled corridor, but at least you could see out. There was a world outside.

The door to the ward opened from the inside with a key held by the staff, called up through an intercom. The policeman was left outside and Dr Whittaker and I entered the room. The latch clacked behind me.

There was a smell, some of it nicotine, some humanity under stress - sweat and urine, and another unpleasant medical smell I couldn't identify. We went into the staff office.

Two male nurses rapidly removed their feet from desks and one remained toying with a pen over some papers. The other scuttled into the body of the ward.

"This is Jeffery Spencer. He's being admitted under Section Three. Here are the authorisation, his medical report, and an initial care plan. I suggest you read it while I'm here in case of any queries."