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Michelle asked.
    â€˜It’s bloody obvious she did,’ Peter snarled. ‘She must have done, to be able to pinpoint the exact spot where the body was found.’
    An uneasy silence fell over the room.
    â€˜Sorry we can’t be more help.’ Jean poured water into a glass, ‘but you know what this place is like. Or you should do after the time you’ve spent visiting here. Trevor’s a simple depressive, which is understandable considering the physical injuries he’s had to cope with, but most of the other cases on his ward are more complicated. It’s difficult for laymen to understand that paranoid delusions and fantasies are as real as these four walls to some of our inmates.’
    â€˜I hear what you’re saying.’ Michelle’s jargon irritated Peter. ‘Any one else reported odd happenings in the night lately?’
    â€˜Lyn’s the one who works two weeks on, two weeks off, on night shift. I’m days, regular.’ Jean stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. ‘If there’s nothing more, I have to get back to the ward. You know where to find me if you want me.’
    â€˜Patients are always imagining they’ve seen something at night. Only last week we had to physically restrain and sedate Vanessa to keep her from running outside,’ Lyn Sullivan recalled. ‘She was convinced her lover was waiting for her in the grounds.’
    â€˜Has she ever managed to get out?’ Peter asked.
    â€˜Not since I’ve been here. To be honest, at night she’s usually too heavily sedated to move one foot in front of the other.’
    â€˜We try to keep the more difficult ones under control,’ Jean rose from her chair.
    Michelle raised her eyebrows. ‘By knocking them out with a chemical cosh?’
    â€˜By tranquillising them so they can’t leave the safety of the ward and harm themselves,’ Lyn corrected.
    â€˜Was she tranquillised on Saturday night?’ Peter pushed his coffee away in disgust.
    â€˜I assume so. There’s nothing in her notes to suggest the contrary.’
    â€˜Then how do you explain her being up and awake in the small hours?’
    â€˜Patients develop immunity to most drugs after they’ve been using them for a while,’ Jean lectured.
    â€˜Then you need to increase the dosage to gain the desired effect?’ Peter asked.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And Vanessa hasn’t had her dosage increased lately?’
    â€˜Not according to her record card,’ Jean said flatly.
    â€˜We halved Mrs Hedley’s medication last Saturday,’ Lyn admitted in embarrassment. ‘The pharmacy was closed, and we’d run out of the sleeping pills she’s written up for.’
    â€˜Lucky for us that you did.’ Peter had his first piece of concrete evidence; the reason for Vanessa’s wakeful night. It wasn’t much, but it was a beginning. And all investigations had to start somewhere.

CHAPTER FOUR
    â€˜I’m Harry Goldman. Inspector Evans, isn’t it?’
    Dan shook hands with the diminutive man. Dr Harry Goldman was the caricaturist’s dream of a psychiatrist: just under five-feet tall, with a mop of unruly brown hair, weak eyes half hidden behind gold-rimmed glasses, he had a scrawny inadequate body that looked too fragile to support his oversized head.
    â€˜I’m sorry I wasn’t here this morning,’ Goldman apologised. He looked across the gardens to the screened-off area of lawn. ‘I was in court. One of our patients has applied for access to his children.’
    â€˜We need to question all of your patients and one in particular, as soon as possible,’ Dan left no room for refusal.
    â€˜Tony Waters met me in the car park. I have no objection to you questioning Vanessa Hedley, or any of our patients, as long as either I or one of my senior colleagues is present. But I must caution you to treat any information you gather