Chapter 3

“What do you think happened?” Aunt Mary asked.

“I think Wolfgang and his cronies drugged and raped her,” I said, “though I don’t have any evidence. When I bent my head down to kiss Cal, I noticed the dilated pupils and blank stare, that’s often a sign of being under the influence, and it was exactly the same as she looked that night in Munich. Do you have the contact details for that detective who looked into the DVD?”

“No,” she replied, “but I think your Dad does.”

“I’ll go and get Dad to ring him, I think we need to put this in his hands. Do we have any idea where the investigation is at?” I asked.

“I think basically, they decided that your Dad didn’t deliberately show the DVD to us, and they would never be able to charge anyone, so they just shelved it.”

“They what?” I yelled, causing Cal to jump and start crying, “they have a pornographic video with a fifteen-year-old girl, and they’re doing nothing. What the f ... heck do they think they’re playing at?”

Cal was curled up into a ball beside me weeping. I shuffled over and enveloped her in my arms, pulling her up onto my lap.

I began stroking her hair.

“It’s all right, Cal,” I whispered, “I’m here, I’m going to get you through this, no matter what, I’ll always love you.”

“I’ll go get the details from your Dad,” her mother said softly, “back in a minute.”

I nodded to her and she left.

“Don’t leave me David,” Cal whispered, in a little girl’s voice, “I’m so alone and afraid.”

It was the first coherent sentence I’d heard her utter since she arrived home.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied, kissing the top of her head.

The tears had stopped and she snuggled down into me, it wasn’t long before I realised she was asleep.

Aunt Mary and my Dad found us like that, me sat on the sofa, the TV set turning out some mindless pap, and Cal, curled up in a little foetal ball on my lap, snoring gently.

“What is it son?” Dad asked quietly, avoiding disturbing sleeping beauty on my knee.

“I think the DVD was made in Munich by Wolfgang and his friends, in fact, I’m convinced of it, but they won’t let me see it to confirm that. I think they’d been feeding Cal a cocktail of drugs, a very similar one to the ones the hospital has her on. They made her pliant, and basically a zombie, and then used her. We need to let the police know.”

“Right, I’ll take care of that,” Dad said, pulling a card from his pocket and holding his hand out for my mobile.

“Then we need to get her out of that hospital and into somewhere where they may actually do some good,” I went on, “Aunt Mary is there a private hospital around that we can transfer her to?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “and I probably can’t find out before it’s time to take her back.”

“Then ring Sarah Green and ask her,” I said.

“It’s Christmas eve, I can’t just ring out of the blue and ask.”

“Of course you can,” I replied, “it involves your daughter’s well-being.”

She went off to ring Sarah, and I continued to stroke Cal’s hair. She stirred slightly in her sleep and snuggled even further into me. It was almost as if she was trying to burrow her way under my skin. As she curled closer and closer into me, I could tell that there were a lot of bones protruding through her skin, she was very, very thin.

When Mary got back, she smiled.

“Well?” I asked.

“There’s one in Rawdon, Fulford Grange, she says would do the job, it’s BUPA, so would be expensive.”

“That won’t be a problem,” I said, “I’d be willing to bet that with proper care, she wouldn’t be there long.”

“But even a short stay would be more than I could afford,” she said.

“But not more than I can afford,” I replied, “Aunt Mary, since Star Academy opened on Friday, do you know what my share of the take comes to?”

“No,” she replied, “and I’m not sure I want to.”

“Let’s just say, I can afford it.”

“All right, but come what may, it’s a loan,” she said.

Cal started to stir in my arms, and eventually opened her eyes. She looked up at me, and for the first time I saw something approaching Cal in her eyes.

“David,” she said softly, “I’m sorry, I think I nodded off.”

“You were tired,” I said, “do you feel a bit better now?”

“I feel all woozy, and confused,” she said, “I think it’s my medicines.”

“What are you taking?” I asked her.

“I don’t know, they just bring them to me and I take them,” she said.

“They’re in the bag she brought with her,” Aunt Mary, said, “hang on I’ll get it and we’ll look.”

When she brought the drugs down, we knew no more than before. They were contained in a dosset box, with the tablets in compartments labelled morning, noon and night, and enough tablets in each compartment for that particular dosage.

“What are they all?” I asked, “they’re not labelled.”

“Can we find out?” Aunt Mary asked.

“I don’t know, I suppose a doctor could tell us, or a pharmacist,” I answered, “do you know one?”

“Only my GP and the man down at the local Lloyds Pharmacy,” she answered.

“I wonder if my Dad knows anybody,” I mused.

“If I know anybody who what?” he asked from the doorway.

“We were just looking at Cal’s medication, and couldn’t work out what any of it was,” I said, “we were wondering if one of your cronies was a doctor or chemist.”

“Tom Liptrot,” he replied, “he’s a pharmacist.”

“Can you ring him Dad, ask him if we can take these tablets over to be identified?”

“Of course,” he replied, “can I use your phone Mary?”

“Yes, James,” she replied, “feel free.”

A couple of minutes later, he finished the call and turned back to us.

“He’ll come over,” he said, “in about fifteen minutes.”

It was nearer twenty when the doorbell rang, and Dad went to let a middle aged, short, balding man in, carrying a small briefcase.

“Hi Tom,” he said, “this is our neighbour, Mary Warner, and her daughter, Calista, Cal to everybody. I think you know David.”

Tom said hello to everybody and turned back to my Dad.

“Right then,” he said, “where are these tablets you wanted me to take a look at?”

Mary took the dosset box from the table and handed it to him and he opened it.

Tom took a while to examine each of the tablets, and as he finished, put each one down on the coffee table, by the time he’d gone through all the tablets, and occasionally looked something up in a loose-leaf binder he took from his briefcase, he had two small piles of tablets on the table. He stood up straight and gestured towards what to him were the left hand pile.

“Those,” he began, “are just standard, anti-depressants, tranquilisers and anti-seizure drugs, although I wouldn’t expect to ever see them prescribed together like this.”

“What about the others?” dad asked.

“Those are a completely different thing,” he answered, “this is tadalafil, not normally a drug given to patients of the female persuasion, since they don’t really have the parts necessary for it to stimulate. The other two, I have to tell you, shouldn’t be there.”

“I beg your pardon?” Aunt Mary asked.

“This one,” he held up a bright yellow and blue capsule, is not authorised for prescription in the UK, except in very closely monitored clinical trials, and the other one, is just plain outright banned.”

“Banned?” I asked.

“We call it the zombie drug in the trade,” he said. “if someone has been feeding these two to Cal, then they are in very deep trouble. One of them is only generally available as a compound to pharma companies, as a precursor to other compounds, and the other is so dangerous as to be unavailable to anyone. As far as I’m aware there isn’t a legal source of it anywhere in Europe.”

“Shit,” I said under my breath, but, apparently not low enough that my Dad couldn’t hear, he shot me a warning glance, “so basically someone’s been using Cal as a guinea pig?”

“Which hospital is she in?” Tom asked.

Mary told him, and he opened his folder again.

“No, there are no current pharmaceutical research projects there at the moment,” he said, “look folks, I’m sorry to drop this on you, but I’m going to have to report this to the Pharmaceutical Society, the BMA and probably the police will be involved too.”

“The police are already involved,” I said, quietly.

“Oh,” Tom replied, surprised.

Dad gave him a quick rundown of the situation without too many details.

“Then it looks like someone is using the situation to do some unofficial research and testing. Let me know if I can be of any help,” he said when Dad had finished, “but whatever happens, do not take her back to that hospital.”

He left then, after telling us not to give her any more of the right hand pile of tablets.

“I think we need to ring Sarah,” I said quietly, not wanting to disturb the sleeping pixie on my lap.

“Why don’t you carry her upstairs, David and I’ll come up and put her to bed?” Aunt Mary suggested.

I agreed and stood up. Cal shifted in my arms, and her arms went round my neck.

Once I got her upstairs to her bedroom, I laid her gently on her bed, and then I faced a problem. Far from letting go of my neck, she clung on tightly.

“Don’t go David,” she muttered, “stay with me please.”

“I’ll stay until you’re asleep, but then I’ll have to go. I’ll come back in the morning,” I said.

“Promise?” she asked.

“I promise,” I said.

“Can I have a goodnight kiss?” she asked.

I just nodded and lowered my lips to hers.

“Goodnight Cal,” I said softly, “sleep well.”

“Goodnight David,” she replied, her eyes closing, “my love.”

Once her breathing had become regular, I extricated myself and made my way back downstairs.

“She’s asleep,” I announced as I reached the living room.

“Did you undress her?” Mary asked.

“No, she’s still in her clothes, laid on the bed,” I answered.

“I’ll go up and sort her out later, thank you David,” she said before getting up and walking over to kiss me on the cheek, “she does still love you, you know.”

I just nodded.

“I’ve reached a decision,” Mary announced, “there is no way that Cal is going back to that place.”

“You know that they can send the police round to arrest her if she doesn’t?” Dad asked.

“Good,” I said, “and they’ll have to arrest me as well.”

“What?” both my Dad and Aunt Mary said together.

“Simple,” I said, “Dad, Aunt Mary, don’t think of me as David Barker, the boy next door, think of me as David J Barker, rising film star. What was it the Times film critic said, ‘A new star has arisen in the Hollywood firmament’. The police turning up to take Cal away wouldn’t even merit a mention in the local paper. However, rising film star David J Barker, being arrested for helping his next door neighbour abscond from detention, would make the national headlines. And when the said rising star tells his story, all hell will break loose.”

“So what are you going to do?” Dad asked me.

“Me?” I responded, “nothing. What I think Aunt Mary should do however, is ring the hospital and inform them that Cal will not be coming back. Tell them that we have evidence that the hospital has been deliberately feeding a patient illegal drugs, and that unless the chairman of the hospital trust rings her back within fifteen minutes, she’ll be ringing the police in sixteen. Then give them her number and hang up.”

“And what if they ring back. Tell them the same, and demand that they immediately release Cal from detention under section and start an internal investigation. Point out that both the BPS and the BMA have been informed.”