Free Dominion by C.J. Sansom Page A

had surprised Frank, when he arrived at the hospital three weeks before, that there were no bars on the windows. But as the police car that brought him drove through the gates he had glimpsed
beyond the high wall, on the inner side, a broad ditch full of water, screened from view from the hospital by privet hedges. One of the patients on the admissions ward, a middle-aged man with
lined, chalk-white features and wild hair, had told him he planned to escape, swim the ditch and climb the wall. The law said if you escaped from a loony bin and weren’t recaptured in
fourteen days you were free. Frank looked at the man in a grey wool hospital suit that was even more shapeless than Frank’s own. Even if escape were possible, which he doubted, there was
nowhere for him to go now. After what had happened at his flat his neighbours would alert the police as soon as they set eyes on him again. It had been like that at school, nowhere to run. The
gates were always open, but he knew if ever he ran away, got off that bleak Scottish hillside and somehow managed to get home to Esher, his mother would simply bring him back. The mental hospital
reminded him constantly of the horrors of school – the dormitory with its iron beds, the uniformed inmates who most of the time ignored him. And an all-male world; like all mental hospitals
this one was divided into a men’s side and women’s side, the sexes kept entirely apart. From the looks he sometimes got Frank could tell the patients knew what he had done, perhaps were
even afraid of him. The staff, too, reminded him of his teachers, with their sharp military manner and quick brutality if someone got difficult. Frank had tried to avoid thoughts of school for
years but now he was constantly reminded; though school had been worse than here.
    That afternoon Frank had an appointment with Dr Wilson, the Medical Superintendent, in his office in the Admissions Building. He didn’t want to go, he just wanted to stay
in the quiet room. Sometimes other patients came in but he was alone today. He hoped he might be forgotten – patients’ appointments were forgotten now and then – but after an hour
the door opened and a young man in the peaked cap and brown serge uniform of a senior attendant came in. Frank hadn’t seen him before. He was short and stocky, with a thin face and a
prominent nose which at some time had been badly broken. His brown eyes were alert. He was carrying a big, rolled-up umbrella. He gave Frank a nod and a friendly smile. Frank was surprised; mostly
the attendants treated the patients like recalcitrant children.
    ‘Frank Muncaster?’ the attendant asked in a broad Scottish accent. ‘How’re ye daen?’ Frank’s face spasmed into a wide rictus, showing all his teeth, his chimp
grin. Hearing a Scottish accent could unnerve him, because it reminded him of the school. But the attendant’s accent was very different from the elongated vowels and rolling ‘R’s
of middle-class Edinburgh that had prevailed at Strangmans; he spoke quickly, the words running together, a more guttural but, to Frank, less threatening accent.
    The attendant’s eyes widened a little; everyone’s did when they saw that grin of Frank’s for the first time. He said, ‘I’m Ben. I’ve come to take you to Dr
Wilson. They said in the day room you’d be here.’
    Reluctantly Frank followed Ben out, through the day room, where several patients sat slumped in front of the television.
Children’s Hour
was on, a puppet in a striped uniform
dancing manically on the end of its strings.
    They walked along the echoing corridors to the main door, then out into the rain. Ben raised his umbrella and motioned Frank to stand under it with him. They splashed along the path between the
lawns. Ben said, conversationally, ‘Expect you saw Dr Wilson on the admissions ward.’
    ‘Yes. I saw him last week, too. He said he wants me to have some treatment.’ Frank looked sidelong at Ben; he had