Free The Echo by Minette Walters

always doing it," said Terry. "Sometimes it were both hands, more often just the right. It really used to bug me. There were days when he couldn't move his fingers at all because the blisters were so bad, but he'd still draw his sodding pictures. He'd stick the crayon between two fingers and move his whole hand to do the drawing. He said he needed to feel the pain of creation."
    "Young Terry reckoned 'e was schizo," declared the leathery-faced ancient in the balaclava. "Told 'im 'e should get medication, but Billy weren't interested. 'E said 'e didn't suffer from anyfing mental and 'e weren't going near no doctors. Death was the only cure for what ailed 'im."
    "Did he ever try to kill himself?"
    Terry gave another short laugh and gestured around him. "What d'you call this? Living or dying?"
    Deacon acknowledged the point with a nod. "I meant did he make specific attempts on his life?"
    "No," said the boy flatly. "He said he hadn't suffered enough and needed to die slowly." He drew his coat about his spare frame as another blast of wind whistled across the water and drew sparks from the blazing wood. "Listen, mate, the poor bastard had galloping schizophrenia, just like Walt here." He nudged the muffled shape beside him who sat, much as Billy must have done when Amanda Powell found him, with head slumped on knees. "Walt gets medication, but half the time he forgets to take it. By rights he should be in hospital but there ain't no hospitals anymore. He stayed with his old Mum for a while when the doctors said he was okay to live on the out, but he scared the poor old biddy out of her wits and she barred the door on him." He turned to look into the warehouse. "There's twenty more like him inside. It's us sane ones who're looking after them, and it's a bloody joke, if you ask me."
    Deacon agreed with him. What was society coming to when it was the down-and-outs who offered care in the community to the mentally ill? "Did Billy ever mention being in a hospital?"
    Terry shook his head. "He never talked much about the past."
    "Okay. How about prison? Do you know which one he did his time in?"
    Terry nodded towards the leathery-faced old man. "Tom and him did a month in Brixton once."
    "Where did they keep him?" Deacon asked Tom. "On the hospital wing or in a cell?"
    "Cell, same as me."
    "Was he given any medication?"
    "Not that I remember."
    "So he wasn't diagnosed schizophrenic in prison?"
    Tom shook his head. "The screws ain't got the time or the inclination to worry about a wino doing four weeks in the nick. It'd take 'im that long to dry out so, if 'e screams 'is 'ead off on a regular basis, they just put it down to DTs or anything else they fancy."
    "Did he act as crazy inside as he did on the out?"
    Tom made a rocking motion with his hand. "Bit up and down, got depressed every so often, but otherwise 'e was okay. Went to chapel like a good'un and be'aved 'isself. Reckon it was the drink made 'im mad. 'E was only ever off his 'ead when e'd 'ad a skinful. Sane as you an' me when 'e was sober."
    Deacon offered his cigarettes round a second time, then raised his coat flap against the wind to light one for himself. "And none of you knows where he came from, or who he might have been, or why he called himself Billy Blake?"
    "What makes you think it wasn't his real name?" asked Terry. This time he chose to smoke his cigarette, pulling a brand from the fire to light it.
    Deacon shrugged. "I'm guessing." He drew heavily on his cigarette in order to keep the tip alight. "How did he speak? Did he have an accent?"
    "Not so's you'd notice. I asked him once if he was an actor because he sounded pretty classy when he was raving. But he said no."
    "What did he do when he was raving?"
    "Shouted anything that came into his head. Some of it rhymed, but I don't know if he was making it up himself or if he was quoting someone else. I remember some of it-and one bit more or less because he said it over and over again. It was bloody weird stuff, all