Free Slade House by David Mitchell

my face against the bars to peer in the best I can and I say, “Hello?”
    He or she—I can’t see which—doesn’t reply. A mad relative? How legal is any of this? I’m going to have to report it in the morning.
    I try again. “Hello? What’re you doing up here?”
    I hear breathing, and the camp-bed squeaks.
    “Do you speak English? Do you need any help? Do—”
    A woman’s voice cuts in: “Are you real?” A brittle voice.
    Not the sanest opening question. The bed’s halfway down the attic, and I can’t see much—a cheekbone, a hand, a shoulder, a flop of gray hair. “My name’s Gordon Edmonds, and yes, I’m real.”
    She sits up in bed and hugs her knees. “Dream-people always say they’re real, so pardon me for not believing you.” The woman sounds frail and sad but well spoken. “Once I dreamed that Charlie Chaplin came to rescue me with a pair of giant nail clippers.” She squints my way with a face that hasn’t smiled for years. “Vyvyan Ayrs drilled a hole in the roof, once. I climbed out of the hole and he strapped me onto his hang glider, and we flew over the English Channel to Zedelghem. I cried when I woke up.” A radiator groans. “Gordon Edmonds. You’re new.”
    “Yes, I am.” She’s talking like a mental case. “So…are you a patient?”
    She scowls. “If you’re real, you’ll know who I am.”
    “Not true, I’m afraid. I’m real, and I don’t know you.”
    The woman’s voice turns harsher: “The Monster wants me to think I’m being rescued, doesn’t she? It’s her little entertainment. Tell her I’m not playing.”
    “
Who
wants you to think you’re being rescued?”
    “The Monster’s the Monster. I don’t say her name.”
    Her
name? A nasty thought creeps up—Chloe—but there’ll be a logical explanation. “Sweetheart, I’m a copper. Detective Inspector Gordon Edmonds, Thames Valley Force, CID. Can you just tell me why you’re here? Or at least, why you think you’re here?”
    “A detective in a dressing gown. Undercover, is it?”
    “It doesn’t bloody matter what I’ve got on—I’m a copper.”
    She gets out of bed and floats towards the bars in a nightie. “Liar.”
    I step back, just in case she’s got a knife. “Love,
please.
I…just want to know what the story is. Tell me your name, at least.”
    One mad eye appears in the inch between two bars. “Rita.”
    The sentence says itself like a conjurer’s hanky pulled out of my mouth: “Oh, sweet bloody hell, don’t tell me you’re Rita Bishop…”
    The woman blinks. “Yes. As you know perfectly well.”
    I peer closer, and summon up the other photocopied picture Debs pinned above our desks. Oh, Jesus. Rita Bishop’s aged, badly, but it’s her. “After all these years”—her breath smells vinegary—“does the Monster downstairs still get a kick from these pantomimes?”
    I feel like I’ve lost half my blood. “Have you”—I’m afraid of the answer—“have you been in this attic since 1979?”
    “No,” she sneers. “First they hid me away in Buckingham Palace; then a fortune-teller’s booth on Brighton pier; then Willy Wonka’s—”
    “O
kay
! Okay.” I’m trembling. “Where’s Nathan? Your son?”
    Rita Bishop shuts her eyes and forces out her words: “Ask
her
! Ask Lady Norah Grayer, or whatever name she’s going by this week. She’s the one who lured us to Slade House; who drugged us; who locked us up; who took Nathan away; who won’t even tell me if my son’s still alive or not!” She folds over and lies in a silent crying heap.
    My mind’s jolted and clattery: Chloe Chetwynd? Norah Grayer? Same woman? How?
How?
The paintings? Why? Why bring a CID officer up to bed? Why lure him up the stairs where he’ll see the paintings? Makes no sense. What I
do
know is that Slade House isn’t a police station, a prison or a psychiatric ward, and it looks like we have a case of illegal imprisonment here. Ordinarily—ha, “ordinarily”—I’d go back to my