One day Perdita left a message on our voicemail:
"About to take a massive overdose. See me now or see me in hell."
I knew she wasn’t messing about. Grendel was in charge.
I went straight out to see her, taking a female colleague with me. I know when not to go alone.
When we arrived at her house, her front door was ajar. I had a horrible feeling of déjà vu.
We went inside and called, but there was no answer. In the kitchen, we found a pile of bubble packs of tablets. They were all empty.
We found Perdita in the living room. She was staring blankly ahead of her.
“Perdita,” I said, “What’s going on?”
“Perdita,” she repeated, her thousand yard stare unwavering. “What’s going on?”
“Perdita, how many tablets have you taken?”
“Perdita, how many tablets have you taken?”
She seemed to be in a dissociative state again. It was clear that it was not going to be possible to reason with her.
I rang 999 and asked for an ambulance to attend because of the likely overdose.
Perdita started to put on her boots, and fearing she was intending to leave I asked for the police to attend as well.
As she leaned forward to put her boots on, I could see that she had a knife tucked into her back pocket.
I was worried about her self harming, so I reached out and quickly removed the knife.
Perdita objected to this. She stood up and spun round, lunging at me. I saw she had another knife in her hand. I leapt backwards and I was aware that the point of the knife penetrated my arm, drawing blood.
I couldn’t get to the front door, so I told my colleague to run upstairs. I followed her.
In the process, I dropped the other knife. Pausing briefly to retrieve it, Perdita came after us.
My colleague ran into one of the bedrooms and barricaded the door. I went into another bedroom and slammed the door behind me, keeping hold of the handle.
Perdita tried to open the door, then started to pound the other side with the knives. The blades started to penetrate and the flimsy door began to bow inwards. I put a foot up against the edge of the door, and fished my phone out of my pocket.
I realised that I had not hung up and the operator was still on the line.
“Are you all right, sir?” she was saying, presumably having heard a commotion.
“No I’m not,” I said as calmly as possible. “Could you send assistance as soon as you can, Perdita has knives and is attacking me.”
“And what is the address of the incident?”
I gave the address.
“Do you have the postcode?”
No, I didn’t have the postcode to hand.
“Is the address Acacia Road or Acacia Close, sir?”
“It’s Acacia Close. Could you send someone as soon as possible, because I’m trapped in a bedroom and I don’t think the door is going to hold for much longer.”
By now, I had gone into some sort of dissociative state myself. I found myself observing the entire scene as if I were watching a TV programme. This is remarkably like the “Here’s Johnny!” scene in The Shining, I remember thinking dispassionately. How interesting.
The operator was speaking again. “We can’t seem to find Acacia Close on our system,” she was saying.
“I assure you I’m in Acacia Close, and I need a police presence here as soon as possible! Just tell the police to come to Perdita’s house. They all know where she lives!”
The pounding on the door stopped. I heard Perdita go to the other bedroom door and try to get in there, but fortunately without success. Then I heard her go downstairs, and it all went quiet.
I gingerly opened the door and peered out. There was no sign of Perdita. I crept along the landing to the other bedroom. My colleague let me in. She was absolutely terrified.
“I’ve called the police,” I told her. “They should be here any minute.”
I went warily down the stairs. I could see Perdita sitting motionlessly in the living room, rocking slightly. I went outside into the street.
At that point, several police cars arrived, followed by an ambulance. They had at last found Acacia Close, having presumably first been to Acacia Road, Acacia Drive and maybe even Acacia Avenue.
I stood at a discrete distance while several police officers went into the house. I heard a brief scuffle, and then they led Perdita out in handcuffs. She lifted her head and saw me.
“Oh hello, Steve”, she said, as the police led her away, “you took your bloody time getting here!”
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