A Plea of Insanity (15 page)

He appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘No I didn’t. I never went near your car.’

By this time she was running towards it,
knowing
she had locked it firmly. If not Grant, who?

She pulled the door wide open.

On the seat, neatly folded, was a camel hair coat.

Time stretched.

She seemed to stand there for hours, staring at the coat, noting over and over again the fact that it had been so very neatly folded and placed on her seat so carefully.

She sensed Grant beside her. Heard him speak, puzzled, looking to her for explanation. ‘Claire?’

Slowly she turned around. ‘It’s Kristyna’s coat.’

Then he too entered that elongated timezone to stand by her side, stare at the coat, note, like her, that it was displayed neatly enough for a ladies’ dress shop. Neither of them stretched out a hand to touch it. They simply stared, both knowing that this was evidence. Grant spoke softly, in dream words. ‘We – should – tell – someone.’

She still didn’t move and after a further pause he turned around, walked slowly towards the house, disappeared inside and returned, carrying the phone. He pressed the dial and spoke one word into it. ‘Police.’

Only when a squad car came screaming around the corner did time re-enter the normal zone.

The police were wonderful
.

It is a cliché‚ but they were. Around in minutes, cordoning off the area. Taking charge competently, speaking into walkie talkies, looking business-like while a dazed Claire fed them the facts.

‘My colleague. She vanished a few weeks ago. I think this is her coat.’

Knowing, all the time, that HE was playing games with her, spinning her around like a wooden top until she was so dizzy she would soon topple
.

The police took it all perfectly seriously.

One of them detached from the rest to introduce
himself as Detective Inspector Paul Frank. He was a
no-nonsense
forty-year-old, deadly serious, with grey-streaked hair.

‘Doctor Roget,’ he said, his eyes not on her but on the cordoning off of the vehicle behind her. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ A firm, reassuring handshake. ‘I’ve heard about you from both Sergeant Young and Constable Martin.’ His eyes searched out the coat. ‘This is an unlikely turn of events.’

She nodded. Shock had made her cold and clammy. Somehow instead of the suit jacket she was wearing one of Grant’s thick, huge sweaters. She didn’t remember putting it on.

Inspector Frank must have noticed her shivering. ‘Would you prefer to go indoors?’

She nodded and they trooped inside.

The warmth of the kitchen was welcome after the damp chill of the bleak, February morning, dank, grey and now threatening.

‘I must ring work, tell them I’ll be late.’

Grant’s hand was on her arm, restraining. ‘I’ve already done it’, he said. ‘I told them there was a problem with your car.’

She concentrated back on the policeman. ‘What will you do now?’

‘We’ll be examining the car and sending the coat for forensics.’

‘What will you look for?’

He knew she knew
.

‘Trace evidence, hair, skin cells, blood. Evidence as to whether the coat really was Kristyna’s, how it got there, who put it there. When? How?’ His eyes regarded her steadily. Blue-grey with dark rims around the irises. It gave him the look of a man of mystery. ‘And if it is Kristyna’s
whether there are any marks on it that indicate what has happened to her.’

She concentrated hard on the simple. ‘How did they get into the car? I know I locked it. I remember.’

He dismissed the action with an abrupt jerk of his head. ‘It’s not that difficult. They just get a skeleton key, a piece of wire. A scanner.’ He stopped talking for a moment then changed tack completely. ‘Tell me, Doctor Roget, do you think this has any wider connection with Greatbach?’

She nodded.

She thought he would pursue the subject immediately but he didn’t. She would learn he was not an impatient man. Instead he contented himself with a comment.

‘I was the senior investigating officer over your colleague’s death,’ he said, ‘Doctor Faro. And Sergeant Young tells me you were asking questions about the death of the mother of one of your patients?’

Again she nodded.

‘Then we had the disappearance of Kristyna Gale. And now this.’

He waited before making the comment. ‘A sequence of occurrences, don’t you agree?’

The kettle was boiling. She didn’t remember filling it and switching it on but made coffee anyway
.

The Inspector accepted it. ‘I take it you believe these occurrences are connected.’

He was watching her. ‘And I suspect you have an idea that just one person could be responsible.’ He sipped his coffee, licked a drop from his lips. His eyes found her again. ‘And as Gulio is currently incarcerated I also imagine you have your doubts we got the right man in the first place.’

‘He can have had nothing to do with Kristyna’s disappearance.’

‘True.’ He waited for her to volunteer more information and when she didn’t he prompted her. ‘So – would you like to tell me more?’

‘I don’t know whether I should,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s a patient of mine who has a personality disorder.’

Paul Frank made a face. ‘It doesn’t sound a hugely
dangerous
disease,’ he said dubiously.

‘Most serial killers share the same diagnosis, Inspector.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Then tell me a little about the condition.’

‘They start off as juvenile offenders,’ she said, ‘manifesting delinquency. They are glib, intelligent and plausible, with a superficial charm which makes them dangerous – and credible confidence tricksters. They are pathological liars, have shallow characters, a lack of remorse. Constant need for stimulation, a sense of grandiose self-worth. They lack empathy and are callous, cunning, manipulative, impulsive and irresponsible. How far do you want me to go?’

‘I think I’m getting the picture,’ he said. ‘It sounds all too familiar. I guess virtually any young offender would fit into that picture.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Apart from the intelligent bit. Most of the kids in custodial care haven’t got two brain cells to rub together.’

‘These are more dangerous,’ she said, ‘in that they are cruel as well as criminal. There is no moral argument you can successfully use against them. They make their own rules.’

He rubbed his chin. ‘And I take it that the innocent enquiry about Cynthia Barclay’s death to Sergeant Young is connected.’ He waited for a comment and when she still said nothing he added, ‘I also believe she has a son.’

It was enough. Between herself and the policeman there was a tacit understanding.

He cleared his throat. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Tell me a bit about Kristyna. What sort of a person was – is – she?’

What could she say? ‘Stable, normal. Average. Friendly. Good at her job. Sweet-natured.’

‘Not given to histrionics? Abnormal behaviour? Attention-seeking?’

‘No.’

‘So you don’t think she put the coat in your car to alarm you, reassure you, warn you?’

It hadn’t even entered her head. ‘No. It wouldn’t be her style at all.’

‘So I take it you think her abductor …’ He carefully avoided using the word
killer
but it lay between them, awkward and obvious, ‘… is responsible.’

‘Yes.’

He stood up.

‘My car?’ she ventured feebly.

‘We’ll have to impound it,’ he said. ‘There may be evidence on it or in it. We’ll get another car for you. In the meantime can we give you a lift somewhere? To the hospital, maybe?’

‘Yes, fine. Thanks.’

‘We’ll obviously let you know how our investigations are progressing and we’ll want to speak to you again.’

She bowed her head.

She was over two hours late for work but meeting Siôna in the corridor he said nothing. Which made her paranoid. He
should
have asked her why she was late. He should have grilled her. Not slunk past. He must know something.

She quickly visited each of her four wards and found little to delay her so an hour later she was ready to eat her lunch, on the bench outside her office window, sitting in the yard. It was cold but she wrapped her down jacket around her and welcomed the chill, clean, damp air, as she watched the watery grey sun make an effort to brighten the scene. Gradually she stopped asking the same four questions: Was it really Kristyna’s coat? Who had put it in her car? When? And most chillingly, why? Acknowledging that she already knew the answers because it was like a real-life Cluedo game. Barclay had killed Kristyna Gale, somewhere, put her coat in the car in the middle of the night, with a dual motive, both to gloat that he alone knew what happened and to frighten her, his psychiatrist. She knew all this but she didn’t know what had ultimately happened to Kristyna. Except that she must surely be dead. And although she believed Barclay was capable of murder and that he could have killed his mother by switching her pills she couldn’t see how he could have abducted Kristyna – the nurse had known Barclay was potentially dangerous. She wouldn’t have got into his car. Even on a wet night. What about when she had worn her best coat to work and had no car? But surely Kristyna would have fought for her life?

So would Heidi
.

She took a bite out of an underipe pear and chewed it thoughtfully, the flesh gritty and hard between her teeth. She was becoming ashamed of her inactivity. She should be doing something more positive. It was no use sitting here and trying to work out what had happened. She should be doing something. Not only for Kristyna. For herself. To protect herself. What? How? Be more observant. Watch out for him. She knew he was around. She should be more vigilant.

In contrast to the tranquil wards her outpatient clinic was muddled, chaotic and busy with patients complaining they’d been kept waiting. No member of staff made any comment and when she glanced in the mirror while washing her hands at the end of the afternoon she knew why.

She looked wild. Odd and strained, pale with a background of fear. It was then that she realised that throughout the entire clinic she’d half-expected Jerome Barclay to appear.

It was dark and late. She was tired and desperately wanted to go home, to a hot bath and dinner, but she needed to dictate the letters. She had a brief tussle with her conscience. The clinic was deserted. It had over run and the ancillary staff had gone home. Only a few cleaners were left. Finally she decided to drop the notes off at her office and come in early in the morning to dictate the letters.

But returning to her office was a mistake. She realised she had begun fearing the room. Now she hated it. It was the scene of a crime, a manifestation of Heidi’s weakness, a place where her own weaknesses would be exposed. She sat down in the chair and stared at the wall.

Waiting.

Psychiatrists deal with fear. Real or imagined. You must turn around and face your fear or it grows monstrously, into something too big to live with. Sanely.

She drew her mobile from her bag, located the phonebook, scrolled to A, found Adam’s number and pressed the dial button. He answered at once, recognising her caller ID.

‘Hi, Sis. How’re you doing? New job OK?’

‘Reasonable,’ she said. ‘Grant’s knee-deep in decorating.
How’s your course, Adam?’

‘More work than it should be, Sis.’

‘Adam,’ she said and stopped. ‘Come up and see us soon.’

‘Sure.’

‘No – I mean it. I’m not just being polite. Keep in touch and come and visit us. Soon.’

‘Yeah. OK. I’ll give you a ring in a week or two. Got to go, Sis. Football calls.’

She felt cleansed when she had replaced the phone back in her handbag. Dealing with phobias, brushing out the dark corners of our mind, makes us feel cleansed. Strong. Pure and powerful
.

Empowered
.

She sat, still and quiet, sensitive to every noise in the building but hearing no creeping footsteps. Tonight she was alone in this wing. She ran her mind’s eyes along the corridor. Dark, still, empty. Beautifully empty. No crouching figure.

She switched the light off and left.

It was at that precise point that events took a turn for the sinister. She stopped being the stalker, the watching eye, and began to realise that the interest was turning on to her. Barclay was stalking her.

She had ended the evening sweetly, Grant and she, entwined on the sofa, still revelling in this newfound intimacy. She’d had a bath, full of aromatic oils, wrapped herself in a huge white bath towel and they’d eaten a simple meal of chicken with pasta, followed by fruit. They were almost celebrating. They’d had a good offer on the house, the would-be purchasers gushing over the bright, ‘happy’ colours and ‘contemporary ambience’, the ‘sense of air’, whatever that might mean. Even Grant had looked bemused at that. Life seemed good. But she should have remembered that optimism is a temporary state – like its twin brother, pessimism.

Neither lasts for long but of the two it is optimism who has the shorter lifespan.

The police had loaned her a Renault Clio and she liked the nippy little car, arriving in her office a full half hour early, prepared to dictate the letters from yesterday’s clinic. She was still perfused with yesterday’s happiness, not yet knowing it would not belong to today. She sat down at the desk. She picked up the top set of notes and immediately re-entered that strange time zone last experienced when she had looked at Kristyna’s carefully folded coat.

The top set of notes was Jerome Barclay’s.

A thousand thoughts crowded her mind.

He hadn’t been in yesterday’s clinic. His notes shouldn’t even have been out. They should still have been in the
gunmetal filing cabinet in the corner which was always kept locked. How had he got in here in the first place? Unseen – because if he’d been spotted he would surely have been stopped?

Agitated she stood up, crossed the room, tugged at the top drawer.

The filing cabinet was still locked.

He must have got in here, unlocked the cabinet, taken the notes out and put them where she would find them
.

Her brain was filled with such stupid, illogical thoughts. Only Houdini took notes from a locked cabinet. And she had the only key on her own keyring.

Her mind was still working slowly, cranking in low gears. She picked up her bag and fumbled for her own bunch of keys then dropped them onto the desk before checking them. They were all there.

So how had Barclay’s notes been magicked from a locked cabinet to the top of her pile of notes?

Panic burst through.

It gave him supernatural powers. He could open locked drawers without a key, move, unseen, through the hospital, know where she was when he was nowhere near, anticipate her next move. Get away with murder.

What did he plan next?

Shakily she replaced the notes in the drawer and tried to concentrate on her dictation.

But her eyes seemed fixed on the door handle. If it moved, she felt she would go quite mad.

But now events began to cascade into tragedy, fast and furiously tipping her into a downward spiral of terrible confusion. Had she been a disciple of Bio-rhythms she would have had no need to check the calendar.

All the signs must be bad. As bad as they could possibly be.

Sometimes psychiatrists get things wrong. Badly wrong. They misjudge intent, misinterpret symptoms, underestimate real misery and they are held, ultimately, to blame. Or perhaps it is the victim mentality, this feeling of ultimate responsibility, that makes doctors blame themselves for their patients’ tragedies.

The news filtered through, in dribs and drabs, Chinese Whispers in the staff room that a suicide attempt had been successful. Then a name was pinned to the anonymous story. Mavis Abiloney. No details yet except this, identity. Their worst fears had come true. Her final suicide bid had succeeded. And Claire felt terribly responsible. She had misjudged the situation, discharged her patient, believing it was better to turn and face the opponent. She had been wrong wrong wrong.

The police came to take a statement, two young constables; the coroner’s officer interviewed her. Kindly he did not ask the vital question,
Why, given such a history, Doctor, why in heaven’s name, why did you discharge her?

Then Detective Inspector Paul Frank came to see her.

He arrived unannounced, during her lunch break. She suspected he had asked her secretary when would be a good time to catch her and her secretary, like a conspirator, must have told him without informing her. Between one and two she invariably was in her office, working, reading, doing something. She was surprised to see him, had been startled by the knock on her door. She did not usually have visitors at lunchtime. Since Kristyna had disappeared it was almost as though the staff had ceased to trust each other and these
days they rarely shared their lunch break, perhaps respecting each other’s need to be alone.

She had an idea the detective had picked up on both the surprise and the apprehension in her face as well as, maybe, an ounce or two of resentment when she opened the door. ‘Can I come in?’ he asked, his hand still poised in knocking position.

‘Sure.’

He entered cautiously, peering around him. ‘It’s a while since I was here,’ he said finally.

She knew exactly what he meant
.

His eyes flickered passed her, around the walls. She knew he was looking, as she had done, for blood stains, for some residual sign. He had, after all, been the Senior Investigating Officer for Heidi’s murder.

With an effort he switched crimes.

‘We’ve got some news,’ he said cautiously, ‘from the forensic lab.’

She lifted her head.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘not really. Nothing is all right.’ And somehow this encompassed everything, from Heidi to Kristyna, from ill-fated Gulio to malevolent Barclay and everything else between, connected or unconnected. ‘One of my patients has committed suicide.’

‘You’ve just got to mean Mrs Abiloney.’

She nodded.

‘Well – excuse me for stating the obvious,’ he said, ‘but she was a copper’s nightmare. You were never going to be able to stop her topping herself ultimately. It wasn’t exactly the first attempt, was it? One of these times she was going to manage it. No doctor in the world was going to keep her alive for ever. Not even you.’ Said with a grin. ‘She had a
death wish, Claire.’

‘We never thought so,’ Claire said stiffly.

‘And I thought
you
were the psychiatrist,’ the detective said, laughing. ‘I thought the new thinking was that there is no such thing as these “cries for help”. I thought they were all serious attempts to die.’

She dipped her head. He was right. It
was
the current thinking. But she simply didn’t agree with it. She thought the other way round, that the deaths were more often attempts gone wrong. But that didn’t stop her being impressed that this “copper” was up-to-date with contemporary and fashionable medical thinking.

He put a friendly arm on her shoulder. ‘You can’t blame yourself for everything that goes wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s like my job. The bottom line is your clients are nuts, ours are criminals. We do our best to keep law and order, you to keep some semblance of mental health. The lines where we cross are the most difficult. There are limitations but we all do our best. That’s it, Doctor.’

She managed a smile. ‘So what did you come about?’

‘The coat,’ he said.

She had a hundred thousand questions to ask about the coat and he seemed to sense it
.

‘First things first,’ he said. ‘We’ve confirmed it was Kristyna Gale’s coat. We found some hairs on it which have been positively identified as hers. She’d used a quite distinctive mix of hair dyes,’ he added with a mischievous smile that crinkled his eyes.

‘We know that they got into your car with a key. It isn’t difficult. A twelve-year-old with the right intentions would have managed it.’

‘But it wasn’t a twelve-year-old, was it?’ she said wearily.

Frank shook his head. ‘No.’

The unspoken words were the most fearsome. It was Kristyna’s killer
.

‘Did you find anything else?’

‘Plenty. Probably too much to go into now but there were rain spots on it which implies she’d walked at least some part of the way in the rain the night she was abducted.’

‘And?’

That was when the detective’s face changed. It became graver, older, sadder. She thought it must mirror her own face when she had to break bad news.

Sometimes we can only despair at the human race
.

Claire gripped the sides of her chair as though she was on a terrifying death-defying fairground ride, the anticipation making her queasy.

‘I’m afraid we did,’ he admitted. ‘There was some
blood-staining
.’

She let out a little gasp of air. ‘How extensive?’

‘Quite a bit on the collar,’ he said. ‘A lot.’

Throat cut
?

‘What does the pathologist say?’

Detective Inspector Paul Frank looked haggard. ‘I don’t have to point out that this is not to be in the public domain,’ he said, his voice hoarse with anguish.

‘How much blood?’ she asked again. ‘Does it mean she’s dead?’

‘Hard to say.’ He counter-attacked. ‘You’re a doctor. You know you can lose a great deal of blood without necessarily dying.’

She waited.

‘This is only an opinion,’ he said wearily. ‘The pathologist thought the amount of blood and the distribution indicated she –’ His eyes were almost hooded.
He didn’t want
 
to say it
. He cleared his throat noisily, wiped the skin underneath his eyes. ‘He thought that it was compatible with a major wound, something like having her ears cut off.’

‘While she was still alive?’

The room receded and swam back into focus. Frank was nodding
.

That was when the room span. She just made it to the sink to vomit up her lunch while the Detective Inspector stood by, helplessly watching.

She emptied her entire stomach contents before she stopped retching, made a futile attempt to clean the sink out. Frank was quiet, not embarrassed, watching her without emotion. It must have drained from him when he had learned the facts from the pathologist.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I have this tendency to …’ She didn’t really need to elaborate.

And now Barclay’s opportunity for confidentiality had passed.

She had to tell him.

Without speaking she fumbled beneath the desk for her handbag, took her keys from it and opened the filing cabinet, found the letter ‘B’ and removed Barclay’s folder. She opened it to the right place and turned it round so the policeman could read the relevant paragraph. Then she sat back opposite.

He took a minute or two to read through, re-read then looked across at her.

‘You were the senior investigating officer for Heidi Faro’s death,’ Claire said. ‘Are you still sure you got the right guy?’

His face was set, old-stone. ‘If I hadn’t been sure, Doctor, I wouldn’t have brought the case to court.’ The
suspicion of a smile softened his face. ‘I do have my morals, you know. Jerome Barclay wasn’t even in the picture.’

‘And now?’

His eyes dropped to the file again. It was an answer.

‘All I want is for you to contemplate,’ she urged. ‘If there is any doubt. Just look again at them all, Cynthia Barclay’s death and Heidi’s murder, in the new light. Then consider the fact that not only is Kristyna dead but she almost certainly suffered terribly before she died. Please. Just consider the entire scenario as a whole with Greatbach as your background.’