The Listeners

by Anthony J. Quinn

So that was two alibis he had sorted, thought Herron. She asked, ‘Are you worried about anything happening to you or your colleagues?’

  ‘I’m not especially worried.’ As he spoke, his detached expression grew alert and attentive. Was it a look of fear she saw there? ‘In my profession, one learns to get by with a certain amount of worry,’ he added with a frown.

  ‘What if you were to find Chisholm waiting outside your home this evening? Would you be worried then?’

  ‘Chisholm? No, of course not.’ The frown on his face relaxed. If it was fear that he showed, then it had diminished with the mention of Chisholm’s name.

  She changed her line of inquiry. ‘Tell me what you know about Inspector Monteath. McCrea and one of the female patients mentioned him to me. They both thought I should know him.’

  Barker flinched slightly. ‘I can’t say. Professional code of confidentiality.’

  ‘This is a murder investigation, as I keep reminding you. Your professional commitment to secrets no longer stands.’

  He hesitated and spoke slowly. ‘All I can say is that he’s another one of those stories that keeps circulating on Ward G. His name crops up in nearly all the patients’ fantasies and delusions at some point.’

  Another recurring motif, thought Herron. How many more lay hidden in the minds of the patients? She was becoming convinced that their confessions were full of messages, signals and warnings, and that plans for the murder of Pochard had been in place for some time.

  ‘But if two people see the same hallucination,’ she said, ‘then it’s no longer an hallucination. It must be linked to reality in some way.’

  ‘In the case of Monteath, each of the patients see a different detective. None of their descriptions ever matched. Which proves he is a figment of their individual imaginations.’

  ‘But one that was passed between the patients. A group hallucination. How do you explain that?’

  Barker gave a tiny shrug. ‘A psychiatric ward is a fragile environment. Once one patient in the group deteriorates, then disorder spreads.’

  ‘How did the story about Monteath start in the first place?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘A detective’s curiosity, that’s all.’

  ‘The patients began mentioning him about nine years ago. At the time, we believed he was some sort of archetypal figure. His expressions and the things he said seemed to come straight out of detective films.’

  ‘Could it be that he’s some sort of imaginary confidant?’

  ‘We explored that idea in therapy. But it kept leading to dead ends. Monteath seemed to represent a negative force, an obstacle.’

  ‘What does this imaginary detective do or say? In their imaginations.’

  ‘He makes a few promises in exchange for information. He tells them that he will talk to the powers in charge, and get them to grant favours. Sometimes he warns them not to speak to anyone else, that the staff at Deepwell are their enemies.’

  She nodded and wondered if there were any subjects of inquiry not grounded in fantasy that she could discuss with Barker. One sprang to mind, and she thought it was a good note with which to end the interview.

  ‘I have one final question to ask you,’ she said.

  Barker looked relieved and smiled.

  ‘Who do you think killed Dr Pochard?’

  His blue eyes stared at her with all the professional ice he could muster. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said slowly and firmly. ‘That’s your job, not mine.’

  After taking Chisholm’s file, Herron asked to speak to Dr Pochard’s secretary. She had important questions to ask about the murdered doctor’s diary. Barker did not object and left her alone in the reception area for a few minutes. She stared into the courtyard garden at the cowed figures of the patients walking along the paths and talking to the nurses. The view seemed so controlled and pedestrian; it was as though every word and step taken had already been mapped out during therapy.

  Pochard’s secretary was a woman called Martha Brooke. She was middle-aged and slightly flustered. Herron could sense her discomfort immediately.

  ‘I was her secretary for the last five years,’ she explained. ‘I also helped her with her private practice and her correspondence with academics and universities.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  She was silent for several moments and then she said, ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She never revealed anything about her private life to me. I was her secretary, not her confidante.’

  ‘But you must have learned something about her. Please, I need to know whatever you can remember.’

  However, she refused to give Herron any more information. The detective pondered her reticence and her growing discomfort.

  ‘What about her final appointment last Friday? She was due a visit from one of her patients at eight p.m.’

  The secretary seemed to hold her breath. ‘A patient?’

  ‘Dr Pochard marked the slot with an “S”. Whoever it was, she saw them at the same time every week, and the sessions always lasted an hour. She wrote some brief notes about how the meetings went, but nothing to identify the patient.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Why would I ask you if it wasn’t true?’

  ‘Yes, why would you? But Dr Pochard never saw patients after six p.m. She was very firm about that. Even during emergencies. Whoever she saw that evening it was definitely not a patient.’

  ‘Then who was it?’

  ‘As I said, I didn’t know that much about her personal life.’

  Didn’t know or didn’t want to talk about what she knew, thought Herron. ‘Tell me about what you do know,’ she asked.

  The secretary pointed to a large photograph hanging on the wall behind them. ‘Try asking them,’ she said. ‘They were the ones closest to her.’

  Herron stared up at the photograph. A group of professional- looking men and women standing next to a lake with firmly focused eyes and smiles that looked as though they were boring into the skull of the photographer. The secretary pointed out Dr Pochard with her red hair, and Dr Barker. She also pointed out Dr Sinden and Professor Eric Reichmann, with whom Dr Pochard was meant to go on a walking holiday. However, the rest were strangers to her.

  ‘That photograph will tell you more than anyone else can in this hospital,’ said the secretary. ‘Everything you need to know about Dr Pochard is in that group of people.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’re the Scottish Holistic Foundation of Psychotherapists. Some of them are staff here at Deepwell. But none of them ever talk about the foundation or its members. It’s against their code of conduct. Dr Pochard’s entire life was based upon the foundation and its theories on psychotherapy.’

  The sense of uneasiness Herron felt about Deepwell returned. She stared down the corridor at the doctors and nurses marching briskly, arms swinging, energised by the intensity of their visions, their belief in psychotherapy and in the institution of Deepwell itself, a hospital that was beginning to resemble a stage set, a structure of dubious lights and shadows.

  Herron rose and told Brooke that was all for now, but that she would be in touch again.

  ‘Who do you think did it?’ asked the secretary with sombre eyes.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Herron, ‘but I’m convinced the answer lies on Ward G.’

  She took a final look at the patients in the courtyard. I am hunting a murderer through the disturbed minds of these men, she thought.

  *

  Driving back from Deepwell Hospital, Carla spotted David walking along the main street of Peebles pushing a double buggy. His face was flushed from the fever and he was wearing that downturned expression that usually made him appear so aggrieved, but for some reason the look, which would normally have irritated her, made her feel more sympathetic towards him. She waved at him, but he did not see her.

  He looked so outlandish, so far out of bo
unds from the man she had fallen in love with, the kind, amusing and impeccably dressed boyfriend, the dedicated teacher who wanted to have a family, whose main desire now seemed to be to get through the day with a minimum of tantrums and fuss. He was so far beyond what she knew of him that she felt invisible.

  Several shopping bags were dangling precariously from the handles as he attempted to steer the loaded buggy over the uneven pavement. Ben looked to have succumbed to the bug, and Alice, clearly unwell too, was throwing a tantrum. Herron cringed at the sight of their child’s tear-stained face, her runny nose and her disordered hair. At that moment, one of the bags slipped from the handle and spilled its contents across the pavement. A pair of wine bottles rolled into the gutter, along with some apples and several tins of tomatoes. Her stomach contracted.

  As the car slowed, David stopped the buggy, but still did not look across at her. He had not noticed her concerned face in the driving seat. Instead, he stood amid the spilled groceries and wailing children, and raised his face to the sky, his arms outstretched, the drizzle wetting his cheeks and forehead. His shoulders trembled as if he were about to roar with the ferocity of a wild animal trapped in suffocating domesticity, but his mouth remained clamped shut, his eyes closed, and his brow rigid and furrowed more deeply than she had ever seen before. She could feel the enormous pressure building inside him. Her heart leaned towards him, wishing that she could protect him from the inner torment he was parading for all of Peebles to see.

  However, the other pedestrians and motorists kept moving on, unaware of the tableau of fatherly misery unfolding at the side of the road. She drove on, and soon David and the buggy were a retreating image in her rear-view mirror. Not stopping was the best thing to do in the circumstances, she thought, and she made a vow not to mention the incident that evening. She sat stiffly at the driving wheel as she made her way back to the station.

  14

  If there was any meeting during Dr Barker’s long career at Deepwell that might be considered crucial to the survival of the institution, the one he attended that evening had to be it. Entering the room where he had assembled the members of the holistic foundation, Barker wore his sharpest professional smile, his eyes shining as though filled with a new vision for this group of psychotherapists and professionals from the wider criminology field. In reality, he was counting numbers, translating each of the figures hunched in their chairs into votes, debating who might object to his leadership bid, who might scupper the plans he had in store for the society now that Dr Llewyn had retired as leader, and Pochard, its fiercest critic, had been silenced.

  He detected at once, as he searched their serious faces for the rosy glow of endorsement, a strange out-of-kilter mood that he linked to grief and shock at Pochard’s violent death. He had thought of postponing the meeting, but too much time had passed already with the foundation effectively leaderless. Some of the younger members seemed on the verge of tears. The heaviness in their faces was profound, filling the room like a block of resistance. Rain pecked at the windows and added to the sombre atmosphere. It was time to make his stand and take firm control of the group.

  The foundation’s existence was virtually unknown to the general public, the names and careers of the people in the room appeared in no official records, and the foundation itself was only mentioned in obscure psychiatric journals and directories. It had taken his predecessor, Dr Llewyn, almost twenty years to build the core group that Barker now planned to lead. He had waited in the wings, silently suffering the elderly psychiatrist’s mistakes, watching the reputation of Deepwell slowly crumble against the increasing scepticism of the psychiatric world, its founding principles seemingly doomed. Llewyn had spent the last year looking increasingly offended at his irrelevance, a fossil cast upon a strange shore of new ideas and antipsychotic drugs, and dwindling council budgets. Nor had Llewyn managed to take adequate stock of the weaknesses within the holistic foundation, the strong emotions that lay dormant within its members, liable to grow into uncontrollable anger when ignited.

  Barker decided to treat the group like he did his patients, swiftly and decisively. He opened the meeting by warning of the great dangers that lay ahead for the foundation. He said it needed to defend itself against the barrages of criticism and hostility that were to come. For too long, the group had been sunk in a state approaching catatonia. It was time to stop their self-indulgent games and the bickering between rival camps. This evening they had to elect a leader that would forge a new future for them all.

  He felt a thin line of perspiration form on his forehead as he went in deeper with his finely honed words. Their Scottish founder had retired and one of their oldest members was dead. He didn’t want it to look as though he were trading on Pochard’s death for his own ends, but the sooner they faced up to the new realities the better. He kept speaking in his most persuasive voice, trying to shape their response to Pochard’s murder, reorganise their feelings about it, and deplete the event of its unbearable grisliness. There were balancing compensations, he told them. The group was now smaller, more intimate, and its bonds of trust could be repaired and strengthened.

  He took stock of their mood and decided that what the more emotionally wrought members needed were sharp words. He was the one to deliver them.

  ‘I don’t want you to be suspicious of each other, and I don’t want you breaking into open conflict,’ he warned them. ‘We have to set our differences aside and concentrate on the future of the foundation.’

  He gave a brief lecture on how they must return to the core teachings of psychodynamic theory. As he scanned his eyes across the twelve men and women, he felt as though he were magically in touch with the great, lost forebears of their movement: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Erich Fromm. Then the crucial stage of the meeting arrived. Before they could proceed, he had to deal with Dr Llewyn’s sealed letter, which the former director had asked him to read out before the members cast their secret votes.

  Barker almost shivered while opening it, wondering what ghostly order would come from the man who had hand-picked each one of them, transforming them through therapy and his personal supervision into devoted followers. He had been their leader and inspiration, the man who had made everyone in the group feel safe and loved – these serious men and women who were so successful in their careers but so desperately lonely in their personal lives. The man who had known every nuance and shadow of their inner worlds.

  Barker had feared that Llewyn would give the group its marching orders, or vent his feelings in a stream of bitter complaints against each one of his acolytes. However, he was surprised to see that Llewyn had pushed his egotism to one side. The letter contained a single sentence.

  I have no personal interest in whomever you elect as your new director.

  Barker felt a burst of adrenalin as he relayed the message to the group. The mood in the room changed. He thanked them for listening and asked if anyone wished to propose another candidate to contest the leadership. When no alternatives were offered, the voting slips were handed round, marked and then counted. There were several abstentions, but a majority of the members had voted for Barker.

  However, there were no congratulations forthcoming from the group.

  Laura Dunnock was the first to speak. ‘Now that you have been elected as director, will you share with us what is being covered up at Deepwell, and in particular on Ward G?’

  ‘Covered up?’ He managed a smile. ‘Why do you think anything is being covered up?’

  ‘You’ve known about these so-called patient confessions for months, but the police were only informed this week after I told Dr Llewyn about McCrea’s confession.’

  ‘Confidential matters involving patients cannot be discussed.’

  ‘We’ve shared personal secrets with each other. We all know that anything said in this room is confidential.’

  ‘Because these are matters relating to Deepwell Hospital, not the foundation.’

  ‘Before Dr Pochard was killed, sh
e sent me an email. It contains some shocking facts about Ward G and the treatment programme there.’

  Barker used his most professional mask to hide his surprise. Whatever happened, he had to go on playing the role of Llewyn’s natural successor, impervious to any criticism that might come from within the group. ‘I’m curious,’ he said. ‘Why did Dr Pochard decide to send you this email in the first place?’

  Her expression froze at the question. ‘I presume she thought I was trustworthy, and not connected to the therapies on Ward G.’

  Barker showed his dissatisfaction at her answer. ‘But why you and not anyone else in the group?’

  ‘Because I shared some concerns with her in the past.’

  ‘Were you planning to undermine the staff on Ward G?’ Barker’s tone was polite but implacable.

  ‘God no, that’s ridiculous. Jane was distraught at the idea that the foundation and Deepwell might have failed the patients.’

  ‘And she talked to you about her concerns?’

  ‘No. I tried ringing her on her phone, but she never answered. I thought I would speak to her at work, but I never got the chance.’

  Dunnock grew quiet, and Barker allowed the pause to develop. Eventually, she spoke. ‘I just want to know, are you prepared to do what it takes to act on Jane’s concerns and save the reputation of the foundation?’

  ‘I think I can safely answer yes,’ he said, smiling wryly.

  ‘What would happen if I were to show the email to the police or the press?’

  His smile turned cold and unhappy. ‘If you are determined to find out what is going on I will arrange a special meeting with you. In the meantime, I trust you will be kind enough to show me the email.’

  ‘One meeting will not be enough, but it will do for a start. As for the email, I’ll show it to you after the meeting.’

  Barker sighed. He wanted to tell the group that if anyone was going to reveal the truth about the confessions on Ward G, it was going to be him, in his own time and in his own way, when the current furore had settled down. Anger rose in his chest at the thought of Dunnock poking her nose where it did not belong. Nobody said anything for a long while. There was nothing to suggest in their faces if it was silent resistance or acceptance of his decision.