I knew why they would want to avoid an abreaction – the intense psychological response from a patient, who didn’t just go back to retrieve the memory of an event but actually ‘relived’ it on every level. The horror of experiencing a suppressed trauma all over again could delay a patient’s recovery by months, or even years.
‘But before you go dashing over there,’ Jen continued, ‘don’t forget you’ve got those revisions to do for Marissa. Don’t miss this deadline.’
Marissa was my publisher.
‘I was intending to do those first thing, before a corpse got in the way.’
The irritation in my tone surprised even me. I was strung out, tired and more than a little rattled by being so close to Callum all morning. Every nerve ending was raw and as tight as piano wire, singing at the slightest touch.
‘Well, you’ll have no distractions at the farm, so you should be able to catch up. I’ll hold the fort.’
For the thousandth time, I silently acknowledged that I was blessed to have Jen organising my life.
‘But before you get too immersed, call your mother.’ I couldn’t miss the judgemental tone in her voice as she hung up.
Jen was one of the few people who was fond of Mamma, despite knowing how difficult she could be. The eccentric Italian wife of my Irish-born father, who had died just six months before. Leaving me alone to struggle with a mother we had always tackled as a team. I made a mental note to call Mamma later – I didn’t have the energy or the headspace for her yet.
3 August
9am
I waited as traffic lights held me at red. The rain was easing off and through the drizzle I looked around at people in cars waiting to start their day. They probably thought I was just the same. Worrying about sales targets or reports for the boss. But my working days had always been filled with damaged minds and horrific crimes.
He’s out there somewhere, I thought. A man who showered, ate breakfast and slept somewhere every night. Probably younger than my forty-six years, probably unmarried and probably white, or so the statistics would suggest. After that he could be anybody. You could pass him in the street, sit opposite him on the train or at the next table in a restaurant, and never guess that his hobby was killing and mutilating young girls.
Callum had always been driven, but he seemed to be pushing himself and the team even harder than usual on this one, partly because Hoyle had told him he might be replaced as the senior investigating officer, as he had only picked the case up in the first place because he had been on call.
Inevitably, when I thought about Callum, images of last Christmas ran involuntarily through my head.
Yuletide nostalgia and too much champagne and my defences had evaporated as I gave in to what I’d secretly wanted since the day we’d met. I woke up beside him the next morning with a dry mouth, a bad hangover and a headful of regrets.
Since then, the illusion that I could lead a solitary life had been challenged by DCI Ferguson on a regular basis. I had made huge efforts to hold him at arm’s length, emotionally and literally ever since, and I knew it hurt him. He thought he’d done something wrong, but didn’t know what.
He’d actually done everything right. That’s what made this all so difficult. And now he was coming over with a takeaway and wine… tonight. I groaned audibly as I thought of the complications I was creating for myself.
Did I want it or not? Damned if I knew.
The weather was relentless as I drove to my farmhouse, located outside the village of Kingsberry. The countryside here was little changed since the Domesday Book. Wild and magnificent. In turn, beautiful and desolate, depending on the weather.
I’d come here when I became Head of Forensic Psychology at Westwood Park. It was close enough for the forty-minute commute and far enough away to be a tranquil refuge when I got back from the horrors that filled my working day.
I swung around the gravel turning circle in front of the house. As I opened the porch door, five stone of bounding Boxer dog catapulted past me, before he skidded to a halt then trotted back.
‘Hello, Harvey.’
I rubbed his velvety ears as he pressed his wet nose against mine in a nuzzling kiss. Then he was off, crashing through the hedge into our meadow.
My friend, George Theakston, owned the farm a mile down the lane. After that there was no one between us and Kingsberry village, which was four miles away.
My mother worried it was too secluded. I loved it for the very same reason.
Harvey galloped back to the house, wet and dripping. He stood on the tiled floor of the porch and shook himself, looking pleased with the mess as I rubbed him down with an old towel.
The kitchen was one of my favourite places. Constantly warm from the Aga, it felt as though the house was giving me a welcoming hug as I came through the door. I dropped my briefcase onto the farmhouse table and lifted the lid on the Aga, putting a heavy-bottomed kettle onto the hotplate. By the time Harvey settled down, there was a large teapot freshly brewing on the counter.
I kicked a ball for Harvey down the glass corridor that connected the main house to a barn conversion that was now my office – after the kitchen, probably the place I spent most time.
Harvey settled himself on the Chinese rug in front of the desk. As he snored contentedly, I spent the next hour writing up my profile for Callum and then turned to Marissa’s edits.
My eyes were gritty, reminding me of my early morning start.
I stared at the screen but wasn’t seeing what was there. I was thinking about Callum – debating whether to chicken out and cancel our cosy evening in.
I jumped when the phone rang.
‘Is that Doctor McCready?’
‘Yes,’ I answered automatically. ‘Who’s this?’
‘John,’ came the blunt reply. ‘I’m sorry to call, but I’m desperate…’
I felt a twist of discomfort at the implications of a stranger having my private number.
‘How did you get this number?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the non-visual signals I was getting down the phone. For some reason, this call was trouble. I could feel it.
‘Listen to me!’ His tone was aggressive. ‘I need you to see Matty. She’s in Westwood Park. I can’t do any more for her. I had to leave her.’
‘Matty?’
‘Well, Martha. My girlfriend. Her doctor admitted her. He thinks she’ll top herself…’
His words tumbled out, disjointed and fragmented like a person on the edge of panic. But the verbal cues I was getting told me that John was a man who rarely panicked – someone who was used to being very much in control.
‘Did my secretary give you this number?’
‘Yes.’ He was lying. There was no way Jen would ever give out my private number.
‘You shouldn’t have called here…’
‘For God’s sake!’ He shouted. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you see her!’
‘Calm down, John.’ It wasn’t worth pushing the point. I automatically reached for a pen. ‘What’s the problem? What does her GP say?’
His breath exploded down the phone. ‘He’s useless! She’s been seeing him for months. In the end, he knew she was psycho…’ There was a pause as he gathered himself. ‘It’s the nightmares. They scare me to death. She turns into another person.’ The last word was quiet, almost breathed rather than spoken. ‘Just like, you know… possessed. You’ve got to see her. The Devil lives inside her, I swear to God. Sometimes I can see him, looking at me through her eyes, and her voice changes.’
I felt irritation turning to anger. ‘I need to know why you think I should deal with this?’
‘One night I woke up and she was looking down at me, but it wasn’t her – it was him. I could see him in her eyes. Murderous eyes. I didn’t sleep for two nights. Daren’t sleep in case she killed me, stabbed me – like the others.’
‘Which others?’ The hair along my arms
was standing on end as I scribbled his words onto my pad.
I stared at the phone as the line went dead and ‘John’ left my life as explosively as he had entered it.
3 August
2pm
I drove through the imposing stone gateway of Westwood Park Psychiatric Hospital. The sprawling collection of Edwardian buildings had been a dominating feature of the landscape ever since it was built at the beginning of the twentieth century. In those days it was called Fordley Lunatic Asylum – a name that conjured up terrifying images of bedlam and cruelty.
By the Second World War, the name had been changed. But for locals, it was still a place of myth and misunderstanding. Contrary to popular belief, the criminally insane were not housed here. There was a secure unit for those deemed a danger to themselves or others, and there were patients who would probably never be released into the community. They needed medical treatment not prison, but it was a fine distinction that many in the local community struggled with.
I passed the gatehouse, which no longer had a gatekeeper or a security barrier – both reassuring features in my time. The light was taking on the dim glow of a dull day as I drove past the cricket pitch and swung into the visitor’s car park.
I walked into the building – up the steps and into reception as the receptionist slid back the glass partition and smiled helpfully.
‘I’m here to see Doctor Lister.’
‘Have you an appointment?’
‘Not exactly. He called my office and requested my help. There wasn’t time to phone ahead,’ I lied. ‘Thought I’d call in passing.’
I didn’t explain that ‘John’ had seriously pissed me off and I wasn’t about to waste time dealing with the endless bureaucracy involved in getting to see his girlfriend. I’d help Lister with his patient request and then use that as leverage to bypass the formalities to get to see Martha.
I hadn’t called as I risked being told ‘No’. A word I’d never been fond of. Better to proceed until apprehended.
The receptionist’s helpful smile melted like snow under a heat lamp.
‘Well, I’m not sure he’ll see you,’ she said with the tone of someone used to saying ‘No’ and being unpopular for it.
‘Could you call him and ask?’ I said, trying to hide my irritation. ‘Tell him it’s Doctor McCready. I’m sure he’ll see me.’
The glass partition slid shut – her way of dismissing me into the waiting room while she made the call. Resisting the temptation to glare at her through the glass, I turned and rested my back against the counter.
The waiting room was like the million others I’d spent half my professional life in. Painted institutional magnolia, with rows of uncomfortable blue upholstered chairs, rigidly fixed together and bolted to the floor to prevent patients or visitors hurling them as weapons.
I turned as the partition opened behind me. Her smile had vanished permanently. Replaced by the look of a woman sucking a lemon.
‘Doctor Lister will see you. Go to the end of the corridor and up the stairs. His office is third on the left.’
‘Thank you.’
I walked through familiar corridors and reflected on the way things had changed since my day. I would never have allowed the public to walk through the building alone. Staff being attacked and even killed on hospital premises had increased and if anything, precautions should have been tighter, not slacker. I could feel my opinion of Doctor Lister’s administration slipping already.
At the top of the stairs the vinyl flooring gave way to carpet, announcing to the senses that this was the territory of the administrators and not the patients. The clacking of my heels was muted by the soft beige carpet and as I approached the third door on the left, a tall thin man emerged and turned to greet me.
‘Doctor Lister?’
His smile was tired as he shook my hand with a weak grip and then dropped his arm as though the effort were too much for him. The white lab coat hung from him as though he had either borrowed it from a bigger person or lost a lot of weight. The whole image made him look ten years older than he probably was.
‘Sorry you had to wait,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting you.’
It was obvious he couldn’t remember whether I’d returned his call and he had forgotten our appointment. I decided to be generous.
‘I should have called ahead, but it was a spur of the moment decision,’ I lied, feeling far too animated against this backdrop of depleted energy.
He hesitated in the doorway and then stepped aside, gesturing for me to go into what had once been my office.
The dark-wood coffee table and matching desk hadn’t changed. The leather chair that I had bought out of my meagre office budget was still there, though more scuffed than when I’d last seen it. The beige walls were lined with bookcases full of medical journals that spilled at crazy angles and ended in untidy piles on the floor. I tried not to stare in case the disgust showed in my eyes. I wasn’t the tidiest person in the world, but there were limits.
As I took a seat opposite him, the atmosphere settled around me like a damp blanket. It was a room suffering from neglect. A dumping ground for journals and papers and the surrogate office of many people, not the loved and protected space of a single individual. It made me feel depressed all of a sudden.
He slumped in his chair, distractedly patting his pockets as he spoke.
‘I’ve read your books,’ he said, as he fished a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his lab coat pocket and held it out to me. I shook my head. Smoking was one vice I had managed to avoid. Oblivious to the ‘No smoking’ sign, he lit the cigarette with brown-stained fingers and took a long drag, considerate enough to blow the smoke away from me.
‘I saw you at a conference last year, speaking on current life regression. So obviously I thought of you when we had problems with Martha. I understand you used to work here?’
I was still stuck on the punchline. Martha!
‘Yes, years ago. That’s the patient with the severe abreaction – Martha?’
He nodded, pulling a file from a lopsided stack on an overcrowded in tray.
‘Martha Scott…’
Aggressive John’s girlfriend and the severe abreaction were one and the same.
He scanned the page as he spoke, not lifting his eyes to me. ‘Originally attended as a day patient. Twenty-two, although she has a mental age of a ten-year-old. During treatment, it became clear she had suicidal thoughts, but her boyfriend seemed to be a stabilising influence. As she lived with him, we felt there was no need to admit her.’
I began making notes. ‘Did the boyfriend attend any appointments?’
‘No. He spoke to the doctors on the telephone and took an active interest in her care.’ He frowned through the cigarette smoke. ‘I always felt it was strange.’
‘What was?’
‘That they were a couple. I mean she was probably pretty before her illness, but her mental age was not at all congruent with his. I couldn’t imagine he could hold a conversation with her or have much social interaction. They’d almost be like parent and child.’
‘Do you have his name?’
I could feel the anticipation as I waited for his answer. He flicked back to the original green admission form.
‘John Smith.’
John Smith! It was so clichéd it was almost funny. I looked at him, waiting for some reaction. Nothing.
Stubbing out his cigarette with one hand, he passed the file to me with the other.
‘Then a couple of days ago, she turned up here. She was distraught. Said the boyfriend had left her because he couldn’t cope. Her violent episodes were beginning to frighten him and he had to take more and more time off work to make sure she didn’t attempt suicide. He brought her here and just left. Didn’t even come in with her.’
‘What can you tell me about this abreaction?’
He sighed, running fingers through his thinning hair. ‘She attended some sessions to learn relaxation techniques. She s
aid her boyfriend had learned the techniques from her so he could support her at home. Light stages of self-induced hypnosis to help her relax at night, or when she felt panicky. She was a very good hypnotic subject and went under very easily, especially if it was facilitated by the boyfriend.’
I was reassessing my opinion of the ‘aggressive’ John. He obviously cared, but her condition had become too much for him. Not uncommon when loved ones became carers.
His smile was apologetic. ‘I’m sure you’re aware, hypnosis is not something we use a lot. But it was something Martha felt comfortable with. She requested it, to try to recover a memory from her past.’ He referred back to the notes. ‘Abused by her father from the age of seven until she left home at fifteen. She went to Manchester, earning her living as a prostitute. The man she rented a bedsit from became her pimp, raping and beating her regularly. Introducing her to heroin.’
He recited the horrific litany of abuse and life on the streets, with the jaded tone of someone who heard such stories regularly. As someone who heard the unbearable on a daily basis, it occurred to me that I was probably guilty of the same emotional detachment in case reviews.
‘She was tormented by memories of a period when she believed she’d committed serious crimes. She was having nightmares and believed they were flashbacks to real events.’
‘What kind of nightmares?’
‘She thought she had committed murder… more than once.’
I raised my eyes to look at him, my pen poised in mid-air.
‘How?’ I dreaded the answer, though I knew what it was going to be.
‘She thought she had stabbed other prostitutes.’
‘Any evidence she might have?’
He looked at me steadily.
‘As you know, Doctor McCready, claims like this are made on a daily basis here. We have people confessing to every crime imaginable and some not yet dreamed up. If it’s to be believed, we have a cast of characters here from Lord Lucan to Count Dracula. I even have a patient in the secure unit who assures me that at the next full moon, he’ll turn into a werewolf before my very eyes. He refuses to eat anything but raw meat and laps water from a bowl. Until we can establish a little more, I’m hardly going to alert the police to the possibility of multiple murders, area unknown, victims unknown and time period unspecific. If and when we can fill any of those gaps, then of course I will refer it on to the relevant authorities.’
The Murder Mile Page 3
