Isolation - a heart-stopping thriller, Shutter Island meets Memento

by Neil Randall

  “But – But what I have done bar sorting through the Monday morning post?”

  “Just letting you know, don’t shoot the messenger. Only I got the distinct impression that the police are clasping at straws.”

  This troubled me so much, I don’t think I even acknowledged Michael when he made his usual excuse to leave off early. I don’t think I even noticed him walking out of the door. Only when the phone started to ring did I shake myself from this deep, involving mental fugue.

  “Risk and Assessment, how can I help?”

  There was a relatively long pause before a well-spoken, almost theatrical-sounding old woman blurted out:

  “It’s happened again.”

  “I’m sorry. What’s happened again?”

  “Those awful street dogs have fouled the pavement outside my property. For the umpteenth time I’ve had the misfortune of walking their heinous-smelling excrement into my house, ruining my lovely carpets.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, madam, really I am. But I’m afraid you’ve been put through to the Risk and Assessment section in error, not Environmental Health. I deal with potential liability claims against the Local Authority, not with dogs fouling the pavements.”

  “There’s been no mistake, young man – no mistake at all. I specifically requested your department because I would like to make a claim for damages.”

  “I see. Well, if that’s the case you’ll still have to contact the Environmental Health section. From this office, we only deal with claims regarding the actual fabric of the road – potholes, uneven pavements, subsidence, drainage issues.”

  She didn’t respond right away, all I could hear were her deep, wheezing breaths, before she hissed:

  “You really are a horrible little man, aren’t you?”

  “I – I beg your pardon.”

  “Sitting in your ivory tower, hiding away from the real world. I’ve dealt with your kind before…” as she launched into the usual kind of rant, I moved the receiver away from my ear, hoping she’d soon run out of steam, so I could apologise for the inconvenience, and give her the contact details of the relevant department.

  Only she didn’t stop.

  Her words became angrier, far more abusive, until the entire tone of her voice had changed, until it sounded as if I was listening to a completely different person, of a different sex, with a snarling, rasping voice, until he was calling me out direct, threatening me:

  “Time’s up, Barrowman. Now you’re going to pay for all the horrible things that you’ve done.”

  I slammed the phone down.

  “Mr Barrowman.”

  I turned to see Kendrick walking up the corridor.

  “About to leave off?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Very conscientious, aren’t you? First in, last to leave. You’re a boss’ dream.”

  Almost involuntarily, I gave a slight, self-deprecatory shrug.

  “I’m glad I caught you, though,” he said, loosening his tie. “Today’s been an interesting, if not wholly productive exercise.”

  “How’d you mean?”

  “Well, no one came forward and admitted to photo-shopping a picture and sending it to you as a prank, nor, unsurprisingly, to breaking into your desk and removing it from the drawer. Over the next few days, we’re going to run checks on all the computers in the building. See if anyone has left any cyber traces as it were. But we’re not holding out much hope.”

  “So you don’t think anyone who works here is responsible, then?”

  “I didn’t say that, Mr Barrowman. We’ll just have to see how things pan out.” He half smiled and stared at me for a moment or two longer than was really necessary – no matter what the circumstances. “If anything else unusual happens, make sure you contact us straight away. Okay?” Again he held my stare, as if he knew that unusual things had been happening ever since I received that photograph. “Enjoy the rest of your evening. We’ll no doubt be in touch soon.”

  As I rummaged around my pockets for the front door keys, someone shouted what sounded like my name. I turned to see who it was, only to be hit straight in the face, with what I have no idea – it could easily have been a fist, a shovel, an iron bar or a baseball bat. Dazed, I collapsed to the pavement, just as a well-directed kick thudded into my ribs. After that, everything was such a blur – the blows, the panting breath – I had no idea who attacked me or how many of them there were. The only thing I retain with any clarity was the veiled Asian woman who rushed past with a young child, the way she turned and stared at me writhing around on the floor, the way her eyes contained not a trace of compassion or concern, just mild curiosity, and how she went on her way without coming to my aid, without so much as a word in my attacker or attackers’ direction.

  Chapter Nine

  The radio alarm woke me up, an Oasis song, all pounding drums, thumping guitars and soaring vocals. Hauling my sore, aching, still fully clothed self up off the bed, I stumbled through to the bathroom, pulled the light cord, and looked at myself in the mirror. Amazingly, considering the weight of the first blow to the face, there was relatively little bruising, little visible traces of the attack, bar a rivulet of dried blood encrusted to my top lip. Most of the damage, the reason I was in such intense discomfort, must’ve been done internally. Rolling up my jumper, I fingered my bruised ribs, grimaced, had to reach for the sink for support, such was the brutal intensity of the shooting pains.

  “Scott Richmond,” I looked up and said to my bleary-eyed reflection.

  After a very brief, very uncomfortable shower, I towelled myself down as carefully as possible, went back through to the bedroom and put on some clean clothes. As I struggled with socks and pants, trousers and shirt, I didn’t know what to do for the best. If I had been attacked by a jealous ex-boyfriend then I didn’t really want to go to the police, certainly not without speaking to Liz first, because I had no idea what the ramifications would be, and didn’t want to cause her any unnecessary aggravation.

  At work, I began sorting through the morning mail, every now and then shifting in my chair, right then left, stretching, rolling my neck, searching for the most comfortable angle, testing out my pain threshold. Towards the bottom of the pile of correspondence, I found another envelope marked for my attention, a regulation brown envelope with a neat label printed in the same elegant font as before: Cambria. Shocked as I was curious, I peeled the sticky adhesive flap open and slipped out the contents, a newspaper clipping of some kind. Obituary. Doctor Lawrence “Ray” Rabie. My Doctor Rabie, from the counselling sessions all those years ago. Still, it took a while for me to reconcile this with the black and white photograph accompanying the article – he looked so much older, was almost bald, clean-shaven, and dressed in a sober suit and tie.

  I then began to read in earnest:

  Obituary

  In the early hours of the morning, renowned psychotherapist, Doctor Lawrence Rabie, died at his home at the age of forty-nine. Educated at Oxbridge, Rabie was considered one of the finest specialists in his field, championing new and innovative techniques in dealing with mental illness in young people. Like many physicians of his generation, Rabie was a devotee of Freud and Jung, of delving deep into the unconscious mind to unlock the key to the development of mental illnesses in patients. In both the academic and practical fields, Rabie rigorously studied the impact of socialisation and environment on the adolescent mind, in confronting problems direct, removing the mental tumour as he wrote in his one and only full-length treatise, the best-selling Is There Any Such Thing As a Feeling? Here Rabie’s treatment differed from his peers, for he felt that only by empathetic transference, by sharing their problems, their secret insecurities and worst fears within a tight-knit group environment, would patients be able to overcome their mental health problems. In a 1987 interview with New Therapies Magazine, Rabie explained his theory: ‘Over many years of practical research, I’ve found that young pubescent and post-pubescent people, the thirteen to twenty-o
ne age group, say, need to connect with others with similar problems, just so they don’t feel isolated, as if they are suffering alone, as if they are the only ones to ever feel the way they are at that moment feeling. It really is as simple as a problem shared, a problem halved. Although, like all simple things in life, implementation can often prove incredibly difficult’. After many successes in the field, and the publication of the above mentioned book, Rabie’s professional stock couldn’t have been higher. In the late 1980s he was very active on the lecture circuit, a hugely in-demand (and hugely well remunerated) public speaker, especially in North America and Canada. That’s not to say his career was without its problems. One of the first therapists to champion anti-psychotic medication for adolescent patients, Rabie’s later techniques, which relied heavily on the administration of these powerful mood-stabilising drugs, garnered considerable controversy. Hardly surprising when one considers a spate of medication–related suicides in the mid- to late eighties, and the removal of many of the drugs Rabie recommended from the market. He is, and will remain, therefore, a figure that divides public opinion. A scientist possessed of a brilliant mind, no doubt, but someone who will always be associated with perhaps treating his patients as laboratory test subjects rather than vulnerable human beings.

  He is survived by his wife, Jorell, and their two grown-up children, Winston and Pippa.

  Doctor Lawrence Rabie, clueless, bungling, incompetent headshrinker responsible for damaging many a perfectly sane youngster, born 26th April 1939; died 10th November 1995.

  The door swung open.

  “Bloody hell!” said Michael. “You heard the news yet, Nige?”

  “News? What news?”

  “The police have just released the names of those two young women, the ones who were murdered in that hotel room.”

  “Really? Who were they?”

  Michael couldn’t remember – he’d only just heard the news on the radio on his way in.

  Desperate to find out, I accessed the internet and typed in the BBC webpage address. The main headline was:

  HOTEL MURDER VICTIMS NAMED

  Below it:

  This morning, police have identified the two young women killed last weekend in a central London hotel. Helen King and Riordan Leach…

  I gasped, stopped reading, and glanced at the two passport-like photographs of the victims – it was like staring at one of the pictures from my photograph album at home.

  In the disorientating moments that followed, I must’ve had some kind of panic attack, for Michael rushed around his desk and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Nige! Are you all right?”

  I’m not really sure what happened next: a glass of water, a few work colleagues looking on concernedly, a phone call to the police, Kendrick leading me out of the main building, telling me to calm down, that it was essential that I told him everything I knew.

  “Okay, Mr Barrowman,” said Watson. “Don’t worry if there are certain things you didn’t tell us before. We understand completely. Events have moved at such a hectic and inexplicable pace. But, to try and piece the jigsaw together, we need you to fill in all the gaps. Start with the photograph again, and work your way forward, day by day, step by step.”

  We were sitting in the same interview room as before. Far more in control of my mind now, I told them absolutely everything, no matter how far-fetched, tenuous or ridiculous it sounded: the horned owl symbol, the mysterious phone call regarding the whereabouts of Jeffrey Fuller, last night’s attack outside my flat (and whether it was related to Liz or not) culminating with the obituary; the clipping and envelope of which were now in their possession.

  “Right, thank you, Mr Barrowman. We’d like you tell us a little bit more about the group therapy sessions now. We’ve got the names of all your fellow patients, the therapist who oversaw the treatment, but could you explain what you actually did, the content and nature of your discussions?”

  “I’ll try.” I rubbed a forefinger over lips dry and flaky from talking so much. “At first, it was all a bit awkward, contrived, uncomfortable – this incredibly enthusiastic, earnest, trendy young therapist asking us to do all these cringe worthy exercises.”

  “Cringe worthy?” said Kendrick. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, it was very New Age, hippyish, I suppose you’d say. Often we’d be instructed to pair off, sit cross-legged, facing each other, and talk about our lives, our conditions, to explain why we harmed ourselves or refused to eat, became violent and unreasonable, got drunk and took drugs. If our conversations reached an impasse, Rabie would come over and encourage us to shout and scream, to beat our chests if need be, to try and ease the psychic blockage, so he said. All of which, as you can no doubt imagine, made us – twelve strangers, young people not best-equipped to deal with any kind of social situation – feel incredibly stupid. But, after time, it did have some effect; we did feel much more at ease with each other. And after a few weeks, we were really opening up, talking about our problems. Only…”

  “Only what?”

  “Only the whole thing became too insular, too intense. The only people we felt comfortable talking to were each other. At home, and I know this was the case with the others, because we often talked about it, we still had problems connecting with our parents. We still resented them, for whatever reason. Put simply: none of us took our new found confidence out into the everyday world. It was only inside the circle that we were able to function in the way Rabie hoped we would elsewhere.”

  “And was he aware of this?” asked Watson, “–the therapist, I mean.”

  “Of course. He thought it was a natural stage in our progression. And it became the main focus of our sessions. To counter ‘the wall’, as he called it, he encouraged us to paint, write stories and poems, dance, stand up in front of each other, recite, perform. It all got very, erm…I was going to say theatrical, but maybe farcical would be a better word. Because I don’t think many of us could take all that stuff seriously.”

  “And you said that Jeffrey Fuller, the subject of the unexpected phone call to your office, was a very volatile, disruptive individual.”

  “That’s right. Jeffrey was deeply troubled. As I mentioned earlier, he’d either raped, or attempted to rape his own mother. Understandably, he had a lot of issues, bottled up guilt, shame, rage, associated with this, and it often manifested itself in the group.”

  “And was he ever violent?”

  “Erm, only once…” I went on to tell them about the time Fuller, completely unprovoked, with little or no warning, attacked Michelle, dragging her to the floor, pulling her hair, pummelling her with his puny fists. It only lasted for a handful of seconds. As Fuller was not a particularly big or strong youth, both myself and Dr Rabie easily subdued him.

  “And Michelle Rouse was your girlfriend at the time?”

  “Not at the time as such,” I corrected him. “We didn’t really start going out properly until after the group sessions ended, due to funding issues. Even though we were very close, very tactile within the group – which, I should probably add, Doctor Rabie also encouraged.”

  “He encouraged you to be tactile?”

  “Yes. To hold hands, to hug each other. He felt it helped to put us at ease.”

  “And how did Rabie and Fuller interact? What kind of relationship did they have? The final lines of the mocked-up, counterfeit obituary suggest that whoever put it together harboured a lot of animosity towards the doctor.”

  I gave this some thought before answering, because, looking back, I found the dynamic between Dr Fuller and the rest of the group hard to explain. He was so full-on, so incredibly interested in everything we said or did, to an almost suffocating degree. And with regards to Fuller, he resented everyone, was so angry.

  “Well, erm…there was a little friction between them, a few heated arguments. But Fuller was like that all the time, always snapping and snarling, picking a fight, always dredging up stuff from past sessions.”

&
nbsp; “Enough to do a man serious physical harm, to bear a grudge all this time?”

  Again I hesitated, fully understanding the inference.

  “That I couldn’t say.”

  Watson took some papers out of a folder.

  “Right, Mr Barrowman, please don’t be alarmed by what we’re going to discuss next, but after talking to your colleagues yesterday, we thought it would be prudent to check your medical records.”

  “My medical records?”

  “That’s right.” He studied the top sheet in front of him. “Now, you’ve told us about your early mental health problems – the exam pressures, your eating disorder – but it also says here that over the years you were prescribed several different anti-psychotic drugs, with differing results, that you often became delusional.”

  “That’s correct.” I shifted uncomfortably. “After the counselling sessions ended, I went through a bit of strange directionless period. My parents didn’t really know what to do with me. I had long spells on the dole, where all I did was see Michelle. The original medication I was prescribed only made me feel lethargic. That’s why I requested to be taken off it. After that, I had a bit more energy, a bit more ambition, I suppose you’d say. I found employment – nothing spectacular, but jobs which made me feel a lot more confident in myself, part of society as a whole.”

  “But you did have other problems, didn’t you, Mr Barrowman?”

  Two firm knocks sounded against the door. A moment later, the handle turned and a uniformed officer poked his head into the room.

  “Sir,” he panted, clearly out of breath, “a body, a body has been found, all cut up, found when our lads called ‘round to that house in Norfolk, a body belonging to Doctor Lawrence Rabie.”