Die of Shame

by Mark Billingham

  De Silva shrugged and looked away. He took a fast slurp of coffee, as though he were sitting at some Milanese pavement café.

  Tanner put down her notebook.

  ‘What exactly is it you do, Mr De Silva? Sorry, is it mister or doctor?’

  ‘I’m not a doctor.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘Well, I can’t get specifics, in terms of what goes on in these group sessions… not yet, anyway. So, I’m just trying to get a better idea generally, that’s all.’

  ‘You want to know what a therapist does?’

  ‘What you do.’

  De Silva nodded and sat back. ‘I lead the group,’ he said. ‘It’s my job to establish an environment that’s healthy and functional. I provide a structure. Limits and goals, you know? In some ways a group’s like a laboratory, to investigate and explore interpersonal relationships.’

  ‘You make it sound scientific.’

  ‘In a lot of ways it is. I suppose I’m as much an engineer as anything.’

  ‘So what makes a good therapist?’

  ‘Someone who’s empathetic,’ De Silva said quickly. ‘That’s probably the most important thing.’ He crossed his legs, stretched his arms out, nice and comfortable. ‘It’s what makes us different from other animals, you know that? Getting a sense of what someone else is thinking or feeling. Being able to get inside a fellow human being’s head. Not that everyone can do it, not even those who literally get inside people’s heads… some of Robin Joffe’s mates at the hospital.’

  ‘But you can do it.’

  ‘I certainly do my best. Yeah… I think I’m pretty good. I listen to what’s being said and what’s not being said, and that means verbally and non-verbally. I look at the process of the group. Who chooses to sit where. Which people are sitting together and which of them sit as far apart as possible. Who’s deliberately sitting close to me and who tries their best to sit as far away as they can. I explain, I clarify, I provide emotional stimulation… but most importantly, whatever is said, whatever is confessed or revealed, I don’t judge.’

  ‘There must be some interesting things… confessed,’ Tanner said.

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘Tricky though, I would have thought… working with addicts?’

  De Silva cocked his head, gave a so-so shrug. ‘Addicts are defensive by nature,’ he said. ‘That’s the challenge.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘They deny. It’s what they do, what they’ve always done. If it’s run properly, group therapy can break through that defence system.’

  ‘You think it’s a disease?’

  De Silva looked at her.

  ‘I mean, some people might say it isn’t, because the person’s made a choice and it’s clearly something that gives them pleasure.’

  ‘Well, I’m not altogether sure how any of this is helping with your investigation, but by that definition syphilis wouldn’t be a disease either.’

  Tanner nodded. ‘I’ve heard people say it, that’s all.’

  ‘People say all sorts of rubbish.’

  ‘Some programme I saw about alcoholics.’ She picked at a spot of lint on the collar of her jacket. ‘Just wondered what you thought.’

  ‘I think we need to ask ourselves questions. Like why people recovering after operations, being pumped full of morphine for a week or whatever, which is way stronger than street heroin… don’t come out of hospital as hopeless addicts.’

  ‘Never thought about it,’ Tanner said.

  ‘Because most of the time they’re surrounded by caring staff, by friends and family who love them. It’s lack of connection, that’s the problem. That’s why people become drug addicts, alcoholics. One reason, anyway.’

  ‘That’s interesting…’

  De Silva said nothing for a while. Then he sat slowly forward. ‘Are you married, Inspector?’

  Tanner hesitated, but only for a second. ‘No.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  Tanner could feel the skin tighten around her mouth. If the therapist had asked about a girlfriend, she would have answered him honestly, but he did not. She could not help thinking that he already had the answer he was looking for.

  He looked… satisfied.

  ‘Alcoholism is a disease, pure and simple.’ De Silva spoke slowly, his voice softer suddenly, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘Once you have it, it can’t be cured, it can’t be controlled, and the only treatment is abstinence, whatever anyone says.’ He raised a finger. ‘Whatever anyone tells you.’

  Tanner was aware of the colour in her face as she gathered her handbag and stood up, and, as she thanked De Silva for his time, she turned to look out at the curtain of rain, now a little heavier.

  He told her he was happy to help.

  Walking back into the kitchen, Tanner said, ‘Oh, there’s one more thing…’

  De Silva smiled. ‘Columbo.’

  ‘Yes… it was just that you were going to talk to your wife or have a look at her diary, remember? To check if you were alone at home after the session on March the twenty-second. The night that Heather Finlay was killed.’

  De Silva’s smile evaporated. ‘Yes, I checked,’ he said. ‘My wife was out that evening.’

  ‘Do you happen to know what time she came home?’

  ‘It was very late.’

  Tanner nodded and thanked him again. She stopped at the door and mustered the considerable effort necessary to turn on some charm. ‘Last chance to let me take a quick look at those notes. I wouldn’t even need to take them away. Save me a whole lot of messing about.’

  ‘Get your court order,’ De Silva said.

  PART THREE

  PLAY THE INNOCENT

  THE VISITOR

  THE SECOND VISIT

  His visitor does not need to be shown the way a second time and sits down as if they are old friends; begins to talk about the weather, the hassle coming through prison security, the long drive up from London.

  ‘We’ve only got an hour,’ he says. ‘We can piss it away with chit-chat if you want. No skin off my nose.’

  ‘Sorry.’ The visitor takes the notebook and pen out, lays them on the table and flicks through the pages. ‘You must be counting the days now.’

  ‘Ever since I came in.’

  ‘I bet. So why didn’t you do something about it?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Making it a bit easier for the parole board.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’

  The visitor looks at him. ‘What you said last time, about not being sorry, what did you mean by that?’

  A shrug as the tobacco tin comes out. ‘That I wasn’t.’ He snaps off the lid. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you fancy telling me why?’ The wait for a response is not a long one. ‘Thought not.’

  ‘All this going to help you get a law degree then, is it?’

  ‘Hopefully.’

  ‘Funny old job, a lawyer,’ he says. ‘Defending people who you think might be guilty or else trying to put innocent people away.’

  ‘Not much doubt where you were concerned though, was there?’

  ‘Suppose not.’

  ‘I’m actually far more interested in why people do things,’ his visitor says. ‘Motives.’

  He says nothing.

  ‘Money, sex, jealousy, hate… love.’ The visitor watches as the prisoner begins to assemble a cigarette. ‘There’s loads of reasons, but they’re probably the big ones.’

  He looks around, fingers working at the tobacco. ‘All sorts in here.’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t reckon losing your rag because someone spills your drink or looks at you the wrong way comes very high on the list, do you? I should think that puts you in a minority… if that’s what the reason was.’

  ‘Told you last time, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Can you remember what actually happened? You taking that iron bar out, starting to hit him with it.’

  ‘Not really.’

&n
bsp; ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you said last time he was asking for it.’

  ‘I don’t remember saying that.’

  ‘Deserved everything he got, you said.’

  ‘I was talking bollocks, making conversation, that’s all.’ He lifts the tin and smacks it back down on the table. ‘Look, I just want to put it all behind me and get out of here, all right? Start again.’

  The visitor nods, says, ‘Course you do,’ and sits back. ‘Anyone waiting for you when you come out?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’

  ‘I don’t mean your mum and dad or whatever. I mean anyone special.’

  His face changes, as though he’s trying to suppress a smile, and the visitor sees it.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says.

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘What?’

  The visitor seems confused and starts looking back through pages in the notebook. ‘Nobody in your family mentioned a girlfriend or whatever. You know… when I talked to them on the phone. Someone secret, is it?’

  He picks up his tobacco tin and pushes back his chair. ‘I think I’ve had enough of this.’

  ‘Was it really one of those big motives, after all?’

  ‘This has got sod all to do with any university, has it?’

  The visitor starts to reel off that list of motives for murder again, a finger raised for each one. The prisoner gets to his feet, but hard as he tries, he cannot stop the blood rushing to his face when his visitor reaches the last one.

  Love…

  … NOW

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Weston said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  The small tapas bar in Crouch End was a place Tony had eaten at often, usually with Nina and Emma, but it had been a long time since they had all been there together. Several years, now he came to think about it. It had been a favourite of Emma’s when she was younger; the staff making a fuss of her, plying her with fizzy drinks and giving her pictures to colour in while they were busy preparing the plates of chorizo and patatas bravas she always insisted on eating. Tony had ordered both dishes for himself today and when the waiter had asked after Emma, Tony had promised that he would say hello to her for him.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re wasting time worrying about it.’

  ‘I’m not worrying.’

  ‘We’re professionals, Tony, and that’s the way professionals behave.’

  Tony nodded at his lunch companion and took a mouthful of the spicy potatoes. He imagined Emma at the table with them, as she was now, cutting each potato into a dozen tiny pieces, and he found himself wondering whether he and Nina had somehow made an unspoken agreement to avoid the place. The memories of their daughter, before things had become difficult.

  ‘She definitely wasn’t happy about it though,’ Tony said. ‘The copper. She probably thinks I was just stringing her along. Making her jump through hoops.’

  ‘Who cares? Jumping through hoops is part of her job. You were protecting your clients and that’s always our primary concern. Right?’ The man opposite Tony – tall and smartly dressed – took a sip of water, then leaned across to touch his glass to Tony’s.

  ‘Cheers, Greg,’ Tony said. ‘Thanks.’

  He and Greg Weston had met sharing a room in rehab. They had attended methadone clinics and group sessions together, then started out on the very path Tony had talked to Heather about the week before her death and taken the decision to train as therapists at the same time. Both had now been working for fifteen years, and both specialised in addiction recovery and relapse prevention, but they were very different practitioners.

  Tony knew his colleague to be somewhat more beholden to orthodox psychotherapeutic theory than he was. That was the assertion, anyway. A few years before, he had visited the office that Weston rented in Marylebone and been shocked at the number of heavyweight textbooks lining the shelves. Freud, Jung and Adler, obviously. Yalom, Frankl, Laing and a good many more Tony had never even heard of. He still suspected that most of them were unread, there to impress clients just as they had impressed him, but he was always left with the feeling that Weston believed himself to be rather more serious in his approach to the job. They would meet up a few times a year, for lunch usually, like today, and Tony would always come away with the impression that his friend thought him a fraction too theatrical in his methods. A little less rigorous than he should be. It irked him; both the judgement and the fact that it bothered him so much.

  ‘He’s just jealous,’ Nina had told him once. Back when she took the trouble to make him feel good about what he did. ‘Because you have such a good rapport with your clients and he’s too busy being up himself.’

  Tony knew that she had a point, but today, as usual, it had begun to niggle before they had even sat down at the table. The truth was, Tony had only told Weston about his refusal to hand over notes to the police because he thought it might redress the professional balance between them a little.

  ‘So, do you think it would help her? The notes.’

  ‘No idea,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t really know what she’s hoping to find.’

  ‘The dead girl’s last session, you said.’ Weston carefully cut off a small piece of Spanish omelette. ‘Her shame story.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘What was it?’

  Tony looked at his colleague. It had long been understood that such discussions between them were strictly in the interests of improved practice and thus were in no sense a breach of client confidentiality.

  So, Tony told him.

  ‘Hell of a story,’ Weston said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘A confession, in every sense.’

  ‘Certainly a notch or two above what the others had come up with. I mean the childhood abuse stuff we had the week before was nothing you and I haven’t heard dozens of times, right?’

  ‘What happened afterwards?’

  ‘It was like a grenade going off,’ Tony said. ‘That silence when she’d finished, you know? You could still sense the… carnage, though.’ He described the reactions of others in the group that night and some of what he had been told had happened in the pub later on.

  ‘Well, I can see why the copper thought it might be interesting.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘The girl was murdered the same night.’

  ‘Still, not sure it’s going to be a great deal of help.’

  ‘I suppose it depends how good a copper she is.’

  ‘Oh, I think she’s probably very good,’ Tony said. ‘Got a few issues of her own though, mind you.’

  ‘Really?’

  Tony waved the question away. He wasn’t there to talk about Nicola Tanner. They ate in silence for a minute or so.

  ‘Anyway.’ Weston grinned. ‘You can put all this behind you when you’re off swanning about with your rock star pal.’

  Tony looked up, shook his head like he hadn’t quite understood.

  ‘That’s quite soon, isn’t it?’

  Another bone of contention. The implied assumption that Tony would only ever be a lightweight, because he wasted his expertise, such as it was, on showbiz types who could afford to pay him exorbitant fees.

  ‘It’s hardly swanning about,’ Tony said.

  ‘I’m only winding you up,’ Weston said.

  ‘I treat all my clients equally, you know that, whether they can play the guitar or not.’

  ‘Don’t be so touchy.’ Weston popped an olive into his mouth, shook his head. ‘You seem a bit rattled, mate. Seriously, are you OK?’

  Tony ignored him. ‘Anyway, I’ve got plenty on before that. I’ve got one-to-ones coming out of my ears and they want me to speak at a new residential centre in Brighton.’ He swallowed, took a sip of water. ‘And I think I’m going to reconvene the Monday night recovery session.’

  ‘Really?’

  Tony nodded.

  ‘The dead girl’s group?’

  ‘He
ather’s group, yeah. What’s left of it.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  Up until that moment, Tony had been far from sure. He had been concerned that bringing them all back together after what had happened six weeks before might do some of them more harm than good. But the arrogance of Weston’s question and the condescension in the smile as he asked it had made his mind up.

  ‘It’s time,’ Tony said.

  He watched Greg Weston get on to his bus, then turned to head in the opposite direction. It was a nice enough day and he decided to make the most of it by walking home. Nina was at work and he had no appointments until early evening, so there was nothing to rush back for.

  He would call each member of the Monday night group on the way.

  He headed south to begin with, then picked up the Parkland Walk on Crouch End Hill. Four miles or so, this was the route of an old railway line from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace, the development plans abandoned almost eighty years earlier at the outbreak of the Second World War. Now, the old trackbed was a popular haunt of ramblers and dog-walkers. A peaceful green corridor twisting through the hilly parts of Haringey and Islington, home to a huge variety of wildlife and dotted with crumbling bridges and half-demolished platforms and station buildings.

  Tony began to walk north, the cutting opening out ahead of him, and wondered why he didn’t walk a damn sight more than he did these days. It had always been something he’d enjoyed, that had invigorated him and kept his head clear in those first few years clean.

  Are you sure that’s a good idea?

  Tony looked across at the grey peaks of Hornsey Ridge rising away to his right. Did working with a rock star once in a while make him any less good at what he did? He might not have read most of the books gathering dust on Greg Weston’s shelves but he knew the ridge’s layer of blue clay was the stratum beneath the city in which the underground was built. He knew these hills were called the Northern Heights and that Muswell Hill was largely formed by glacial debris, the terminal moraine of an ice-sheet that had once covered most of the country.