As she drove, she was planning. Having to arrange midwife cover would mean a delay in Heather’s admission as the weekend loomed. This was the complication of cross-speciality cases and two separate hospitals. But close monitoring by a midwife and/or an obstetrician was equally as important as her psychiatric assessment. God help her if anything went wrong in the final stages of this strange pregnancy. Claire hadn’t yet finalized her obstetric care so in the event of a complication she would be the one hung out to dry by the MDU. But she was also realizing the task of protecting Heather’s unborn infant was not going to be simple – even with midwives and an obstetrician in attendance twenty-four/seven. A paediatrician would also need to be involved. It was difficult and complicated. And Salena’s tale of the schizophrenic attempting to excise her baby, ex utero, with a knife was a sobering one. It can be difficult to assess the depth of a psychiatric case’s paranoia and delusions as many psychiatrists have learned – too late. And then there was the added complication of involving Rhoda. But Claire couldn’t bypass her. Community obstetrics was her responsibility. The troubling angle was contemplating what dirt this contact between the two women would throw up. While Heather was in a dark place, Rhoda was probably in the next room. Ex-wives are notoriously bitter and, knowing Charles as she did, Claire suspected philandering was probably the reason behind the marital split. So another unknown was how professional was Rhoda Tissot? Would Heather’s allegations against her ex-husband influence her care? Sense whispered surely not. But might Rhoda feed small worms into Heather’s already sick brain? Worms, Claire thought as she flashed her lights at an ill-advised manoeuvre by a sporty Lycra-clad cyclist and received a middle-finger gesture in response. Worms. She couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate analogy. This was, indeed, a can of wriggling worms.
And that wasn’t all. Claire sat, waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. Something else was bothering her. It wasn’t only the complexity of this case. Although her experience of de Clerambault’s syndrome was limited to the elderly man and the ballerina, she was well used to tricky assignments, piloting the narrow channel between the proverbial rock and hard place. Psychiatry is an inexact science at best, often going no farther than venturing an opinion. Unlike a confirming blood test or CT in other specialities, there is no definitive blood test for most psychiatric diagnoses, though research into magnesium or other chemical levels in the brain was promising a new dawn. And with this added evidence, the future of psychiatry promised to be very different from its past; its treatments, too.
So why was there this background of unease? Was it her own past history with Casanova Tissot? She smiled at a sudden realization. There was only one thing that would absolutely prove the truth of Heather’s version – and Ruth’s backup statement: Charles’s DNA matching that of the infant Krimble. And in a small flash of insight, she knew what was causing her discomfort.
Heather’s past history was pushing them into an assumption. She wasn’t quite seeing this square on as she should. The lights turned green and around her everything shifted, including her own point of view.
Freddie had been proved to be her husband’s child. But not Eliza. Even Geoff hadn’t claimed Eliza was his daughter. Hence the lack of grief. So whose daughter had she been? In spite of his denial, Cartwright’s?
Maybe she should look at events through the other end of the telescope. What if Heather’s claims were true? All true? Except that Freddie had been Geoff’s son …
She spurted forward with a heartfelt sigh. More than ever, she wished she could have spoken to Laura Hodgkins. At least they could have worked together, pooled their ideas. Of course, on the surface Heather’s stories appeared fantastic when the men concerned ridiculed her claims. Then reason kicked her doubts aside. Surely someone of Charles Tissot’s stature would not be tempted to fuck a girl in the back of a car outside the party of one of his colleagues? Except she knew him. Charles was a risk-taker. And now Claire wondered whether she’d just scratched that itch. She was not hundred per cent convinced of his innocence. Never would be.
The traffic had come to a standstill. So now, stuck in a traffic jam on the A500, she mentally replayed Heather’s account, searching for the same words she had used, the description of a secret love combined with the absolute certainty that Charles Tissot loved her and planned to be with her for the future. Maybe that was the most incredible part: not the sordid sex but the conviction that he loved her, planned to marry her, was delighted to be having a child with her, had lovingly accepted her as his patient. The traffic started to move and her mind unblocked. It was that romantic scenario that had the feel of fantasy, fitting much more with the diagnosis of de Clerambault’s syndrome than a lucid, factual account of a clandestine love affair. So why was she analysing these nagging doubts when they spoke so clearly? Simply because of that drunken fumble all those years ago, way before he and she had climbed the greasy pole to become consultants in their different fields? Again, she pictured her patient, apparently meek, submissive, trusting, her voice soft and quiet as she related her story. The image resonated because it mirrored herself years ago – a medical student who did not believe in herself, had little confidence in herself. And now? She opened the window to breathe in traffic fumes, ran through sentences, words Heather had used, and knew what had clinched it. It was the corroborative evidence. Ruth, the loyal sister. Ruth, who held down a good job, was trusted enough by her employer to have been invited to his personal party. Ruth, who appeared so calm, so uninvolved, so unemotional, so rational. So sane. And she was backing up her sister’s story. Trusting her account. Even though she could have seen nothing.
She trusted her sister’s word enough to jeopardize her boss’s colleague and friend. Why? Loyalty? Just because she believed her sister incapable of telling such a huge and fantastic lie?
Or was it sympathy with her married sister’s plight? What was the glue that bonded these sisters so closely?
Or rather than a loyal bond, could the motive behind this be something completely different? Deliberate and organized destruction? Was the real motive for the wild tale to watch Charles Tissot tumble from his pedestal? Had he slighted either of them in the past? Should she be focusing not on her patient but on the loyal sister? Perhaps she, Claire, had not been asking the right person the right questions.
Bugger. She smiled at herself in the rear-view mirror. Her list of questions was growing rather than shrinking. And the list of answers?
So far, non-existent.
EIGHTEEN
Monday, 29 June, 8.45 a.m.
34/40
After a weekend of gym, cycling and a long walk in the Peak District with Adam, her half-brother and his fiancée, Adele, followed by an extended pub lunch in Grindon, Claire felt fit enough to face the world, including Charles Tissot’s murky little kingdom. And the feeling of optimism was intensified when Rita greeted her arrival with the news that she had made an appointment for Geoff Krimble to attend the outpatient clinic on the following day. Claire worked her way through the ward round and clinics with energy. Another piece of the jigsaw was about to slot into place.
Tuesday, 30 June, 2.30 p.m.
Outpatient Department, Greatbach Secure Psychiatric Hospital.
Geoff Krimble was a large, lumbering guy with long, ape-like arms and greasy dark hair that needed a pair of professional scissors. His trousers were slung low beneath a beer belly which wobbled as he walked, furthering the idea of the missing link. Around him clung the aroma of fried food and stale clothes plus the unmistakable stink of beer and tobacco, which seemed to ooze out of his pale pores. He had watchful brown eyes that met hers with a strange awareness. And considering the image she’d built up of him, she read there a simple honesty. He looked directly at her with a ghost of a smile. ‘Funny business this, Doctor,’ he said.
As she nodded her agreement and led him towards the consulting room, she took in other things.
Geoff Krimble had made an effort today. He had teamed a br
ight Royal Maddox tartan shirt buttoned right up to his thick neck with a red-and-black striped tie. It made a colourful, if not coordinated, combination.
He had a pleasant manner, a friendly, tentative smile and more worry lines than a man in his thirties should have. Claire held out her hand and shook the proffered sweating palm. He looked an unhappy, uneasy man but not unpleasant. His mouth was so dry that when he tried to lick his lips she heard a sticky, rasping sound. She gestured to the drinking water machine and watched as he filled a polystyrene cup half full, the water rippling as his hand shook.
‘Mr Krimble,’ she said, smiling, wanting to put this shifting, uncomfortable person at his ease. ‘Thank you for coming.’
He dipped his head in acknowledgement but his eyes were still watchful and wary. If he was violent towards his wife there was, currently, no sign of it. He looked anxious to be of help.
Or perhaps, like many people, he was put off by the lanyard which hung around her neck. Dr Claire Roget, Consultant Psychiatrist.
She would need to move very delicately around the justification for her involvement, at the same time touching on Charles’s role in all this.
He lumbered after her into the interview room and spread himself over the chair, looking oddly expectant now, as though she would wave a magic wand and all these strange tales spun by his mad wife would somehow melt away.
‘You and your wife,’ she began, watching his face quite carefully. ‘You’re aware that she has made some allegations about the parentage of her child?’
He nodded, his frown deepening. He looked puzzled.
She continued, ‘You and Heather. You’re happy together?’
He shrugged. ‘Same as any married couple.’ He had a broad Stoke accent. ‘We have our ups and downs. You know.’
‘Well, you’ve had your share of tragedy.’
‘Aye.’ He nodded, but if she had expected emotion from him about the two dead children, she was let down. His face remained impassive.
‘The baby that Heather’s expecting …’
He leaned forward in his chair so his stomach rested on his knees and his face was near. His teeth were yellow with nicotine and looked neglected, a higgledy-piggledy mouthful of untidy, stained dentition. ‘Every time she gets pregnant,’ he said, getting the words out with difficulty, ‘she gets these fancies.’
So that was how he read them. A pregnant woman’s fancies.
‘You’re saying there’s no truth in them?’
Again, he dipped his head. ‘’Course not.’ His voice was scornful. ‘Nothing’s happened.’
She was obviously going to have to find the delicate touch of a lace-maker. ‘You’re looking forward to the birth …?’
His face screwed up. Grief or puzzlement? She couldn’t be sure.
‘Aye. After the two we lost, ’twill be nice to have a bebbe around again.’
‘I’m sure.’
She waited for him to ask a question, to offer some sort of explanation. Nothing came except … She could have sworn there was a tear in his eye.
She needed a more direct approach. ‘Mr Krimble, Heather is making allegations against her obstetrician.’
‘Aye.’
‘You think there’s no truth in this?’
‘Phh.’ He blew out fleshy lips. ‘No. ’Course not. It’s all nonsense.’
‘You’re aware that the consequence of these allegations could be quite serious for the doctor concerned?’
‘Aye.’
‘And you believe them to be untrue?’
‘Aye. ’Course.’
‘If you think she’s imagining these events you must have asked yourself why?’
‘Part of bein’ pregnant, I suppose.’
‘Most pregnant women are only too happy to have their partner’s child.’
‘She’s peculiar,’ he said. ‘She’s always been a bit … strange.’
She picked up on the hint he’d dropped. ‘Strange? In what way? Any other way apart from these beliefs that other men are involved with the parentage of her babies?’
‘No,’ he conceded. Then added: ‘But they proved Freddie was my son. Not some window cleaner’s.’
‘True.’
‘Which proves that Heather’s mistaken, doesn’t it?’
‘Not quite. Not necessarily.’
‘Oh.’ He looked flustered.
‘Heather was pregnant when you and she were married.’
‘Aye.’
‘Were you Eliza’s father?’
There was a pause while he considered how to answer the question, finally, reluctantly shaking his head. ‘We never, you know …’ He didn’t finish the sentence.
‘So who was?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said quickly. ‘I never knew.’
‘It could have been Mr Cartwright.’
‘I very much doubt it.’
Though the question of Eliza’s parentage was of concern, she let it slide and moved on. ‘I’ll tell you what’s puzzling me, Mr Krimble.’
‘Aye?’
‘Her sister’s backing up her story. Ruth seems to believe her.’
‘Oh, Ruth.’ He dismissed her with a wave of his large hands. ‘She thinks the sun shines out of Heather’s …’ He flushed, smirked and returned to his backup phrase. ‘Well, you know.’
She inclined her head to one side to prompt him.
And he obliged. ‘Ruth? She’d say black was white if Heather told her to. She’d say we lived on Mars or that grass was blue – not green. She’d say day was night and night day. She doesn’t have a mind of her own, that one.’
She stored the phrase. She doesn’t have a mind of her own, and returned to the main text. ‘So the sisters are devoted?’
He simply nodded this time. And behind his eyes lay another story, which she tried to winkle out of him.
‘Why?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Why are they so devoted?’
He met her eyes with a frank look and at the back of that was something very much like shame. ‘Their dad,’ he mumbled. ‘Religious maniac. If they did anything he thought wrong he used to knock ’em about something rotten.’
And she knew then. The admission behind the story. It was the look of shame that told her, the dropping of the eyes, the flushing in his cheeks. It wasn’t just her dad who used to knock ’em about something rotten. So did he. Not out of anger. This man appeared too bovine for hot, quick, violent anger. No, it would be more that he didn’t have any other way of expressing himself. No words. Just fists. Geoff Krimble was a big man, more than double Heather’s weight with big, meaty hands. Ball those up into a fist and they would be formidable weapons. Heather was a petite woman. A tap, he’d say. I didn’t hit her hard. But a ‘tap’ from him would be a knockout punch to her. Geoff was a man who did not know his own strength.
She had to address it. ‘Have you ever …?’
Innocent eyes. He didn’t know how to answer but sidetracked. ‘That’s why Robin left.’
‘Robin?’
‘Her brother. It glued them sisters together. See?’
She nodded now. ‘I’m going to admit Heather, Mr Krimble. I’ve noticed some slightly disturbing behaviour. She bangs the baby.’
‘Aye.’ He looked almost happy at this. Probably relieved to move away from the subject of domestic violence. ‘Aye, I’ve noticed her do that once or twice.’
‘Did she do it in her two previous pregnancies?’
He thought about this before nodding.
‘So both for her protection and the protection of the infant, we think we should keep her in for observation.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes, here, but we will have midwives in attendance to make sure her pregnancy and labour are monitored.’
‘But she’ll go to the maternity unit when she starts to have it, like?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Then it sounds like a good idea. Thank you,’ he said, apparently anxious to ingratiate himself with her.<
br />
She observed him. He seemed to feel something more was expected. ‘When the baby’s born,’ he said, starting already to lift from the chair, ‘she soon drops all that nonsense. Anyway …’ He puffed out his chest. ‘Anyway, the DNA …’ he was proud of his grasp of scientific matters, ‘… proved that Freddie was my son.’
His eyes were challenging her to dispute this. And all she could think was that this little boy and his half-sister had died. Would this as yet unborn infant also die? Had the pathologist simply failed to find proof that Heather was a child-killer? Or was there something else?
She wondered what was going through Geoff’s mind. Had he ever explored various theories?
‘Why do you think Heather makes these claims?’
He looked at her as though she was the batty one. ‘She’s just ill, Doctor. That’s all. Ill.’
The next batch of questions were a bit more difficult to ask Heather’s husband but he might hold an explanation, of sorts. ‘Had she shown any particular interest in her boss, Mr Cartwright, before she became pregnant?’
‘Oh, I think she liked him all right.’ There was no embarrassment in his voice. ‘But not like that. He was just kind to her. You know. She had a bit of morning sickness and he’d bring her a cup of tea and a dry biscuit saying he’d heard they might make her feel better.’
A phrase from Dr Sylas’s original letter floated helpfully into her mind … late in the pregnancy. This was an explanation of sorts.
Geoff continued, ‘He’d chivvy her along, like. You know.’
And she thought she might. She smiled at him.
Which urged Geoff Krimble to add, ‘There weren’t nothing in it, you know. Nothing.’
She interpreted this. ‘So you’re sure that this was all fantasy on Heather’s part?’
‘Oh, aye.’ He leaned in. ‘And science has proved it.’
‘And the window cleaner? Sam Maddox.’
The Deceiver Page 14
