(1998) Denial

by Peter James

Why was Amanda here, strapped to the trolley? There had to be something more complex going on. Was she a past girlfriend of this madman?

  Thomas Lamark reached up and tore the duct tape from Michael’s mouth. It felt to Michael as if half his face had been ripped away.

  ‘Something you want to say, Dr Tennent?’

  Screwing up his eyes from the pain, Michael gasped, ‘This has nothing to do with Amanda. Let her go.’

  Staring coldly at him, Thomas said, ‘Gloria Lamark was my mother. She had beautiful breasts.’

  Michael stared back at him, his wits dulled by the pain and his difficulty in breathing. He thought back to his sessions with this man in his consulting room. The deeply troubled unstable Dr Goel. Close to a breakdown. Filled with anger. A man who liked to play games. Intelligent. All the parallels. His dead wife. The dove in the cage separated from its mate. A control freak.

  Fallout shelter.

  ‘Terence,’ he said, ‘you should let Amanda go, please.’

  Eyes flaring in anger, he said, ‘My name is Thomas. Don’t try to be smart.’

  ‘I only know you as Terence. Dr Terence Goel.’

  ‘This woman made love to you, Dr Tennent. She polluted her body with your filthy seed. She has inside her the seed of the man who murdered my mother. Were you ever breastfed, Dr Tennent?’

  Michael tried to think what the best reply would be – the reply that this man wanted to hear. He hedged, ‘I believe so. I don’t remember.’

  ‘You’d remember. You really would remember. My mother had such very beautiful breasts. She was famous for her looks, as I am sure you are aware. What I’m going to do, Dr Tennent, is to help you to take your mind back to your infancy. I’d like you to suck Amanda Capstick’s breasts. But you stay where you are. I’ll bring them over to you.’

  Thomas Lamark picked up a scalpel, lifted the neck of Amanda’s T-shirt, then cut it open all the way down and pulled the two flaps apart, exposing Amanda’s breasts.

  Amanda was writhing under her bonds.

  Michael howled, ‘For God’s sake, Thomas, leave her alone!’

  ‘Would you like duct tape over your mouth again, Dr Tennent? Or can I rely on you to remain quiet? You must understand, my need to concentrate during surgery will be crucial to the welfare of my patient.’

  Desperation corkscrewed through Michael’s utter helplessness. ‘Operate on me, Thomas,’ he gasped, imploringly. ‘Cut me to pieces, just please don’t hurt her.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dr Tennent, you will get your turn. I intend to ensure you are never able to harm another patient, Dr Tennent. You have condemned me to twenty-five days of greater pain than it is possible for any human being to imagine. I’m intending to ensure that at least once, every day for the next twenty-five days, you will beg me to end your pain. And each time I will quote a line from Shakespeare’s King Lear to you. “The worst is not, so long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’”’

  He turned his attention to Amanda, who was thrashing even more desperately in her bonds, her eyes bulging in terror.

  ‘Now, little thing, this wriggling around is no good!’ He lifted a tiny glass vial from the instrument tray attached to the table, and held it in front of her. ‘Are you familiar with the techniques of modern anaesthesia?’

  She stared at him in abject suspense.

  ‘We use a balance of three or four agents. One paralyses to produce complete muscle relaxation. The agent I favour is curare, an extract from a South American plant used in the tips of poison arrows – nice to be able to use natural medicines, don’t you think? Natural curare is so much better for you than some horrible fabricated chemical concoction.’

  He broke the seal on the vial, then tore a hypodermic syringe free of its pack. ‘The second agent would cause the patient loss of consciousness, but I really would not want to deprive you of consciousness today. It would be too much of a wasted opportunity – I’m sure you understand even if you do not approve. And, similarly, the third agent, which will deaden any pain, will not be needed. But a fourth agent, which is adrenaline-based, will be helpful in constricting your blood vessels, to prevent excessive blood loss – and it will help prevent against your passing out in shock.’

  ‘Thomas, please, listen to me,’ Michael begged. ‘Let’s talk about this.’

  Without turning round, Thomas felt in his pocket for the vial of adrenaline. It wasn’t there. He rummaged around inside his scrubs, getting increasingly angry with himself. Shit, shit, shit.

  He knew exactly what he had done. He had put the vial of adrenaline into his jacket pocket. When he had changed into his scrubs in the kitchen, he had hooked his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Dr Michael Tennent was saying something to him, but he tuned the man’s voice out. He had more important things to think about right now than the whingeing psychiatrist.

  Damn you, Dr Tennent, you made me forget the bloody adrenaline!

  He stormed out of the chamber.

  Michael heard the footsteps receding. Then the sound of the door opening. He was staring at Amanda, and finally she was staring back at him. Anger rose through the raging storm of fear inside him. Anger at his foolishness for getting himself – both of them – into this situation. Oh, God, why the hell hadn’t he let the police deal with this?

  ‘Amanda,’ he gasped. Then his voice dried. What could he say? Lamark was out of the chamber. He needed these precious moments to think not speak. There must be something he could do. He tried to drill the pain out of his mind. To clear everything out, to focus on one thing, this reality now, these few precious seconds.

  Could he lure Thomas over to him, then lash out with his legs and knock him unconscious? He tried a kick now and it felt pathetic. Dangling like this he couldn’t get any kind of power into his legs. He tried to get a purchase on the wall behind him, but that barely helped. Besides, even if he succeeded and got the man in the right place, under his jaw, and knocked him out, what then?

  He was hanging as helplessly as a dead chicken, the cords cutting deep into his wrists. How the hell was he going to get down even with Thomas unconscious?

  There had to be another way.

  He stared at Amanda again. Searching for a signal in her eyes. But all he could see in them was his own helplessness mirrored back at him.

  Chapter One Hundred and Three

  The front doorbell rang assertively.

  Thomas heard it as he hurried out through the sauna door. Then he heard it again as he reached the brick steps from the cellar gymnasium up to the kitchen.

  Go to hell.

  His jacket was hanging on the back of a chair at the kitchen table. Just a few steps away. Quickly, hand into the side pocket and there was the vial of adrenaline.

  My bloody memory. Forgetting the adrenaline!

  The doorbell rang again. Who was it? They were knocking as well now, solid insistent raps with the brass knocker.

  His mother hated people who rang and knocked at the same time like this.

  He turned towards the door and said, quietly, ‘Do you think we’re deaf or something?’

  On tiptoe down the passageway, across the slate floor, up to the spy-hole. He looked out.

  No one was there.

  Gone.

  Relief.

  He walked quickly back along the passage, but as he entered the kitchen he stopped dead in his tracks.

  A man outside was looking in through the window. A tall, bald, black man in a suit.

  Thomas ducked back into the passageway, everything lopsided in his brain now. Had the man seen him?

  There was rapping now on the patio door. Bare knuckles on glass. Thomas stayed in the shadow of the passageway, holding his breath, not daring to move. Who was this man? How dare he come prowling around the back of the house? Could he be from the police? Thomas tried to think this through. If he was a police officer and he had seen him, what was he going to think if he didn’t answer the door?
r />   Was he following up from the detective this morning? Was he suspicious?

  Let him in or ignore him?

  If Thomas ignored him, what would the man do? Did he have a search warrant? Would he break in? Thomas realised he would be fretting about this while he was performing his surgery. He needed a steady hand, a steady mind. Best to open the door, find out who it was, what he wanted, deal with it. If necessary, he could buy enough time to get down into the cellar and conceal the entrance to the shelter. No one would find it.

  Except, he wondered, how had Dr Michael Tennent found it?

  The rapping had stopped. Had the man given up and gone away? Was he prowling around the outside, trying to look in more windows? The front doorbell rang again, followed moments later by another rat-tat-tat from the knocker.

  ‘Coming!’ he said quietly.

  Then he remembered what he was wearing. Quickly he tugged the strap of his night-vision goggles over his neck, peeled off his surgical scrubs, balled the goggles up inside them, threw them into the broom closet beneath the stairs, then hurried through into the kitchen, grabbing his jacket off the chair back and tugging it on.

  Need to look respectable. Calm!

  Glenn Branson, standing with Nick Goodwin outside the front door, was certain he had seen a figure moving inside the house when he had looked through the kitchen window just now. The London police constable who picked up and followed Dr Goel’s Mondeo had called for assistance, and the house had been watched front and back for the hour and a half that it had taken Glenn and Nick Goodwin to get here. Unless Goel had made off over a garden wall, he was still in here. And if Dr Goel was in here, Glenn wanted him to be under no illusions that if he ignored the bell the police would simply go away.

  I’m missing out on one of the most beautiful evenings of the year, Dr Goel. I’ve missed out on playing with my son tonight. I’ve missed out on sitting in the garden eating a meal with my wife tonight, just so that I could have a chat with you. You are going to answer this doorbell, Dr Goel, I promise you, I’ll drive you into dementia until you do.

  He pressed the bell again. Rapped the knocker. Pressed the bell.

  Suddenly, the door opened. A tall man, in a cream linen suit, beamed out at them, his face a picture of charm.

  ‘So sorry to keep you,’ he said, in a cultured English voice. ‘You caught me short. I was having a pee.’

  The man seemed normal, relaxed, good-natured. The description from PC Tim Willis, who had stopped Dr Terence Goel’s car in Tottenham Court Road last Saturday night, was in the forefront of his mind.

  ‘He was tall, about six foot six. Medium build. Slick dark hair, good-looking – very good-looking, if you know what I mean, movie star, matinée idol looks, and he had an American accent.’

  This man was about six foot six. He was of medium build. He had slick dark hair, and he was very good-looking, no question, but his voice was public-school English, no trace of American. Was the accent an invention – like his address in Cheltenham?

  Watching him closely, Glenn asked, ‘Dr Terence Goel?’ He clocked genuine surprise in the man’s eyes.

  ‘Goel? Did you say Goel?’

  ‘Dr Terence Goel.’

  The man looked too at ease to be hiding anything and yet the description was perfect in every detail – except for that accent.

  ‘I’m sorry, no, the name Terence Goel means nothing to me. I’m afraid I can’t help you.’ He took a step back.

  To halt him, Glenn held up his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Constable Branson from Sussex Police. This is PC Goodwin.’

  Goodwin produced his warrant card and held it up.

  Eyes scanning the body language of the man’s hands for a brief instant – they were relaxed, gave nothing away – then back up to his face, Glenn said, ‘A Ford Mondeo motor car registered in the name of Dr Terence Goel was seen entering the garage at the rear of these premises, at approximately five past six this evening.’

  Still totally at ease, the man said, ‘Ah. My mother let the garage. This must be the tenant.’

  ‘Dr Goel is your tenant?’

  ‘My mother’s. I really wouldn’t know the name. I’m just keeping an eye on the house. You know what it’s like when a celebrity dies – all the ghouls who want to break in and steal souvenirs.’ He stared hard at Glenn, as if for confirmation.

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘I haven’t been able to bring myself to go through her papers yet. She died three weeks ago – Gloria Lamark, the actress, you would have heard the news.’

  ‘Yes. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re Gloria Lamark’s son?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Thomas Lamark.’

  ‘I was a fan of hers.’

  His face lit up. ‘You were?’

  ‘She was a truly wonderful actress. She was in some of my all-time favourite films.’

  Almost bursting with excitement, Thomas said, ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Wings of the Wild and Paris Romance. I’ve seen them both several times.’

  ‘Wings of the Wild? You really like that?’

  ‘Uh-huh. That scene when Ben Gazzara’s out on the wing of the plane with the gun, and she’s flying it and trying to knock him off under the bridge – that’s one of the greatest scenes in cinema, I think.’

  ‘Me too,’ Thomas said. This was good, he liked this man. He wished he could spend time with him talking about the films, but this was not the moment.

  ‘Mr Lamark, these papers of your mother’s, do you have them in the house? The ones that might show the name of the tenant?’

  Careful.

  This man was pleasant but he had a quiet persistence that made Thomas uneasy. He needed to think this through.

  ‘I – yes – possibly.’

  ‘Would you mind taking a look while we wait?’

  Thomas wanted to say a firm no. But then the detective added, ‘I’ve seen every single film your mother has been in.’

  There was such sincerity in the detective’s face that Thomas was elated. ‘I can’t understand why she never won an Oscar.’

  ‘Me neither. Any chance you could take a quick look for those papers?’

  ‘Of course, come in.’

  Thomas cursed himself. This was stupid. Dangerous. He should have told them it was inconvenient, to come back another time. Yet, perhaps, if he could keep up this pretence – this masterstroke, his mother’s tenant – maybe he could buy some time. There was nothing in this house to link him to Dr Goel. Even the mobile phone was in the car. The garage was clear. Dr Goel’s Mondeo and Dr Goel’s white van. All traces of the Alfa gone now.

  If he could just remain calm and convincing, he would fool the detective. Fool him enough to get rid of him for now – and that was all he needed. The future would take care of itself.

  He stepped back, closed the front door behind the police officers and watched the detective immediately walk over to the painting of his mother stepping out of the limousine.

  ‘The royal premiere of The Widow of Monaco,’ Thomas said proudly.

  ‘She was an incredibly beautiful woman,’ Glenn said. It felt strange to have been in the homes of two of his idols and within such a short space of each other. And it felt strange also, that Cora Burstridge, who had been so much bigger and more enduring a star, should have lived in a far less grand home than Gloria Lamark.

  This man was strange, too. His mother had died three weeks ago, yet he seemed as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Was this English accent an act?

  Thomas ushered the policemen into the drawing room. He was picking up bad vibes from the detective now, he could tell that he was suspicious. Get them out of the house.

  Or kill them?

  ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Thomas said. ‘I’ll go and have a look in her files.’

  Glenn, standing in front of one of the dozens of framed photographs on the wall, watched Thomas Lamark leave the room. He listened
to the tramp of his feet receding up the stairs, all his instincts telling him he should not let this man out of his sight. Then he silently signalled to his colleague to stay down here.

  In his den Thomas was losing his calm. He pulled open a drawer, rummaged around in it, slammed it shut, loudly, so the detective would hear him downstairs, would know that he was looking. He opened another drawer, rummaged in that, trying hard to think now of something convincing to say.

  He slammed the drawer shut.

  He opened a third drawer, then, from the corner of his eye, saw a shadow. It was the detective, standing outside his den; there was an expression on his face that Thomas did not trust.

  ‘Beautiful house,’ Glenn Branson said.

  ‘I’m having a problem,’ Thomas said. ‘I cannot find –’

  He was cut short by a sharp crackle, followed by the sound of Dr Michael Tennent’s gasping voice.

  ‘Amanda – can you move? Can you move anything at all?’

  Their eyes sprang towards each other and locked for one fleeting second, before Thomas lunged across the room and snapped off the loudspeaker. Turning back to the detective, he said, with a broad, edgy smile, ‘The radio – I – was listening to a play –’

  But Glenn barely heard him. He was staring at something he had just noticed. A tiny rip, no more than half an inch long, on the right hand shoulder of Thomas Lamark’s jacket. His mind hurtled straight into Cora Burstridge’s loft. The strips of cream thread hanging there, high up, caught on a nail that was sticking out of a rafter.

  The same cream; the same length.

  Glenn glanced away, but not quickly enough. The man had noticed. Their eyes locked again and this time the man’s expression was that of a cornered animal.

  Glenn’s brain was spinning with several different thoughts simultaneously. Amanda. The name of the woman who had gone missing this week. The name Simon Roebuck had said last night in the pub.

  And today Simon Roebuck was dead.

  The terrible bitterness between Gloria Lamark and Cora Burstridge. How much did Thomas Lamark share in this? Enough to go and gloat at the crematorium? Enough to have killed Cora Burstridge?

  ‘Amanda – can you move? Can you move anything at all?’