The Split

by Sharon Bolton

  For the first time, he looks surprised. ‘Why on Earth would you describe yourself as “mad”?’

  She holds his gaze for a second, and then can’t. Her eyes fall to her lap. Silence. She hears rather than sees him get up from his armchair. A second later a box of tissues – white, Man-size – is pushed into her line of vision. She ignores it and blinks away the tears.

  ‘It says in your notes that the doctors at the hospital found evidence of previous injuries,’ Joe says. ‘You broke your wrist at one time, there’s evidence of several cracked ribs, and you have a number of scars on your body.’

  Felicity feels a sudden stabbing pain between her shoulder blades and sits up, away from the chair back. ‘I explained all that,’ she says. ‘I spend a lot of time outdoors. I run, I climb, I ski. Glaciers are extreme environments. I have to be fit. Sometimes, I get injured.’

  The shrill tune of a mobile phone sounds. Joe picks a phone up from his desk and checks the screen before getting to his feet.

  ‘My ex-wife,’ he says. ‘It could be about the kids, will you excuse me a sec?’

  She nods her permission and he leaves the room. From the hall outside she can hear the low murmur of his voice. She too stands and walks towards the window. A copy of the local newspaper is on his desk, open at page two. The headline reads: Rough Sleeper Murder – Police Clueless.

  There is a photograph of a department-store doorway in which a couple of indistinct figures lie in sleeping bags. She thinks it must be a stock picture, the scene has a wintry look about it. Next to the photograph is an artist’s drawing of a young woman with long fair hair, captioned: Bella Barnes. Further down, halfway through the copy, is a small portrait picture of a man.

  She looks up to see Joe in the doorway. ‘Sorry about that,’ he says, before he sees what she is looking at and his expression darkens.

  ‘You’re in the paper.’ She feels guilty, as though she’s been caught snooping, even though a newspaper is the opposite of a confidential document.

  ‘I knew the woman who was killed,’ he says.

  ‘A friend?’ Felicity says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ He strides across the room and takes the newspaper out of her line of sight. ‘I barely knew her, on a personal level I mean.’

  He seems on edge, and she wonders if the phone call was bringing bad news. Or that he is cross with her for looking at something on his desk.

  ‘I do some work with the homeless and she was someone I saw regularly,’ he says. ‘The press came after me for a comment. I told them nothing, so they made it up.’

  Uncomfortable, for reasons she can’t name, Felicity goes back to her seat. Joe rolls up the newspaper and drops it into a waste bin. His face is still closed, defensive.

  ‘Her name was Bella,’ he says, after a moment. ‘She was a nice girl who had a lot of bad luck.’

  There is a moment of silence, as Felicity waits for Joe to resume his questions. His mood has changed, with the phone call, with finding her snooping.

  She wasn’t snooping, it was a newspaper for heaven’s sake.

  ‘Being homeless is always down to bad luck,’ she says in the end. ‘Bad luck, leading to bad choices, then a downward spiral.’

  ‘You sound as though you know what you’re talking about?’

  She lowers her eyes. ‘I had a friend,’ she says. ‘When I was in my late teens. She spent time on the streets.’

  ‘Is she OK now?’

  She looks up again, but briefly. ‘She’s fine, thanks. She got herself sorted out. She even started volunteering. Like you do. It’s good that you help them. They need people like you.’

  Again, a shadow crosses Joe’s face, and for a moment, Felicity is tempted to pursue the conversation about the murdered homeless woman. Before she can speak, though, he takes a deep breath. ‘I’m happy for you to go back to work,’ he says. ‘As soon as you like.’

  ‘Today?’

  He lifts both hands in a gesture that says, ‘it’s up to you’. ‘But I’m attaching a condition.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to agree to continuing therapy with me. Once a week for six weeks. That’s the deal.’

  Her first instinct is to refuse. Sit in this chair for six more hours, fending off his questions, watching every word she says?

  ‘And will my employers know I’m seeing you?’

  ‘Only if you tell them. Unless I think you’re about to harm yourself or others, these sessions will be completely confidential.’

  Six weeks, six hours.

  ‘OK,’ she agrees.

  Joe gets up and walks towards the window. She watches him as he looks outside, wondering whether he is giving himself thinking time, or her the chance to speak without looking directly at him. Given time, she will learn his tricks, be prepared for them. For now, she has to be careful.

  ‘Felicity,’ he says. ‘Has anything like this happened before?’

  ‘No,’ she says.

  He turns to face her again, and with the light behind him, she can no longer see his face. She doesn’t have to. He knows she is lying.

  20

  Joe

  Joe’s last appointment runs over time but it’s only a five-minute walk to the pub. It takes him several seconds to spot the woman at the corner table of the courtyard garden. She has two pints of beer in front of her, one of them half empty. He makes his way over, edging past one of the university football teams, still in training kit. She’s changed her hair colour again. On top of the bleached blonde she’s added a pink rinse and, in all fairness, it is the exact same colour as her ripped jeans and the round circles on her cheeks.

  Delilah stands up, letting him see that she’s gaining weight again. ‘Darling,’ she says as she wraps one arm around his waist. She kisses his cheek and holds on to him for a second longer than he is expecting. Joe wraps his arms around her and lets her hug him.

  ‘Put her down, you dirty bastard, she’s old enough to be your mum!’

  Joe and Delilah break apart. The goon who is about to wish he’d switched to lime and soda a couple of pints ago is grinning from a crowded table several feet away.

  Joe puts his hand on Delilah’s shoulder. ‘Can’t you just—’ he says, and decides not to bother. Of course she won’t let it go, she never lets it go, already she is reaching into her bag and striding across the courtyard.

  ‘Come on then, love.’

  ‘Fancy a toyboy, do you?’

  Joe lifts his pint as Delilah reaches the boys. The table bounces as she slaps her warrant card down hard on its surface. Beer spills. Ignoring their outraged splutters, Delilah leans towards the boy who insulted her.

  ‘I am his mother, Shit-For-Brains,’ she says. ‘I’m also a very senior local police officer. So, if I hear another word from you, or any of your intellectually challenged mates, I will arrest the lot of you for breach of the peace, being drunk and disorderly in a public place and behaviour that I am interpreting as a racist hate crime. Is that understood?’

  Five pairs of eyes stare back at her.

  Delilah takes a deep breath and yells. ‘Is that understood?’

  The courtyard falls silent.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ one of the smarter – possibly more sober – says.

  Everyone in the garden watches the overweight, middle-aged woman with pink hair and jeans walk back to her own table.

  ‘Racist hate crime?’ Joe asks, as his mother takes her seat again.

  ‘Welsh is a race,’ she tells him. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Actually, I’m not sure it is.’

  They chink glasses.

  ‘Good day?’ he asks, although he knows what the answer will be. He’s read the local papers the last couple of weeks. The serious crime squad are not enjoying their finest hour.

  ‘Pissing awful,’ Delilah says. ‘First murder in God knows how long and we have squat. The gaffer is talking about getting me some help, meaning take me off the case.’

  ‘
Can he do that?’

  ‘He can do what he wants. And I’d agree with him if I thought we’d missed something, or if we’d cocked up somehow.’

  Joe says nothing. There is nothing to say. Bella had been a good kid. One he’d thought he might be able to help. He’d taken time with her, developed a rapport, thought he was getting somewhere.

  ‘On the plus side,’ Delilah adds, ‘my granddaughter phoned me.’

  Joe puts his pint down. ‘What did she want? Is she OK?’

  ‘Keep your knickers on, she’s fine. She wanted to know if she and Jake could stay with me on Saturday night. Sarah’s got a last-minute Ann Summers party.’

  ‘They can stay with me. Why the hell didn’t she ask me?’

  ‘Might have been Tupperware. Do they still do Tupperware parties? And she said she’d called you once already and you’d bitten her ear off for disturbing you when you’re with patients. You come too. If you stay over, I won’t have to worry about getting called out if another rough sleeper decides to get himself knifed.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’

  His mother grins at him. ‘How was your first day back?’ she asks.

  Joe takes his time. ‘It went well, actually. Mainly admin, getting in touch with people to let them know I’m available again. And I’ve got a new patient.’

  ‘Well, I hope to God it’s not another potential student suicide. If I have to scrape another kid off the pavement at the bottom of St John’s tower … God, I hate exam term.’

  ‘You should talk to someone.’

  ‘I do. I talk to you.’

  ‘I mean someone with whom you can have a professional relationship. Can’t the police organise it?’

  ‘And trash my reputation as the most heartless bitch in Cambridge?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think suicide is on the cards for this one, although you can never be sure. Very anxious young woman. High achiever, holding down a responsible position, terrified she might lose it if she’s diagnosed with a mental illness. I suspect she’s been concealing symptoms for some time.’

  Joe stops himself. He’d been about to refer to Felicity’s adventure on the common but that had involved the police. His mother might know about it.

  ‘You said “young”.’ Delilah’s face has darkened. ‘Is she attractive?’

  ‘Didn’t notice.’

  Delilah breathes out, noisily, through her nose. ‘Another young woman, Joe? Is that wise? I mean, so soon after—’

  Joe interrupts, before his mother can speak the name he dreads hearing. ‘Mum, her youth, and her looks, are irrelevant. I’m not allowed to date patients. Plus, starting a relationship with a woman suffering mental health problems would be—’

  ‘Tediously normal for you?’

  Joe slips his hands between the seat and his thighs to stop them shaking. ‘That was not a relationship,’ he says.

  ‘If only you’d made that clear to her.’

  ‘She wasn’t even a patient. And I did make it clear. She refused to accept it.’

  Delilah has the grace to look away. ‘All I’m saying is you got too close. You mean well, but there are boundaries and you’re the one who should be defining them.’

  Joe drinks some more, and tells himself his mother knows nothing about the enormous task of getting society’s most damaged to learn to trust. Delilah imagines there is a rule book, that actions and reactions are entirely predictable and controllable. She has no idea that every day he is battling chaos. He will finish his pint and go. There are times when he can’t be with his mother.

  ‘How’s your scar?’ Delilah asks, as her eyes fall to Joe’s midriff.

  ‘Healing,’ he says. ‘And no, I’m not going to show you in public.’

  Silence.

  ‘So, can you help this girl?’ Delilah asks after a moment, and it takes Joe a second to realise she is talking about Felicity again.

  It is a good question. He has only given himself six weeks. And something tells him Felicity Lloyd is a very troubled young woman.

  ‘Because if you can’t,’ she goes on. ‘You should refer her to someone else. Before she brings you down with her.’

  21

  Felicity

  Felicity parks her car on the edge of Midsummer Common and walks the short distance to her terraced cottage. She is hot, in spite of the air conditioning in the car and is grateful for the breeze that being closer to the river brings. The scent of evening honeysuckle drifts towards her as she unlocks the door to her courtyard garden. Keen to get inside and unload her shopping, she feels the familiar fear stealing over her. Once again, she is afraid of what she might find in her own home.

  The kitchen is as she left it. No empty beer bottles – she doesn’t drink beer – in the recycling bin. Dropping the bags on the pale limestone floor, she runs quickly around the house, checking the master bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor, the sitting room and spare bedroom on the first. The bed in the spare room is neatly made, with no sign of the covers being disturbed.

  She even goes down to the basement utility room, making sure the pile of ironing is where she left it, and the laundry basket is largely full of whites, which it always is on Tuesdays. She doesn’t look at the big cupboard under the basement stairs, because she never looks at that, but everything else is as it should be. Her heartbeat begins to settle, and a sense of calm creeps over her.

  Maybe the session with Dr Grant has helped after all.

  She likes him, she realises. Such a calm man. She cannot imagine a man like Joe becoming ruffled or losing his temper. And he works with the homeless, something she did herself, as a volunteer, years ago. Maybe she will again.

  She has had a good day at work too. The BAS has been approached by a documentary production company about a TV series on icebergs and the whole team is excited about it. She has finished a presentation that she began before the accident. And, as the day has gone on, she’s found herself warming to Joe’s suggestion that keeping a diary for the next few weeks will give a focus to their discussions. She likes the idea of having a record of what she’s done each day. It will be nice to be able to look back and see – completeness. She even nipped into town and bought a beautiful silk-bound notebook.

  As though relief has given her permission to feel hungry, she returns to the kitchen. She carries the bag with chilled goods to the tall aluminium fridge and pulls open the door.

  It is full.

  Every shelf is packed with food. The salad tray is full. There is a chicken, a pack of bacon and two salmon fillets on the meat shelf.

  She does not eat meat.

  A dozen yoghurts sit neatly beside a block of cheese on the dairy shelf. In the fridge door are two untouched pints of milk, a carton of orange juice and a bottle of sauvignon blanc. Two shelves are filled with fruit. Everything, bar the meat and salmon, that is currently in the supermarket bags. This is her second bulk shop in days.

  She tells herself it’s no big deal, that she’s been distracted and stressed since the incident on the common. She tells herself it’s understandable that the shop slipped her mind and knows she isn’t listening.

  She will have to check the house again.

  The kitchen cupboards are in order. One time, maybe last week, she found everything had been taken out of the cupboards and put back in different ones. Today, though, everything is fine. So is her sitting room. There is a fine scattering of ash over her hearth, but even in summer the wind finds its way down the chimney.

  She checks outside but this time, at least, there are no cigarette butts in the courtyard. She has never smoked, but someone has been smoking recently, directly outside her back door.

  She makes her way upstairs to the second bedroom that doubles as an office. There is nothing in the wastebin other than Post-it notes. All in her handwriting. In her in-tray are several articles that she has found online and printed off, all relating to early-onset dementia. Reading them has brought her no comfort at all. The condition is rare, but not unknown.
It is entirely possible.

  Her appetite is gone and so she decides to start the diary. Joe suggested that a physical diary, rather than one online, will feel more personal and she agrees. She will record everything: what she wears, what she spends, where she goes. On edge, she is startled by a loud and unexpected sound from directly outside. For a moment, she thinks a vehicle is heading for her cottage, but the noise fades and dies. It is only a kid on a skateboard, or roller skates.

  She sits at her desk, pulls open the drawer to find a pen and sees instead an elegant fold of black leather, fastened with a jewel clasp. Trembling again, she opens it to see the words My Journal on the inside page.

  Someone has beaten her to it.

  22

  Joe

  Joe drinks more than he should. He accepts a third pint because he knows he has no food at home and after three pints of beer his appetite is more or less gone. And then a fourth, because Delilah is matching him pint for pint. If he leaves now he has a feeling she might stay and after four pints, Delilah makes bad decisions.

  Not for the first time, he wonders if bad decisions run in the family. Arguably, he’s made a few himself of late. And then he wonders if the reason he is so on edge this evening is because it’s almost exactly a year since he met the woman he still can’t bear to think about.

  He isn’t cold, but he pulls on his sweater all the same.

  ‘You know these homeless types,’ his mother says, brushing crisp crumbs from her blouse. Unlike Joe, Delilah never loses her appetite when she drinks. She’ll be heading for the kebab van when they leave, rowing with the taxi driver who won’t allow food in his cab. She’ll threaten him with a parking violation or some such bollocks and he’ll make a complaint against her, which will probably be upheld.

  ‘I know people without homes,’ he replies. At the far end of the pub garden, sitting beneath an arch of yellow roses, is a tall young woman with blonde hair that reaches her shoulder blades. He thinks – Felicity – and doesn’t know whether he hopes it is her, or that it is not. ‘I also know a number of rough sleepers. Is that what you mean?’