The Silent Patient

by Alex Michaelides

They walked toward Camden and disappeared into a pub, the Rose and Crown, a seedy-looking place. I waited in the café opposite. About an hour later, they came out. Kathy was all over him, kissing him. They kissed for a while by the road. I watched, feeling sick to my stomach, burning with hate.

  She eventually said goodbye to him, and they left each other. She started walking away. The man turned and walked in the opposite direction. I didn’t follow Kathy.

  I followed him.

  He waited at a bus stop. I stood behind him. I looked at his back, his shoulders; I imagined lunging at him—shoving him under the oncoming bus. But I didn’t push him. He got on the bus. So did I.

  I assumed he would go directly home, but he didn’t. He changed buses a couple of times. I followed him from a distance. He went to the East End, where he disappeared into a warehouse for half an hour. Then another journey, on another bus. He made a couple of phone calls, speaking in a low voice and chuckling frequently. I wondered if he was talking to Kathy. I was feeling increasingly frustrated and disheartened. But I was also stubborn and refused to give up.

  Eventually he made his way home—getting off the bus and turning onto a quiet tree-lined street. He was still talking on his phone. I followed him, keeping my distance. The street was deserted. If had turned around, he would have seen me. But he didn’t.

  I passed a house with a rock garden and succulent plants. I acted without thinking—my body seemed to move on its own. My arm reached over the low wall into the garden and picked up a rock. I could feel its weight in my hands. My hands knew what to do: they had decided to kill him, crack open the worthless scumbag’s skull. I went along with this, in a mindless trance, creeping after him, silently gaining ground, getting nearer. Soon I was close enough. I raised the rock, preparing to smash it down on him with all my strength. I’d knock him to the ground and bash his brains out. I was so close; if he weren’t still talking on his phone, he’d have heard me.

  Now: I raised the rock, and—

  Right behind me, on my left, a front door opened. A sudden buzz of conversation, loud Thank yous and Goodbyes as people left the house. I froze. Right in front of me, Kathy’s lover stopped and looked in the direction of the noise, at the house. I stepped aside and hid behind a tree. He didn’t see me.

  He started walking again, but I didn’t follow. The interruption had startled me out of my reverie. The rock fell from my hand and it thudded to the ground. I watched him from behind the tree. He strolled up to the front door of a house, unlocked it, and let himself inside.

  A few seconds later, a light went on in the kitchen. He was standing in profile, a little way from the window. Only half of the room was visible from the street. He was talking to someone I couldn’t see. While they talked, he opened a bottle of wine. They sat down and ate a meal together. Then I caught a glimpse of his companion. It was a woman. Was it his wife? I couldn’t see her clearly. He put his arm around her and kissed her.

  So I wasn’t the only one being betrayed. He had returned home, after kissing my wife, and ate the meal this woman had prepared for him, as if nothing had happened. I knew I couldn’t leave it here—I had to do something. But what? Despite my best homicidal fantasies, I wasn’t a murderer. I couldn’t kill him.

  I’d have to think of something cleverer than that.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I PLANNED TO HAVE IT out with Alicia first thing in the morning. I intended to make her admit she had lied to me about the man killing Gabriel and force her to confront the truth.

  Unfortunately, I never got the chance.

  Yuri was waiting for me in reception. “Theo, I need to talk to you—”

  “What is it?”

  I took a closer look at him. His face seemed to have aged overnight; he looked shrunken, pale, bloodless. Something bad had happened.

  “There’s been an accident. Alicia—she took an overdose.”

  “What? Is she—?”

  Yuri shook his head. “She’s still alive, but—”

  “Thank God—”

  “But she’s in a coma. It doesn’t look good.”

  “Where is she?”

  Yuri took me through a series of locked corridors into the intensive care ward. Alicia was in a private room. She was hooked up to an ECG machine and a ventilator. Her eyes were closed.

  Christian was there with another doctor. He looked ashen in contrast to the emergency-room doctor, who had a deep suntan—she’d obviously just gotten back from holiday. But she didn’t look refreshed. She looked exhausted.

  “How is Alicia?” I said.

  The doctor shook her head. “Not good. We had to induce coma. Her respiratory system failed.”

  “What did she take?”

  “An opioid of some kind. Hydrocodone, probably.”

  Yuri nodded. “There was an empty bottle of pills on the desk in her room.”

  “Who found her?”

  “I did,” Yuri said. “She was on the floor, by the bed. She didn’t seem to be breathing. I thought she was dead at first.”

  “Any idea how she got hold of the pills?”

  Yuri glanced at Christian, who shrugged. “We all know there’s a lot of dealing going on in the wards.”

  “Elif is dealing,” I said.

  Christian nodded. “Yes, I think so too.”

  Indira came in. She looked close to tears. She stood by Alicia’s side and watched her for a moment. “This is going to have a terrible effect on the others. It always sets the patients back months when this sort of thing happens.” She sat down and reached for Alicia’s hand and stroked it. I watched the ventilator rise and fall. There was silence for a moment.

  “I blame myself,” I said.

  Indira shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Theo.”

  “I should have taken better care of her.”

  “You did your best. You helped her. Which is more than anyone else did.”

  “Has anybody told Diomedes?”

  Christian shook his head. “We’ve not been able to get hold of him yet.”

  “Did you try his mobile?”

  “And his home phone. I’ve tried a few times.”

  Yuri frowned. “But—I saw Professor Diomedes earlier. He was here.”

  “He was?”

  “Yes, I saw him early this morning. He was at the other end of the corridor, and he seemed in a rush—at least, I think it was him.”

  “That’s odd. Well, he must have gone home. Try him again, will you?”

  Yuri nodded. He looked far away somehow; dazed, lost. He seemed to have taken it badly. I felt sorry for him.

  Christian’s pager went off, startling him—he quickly left the room, followed by Yuri and the doctor.

  Indira hesitated and spoke in a low voice. “Would you like a moment alone with Alicia?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Indira stood up and squeezed my shoulder for a second. Then she walked out.

  Alicia and I were alone.

  I sat down by the bed. I reached out and took Alicia’s arm. A catheter was attached to the back of her hand. I gently held her hand, stroking her palm and the inside of her wrist. I stroked her wrist with my finger, feeling the veins under her skin, and the raised, thickened scars from her suicide attempts.

  So this was it. This was how it was going to end. Alicia was silent again, and this time her silence would last forever.

  I wondered what Diomedes would say. I could imagine what Christian would tell him—Christian would find a way to blame me somehow: the emotions I stirred up in therapy were too much for Alicia to contain—she got hold of the hydrocodone as an attempt to self-soothe and self-medicate. The overdose might have been accidental, I could hear Diomedes saying, but the behavior was suicidal. And that would be that.

  But that was not that.

  Something had been overlooked. Something significant, something no one had noticed—not even Yuri, when he found Alicia unconscious by the bed. An empty pill bottle was on her desk, yes, and a

couple of pills were on the floor, so of course it was assumed she had taken an overdose.

  But here, under my fingertip, on the inside of Alicia’s wrist, was some bruising and a little mark that told a very different story.

  A pinprick along the vein—a tiny hole left by a hypodermic needle—revealing the truth: Alicia didn’t swallow a bottle of pills in a suicidal gesture. She was injected with a massive dose of morphine. This wasn’t an overdose.

  It was attempted murder.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DIOMEDES TURNED UP half an hour later. He had been in a meeting with the Trust, he said, then got stuck on the underground, delayed by a signal failure. He asked Yuri to send for me.

  Yuri found me in my office. “Professor Diomedes is here. He’s with Stephanie. They’re waiting for you.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

  I made my way to Diomedes’s office, expecting the worst. A scapegoat would be needed to take the blame. I’d seen it before, at Broadmoor, in cases of suicide: whichever member of staff was closest to the victim was held accountable, be it therapist, doctor, or nurse. No doubt Stephanie was baying for my blood.

  I knocked on the door and went inside. Stephanie and Diomedes were standing on either side of the desk. Judging by the tense silence, I’d interrupted a disagreement.

  Diomedes spoke first. He was clearly agitated, and his hands flew all over the place. “Terrible business. Terrible. Obviously it couldn’t have come at a worse time. It gives the Trust the perfect excuse to shut us down.”

  “I hardly think the Trust is the immediate concern,” Stephanie said. “The safety of the patients comes first. We need to find out exactly what happened.” She turned to me. “Indira mentioned you suspected Elif of dealing drugs? That’s how Alicia got hold of the hydrocodone?”

  I hesitated. “Well, I’ve no proof. It’s something I’ve heard a couple of the nurses talking about. But actually there’s something else I think you should know—”

  Stephanie interrupted me with a shake of her head. “We know what happened. It wasn’t Elif.”

  “No?”

  “Christian happened to be passing the nurses’ station, and he saw the drugs cabinet was left wide-open. There was no one in the station. Yuri had left it unlocked. Anyone could have gone in and helped themselves. And Christian saw Alicia lurking around the corner. He wondered what she was doing there at the time. Now of course it makes sense.”

  “How fortunate Christian was there to see all this.”

  My voice had a sarcastic tone. But Stephanie chose not to pick up on it. “Christian isn’t the only person who’s noticed Yuri’s carelessness. I’ve often felt Yuri is far too relaxed about security. Too friendly with the patients. Too concerned with being popular. I’m surprised something like this didn’t happen sooner.”

  “I see.” I did see. I understood now why Stephanie was being cordial to me. It seemed I was off the hook; she had chosen Yuri as the scapegoat.

  “Yuri always seems so meticulous,” I said, glancing at Diomedes, wondering if he’d intervene. “I really don’t think—”

  Diomedes shrugged. “My personal opinion is Alicia has always been highly suicidal. As we know, when someone wants to die, despite your best efforts to protect them, it’s often impossible to prevent it.”

  “Isn’t that our job?” Stephanie snapped. “To prevent it?”

  “No.” Diomedes shook his head. “Our job is to help them heal. But we are not God. We do not have the power over life and death. Alicia Berenson wanted to die. At some point she was bound to succeed. Or at least partly succeed.”

  I hesitated. It was now or never.

  “I’m not so sure that’s true,” I said. “I don’t think it was a suicide attempt.”

  “You think it was an accident?”

  “No. I don’t think it was an accident.”

  Diomedes gave me a curious look. “What are you trying to say, Theo? What other alternative is there?”

  “Well, to start with, I don’t believe Yuri gave Alicia the drugs.”

  “You mean Christian is mistaken?”

  “No,” I said. “Christian is lying.”

  Diomedes and Stephanie stared at me, shocked. I went on before they could recover their power of speech.

  I quickly told them everything that I had read in Alicia’s diary: that Christian had been treating Alicia privately before Gabriel’s murder; that she was one of several private patients he saw unofficially, and not only had he not come forward to testify at the trial, he had pretended not to know Alicia when she was admitted to the Grove. “No wonder he was so against any attempt to get her talking again,” I said. “If she did speak, she would be in a position to expose him.”

  Stephanie stared at me blankly. “But—what are you saying? You can’t seriously be suggesting that he—”

  “Yes, I am suggesting it. It wasn’t an overdose. It was an attempt to murder her.”

  “Where is Alicia’s diary?” Diomedes asked me. “You have it in your possession?”

  I shook my head. “No, not anymore. I gave it back to Alicia. It must be in her room.”

  “Then we must retrieve it.” Diomedes turned to Stephanie. “But first, I think we should call the police. Don’t you?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  FROM THEN ON THINGS MOVED FAST.

  Police officers swarmed all over the Grove, asking questions, taking photographs, sealing off Alicia’s studio and her room. The investigation was led by Chief Inspector Steven Allen, heavyset, bald, with large reading glasses that distorted his eyes, magnifying them, making them seem bigger than life, bulging with interest and curiosity.

  Allen listened with careful interest to my story; I told him everything I had said to Diomedes, and I showed him my supervision notes.

  “Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Faber.”

  “Call me Theo.”

  “I’d like you to make an official statement, please. And I’ll be talking to you more in due course.”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  Inspector Allen had commandeered Diomedes’s office. He showed me out. After I made my statement to a junior officer, I hung around in the corridor, waiting. Soon enough, Christian was led to the door by a police officer. He looked uneasy, scared—and guilty. I felt satisfied he would soon be charged.

  There was nothing else to do now, except wait. On my way out of the Grove, I passed the goldfish bowl. I glanced inside—and what I saw stopped me in my tracks.

  Elif was being slipped some drugs by Yuri, and he was pocketing some cash.

  Elif charged out and fixed me with her one eye. A look of contempt and hatred.

  “Elif,” I said.

  “Fuck off.” She marched off, disappearing around the corner.

  Yuri emerged from the goldfish bowl. As soon as he saw me, his jaw dropped. He stuttered with surprise. “I—I didn’t see you there.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Elif—forgot her medication. I was just giving it to her.”

  “I see.”

  So Yuri was dealing and supplying Elif. I wondered what else he was up to—perhaps I had been a little too hasty to defend him so determinedly to Stephanie. I’d better keep an eye on him.

  “I wanted to ask you,” he said, leading me away from the goldfish bowl. “What should we do about Mr. Martin?”

  “What do you mean?” I looked at him, surprised. “You mean Jean-Felix Martin? What about him?”

  “Well, he’s been here for hours. He came this morning to visit Alicia. And he’s been waiting since then.”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me? You mean he’s been here all this time?”

  “Sorry, it slipped my mind with everything that happened. He’s in the waiting room.”

  “I see. Well, I’d better go and talk to him.”

  I hurried downstairs to reception, thinking about what I’d just heard. What was Jean-Felix doing here? I wondered what he wanted; what it meant.

  I went into the waiting room and looked around.

  But no one was there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I LEFT THE GROVE and lit a cigarette. I heard a man’s voice calling my name. I looked up, expecting it to be Jean-Felix. But it wasn’t him.

  It was Max Berenson. He was getting out of a car and charging toward me.

  “What the fuck?” he shouted. “What happened?” Max’s face was bright red, contorted with anger. “They just called and told me about Alicia. What happened to her?”

  I took a step backward. “I think you need to calm down, Mr. Berenson.”

  “Calm down? My sister-in-law is lying in there in a fucking coma because of your negligence—”

  Max’s hand was clenched in a fist. He raised it. I thought he was going to throw a punch at me.

  But he was interrupted by Tanya. She hurried over, looking just as angry as he was—but angry with Max, not me. “Stop it, Max! For Christ’s sake. Aren’t things bad enough? It’s not Theo’s fault!”

  Max ignored her and turned back to me. His eyes were wild.

  “Alicia was in your care,” he shouted. “How did you let it happen? How?”

  Max’s eyes filled with angry tears. He was making no attempt to disguise his emotions. He stood there crying. I glanced at Tanya; she obviously knew about his feelings for Alicia. Tanya looked dismayed and drained. Without another word, she turned and went back to their car.

  I wanted to get away from Max as fast as possible. I kept walking.

  He kept shouting abuse. I thought he was going to follow, but he didn’t—he was rooted to the spot, a broken man, calling after me, yelling piteously:

  “I hold you responsible. My poor Alicia, my girl … my poor Alicia … You’ll pay for this! You hear me?”

  Max kept on shouting, but I ignored him. Soon his voice faded into silence. I was alone.

  I kept walking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I WALKED BACK TO THE HOUSE where Kathy’s lover lived. I stood there for an hour, watching. Eventually the door opened, and he emerged. I watched him leave. Where was he going? To meet Kathy? I hesitated, but decided not to follow him. Instead I stayed watching the house.

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