‘If these private details are linked to Deepwell, then they are private no longer. We’re detectives investigating a murder and we can’t keep secrets from each other. Morton may not like the idea of sharing his private life, but in the circumstances he has no choice. You have to tell me, did he get some kind of help there?’
‘You mean psychiatric help?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t say.’
She wanted to drag Bates and Morton down to the interview suite and subject the pair to a thorough questioning. That would make her life much easier. She was about to press for more information but Bates glared at her, and then his eyes flicked to the door behind her. She turned round. She hadn’t been aware of him, but Morton was standing there. She had no idea how long he’d been there, and how much of the conversation he’d heard. He was breathing heavily and staring at her, his eyes deathly still. She brushed past him and into the corridor.
She stopped at a row of photographs on the wall outside Bates’s office. They showed the station’s detectives and police officers at various special events over the years. She stood for a moment, staring at one in particular. It was of Morton standing next to a superintendent, who was handing over some sort of certificate or award. Morton’s face looked as empty as the open grave, while the superintendent wore a beaming grin. As covertly as possible, she took out her phone and took a picture of it. She knew she was crossing an invisible line, extending her inquiries into the personal life of a colleague, but it was time to probe Morton’s reticence.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure making his way along the corridor. She pocketed the phone and swung away from the photographs. She was relieved to see that it was Shaw, and that he was on his own.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, eyeing the phone in her pocket.
‘Nothing much,’ she replied.
‘Any luck with Bates?’ he whispered.
‘None whatsoever.’
He gave her a glum but sympathetic look. ‘It might surprise you but I know exactly how you feel.’
A new possibility of an ally opened up before her. ‘If you’re at a loose end, you could do something for me,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ he asked cautiously.
She asked him to contact the staff at Deepwell he had interviewed earlier, and tell them the police were looking for a man calling himself Inspector Monteath.
‘Why?’
She gave him a thorough description of what she had learned of Monteath’s movements, and he listened carefully.
‘What do you think we’re going to discover? Aren’t there better leads to follow?’
‘I think this Inspector Monteath, whoever he is, is playing a game of hide and seek with me.’
Shaw gave her a disbelieving look.
‘I think he knows I’m searching for him,’ she said. ‘He’s hiding somewhere but he wants me to keep looking.’
With the air of someone playing along with a charade, Shaw said, ‘And to keep the game going, he has to be sure you’re still playing?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But what if he doesn’t exist?’
She gave him a straight look. ‘He does exist.’
‘How are you so sure? All the patient notes suggest he’s a delusion.’
‘Because he’s leading me on a trail. The same one he laid for Billy Chisholm.’
It all seemed too much for Shaw. He pulled a face. ‘I think the whole thing is a fantasy.’
‘But we have to try everything. Our investigation meetings are getting shorter and shorter. We’re running out of time and leads.’ She stared him in the eye. She saw a slight look of surrender there and worked on it. ‘I know you think this is a wild goose chase, but we’re detectives and sometimes we have to follow our craziest hunches. Some of the people you interviewed might have held something back on purpose, or without even knowing about it.’ She kept staring at his eyes and knew that she was winning him over. The look of surrender gave way to submission.
‘OK, then,’ he said.
Her victory was confirmed. If only she had realised earlier that a little emotional force and prolonged eye contact would do the trick.
‘What shall I ask them?’ he said.
‘Ask them about Inspector Monteath. It’s a straight yes or no question. Either he exists or doesn’t. Check also what links Morton might have with Deepwell. If they mention confidentiality, tell them we’re trying to stop a murderer.’
When Shaw left, Bates’s door at the bottom of the corridor opened and closed, offering Herron a glimpse of Morton’s shadowy figure, standing and staring at her like a cold-eyed sentry. What secrets are you guarding? was the question ringing in her mind as she hurried down the corridor.
*
She drove to Deepwell at speed. She needed to find out more about Monteath, and it had to be as soon as possible. At the reception desk, she asked to speak to Dr Barker about urgent matters, but her powers of persuasion fell short, and the receptionist told her that the psychiatrist was busy. However, she was permitted to sit in the waiting room in case Barker was able to free up some time in his diary.
After a few minutes, she placed a call to the reception desk from her mobile phone. While the receptionist was busy answering it, she slipped out of the waiting room and down one of the corridors. Some nurses were ahead of her, and she stepped in behind them as they made their way through the security doors. She knew she was not supposed to be in this part of the hospital. At any moment, a door might lock behind her and she would have to call staff for help. She worked on the principle that if she exuded enough confidence, she could make any door open for her. Without a challenging word, staff and patients stepped aside for her. She strode down a long, quiet corridor and came to a locked door. Above it a small red lamp flashed; the doors were hooked to an alarm system. If there had been a staff member around, she would have ordered them to open the door, but there was nobody in sight. She pushed against the doors but they didn’t budge. She waited, expecting security guards and sirens at any moment. However, nothing happened. The corridor beyond the doors was full of shadows and quiet as a cemetery. Her sense of urgency grew. She walked back down the corridor and found an emergency exit. She pushed down the bar, and stepped into the courtyard garden, holding the door ajar.
A group of patients were planting rows of seedlings, bending in unison as if to an inner metronome. One of the patients looked up at her. It was Mary, the woman with the scarred arms. She gave Herron a vague smile, as if in recognition. Herron beckoned and the woman approached, her smile fading slightly.
‘Have you seen Inspector Monteath recently?’ said Herron.
Mary’s smile vanished. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied.
‘Don’t know what?’
She seemed unsure about Herron’s question, yet serene, as though the repetitive gardening duties were working their effect today. Her features turned dark and heavy.
‘A few days ago you told me you had a clue for him.’
She looked Herron in the eye. ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You told me Monteath drops by whenever Dr Barker leaves. Is that because he wants to avoid Barker?’ Herron’s attention was completely concentrated on her face, waiting for a signal to leak out. ‘What questions does he ask you? Did he ever show you any ID to prove who he was?’
Again, Mary didn’t respond.
‘I was here a few days ago. You asked me about him. Do you remember?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m trying to find Inspector Monteath. Outside. In the real world.’ On an impulse, she showed Mary the photograph of Morton on her phone. She had no real evidence that Morton was Monteath, nor that he posed a risk. It was just her hunch. ‘Do you recognise this man?’ Herron tried to hide the tension in her voice. ‘Is this Inspector Monteath?’
Mary’s eyes darted about. Her mind is wandering, thought Herron
, I need to keep her focused. She showed her the other photographs she had taken, copies of the pictures depicting Sinden’s excursions into the forests. Mary’s brows knitted in puzzlement.
‘What do you see here, Mary?’
She looked at Herron with a vacant gaze.
So many delusions piled upon each other by patients and psychiatrists working together to form a thick foggy layer through which a murderer might slip, unnoticed, and vanish. ‘It’s the story of a murder,’ said Herron, trying to help her along. ‘The one Inspector Monteath tried to recreate on Ward G. You know about it, don’t you?’
‘I never spoke to the boys on Ward G. They’re all completely crazy in there.’
In spite of the denial, Herron could sense the patient’s muscles tensing up. Only her eyes moved, scanning the corridor behind the detective.
‘I know there’s more to Monteath,’ said Herron. ‘More than everyone is letting on.’
Mary chewed her lip.
‘Did the doctors warn you not to speak about Monteath?’
She chewed again.
‘Why can’t you talk about him?’
‘Because the doctors are helping me control my delusions.’
‘They’re not helping you. They’re trying to stop you talking. They’re covering up something bad on Ward G.’
Mary’s face grew pale. My questions are scaring her, thought Herron. Is it me she’s scared of, or something else?
‘I can’t talk about Monteath,’ said Mary. ‘You shouldn’t talk about him either, else they’ll lock you up, too.’
The other patients had stopped planting. They watched Herron, gauging her mood, like children who could sense tension in the air and were listening out for danger.
‘You must tell me what you know about Monteath.’ Herron’s voice rose again. ‘A woman’s life might be in danger because of him.’
‘Doesn’t matter what you say or do. I can’t talk about him.’ Mary sounded rational and precise in her words. This time it was Herron who felt desperate for verification, and slightly out of control, as though Monteath was her delusion now.
The other patients dropped their plants, and drew closer. She felt as though she was hitting another brick wall. She did not know if Monteath was completely irrelevant to the investigation or whether he held the entire truth about the conspiracy at Deepwell. If he was an imaginary detective, why did he leave so many traces? Why did he crop up in so many of the patients’ stories, why did she keep finding traces of his presence? The faces of the patients stared at her. She could see the madness peering out of their eyes, reacting to the madness in her, her agitation and desperation. In asking these questions about Monteath, she had entered their world.
‘I can give you my mobile number,’ said Herron. ‘In case you see Monteath again.’
‘You’re crazy,’ said Mary, her voice rising. She backed away. ‘Someone call the doctors. This bitch is crazy and she won’t leave me alone.’
An alarm began to sound. She would get no further in her search for the mysterious Monteath. She turned and slipped back through the emergency exit. She passed a pair of pensive-looking nurses hurrying towards the courtyard garden. She exited through the door they had left half open, and slipped out the front door without anyone noticing her.
29
The atmosphere of the briefing meeting the next morning was charged from the outset. The murder investigation, which had progressed without a clear sense of direction, now felt hollow at the centre and full of ragged edges. Detective Chief Inspector Bates walked in and glared at the assembled officers, who were all on edge, including Herron. Morton was more subdued than normal, plunged into an even deeper silence, watching Herron and the boss carefully, as though he sensed that something was up.
‘Is this the full team?’ demanded Bates.
Morton shook his head. He explained that a group of officers were doing door-to-door inquiries on the streets near where Chisholm had been living.
‘OK, let’s run through what we have so far,’ said Bates. He took out a large pad and started to write.
Rodgers and Shaw began by saying that Pochard’s private life seemed to have been boring in the extreme. Her main social contacts had been through the holistic foundation, but its meetings were confidential and shrouded in secrecy. None of the psychotherapists at Deepwell were prepared to talk about the group. However, the officers had found a former therapist who had briefly been a member about ten years ago, a man called John Carson. He had undergone a painful divorce and had sought counselling from Dr Llewyn. He had tried for more than a year to join the foundation but Llewyn had told him there was a long waiting list.
When Carson started to bring up disturbing memories of his childhood, Llewyn took the unusual step of inviting him to join the foundation in spite of the lengthy waiting list. From the start, Carson noticed that the other members led solitary lives and were emotionally dependent upon Dr Llewyn. There were clearly defined roles and levels of influence within the group, but, overall, everyone seemed immensely supportive of each other. Some of the members were from professions outside the psychiatric and medical worlds, and they all encouraged him to talk about his memories and dreams, which they then interpreted.
However, Carson soon realised that something unpleasant was going on beneath the surface. The stronger members of the group displayed an arrogance and coldness that he thought he would never see in highly trained psychotherapists. They would force members to dredge up traumatic experiences from their childhood and repeat them until a repressed memory had been revealed. The disturbing thing was that some of the members would fabricate a story of abuse just to be validated by the group and answer the yearning of the leading therapists. It had scared him, what he witnessed, the way people’s memories could be shaped by a group, and all independent thought and judgement cast aside. Those who brought up uninteresting or mildly upsetting memories were cruelly ignored. In his case, he had felt the need to unburden himself of terrible things he had dreamed or fantasised about, but never actually experienced. After about a year, he stopped going to the society meetings because he was not prepared to endure talking about false memories any longer or be caught up in the mad processes of the group. As well as Llewyn, the lead therapists in the group were Barker and Pochard. Carson’s departure appeared to have a negative effect on his career as a therapist, and he had been unable to find any work in that field afterwards.
‘Sounds like a cult,’ said Bates. ‘But what does it have to do with Pochard’s murder? I think we need to stick to the relevant facts.’
Herron summarised her meeting with Dr Sinden, which reinforced the findings so far about Llewyn and the foundation. She talked about her attempts to shine a light on what was going on at Deepwell, and her frustration at the resistance of Dr Barker and Professor Reichmann. Then she took a deep breath and mentioned the mysterious figure of Inspector Monteath.
Morton gave her a warning look, but she went on. She summarised what she had gleaned about him from the patient notes and Murray’s possible sighting.
‘My instinct tells me there is more to Monteath than a shared delusion,’ she said.
‘Who do you think he is, then?’ said Bates, barely suppressing the mockery in his voice. ‘An accomplice of the killer or a perfectly normal detective working somewhere in the Borders?’
Bates’s tone brought her up short. The truth was that he could be anybody at all.
Morton spoke. ‘I’ve already checked the databases and the only Inspector Monteath on the records lived in Aberdeen and died fifteen years ago.’
Herron was surprised by Morton’s intervention, but tried not to show it.
‘There is of course the other possibility,’ said Bates. ‘That Monteath is a complete red herring.’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you see what I’m getting at, don’t you? You seem to be creating something out of the patients’ testimonies that fits with your suspicions about Deepwell. B
ut this is not the real world. These are not real leads.’
‘It’s true that we’re dealing with unreliable accounts but Pochard was investigating them before she was murdered.’
‘Then by all means, give their confessions some credence. But be careful. They are full of traps. From what I understand, these patients have great experience making fools of professionals, especially those desperate to advance careers and humour their fantasies.’
She bit her lip. Was that last comment a jibe at her? ‘Can’t you see that Deepwell are covering up something?’ she said.
‘There may well be a conspiracy of silence but the reason may not be as sinister as you think. Perhaps they are just trying to protect their reputation and good name. You need more evidence, more proof that this Monteath figure exists before we start launching a search for him. Or wasting more time with hours of useless speculation.’
Afterwards, no one spoke.
Bates waited until the mood had reached a concentrated level. Then, speaking in a low voice, he said he welcomed intelligent and carefully planned investigative work from his detectives. However, the directions the team had taken were futile and stupid. His voice grew gruff and annoyed. He wanted everyone to give more careful attention to their attitudes towards Deepwell and the staff who worked there, in particular the director, Dr Barker. ‘I want everyone in this room to treat him with courtesy,’ he said with a warning note in his voice. ‘He has complained to me about the manner of some of the officers on this team.’
‘We treat everyone with courtesy,’ said Morton. ‘Dr Barker is no different from any other suspect in the investigation.’
Bates rapped the table with his knuckles. ‘I will not countenance any attempt to tarnish the reputation of a highly respected psychiatrist who has worked tirelessly to address the mental health problems of the criminal population, and has always cooperated with police inquiries in the past. I want the entire team to give very careful thought to what I am saying. Only return to the investigation when you are sure you understand my order.’
The Listeners Page 19