by Leona Deakin
‘So you’re going now?’
‘No. They wouldn’t let me while I’m not in school. But it’s been cancelled now.’
Dr Bloom’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly and then reset themselves. ‘And now no one is going?’
Seraphine nodded. ‘Mum spoke to them, and now it’s not happening.’ If she couldn’t go, why should the rest of her class? She was the best artist by far.
‘You said you don’t really cry. What did you mean?’
‘Well, Mum cried for a week when the dog died. She’s a bit of a drama queen.’
‘Were you upset about the dog dying?’
Seraphine thought about it. ‘He’d had a good life.’
‘You didn’t miss him?’
‘I didn’t miss taking him for walks in the rain or having to feed him every night. Although I suppose my pocket money went down as a result of losing those jobs, so that was annoying.’
Bloom nodded and smiled for the first time. ‘Seraphine, I think you may possess some of the qualities of these outstanding teens. And, if it’s OK with you, I’d like to spend our next few sessions exploring whether that’s the case. Will you have a think about that for me before we meet again?’
Seraphine left the room feeling a little taller. I knew I was special, she thought as she walked out of the building and into the sunshine, I knew it. She was starting to like this psychologist. Dr Augusta Bloom might be the first person she had met who deserved her respect.
15
The train home was quiet. Bloom placed her handbag on the seat beside her and circled her shoulders. Jameson had been right to insist they look into Lana’s disappearance. There was definitely something odd going on.
But the extra workload was exhausting. Bloom could happily sit in a room of people and say not a single word, but the thoughts in her head were rarely quiet. It was the curse of the introvert to think, rethink and ponder every aspect of every experience. An additional case simply added to the noise.
Bloom took out her iPad, opened a new section of the storyboard and started with Lana. She typed Lana’s key characteristics into the left-hand column.
Emotionally unstable with (possible) PTSD/depression. Impulsive. Goes out, stays out, drinks too much. Extroverted. Likes social media, partying, and being in the pub.
Bloom supposed the latter two could also be symptomatic of alcoholism. In the right-hand column she listed the things she knew about Lana’s circumstances.
Rents a small house in Wembley so must have, or have had, some income. Goes away for long periods of time, up to six months, but not with the military. Has one dependent child, 16-year-old Jane, and has been a single mother since Jane’s father left or perhaps was kicked out.
Bloom stopped and looked at that last sentence again. Something didn’t quite add up. Jane had talked about Lana being abandoned and forced to cope alone, and then, only a moment or two later, had described her mother as a heroine booting out an abusive father. In both narratives, Lana came out looking good. Which wasn’t necessarily unusual – we all tend to cast ourselves as the leading actor in our own stories. But Lana was known to be erratic and impulsive. Would she have had the wherewithal to successfully rebuild their lives, or, alternatively, to escape from an abusive ex?
Bloom didn’t have the answer, but she knew not to ignore the question. She often spotted important gaps and links long before she could explain why they were significant. The trick was to note these gut feelings (as Jameson would call them) and to examine them ruthlessly.
As the train pulled into her station, Bloom made one last note.
Find Jane’s father.
16
Rural towns and villages had parks filled with mummies and their buggies and walkers with their dogs. But Russell Square moved at a pace. Even the woman doing yoga on the grass was moving as quickly as possible from one position to the next. Outside the green oasis of the square, the hum of traffic coming and going, starting and stopping, provided a percussion accompaniment that never stopped. Inside the square, the constant flow of people entering and exiting at all four corners, dodging other walkers while flicking through their messages or talking incessantly into their phones, throbbed to the beat of the traffic. This was a place where things happened. Perhaps not literally, but in the minds and digital realities of the square’s brief visitors.
She looked around. There were only two types of people who inhabited the square for any length of time: the workers employed to keep everything clean and serve drinks in the cafe at the northeast corner, and the watchers. The watchers sat at the few tables outside the cafe, sipping flat whites or loose-leaf tea as they took time to think or simply to watch the world pass by in a flurry of feet.
She was one such watcher. She sat in the chair farthest from the cafe door, next to the fence. This was her favourite chair, partly because the scent of the six-foot-high privet reminded her of summer, but mainly because this position offered the best view of the square and everyone in it. Watching the normal people was one of her favourite pastimes. Wasn’t it strange that people with the gift of empathy rarely looked at one another? She looked at them all the time. Watching them was how you learned to fit in.
But today she wasn’t simply watching; she was searching. She perched on the edge of her seat, her hands locked above her knees. Black coats, blue coats, red, purple and yellow coats passed by, a rainbow of normal people doing normal things. She craned her neck from side to side, worried she might miss her target. But then she found what she was looking for. A vision in bland, from her mousy hair to her sensible shoes. It was the woman who had taught her to hide.
17
Bloom crossed Russell Square with her head down and her pace steady. At the gate she slowed to check for traffic and then, halfway across the road, she caught sight of a young woman standing outside her office in a fitted blue-leather jacket, skinny jeans and Converse trainers.
‘Dr Bloom,’ shouted the woman. ‘Do you have a comment to make about the Jamie Bolton case?’ The young woman held out her iPhone, the Record function clearly activated.
‘No.’ Bloom tried to pass but the journalist blocked her. The verdict on the Bolton case had been announced that morning. The defence barrister had rung Bloom personally to thank her for her input as an expert witness.
‘The family say you’re to blame for letting a child abuser walk free. What do you have to say about that?’
‘Jamie Bolton was found not guilty,’ Bloom said.
The journalist straightened, and continued with renewed purpose. ‘Because of your testimony.’
Bloom sighed inside. ‘I have no comment.’ She side-stepped the woman to get to her office door.
‘Is that what you’ll say when the next child is attacked?’
Bloom turned to face the woman, looking her square in the eyes. She was no older than twenty-five. ‘Did you attend court?’ asked Bloom. The woman’s blank expression revealed that she had not. ‘Did you bother to do your research and read the judge’s summary before coming here to hassle me? Is the truth at all important or are you simply chasing cheap scandal?’
‘Why did you defend a child abuser, Dr Bloom?’
‘You need to ask yourself what type of journalist you want to be. It might be easier to find work down in the gutter press, but don’t you want more from your life? If you are any good at writing and investigating, put it to good use, for pity’s sake. Don’t just do what’s easy, do what matters.’
‘Why did you defend a child abuser, Dr Bloom?’
Bloom shook her head at the woman before turning and entering the building. Jameson was talking to the Terminal Manager at Leeds Bradford Airport via video link. She quickly removed her jacket and sat down beside him.
‘Jerry, this is Dr Bloom,’ said Jameson. ‘Jerry Moore is in charge of all the cafes and concessionary stands land-side at LBA.’
The man on the screen was in his mid-thirties. He had a thin face and a rather unflattering beard. The hair on h
is head was dark and smooth but his facial hair was coarse and frizzy.
‘G’morning,’ he said, his voice slightly higher than she’d expected.
‘Jerry was telling me that he remembers Stuart Rose-Butler well. That they were all pretty shocked to discover he and Libby were a couple,’ said Jameson.
‘Yeah, a right shock that was at the Christmas do. She’s such a lovely lady.’
‘How would you describe Stuart?’ said Bloom.
Jerry leaned back in his seat. ‘It’s safe to say I didn’t like the guy. I wasn’t the TM when Stuart started work here. I was his colleague, so I saw both sides. He’d properly suck up to anyone in management, but to the rest of us he was a bully.’
Bloom thought of the picture she’d seen of Stuart on Libby’s mantelpiece. He was well-built and good-looking. Guys like that could often be dismissive of the Jerry Moores of the world. ‘A bully in what sense?’
‘Nothing in-your-face. But he was always putting people down, taking the credit, showing off – you know the type. I expect he was angry about being a nobody. He hated it when I was promoted. Whoo,’ said Jerry with wide eyes and a shake of the head, ‘that made him furious.’
‘And how did he lose his job?’ asked Jameson.
‘It was only a matter of time. He rarely did any actual work. He’d ponce around making the rest of the team do it and, you see, I knew that, so I paid attention. But then he shot himself in the foot, didn’t he? He stole the money from one of the charity boxes we have by the tills. Said he only borrowed it to buy lunch, but in the cafe they got a free lunch so we knew that was a load of bull.’
‘So you fired him?’
‘Yep. Stealing is gross misconduct, so he was a goner.’
After the conversation with Jerry Moore, they called Faye Graham’s boss at Fisher & Wright Tax Accountants in Bristol. It was equally enlightening.
‘Faye was a phenomenal accountant,’ said John Fisher, the firm’s managing partner. He wore a crisp white shirt, a thickly knotted grey tie and a suit jacket. ‘We thought we’d struck gold with her but, to be brutally honest, she turned out to be a bit of a nightmare.’ Fisher described how both colleagues and clients had complained about Faye’s unreasonable demands and dismissive treatment over the years. One client refused to work with her after it transpired she’d been over-claiming on the expenses attached to their account. She hadn’t been stealing as such, but she’d opted for expensive lunches, and taxis over trains. ‘I never saw it myself, but my secretary, Lisa, said Faye could be very intimidating. People in the office were scared of her. It was a relief when she left to start a family. I think that suited her better. She always talked about how happy she was at home.’
Bloom noted Jameson’s raised eyebrows and tried to keep her expression neutral.
‘There’s definitely something off about these people,’ she said afterwards. ‘Lana’s been an absent and somewhat irresponsible mother. Harry described his wife as vile and her boss thought she was trouble. Grayson’s tutor said he’d threatened to report him for incompetence. And Stuart’s boss described him as a manipulative bully.’
Jameson shuddered theatrically. ‘Yeah, but that’s what happens when you look at people under a microscope.’
‘Well, yes, I expect if I took a look at you …’ Bloom said with a smile.
‘Explains why you’re such a closed book. No one gets to analyse you, do they?’
‘I have no idea what you mean.’
‘Course you don’t, Mrs I’ve-got-my-private-life-locked-up-tight.’
Bloom glared at him and he chuckled and held up his hands. ‘I had to have a little dig about before we started working together. I had to check you weren’t dodgy, didn’t I? Don’t look at me like that. You did the same, no doubt.’
‘I certainly did not.’
Jameson returned to his desk and opened up one of the tabloid websites.
‘So you and Jamie Bolton have gone viral, I see.’ He waited for Bloom to look across at his screen before pressing Play. ‘The girl’s father did an interview outside the court.’
A red-faced man in an ill-fitting suit spoke into the camera. ‘The psychologist told them that a twenty-five-year-old man grooming my ten-year-old daughter was normal, and they bought it. Bloody disgusting. What’s the world coming to when they take the word of cranks like that over the facts?’
Bloom sighed. ‘That explains the journalist outside.’
‘What? Here?’
She nodded. ‘It’s like none of these people sat in court and heard a word that was said. Not only does Jamie Bolton have the mental age of a ten-year-old, his brain damage means he has little-to-no sex drive – facts which came from the neurologist.’ Bloom pointed at Jameson’s screen. ‘And it was that man’s precious little girl who suggested they play strip poker because she had seen her mum and dad playing it “all the time”.’ Bloom used finger quotes for the last phrase; it was a direct quote from the alleged victim.
‘Hey, you don’t have to justify your testimony to me,’ said Jameson. ‘I’m on your side.’
His phone rang and he rushed to answer it.
‘Alright, sis?’ he said. He listened for a moment. ‘Shit.’ With the phone still in his hand he opened the BBC News website. On the screen was a picture of Harry Graham and the headline read:
BRISTOL OPTICIAN STABBED TO DEATH IN HIS HOME
18
Chief Superintendent Steve Barker took Bloom’s hand in both of his: a solid, firm handshake designed to instil trust and simultaneously remind you of his rank.
‘Now then, Dr Bloom, how the devil are you? I always hoped we’d get you out to our neck of the woods someday.’ Barker had been a delegate on one of Bloom’s College of Policing courses two years previously. She ran a module on The Psychology of Crime for up-and-coming leaders.
‘I’m very well, Steve, and I hear congratulations are in order.’ He’d just been promoted to the rank of Assistant Chief Constable for Avon & Somerset Police.
Barker leaned closer and lowered his voice. ‘Thank you. No one was more surprised than me.’ His attempt to play it down was undermined by the excitement in his eyes. ‘I won’t start for another few months. ACC Wilks doesn’t retire until the end of May.’
Barker led Bloom behind the police station’s reception desk, swiped open the door and gestured for Bloom to follow.
Bloom lowered her voice to match his. ‘I’m not surprised at all, Steve. You were always going places, from what I could see.’
‘You’re too kind. Now let’s get you set up with Carly. Awful business, this. Just awful.’
Detective Inspector Carly Mathers from the Child Protection Team sat on a large cushioned chair looking down at her phone. Bloom could see through an internal window behind her that a standard square office next door had been furnished with comfy chairs and decorated in soft yellows and greens. An Ikea shelving unit along the side wall was filled with books and toys and the window was framed with bright-green curtains. On the floor a large round mat in the same bright green covered half of the carpet. An un-uniformed woman sat in one of the chairs and on the mat sat a boy of around eight or nine, and a younger girl. They were building towers of Lego.
‘Carly, can I introduce Dr Bloom?’
The DI sprang from her seat and deposited her phone in her jacket pocket in one smooth movement. ‘Good morning, Sir,’ she said to her boss. She turned to face Bloom. ‘Dr Bloom, DI Mathers.’ She held out her hand. Mathers was tall, with her hair cut in a no-nonsense chin-length bob. She wore a smart shirt and trouser suit, tailored but not overly so. It was a look Bloom recognized. She had taken the same approach herself years ago when working to gain the respect of her mainly male police colleagues.
Bloom shook her hand. ‘Thank you for letting me sit in.’
‘The Chief Super said we’d be foolish not to.’
Bloom saw the quickly masked look of irritation on the DI’s face. She couldn’t blame the woman. DI Mathers was hig
hly trained and no doubt very competent, and there was nothing more irritating than a boss telling you how to do your job or, God forbid, suggesting that you might need help. ‘I’ll endeavour not to interfere with your investigation, Detective Inspector. I’m here because Harry Graham’s wife, Faye, is someone we’ve been trying to trace.’
‘Yes, I heard Mrs Graham had been reported missing. Do you think this is related?’
‘I’ve no idea at the moment.’
DI Mathers nodded slowly. ‘I heard about a game. What is it? A Blue-Whale-type thing?’
‘Blue Whale? What’s that?’ asked Chief Superintendent Barker.
‘It’s an online Russian suicide game that’s resulted in over a hundred deaths,’ replied Mathers. Bloom wasn’t surprised that the Child Protection Team had been briefed on Blue Whale.
‘Goodness,’ said Chief Superintendent Barker.
‘There are some sick bastards out there.’ DI Mathers rolled her shoulders. ‘They get these kids to do tasks that keep them up and make them sleep-deprived, then when they’ve got them hooked, they tell them to top themselves.’
Bloom spoke up. ‘It’s awful and we’re hoping what we’re looking at is nothing like that, but this thing with Harry Graham—’
‘That’s not what we have here. A suicide,’ said Chief Superintendent Barker.
‘No, Sir,’ said DI Mathers. ‘Harry Graham had multiple stab wounds, too many to have been self-inflicted. And we found the knife upstairs in the boy’s bedroom. Mr Graham was downstairs.’ DI Mathers followed her boss’s eyes into the room behind her, towards the two children building Lego towers. ‘So we’re pretty sure there’s a third party involved.’