Faith

by Peter James

From his attire, Dr David DeWitt looked more like an architect — or an arts critic, perhaps — than a doctor. A gangling, balding man in his early forties, he was wearing a crumpled brown corduroy suit, dark shirt, a tie inspired by Jackson Pollock, and grubby trainers. With his inane perma-grin, he was listening to Ross with the expectancy of a man awaiting the punchline of a joke.

  This entire room felt like a joke to Ross — one of those private jokes you had to be in the know to understand. The exterior of the substantial terraced Regency house in Little Venice was all faded grandeur: peeling paint, crumbling steps, rusting ornamental lions. Inside it had been tastefully modernised by DeWitt's elegant wife — all except this room, which seemed to have been decorated by a colourblind orang-utan with a spray gun.

  The walls were painted to simulate leopardskin, the ceiling was a livid purple blotched with even more livid pink, the carpet was orange, and a Dayglo green spider hung from a metal filing cabinet. Almost every surface was stacked with precarious piles of files, receipts, books and papers. Anyone who had not been here before might have assumed that DeWitt was in the process of moving in, but Ross had come here some five years previously and it had looked exactly the same then.

  That was when DeWitt had consulted him about his youngest son, Nick. The then five-year-old had a congenital facial disfiguration, with a hooded, elephantine nose. He had been so badly teased at school that he'd refused to leave the house. In a series of operations, Ross had corrected it, and Nick was now, according to his father, well adjusted.

  The shrink was high-profile, constantly in the media and well connected. It was partly for these reasons that Ross had cultivated him. The other reason was DeWitt's speciality in body dsymorphic disorder. DeWitt's patients were normal-looking people who either imagined they were ugly or wanted some impossible ideal. He sometimes referred them to Ross, who would reassure them that nothing further could be done.

  'Great seeing you on Saturday,' DeWitt said. 'A very good dinner. I particularly enjoyed meeting Michael Tennent — never met him before. And I liked your chief constable friend too.' He paused, then said, 'I'm sorry about Faith.'

  'Yes.'

  'Lendt's disease, you said?'

  Ross nodded.

  'But there is a glimmer of hope? This new drug?'

  'It's the only hope.'

  'But it's not working?'

  Choking back well-rehearsed emotion, Ross muttered, 'No.' He dug out his handkerchief and dabbed his eyes.

  'I'm sorry. She's such a lovely person. If there's anything I can do,' DeWitt said, 'Vickie and I are hugely indebted to you for all you did for Nick.'

  'Thank you.' Ross pretended to pull himself together. 'Actually, there is, David, it's why I'm here. And I'm grateful to you for seeing me so quickly.'

  'I had a lucky cancellation.'

  David DeWitt, looking at Ross Ransome, saw an expensively clad man of similar age to himself who had a lot of flashy style. But Ross could earn more before breakfast than he could in an entire day. It was not a problem — but DeWitt felt there should be some compensation: surgeons ought to have a higher crack-up rate than shrinks, or lousier lives, or worse hours, but they didn't. They just made trainloads of money, dressed like successful bankers and acted as it they had graduated from charm school. But he was grateful to Ross for what he had done for little Nick. Two other plastic surgeons had told him that what he wanted could not be achieved. And Ross, who had performed three long operations on Nico, had refused to charge a penny. Now he was clearly distraught and desperate.

  Something caught DeWitt's eye on his desk. A note from his wife, Vickie. She was going to be home late and this was a reminder to put food in the oven for their children's supper. He'd forgotten. It was five o'clock, they would already be home and, of course, since her job as a management consultant at Price Waterhouse Coopers was more important — in her view — than his as a psychiatrist, he was expected to break out of a consultation with a patient and put food in a microwave, the controls of which were beyond him.

  'Do you have a microwave, Ross?'

  'Oven?' Ross said, startled by the non sequitur.

  DeWitt nodded.

  'Yes. Why?'

  'Wondered if you'd help me — I have to put the kids' supper in and it doesn't ever do what I tell it.'

  Ross followed him downstairs into the basement kitchen, thinking that what everyone said about shrinks was true: they were barking mad.

  A television was on, and he trod carefully around several toys lying randomly on the floor. The psychiatrist pointed to the oven and Ross peered at it closely. Reading from his wife's notes, DeWitt said, 'Six minutes at number two. If you can work out those controls, you can fly the space shuttle. So, tell me, how can I help you?'

  Ross waited until they were back upstairs in his office, with the door shut and no one within earshot. Choosing his words carefully, he said, 'You've kicked up quite a controversy with your views on reforming the Mental Health Act. I heard you on the Today programme on Monday. Saw your piece in The Times yesterday.'

  'Well, I believe the power to decide who is mentally ill and who should be detained in a secure institution should be in the hands of the medical profession and not determined by politicians. All they do is look at the bottom line of how much it costs to keep someone in a psychiatric hospital. They don't look at the bigger cost to society of releasing these people.'

  'So you believe that the medical profession should take a more aggressive attitude to the psychiatrically ill?'

  That perma-grin. 'Aggressive?'

  'OK, that's a bit severe. Let's say proactive.'

  'What exactly is your interest in all this, Ross?'

  'I'm just coming to that.' Ross allowed his composure to deteriorate once again. 'David, you see, Faith —' He allowed his voice to quaver. 'This disease is now affecting her mind — you've seen her yourself, for God's sake.' He fought back a sob. 'I'm sorry. I love her so much.'

  'I can see.'

  'Watching someone's mind go is a terrible thing. No one can, imagine what it's like until they've been through it themselves. And although she's on the Moliou-Orelan drug it isn't working because she won't take the pills.'

  'Why on earth not?'

  'She thinks I'm trying to poison her. Instead she's going to some fucking alternative doctor.'

  'What kind?'

  'He's into everything. Homeopathy, acupuncture, psychotherapy, chicken entrails, you name it.'

  DeWitt asked, 'How do you feel I can help you, Ross?'

  'I need your co-operation. This is a big favour, David. You probably won't like it, but it's the only chance we have of saving her life. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.'

  74

  On the bed, with Olivier's arm wrapped around her, the fingers of his other hand stroking her back, Faith lay serenely still, breathing in his scent, listening to the scrape of her eyelashes on the pillow each time she blinked, wondering what he was thinking.

  Muted sounds of the London morning filtered through the double-glazed windows: the faint roar of traffic, a car alarm, the whine of a power tool, and the occasional shout. She didn't know what the time was and she didn't care: Alec was being picked up from school by a friend's mother and would stay with her until Faith collected him.

  She couldn't remember feeling like this before, so calm. It should feel strange, she thought, to be lying in bed with another man, but it seemed the most natural, beautiful and comfortable thing in the world.

  'I'm your doctor,' Oliver said quietly. 'I'm meant to be curing you, not sleeping with you.'

  'I think you've just cured me,' she murmured. 'I'm better. I've never felt so good before.'

  He kissed her eyes, the musky, intoxicating smell of sex rising from deep within the bed. She breathed it in deeply.

  'You've just blown eight years of celibacy for me,' he said.

  'That should be a criminal offence.'

  'Breaking celibacy?'

  'No. A lover like you b
eing celibate.'

  A thought flashed through her mind: We didn't take any precautions. But instead of being concerned she was glad.

  She kissed him again, and he smiled, but then his expression darkened. He was still gazing at her but he wasn't seeing her now: he was watching some movie inside his head, or he had travelled to some parallel world where Harvey Cabot was still alive, in Switzerland, perhaps, giving his talk on particle physics, instead of lying in a mortuary refrigerator, disembowelled by a Home Office pathologist, with a name tag tied to his big toe.

  And she searched her mind, trying to find a parallel world or universe, or some small kink in time she could slip through to see another version of herself, another Faith Ransome who had just made love to Oliver Cabot, a Faith Ransome who was fit and well and not dying of Lendt's disease. A Faith Ransome who wasn't having her neural pathways chomped away by a savage pack of kidney-bean shaped amoebae. A world where she could live to see her son Alec grow up, get married, have grandchildren. A world where she could make a life with this man in whose arms she lay and from whom she never wanted to be parted.

  'I love you,' she said.

  His hand squeezed hers in silent acknowledgement.

  She squeezed back, and said, 'Is it hard for you to go home?'

  'Home?' His voice sounded so distant.

  'Your flat? Ladbroke Avenue?'

  'Crime scene.'

  For a moment she didn't understand. Then, 'You're not allowed back?'

  'The whole building's sealed off. They let me in with a police officer to get a few things — said it would be about a week before I can go back. I don't even know if I'll want to go back there ever.'

  'Do you — they — have any idea who killed Harvey?'

  'If they do, they're not saying anything to me.'

  'Who was the other man?'

  'A private detective. Had a couple of convictions for assault some years back. He'd been a night-club bouncer, or something. Some kind of low-life. It's hard to see he had any connection with Harvey.' He released her hand and sat up a little. 'The police say it could have been mistaken identity. It had the hallmarks of a professional killing. They asked if I had any enemies.'

  His eyes searched hers and a shadow slid across her soul. Yes, it had occurred to her moments after she had seen the news yesterday.

  'Ross is a bully,' she said, 'but I don't think he —'

  'I didn't mean —' Oliver said, but she interrupted him.

  'Ross bought a shotgun several years ago because we were getting overrun by rabbits - they were eating everything in the grounds, and digging up the lawns. But he only uses it occasionally, on rabbits.'

  'No, look, Faith, no way did I mean to imply —'

  'It was my first thought too. But I know him. He can make my life hell, and hit me, but I don't think he'd kill anyone. He's a doctor and that's in his soul. He lost a patient a couple of months ago and came home crying about it. He's a baby at heart, a baby who never had enough love.'

  'Most psychopaths are people who never had enough love as children.'

  'Not Ross,' she said. 'He's a lot of things but I don't think —'

  They fell into a silence that was less easy than it had been minutes before. Why am I defending Ross? she wondered, and thought of him bugging the house, striking her and Alec. Ross had always been fanatically jealous, but with Oliver he had been over the top. Although she really didn't think he could kill anyone.

  But did she believe that because it was true?

  Or because it was easier?

  75

  Ross stood in the phone booth in Marylebone High Street, surrounded by hookers' business cards and stickers.

  ORIENTAL DELIGHT — SENSUAL MASSAGE BY SUKI.

  MISS STRIKKKKTTTT. DISCIPLINE.

  NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD DANISH BLONDE. NEW IN LONDON.

  The name on the last card was Kerstin, and in her photograph she didn't look nineteen, she looked north of thirty, and her breasts didn't bear the handiwork of God or DNA. To Ross's eye they carried the signature of a surgeon he knew but didn't care for, who had carved himself a lucrative niche doing cheap breast enlargements for the sex fantasy market.

  The phone was ringing, and after some moments a male voice answered in Spanish.

  'I want to speak to Senor Milward,' Ross said. 'Tell him I'm calling from England, and I'm not happy. He'll know who it is.'

  'A moment. You hold, please.'

  The faint crackle of static. Ross shoved in a pound coin, then Ronnie Milward's distinctive voice came on the line. 'Yeah — who is this?'

  'It's me.'

  'Ah. Thought it might be.' At least the hoodlum was smart enough not to say his name. 'The boy fucked up, he's being dealt with. What can I say?'

  Ross was thinking about the twenty-five thousand pounds he had transferred to Milward's bank account in Zurich. And he was thinking about Dr Oliver Cabot, free to go on screwing his wife and poisoning her mind. 'What are you intending to do about it?' he asked.

  'Might have helped if you'd mentioned the brother,' Milward said reproachfully. 'Caused a lot of grief, that.'

  'You're saying it's my fault?'

  'I think we should call it shared blame.'

  'Meaning?

  'I'm happy to finish the job properly — but I wouldn't feel comfortable about a refund. I've had a lot of expenses.'

  'Obviously not in your research department. And I'm not sure it's too smart to finish the job now.'

  'Leave it a few weeks? See how the wind blows?'

  'I think we'll do that. But if we call it off I'm looking for a full refund.'

  'I don't operate that way.'

  'Nor do I.'

  'We'll leave it a few weeks. You know where to find me.'

  'You'd better still be there.'

  'Think I'm going to do a runner on you for twenty-five grand? I don't even get out of bed for that.'

  Ross realised the line had gone dead. For a moment he thought Ronnie Milward had hung up on him.

  Then he saw, from the flashing display in front of him, that he'd forgotten to put in any more money.

  76

  Spider's top-floor bedsit was accessed by a narrow staircase, leading up from a front door sandwiched between a betting shop and a Chinese takeaway. The door led out on to a high street that was busy and transient, populated by an uneasy ethnic mix of Indians, Pakistanis, Afro-Caribbeans, Chinese and, more recently, an influx of Serbs.

  Dope was dealt on every corner by small tight-knit teams, with lookouts stationed further away, giving hand signals like bookies' runners. This was the kind of neighbourhood where every shop lowered grilles over the windows at night, where no one knew anyone else's business, and people walked fast, staring straight ahead, because eye-contact with a stranger could land you a knife wound. Low rent, high turnover, plenty to keep the law busy. Plenty of bigger fish to interest them than himself.

  Except today.

  Spider, in his tracksuit, holding his rucksack in one hand, keys in the other, saw it just as he was pulling the front door shut behind him.

  The blue baseball cap. The blue overalls.

  The giveaway.

  For an instant he froze.

  Like fucking chameleons, the Firearms Squad could blend into any crowd but those caps and those overalls would always make them instantly recognisable to each other.

  A band tightened around his gullet like a ligature.

  Baseball caps bobbing out of the crowd, towards him. Jesus fucking Christ. A whole fucking swarm of them. They had been waiting.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  A voice erupted from a megaphone that sounded only yards away. 'drop the rucksack, put the rucksack down on the ground, drop the rucksack!'

  A shadow loomed towards him, a dark face beneath a dark peak.

  The voice even louder now, deafening. 'DROP THE RUCKSACK!'

  He stepped back, slammed the door, heard a tremendous crash and saw daylight squeeze in around the jamb as a copper threw his
weight against it. The lock moved visibly away from the wall, the brass stretching like elastic.

  Spider turned, vaulted up the stairs, made the first-floor landing before he heard the door splinter open below him.

  The voice seemed to be coming out of the walls at him. 'armed POLICE. WE HAVE THE BUILDING SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP.'

  Footsteps clumping up the treads yards behind him. Brain racing, trying to think clearly. Fire-escape? No fucking good, would take him straight down. No other option. He sprinted on up to his room, somehow got the key into the lock, twisted it, pushed open the door, slammed it shut, rammed the bed against it, hurled the small chest of drawers on top, then in desperation the television and the fridge.

  Hammering on the door now.

  'Police. Open up!'

  He pulled the Heckler and Koch from the rucksack, snapped off the safety catch. The door was giving, splintering, the bed was moving. He threw his weight against it, moved it forward, gaining a few precious inches. Then he backed away to the window, stared out and down.

  Blue caps. Shit. Three of them, one behind a signal box with a rifle, another with a rifle behind a concrete stanchion, the third in the open, behind a chain-link fence, spreadeagled, handgun pointing straight up at the window. The door was moving and the legs of the bed scraped across the ancient linoleum.

  Spider jammed the gun down inside his T-shirt, then lifted up the sash window. Two rifles with telescopic sights were trained on him, with two of the best fucking marksmen in the world squinting through them.

  But they wouldn't open fire unless he fired first, he knew that. They wouldn't dare, not out in the open like this.

  You have time, Spider, just think fucking straight, man.

  The legs of the bed scraped again. 'Armed police! Open up!'

  He swung himself out through the window, then stood to his full height on the rotten sill. The pointing was crap in the brickwork above him, plenty of finger-holds. Below, another fucking megaphone bellowed, 'armed police, you are surrounded, climb down!'

  He levered out a sliver of cement that was in the way, dug in his fingers, hauled himself up, finding a foothold on the top of the window. Had to get height, fast. Up again, hands on the guttering. Straining, taking all his weight on his hands, he pulled himself up. A voice shouted out of the window now, his bedsit window, 'freeze!'