A Plea of Insanity

Home > Other > A Plea of Insanity > Page 8
A Plea of Insanity Page 8

by Priscilla Masters


  Claire’s toes began to curl. Instinct. A child who would snip the ears off a pet rabbit – or watch a bird slowly cook in an oven and boast about it? Helping to choose a wreath and a coffin? She didn’t think so somehow.

  She felt suddenly exasperated by this woman with the blue eyelids.

  ‘Jerome told me some rather –’ She chose her adjective carefully – ‘unpleasant things he’d done when he was a young boy.’

  Cynthia smiled. ‘Oh yes? He did tell me you might want to know a little bit about them. Just boyhood pranks, you know, Doctor Roget.’

  Torturing dumb animals?

  She stared at her in amazement and knew her lips must remain sealed. She was not allowed to leak this information to Barclay’s mother without his express permission.

  The image of Barclay walking solemnly behind his brother’s tiny white coffin slowly melted back into a question. What had Barclay gained by his brother’s death?

  Oh, plenty. No one to share the parental affection with. Or money.

  She rolled her pen in her fingertips.

  There had been another death. ‘Tell me about Jerome’s relationship with his father.’

  Cynthia nursed her large handbag on her lap and looked away. ‘Kenny didn’t always understand Jerome,’ she said uncomfortably.

  I’ll bet.

  ‘He used to say he was using us, that I was too soft with him, that I’d swallow any story.’ The eyes flicked open in a plea to be believed. ‘Not true, Doctor Roget. Not true.’

  ‘What did your husband die of?’ The question was idly asked, more for further images of Barclay’s responses to bereavement than any real suspicion. Jerome Barclay had been a boy of ten when his father had died.

  Already cooking live birds and lopping the ears off his pet rabbit, she reminded herself.

  But there were more reasons for a man of fifty plus to die of natural causes than a baby of two months old. And so much easier to destroy the vulnerable one. Much harder to kill the other. There had been almost two years between the two incidents.

  But even here there was room for the sliver of suspicion.

  ‘Well – it was odd really.’ Cynthia’s tone was confiding, sharing a tiny doubt that had seeded years ago and never quite been allayed. ‘Kenny was a diabetic. On insulin. And for the last year or two he had had real trouble controlling it. His sugars kept going high. And then too low. They were all over the place. They kept having to change his insulin to different strengths. Different types. Pig stuff, human stuff. He found it hard to cope.’

  ‘Had he always had trouble controlling his diabetes?’

  ‘No. That was what I meant when I said it was odd. It was as though Peter’s death had upset him more than he showed. It was only a month or two after little Peter died that the trouble first started. Before that he’d been fine. A model patient.’

  There are some questions it is too painful to ask. Claire had no right to ask them, no grounds to suspect Barclay of murdering his own father except that Barclay’s character was rotten to the core. What was he capable of? Already in her mind, as in Heidi’s before her, Barclay’s personality was attaining monstrous capabilities. She had a vision of a little boy, eight years old, understanding that to his father sugar was poisonous, playing with his father’s food, tipping the forbidden substance on the special foods, even playing with the insulin, the syringes. Easy when they all lay, unguarded, around the house.

  ‘How did Jerome respond when his father died?’

  ‘Again he was wonderful. So protective. An absolute saint, that boy. He sat and held my hand. “Don’t you worry, Mum,” he said. “I’ll look after you now.”’

  ‘And did he?’

  Her pupils were pin-pricks. ‘Of course.’

  So – ask the question again. Could Barclay as an eight year old have been responsible for smothering his baby brother?

  Yes. Oh yes.

  Claire closed her eyes against a surge of hatred, the sugary lullaby tinkling still in her brain. Felt the familiar battle against it.

  Would she?

  The difference was that she was not a psychopath. Jealousy in her had not translated to murder. Adam was alive – somewhere. A student in Birmingham, she believed.

  She must move on – not waste the time. ‘Your son’s always lived with you?’

  ‘Oh yes. I spoil him really.’ More confidences. ‘Give in to him a bit. But then,’ the blue eyes opened wide, ‘he’s all I’ve got, Doctor. If I didn’t have Jerome I would have nobody. No one to care.’

  Claire found the statement vaguely alarming. She pursued it.

  ‘You have no brothers or sisters?’

  Cynthia shook her head.

  ‘Your husband’s family?’

  ‘He’s got one sister but she’s very peculiar. She lives in the north of Scotland in a remote cottage. I don’t hear from her very much.’

  ‘What about nephews and nieces?’

  ‘One nephew but I haven’t seen him in years. I could pass him in the street, doctor, and not know him.’

  Her son’s eyes found Claire’s. ‘I only have Jerome.’

  It was a troubling situation. Cynthia Barclay had no one to look out for her, no one to care if she was missing or ill. Claire heartily wished it were otherwise.

  Pushing it to one side she pursued a different tack.

  ‘I want to go back to the time when …’

  Cynthia was there before her, hooding her eyes with hostility and jumping in with her words. ‘If you want to know what happened when I fell down the stairs I gave my statement to the police. I’ve nothing to add.’

  Claire still gave her a chance. She leaned forward and spoke slowly to give her words some added weight. ‘Has your son ever offered violence towards you?’

  She was hotly defensive. ‘You’re reading him wrong, Doctor Roget. He isn’t the violent type. A bit misguided sometimes.’

  ‘Misguided? How?’

  ‘Well – he’s had a problem in the past – taking things, you know. He was a bit naughty once or twice, forging cheques. But not now, Doctor. Not now. He’s the model son.’

  Claire sat back, thinking. One of them was wrong. They could not both be right. Barclay could not be both model son and cold psychopath who had assaulted his mother, maybe killed his father and brother. Was she the one who was chasing shadows, suspecting Barclay merely because it fitted in with her assessment of him. She had no proof.

  ‘What about Sadie Whittaker? What can you tell me about her?’

  Cynthia’s lip curled. ‘That – that tart,’ she said. ‘Nothing but trouble. When my boy made it clear she’d have to try another means of hooking him than a fake pregnancy she invented that.’

  But it hadn’t been a fake. Sadie Whittaker really had been pregnant. She had had a termination.

  Confidentially.

  ‘There never was a baby, was there?’ Cynthia insisted.

  Confidentiality.

  ‘She was just manipulating him. Trying to lure him into marrying her. Then she threw herself in front of the car.’

  Claire stared at the woman. So Cynthia believed the accepted version.

  What was the truth?

  Some people believe that psychiatrists have amazing powers, like stage hypnotism and mind transference. They believe psychiatrists know what a person is thinking. But psychiatrists have none of these powers. Their divination comes from watching people closely, observing, interpreting flickering eye movements, the movement of their hands, the muscles that bind their necks. If you think that ‘shrinks’ are infallible listen to two psychiatrists argue.

  On opposite sides of the coin.

  Then ask yourself this question. What do they really know?

  Nothing.

  Psychiatry is an inexact science, saturated in opinion.

  ‘Mrs Barclay, the time has come for us to decide whether we need to continue to see your son on such a regular basis.’

  She left the sentence unfinished.

  Cyn
thia Barclay stared at her, saying nothing, simply staring, her eyes a little wider than before as though mere words were not enough, could not encompass what she wanted to say. What words are there anyway, to express doubt, fear, imaginary threats. Yet they were all expressed in Cynthia Barclay’s shrivelled pale eyes.

  It struck Claire dumb. That Barclay’s mother was too frightened to say anything?

  Was this all learned?

  She stood up too quickly. It startled Mrs Barclay. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Maybe I should have another word with Jerome.’

  Cynthia scuttled out, not even asking what this new doctor’s decision was. She had said her piece.

  Moments later Jerome sauntered back into the room, face and manner as cocky as ever. He dropped into the chair, his face smooth and impassive. ‘So,’ he said, ‘did you find anything out from the old dear?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She didn’t want to mention the fact that she now knew Barclay had had a brother.

  Which for some reason reminded her of Nancy Gold, humming Brahms’ lullaby. Threads run through events as finely woven as the most intricate tapestry.

  And somewhere, at some time, what seemed mere threads would be plainly seen as a whole picture.

  She stared hard into the back of his eyes, struggling to read the machinations of his mind. Everything she knew about him flashed through her thoughts at the speed of light. He had displayed classic signs of psychopathy. Tortured animals, used and abused people, treated them with disdain. He stared innocently back, directing her own thoughts, telling her they were pure. He had never been convicted and found guilty of any crime. His slate was clean.

  She made up her mind.

  ‘It’s time to let you get on with your life, Jerome,’ she said steadily. ‘Nothing will be achieved by your continuing to attend here, at Greatbach.’ She stood up, meaning to shake his hand, to wish him well for the future, to advise him to keep on the right side of the law.

  But something stopped her so she actually said nothing, simply said goodbye. And watched him turn around and walk away, knowing she would worry later whether she had made the right decision.

  As he opened the door he paused to give her a friendly smile which robbed his subsequent words of malice but echoed her own thoughts with the knell of a funeral bell. ‘So you’re discharging me,’ he said. ‘Well – let’s hope you don’t come to regret your decision. Goodbye, Doctor Roget,’ he said. ‘For now.’

  Chapter Six

  As she had anticipated during her drive home, she fretted she had not seen or heard the last of Barclay. That he would play with her – as a cat will play with a mouse. Not for food but because it amuses.

  But she must continue with her work.

  Grant was watching television when she let herself in. She could hear the boxed voices, chattering, gruff replies, cheap, wallpaper drama-music. A soap opera, full of fake and frothy romance and set-up dramatic situations. She could see the changing light reflected on the glass of the kitchen door, moving blues and purples, yellows and reds, bright green. He called out to her without turning around. ‘Put the kettle on, Claire, will you.’

  She pushed the door open, wandered into the kitchen – peppermint green with black granite surfaces, a window sporting a plain yellow blind. She took two mugs out of the cupboard and half-filled the kettle. A couple of bills were scattered across the work surface. Addressed to her and unopened. Grant did not ‘do’ utilities, not mortgage, heating, electricity, water or anything else for that matter. He was content to live within her means – cycle to work and live here for nothing. Claire slit open the bills and looked at them without emotion. Not even anger at the way her money was eroded by such boring mundanities as the services on which our comforts depend.

  She took the coffee into the sitting room.

  He wasn’t even watching. Not really. He couldn’t be enjoying such tripe. Stretched out on the sofa, shoes off. But his eyes didn’t leave the screen as he reached out for the mug.

  He practically ignored her existence except for, ‘Don’t suppose you noticed whether there were any choccie biccies in the tin, did you?’

  Men do this, revert to the nursery when they want something.

  She didn’t answer and he didn’t notice she hadn’t answered, but smiled in empathy with the passionate snog the teenage hero was giving the crop-topped heroine.

  Claire sunk into the leather chair, legs fully extended.

  ‘Thought I’d paint the bathroom next,’ Grant said, watching the TV through a wisp of steam. ‘There’s a whole new range of colours I saw at the DIY store near the school. What do you think of purple?’

  At last he looked up and wrinkled his brow. ‘Bad day at work?’

  ‘No.’

  Bad evening at home. She wished he wasn’t here.

  The evening passed, her in a fidget of boredom hardly relieved by an evening of reality TV. She flicked the pages of a medical journal and tried to concentrate on ‘Responses to Hypnotherapy’ and ignore the irritation she felt at Grant’s presence. Halfway through the article she found her mind wandering towards how to tell him to go without causing an inevitable row – or even hurting him. She didn’t dislike him – it was worse. Every day she felt more and more indifferent until a week, a month from now, she could sense she would not mind about hurting his feelings and she didn’t want to be that cruel to him – ever.

  They had had some good times together.

  The evening ended with a theatrical yawn from her and a reluctant flick to off of the TV remote from him.

  At the next morning’s meeting she turned the subject back to Jerome and confessed that she had discharged him. The news was greeted with a sort of shocked silence – which felt like an accusation. But she was a new doctor here. She need not continue in Heidi’s footsteps. She needed to carve out her own identity and way of running Greatbach. It turned out that only Kristyna Gale had had much to do with him in recent months because for a brief period after Heidi’s death she had carried out the supervision order and seen Barclay herself.

  ‘Strictly inside the hospital,’ she said. ‘He isn’t the sort of person you’d want to meet on a dark night across the car park.’

  ‘Did you know he had a baby brother?’

  Kristyna shook her head. ‘No I didn’t.’ A pause then, ‘Do you think it’s important?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Claire smiled at her. ‘Or the circumstances of his father’s death?’

  Rolf was watching from across the room, frowning and fiddling with the gold signet ring he wore on his left little finger.

  ‘Give me your opinion,’ Claire prompted.

  ‘He’s … well …’ She flushed faintly, must have felt the warmth on her cheek and tried to conceal it with her hands. It only emphasised some embarrassment. ‘He’s cold. And when he does show an emotion …’ Her voice petered out into nothing. But her face had changed again. Frozen into a memory that hurt somewhere privately.

  Claire simply waited.

  ‘Such a silly thing,’ Kristyna confessed finally. ‘You’d think I’d be immune from these punks. That I wouldn’t care but he got right under my skin. He really needled me.’

  It was bordering on a confession.

  Claire still said nothing but waited.

  ‘I trapped my finger in the drawer,’ Kristyna admitted. ‘He’d rattled me and I was slamming it shut really hard. My finger caught.’ She held out her index finger, deformed by a stunted and rippled nail. ‘It was painful. I’d caught the nail and it tore off taking half the finger with it.’ She smiled around the room, inviting sympathy. ‘I can well believe it was a Nazi torture.’

  ‘And?’ Siôna was watching her curiously. Obviously he’d never heard this story before.

  Kristyna didn’t even look at him, but into an unfocused distance. ‘Nothing really. He just looked pleased. You know? His eyes were practically dancing with pleasure. He was really enjoying it – the fact that I was in pain.’

  ‘W
hat had he said to you that got you so rattled in the first place?’

  ‘Oh – the usual. It was about rape. He was goading me. How I allowed myself to get dragged into making a comment in the first place I don’t know. It was the way he was staring at me. Just waiting for me to snap, so sure I would. Confidently. And – sort of insolently …’ Her face was pink again. She was twisting one of her gold bangles round and round.

  Claire could have completed the sentence.

  ‘Undressing me.’ But Kristyna was right. Patients did this, challenged you. She shouldn’t have been so upset unless there was something deeper.

  ‘I felt so – defiled, Claire. The way he was talking. I should have ended the interview, set out some parameters, refused to be drawn, done the right thing. I wasn’t very pleased with myself. That’s why I was so angry. More with myself than with him.’

  ‘What sort of things was he saying?’

  ‘That’s it. Just the usual. About girls who asked for it, the smells, the sounds, the invitation.’ She looked around the room. ‘We’ve heard it all before. A hundred times. That he saw no wrong in taking what he wanted, about women who bleated.’ She stopped. ‘I think it was that. The word bleated. For some reason it reminded me of Heidi and I don’t know why.’

  But Claire did. It was the phrase, Lamb to the slaughter. The throat cutting. Ritualistic.

  Kristyna was unconsciously fiddling with her finger. ‘Then the painful finger made me feel vulnerable, I suppose. I think I sort of connected the two situations – thought of Heidi’s actual pain for the first time – and that made me think that he felt she’d deserved it, that he was glad and that I’d deserved it too. That he was making this mocking judgement. About both of us. I could see in his eyes he was lumping us together. So I had been determined not to let him see that he was needling me and the finger let it out. All the pain. It was throbbing and it was like he could feel each pulse. I could see it in his eyes, that he was enjoying my pain. It was horrible.’

 

‹ Prev