Suspect

by Michael Robotham

  Wandering upstairs, I move from room to room checking on the “work in progress.” Paint pots are lined up on the windowsill and the floors are covered in old sheets that look like Jackson Pollock canvases. One of the bedrooms has become a storeroom for boxes, rugs and bits of cat-scratched furniture. Charlie’s old pram and high chair are in the corner, awaiting further instructions. And her baby clothes are sealed in plastic tubs with neat labels.

  For six years we’ve been trying for another baby. So far the score stands at two miscarriages and innumerable tears. I don’t want to go on—not now—but Julianne is still popping vitamin pills, studying urine samples and taking temperature readings. Our lovemaking is like a scientific experiment with everything aimed at the optimum moment of ovulation.

  When I point this out to her she promises to jump my bones regularly and spontaneously as soon as we have another baby.

  “You won’t regret a single moment when it happens.”

  “I know.”

  “We owe it to Charlie.”

  “Yes.”

  I want to give her all the “what ifs,” but can’t bring myself to do it. What if this disease accelerates? What if there is a genetic link? What if I can’t hold my own child? I’m not being mawkish and self-obsessed. I’m being practical.

  A cup of tea and a couple of biscuits aren’t going to fix this problem. This disease is like a distant train, hurtling through the darkness toward us. It might seem like a long way off, but it’s coming.

  Julianne has left the day’s mail on my desk in the study. Anything addressed to us both has already been opened. She’s paid the bills and replied to the Christmas cards. Anything inviting us to get into greater debt is filed in the wastebasket.

  At the bottom of the pile is a small square envelope made from recycled paper. The edges are discolored and worn. Slicing open the top I find a single page with a floral design on the border. I don’t recognize the handwriting. Within a few lines, I realize that the letter is for someone else. I check the envelope again. My name. My address. It’s a love letter, of sorts, written by someone called Florence to someone with my initials.

  Dear J.O.,

  I know you said not to write but I’m afraid of seeing you or speaking to you. I’m afraid you might reject me again and I couldn’t bear it.

  I realize we can’t be together, but it’s important for me to say how I feel. I wish I could do it in person, lying in your arms. At another time, in another place, things might have been different; we could have shared so much. I haven’t given up hope.

  Sorry if I’ve caused you grief. I never meant to hurt you. I love you and always will. I promise. You are unforgettable.

  Yours forever,

  Florence

  The postmark is partially smudged. Pulling a magnifying glass from the drawer, I hold the envelope under the lamp. It was posted in Liverpool, but I can’t read the date. My name is on the envelope, but the contents mean nothing to me.

  My first posting after finishing my training was with the Merseyside Health Authority. That was fourteen years ago and I still regard Liverpool as a place that I escaped from. I found nothing charming about the snub-nosed ferries, mill chimneys and Victorian statues. Instead I saw a modern-day plague city full of sad-eyed children, long-term unemployed and mad poor people. They crowded my waiting room every day and if it hadn’t been for Julianne I might have drowned in their misery.

  At the same time I’m grateful because Liverpool taught me where I belong. For the first time London felt like home. And ever since then, as much as I moan about congestion charges, crowded Tube trains and the ubiquitous queues, I have never once felt any desire to leave the capital.

  So who is Florence and why is she writing to me? The idea that I might have a secret admirer is a little perturbing, especially now. She writes of being “rejected again.” Catherine McBride came from Liverpool. The idea is absurd, of course, and I’m about to move on when I turn the page over and notice a telephone number.

  A young woman answers.

  “I’d like to speak to Florence, please.”

  “You have the wrong number,” she says, sounding upset. She’s about to hang up.

  “Listen, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve received a letter from someone called Florence. I don’t know who she is. She gave this phone number.”

  “There’s nobody called Florence here.”

  I blurt out, “What about a Catherine?”

  Silence. I begin to wonder if she’s still listening.

  “Are you a friend of Catherine’s?”

  I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same person. She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “In case you haven’t read the newspapers, I think you should know that Catherine is dead. If you have any questions, you should talk to her family or the police.” She’s on the verge of tears.

  With a rushing sense of depleted reality I apologize and end the call. The implications keep unfolding in my head, one after the other, until they are so labyrinthine I can’t find objectivity. Catherine is Florence. Perhaps it’s a pet name. Florence Nightingale. A nurse.

  Why would she be writing to me after five years of silence? I study the postmark again. How could a letter arrive weeks after her death? Someone must have mailed it for her.

  In one corner of the attic I find what I’m looking for—boxes containing my old case notes. The notebooks are labeled with a month and year. Two in particular interest me, with dark green covers and mottled spines.

  Back downstairs in the study, I turn on the desk lamp and begin reading the notes. The A4 pages are neatly ruled, with a wide margin showing the date and time of each appointment. Catherine McBride’s name is in the top right-hand corner. Assessment details, medical notes and observations are all here.

  I don’t know what I’m looking for. Maybe I’m hoping I can bring her back to life so I can ask her questions.

  How do I remember her? I see her walking down the corridor of the Marsden, dressed in a light blue uniform with dark blue trim on the collar and sleeves. She waves to me and smiles. She has a key chain on her belt. Most nurses have short-sleeved tunics, but Catherine wore hers long.

  In the beginning she was just another face in the corridor or in the cafeteria. She was pretty in a genderless way, with her boyish haircut, high forehead and full lips. She nervously cocked her head from one side to the other, never looking at me with both eyes at once. I seemed to bump into her a lot—often just as I was leaving the hospital. Only later did I suspect that she was orchestrating this.

  Eventually, she asked if she could talk to me. It took me a few minutes to realize that she meant professionally. I made an appointment for her and she arrived the next day.

  From then on she came to see me once a week. She would put a bar of chocolate on my desk and break up the pieces on the silver foil, like a child divvying up sweets. And in between smoking menthol cigarettes, she would let the chocolate melt under her tongue.

  “Do you know this is the only office in the entire hospital where you can smoke?” she told me.

  “I guess that’s why I get so many visitors.”

  She was twenty, materialistic, sensible and having an affair with someone on staff. I don’t know who it was, but I suspect he was married. Occasionally, she would say “we” and then, realizing her mistake, change to the singular.

  Very rarely did she smile. She would cock her head and look at me with one eye or the other.

  I also suspected she had seen someone like me before. Her questions were so precise. She knew about history taking and cognitive therapy. She was too young to have studied psychology, so she must have been a patient.

  She talked of feeling worthless and insignificant. Estranged from her family, she had tried to mend fences but feared that she would “poison their perfect lives.”

  As she spoke and sucked pieces of chocolate, she sometimes rubbed her forearms through her buttoned-down sleeves. I thought that she was hiding something, but waited
for her to find the confidence to tell me.

  During our fourth session she slowly wound up the sleeves. Part of her was embarrassed to show me the scars, but I also sensed defiance and a hint of self-satisfaction. She wanted me to be impressed by the severity of her wounds. They were like a life map that I could read.

  Catherine had first cut herself when she was twelve. Her parents were going through a hate-filled divorce. She felt caught in the middle, like a rag doll being pulled apart by two warring children.

  She wrapped a hand mirror inside a towel and smashed it against the corner of her desk. She used a shard to open up her wrist. The blood gave her a sense of well-being. She was no longer helpless.

  Her parents bundled her into the car and drove her to hospital. Throughout the entire journey they argued over who was to blame. Catherine felt peaceful and calm. She was admitted to hospital overnight. Her cuts had stopped bleeding. She fingered her wrist lovingly and kissed her cuts good night.

  “I had found something I could control,” she told me. “I could decide how many times I cut, how deep I would go. I liked the pain. I craved the pain. I deserved it. I know I must have masochistic tendencies. You should see the men I end up with. You should hear about some of my dreams . . .”

  She never admitted spending time in a psychiatric hospital or in group therapy. Much of her past she kept hidden, particularly if it involved her family. For long periods she managed to stop herself from cutting. But with each relapse she punished herself by cutting even deeper. She concentrated on her arms and thighs, where she could hide the wounds under her clothing. She also discovered which creams and bandages helped minimize scarring.

  When she needed stitches she chose accident and emergency centers away from the Marsden. She couldn’t risk losing her job. She would give a false name to the triage nurse and sometimes pretend to be foreign and unable to speak English.

  She knew from past experience how nurses and doctors regard self-mutilators—as attention seekers and time wasters. Often they get stitched without anesthetic. “If you enjoy pain so much, have a little more,” is the attitude.

  None of this changed Catherine’s behavior. When she bled she escaped the numbness. My notebooks repeat her words, “I feel alive. Soothed. In control.”

  Dark brown flecks of chocolate are stuck between the pages. She would break off pieces and drop them on the page. She didn’t like me writing. She wanted me to listen.

  To break the cycle of blood, I gave her alternative strategies. Instead of reaching for a blade I told her to squeeze a piece of ice in her hand, bite down on a hot chili or rub liniment on her genitals. This was pain without the scarring or the guilt. Once we broke into her thought loop, it was possible to find new coping mechanisms, less physical and violent.

  A few days later Catherine found me in the oncology ward. She had a bundle of sheets in her arms and was looking anxiously from side to side. I saw something in her eyes that I couldn’t recognize.

  She motioned me to follow her into an alcove and then dropped the sheets. It took me a few moments to notice the sleeves of her cardigan. They were stuffed with paper towels and tissues. Blood leaked through the layers of paper and fabric.

  “Please don’t let them find out,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You have to go to casualty.”

  “No! Please! I need this job.”

  A thousand voices inside my head were telling me what I should do. I ignored every one of them. I sent Catherine ahead to my office, while I collected sutures, needles and butterfly clips, bandages and antibiotic ointment. Behind drawn blinds and a locked door I stitched up her forearms.

  “You’re good at this,” she said.

  “I’ve had some practice.” I applied the antiseptic. “What happened?”

  “I tried to feed the bears.”

  I didn’t smile. She looked chastened. “I had a fight with someone. I don’t know who I wanted to punish.”

  “Your boyfriend?”

  She blinked back tears.

  “What did you use?”

  “A razor blade.”

  “Was it clean?”

  She shook her head.

  “OK. From now on, if you insist on cutting yourself, you should use these.” I handed her a packet of disposable scalpels in a sterilized container. I also gave her bandages, Steri-Strips and sutures.

  “These are my rules,” I told her. “If you insist on doing this, you must cut in one place . . . on the inside of your thigh.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m going to teach you how to suture yourself. If you find that you can’t do this, then you must go to a hospital.”

  Her eyes were wide.

  “I am not going to take the cutting option away from you, Catherine. Nor am I going to tell your superiors. But you must do everything in your power to control this. I am placing my trust in you. You can repay my faith by not harming yourself. If you weaken you must call me. If you fail to do this and cut yourself, then I am not going to blame you or think any less of you. At the same time, I will not run to you. If you harm yourself I will not see you for a week. This is not a punishment—it is a test.”

  I could see her thinking hard about the ramifications. Her face still showed fear, but her shoulders betrayed her relief.

  “From now on we set limits for your self-harm and you take responsibility for it,” I continued. “At the same time we’re going to find new ways for you to cope.”

  I gave Catherine a quick sewing lesson using a pillow. She made a joke about me making someone a fine wife. As she rose to leave she put her arms around me. “Thank you.” Her body sank into mine and she clung to me so tightly I could feel her heart beating.

  After she had gone I sat staring at the blood-soaked bandages in the wastebasket. I was trying to work out if I was completely insane. I could see the coroner, rigid with indignation, asking me why I had given scalpels to a young woman who enjoyed slicing herself open. He would ask me if I also favored handing matches to arsonists and heroin to junkies.

  Yet I could see no other way to help Catherine. A zero-tolerance approach would simply reinforce her belief that other people controlled her life and decided things for her. That she was worthless and couldn’t be trusted.

  I had given her the choice. Hopefully, before she took up the blade, she would think closely about her reasons and weigh the consequences. And she would also consider other ways that she might cope.

  In the months that followed Catherine slipped up only once. Her forearms healed. My stitching job was remarkably neat for someone so out of practice.

  The notes end there, but there’s more to the story. I still cringe in embarrassment when I remember the details because I should have seen it coming.

  Catherine started taking a little extra care with her appearance. She made appointments to see me at the end of her shift and would have changed into civvies. She wore makeup and a splash of perfume. An extra button was undone on her blouse. Nothing too obvious—it was all very subtle. She asked what I did in my spare time. A friend had given her two tickets to the theater. Did I want to go with her?

  There is an old joke about psychologists being the experts you pay to ask questions your spouse asks you for nothing. We listen to problems, read the subtexts and build up self-esteem, teaching people to like who they really are.

  For someone like Catherine having a man really listen and care about her problems was enormously attractive, but sometimes it can be mistaken for something more intimate.

  Her kiss came as a total surprise. We were in my office at the Marsden. I pushed her away too suddenly. She stumbled backward and tripped, landing on the floor. She thought it was part of a game. “You can hurt me if you want to,” she said.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I’ve been a bad, bad girl.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Yes, I do.” She was unzipping her skirt.

  “Catherine, you’re making
a mistake. You’ve misread the signs.”

  The harshness in my voice finally brought her around. She stood beside my desk, with her skirt at her ankles and her blouse undone. Panty hose hid the scars on her thighs.

  It was embarrassing for both of us—but more so for her. She ran out with mascara leaking down her cheeks and her skirt clutched around her waist.

  She quit her job and left the Marsden, but the ramifications of that day have plagued me ever since. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

  8

  Saturday mornings and soggy sports fields seem to go together like acne and adolescence. That’s how I remember the winters of my childhood—standing ankle-deep in mud, freezing my bollocks off, playing for the school’s Second XV.

  God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting had a bellow that rose above the howling wind. “Don’t just stand there like a cold bottle of piss,” he’d shout. “Call yourself a winger! I’ve seen continents drift faster than you.”

  Thank goodness Charlie is a girl. She looks really cute in her soccer gear, with her hair pulled back and knee-length shorts. I don’t know how I managed to become coach. My knowledge of the game could fit on the back of a coaster, which is probably why the Tigers haven’t won a game all season.

  You’re not supposed to count the score at this age, or keep a league table. It’s all about having fun and getting every child involved. Tell that to the parents.

  Today we’re playing the Highgate Lions and each time they score the Tigers trudge back to halfway, debating who gets to kick off.

  “It isn’t our strongest side,” I say apologetically to the opposition coach. Under my breath I’m praying, “Just one goal, Tigers. Just give us one goal. Then we’ll show them a real celebration.”

  The range of abilities is a wonder to behold. Take Dominic—the kid standing at fullback with his hand down his shorts holding his scrotum. Ten minutes into the game he trots to the sideline and asks me which way we’re running. I have to stop myself slapping my forehead.