Suspect

by Michael Robotham

  “I have to see you.”

  I glance over his head at the clock on the wall. “I have another patient . . .”

  “Please?”

  I should say no. I can’t have people just turning up. Meena will be furious. She could run a perfectly good office if it weren’t for patients turning up unannounced or not keeping appointments. “That’s not the way to pack a suitcase,” she’d say and I’d agree with her, even if I don’t completely understand what she means.

  Upstairs, I tell Bobby to sit down and set about rearranging my morning. He looks embarrassed to have caused such a fuss. He is different today—less grounded, living in the here and now.

  He is dressed in his work clothes—a gray shirt and trousers. The word Nevaspring is sewn onto the breast pocket. I write a new page for notes, struggling to loop each letter, and then look up to see if he’s ready. That’s when I realize he’ll never be entirely ready. Jock is right—there is something fragile and erratic about Bobby. His mind is full of half-finished ideas, strange facts and snatches of conversation.

  “Why did you want to see me?”

  Bobby stares at a spot on the floor between his feet. “You asked me about what I dream.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think there’s something wrong with me. I keep having these thoughts.”

  “What thoughts?”

  “I hurt people in my dreams.”

  “How do you hurt them?”

  He looks up at me plaintively. “I try to stay awake . . . I don’t want to fall asleep. Arky keeps telling me to come to bed. She can’t understand why I’m watching TV at four in the morning, wrapped in a duvet on the sofa. It’s because of the dreams.”

  “What about them?”

  “Bad things happen in them—that doesn’t make me a bad person.”

  He is perched on the edge of the chair, with his eyes flicking from side to side.

  “There’s a girl in a red dress. She keeps turning up when I don’t expect to see her.”

  “In your dream?”

  “Yes. She just looks at me—right through me as though I don’t exist. She’s laughing.”

  His eyes snap wide as though spring-loaded and his tone suddenly changes. Spinning around in his chair, he presses his lips together and crosses his legs. I hear a harsh feminine voice.

  “Now Bobby don’t tell lies.”

  —“I’m not a blabbermouth.”

  “Did he touch you or not?”

  —“No.”

  “That’s not what Mr. Erskine wants to hear.”

  —“Don’t make me say it.”

  “We don’t want to waste Mr. Erskine’s time. He’s come all this way . . .”

  —“I know why he’s come.”

  “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, sweetie. It’s not very nice.”

  Bobby puts his big hands in his pockets and kicks at the floor with his shoes. He speaks in a timid whisper, with his chin pressed to his chest.

  —“Don’t make me say it.”

  “Just tell him and then we can have dinner.”

  —“Please don’t make me say . . .”

  He shakes his head, his whole body moves. Raising his eyes to me, I see a flicker of recognition.

  “Do you know that a blue whale’s testicles are as large as a Volkswagen Beetle?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “I like whales. They’re very easy to draw and to carve.”

  “Who is Mr. Erskine?”

  “Should I know him?”

  “You mentioned his name.”

  He shakes his head and looks at me suspiciously.

  “Is he someone you once met?”

  “I was born in one world. Now I’m waist-deep in another.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I had to hold things together, hold things together.”

  He’s not listening to me. His mind is moving so quickly that it can’t grasp any subject for more than a few seconds.

  “You were telling me about your dream . . . a girl in a red dress. Who is she?”

  “Just a girl.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Her arms are bare. She lifts them up and brushes her fingers through her hair. I see the scars.”

  “What do these scars look like?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does!”

  Tipping his head to one side, Bobby runs his finger down the inside of his shirtsleeve from his elbow to his wrist. Then he looks back at me. Nothing registers in his eyes. Is he talking about Catherine McBride?

  “How did she get these scars?”

  “She cut herself.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “A lot of people do.”

  Bobby unbuttons his shirt cuffs and slowly rolls the sleeve along his left forearm. Turning his palm up, he holds it out toward me. The thin white scars are faint but unmistakable.

  “They’re like a badge of honor,” he whispers.

  “Bobby, listen to me.” I lean forward. “What happens to the girl in your dream?”

  Panic fills his eyes like a growing fever.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Do you know this girl?”

  He shakes his head.

  “What color hair does she have?”

  “Brown.”

  “What color eyes?”

  He shrugs.

  “You said you hurt people in your dreams. Did this girl get hurt?”

  The question is too direct and confrontational. He looks at me suspiciously.

  “Why are you staring at me like that? Are you taping this? Are you stealing my words?” He peers from side to side.

  “No.”

  “Well, why are you staring at me?”

  Then I realize that he’s talking about the Parkinson’s mask. Jock had warned me of the possibility. My face can become totally unresponsive and expressionless like an Easter Island statue.

  I look away and try to start again, but Bobby’s mind has already moved on.

  “Did you know the year 1961 can be written upside down and right-way up and appear the same?” he says.

  “No I didn’t.”

  “That’s not going to happen again until 6009.”

  “I need to know about the dream, Bobby.”

  “No comprenderás todavía lo que comprenderás en el futuro.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s Spanish. You don’t understand yet what you will understand in the end.” His forehead suddenly creases as though he’s forgotten something. Then his expression changes to one of complete bafflement. He hasn’t just lost his train of thought—he’s forgotten what he’s doing here. He looks at his watch.

  “Why are you here, Bobby?”

  “I keep having these thoughts.”

  “What thoughts?”

  “I hurt people in my dreams. That’s not a crime. It’s only a dream . . .”

  We have been here before, thirty minutes ago. He has forgotten everything in between.

  There is an interrogation method, sometimes used by the CIA, which is called the Alice in Wonderland technique. It relies upon turning the world upside down and distorting everything that is familiar and logical. The interrogators begin with what sound like very ordinary questions, but in fact are totally nonsensical. If the suspect tries to answer, the second interrogator interrupts with something unrelated and equally illogical.

  They change their demeanor and patterns of speech in midsentence or from one moment to the next. They get angry when making pleasant comments and become charming when making threats. They laugh at the wrong places and speak in riddles.

  If the suspect tries to cooperate he’s ignored and if he doesn’t cooperate he’s rewarded—never knowing why. At the same time, the interrogators manipulate the environment, turning clocks backward and forward, lights on and off, serving meals ten hours or only ten minutes apart.

  Imagine this continuing day after day. Cu
t off from the world and everything he knows to be normal, the suspect tries to cling to what he remembers. He may keep track of time or try to picture a face or a place. Each of these threads to his sanity is gradually torn down or worn down until he no longer knows what is real and unreal.

  Talking to Bobby is like this. The random connections, twisted rhymes and strange riddles make just enough sense for me to listen. At the same time I’m being drawn deeper into the intrigue and the lines between fact and fantasy have begun to blur.

  He won’t talk about his dream again. Whenever I ask about the girl in the red dress, he ignores me. The silence has no effect. He is totally contained and unreachable.

  Bobby is slipping away from me. When I first met him I saw a highly intelligent, articulate, compassionate young man, concerned about his life. Now I see a borderline schizophrenic, with violent dreams and a possible history of mental illness.

  I thought I had a handle on him, but now he’s attacked a woman in broad daylight and confessed to “hurting” people in his dreams. What about the girl with the scars? Could he possibly have known Catherine? Is she the girl in the red dress?

  Take a deep breath. Review the facts. The fact that Catherine and Bobby are both self-mutilators isn’t enough to link them. One in fifteen people harm themselves at some point in their lives: that’s two children in every classroom, four people on a crowded bus, twenty on a commuter train and two thousand at a Manchester United home game.

  In my career as a psychologist I have learned unequivocally not to believe in conspiracies or listen for the same voices my patients are hearing. A doctor is no good to anyone if he dies of the disease.

  I’m back in Jock’s office, listening to him rattle off my results, which I don’t understand. He wants to start me on medication as soon as possible.

  Clicking a stopwatch, Jock makes me walk along a line of masking tape on the floor, turn and walk back again. Then I have to stand on one foot with my eyes closed.

  When he brings out the colored blocks I groan. It feels so childish—stacking blocks one on top of the other. First I use my right hand and then my left. My left hand is trembling before I start, but once I pick up a block it’s OK.

  Putting dots in a grid is more difficult. I aim for the center of the square, but the pen has a mind of its own. It’s a stupid test anyway.

  Afterward Jock explains that patients like me who present initially with tremors have a significantly better prognosis. There are lots of new drugs becoming available to lessen the symptoms.

  “You can expect to lead a full life,” he says, as though reading from a script. When he sees the look of disbelief on my face he attempts to qualify the statement. “Well, maybe you’ll lose a few years.”

  He doesn’t say anything about my quality of life.

  “Stem-cell research is going to provide a breakthrough,” he adds, sounding upbeat. “Within five or ten years they’ll have a cure.”

  “What do I do until then?”

  “Take the drugs. Make love to that gorgeous wife of yours. Watch Charlie grow up.”

  He gives me a prescription for selegiline. “Eventually, you’ll need to take levodopa,” he explains, “but hopefully we can delay that for maybe a year or more.”

  “Are there any side effects?”

  “You might get a little nauseous and have trouble sleeping.”

  “Great!”

  Jock ignores me. “These drugs don’t stop the progression of the disease. All they do is mask the symptoms.”

  “So I can keep it secret for longer.”

  He smiles ruefully. “You’ll face up to this sooner or later.”

  “If I keep coming here maybe I’ll die of passive smoke.”

  “What a way to go.” He lights up a cigar and pulls the scotch from his bottom drawer.

  “It’s only three o’clock.”

  “I’m working on British summer time.”

  He doesn’t ask, he simply pours me one.

  “I had a visit from Julianne last week.”

  I feel myself blinking rapidly. “What did she want?”

  “She wanted to know about your condition. I couldn’t tell her. Doctor-patient privilege and all that bollocks.” After a pause, he says, “She also wanted to know if I thought you were having an affair.”

  “Why would she ask that?”

  “She said you lied to her.”

  I take a sip of scotch and feel it burn my esophagus. Jock watches through a stream of smoke, waiting for an answer. Instead of feeling angry or at fault, I have a bizarre sense of disappointment. How could Julianne have asked Jock a question like that? Why didn’t she ask me directly?

  Jock is still waiting for an answer. He sees my discomfort and begins to laugh, shaking his head like a wet dog.

  I want to say, Don’t you look at me like that—you’ve been divorced twice and are still chasing after women half your age.

  “It’s none of my business, of course,” he says, gloating. “But if she walks out on you I’ll be there to comfort her.”

  He’s not joking. He’d be sniffing around Julianne in a flash.

  I quickly change the subject. “Bobby Moran—how much do you know about him?”

  Jock rocks his tumbler back and forth. “No more than you do.”

  “There’s no mention in the medical notes about any previous psychiatric treatment.”

  “What makes you think there has been any?”

  “He quoted a question to me from a Mental Status Examination. I think he’s been evaluated before.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “He wouldn’t talk about it.”

  Jock’s face is a study of quiet contemplation, which looks as though it’s been practiced in the mirror. Just when I think he might add something constructive, he shrugs. “He’s an odd fucker, that’s for sure.”

  “Is that a professional opinion?”

  He grunts. “Most of my patients are unconscious when I spend time with them. I prefer it that way.”

  11

  A plumber’s van is parked in front of the house. The sliding door is open and inside there are trays stacked one on top of the other, with silver and brass fittings, corners, s-bends and plastic couplings.

  The company name is attached to the side panels on magnetized mats—D. J. Morgan Plumbers and Gas Fitters. I find him in the kitchen, having a cup of tea and trying to catch a glimpse of Julianne’s breasts beneath her v-neck top. His apprentice is outside in the garden showing Charlie how to juggle a football with her knees and feet.

  “This is our plumber, D.J.,” says Julianne.

  Getting lazily to his feet, he nods a greeting, without taking his hands from his pockets. He’s in his mid-thirties, tanned and fit, with dark wet-looking hair combed back from his forehead. He looks like one of those tradesmen you see on lifestyle shows, renovating houses or doing makeovers. I can see him asking himself what a woman like Julianne’s doing with someone like me.

  “Why don’t you show Joe what you showed me?”

  The plumber acknowledges her with the slightest dip of his head. I follow him to the basement door, which is secured with a bolt. Narrow wooden steps lead down to the concrete floor. A low-wattage bulb is fixed to the wall. Dark beams and bricks soak up the light.

  I have lived in this house for four years and the plumber already knows the basement better than I do. With a genial openness, he points out various pipes above our heads, explaining the gas and water system.

  I contemplate asking him a question, but I know from experience not to advertise my ignorance around tradesmen. I am not a handyman; I have no interest in DIY, which is why I can still count to twenty on my fingers and toes.

  D.J. nudges the boiler with the toe of his work boot. The inference is clear. It’s useless, junk, a joke.

  “So how much is this going to cost?” I ask, after getting lost halfway through his briefing.

  He exhales slowly and begins listing the things that need replacing.r />
  “How much for labor?”

  “Depends how long it takes.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Can’t say until I check all the radiators.” He casually picks up an old bag of plaster, turned solid by the damp, and tosses it to one side. It would have taken two of me to move it. Then he glances at my feet. I am standing in a puddle of water that is soaking through the stitching of my shoes.

  Mumbling something about keeping costs down, I retreat upstairs and try not to imagine him sniggering behind my back. Julianne hands me a cup of lukewarm tea—the last of the pot.

  “Everything OK?”

  “Fine. Where did you find him?” I whisper.

  “He put a flyer through the mailbox.”

  “References?”

  She rolls her eyes. “He did the Reynolds’ new bathroom at number 74.”

  The plumbers carry their tools outside to the van and Charlie tosses her ball in the garden shed. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail and her cheeks are flushed with the cold. Julianne scolds her for getting grass stains on her school tights.

  “They’ll come out in the wash,” says Charlie.

  “And how would you know?”

  “They always do.”

  Charlie turns and gives me a hug. “Feel my nose.”

  “Brrrrrrr! Cold nose, warm heart.”

  “Can Sam stay over tonight?”

  “That depends. Is Sam a boy or a girl?”

  “Daaaad!” Charlie screws up her face.

  Julianne interrupts. “You have football tomorrow.”

  “What about next weekend?”

  “Grandma and Grandpa are coming down.”

  Charlie’s face brightens as mine falls. I had totally forgotten. God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting is giving a talk to an international medical conference. It will be a triumph, of course. He will be offered all sorts of honorary positions and part-time consultancies, which he will graciously refuse because travel wearies him. I will sit in silence through all of this, feeling as though I am thirteen again.

  My father has a brilliant medical mind. There isn’t a modern medical textbook that doesn’t mention his name. He has written papers that have changed the way paramedics treat accident victims and altered the standard procedures of battlefield medics.