Scared to Live bcadf-7

by Stephen Booth

  Sinclair fixed him with a sad gaze from his pale eyes. ‘That would be the way it seemed to him, at this particular stage. I think Mr Lowther had probably forgotten the nature of his auditory hallucinations.’

  ‘How is it possible to forget something like that?’

  ‘It’s a normal function of the brain to filter out negative experiences and retain the positive ones. This applies to psychotic episodes as much as to anything else.’

  ‘I can’t see anything positive in what you’ve described, sir.’

  ‘Then I haven’t described it properly. The fact is, not everyone finds psychosis a negative experience. While some patients suffer persecutory or self-blaming delusions, others develop grandiose fantasies or have an experience of deep religious significance. This can appear very positive and life-affirming.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve known some individuals describe a psychotic episode as a revelation, a wonderful and exciting new way of seeing the world — in fact, the sort of experience that people seek from hallucinogenic drugs. You know, a surprisingly large percentage of the population have undergone a psychotic episode of some kind, without being disturbed by the experience. At the end of the day, a hallucination is merely the misattribution of internal events to an external source.’

  Cooper shook his head, trying to throw off a sudden, unwelcome burst of insight, a glimpse of how it might feel if the reality of his own world became suspect. He was sure he would find it disturbing.

  ‘Could we get back to the question of John Lowther’s condition, and how he was being treated?’

  ‘Well, when Mr Lowther was discharged, he returned to the community. He has family members in Derbyshire. It’s normal practice to ensure that the family are fully aware of the importance of maintaining medication. We can’t be there standing over every patient personally, to make sure they take their drugs.’

  ‘Who was supposed to do that? His parents?’

  Dr Sinclair frowned at the file. ‘According to his records, there’s a sister.’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And I think she might have been too preoccupied recently to worry about her brother.’

  ‘Mr Lowther must have been due for a review,’ said Sinclair. ‘Perhaps his GP had examined him recently.’

  They looked at each other for a moment, conscious of the futility of trying to work out where and when the system had gone wrong.

  ‘Basically, a dangerous psychotic was allowed out into society unsupervised,’ said Cooper.

  ‘No, no, you don’t understand. Once a patient is discharged and living at home, clinicians are helpless. Even if we know they might be a risk to themselves and others, we can’t force an individual to continue medication. Not at present.’

  ‘But you’d like to be able to compel people to take their drugs?’

  ‘Detective Constable, fifty thousand patients are detained by psychiatrists every year. If we can’t compel people to continue medication when they’re back in the community, all that happens is that some of them get very ill again and have to be detained a second time, or a third. It just goes on and on.’

  ‘The revolving door approach. We see it often enough in the courts.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ said Sinclair. ‘Besides, John Lowther isn’t dangerous unless he has stopped taking his medication. And even then, he’s only a risk to himself. You say his sister died? The trauma of her death might have disrupted his normal routine anyway. It would be easy for him to slip. I hope he hasn’t gone beyond caring for himself.’

  ‘Doctor, if John Lowther’s psychotic episodes returned, would the hallucinations be as powerful as they were previously?’

  ‘Possibly more so. To be honest, in my next consultation with him, I might have been moving towards a conclusion that he was suffering from a treatment-resistant condition.’

  ‘What would you have done then?’

  ‘Tried another drug. Probably Clozapine.’ Sinclair took a tissue from a box on his desk and wiped a drop of sweat from his temple. ‘There’s one other thing that might be relevant …’

  ‘Go on, sir.’

  ‘At the time he was admitted to the unit, Mr Lowther was also suffering from night terrors.’

  ‘You mean nightmares?’

  ‘No, night terrors. Nightmares occur during REM sleep, terrors are experienced in stage four sleep. In practice, the distinction is that you remember nightmares, but you don’t remember terrors. They’re subconscious phenomena — but no less stressful, psychologically and emotionally.’

  ‘And those might have returned, too?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘In John Lowther’s case, would his deteriorating condition be noticeable in the way he talks?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Lowther suffers from thought disorder, another symptom of psychosis. It can lead the patient to speak quickly and incessantly, or to switch topic in mid-sentence. He could eventually become incoherent, using inappropriate words or mispronouncing them, or making up new words altogether.’

  Cooper had been trying to make notes as the psychiatrist talked. But his pen paused, and he looked up.

  ‘Would you be willing to listen to a tape of an interview we conducted with Mr Lowther, and give us your opinion on it?’

  ‘Certainly, if you think it would help.’

  ‘How do you think John Lowther is likely to react in the present circumstances?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say. He’ll be in a rather unpredictable state. But one thing I’m sure of: he must be a very frightened man.’

  ‘Frightened of what? Of us?’

  Sinclair smiled. ‘Hardly. At the moment, you’re the least of his problems.’

  ‘What, then?’

  He put his glasses down and closed the file. Then he toyed with the items on his desk, teasing them into a more satisfactory arrangement.

  ‘Most of all, John Lowther will be frightened of himself,’ he said. ‘Of his own inner demons, if you like. Whatever form those demons might be taking.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m doing my best to explain. You see, Mr Lowther knows about the voices from past experience, though he’ll have tried to suppress the knowledge. If he’s off the medication, his auditory hallucinations will return. They might have returned already.’

  ‘What will that mean to him?’

  ‘At this stage, he should be lucid enough to understand what’s going on, and to be aware that it will get worse. He’ll be facing up to the horror of what he might do at the urging of those voices, and the options he has left to save himself, to avoid turning back into the evil monster he once considered himself to be.’

  ‘I can think of one option,’ said Cooper, holding his eye. ‘He might feel the only way he can prevent himself from turning into that monster is to end his own life.’

  Sinclair nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. John Lowther is a much greater risk to himself than to anyone else.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As Cooper stood up to leave, Sinclair seemed to slip from the script again, just for a moment. ‘A grasp of Mr Lowther’s thought process is essential, you know, Detective Constable.’

  ‘Why, sir?’

  ‘Because it’s counter-intuitive.’ The psychiatrist made a weary gesture. ‘I realize it’s difficult to understand. Most of us know what it means to be afraid to die. But it’s rare to meet someone who’s scared to live.’

  Fry burst into the office anxious to know whether Cooper had returned from his visit to Dr Sinclair. But Murfin was taking a call as she walked through the door. His eyes were wide, and she watched him expectantly when he put the phone down.

  ‘According to the authorities in Pleven, the Mullens’ adoption application was never fully processed,’ he said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means they didn’t complete the adoption procedures. There were some legal problems with the papers, apparent
ly, and their application was rejected by the court.’

  ‘And what happened to Zlatka Shishkov?’

  ‘They say they can’t tell us that, for reasons of confidentiality. But one thing’s for certain — she wasn’t adopted by the Mullens.’

  Fry stared at him in amazement, wondering whether she’d heard him right.

  ‘So where did their baby come from?’ she said. ‘And who the hell is Luanne?’

  31

  The bar of the Mulberry Tree in West Street was deserted in the afternoon, once the lunchtime rush was over. It was hardly worth staying open, except as a matter of principle. This afternoon, there were only two customers — and one of them was there reluctantly.

  For a moment, Georgi Kotsev smiled at Diane Fry and placed a strong, brown hand on the table between them, like an offering.

  ‘Baby smuggling,’ he said. ‘It’s very regrettable.’

  ‘Is that the word you’d use?’

  ‘Forgive me. My English is not adequate, perhaps.’

  ‘It’s just fine, Georgi.’

  Fry couldn’t remember when she’d last sat in a bar with so little atmosphere. The walls were subdued pastel colours, designed in a mock Georgian style, but with ornate chandeliers. The armchairs were imitation leather and so deep that she had to sit forward on the edge of her chair to remain upright. Kotsev had left his glass of vodka untouched in front of him out of politeness, though she’d refused his offer of a drink.

  ‘Until the year 2004, baby selling wasn’t a crime in Bulgaria,’ he said. ‘Even now, a woman who sells her baby has committed no offence. By law, she is regarded as a victim.’

  ‘But what about the dealers? The middle men?’

  ‘Yes, their activities are now a criminal offence. If they’re caught, they might face a year in prison.’

  ‘A year? Are you kidding?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘Things are changing. But perhaps not quickly enough for some.’

  ‘Why would a mother sell her baby, Georgi?’

  ‘Ah, babies are a valuable commodity. A mother might sell one to buy a house, or to feed the rest of her family for a little while.’

  ‘It can’t be so easy to smuggle babies out of the country, can it?’

  ‘What? Bulgaria has five borders — Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey — and all of them leaky, like a sieve. And we have the Black Sea coast, with little ports where you can sail a boat across. Yes, our country has become a corridor for smuggling of all kinds. Drugs, cigarettes, vegetables, people …’ Kotsev fingered his drink. ‘A while ago, our authorities broke a kidney-trafficking ring. Six people had been taken to a clinic in Istanbul, where their kidneys were sold to transplant patients. This is a rich business for someone — kidneys are worth between two and five thousand dollars each. It depends on the blood type, you see.’

  ‘Did you say vegetables just now, Georgi?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Potatoes, for example. Also apples. Any kind of food that is scarce. In Sofia, the police arrested a smuggler known as Nick the Chicken, on account of his speciality.’

  Fry sat back, fighting the feeling that she’d stepped into some kind of Russian farce. The armchair squeaked at her movement. Taped music played somewhere, and a barman appeared to wipe glasses that hadn’t been used.

  Kotsev couldn’t resist a sip of vodka. ‘The main interest to us might be in the connection with the victims of the double shooting in Pleven. It seems they not only had a personal relationship, but they were also colleagues.’

  ‘That’s not unusual.’

  ‘No. But guess where Dimitar Iliev and Piya Yotova worked.’

  Fry didn’t like being asked to guess. Someone who asked you to guess expected you to be wrong, and she usually was. But as she remembered the photo of Iliev’s red Ford Escort with its shattered back window and BG plates, Fry thought she heard distant screams, and the voices of children. And she realized she didn’t have to guess. ‘An orphanage,’ she said.

  ‘You are almost correct. Iliev and Yotova were employed by an official organization which places children in state orphanages.’

  ‘So they had a lot of power in deciding the fate of those children?’

  ‘Da, razbira se.’

  ‘And perhaps they were in a position to falsify paperwork, remove records, take illegal payments — ’

  Kotsev threw out an arm dramatically. ‘Where money is involved, someone will become corrupt. But perhaps they thought they were doing good work too.’

  ‘Doing good? How?’

  ‘At one time, our Bulgarian orphanages were not very pleasant places to be. Some children stayed in them for many years, without ever finding homes. Who can say whether it might not have been better to find a child a home, even if illegally?’

  ‘Somehow, Georgi, I suspect these people aren’t too scrupulous about checking where children are going to end up.’

  He bowed his head slightly. ‘Perhaps you’re right. It’s possible some of those orphans went to a bad fate.’

  ‘Why hasn’t this trade been exposed?’

  ‘Well, there are political ramifications …’

  ‘Oh, the European Union,’ said Fry. The phrase had begun to sound like the kiss of death to rationality.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘I suppose what it boils down to is that the Bulgarian authorities wouldn’t want evidence of large-scale baby smuggling to come to light right now.’

  ‘Especially if other EU member states are involved. It would cause quite a scandal. Worse, it would give ammunition to those who do not want Bulgaria to join the EU.’

  Fry felt suddenly exhausted. No matter how hard you tried to achieve some kind of justice, there were occasions when it was obvious you were wasting your time. The realities lined up against you were insurmountable. And this was the way it always would be. Human nature would never change.

  ‘So we’re looking at a baby selling ring, with at least four people involved. Is that right? The two people killed in the shooting in Pleven, plus Rose Shepherd and Simon Nichols. Or, rather, Rosica Savova and Simcho Nikolov. And what about the Zhivko brothers?’

  ‘There are connections between them, certainly.’

  ‘Were Dimitar Iliev and Piya Yotova wealthy?’

  ‘No, not all. They had an ordinary home in an apartment block in Pleven. They drove an aged Ford Escort, as you saw. They had no money hidden away, that we could find.’

  ‘And Nikolov was pretty much destitute.’ Fry thought of the electronic gates guarding Bain House in Foxlow. ‘So it appears that Savova made all the money from the enterprise.’

  ‘Da. It would seem so.’

  ‘Do you think there was a falling-out between the principal players? Was it Nikolov that Rose Shepherd was afraid of? Did he come to Derbyshire looking for her?’

  ‘I do not know, Diane.’

  ‘Well, someone did. And the Mullens got innocently mixed up in this?’

  ‘It depends what you mean by “innocently”. They must have removed the baby from Bulgaria illegally.’

  ‘True. We know that much, at least. But why would the Mullens’ adoption have failed?’

  ‘Who can tell? Adoption has become very difficult for foreigners.’

  ‘But Bulgaria was supposed to be the place to go to adopt a baby. According to Henry Lowther, anyway.’

  ‘No longer,’ said Kotsev. ‘Since Bulgaria wishes to join the EU, it has signed the Hague Treaty. As a consequence, our new laws say that orphans or abandoned children become available after having no contact with their family for six months. I understand there are now fifteen thousand children in our orphanages, but only a very few legally adoptable.’

  ‘So the Lowthers fell foul of that change?’

  ‘I would say so. It is a legacy of the Soviet mentality — let the state do everything for you, from cradle to grave. And this is the result. The state can look after your unwanted child, why not? So yes, it is difficult. It costs many thousands of dollars.’
/>
  ‘So they went for the illegal option. They must have been desperate by then.’

  Kotsev nodded. ‘Is there a photograph of this child?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, here — ’

  He looked at the photo of Luanne for several minutes. Then he muttered under his breath something Fry didn’t catch. For the first time, she thought she saw his confident exterior dented.

  ‘She looks to me as though she might be a Roma,’ said Fry.

  Kotsev sighed deeply. ‘Yes, you’re right. I had a suspicion, but no more.’

  ‘Suspicion?’

  He waved a hand, as if he were swatting away a fly. ‘I understand if you’re angry at this, but there is some information that is difficult to share.’

  ‘Oh, really? I thought you were sharing everything with me, so we could work together as colleagues.’

  ‘Very well.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s possible that this child belongs to one of our leading criminals, the Mafia boss I mentioned. A very unpleasant gangster.’

  ‘What do you mean “belongs to”?’

  ‘They say he had a child, born to a young Romani woman. The woman ran away from him when the baby was born. It took him a little while to catch up with her.’

  ‘What happened to the woman? Is she dead?’

  ‘People who upset mutra chiefs don’t survive very long. But her body has never been found, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘And she sold the baby?’

  ‘It is possible,’ said Kotsev. ‘Her concern might have been to save the child, to get her out of the way of danger. That is how it is with mothers, I understand. But fathers want their children, too. Some want them very badly.’

  ‘How would he have tracked her down here, to Derbyshire? Could his influence reach here so easily?’

  ‘Yes. In fact, he might have preferred it. It’s not so easy in Bulgaria for the mutras now. As I said, the country is changing. There’s no place for those who grew up in the old ways.’

  ‘The old ways, Georgi? You mean bribery and corruption?’

  Kotsev shrugged. ‘After the Change, that was the way things worked. It was the system.’

  ‘But the system didn’t work equally for everybody, did it? Isn’t that important?’