More reports leaked out over the next couple of weeks. What was left of Barclay’s body had been recovered from the sea: evidence of scavengers, post-mortem changes consistent with drowning. No mention of unexplained injuries.
Game, set and match to the Triggs then.
The funeral was set for a month’s time. Claire decided to go.
From the Trigg family there was no word at all. They were lying low, or maybe waiting for Claire to call them.
She didn’t. She would wait. Watch and wait. Her thoughts were still in turmoil. But if she was in turmoil now, her biggest surprise was yet to come.
The day she learned of the tragedy, Rita asked to see her in her office. She looked upset but she also looked guilty. ‘Claire,’ she said, ‘I feel I’ve let you down.’
Claire was bemused. ‘Sit down, Rita,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you haven’t. You’re overreacting to something. What is it?’
Rita sank into a chair, her eyes focused downwards. ‘It’s Jerome,’ she said.
Claire frowned, unable to see where this was going.
‘I knew him,’ Rita said softly.
Claire opened her mouth to speak. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this.
Rita continued, eyes still on the floor. ‘My mum lived next door to the Barclays,’ she said. ‘I used to babysit for Jerome when he was a little boy.’
‘No.’ It was a shock. Rita – dependable, reliable, truthful Rita, the traitor in the camp? Claire felt her mouth drop open.
‘We kept in touch,’ Rita continued.
And then Claire knew.
‘He’d ask stuff.’
‘And you told him.’ She didn’t need the confession. But this wasn’t the time to read the Riot Act, talk about breaking confidentiality.
‘The phrases,’ Claire said. ‘The hungry child, the doomed homeless, haunted Jew, expensive butterfly. Where did they come from?’
‘I couldn’t use names,’ Rita said, as though justifying her leak. Apparently explaining, defending. ‘So I just called them stuff. I’d type your letters and think to myself. “A hungry child. The stupid clever.” And so on …’ Her voice trailed away. She looked ashamed, but Claire wondered whether she would have made this confession had Jerome Barclay still been alive.
‘How did you know Stan was doomed?’
‘I didn’t. At least when I said he was doomed I meant in his life. I didn’t know he had a tumour. I couldn’t have done.’
‘And the expensive butterfly? Maylene?’
Rita smiled. ‘I was in clinic one day, bringing some notes down for you when she breezed in wearing a short, brightly coloured dress. I was trying to describe her to Jerome. It was just coincidence that …’ She changed her words. ‘What happened to her. I’m not responsible. I didn’t know he’d …’ She was struggling to find the word, ‘Provoke them.’
She looked up then. ‘Will I lose my job?’
Claire brought her hands up. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, surprised at how upset she felt. ‘I don’t know.’
It was another piece of the jigsaw, one she wished she had not had placed.
She had trusted her secretary.
FORTY-ONE
DS Zed Willard tried his best to get some facts about the sea tragedy but Benedetti had returned to his roots in Sicily. They would find out nothing from him. Omertà, the Sicilian vow of silence, appeared to have glued his lips together and wrapped up his financial transactions in a blurry fog.
Thursday, 26 February
The weather was freezing on the day of the funeral.
The service was to be held at Carmountside Crematorium on the Leek Road in Milton. It was a place that had won awards for its landscaping and, in particular, the children’s area, pretty with dolls and teddy bears, toy cars. It looked a morbid playground.
Claire sat at the back, next to Zed, during the service. Dressed in black, she kept her head down. She didn’t want to be noticed but to observe.
By the look of her, Roxanne was about to give birth, parents flanked protectively either side of her. As the coffin passed Claire she flicked her head round, gave her a quick, sideways look. Then a serene smile, and Claire felt cold.
She couldn’t believe that Barclay – Barclay, of all people – had been outwitted by this clod-hopping family. She watched Roxanne throughout the ceremony, which focused on the tragic – Jerome Barclay, tragic life, untimely death; brother, father, mother, all dead before their time. And now, on the cusp of happiness, about to fulfil a lifelong ambition of bliss. Claire frowned. Ironic that Barclay’s crimes were now tangled up for ever in his own murder.
FORTY-TWO
Wednesday, 19 August, Six months later
Rita looked up as she entered the room.
Claire had done nothing about Rita, partly out of loyalty for a loyal and competent secretary but also because she knew if she reported the incident Rita would be sacked, probably face criminal proceedings and never again work in the N.H.S.. Also she knew she had been similarly manipulated by both Barclay and the Trigg family. She had spoken to her, and her secretary had assured her that she would never break confidentiality again. ‘Not ever,’ she’d said but Claire knew she could never trust her again. However for the time being Rita was still in post.
‘You’re not going to guess who’s rung up and asked if she can consult you.’
Claire shrugged.
‘Roxanne Barclay.’
‘Really? What for?’
‘She wants to talk to you. Grief counselling?’ she suggested tentatively.
Just when you thought a patient had disappeared from your radar for ever, this happened.
Claire was curious. What would be the point of this? She couldn’t guess.
Roxanne had the child with her, a little boy with watchful eyes who sat motionless in the pushchair.
Roxanne had lost her baby weight and was plainly and tastefully dressed in jeans and a blouse. She gave Claire a smile as she entered. ‘Thanks for seeing me.’
‘I’m not sure what I can do for you,’ Claire said, still bemused.
Roxanne smiled and crossed her legs, almost ignoring the boy in the pushchair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you knew Jerome.’ She opened her mouth slightly so Claire could see a little pink tongue.
Claire nodded and met Roxanne’s eyes. Hard, cold and somehow triumphant.
‘You always thought him a threat,’ she said, verbally poking Claire with her finger. ‘I think you were worried for my safety. But in the end,’ she said, the note of triumph even more evident now, ‘it was he who died. And I,’ she said smugly, ‘am still alive. And this,’ now she turned to the child, ‘is his son. I have called him Cain.’
Cain? Was the child destined to be a murderer?
Claire studied the little boy, who regarded her with cold grey eyes. Claire was confused now. What was all this about? She grasped at a familiar straw. ‘What have you come to see me about? Is it for grief counselling?’
‘No. I don’t need that.’ There was a note of disdain in her voice now. ‘I didn’t come for that. I came to introduce you to our son. Jerome’s and mine.’ She leaned forward, her face malicious. ‘You never had the measure of him, did you? He was too clever for you. But then …’ Her face changed again. Smug smile this time. ‘I was too clever for him.
‘And our child …’
The devil’s spawn, Claire thought.
‘Our offspring,’ Roxanne continued, ‘will, I’m sure, have as interesting and adventurous life as his father.’
And then she touched on the real reason for her visit. ‘I know you’ve asked the police to look into the tragedy. They told me. But there isn’t any point in your trying to get anything out of Benedetti. He won’t speak.’
Neither did Claire. She looked at the child who stared back, unblinking.
Then curiosity got the better of her. ‘Is he really called Cain?’
Roxanne shook her head, laughter bubbling out of her. Water from a spring. ‘Not yet,’ s
he said. Claire simply gaped and Roxanne left, leaving behind nothing but a vague scent of Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew.
And so Claire was left in an empty room to reflect. Nurture or nature? Psychiatrists would argue over that point for ever. Evil was evil, wherever it originated from. And the merry-go-round would continue to turn. Maybe one day, she thought, she would meet this child again – or even Roxanne herself. She had the ingredients. But at least Jerome Barclay was off the scene – permanently. Maybe only death discharges a patient permanently from his psychiatrist.
Dexter would remain in Broadmoor for ever now. He had proved himself, displayed his right to be there. His appeal would fail.
Hayley might live for a few more years, but her reserves were low. She would not survive one more trip across the line.
Stan was dead but, in the words of the old films, He died happy.
Who can ask for more?
And maybe one day, Claire thought, she would go to the cinema and watch a film about the baker of Buchenwald and the fatal burning of bread.
Patients would come and go and she would do her best.
No one could do more.
Dangerous Minds Page 24