Dead Scared

by S J Bolton

  I leaned back in my chair. ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘There was a study done on suicides here in Cambridge between 1970 and 1996,’ said Dr Oliver. ‘It showed that statistically there are likely to be two suicides in the university each year. Yet we’ve had twenty in the last five years. Double what you might expect.’

  ‘These cases were all investigated by the local CID?’ I asked, although I already knew the answer.

  Evi nodded. ‘Yes, they were. And this is where my argument starts to look a bit weak, because they were all textbook cases.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Half were being treated for depression or similar conditions. Another five had a history of depression, anxiety or stress-related problems.’

  ‘And depression is a common factor among suicides,’ I said. ‘At this point, your case isn’t weak, it’s verging on non-existent.’

  I’d meant it as a joke. I think I’d half hoped to make her smile and chill a bit. God knows, her being so uptight was hardly helping me relax. ‘What about Nicole Holt? The latest?’ I asked, when I’d given up on getting a smile out of her.

  ‘She wasn’t one of our patients,’ said Evi. ‘So far, I know very little about her.’

  ‘The post-mortem’s been done?’ I asked.

  Evi nodded. ‘Some time today, I believe. But the results won’t be made public until the coroner’s inquest and that could be months away.’

  ‘She was a pretty girl,’ I said, remembering the photograph I’d seen on various news websites. Nicole had been tall and slim, with long dark hair and big eyes. Bryony had been attractive too. ‘Are pretty women more susceptible to suicidal acts?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ said Evi. ‘I’d have considered it a factor against, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Bryony Carter thought she was being raped,’ I said. ‘Any thoughts on that?’

  Evi glanced down at her notes, lips pursed, as though thinking hard. There was something compellingly graceful about the way her head moved. She reminded me of a ballerina. ‘Bryony didn’t feel safe in her room at night,’ she said. ‘Several times, she says, she had unusual, violent dreams of a sexual nature, and when she woke up the next day she felt as though someone had had sex with her.’

  ‘Your colleague didn’t believe her,’ I said.

  Evi looked down again. ‘She certainly shouldn’t have given any hint that she didn’t believe her,’ she said. ‘Maintaining trust is extremely important in any doctor–patient relationship. But judging from what was written in her notes I think you might be right.’

  ‘What do you think is happening here?’ I asked.

  Evi thought for a moment and seemed to slump in her chair. ‘I hardly know,’ she said. ‘But things are bothering me. The first is that, of twenty suicides in the last five years, women outnumber the men by something like five to one.’

  ‘Statistically, it should be the other way round,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. The second thing that worries me is the …’ She stopped and frowned, thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ she went on, ‘the sheer originality and variety of the methods involved. We’ve got jumping off high buildings, self-immolation, self-stabbing, self-decapitation. It’s as if they’re competing to see who can come up with the most bizarre exit strategy. I shouldn’t be surprised if there’s a website somewhere giving them marks out of ten.’

  So now she was joking to relieve the tension. She was as nervous about this as I.

  ‘And the methods just aren’t typical,’ Evi went on. ‘When women die by suicide, they choose the least violent methods. Overdose is the most common. Not the most reliable, of course, which is why women have a history of failed suicide attempts, but still women shy away from extreme violence. Cutting wrists in a hot bath is another one, but still …’

  Her eyes fell to my wrist, the ugly scar still covered by a plaster. I waited for the question that didn’t come.

  ‘Self-immolation,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s almost unheard of in our culture. And that poor girl on Sunday morning. Who on earth would come up with such an idea?’

  A pretty disturbed mind, I thought. And I’d met a few in my time.

  ‘You mentioned a website,’ I said. ‘I was told you think there might be a subculture that’s encouraging destructive behaviour.’

  ‘These suicide websites vary from the well meaning but misguided to the downright ghoulish,’ said Evi. ‘I’m afraid something like that is going on here. I just can’t find any evidence of it.’

  ‘You’ve looked?’

  ‘Repeatedly. There are internet sites and intranet sites and blogs, and chat rooms and tweets ad infinitum, all relating to life at Cambridge. There’s practically a virtual town and university floating above the real one. All the ones I can find, though, are pretty harmless. My IT skills aren’t great but I can’t help thinking there’s something going on that I haven’t been able to access. I was told your IT knowledge is pretty good.’

  ‘Not bad,’ I said.

  Evi glanced at her watch and then at the computer screen. ‘I have a patient waiting,’ she said, before turning back to me. ‘OK, you’re a mature student of twenty-three who started an undergraduate degree two years ago but had to leave halfway through because of health problems,’ she said, recapping my cover story. ‘You’ve suffered from depression and anxieties in the past and been on medication for eighteen months. It’s all on my system on your personal file. I’ve agreed to let you join my psychology programme because I’ve seen great promise in your previous coursework. I’m also employing you, informally, on a part-time basis to help me with some research. That way, no one will question our spending time together. You have my various numbers if you need to contact me at any time?’

  I thanked her and agreed that I had.

  She frowned at me. ‘Laura Farrow,’ she said. ‘That’s not your real name, is it?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Are you allowed to tell me what is?’ she asked.

  I couldn’t help but smile. I never told anyone that. Lacey Flint was no more my real name than Laura Farrow was. ‘Better not,’ I said, as I’d been told to. ‘It helps prevent mistakes.’

  As I stood, she nodded, vaguely, and I had the feeling she didn’t really care one way or the other. For her, I was a means to an end. Then she surprised me.

  ‘Dana tells me you’re exceptional,’ she said.

  I waited, halfway between her desk and the door, not really sure what to say to that. I’d never been called exceptional before. ‘She also tells me you’ve had a difficult six months,’ she went on, her eyes not leaving the desk. ‘I have a habit of asking too much of people, Laura. Don’t let me do that to you.’

  THE PARTRIDGE MAY have seen the shadow of the predator hovering overhead. It may have felt the rush of wind as the falcon dived. It may even have had a split second to look death in the eyes and say how-do-you-do before strong talons crushed the life out of it. The falconer doubted it. He’d rarely seen a swifter kill.

  The two birds, hunter and prey, fell from sight behind a hedge and the falconer stepped up his pace. Merry, the older and more reliable of his two pointers, trotted ahead, leading him right to the spot where the falcon’s strong, curved beak was already tearing the partridge apart. The man bent and lifted the falcon before taking out a knife and cutting the partridge’s head off. He gave it to the victor.

  Whilst the falcon ate, the man who was sometimes foolish enough to tell himself that he owned the bird looked at the swirling grey sky, the upper clouds just turning the rich, deep peach of winter sunsets. The weak January sun was little more than an echo on the horizon and there was less than an hour of light left. As he fastened the falcon back on to the perch he ran his hand over its head, whispering praise.

  The partridge joined the others in his bag and the falconer walked on. When his phone rang he cursed softly but pulled it from deep inside his oilskin coat.

  ‘Nick Bell,’ he said. Then, after a second, ‘How
bad do they say she is?’

  A few more seconds passed while he listened. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll head over there now.’

  ‘SO HOW HAVE you been this week, Jessica?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Evi smiled. There couldn’t be more than five years between the girl sitting in the chair opposite and the policewoman who’d just vacated it, but Evi couldn’t imagine two more different faces. The police officer had been close to classically beautiful, but with a face as silent as stone. She gave nothing away. This girl, on the other hand, with her large brown eyes and coffee-coloured skin, couldn’t hide a thing. Flickering eyelashes, the gleam of a tear, eyes unable to maintain contact and so fidgety she could have just rolled in itching powder. This girl might say she was fine; her body language said she was anything but.

  ‘I’m glad you came today,’ said Evi. ‘I was worried last week, when we didn’t hear from you.’

  Jessica Calloway looked down at the hands in her lap, then up again, to the large window. She raised one hand and rubbed the side of her face. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I phoned, the next day. Maybe a couple of days later.’

  ‘Yes, you did, thank you,’ said Evi. ‘The message I got was that you’d been ill, is that right?’

  Jessica nodded. She pushed a finger into her hair and started twisting a tight blonde curl around it.

  ‘Nothing serious, I hope,’ said Evi. She already knew Jessica hadn’t been to her GP. If she had, Evi’s clinic would have been notified.

  ‘Just a bug, I think,’ said Jessica. ‘To be honest, I can’t remember much about it. I just crashed. Slept through a day, a night and another day. Woke up feeling like shit. Sorry.’

  ‘No problem. I feel like that myself sometimes,’ said Evi. ‘How’s your appetite?’

  Jessica sighed, like a teenager whose mother was on her case again. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Pretty good.’

  Evi let her eyes travel down Jessica’s body to the fur-lined boots that swamped her lower legs. Jessica’s jeans were loose on her and the shoulder seam of her top dropped halfway down her upper arms. She looked as though she’d lost even more weight in the two weeks since Evi had seen her.

  ‘Have you had any more trouble with practical jokes?’ Evi asked.

  The glint in the girl’s eyes became brighter.

  ‘Anything you can tell me about?’ Evi pressed.

  Jessica shook her head. ‘I don’t know what goes on in some people’s heads,’ she said. ‘What have I ever done to anyone?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Evi firmly. ‘We both know that what’s happening is not your fault. Some people see gentleness and sensitivity and they don’t have the intelligence to understand what they’re looking at. So they register it as weakness and they prey upon it. Those people have a serious problem and I can’t help them with it. I can help you, though.’

  ‘Do you know what they did this time?’ A hint of anger there now, which was good. Anger was better than acceptance. Evi waited.

  ‘They came on to our corridor, where the airing cupboards are, and found my clothes. They took my underwear.’

  ‘They stole your underwear?’

  ‘Yeah, but that wasn’t the worst. They replaced it with enormous stuff. Granny pants and massive great support bras. Like they were saying, who are you kidding, this is what you really need to wear.’

  Evi took a moment to hide her annoyance. Most people would dismiss such a prank as a laugh. Jessica, who’d suffered from eating disorders since she was twelve and who had been hospitalized twice as a teenager when her weight had dropped to under six stone, would find it anything but amusing.

  ‘Did you report the theft?’ Evi asked.

  ‘I did. One of the other girls told me I should and went with me to the police. They said they couldn’t get involved in a student prank.’

  ‘Anywhere else it would be burglary and intimidation,’ said Evi. ‘In a Cambridge college, it’s a prank.’

  ‘Do you remember that website I told you about? The one that had the photographs of me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Evi. ‘I tried to find it. None of the search engines I used could locate it.’

  Jessica bent down and pulled a laptop from her bag. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said. She opened the computer and switched it on. After a few seconds she tapped her fingers over the keys, waited a while longer, then turned the screen to face Evi.

  Evi reached forward and picked it up, tilting the angle so that she could see it clearly. It was a Facebook spoof. Facefeeders, it was called. Who’s been eating the pies this week? ran the subheading, directly above several photographs of Jessica herself.

  Except they weren’t Jessica. Jessica was an exceptionally lovely girl whose size ranged from model slim when she was well and happy to painfully thin when she wasn’t. In the photographs someone had digitally altered Jessica’s tiny frame to make it enormous. All the photographs were nude. All were Rubenesque in their proportions, with swollen bellies, rounded dimpled buttocks and great pendulous breasts. They’d even managed to make Jessica’s face look fatter.

  Oddly, the photographs weren’t unattractive, but to Jessica it would be like seeing herself turned into a monster. And these were on a website, for the world to see.

  ‘Remind me how you found this site?’ Evi asked. ‘Did someone tell you about it?’

  ‘It popped up when I was working one night,’ said Jessica. ‘I clicked on it without thinking.’

  Evi made a note on her pad to alert the detective to the website. ‘Do you have any idea who might be doing it?’ she asked.

  Jessica shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Everyone I’ve told thinks they’re appalling.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Evi. ‘Not that the photographs are appalling in themselves, because even if you were as large as the girl in these pictures is supposed to be you would still be beautiful – I know you don’t believe that, but you would. They are appalling because they’ve been created to cause you distress.’

  Tears were running down Jessica’s cheeks.

  ‘I feel like everybody’s seen them,’ she said. ‘If I go to a lecture or a tutorial, even a bar or the dining room, I feel like everybody’s whispering about how fat I am. I can even hear them in my sleep.’

  ‘You’re still not sleeping well?’

  Jessica shook her head. ‘You remember I told you about that night my mobile kept ringing, every half hour until I turned it off?’

  ‘I remember,’ said Evi. ‘You never found out who it was?’

  ‘No,’ said Jessica. ‘And now, although I always switch it off when I go to bed, I can still hear it ringing.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I wake up several times every night, thinking I’ve heard my phone. But I haven’t because it’s switched off. I dream that it’s waking me up and so it does.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘A couple of weeks,’ she said. ‘But if it’s not the phone, it’s the voices.’

  ‘Voices?’

  ‘In my dreams. Whispering about how fat I’m getting.’

  ‘Jessica, when did you last get a good night’s sleep?’

  The girl couldn’t respond. She was trying too hard not to cry.

  ‘Jessica, you need to sleep. I can give you something that will help. Just for a couple of weeks, just to break this cycle, does that sound like a … What? What’s the matter?’

  The girl looked terrified. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t take sleeping pills.’

  ‘It’s understandable to be wary,’ said Evi, ‘but we’re very careful to guard against addiction.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Jessica. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Please try and explain to me.’

  ‘The interruptions, the imaginary phone calls and the voices, I think they’re my brain’s way of protecting me, of stopping me falling into too deep a sleep.’

  ‘Why would your subconscious do that?’r />
  ‘Because of the real dreams, the ones I have when I’m so deeply asleep I can’t wake up.’

  ‘And what are those like?’

  ‘Unimaginable. Like I’m in hell.’

  I DIDN’T GO back to my room after leaving Dr Oliver. I’d found the box-like space, stripped of all traces of its previous occupant, oddly depressing. So, instead of returning to college, I headed for my car and drove to the hospital on the edge of town where I knew I’d find Bryony Carter.

  The nurse in the burns unit indicated a private room about three-quarters of the way down the corridor. I paused for a second at the open door. I’d seen the photographs. I knew what to expect.

  So much worse than I’d expected. I couldn’t go into that room, I just couldn’t.

  I’d imagined something clinical: clean, neat, white and sterile. I hadn’t realized there would be blood and other fluids seeping through the dark-stained bandages. I hadn’t expected that the skin covering her face and her hairless head would be open to the air and would look like something I’d only ever seen before on corpses. I didn’t know that her left arm had been amputated just above the elbow.

  The room was so hot. And the smell … oh, Christ, I couldn’t do it.

  ‘She’s not in any pain. She’s very heavily sedated right now.’

  I’d been transfixed by the sight of the lifeless figure under the transparent tent. I hadn’t noticed anyone else in the room. The man speaking to me was standing by the window, dressed for the outdoors in a thick blue woollen sweater and blue jeans.

  ‘She had a bit of a setback earlier,’ he went on. ‘They’ve been weaning her off the ventilator over the last few days but her oxygen levels plummeted. They’ve put her back on it for twenty-four hours, just so she can stabilize again.’

  I swallowed hard. The smell would be tolerable if I breathed through my mouth. I’d come across worse.

  ‘Are you a friend?’ he asked, and I looked at him properly for the first time. In his mid-thirties, he could have been a model in a country-living magazine: tall and slim with curly hair the colour of a wet fox. ‘If you are, you’re the first to make it through the door,’ he went on.