When I said that, you looked at me in astonishment, and that told me something about you: that you can’t imagine feeling safer in a relationship with me or any therapist than locked inside your own head, alone. You think keeping your secret or secrets is keeping you safe, but the opposite is true. However ashamed or guilty you feel, you will feel better if you let it out and deal with the consequences.
I don’t blame you for not trusting me. People who have suffered years of abuse by a narcissist find it difficult to trust themselves and other people. As you’ve said yourself, most of the time you try to behave in the way Jo wants you to. To avoid attack, you focus only on Jo’s needs when you’re with her, which makes you a co-narcissist. You resent her for forcing you into this role, and you resent yourself for playing it, which makes you suspicious of both narcissistic and co-narcissistic tendencies.
Before you’ll tell me what I want to know – and bear in mind, you’re the only person suffering from your not telling me – you need me to pass certain tests. I have to prove to you that I’m not a narcissist like Jo, that I’ll let you express your feelings and listen without judgement, and without telling you how you ought to feel. I hope I’ve proved that. It’s not enough, though; I also have to prove that I’m not a co-narcissist – by challenging you, by not letting you get away with anything. Which is why my behaviour might seem erratic to you, because I’m trying to satisfy both those needs simultaneously: provoking one minute, empathising the next.
It’s a risky strategy. If I confuse you, if you never know what behaviour to expect from me, there’s a danger you’ll mistake me for another Jo.
A therapist isn’t meant to show her hand in this way. I shouldn’t wave diagnoses at you like a big show-off, or let you lie there with your eyes closed and a self-satisfied smile on your face while I do all the work. I shouldn’t share all my cunning tactics with you. So why am I doing both? I’m trying to impress you. Simon impressed you the first time you met him, so much so that you’re willing to put yourself through this ordeal to help him solve his murder case. If I can wow you with my psychoanalytical brilliance and convince you that I’m both worthy and potentially useful, the big neon sign in your mind that’s flashing the words ‘Mustn’t tell Ginny’ might switch itself off; you might tell me whatever it is you’re withholding. Your subconscious would receive the signal that the warning sign had come down, which would make it more likely to—
What?
Amber? What is it? Have you remembered something?
10
2/12/2010
Simon was standing outside Jo and Neil Utting’s house in Rawndesley when his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the screen. Charlie. ‘Make it quick,’ he said. She’d probably only heard the ‘quick’ part; he’d started speaking as soon as he’d seen her name, knowing they weren’t yet connected.
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
‘Just about to interview Johannah Utting. Why?’
‘I need to—’ Charlie broke off. ‘Who?’
Simon could have done without the suspicious tone, just as he could do without the snow that was landing on his head and the back of his neck. ‘What do you want?’
‘Who’s Johannah Utting?’ Charlie asked.
Simon closed his eyes, knowing what the next question would be: Is she attractive? It was what Charlie always said, whenever he mentioned a woman’s name. Pathetic. And confusing. How was Simon supposed to know what attractive was? ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk later.’ End of call, phone off, end of problem. For the time being.
Jo Utting was probably what most men would call attractive, though not in a way that Simon found appealing. He had always been slightly alarmed by very curly hair, especially on women. It made him think of dolls coming to life in horror films. Not that he could remember watching a film in which that happened. Jo Utting’s hair was the curliest he’d ever seen, each strand a coiled yellow spring. Was there nothing she could do to straighten it?
Simon was ushered into the small red-brick terraced house by Jo and a foreign-sounding woman who told him with a grin that she was Sabina, as if he ought to have heard of her. He would have found it hard to describe the scene that he walked into – did find it hard, even in his head, where he was both raconteur and audience-who-already-knew-the-story. As a police officer, Simon had landed in many strange and unpleasant situations over the years, but never one quite like this.
An unfeasibly large number of people, some children, appeared all at once and all tried to engage him in vigorous conversation at the same time. None stopped trying when he or she noticed that everyone else was trying, assuming any individual noticed the others at all, which was by no means certain. Simon was trapped in a cloud of intolerable noise that promised never to end. He couldn’t respond because he couldn’t hear any of the questions. By the time he’d managed to absorb one in its entirety, he’d become aware that no one was in a position to listen to his answer; he was no longer the focus of interest. The various participants in this bizarre entanglement had turned their attention to one another instead and were making announcements over heads and between bodies about timetabling practicalities: what needed to be done, by whom, how long would it take. Simon heard himself mentioned frequently but was neither included in the discussion nor even glanced at occasionally as all present spoke at length and simultaneously about how they would fit in talking to him, given all the other things they had to do.
At the back of the hall – which seemed miles away, though it couldn’t have been more than four or five feet – a tall, broad-shouldered man with a crew cut was yelling into his mobile phone about the price of etched glass. Although the subject did not interest him, Simon clung to the sound of that distinct voice for as long as he could, until it was swallowed up by the wider cacophony. He heard the word ‘Pilates’, knew he’d heard it before, wondered what it meant.
It was impossible to move beyond the hall into a room, or to express the need to do so. A few seconds later and Simon had lost sight of Jo Utting, the person he was keenest to talk to. She’d been standing right in front of him – he’d had the impression that she was at the centre of the scrum – and then suddenly she wasn’t there any more. A large woman with limp, dark blonde hair who looked to be in her mid-thirties stood in a doorway staring at Simon, her mouth hanging open. She was wearing pyjamas with pink elephants on them. Simon registered that she was disabled. Behind her, he saw two thin unmade temporary-looking beds that reminded him of television news coverage of disasters, interviews with people who were living in sports centres because their homes had been flooded.
Or burned down . . .
A short elderly man appeared beneath Simon’s chin, demanding to know what was being done to save an important tree. A demolition order had been served on the tree, unfairly. It was the one on the corner of Heckencote Road and Great Holling Road. Was it fair to destroy a tree that was nearly a hundred years old so that yet another hotel could be built, which would only add to the traffic problem in Rawndesley? Talking over the old man was an even older-looking woman, insisting that Simon wasn’t here to discuss trees. They both fell silent at the same time, as if they’d cancelled each other out.
At last, here was a gap into which Simon could insert a response if he so wished. The problem was that he had no idea who the elderly man was, or the woman. He also felt that his own identity was less solid than it had been when he’d arrived a few minutes ago. This kind of environment, a chaotic family home, was alien to him. He’d grown up in a quiet, guest-free house. Until he’d moved in with Charlie, he had never had a guest in his own house apart from Charlie, who was never invited and who, in any case, didn’t count.
The European-sounding woman, Sabina, leaned over the old man to grab Simon’s arm. ‘No comment,’ she shouted in his face. This confused Simon, who hadn’t yet asked her anything. ‘I’m not saying nothing without my lawyer here,’ she went on in a pronounced Cockney acce
nt. ‘I know my rights. No comment.’ She started to laugh, then said in her normal voice, ‘I have always wanted to say that to a policeman. Don’t worry, I am joking. It’s busy here. We are very noisy, I’m sorry.’
Jo Utting’s curly head appeared, protruding from the farthest visible doorway. ‘William, Barney, get out of the way,’ she said. ‘Let DC Waterhouse through.’
William and Barney, Simon thought. Two people; from Jo’s tone, probably the smallest two. There was no way he’d be able to get to the room that contained Jo if only two people moved, not without some heavy lifting of animate objects. At least four people needed to move.
Someone pushed him forward. ‘I will deliver you to Jo,’ said Sabina. How and when did she get behind him? ‘In this house, you must push in.’ Somehow, with her help, Simon made it through the crowd to the kitchen and Jo. The relief he felt was short-lived. He’d accepted Jo’s offer of a cup of tea, and was on the point of asking if he could close the door so that he could hear himself think when an earnest-faced boy appeared in front of him. ‘Do you know the difference between a transitive relationship and an intransitive relationship?’
‘William, don’t pester him,’ Jo said, reaching for a mug. ‘Why don’t you and Barney go and play on the Wii for a bit?’
‘It’s okay,’ Simon said. He didn’t know the difference. The boy looked about twelve or thirteen. If there was something, anything, that he knew and Simon didn’t, that situation needed to be rectified. ‘Transitive and . . . ?’
‘Intransitive.’ William straightened his back like an army cadet.
‘Go on, then, tell me.’
‘The Queen is richer than my dad, my dad’s richer than my uncle Luke . . .’
‘William!’ Jo rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at Simon, blushing.
‘. . . my uncle Luke’s richer than me. That means the Queen’s richer than me. It’s a transitive relationship. But if the Queen was richer than someone who was richer than me, but the Queen wasn’t richer than me, that would be an intransitive relationship. Except with richer it would always be transitive. Intransitive could be something like lives next door to—’
‘All right, William, that’s enough,’ said Jo. ‘I think DC Waterhouse gets the point. Go on, run along.’
Her son left the room with an air of disappointment, as if he’d had more to say and would now never have the chance. An odd boy, thought Simon.
He wanted to cheer when Jo walked over and closed the kitchen door, putting a barrier between the two of them and the noise. ‘His dad isn’t richer than his uncle Luke,’ she said, as if it mattered to her. ‘I think William assumes that anyone who runs his own business is Bill Gates, or something. I wish!’
‘I need to ask you about last night,’ Simon said.
‘Not before I’ve asked you if what Amber’s told me is true. You’re not going to tell anyone she didn’t go on that driver awareness course herself?’
‘I’m going to do my best not to.’
‘In that case . . .’ – Jo let out a long breath – ‘. . . thank God. I’ve got two small children, a dependent father-in-law living with me permanently since his wife died of breast cancer, a severely mentally handicapped sister living with me temporarily, a mother who’s getting on and not as strong as she used to be.’
‘I’m hoping there’ll be no need to bring up the DriveTech course,’ Simon told her. Two small children. Was the strapping, articulate, approximately twelve-year-old William one of them? Simon wouldn’t have described him as small. He also wouldn’t have called Jo’s accent ‘cut glass’, as Edward Ormston had. Educated, yes; upper middle class, yes, but not royal. Not aristocratic.
‘People rely on me.’ Jo handed Simon a cup of tea. ‘I know what I did was wrong. I care about people too much, and take all their self-made problems onto my own shoulders.’ She let out a bitter laugh. ‘Everyone’s always saying I’m helpful and self-sacrificing to a fault, but even I draw the line at being prosecuted!’ She turned on Simon, as if in response to a threat he’d made. ‘You can’t punish me for caring enough to try to help people.’
I could, actually. ‘Where were you last night between midnight and 2 a.m.?’
‘In bed, asleep. You don’t seriously think I’d set fire to Amber’s house?’
‘Will your husband be able to confirm your whereabouts?’
‘He was asleep too. We all were.’
That was easy, then. If everybody had been asleep, that meant no one was in a position to confirm that everybody had been asleep. Any one of them apart from the kids, Jo included, could have got up and gone to Amber’s house to start that fire. Risky. What if they didn’t make it back before the news woke the rest of the family? Amber was known never to sleep. She could have noticed the fire much sooner than she did and phoned Jo’s house within minutes, immediately after calling the fire brigade.
Who in this house would have taken that risk?
‘Who is “we all”?’ Simon asked. ‘Who stayed here last night?’
‘Me, Neil, William, Barney . . .’
‘Your husband and sons?’
‘Yes. And Quentin, my father-in-law.’
‘Sabina? Is she a relative too?’
‘She’s the boys’ nanny. No, she didn’t stay the night. Neither did Mum and Kirsty. They went home round about six, six thirty-ish.’
‘Before you served the evening meal?’ Simon asked.
Jo turned a wounded look on him, as if he’d deliberately raised her hopes and then let her down. Was he reading too much into it? He reminded himself that they’d only just met. Nothing she did or said could put him in the wrong here. He was doing his job. ‘You’re taking a closer interest in the details of our daily life than I feel comfortable with,’ she said eventually. ‘You must know nobody here would set fire to Amber and Luke’s house? God! We’re their family. We’re all they’ve got. Ask Amber if she thinks one of us might have done it. She’ll laugh in your face. What does it matter when we had dinner, for God’s sake?’ Jo was looking not at Simon but at the cup of tea she’d given him. He half expected her to grab it back.
‘Amber, Dinah and Nonie stayed for dinner, yes?’ Simon continued evenly. ‘Did Sabina stay too?’
‘Yes,’ said Jo in a clipped voice. ‘She stayed all evening, went home about eleven. Why?’
‘So the people at dinner were you, Neil, your two sons, Sabina, your father-in-law, Amber, Dinah and Nonie? Anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘And it was during dinner that Amber told everybody what happened when she went to see a hypnotherapist the day before – the police officer she met, with the notebook?’
‘No,’ Jo said sullenly. ‘She didn’t say anything about a notebook. She did her usual trick of saying as little as possible. All she told us was that she’d seen a hypnotherapist, and this had led to her getting mixed up in a murder investigation.’
‘Did she tell you the name of the woman who was murdered?’ Simon asked.
‘Katharine Allen.’
‘Did that name mean anything to you?’
‘No.’
‘Yet you’ve remembered it.’
A slowly released sigh from Jo. ‘I’ve been Googling her all day, haven’t I? As anyone would. Murder might be an everyday occurrence for you, but in our family it’s quite unusual. Not that I’m saying my life’s boring or anything, but . . .’ She shrugged.
‘So your mother, your sister and your brother were the only members of the family who didn’t know that Amber had been questioned in connection with Katharine Allen’s death?’
Jo frowned. ‘No, they all know. Well, apart from Kirsty, my sister, who isn’t capable of understanding things on that level.’
‘They know now,’ Simon clarified, ‘but before the fire . . .’
‘Even before the fire, Mum knew,’ said Jo. ‘I told her all about it when I rang her.’
‘You rang her? When?’
‘Last night, before I went to bed. I don�
��t know exactly what time. Half eleven-ish? I ring her every night, to check she and Kirsty are okay and say goodnight. Even if I didn’t, I’d have rung her last night to tell her about what had happened to Amber. I rang Ritchie too.’
‘Why?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Jo asked.
‘No.’
She filled the kettle with water, put it on again, selected a cup for herself. Simon noticed it was superior to the one she’d given him, which was chipped around the rim and covered with a tracery of cracks under the glazing.
‘If something important happened to someone in your family, wouldn’t you make sure everyone knew, soon as you could?’
‘How often do you see your mother, sister and brother?’ Simon countered with a question of his own.
‘My brother every two or three days, I guess,’ Jo said. ‘I see Mum and Kirsty every day. It’s hard for Mum, looking after Kirsty, and since none of us works, it makes sense for us to get together – someone to talk to, you know.’ She smiled brightly; the expression remained fixed in place for too long, unmoving.
‘If you don’t work, why do you need a nanny?’ She was presenting her account of her family as if it made sense, but it didn’t, not to Simon. Seeing each other every day, ringing every night?
Jo laughed. ‘Have you ever tried looking after two children on your tod? Neil’s at work all day, Mum’s busy with Kirsty . . . If I tried to do it all on my own, I’d go loopy. Not so much now, but certainly when the boys were little. Even now, Sabina supervises their homework while I make the dinner most nights. And one of us is normally dealing with Quentin too. Since Pam died of liver cancer – that’s Neil’s mum—’
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