Past Reason Hated

by Peter Robinson

  ‘Can you prove that?’

  ‘How? You mean witnesses?’

  ‘That would help.’

  ‘I probably emptied out the old man’s potty. Maybe even changed his sheets if he messed the bed. But he won’t remember. He doesn’t know one day from the next I might even have dropped in at the off-licence for a few cans of lager and some fags, but I can’t prove that either.

  Every time Gary talked about his father his tone hardened to hatred. Banks could understand that. The kid must be torn in half by his conflicts between duty and desire, responsibility and the need for freedom. He had given in and accepted the yoke, and he must both hate himself for his weakness and his father for making such a demand in the first place. And Caroline, of course. How he must have hated Caroline, though he didn’t sound bitter when he spoke of her. Perhaps his hatred had been assuaged by her death and he had allowed himself to feel some simple pity.

  ‘Did you go to Eastvale that evening?’ Richmond went on. ‘Did you call on your sister and lose your temper with her?’

  Gary coughed. ‘You really think I killed her, don’t you? That’s a laugh. If I was going to I’d have done it a few years ago, when I really found out what she’d lumbered me with, not now.’

  Five or six years ago, Banks calculated, Gary would have been only twelve or thirteen, perhaps too young for a relatively normal child to commit sororicide – and surely he must have been living a more normal life back then. Also, as Banks had learned over the years, bitterness and resentment could take a long time to reach breaking point. People nursed grudges and deep-seated animosities for years sometimes before exploding into action. All they needed was the right trigger.

  ‘Did you ever visit Caroline in Eastvale?’ Banks asked.

  ‘No. I told you, I hardly go out. Certainly not that far.’

  ‘Have you ever met Veronica Shildon?’

  ‘That the lezzie she was shacking up with?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘But Caroline visited you here?’

  He paused. ‘Sometimes. When she’d come back from London.’

  ‘You told the detective constable who visited you a few days ago that you knew nothing of Caroline’s life in London. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So for over five years, when she was between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, you had no contact.’

  ‘Right. Six years, really.’

  ‘Did you know she had a baby?’

  Gary sniffed. ‘I knew she was a slut, but I didn’t know she had a kid, no.’

  ‘She did. Do you know what happened to it? Who the father was?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t even know she’d had one.’

  He seemed confused by the issue. Banks decided to take his word for the moment.

  ‘Did she ever mention a woman called Ruth to you?’

  Gary thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, some woman who wrote poetry she knew in London.’

  ‘Can you remember what she said about her?’

  ‘No. Just that they were friends like, and this Ruth woman had helped her.’

  ‘Is that all? Helped her with what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just that she’d helped her.’

  ‘What did you think she meant?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe took her in off the street or something, helped her with the baby. How should I know?’

  ‘What was her last name?’

  ‘She never mentioned it. Just Ruth.’

  ‘Whereabouts in London did she live?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You’re sure there’s nothing more you can tell us about her?’

  Gary shook his head.

  ‘Do you know anything about music?’ Banks asked.

  ‘Can’t stand it.’

  ‘I mean classical music.’

  ‘Any music sounds awful to me.’

  Another one with a tin ear, Banks thought, just like Superintendent Gristhorpe. But it didn’t mean Gary knew nothing about the subject. He read a lot, and could easily have come across the necessary details concerning the Vivaldi piece, perhaps in a biography.

  ‘The last time you saw Caroline,’ he asked, ‘did she tell you anything that gave you cause to worry about her, to think she might be in danger, frightened of something?’

  Gary appeared to give the question some thought, then he shook his head. ‘No.’

  Again, Banks thought he was telling the truth. Just. But there was something on Gary’s mind, below the surface, that made his answer seem evasive.

  ‘Is there anything else you want to tell us?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Right.’ Banks nodded to Richmond and they headed for the door. ‘Don’t bother to see us out,’ Banks said. ‘We know the way.’

  Gary didn’t reply.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Richmond when they’d got in the car and turned on the heater. ‘What a bloody nutcase.’ He rubbed his hands together.

  ‘You wouldn’t think, would you,’ Banks said, looking at the tall, elegant stone houses, ‘that behind such a genteel façade you’d find something so twisted.’

  ‘Not unless you were a copper,’ Richmond answered.

  Banks laughed. ‘Time for a pub lunch on the way back, he said, ‘then you can take a trip to Barnard Castle and I’ll see about having a chat with the therapist.’

  ‘Rather you than me,’ Richmond said. ‘If she’s anything like she was when I saw her the other day she’ll probably end up convincing you you need therapy yourself – after she’s chewed your balls off.’

  ‘Who knows, maybe I do need therapy,’ Banks mused, then turned by the Stray, passed the Royal Baths and headed back towards Eastvale.

  TWO

  Ursula Kelly’s office was on the second floor of an old building on Castle Hill Road. A back room, it was graced with a superb view over the formal gardens and the river to the eyesore of the East End Estate and the vale beyond. Not that you could see much today but a uniform shroud of white through which the occasional clump of trees, redbrick street or telegraph pole poked its head.

  The waiting room was cramped and chilly, and none of the magazines were to Banks’s taste. It wasn’t an interview he was looking forward to. He had a great professional resistance to questioning doctors and psychiatrists during a case; much as they were obliged and bound by law, they had never, in his experience, proved useful sources of information. The only one he really trusted was Jenny Fuller, who had helped him out once or twice. As he looked out the window at the snow, he wondered what Jenny would make of Gary Hartley and the whole situation. Pity she was away.

  After about ten minutes, Dr Ursula Kelly admitted him to her inner sanctum. She was a severe-looking woman in her early fifties, with grey hair swept back tight and held firm in a bun. The lines of what might once have been a beautiful if harsh face were softened only by the plumpness of middle age. Her eyes, though guarded, couldn’t help but twinkle with curiosity and irony. Apart from a few bookcases housing texts and journals, and the desk and couch in the corner, the consulting room was surprisingly bare. Ursula Kelly sat behind the desk with her back to the picture window, and Banks placed himself in front of her. She was wearing a fawn cardigan over her cream blouse, no white coat in evidence.

  ‘What can I do for you, Chief Inspector?’ she asked, tapping the eraser of a yellow HB pencil on a sheaf of papers in front of her. She spoke with a faint foreign accent. Austrian, German, Swiss? Banks couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘I’m sure you know why I’m here,’ he said. ‘My detective sergeant dropped by to see you the other day. Caroline Hartley.’

  ‘What about her?’

  Banks sighed. It was going to be just as hard as he had expected. Question – answer, question – answer.

  ‘I just wondered if you might be able to tell me a little more than you told him. How long had she been a patient of yours?’

  ‘I had been seeing Caroline for just over t
hree years.’

  ‘Is that a long time?’

  Ursula Kelly pursed her lips before answering. ‘It depends. Some people have been coming for ten years or more. I wouldn’t call it long, no.’

  ‘What was wrong with her?’

  The doctor dropped the pencil and leaned back in her chair. She eyed Banks for a long time before answering. ‘Let’s get this clear,’ she said finally. ‘I’m not a medical doctor, I’m an analyst, primarily using Jungian methods, if that means anything to you.’

  ‘I’ve heard of Jung.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Good. Well, without going into all the ins and outs of it, people don’t have to be ill to start seeing me. In the sense that you mean, there was nothing wrong with Caroline Hartley.’

  ‘So why did she come? And pay? I’m assuming your services aren’t free.’

  Dr Kelly smiled. ‘Are yours? She came because she was unhappy and she felt her unhappiness was preventing her from living fully. That is why people come to me.’

  ‘And you make them happy?’

  She laughed. ‘Would that it were as easy as that. I do very little, actually, but listen. If the patient makes the connections, they cut so much deeper. The people who consult me generally feel that they are living empty lives, living illusions, if you like. They are aware of what potential they have; they know that life should mean more than it does to them; they know that they are capable of achieving, of feeling more. But they are emotionally numb. So they come for analysis. I’m not a psychiatrist. I don’t prescribe drugs. I don’t treat schizophrenics or psychotics. I treat people you would perceive as perfectly normal, on the outside.’

  ‘And inside?’

  ‘Ah! Aren’t we all a mass of contradictions inside? Our parents, whether they mean to or not, bequeath us a lot we’d be better off without.’

  Banks thought of Gary Hartley and the terrible struggles he had to live with. He also thought of the Philip Larkin poem that Veronica Shildon had quoted.

  ‘Can you tell me anything at all about Caroline Hartley’s problems?’ he asked. ‘Anything that might help solve her murder?’

  ‘I understand your concern,’ Ursula Kelly said, ‘and believe me, I sympathize with your task, but there is nothing I can tell you.’

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  ‘Take it whichever way you wish. But don’t think I’m trying to impede your investigation. The things Caroline and I worked on were childhood traumas, often nebulous in the extreme. They could have nothing to do with her death, I assure you. How could the way a child felt about . . . say . . . a lost doll result in her murder twenty years later?’

  ‘Don’t you think I’d be the best judge of that, as one professional to another?’

  ‘There is nothing I can tell you. It was her feelings I dealt with. We tried to uncover why she felt the way she did about certain things, what the roots of her fears and insecurities were.’

  ‘And what were they?’

  She smiled. ‘Even in ten years, Chief Inspector, we might not have uncovered them all. I can see by the way you’re fidgeting you need a cigarette. Please smoke, if you wish. I don’t, but it doesn’t bother me. Many of my patients feel the need for infantile oral gratification.’

  Banks ignored the barb and lit up. ‘I don’t suppose I need to remind you,’ he said, ‘that the rule of privilege doesn’t apply to doctor-patient relationships as it does to those between lawyer and client?’

  ‘It is not a matter of reminding me. I never even thought about it.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t. You are, by law, obliged to disclose any information you acquired while practising your profession. If necessary, I could get a court order to make you hand over your files.’

  ‘Pah! Do it, then. There is nothing in my files that would interest you very much.’ She tapped her head. ‘It is all in here. Look, the women had problems. They came to me. Neither of them hurt anyone. They are not criminals, and they do not have any dangerous psychological disorders. Isn’t that what you want to know?’

  Banks sighed. ‘Okay. Can you at least tell me what kind of progress Caroline was making? Was she happy lately? Was anything bothering her?’

  ‘As far as I could tell, she seemed fine. Certainly she wasn’t worried about anything. In fact, we’d come to . . .

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let’s just say that she’d recently worked through a particularly difficult trauma. They occur from time to time in analysis and they can be painful.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me about it?’

  ‘She had confronted one of her demons and won. And people are usually happy when they overcome a major stumbling block, at least for a while.’

  ‘Did she ever talk about her brother, Gary?’

  ‘It’s not unusual for patients to talk about their families.’

  ‘What did she have to say about him?’

  ‘Nothing of interest to you.’

  ‘She treated him very badly. Did she feel no guilt?’

  ‘We all feel guilt, Chief Inspector. Do you not think so?’

  ‘Perhaps he should have been your patient. He certainly seems to have his problems, thanks to his sister.’

  ‘I don’t choose my patients. They choose me.’

  ‘Veronica Shildon was a patient of yours, too, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. But I can say even less about her. She’s still alive.’

  Judging by how little Ursula Kelly had said about Caroline, Banks knew not to expect very much.

  ‘Was Veronica particularly upset about anything that last session?’

  She shook her head. ‘Your sergeant asked me that, and the answer is the same. No. It was a perfectly normal session as far as I was concerned.’

  ‘No sudden traumas?’

  ‘None.’ She leaned forward and rested her hands on the desk. ‘Look, Chief Inspector, you might not think I’ve been very forthcoming. That is your prerogative. In my business you soon become privy to the innermost fears and secrets of the people you deal with, and you get into the habit of keeping them to yourself. You’re looking for facts. I don’t have any. Even if I did tell you what happened during my sessions with Caroline and Veronica, it wouldn’t help you. I deal with a world of shadows, of dreams and nightmares, signs and symbols. What my patients feel is the only reality we have to work with. And I have already told you, in all honesty, that as far as I know neither Caroline nor Veronica was in any way especially disturbed of late. If you need to know more, try talking to Veronica herself.’

  ‘I already have.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think she’s holding back.’

  ‘Well, that is your problem.’

  Banks pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘I think you’re holding back, too,’ he said. ‘Believe me, if I find out that you are and that it’s relevant to Caroline’s murder, I’ll make sure you know about it. You’ll need twenty years in analysis to rid yourself of the guilt.’

  Her jaw muscles clenched and her eyes hardened. ‘Should that occur, it will be my burden.’

  Banks walked out and slammed the door behind him. He didn’t feel good about his anger and his pathetic threat, but people like Ursula Kelly, with her smug generalizations and pompous, self-righteous air, brought out the worst in him. He took a couple of deep breaths and looked at his watch. Five thirty. Time to catch the end of rehearsal.

  THREE

  Richmond parked his car outside a pub on the main street, got out and sniffed the air. There was no reason, he thought, why it should smell so different up here, but it did have a damper, more acrid quality. Barnard Castle was only twenty or so miles from Eastvale, but it was over the Durham border in Teesdale.

  According to his map, the shop should be on his right about halfway down the hill just in front of him. It seemed to be the main tourist street, with an Indian restaurant, coffeehouse, bookshop and antique shop all rubbing shoulders with places that sold souvenirs along with walking and camping gear.<
br />
  The toy shop was indeed about halfway down the hill. First, Richmond looked in the window at the array of goods. Hardly any of them seemed familiar, nothing at all like the toys he had played with as a child. In fact, mostly he had had to use his imagination and pretend that a stick was a sword. It wasn’t that his parents had been exceptionally poor, but they had strict priorities, and toys had come very low on the list.

  The bell pinged as he entered and a young woman behind the counter looked up from behind a ledger. He guessed her to be in her mid-twenties, and she had a fine head of tangled auburn hair that cascaded over her shoulders and framed an attractive, freckled, oval face. She wore a long, loose cardigan, grey with a maroon pattern, and from what Richmond could see of her above the counter, she seemed to have a slim, shapely figure. A pair of glasses dangled on a chain around her neck, but she didn’t put them on as he walked towards her.

  ‘What can I do for you, sir?’ she said with a lilting, Geordie accent in a slightly husky voice. ‘Would it be something for your boy, or your little girl, perhaps?’

  Richmond noticed the glint of humour in her eyes. ‘I’m not married,’ he said, mentally kicking himself even before he had got the words out. ‘I mean, I’m not here to buy anything.’

  She looked at him steadily, fingering the spectacles chain as she did so.

  ‘CID,’ he said, fumbling for his identification. ‘I spoke with the manager a couple of days ago, when you were on holiday.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Ah, yes. Mr Holbrook told me about you. Tell me, do all policemen dress as well as you do?’

  Richmond wondered if she were being sarcastic. He took pride in his dress, certainly. He had the kind of tall, trim, athletic body that clothes looked good on, and he always favoured a suit, white shirt and tie, unlike Banks, who went in for the more casual, rumpled look.

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he said finally. ‘Look, I’m at a bit of a disadvantage. I’m afraid he didn’t tell me your name.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s Rachel, Rachel Pierce. Pleased to meet you.’ She held out her hand. Richmond shook it. He noticed there was no sign of either a wedding ring or an engagement ring.