Disordered Minds

by Minette Walters

  "I am not Welsh."

  George gave a nervous little wave. "He's teasing you, Roy. The Angles and Saxons were Germanic peoples who invaded England in the fourth century ... at the same time as the Jutes and Vikings. The Jutes were Danes, the Vikings were Norwegian. Prior to that we were conquered by the Romans-who were Italians-and seven centuries later we were taken over by the Normans who were French." She squeezed her eyes at Jonathan in painful pleading. "Dr. Hughes was joking about endomorphs-I'm one, you're one-an Iranian could be one. It's got nothing do with nationality, anymore than color has. For most of us nationality's a choice, Roy ... not a birthright."

  "Not for me it isn't," he said stubbornly. "I was born here. It's the asylum seekers who look around for something better that choose."

  George gave a disheartened shrug as if his xenophobia was not new to her. "At least recognize that it was the whites who invented economic migration, Roy. Everyone who went to America was looking for a better life."

  Jonathan watched the man's mouth set into even more obstinate lines. He was tempted to tell him they both belonged to the same racial group, Caucasian-the non-Negroid peoples of Europe, the Middle East, north Africa and western Asia-including the Welsh-but it would only offend him. Instead he took pity on George's red face and extended a hand. "Shall we start again? I'm afraid I've been very ill-tempered since last night when I flew in from New York and was put through the wringer by an immigration officer. He asked me my views on Osama bin Laden. When I refused to answer, he kept me hanging around for an hour while he checked to see if my passport was genuine."

  Roy accepted the olive branch. "Why did you refuse?"

  "Because there was only one answer. Even bin Laden's most fanatical supporters are hardly likely to admit it to an immigration officer."

  Roy appreciated the point. "Did he ask the whites the same question?"

  "What do you think?"

  "No."

  Jonathan nodded. "You learn to live with it, Mr. Trent. At times like this, when people are frightened, there's always a presumption of guilt if your face doesn't fit. It's depressing. It happened to the Irish living in England every time an IRA bomb went off. It happened to Howard Stamp when people thought a Manson-style killer was roaming Highdown."

  But mention of Howard Stamp brought an immediate cooling. Roy glanced at his watch. "I'd better see what's going on downstairs. Can I get you something to drink? Are you allowed alcohol? George suggested a Gevrey-Chambertin to go with the hotpot but perhaps you'd prefer something else? Wouldn't want to offend your religion or anything."

  "I'm an atheist," said Jonathan, watching him, "and the Gevrey-Chambertin sounds excellent. Thank you."

  "I'll be back shortly." He patted George's arm as he passed. "If you don't take that coat off soon, girl," he murmured, loud enough to carry, "you'll spontaneously combust ... and the hat's not doing you any favors either, trust me. If you're going to be judged on your looks, you might as well get it over and done with as quickly as possible."

  Trent closed the door behind him, but listened for a minute or two before he walked away. His first remark to Hughes had been accurate. "A jumped-up wog in fancy dress." The man was certainly doing himself no favors with George. Apart from anything else, he was insisting on calling her Miss Gardener. With an amused smile he walked down the stairs and pushed open the kitchen door, only for his amusement to turn to anger when he saw his ex-wife watching the CCTV monitor in the corner.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked angrily. "I told you to stay away."

  She glanced at him. "I fancied a look at the famous author."

  "Why?"

  "So I'd recognize him again. I don't trust you, Roy, never have. When were you planning to tell me he was black?"

  "I didn't know myself." He stared at her for a moment before taking a couple of wine glasses from a cupboard and transferring them to a tray. Age had been kind to her, whereas George looked every one of her years. The difference was character. George was ugly, unassuming and kind; his ex was a good-looking bitch.

  She flicked the fringes of her cashmere scarf. "A sad little anorak, you said, who doesn't know shit except what he's got from old newspapers. Instead Denzel Washington turns up."

  "He says he's an Iranian."

  "Who cares? He's black enough to be a nigger." The woman's pale eyes narrowed aggressively. "Your girlfriend's going to bust a gut to help him whatever he is. She's a do-gooder, for Christ's sake, and it's PC to be nice to wogs."

  "Yeah, well this one's an arrogant bastard. I don't think George likes him much." He grinned suddenly. "You can thank me for that. I put his back up before she even arrived, and now she's having to grovel."

  The woman looked interested. "Did you do it on purpose?"

  He nodded toward the monitor. "Seemed worth a shot. I watched that old fool Jim Longhurst needle him for ten minutes, then went out and added to his grief. He's easily offended ... but it doesn't stop him looking down his nose at proles. He's treating poor old George like something the cat brought in."

  "I watched her go after him. She'd have licked his black arse if he'd given her half a chance."

  Roy gave a contemptuous snort. "You might ... she wouldn't."

  "He's not bad looking."

  "Looks like a woofter to me," said Roy, wiping his hand on his trousers as if it had been contaminated. "It won't cut any ice with George. She's only interested in what he can do for Howard."

  "You sure she doesn't know anything?"

  Roy shrugged as he reached for the Gevrey-Chambertin. "What's to know? If it wasn't Howard who killed Grace, then it was some other kid with ginger hair. The best either of them can do is clear the little sod's name." He placed the bottle on the tray with a corkscrew. "But there isn't a chance in hell they'll put anyone else in the frame-" he flicked her a speculative glance-"unless you know something I don't, Cill."

  "Don't call me that," she snarled. "What about DNA? He mentions it in the book."

  He could feel the heat of her impatience. "There's nothing to test it against," he said calmly. "All the evidence was destroyed after Howard died. George pestered the police for years until they told her it was incinerated." He hefted the tray and pushed past her. "Now get lost before someone sees you."

  "I suppose you heard that," said George with a sigh as the door closed behind Roy.

  Jonathan nodded.

  "Oh, well." She tugged off her hat and sent her stubbly gray hair shooting skyward with static electricity. "I had an argument with the hairdresser," she explained apologetically, before discarding her coat to reveal an old yellow jumper with car oil down the front and a pair of equally grubby gray leggings tucked into her boots. "And I'm on nights at the moment so I didn't wake up till eleven. I thought I'd check the car before I put on my glad rags and, when it wouldn't start..." She gave a self-deprecating shrug. "I agree with you about it being courteous to dress up, Dr. Hughes, but I ran out of time to change. I rather hoped you'd be an elderly, short-sighted professor ... and wouldn't notice."

  Her hair looked more like the aftereffects of chemotherapy, and he wondered if the glad rags included a wig. He rose to his feet and pulled the other chair forward. "The only reason I'm wearing a suit, Miss Gardener, is because I'm going to Verdi's Falstaff tonight." He smiled as he sat down again, but it was a mechanical civility rather than an expression of friendship. "Let's just agree that first impressions aren't always right ... and take it from there."

  Her enthusiasm returned immediately. "Oh, thank goodness," she said with feeling, dropping into the other chair. "I was beginning to wonder how we'd get through this meal if I had to watch my p's and q's for hours. Putting on airs isn't my strong point-as you've probably noticed." Her voice had no accent until her pitch rose and the vowels betrayed London roots. "My poor mother despaired of me. She wanted a dainty, well-behaved daughter and she got a bull in a china shop."

  "Is she still alive?"

  "No. Died of breast cancer when I w
as fourteen." She pulled another face as if screwing her eyes and lips into gargoyle twists was a nervous mannerism, and Jonathan thought how astonishingly ugly she was. "She was ill for a long time before that so I was effectively brought up by my father. He had no airs and graces either, which is why I never learned them."

  "What did he do?"

  She smiled affectionately, bobbing forward to sit on the edge of her seat. "He was a postman."

  Jonathan stretched his feet toward the fire and leaned back to put distance between them. "Is he still alive?"

  She shook her head. "Heart attack fifteen years ago. That's when I upped stumps and came to Bournemouth. I'm afraid the genes aren't healthy on either side. If I make old bones it'll be a miracle, though it won't upset me hugely if I don't," she said matter-of-factly. "There's a lot of misery in old age."

  "Jim being the perfect example," Jonathan said dryly.

  Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "You can't blame old age for that. According to Roy, he's always been miserable. Did he tell you about his medals?"

  Jonathan nodded.

  "You have to feel sorry for him. He has flat feet so he spent the war emptying dustbins. He's told the medal story so often that I think he believes it now, but it's sad when someone has to invent a history because their lives have been such a disappointment." The eyes, a bright blue, examined him closely. "My father always said the hardest cross to bear was a chip on the shoulder. The more you resent it, the heavier it gets."

  He wondered if she was having a dig at him. "How come the night shifts? What do you do?"

  "Nothing very grand. I work in a nursing home."

  "As a nurse?"

  "Just a care assistant. I used to be a tax inspector when I lived in London." She smiled at his expression. "We don't all have horns, you know. Some of us are quite nice."

  "Why give up? Couldn't you have transferred to a tax office down here?"

  "It seemed like the right time to reassess priorities. In any case, I enjoy working with dementia. All my patients have amazing imaginations, none of which bears any relation to logic or reality. I have one old lady who's convinced her husband was murdered. She tells everyone he was bludgeoned to death by angry neighbors."

  Jonathan looked doubtful. "Doesn't it upset her?"

  "Only when she's told it's not true. It's her fifteen minutes of fame to produce a conversation stopper while a naive young nurse is trying to feed her. She sulks if people point out that her memory's at fault. It's like telling Michael Jackson he's black." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Oh lord! Foot in mouth. Didn't mean to use the b-word. Sorry!"

  "Just don't use the w-word," Jonathan said, hiding his irritation.

  "What's that?"

  "Welsh."

  She gave a squeak of laughter. "Oh dear! That was quite funny, wasn't it? What's wrong with the Welsh, for goodness sake?"

  "King Offa built a dyke in the eighth century to keep them in Wales," he said ironically. "I expect it has something to do with that."

  Another giggle. "How did you know Roy would react the way he did?"

  "Because he wants to be thought of as English. If I'd accused him of being Scottish or Irish, he'd have been just as angry. He probably doesn't like Lancastrians or Yorkshiremen either, so his Englishness is very much West Country based." He raised an eyebrow. "If you scratched him hard enough, his preferred passport would say Dorset. That's the only tribe he wants to belong to."

  She examined his face for a moment. "And you, Dr. Hughes? What tribe do you want to belong to?"

  It was a question he couldn't answer. Indeed, it was easier to list the tribes he didn't want to join-blacks, whites, yellows, browns, mulattos-than to name the one he did. His father wanted him to acknowledge his paternal roots, his mother hers, and all he could do was make the best of being British. And that wasn't easy. Easy would have been for his warring parents to have remained in their own countries, rather than emigrate to England, produce a single child and wait eighteen years to declare their hatred for each other. Had Jonathan been born in the homeland of either of his parents, he might have felt he belonged. Instead they'd left him rudderless, with only a flimsy passport to prove who, and what, he was.

  He reached for his briefcase. "Shall we talk about Howard Stamp? I thought you might be interested in some of the letters I've received."

  "If you like," George agreed.

  "He's the reason we're here," Jonathan reminded her.

  "Oh, I doubt it," she said. "I can't think of a single occasion when I've had just one reason for doing anything. Can you?"

  He snapped the catches on his briefcase. He had no intention of discussing philosophy with her. "There's a woman who was at school with him-Jan-but she didn't give me an address or surname. Roy might be able to identify her. Another correspondent mentioned a schoolteacher. It would be useful to find her if she's still alive." He extracted the letters and handed them over.

  George didn't read them immediately. "Have you ever thought that Howard's only purpose in life was to be a scapegoat? That's rather sad, don't you think?"

  Jonathan nicked through the remaining letters. She'd be telling him God moved in mysterious ways next. "I'm more interested in the shortcomings of the police and judicial systems," he said patronizingly, "particularly when they have to deal with inadequate personalities or accused from different cultures who don't have a facility with language."

  "I see," was all she said, before bending her head to the first piece of paper.

  *5*

  The Gevrey-Chambertin made George's face even redder, a fact remarked on by Roy when he reappeared with their lunch. "You want to watch it," he warned her. "You'll be done for drink-driving if you're not careful."

  He was solicitous of her in a ham-fisted way, and Jonathan wondered about the exact nature of their relationship. She certainly took Trent's comments in better spirit than he would have done, but then friendship for him meant mutual respect. Anything less wasn't friendship. "You'll die a lonely old man," Andrew had warned once. "Loyalty is worth more than respect."

  "Same difference."

  "Hardly. Your sycophantic friends wouldn't dream of pointing out your flaws."

  "What makes you think they're sycophants?"

  "Because you choose them carefully. You need to be admired, Jon. It's a gaping flaw in your character."

  "So what does that make you?"

  "A loyal friend from Oxford days-your only friend from Oxford. You should think about that. It may be my easygoing personality, though I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I'm eight inches shorter than you, took over the family business and cheated on my wife."

  "Meaning what?"

  "That you can look down on me, literally and figuratively, so I've never threatened your self-esteem. My business success, such as it is, is transparently inherited, and my failed marriage means I'm no better at keeping women than you are. It's an interesting paradox in your character. You demand respect for yourself, but you can't give it. The minute you decide you're being eclipsed, you move on. I assume it's fear of perceived failure and not jealousy of another's good fortune that makes you do it, but it's a damned odd way to conduct your life."

  Jonathan watched George use a letter to fan her face and tamped down a sudden rush of contempt. He looked away to hide it, questioning quite seriously whether there was something wrong with him. He felt divorced from the room, from the people in it, even from himself-this level of detachment wasn't a normal symptom of jet lag. He wondered if the wine was to blame. Strange tremors, like electric shocks, shot up his arm every time he lifted the glass to his lips, although only he seemed aware of them. "You can't go on like this ... you should see a, doctor..."

  The room was too warm. He took out a handkerchief and wiped a bead of sweat from his upper lip. "I gather you knew Howard Stamp," he said to Roy as the man laid the table.

  "Depends what you mean by 'know,' mate. He used to pop into my dad's shop once in a while to pick up stuff for his g
ran but, as he never said much, we weren't exactly close."

  "Where was the shop?"

  "You'll have passed it on your way here. It's the newsagent in Highdown Road."

  Jonathan remembered. "Was he older than you? He'd be in his midfifties if he was still alive."

  "Yup," Roy agreed unhelpfully, retrieving salt and pepper pots from a cupboard. "You wouldn't have thought it at the time, though. He managed to grow a bit of a mustache and a scrappy little beard, but he never looked his age. He was a right little wimp ... even his voice failed to develop. My dad called him 'sparrow chest' and told him to get a Bullworker ... but he never did." He paused, dunking back. "He should've done. He'd have had more confidence with a muscle or two."

  "You called him 'poor old Howard' earlier. I assumed you had some sympathy for him."

  "In retrospect I do-he was bullied rotten-but at the time..." He broke off with a shake of his head. "A bloke couldn't afford to feel sympathy then. The kids today think tihey invented street cred but it's been around for decades. Only a loser would have admitted friendship with Howard."

  "Classic torture tactics," murmured Jonathan mildly. "The Scylla of isolation and the Charybdis of fear."

  Roy paused in what he was doing. "Scylla"-Cill?-at least, had struck a chord. "If you spoke English," he said carefully, "I'd know what you were talking about."

  "Scylla and Charybdis were six-headed monsters who inhabited rocks in the Mediterranean," said George. "Ulysses had to steer his ship between them without being snared by either in Homer's Odyssey."

  Roy relaxed noticeably. "I expect you're right," he drawled, "but it still isn't English."

  "Howard was between a rock and a hard place," Jonathan explained, "bullied because he was friendless, and friendless because he was bullied. He had nowhere to go except inside himself. The outward sign of his distress was cutting his arms."