How the Dead Speak

by Val McDermid

  ‘How long have you been clean?’

  ‘Coming up for sixteen months.’ Carol gave a wry smile. ‘I could tell you exactly to the day and week, but that would sound a bit desperate.’

  Melissa smiled. ‘You’re the only one judging you in this room. I’m glad for you that you’re doing so well with something that is always difficult. Apart from the addiction issue, did he give any other reasons for his conclusion?’

  Carol looked past Melissa to the window beyond her. A thin blind obscured the details, but she had the impression of a tree, leaves gently trembling in the wind. At least, that’s what she wanted to imagine. She closed her eyes momentarily then said, ‘Risk taking. Recklessness. Aggressiveness. I was putting myself and others in danger.’

  ‘So what did you do to deal with these behaviours?’

  Carol raked her fingers through her thick blonde hair. ‘Nothing. At first, I did nothing. And then everything went to shit. I . . . I did something that had terrible consequences.’ It was as close as she could manage to confession.

  ‘Is that why you’re no longer a police officer?’

  ‘I was told to resign before they had to fire me. So I did. And still I did nothing.’ Carol wasn’t quite sure how Melissa did it, but she seemed to radiate a kind of supportive sympathy. Slowly, it was becoming easier to talk. The tightness in her jaw and neck was less noticeable now.

  ‘But something changed that position?’

  Carol felt her throat closing, as if she were about to cry. She felt outraged. She hadn’t been able to cry about Tony’s absence from her life; it had been a constant pain, a physical ache in her chest for months. But five minutes in this stranger’s office and the dam behind her emotions threatened to burst. She cleared her throat noisily and said, ‘He’s refused to see me until I get help. He told me he loved me and then he refused to see me.’ It wasn’t what she’d planned to say. It wasn’t at all what she’d planned to say.

  Melissa nodded. ‘I can see how that might provoke you into seeking help. Are we your first port of call? I ask because ours is not the conventional route to recovery, and we generally find people come to us when the more traditional methods haven’t worked for them.’

  Carol shook her head, still off balance from her moment of revelation. ‘I did go to see a therapist.’ An image of Jacob Gold sprang into her mind. He’d been the person Tony had turned to over the years when he needed professional support. Jacob had clearly been good at his job but he was entirely wrong for her. She didn’t want him inside her head. ‘More than one, actually. But I’m naturally quite a private person,’ she continued. ‘And I’ve spent years in a job where confidentiality goes with the territory. I’ve never had the habit of getting things off my chest, and I just couldn’t do the talking cure. And besides—’ She checked herself.

  ‘Besides?’

  Carol shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Besides, you were smarter?’

  Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘No. I made an assumption and you confirmed it.’

  Carol almost laughed. ‘I used to have a sergeant like you. Best interviewer I ever worked with.’

  Melissa nodded. ‘Thank you. Carol, I’m not going to ask you about the particular circumstances that led you to our door. I don’t need to know that. What we do here is not about words. We have a treatment regime that’s about bodywork. Would you like me to explain it to you? And then you can decide whether you think this is for you.’

  Carol felt as safe as she had for a very long time. It was a feeling she’d been afraid she’d never know again. ‘Yes. Please.’

  ‘Do you know what the fascia are?’

  Carol shook her head. ‘Apart from the dashboard of a car, I’ve no idea. But I guess that’s not what you’re talking about here.’

  ‘No. Fascia are the body’s connective tissues. They run in bands and sheaths through the whole body. They link and protect muscle groups and internal organs. It’s like a spider web that keeps everything working together. When you’re stressed or traumatised, when the adrenaline response of fight or flight kicks in, we’re supposed to drop back down to the resting state once the danger or fear is over. Think of it like electricity being grounded so it’s safe. But sometimes we overload on the fight or flight reaction and we shift further up the scale into freezing and dissociation. The reaction is so intense that the electricity doesn’t get grounded and we don’t drop back all the way down to the resting state of relaxed awareness. Are you with me so far?’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying, yes.’

  Melissa smiled. ‘Good. We have, in effect, got two brains. The conscious brain that controls our thoughts and actions. It’s aware of the past and the future, it’s always busy sending neurological messages back and forth that we’re mostly not even aware of. But beneath that is our unconscious brain. It’s the leftover from our reptilian days and it’s all about survival. It’s plugged into the five senses but it only understands the immediate moment. It lives in the present tense. It knows when the adrenaline cycle is complete. But if that doesn’t happen, if we’re holding on to that stress and trauma, then the survival brain thinks it’s continuing. It becomes a loop, constantly re-running. Do you get flashbacks, Carol?’

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘Traditional talking therapy can use those flashbacks as access points to the trauma state, and for some people, that helps. But for others, telling the story can leave you in a dysfunctional state at the survival brain level. So what we need to do is to persuade the fascia to release the stress they’re holding on to so the electricity can ground itself.’

  ‘You make it sound very simple. If it’s that straightforward, why isn’t everyone doing it?’

  Melissa’s smile remained warm. ‘I understand your resistance. You’re caught in the loop and deep down you’re afraid things will only get worse. The main reason why not everyone is doing it is that there’s always opposition to alternative forms of treatment. The medical establishment has a great deal invested in the way they’ve always done things. All I can tell you by way of reassurance is that ours is a technique backed up by extensive research and approved by the likes of the World Health Organisation. I’ve been doing this for five years now and I’ve had a success rate with patients of between seventy-five and eighty per cent. It doesn’t work for everyone, though. I’m not going to pretend it does.’

  ‘So how does it work? Is this some sort of massage technique? Are you going to massage my stress away?’ Carol could hear the challenge in her voice. Must be my reptile brain.

  ‘No. I believe that just as our body heals from physical trauma, so our mind can heal from psychological trauma. I’m going to give you a set of exercises to practise on your own. We’re going to start with tiny eye movements that you can work on up to a hundred times a day. Telling your brain it’s safe to look. It’s called EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. I won’t bore you with the theory. There’s plenty of material on the internet. The principle behind it is that it will help you to reprogramme your reaction to the events that have traumatised you. You’ll find a way to reframe what’s happened to you in terms that no longer trap you in the feedback loop of trauma.’

  Melissa demonstrated what she meant. It looked easy till Carol tried to do it repetitively. After a dozen eye flicks, she felt uneasy. ‘It gets more comfortable, I promise,’ Melissa said.

  The therapist ran through a few more exercises. Pushing slowly and forcefully outwards with the arms, like a sort of breaststroke against imaginary resistance. Kicking the ground as hard as possible for short bursts. Sitting with her feet on the floor and going through the motions of running. Carol copied her, accepting corrections and adjustments. After less than a quarter of an hour, her heart was racing and she felt slightly sick.

  ‘You’ve done well,’ Melissa said. ‘I want you to do these exercises every day. Small groups of repetitions as man
y times as you are comfortable with. It should get easier and you should be able to do more as the days go by. I recommend a course of eight sessions so we can work through the changes. I’d like to see you again in two weeks. Will that be possible?’

  Carol stood up. ‘I’ll be here. I want to get rid of feeling this way.’

  ‘And I imagine you would like to re-establish contact with your friend. That’s a goal worth having.’

  ‘I can’t even think about that yet.’

  ‘Are you heading back to Bradfield now?’

  Carol nodded.

  ‘Driving?’

  ‘Yes, I’m parked a few streets away.’

  ‘Don’t get behind the wheel right away. There’s a lovely little café at the far end of the lane. Sit down and have a cup of tea and a scone. Breathe. It’s possible you might have a powerful emotional reaction to what we’ve done, so be kind to yourself.’ Melissa stood and put a hand on Carol’s arm. ‘Well done for coming here today. This was not an easy step to take. Go well.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Feeling slightly dazed, Carol stepped out into the lane. While she’d been inside, the day had changed. A broad slice of sunshine lit up her path to the end of the street. Her spirits rose at the sight. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she chided herself as she walked toward the café. ‘It’s just a trick of the weather.’

  And yet, she couldn’t ignore a flicker of hope. Maybe she really had taken the first step on the road back to herself.

  4

  We have no difficulty treating extreme repetitious violence as a symptom of mental illness. It’s not such a great leap to the notion that most violent crime is a kind of illness. If we change our behaviour, perhaps we can change our outcomes.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  Tony found that putting Vanessa out of his mind was easier in theory than in practice. A low hum of anxiety ran beneath his thoughts, making him edgy when he needed to be in command of himself. What he was about to attempt could set the climate of the rest of his prison term. Druse’s influence had dialled down the element of fear; but Tony wanted to amplify the element of respect. The only problem was figuring out how.

  The answer had arrived a couple of days after he’d been moved to HMP Doniston, the Category C prison where he’d probably serve out the rest of his sentence. The atmosphere was less toxic than on the remand wing, but there was no mistaking the kind of institution he was in.

  Nobody who had ever watched a prison drama would have been surprised by Doniston’s landings. Two sets of cells faced each other, separated by a corridor along each side of the wing and a void in the middle where stairs rose linking the floors. At ground level, the space contained a couple of pool tables and a table tennis table. The walls were brick, covered in several coats of institutional grey paint, the recessed doorways just deep enough for a man to squeeze into and remain invisible to someone walking down the wing. A perfect recipe for terror was to wait till the target grew level then leap out in front of them with a snarl and a grimace. No assault necessary; the shock and fear were enough to provoke the required response.

  Tony’s cell was identical to every other he’d glanced into as he’d walked nervously down the wing, his arms occupied with bedding, spare clothes, a box of books and his precious laptop. He’d been the most interesting thing happening that morning. His fellow inmates leaned in doorways, shouting questions and incomprehensible catcalls as he passed.

  It had been a relief to walk into his own cell. At first glance, it seemed to be in decent condition, the off-white paintwork only a little scuffed and scarred. A narrow bed, a corner cupboard with three narrow shelves, a tiny table screwed to the floor, and a plastic chair. A radio speaker bolted to the wall above the bed. By the door, a stainless steel toilet and basin separated from the rest of the room by a painted brick wall. ‘You can stick stuff up with Blu Tack. Cheer the place up. You can buy it from the shop,’ the officer escorting him had said. It would, Tony thought, take more than a few photographs to cheer up this spartan cell. The window, divided into a dozen thick bricks of clear material, had a view of a bit of roof and a ploughed field beyond the perimeter wall. Enough of the outside world to remind him what he’d lost.

  Left alone, he’d turned on the inbuilt speaker out of curiosity. He soon understood he was listening to a prisoner interviewing a poet who was running a workshop in the prison library that afternoon. It didn’t take long to discover he was listening to Razor Wireless, a radio station run by prisoners. Apparently, Wednesday was Wide Awake Day, when the theme was creativity and educational opportunities. It was clear that although official resources were limited, the inmates had drawn on their own skills to extend their opportunities, from plumbing to cookery. As Tony listened, he started to feel a faint thrill of possibility.

  He knew better than to rock up at the radio station without anyone to vouch for him. It had taken him a few days of asking around among the least hostile faces in the canteen and the library, but at last he’d managed to track down Kieran, a twenty-seven-year-old serving three years for, in his words, ‘a shitload of burglaries’.

  How had he got involved, Tony wondered. ‘I liked listening to Razor, but I thought the show they were doing about fitness was way too specialised. I like to stay in shape, but all they were talking about was using the equipment in the gym. Now, the kit they’ve got in here isn’t that brilliant to start with, but the big problem is there’s just not enough to go round. Plus a lot of guys, they’re not in shape to start with and they’re not all that keen on trying to work out beside the gym bunnies,’ Kieran explained. ‘And then you’ve got the top dogs and their bitches thinking the gym belongs to them.’

  It was more than Tony needed to know, but he understood better than most the value of letting people talk. ‘I know what you mean. I’d feel like a complete wuss beside half the lads in here.’

  ‘That’s ’cos you are. So I came up with this fitness routine that you can follow in your cell. Dead straightforward stretches and resistance exercises, plenty of reps to build a bit of muscle. Make you a bit more buff.’ He reached out and gripped Tony’s bicep. ‘You could do with a bit of that, Tony.’ He chuckled and rolled his shoulders, showing off his own shape.

  ‘I’ll check it out. So you just went along and asked to put on a programme?’

  Keiran nodded. ‘The guys got me to do a run-through for them, made a few suggestions, then they gave me a weekly ten-minute slot. People liked it, so now I do fifteen minutes three times a week. I had to learn all the other stuff as well – how to do the technical shit like sound engineers do on the BBC and all that. Why are you so interested? You want to tell us all about the serial killers you’ve put away? Give us the inside track? Mind of a murderer, kind of thing?’

  ‘All that’s ancient history for me now. There’s no way I’ll ever get near a murder investigation again.’

  Keiran sniggered. ‘Not now you’ve been on the other end of it. But I’ll bet you’ve got some cracking stories to tell.’

  ‘I’m thinking about something a bit different. You want to get people fit. I want to help them change their lives in other ways. So, can you get me an introduction?’

  ‘Sure. Come along with me on Wednesday morning when I’m doing my show. That’s the best day, there’s a bunch of us in then to plan out the rest of the week.’

  Wednesday arrived and he found himself standing against the wall in a crowded little room filled with radio equipment and half a dozen men who looked like a random selection from the Grayson Street stand at a Bradfield Victoria game. And not just because they were all white, in startling contrast to the general prison population. A couple were shaven-headed, tattoos decorating their arms and creeping up their necks. One looked like a science teacher, glasses slipping down his nose, fiddling with a screwdriver and a connector of some sort. Another – thirties, neat haircut, watchful eyes, big shoulders and the beginnings of a paunch – would have fitted in perfectly in Bradfield
Metropolitan Police canteen. Kieran introduced Tony to the man who clearly ran the room.

  ‘Spoony, this is Tony. He’s—’

  ‘Yeah, I know. The shrink. We got no couches in here, Doc. And we’re already shrunk down to nothing by the system. So what d’you want with us?’ Spoony cocked his head, making the tendons in his neck stand out. He was tall and lean, the arms sticking out of his T-shirt resembling an anatomical drawing – here a muscle, there a tendon, here a vein. His face reminded Tony of a tropical bird; all big eyes and hooked nose over a small mouth and a receding chin.

  ‘I want to make a programme.’

  Spoony scoffed. The two shaven heads folded their arms across their bellies and laughed. Tweedledum and Tweedledummer. ‘Just like that? You think you’re something special, just because you made a bit of a name for yourself on the outside?’ Spoony turned away and pretended to be engaged with something on one of the monitors. The others took their cue from him and busied themselves with clipboards and screens.

  ‘There’s no point in me pretending I’ve got no skills,’ Tony said. ‘That would be really stupid, trying to make out I’m just another one of the lads. I’ve been listening to Razor, and it’s equally clear to me that you’re not stupid either. I don’t want to be arsey about this, but I can give you a programme that could make a difference to people’s lives. Maybe help them not to come back here.’

  Spoony froze. ‘You really think so? You’ve been in here, what? Five minutes? And you know how to fix us? Think you’re fucking Coldplay, do you?’

  ‘I don’t even know what that means,’ Tony said. ‘All I do know is I’ve got some ideas that I think are worth trying.’ He pulled a small notebook from his pocket. Another gift from people in the justice system who knew that he knew where some of the bodies were buried. ‘I’ve drafted out ten minutes. Just to give you a flavour.’