A Plea of Insanity (11 page)

He would shuffle and manifest some of the signs of brain damage, an inability to focus either with his mind or his eye. This would be accompanied by an odd look, fidgety hands, inappropriate behaviour. A smile, a frown, a stare. All in the wrong place. There would be external clues to his turmoil.

But there was nothing.

As the door was opening she turned her head to see a slim young man of about thirty, with neat, clean, short dark hair, wearing brown trousers and a loose-fitting shirt walking slowly towards her.
Was this really Heidi’s killer?

He smiled tentatively, a hesitant, surprisingly attractive smile, and settled into the chair on the other side of the table, linking his fingers together loosely. They were long and bony and drew her gaze and she could not picture them covered in blood or committing that one terrible, slashing act.

She even felt herself warm to him.

But was this simply Gulio’s trick? To appear so very different from the person he really was?

She stood, introduced herself and scrutinised his face.

It was bland, unsure, with a slightly vacant expression in hazel eyes and a quiet, studious tilt of the lips. His skin was unhealthily pale and there was a vague eight o’clock shadow on his chin and around his mouth. Was this really the man responsible for Heidi’s murder?

‘I’ve taken over Doctor Faro’s job,’ she said, matter of factly. ‘A couple of months ago.’

He nodded very slowly, as though absorbing this one, significant fact took a great deal of comprehension. He crossed his legs at the ankles. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Because there’s a lot I don’t understand.’

His returned smile was both shallow and sad, little more than a token tilt of his mouth. ‘Such as?’

‘
Do
you remember Heidi?’

‘I’m not sure.’ It was an odd response.

‘She was your doctor at Greatbach, Stefan.’

Again Gulio nodded. And there was another, tentative smile. A little rounder this time.

‘Do you remember her, Stefan?’

A cloud dropped over his face. He was struggling. Finally he shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he said frankly. ‘It’s just a little …’ He pressed his lips together and swayed ever-so-slightly. ‘I’m afraid it’s beyond me. Outside my mind. Just. But they tell me. They do tell me.’

She tried another tack. ‘You saw quite a lot of her in the months before.’ She stopped dead. On the edge of a tumbling cliff. ‘Before she died. Just describe her to me. Please.’

The bony fingers stilled. ‘Perhaps … She was very kind. She had a nice voice. Foreign, I think.’

‘She was Austrian. I heard her lecture a few times. You could hardly tell English wasn’t her native tongue.’

He dipped his head, agreeing.

‘Tell me what you do remember about her.’

‘She wore trousers?’

‘Yes. I remember that too.’

‘She was a bit plump, I think.’ Another smile. Mischievous. She glimpsed a boy behind the face.

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘And she didn’t really ask questions so much as talk about subjects.’

She was intrigued. ‘Such as?’

‘The Big Bang,’ he said. ‘The origin.’

She waited but he had lost it. ‘The origin of what?’

This was a struggle for the poor, damaged brain. Bits were there but disjointed. He had understood – once. He fumbled and tried, even opened his mouth to speak – and gave up, his eyes beseeching her to go – no – further. ‘Sorry, I don’t know,’ he apologised.

She must try another angle. ‘Did you like Heidi?’

‘Oh yes. I think I did.’

So – to another subject less taxing. ‘Do you ever see your mother here?’

The same expression returned. That fug of confusion. ‘I’m not really sure,’ he said politely. ‘I think we’re a long way from home.’

‘What do you do all day?’

‘I read. I watch the television. I think I sleep quite a lot. More than before.’

‘Do you work here?’

‘I help,’ he said, still politely, ‘in the library sometimes. I classify the books.’

‘Do you have any idea why you’re …?’

He knew exactly what she was asking.

‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘I don’t think about it much. I try not to. Sometimes though I have nightmares. I hear a scream. One very long scream. I run along the corridor. I run very fast. I see blood on my hands. I try –’ He swallowed. ‘– I try to help. But I don’t know what to do. I tend to panic and run away. I don’t like those dreams. They upset me. Then they give me an injection – something to calm me down and I feel better but still not right – something is never right but I don’t know what.’

Gulio’s brain had been mashed to a pulp. Only tiny windows of rational or intelligent thought still existed. The tragedy had not only been Heidi’s but his too. Claire had known it but not as graphically as this. And now she was witnessing the result of the wasted intelligence.

And she had had a wasted journey
.

She said her goodbyes to Gulio feeling he had been of little help. He stood as she stood, in the polite way that only well brought up men do. And the glimpse was of the intellectual he might have become. A scientist. A chemist. A physicist. A quiet man.

On the way out she spoke again to the prison warder with the rosy face. ‘Does he have explosions of temper?’

‘Not that I’ve ever seen. He’s subdued is Gulio.’

‘What medication is he on?’

‘Couple of Stelazine a day. Keeps him tranquil.’

She nodded. It was rational prescribing.

But on the way home she tried to piece together the events of that day. Stefan had been in the room and had run along the corridor, meeting Siôna halfway down. Siôna had returned to Heidi’s room, pressing the panic button on the way, but been unable to open the door. So he had pulled
Rolf from his office. Together they had forced an entry and seen. But if Heidi’s body had been so heavy how come Gulio had been able to get out? He was not a strong-looking guy.

Claire stopped and thought about this one. What had Siôna been doing in the building that day and why had Rolf heard nothing?

And the real question, of course, was this: had Jerome Barclay been anywhere near?

They were all curious the next morning when she returned to Greatbach. Rolf and Siôna, Kristyna, Dawn and Bec. Their questions were endless.

‘So how is he bearing up?’

‘Does he remember the assault?’

‘How does he look?’

‘Does he still bury his head in his books all day?’

‘Has he got fatter?’

‘Thinner?’

‘Does he look older?’

‘Younger?’

‘Is there any sign of his brain function returning?’

But as she had never met Gulio before Claire could make no comparison. She could only comment that he seemed quiet. So Claire reflected that they had all been fond of Gulio. The murder had not altered their affection for him. Almost as a cancer wouldn’t steal our affection from a loved one.

She eyed the watching faces, soft in their benevolence, and felt a wave of fondness for them all and thoughts of Barclay and Nancy, Kap Oseo and Mavis Abiloney and Marcus Bourne faded into the background like textured wall hangings.

So the days passed peacefully.

Without drama for a while.

The cliché is that bad news travels fast.

Sometimes not fast enough. Bad news should gallop like a horse. Rip like a forest fire through tinder-dry grass. The speed of sound is too slow. It should beam at the speed of light. No – faster even than that. Everyone who has an interest in disaster should be aware within milleseconds of a terrible event happening. They should not have one fragment of a minute’s peace of mind. Twin towers. Kennedy’s death, Concorde crashing.

It is not so in real life.

Bad news travels slowly.

We cling to oblivion, living our ordinary lives on borrowed time.

Three – maybe four – days must have passed during which she, Claire, was happily unaware. You could also say that she was, in some measure, ultimately responsible. That she had stirred the wasps’ nest. Awakened the beast.

But the next few days were spent in this illusion – this cocoon of a close, professional team working together, pooling their knowledge. Even an evening at the pub telling secret little jokes about the inmates, glances tossed over shoulders to make sure no one who was not part of their circle could possibly hear.

So it was a Tuesday morning at one of their newly chummy meetings, when she was feeling untouchable, that Siôna dropped his bombshell.

‘Did you read last night’s
Sentinel
?’

No one had so the enquiry provoked only a flicker of lame interest.

‘It was in the Deaths column.’

They still looked at him blankly but at least he had their attention now.

‘I just
happened
to see it. The funeral announcement.’

More blank faces and for Claire still not an inkling of what was to come, of the storm about to break, crashing elements around their heads.

‘Barclay’s mother’s died.’

That was it. Three words. Enough to prick the complacency that all was right in the world and nothing was wrong. She felt the first trickle of unease which would roar into a flood of fear. ‘What did she die of?’

‘It didn’t say. Just that she’d died last week and the funeral’s on Thursday, donations to the Samaritans.’

Claire was silent, her mind clicking onto the sprightly Cynthia Barclay. No sign of a heart condition there. Funeral Thursday so no evidence of delay, a post mortem, coroner’s case, an inquest, unnatural causes. And yet it was all too convenient, just what Barclay would have wanted. To be rid of a cumbersome relative. Particularly if she was about to embark on a détente with his psychiatrist.

‘It doesn’t sound as though the death is suspicious.’ Siôna’s helpful comment.

Claire was silent.
Any death within fifty miles of Jerome Barclay should be treated as suspicious
.

All eyes were watching her, wary, this band of happy health colleagues. While she toyed with an idea. Maybe. Just maybe she should shake off the shackles of confidentiality and speak to the police herself.

Halfway through the morning, a mug of coffee on her desk, she found a window of peace to make the private phone call. Psychiatrists were asked to do this all the time, act as watchdogs for public safety. Guardian angels. To
keep police informed of anyone likely to be a danger to the general public – or a specific public. Warn them. The defence union was well named. Not for doctors – for patients. But the confidentiality rules were too ambiguous. While it advised its members to consider the right to privacy it also warned them they had a responsibility to protect the public. Sometimes considering the two was a tightrope. You could so easily fall. And who is a danger to the public?

We all are capable of being.

How is a psychiatrist to know absolutely? Is he God to anticipate an evil action? There are so many possibilities: the drunk driver, the mother with an uncontrolled temper, or with post-natal depression, the wife-beater who goes that bit further. Road rage. Sudden hatred. Not only the plotter. We are all capable if you extend the circle. The unskilled builder or electrician. The careless, the mad, the psychopathic. Ah. The psychopathic. This is the one the law of disclosure is specifically aimed at. The psycho of
noir
fiction. The person diagnosed as having Severe Psychopathic Personality Disorder.

Barclay.

But even here there are pitfalls. How can we know who was a potential killer until after they have killed? Psychiatrists do not have foresight or crystal balls, the power of peering into the future although they are supposed to be psychic. All they have are pointers – personality characteristics – to flag up the dangerous psychopath.

They are: Aggressive.

Often drunk.

Full of threats.

They break the law.

They accuse others of letting them down. Nothing is
ever their fault. They delegate responsibility.

They lack closeness with another human being, fail to make relationships, keep jobs.

There is an aura of unprovoked violence that clings to them.

They are unpredictable, manipulative.

Claire rolled a biro between her fingers back and forth, back and forth. Barclay fitted the bill perfectly.

She had the number on the keypad of her mobile phone, the Medical Defence Union. But she was not about to leak information, only to fact-find.

So instead she dialled directory enquiries and asked the number of the local police station. Then asked to be put through to the officer investigating the death of Mrs Barclay, reading the address from Barclay’s notes.

‘There isn’t really one.’

‘Then the officer who attended the scene?’

‘It was Young. Sergeant Young.’

She explained who she was and asked again to be put through.

She was not reassured. A slow, Stoke voice came down the line minutes later, ‘How can I help you, Ma’am?’

She needed someone of sharper intelligence than this. Someone with subtlety.

But she tried. ‘I’m a psychiatrist who works at Greatbach Psychiatric Centre.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘I simply wondered how you viewed Mrs Barclay’s death?’

‘May I ask what is your interest in this?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say except that I do have a legitimate interest.’

‘I don’t quite see the connection.’

She backed down. ‘There probably isn’t one. I simply wondered whether Mrs Barclay’s death was being treated as suspicious?’

A pause. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Claire Roget. Doctor Claire Roget. I’m a psychiatrist.’ She had a feeling he was scratching it down on some dogeared ledger or tapping it – one-fingered – on a computer. ‘Look – I simply wanted to know whether Cynthia Barclay’s death was considered suspicious.’

‘Is that R-o-g-e-t?’

‘Sergeant Young,’ she said firmly. ‘If there is nothing unusual about Mrs Barclay’s death then that’s fine. I simply wanted to reassure myself. And –’ she hesitated. ‘I’d really rather you didn’t mention the fact that I’d been in touch to anyone.’