All in the Mind (37 page)

‘It’s David Temple. I hope you’re OK. Sorry I didn’t get back to you before but I was at work. Your messages worried me. Give me a call. Bye.’

The Aftermath

Simon ended up doing the eulogy at Aunt Jessica’s funeral. He had thought about postponing in the light of events, but the crematorium in Yeovil was fully booked for the next week and a half, so he had to go ahead. In the end he surprised himself by how well he managed to speak about his mother, not breaking into tears once. He put it down to the shock of Martin’s death. He was able to draw on happy memories of their childhood days and so focus on his mother’s warmth and energy, her delight in other people. She’d always loved Martin, and had been so sad when he stopped visiting her. He wanted to pay tribute to that.

Professor Sturrock’s death was the third story on the late regional TV news on Monday night, once the police announced a name, and an unnamed source told
BBC London
’s crime reporter that it looked like suicide. When the same source told the
Evening Standard
that there was no note, but a text message to his wife instead, the press went into overdrive. ‘SUICIDE TEXT – TRAGIC SHRINK’S FINAL ACT’ was the front-page headline of Tuesday’s first edition, above an old picture of Professor Sturrock, taken from the inside flap of his book on grief and trauma. And alongside that they mocked up a Nokia phone showing the message: ‘
Darling, I won’t be home tonight. I’m going to kill myself
.’ The national dailies followed in similar vein on Wednesday morning.

In fact, Stella Sturrock hadn’t interpreted her husband’s text messages as signalling his imminent suicide, more as an attempt at emotional blackmail after their bitter exchanges over Ralph Hall. She’d seen the messages after she finished a long phone
conversation
with Sandie Hall, whom she’d called to say that Ralph was on his way to the South London Alcohol Rehab Centre for an initial assessment. She read them several times, and then tried desperately to call her husband back. When she got no answer, she’d tried Phyllis, but the office answer machine was on. She was just putting on her coat to walk to the tube station, in the hope that he might be on his way back home, when the WPC rang the doorbell.

Even as she walked to answer the door, and saw the silhouette of a hat through the frosted glass, she knew what was coming.

She took the policewoman through to the kitchen and showed her the text messages.

‘I knew he got down from time to time, but I had no idea he was so unhappy,’ she said. ‘I thought it was just me.’ She waited until the WPC had left before sitting down at his desk, where she banged her fist on the pile of books by the computer and repeatedly asked herself, first silently, then quietly, finally loudly, almost a shriek that burst out with the full force of her lungs, ‘Why?’ She calmed after a minute or two, then she imagined he was there sitting on the violet sofa littered with tatty cushions, where sometimes he would sit and read, and she asked him, ‘Why, Martin? Was it really so bad? And how do I tell the children their father didn’t want to live a moment longer? How do you expect them to live with that thought for the rest of their lives?’ There was a photo of the children on the wall above the sofa, smiling, Suzanne with her arms draped around Professor Sturrock’s neck. ‘They did love you,’ she said. ‘You just couldn’t feel it.’ And she finally cried, because when she asked herself if she loved him too, the answer wouldn’t come.

Obviously, neither Stella nor Sheila Sturrock could attend Aunt Jessica’s funeral, Stella because she was dealing with the repercussions of her husband’s death, Sheila because nobody could collect her. Jan spent most of Tuesday with Stella and then drove to the nursing home in Coldicote to tell her mother what had happened. She couldn’t bear to tell Sheila her son had killed himself. Instead, she said he’d been involved in a road accident, and had died instantly, without pain. Mrs
Sturrock
looked bewildered, but didn’t cry. Jan wondered if she even understood.

‘You realise what I’m saying, don’t you, Mum? Martin’s dead.’

Mrs Sturrock nodded. ‘I think I should go to the funeral,’ she said. ‘It would mean a lot to your father.’

Jan left the staff with strict instructions to try to prevent her from seeing newspapers or listening to the news. She departed with the rather desolate hope that if someone did tell her mother what had happened, she wouldn’t understand.

David Temple was on his way to work when he found out. His mother called him on his mobile, almost breathless with panic.

‘Have you heard, have you heard? Your Professor is on the breakfast news. It’s all over the telly, David, he’s dead, I can’t believe what I’m hearing.’

David stopped walking. He stood, his mobile pressed to his ear, and across his mind came an image of Professor Sturrock hanging from a tree. He said nothing.

‘David, David … Are you there?’ his mum was calling.

‘Did he kill himself ?’

‘So they’re saying on the news.’

‘I thought this might happen,’ he said, and told his mother about the weird messages on his phone.

‘Have you deleted them?’ she asked. ‘Because if you haven’t, you should take them to the police.’

‘No, I kind of had a feeling they were important.’ He felt a lot calmer than he imagined he would have done. Perhaps it was because he had thought about Professor Sturrock dying before, so his mind was ready to accept it. It was his mother who seemed to feel a greater upset.

‘He was such a lovely man, David. You know that even more than I do, but I know it well enough from that one time we met. I just don’t know what we’re going to do without him. They’ll have to find someone else for you.’

‘I guess,’ said David. ‘But there are bits and pieces he’s left behind, which will be a help.’

He wondered about asking for the day off, but then asked himself what Professor Sturrock would advise. He’d advise him to work through to the end of the day, and maybe shed a tear on his way home, walking along the canal in the dark. That’s what he would do. He told his mum about the Professor wanting him to speak at his funeral, which panicked her even more.

‘You can’t stand up in front of all those people, and talk, David.’

‘I think I can, Mum. I’d give it a go anyway, maybe ask Father Nicholas for a bit of advice.’ He knew she would like that, and she did. It would give her new reasons to go to the church between now and whenever the funeral was to be held.

Matthew Noble thought nothing of the
Evening Standard
billboard –
‘TRAGIC SHRINK’S TEXT SUICIDE’
– as he freewheeled through two lines of traffic queuing at red lights. But as he looked into the back of a car he was overtaking, a businessman being driven home was reading the paper, and Matthew recognised his psychiatrist in the photo on the front page. He braked, then looked more closely, sufficient for the back-seat passenger to give him a dirty look. The nearest garage was three minutes away. He tried to pick up speed but the combination of bad traffic, fumes that were making him cough and a mild sense of panic meant he was wheezy as he followed a red Vauxhall onto the forecourt. The paper was staring at him from alongside the cashier’s till. He just couldn’t take it in. He read the story over and over, several times. Then he fished out his mobile from the zip-up pocket on the back of his Mitchell’s cold-weather jacket, and called Celia.

‘Have you seen the news?’

‘What?’

‘Professor Sturrock. Dead. Killed himself. I’m reading about it now.’

‘Oh my God. Are you kidding me?’

Then they told each other how they couldn’t believe it, and how shocked they were and how tragic it was and all the other things people say when someone they know has died in shocking circumstances.

All around the South East, and in the wider world of psychiatry, conversations like that were happening. Arta burst into tears when she heard it on the radio news as she was cleaning the kitchen floor. She packed Besa into the buggy and raced as fast as she could to the car wash to tell Lirim, who thought of his thank-you card arriving on an empty desk and deeply regretted not having sent a letter to Professor Sturrock before. Emily’s mother Lorraine let out a little scream as she heard it on the Classic FM news. She called Emily who was at Sami’s. Emily had to go and sit in the back of the shop. She sat there for a long time, crying quietly. Then she went to church to pray for him. Patients, colleagues, porters, taxi drivers, nurses, newsagents, fruit sellers, prostitutes – dozens and dozens of people heard the news and reacted with varying degrees of shock that someone they knew was all over the news in such a horrible way.

As the police investigation pieced together the last days and hours of his life, it became one of those stories the twenty-four-hour media just couldn’t get enough of. They loved the text angle, which sparked a huge debate about whether there were any limits to what could be considered textable information. ‘What next? The text-message divorce?’ Then there was the issue of psychiatrists and who supports them when they’re on the edge, with Professor Sturrock’s own guidelines for his hospital published as a big whooshing breaking-news exclusive by Sky News. Once the police learned that he had visited Mizzi’s half an hour before dying, and had what sounded like a crack-up on the pavement outside, the newspapers had the sex angle that every long-running story needs. And Ralph Hall’s Saturday-night antics, with the political sex scandal already in place, provided the cherry on top once the police leaked out that he was the last person to see Professor Sturrock at home.

For the people innocently caught up in it all, it was a nightmare. The lorry driver was a father of four from Ghent in Belgium, but couldn’t get home until the police were finished with his vehicle. The owners of the garden he drove into were away on holiday, and had
to
rush back from Majorca. The girls at Mizzi’s had to give statements. Several were found to be illegal immigrants and faced deportation.

The immediate challenge for Stella Sturrock was to organise the funeral, knowing that even though her husband’s mind had been disturbed, his text saying who he wanted to speak was as close as she got to a declaration of his final wishes. She felt she had to respect those wishes. Phyllis, though shocked to the point of devastation that such an important part of her life had been taken away from her, was helpful in providing all the phone numbers. In fact, in the days that followed, Phyllis was constantly at the family’s side. ‘He asked me if I ever feel emotion,’ she said to Stella. ‘I do, and now I wish I had shown some. I kept my efficient face on because that’s what I thought he wanted. But I was worried about him. So worried.’

Once Suzanne and Lucio had come home from Italy, Stella and the children sat at the kitchen table and tried to agree an order of service. The death was so hard to take in that the details that emerged subsequently, like the revelation of his visits to prostitutes, were somehow not as shocking as the fact that he had died by his own hand. Mrs Sturrock coped a lot better than friends and family expected her to. There was just one moment when her guard dropped. She had noticed Michelle draining of colour as, lost in her own thoughts, she was clearly going over what her father went through as he made the decision to take his life.

‘I can’t believe he’s done this to us,’ Mrs Sturrock said. ‘His life is over. We will carry this, every day, to the end of ours.’

The girls cried the most. The flight home had been the worst journey of Suzanne’s life. She came close to collapse when her mother called and told her, couldn’t stop saying that she found it impossible to accept they would never see him or speak to him again. Michelle felt dreadful that she had not come to Jack’s birthday lunch, and had made up an excuse about watching a friend play rugby. Jack was wishing his last meeting with his father had been friendlier. He was also hurt that his father had not asked any of the children to speak. Mrs Sturrock
said
his text had not excluded the possibility. ‘He clearly didn’t want us to,’ said Jack.

‘It’s best done by others,’ said Michelle. ‘Family tend to crack up and cry and it gets embarrassing.’

Mrs Sturrock decided they should have a church funeral, partly because Martin had been baptised, but also because she felt she would need to rely on her own faith much more now. Reverend Fletcher, at her local church, was an old friend, who would see her through. It would also mean more people would be able to attend than at the crematorium. She imagined quite a lot of his hospital colleagues would want to come.

However hurt Jack might be that his father preferred his patients to speak at the funeral, from her point of view her husband’s text made it much easier to shape the order of service. She simply needed to choose the music.

Phyllis made the arrangements with David Temple. Mrs Sturrock spoke to Ralph Hall and Hafsatu Sesay herself.

Hafsatu hadn’t known what to think when Mrs Sturrock called her the day after her husband’s suicide. She was walking from her safe house in Chigwell to the tailors where she had a part-time job. She had not heard the news. When she did, she gagged involuntarily and felt faint for a few moments. Then she listened as Mrs Sturrock explained how her husband had left a message saying he would like her to speak out against prostitution at his funeral. At first she thought it was some kind of trick. She even wondered if she was being set up, that the gang which had controlled her had found out where she had been moved to, and was closing in. She asked if Mrs Sturrock could prove she was telling the truth. Mrs Sturrock said if she wanted proof he had killed himself, she only had to pick up a newspaper. For proof that he wanted her to speak at the funeral, she would have to see the text message he had sent. They arranged to meet on Thursday, at Mrs Sturrock’s house. Once Hafsatu went in, and saw it was a family home, with crying children and a widow trying to organise a funeral, she felt dreadful at having doubted Mrs Sturrock.

It was such a shock to be asked though. Why her? Why did he feel so strongly about prostitution given all the other issues he dealt with and all the other patients he had? It was when she read in the papers about his visit to Mizzi’s, and then learned he regularly visited a number of brothels in the area, that she realised why he had thought of her in the last desperate minutes of his life. She was in a difficult position now. She was angry at Professor Sturrock’s hypocrisy. He had sat and listened to her explain what prostitution had done to her, how it had virtually destroyed her dignity, her sanity, her self-worth, her ability to relate to other people, and yet he had used women in exactly the same abused state as she had been in. He had no idea where they came from or how they got there, but he knew the psychological damage being done by the lives they were forced to live. And he contributed to all that. The thought of speaking in front of a church full of people was bad enough. Speaking about prostitution was unimaginable.