Cold Grave (13 page)

Without glancing back, Irving turned right into a room, clearly expecting Narey to follow him. She’d already decided she didn’t like the man and any chances of her going easy on him were disappearing fast. He had led her into a room that seemed to double as a study and a sitting room. Two large bookshelves stood against one wall, the contents apparently split between large textbooks in one and paperback novels in the other. There was a television in one corner and a tired-looking sofa separated it from a dining table that supported a computer and printer. Despite there being radiators on two of the walls, the room was freezing.

‘Please, take a seat,’ Irving invited her, his tone more welcoming than before. A case of prudence being the mother of politeness, Narey assumed. The man had obviously thought better of his brusque approach.

Narey thanked him and eased herself into the lone armchair, feeling a spring groan inhospitably beneath her as she sat down. Irving’s furniture had seen better days. Interesting.

‘Dr Irving, I am here in connection with a client of yours. I believe…’

‘Let me stop you there, Sergeant Narey,’ Irving interrupted. ‘You must realise I am unable to discuss my clients with you. It’s a clearly established matter of patient confidentiality that cannot be breached.’

Narey sighed internally.

‘I realise you won’t discuss the precise nature of your dialogue with your client but that doesn’t preclude you from confirming someone is a client.’

Irving looked at her stonily for a few seconds before giving a curt nod.

‘Okay.’

‘Thank you. The client in question is Laurence Paton.’

There was the merest flicker in Irving’s eyes and a tiny contraction of his temples. Narey got the distinct feeling the man had already made the decision not to register any emotion whatever name was presented to him — or perhaps to the name he was expecting. Irving was deliberating before having to give the simplest of answers.

‘Yes, I was helping Laurence.’

Narey nodded. However, she wanted much more.

‘It would be very helpful if you could tell me about the nature of the help you were providing Mr Paton.’

Irving bristled and a look of undisguised frustration hung heavily on his worn features.

‘Sergeant, I told you…’

‘And while I do understand the convention of client — patient confidentiality,’ she continued, ignoring his protest, ‘I also know that in this particular case there is cause to believe you had a duty to warn with regard to Mr Paton’s state of mind.’

Irving’s mouth abruptly opened and closed again and he looked both furious and troubled.

It was a bluff on her part but ‘duty to warn’ was the one thing Narey knew overrode the psychologist — client confidentiality contract, and there was enough in Paton’s email exchange to make it worth her playing that card.

‘Now really, Sergeant,’ Irving blustered. ‘If you are accusing me of falling below professional standards, then I must protest. I can assure you…’

Narey cut across him again.

‘Dr Irving, I have reason to believe you had a duty to warn that Laurence Paton represented a danger either to himself or to others. In such a circumstance, you must inform a third party or the authorities, am I correct?’

Irving stared back at her, again seemingly desperate to betray no emotion.

‘That is correct but what evidence do you have to suggest Laurence posed such a threat, Sergeant?’

‘Mr Paton is dead, Dr Irving.’

There it was again. The same waver in the man’s eyes, the same twitch at his forehead. Knowledge or shock or something else in disguise? It had been five days since Paton had died and it was quite possible, if their only contact had been by email, that Irving wouldn’t know what had happened to him.

‘That’s… I didn’t know. I didn’t know that.’

The man was flustered and Narey went for the throat.

‘Mr Paton’s death clearly gives substantial weight to our belief that you had reason to think he might harm himself. That is something we are obliged to take very seriously.’

Irving blinked at her.

‘But he… how did he die? And how on earth did you have access to any information that might have made you think that… I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not at liberty to divulge either of those things to you at the moment, Dr Irving,’ she lied.

Irving glared at her, his attempts to keep his emotions hidden from her proving an increasing struggle. Instead he settled for another lengthy pause.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘That’s a rather wide scope, Sergeant. Could you be more specific?’

‘Did you ever meet Mr Paton face to face?’

‘No. Never.’

‘So all your conversations were by email?’

‘And occasionally by telephone.’

‘So I assume that you will have copies of the emails he sent to you for your records.’

Irving shook his head.

‘No. That would be quite unprofessional and would breach the Data Protection Act. I deleted each email once I’d responded to it. I believe Laurence did the same.’

Narey had a strong urge to slap Irving’s face but resisted it.

‘What was troubling Mr Paton?’

Irving made a great play of sighing and letting his head fall to his chest before replying. He was clearly going to be as difficult as possible and make it obvious he was acting under duress.

‘Laurence was suffering from depression as a result of antecedent conflict.’

It was Narey’s turn to sigh. Psychobabble, here we come, Narey thought.

‘The concept of antecedent conflict is that it is categorised as resulting from a trauma suffered in childhood,’ she argued. ‘Are you saying that was what happened in Mr Paton’s case?’

Irving’s eyes grew wide but he kept his mouth firmly closed.

‘Which university did you graduate from, Dr Irving?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Which university did you get your doctorate from?’

‘I don’t really see what that has to do with anything.’

‘I was just curious.’

‘Grantchester University.’

Narey feigned puzzlement.

‘I must admit I’m not familiar with that particular establishment, Dr Irving. Is that one of the colleges that got upgraded to university status?’

The man squirmed uncomfortably but held his chin high.

‘No. It’s actually an American university. It’s rather highly regarded.’

‘Really? That must have been quite an experience, studying in the US. Which city were you in?’

Irving shook his head in exasperation and Narey could see his anger growing.

‘I wasn’t actually there,’ he conceded irritably. ‘It was a correspondence-based curriculum but nevertheless…’

‘Ah, I see,’ she let her words linger in the air for effect. ‘As I was saying, are you telling me that Mr Paton’s problems stemmed from an incident in his childhood? Or was it perhaps something later in his life? Which was it, Mr Irving?’

The man bridled at the lack of title and Narey relished his indignant fury.

‘Doctor Irving,’ he corrected her, his attempts at hiding his emotions crashing on the rocks of his ego. ‘It’s Doctor Irving.’

‘My apologies,
Doctor
. Did you acquire that title from the same university as your degree?’

‘Sergeant, I…’

Narey didn’t want to hear his bleatings.

‘When did this supposedly traumatic incident take place?’

‘Later.’

‘In his twenties?’

‘Yes.’

‘At the Lake of Menteith?’

Irving’s eyes widened again. ‘Yes, I think so. Yes.’

‘Tell me what you know.’

Irving ran his hand anxiously through his thinning hair and his eyes scrunched closed.

‘Laurence suffered from chronic sleep deprivation as a manifestation of trying to avoid particular recurring dreams. This had a damaging consequence on his health and his ability to function properly within a work environment. Criticism from school management was increasing his issues with self-esteem and also provoking unmanageable levels of stress, as he feared losing his job. I was helping him deal with these concerns.’

‘What were the dreams?’

Irving looked into a corner of the ceiling as if seeking an escape route.

‘Laurence told me he would constantly dream about walking on water. This is typically a dream indicating the subject has complete control of his or her emotions yet this was clearly not the case with Laurence. He…’

‘Cut the bullshit, Doctor. We both know the water was frozen over.’

‘Yes. He said that in his dream he was walking on a frozen lake. There was a girl by his side and they walked together to an island. They were surrounded by other people at first, who gradually left until there was just the two of them. He wouldn’t dream about what happened on the island but the next thing he knew he would be walking back on his own and every footstep he took the ice would melt completely behind him and he would always be only inches away from falling into the lake.’

Narey was aware of the hairs standing up on the back of her neck.

‘Was it your belief this dream was based on something that did actually occur?’

Irving’s eyes fell to the floor.

‘Did Paton ever tell you that he killed the girl on Inchmahome Island?’

‘No.’

Narey stared hard at the therapist, forcing him to return her gaze.

‘Did he ever tell you he
didn’t
kill the girl?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ever ask either of those questions?’

‘No.’

‘Why the fuck not?’

‘Because that wasn’t my job. My brief wasn’t to investigate the legal or moral questions of what may or may not have happened but rather to deal with the psychological consequences.’

‘Yeah? Well, you should have fucking asked him anyway.’

Narey was still standing on the doorstep, her eyes boring into Irving’s, when the man slammed the door in her face. She was left with her nose inches from a white door that was in dire need of a paint job.

‘We’ll talk again,
Mister
Irving,’ she announced loudly, a grim but satisfied smile on her face. ‘You can count on it.’

‘Irving is a fraud. A snake oil salesman with a pretend degree from a pretend online university and a doctorate you can bet he bought in hard cash. The man’s no more a therapist than I am.’

They were sitting round Rachel’s dining table again, their three-strong council of war reconvening after her meeting with Irving and Tony and Danny’s return from investigations of their own.

‘You didn’t like him much then, Rach?’

‘I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.’

‘Very ladylike.’

‘Oh sod off, Tony. The guy’s a creep and I’ve not had the best of days.’

Winter could hear the tension in her voice. He was well used to dealing with the fallout from the stress Rachel worked under on a daily basis but this was different.

‘So apart from really disliking the guy, what did you get from him?’

‘He says Paton never admitted to killing Lily but I’m not sure I believe him. In fact, I don’t think I believe a single word that came out of his mouth. What did you get on him, Danny?’

Neilson had spent the previous two days chasing paper trails all over town and talking to people who knew people who would know things about the likes of Irving.

‘Okay…’ Danny cleared his throat theatrically. ‘Presenting Mr Kyle Irving.’

Rachel and Tony sat back in their chairs, their body language letting Neilson know he had the floor and their complete attention.

‘He’s fifty-five years old. Divorced, with one daughter he doesn’t see very often. Before he decided he was a psychologist, he used to work in sales, moving around between a couple of insurance companies and a medical supplies business. He was born and bred in Glasgow and, except for a short spell in London in the nineties, he hasn’t wandered very far from home.

‘As Rachel learned when she visited him, Irving’s degree and his title aren’t exactly what they seem. In fact, they are a pile of shite. Not worth the paper they’re written on, which is a few quid and nothing more. There’s nothing illegal about what he’s doing but it’s pretty dodgy all the same. It’s the poor saps he’s scamming money from that you have to feel sorry for.’

‘So how many people is he “counselling”?’ asked Tony.

‘I was just coming to that, Anthony,’ Danny growled at him. ‘I suppose the answer is too many or not enough, depending on your point of view. I couldn’t get a handle on how many clients he has because he is a one-man bandit. I spoke to an old contact in the psychobabble business and she reckoned he could easily be stringing along dozens, probably hundreds, maybe more. The way the whole Internet thing works, he could be conning mugs from here to China.’

‘I think I need to pay Mr Irving another visit,’ Rachel sighed. ‘See if my first call has got him rattled enough to tell me the truth.’

They all fell quiet again. The more they found out, the more they knew they still had to learn. A fresh round of beer and tea was set on the table and consumed in silence until Rachel broke it again.

‘Okay, Tony,’ she turned to him. ‘Your turn. What have you got?’

Winter sighed theatrically.

’Okay, well, first of all I took a chance with Paton’s email account.’ Rachel and Danny looked at him curiously.

‘I still had his login details and his password, and I figured I could use them. Someone was blackmailing Paton but that didn’t mean the blackmailer knew he was dead. Or if the other three names on the email did. So I sent a message to all of them. From Paton.’

Danny was smiling and Rachel’s eyebrows were arched in surprise and dubious approval.

‘I got one reply but I don’t think it takes us anywhere.’