The Calling (24 page)

Goodhew parked the car outside Braeside, a three-storey
Cambridge
brick terrace house in Maid’s Causeway. It stood between two tidier family homes. ‘Is this it?’

Gully checked the address on Wilkes’ note. ‘It must be.’

The front door had been left ajar and Goodhew led the way into a red-tiled hallway. A leaded panel of coloured glass on each side of the door provided the only light which fell directly on to a dark oak table. A pile of information leaflets stood propped against the wall and the only other item, a laminated A4 sheet, informed them that Elizabeth Martin’s treatment room could be found on the first floor, above the premises of a chiropractor and below the offices of the Cambridge Women’s Resource Centre.

‘It’s not what I expected,’ he whispered.

‘And what exactly did you expect, white coats and a posh waiting room?’ Gully shrugged. ‘Perhaps she’s an amateur – you know, one of those dabblers.’

They both looked up towards the landing, and Goodhew shook his head. ‘No, I called our Occupational Health Department while I was waiting for you outside in the car. Just on the off-chance.’ He gestured for her to go up first. ‘No hesitation there, they knew her name straight away. She’s very well thought of, and has been called as an expert witness several times in the past.’

Gully waited for Goodhew to catch up with her at the head of the stairs. Several panelled doors faced on to the landing. A square of paper was sticky-taped above the Bakelite handle of one. It read: ‘Please knock and wait.’

They knocked but didn’t wait, because a husky voice called them straight in.

Elizabeth Martin’s treatment room was informal. More like an aunt’s sitting room furnished with a rounded collection of
mismatches
. Mismatched chairs, uneven bookshelves and a display of prints across the walls with no commonality of either theme or frame. A crocheted blanket lay folded into the shape of a cushion on the window seat, its colours bleached by daylight.

Elizabeth sat in a chair in the far corner, facing the door but near enough to the window to see the road where they’d parked, one floor below. Goodhew and Gully chose the two chairs closest to her, and sat side by side.

‘You look like an old married couple,’ she quipped.

Gully shot a startled glance at Goodhew, then fiddled with her notepad, leaving him to speak.

‘Marlowe Gates was pulled out of a lake after what we think was a suicide attempt,’ he began. ‘We’re about to visit her, but so far she has refused to speak to anyone. When we heard that she’s been receiving counselling, we hoped you’d be able to shed some light on her state of mind.’

Elizabeth Martin leant over one side of her chair to fish around inside a buff document wallet. She sat up straight again, holding a clutch of papers in her hand. ‘What I don’t understand is this.’ She levelled her impassive gaze on Goodhew. ‘If she’s now in hospital, and in the care of the correct health services, why does it need to involve you?’

She was obviously used to questioning everyone’s motives, and Goodhew had no doubt that she’d also hesitate to dish out any confidential patient information. ‘I’ll be straight with you now. We are investigating a murder, and I believe that Marlowe Gates may be a key witness. I need to understand her mental state and therefore know how far I can press her for vital information. The last thing I want to do is push her into another suicide attempt.’

Elizabeth Martin repositioned herself in her easy chair. She now sat straighter and looked sterner than before. She pressed her hand flat on the sheaf of notes in a gesture that both Goodhew and Gully interpreted as rejection. ‘These notes are personal, and I am sure
you’re both aware of the importance of client confidentiality.’ She raised her palm by a couple of inches and slapped it down again. ‘I do however retain the right to discuss a client’s situation in special circumstances, particularly if further life is at risk. And it is fair to say that this may be one of those.’

‘Thank you,’ Gully said. ‘Why and when did she first come to see you?’

‘She was referred to me by her doctor. That was about two years ago, and she then had several appointments over the next few months.’

‘And was she suicidal then?’ Goodhew asked.

‘No, not at all.’ Elizabeth Martin flicked through the first few pages. ‘Not in my opinion anyway. But she had started harming herself, cutting herself. Her wrists mainly.’

‘But not attempting suicide?’ Gully frowned. ‘Is she an
attention-seeker
?’

‘That’s the general misconception about self-harmers. No, they usually do it as a form of release for an overload of internal pain which they believe they cannot dissipate in any other way. In fact self-harm often provides a means to help sufferers get on with their lives. It is rare for them to become suicidal.’

‘Tell me specifically about Marlowe, then. Can you build a picture of her for us?’

‘Sure, just give me a minute.’ Elizabeth Martin delved further through her wodge of papers. Goodhew and Gully waited patiently, and the air hung quiet and heavy. A dazzling stream of sunlight suddenly broke in through the corner of the window and a confetti of dust rose to meet it. The counsellor reached across and tugged the velvet curtain across the window a few inches further. ‘It can become unbearable here in the afternoons,’ she muttered. She closed her notes and looked up again. ‘The sun that is, not the job.’ She smiled, then began to speak rapidly. ‘I’ll keep it simple and quick, but stop me if I don’t make sense. Please take notes. You can’t have mine, and yours will be strictly only for use in your investigation. Agreed?’

‘Absolutely,’ Goodhew concurred.

‘Marlowe’s first appointment was when she was twenty-one, and her last was this year when she was twenty-three. As I said, the initial
contact was because she had started to self-harm, usually cutting her wrists, but on occasion also her abdomen and breasts. Self-harm can start at any age, but when it commences in adulthood, it is most commonly the result of a trauma such as rape or physical assault.’

‘And what had happened?’ Goodhew asked.

‘She wouldn’t tell me.’

‘Even after several sessions?’ he pressed.

‘No,’ she gave him a stern look, ‘I’m not holding anything back here. She just wasn’t preoccupied by whatever had happened to her. But I’ll return to that in a minute. As well as the self-harm, she was experiencing anxiety attacks. These manifest themselves in a series of symptoms stemming from the flight-or-fight instinct – which I assume you’ve heard of?’

Goodhew nodded. ‘If people sense danger, they get a rush of adrenalin which makes them ready to either stand and fight or flee from the situation.’

‘And the body can do either most effectively when it is at its lightest, and directing maximum oxygen towards the muscles and the brain. The body tries to lose weight by sweating and going to the toilet, and increases its oxygen supply by over-breathing and inducing a state of hyperventilation.’

Gully suppressed a yawn and squirmed in her chair. Elizabeth Martin pointed to her. ‘An extreme version of what you’re doing now, in fact. You’re feeling restless, maybe a few butterflies, unable to relax, and feeling that something awful will happen if you don’t get on with things. Am I right?’

Gully nodded. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to appear rude.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ the woman continued. ‘That, magnified a hundredfold, is how Marlowe was feeling every day during the period I saw her. Each time it became too intense, she’d cut herself.’

‘But what was the trigger?’ Goodhew said. ‘What exactly was preying on her mind?’

‘Are you familiar with the expression post-traumatic stress?’

‘Like shell-shock?’ Gully queried.

‘Originally,’ Goodhew intervened, ‘but now applied to one’s reaction to a wide range of life-threatening events. Is that right?’

The counsellor nodded. ‘Broadly speaking, yes. There are five
specific criteria that need to be met for a proper diagnosis. Marlowe met all five of them.’

‘What sort of criteria?’ Goodhew asked, now intrigued.

‘Re-experiencing the event in some way. Recollections and bad dreams and distress at physical reminders. Avoiding stimuli associated with the trauma, problems in concentrating, difficulty in sleeping, and so on. The first criterion is that the client has witnessed or experienced a serious threat to his or her life or physical well-being.’

‘But you don’t know what that was, in Marlowe’s case?’ he asked.

‘As I said, Marlowe flatly refused to tell me any specific details. I guessed she’d suffered some abuse from her boyfriend, either sexual or physical, or both. She insisted that what had happened wasn’t the point. She repeatedly told me, though, that she was concerned for the safety of her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Each time I saw her, she kept repeating that he’d do the same thing again. To be honest, the pair of us weren’t moving forward.’ Elizabeth Martin leant back over the side of her chair and replaced the notes in their folder. ‘She said she couldn’t stand the guilt if he “did it again”. I spent time trying to make her realize that she couldn’t take responsibility for his actions.’

She paused there, perhaps for breath.

Goodhew nodded slowly. ‘And she stopped coming to see you about then, didn’t she? About February or March this year?’

The woman’s eyes widened. ‘Exactly. How in the world …?’

‘Did she say anything in particular? Can you remember?’ he asked.

‘She said that what he’d done was evil and she was going to the police,’ came the answer.

‘So, you’re saying that she knew something that she felt she needed to involve the police with?’ Gully gasped.

‘No, I’m merely saying she
thought
she did. She genuinely believed that what he’d done was sufficiently bad to warrant police involvement. I talked with her, but in the end she herself had to decide whether to act upon it.’.

‘And you expected that accusation to involve domestic violence?’ Goodhew said.

‘Something of that sort, yes.’

‘Not murder?’

Elizabeth Martin paled. ‘Good God, no!’

‘Is she a liar?’ he asked.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said slowly. ‘But I assume you mean how much credence can be given to her statements. Marlowe is unusually intuitive.’

‘For example?’

The woman thought for a second. ‘My father died, so I had to cancel some of my sessions. I didn’t say why, just left a message at her work place. She then put an “In Sympathy” card through my door. The problem is she treats her intuition like a fully developed sense – and that, in itself, is a danger. It’s too easy to put two and two together and make anything except four.’

Small whisked-up clouds drifted high in the expanse of blue above Marlowe’s window. The horizon had slipped towards the bottom of her view, and the line it cut through the picture was the first thing she saw as she emerged from her sedation. Heaven looked huge, and earth so tiny, and here she was still stuck on it.

A telephone tinkled at the nurses’ station. Marlowe could just hear a nurse’s even tones. ‘She’s still asleep. She woke up earlier when the police were here, but she wouldn’t speak. No one else has arrived yet, but I think that her parents are on their way and the police are coming back again shortly.’

Marlowe watched the cars barely visible on the distant dual carriageway. They were just little coloured dots, like tiny coloured ball-bearings, some of them running from left to right and some from right to left. Were they really cars with drivers and passengers, when seen up close, or did her whole world end at the glass?

She knew it all existed, but it was just too much to think about. Her eyes slid shut and her mind wandered into that limbo land between consciousness and sleep.

The nurse directed someone towards her. ‘She’s over in the corner bed. She should be waking soon.’

‘Thank you, I’ll wait, if that’s OK.’

And she heard his footfalls as he walked around the bed and drew a chair closer.

He sat down and she could hear his breathing, and the gentle tapping of his toe on the tiled floor. Seconds pulsed by and he
dragged his chair closer, its feet squealing as his weight ground it downwards.

Something jabbed her hand sharply. Her eyes snapped open and she recoiled, before staring at the blue centre of a red dent in her palm.

His pen,
she thought, feeling relieved as she watched him click it shut and drop it back in his breast pocket.

‘Sorry about that. I’m DC Kincaide from Cambridge CID. I needed you awake. How are you feeling?’

‘Oh no,’ she groaned silently and turned her head to stare at the mint-sorbet emulsion on the wall in front of her bed. She didn’t want to speak to him. Not now. Not ever. He kept talking, though. He told her her name, her personal details, where she’d been found. She tried not to listen.

‘Don’t ignore me,’ he whispered and leant closer still. His hot breath assaulted her ear, sending shivery cold trails down the side of her neck. ‘I need to know how you’re involved in these killings. I need to know what you’ve done. You’d better start talking.’

Marlowe decided not to move and her inner voice began to count. ‘One, two, three, don’t listen to him, four, five, six, don’t reply, seven, eight, nine …’

Other voices came along the corridor.

‘Go on through. One of your colleagues is with her now.’

The visitor’s chair squeaked its retreat but Kincaide breathed closer still. This time his face brushed against hers and she had no choice but to meet his stare.

‘Talk to me, Marlowe. I want to help you out. Screwing some guy and getting pissed off when he dumps you isn’t the real reason behind those phone calls. I’ll see you again soon, and then you can tell me.’

Kincaide brushed his way past Goodhew at the door.

‘She’s still sedated. I’d come back later, Gary,’ he said without turning.

‘Why are you here, Michael?’ called Goodhew.

‘Following a lead, you know. The same one that you got from Gully earlier.’

Goodhew didn’t even register Kincaide’s parting barb. As he pushed open the door, his senses were overcome by a vision of
cascading bright white sunlight that flooded over the patient and her white bedding. The light reflected off the polished floor so the whole room dazzled him. She was still, eyes open, but somewhere else in every way. She stared at the ceiling.

He stood beside her and studied her face, then turned towards the window and perched on the very edge of her bed, her hand resting on the top sheet only a few inches from his own.

‘Hello you,’ murmured Gary. ‘I’ve been trying to find you.’ He too watched the cars in the distance. ‘I remember you in Hanley Road and I’ve regretted not speaking to you ever since.’ He turned his gaze towards her. ‘I feel like I’ve let you down because I didn’t meet you afterwards. But I didn’t get your letter in time. I wasn’t home.’

Marlowe’s eyes flickered and her gaze fell on to his.

‘Marlowe, I feel guilty because I didn’t help. Do you know how that feels?’

The corner of her mouth quivered and her eyes glistened as they pulled away from his gaze.

Goodhew moved towards the window and stared down at the pavement below. Thank God, she hadn’t died.

Behind him the ward door swung open to admit her parents. He turned to study Mr and Mrs Gates.

‘Marlowe, darling, we rushed here as soon as we heard,’ her mother gushed.

Her father held back somewhat. ‘Are you OK?’ He was sweating on to the tight collar of his polyester shirt, the skin around his throat puckered like beetroot-stained turkey flesh. He shifted his weight nervously from dented brogue to dented brogue.

Goodhew’s grandmother always said you could tell a lot from people’s shoes.

Mrs Gates wore sensible shoes, and monopolized the situation with her reasonable voice. ‘What a silly thing to do. Nothing can be that bad, darling. The hospital has only just been in touch, haven’t they, Ron? And I just don’t understand.’

Like a flower at dusk, Marlowe closed in on herself, and stared down at her fingers as they occupied one another by making weaves and spires and other interlocking patterns.

‘It’s no good giving us that silent treatment again.’ Mrs Gates stepped back and propelled her husband closer. ‘You try, Ron.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Your mother and I are very concerned, Marlowe. I’m not one for interfering, but you can always talk to us.’ He shuffled his feet again. ‘Whatever you’ve done, you’re still our daughter.’

Her parents were reflected as midgets in Marlowe’s bedside jug. Goodhew meanwhile seemed invisible to them all. Marlowe concentrated on her fingers as they made junior-school shapes, ignoring her parents as they continued to prod and probe her conscience.

‘You were such a happy child …’ Mrs Gates continued.

Marlowe made the little church shape. ‘
Here’s the church
…’

‘Marlowe, how do you think this is making us feel?’

Marlowe pointed her fingers to make the spire.
Here’s the steeple
. She turned her hands over, palms up.
Silly rhyme
. She jerked them apart. He’s still here.

Goodhew’s gaze never left her and when she looked up he mouthed the words, ‘Trust me’.

She drew a deep breath. The ward smelt of fresh-cut grass and the head gardener’s mower hummed somewhere in the sunshine. Tears rose and teetered as she mouthed her reply, ‘Trust
me
.’

He nodded and for the first time he saw the trace of a smile touch her face, and then the tears toppled on to her cheeks.