Cross and Burn (13 page)

B
ev’s first return to consciousness inside the freezer had been bewildering; the second was excruciating. Every time she took a breath, her ribs hurt, sharp pain like a handful of daggers stabbing her in the chest. Gradually, as she grew more aware, she understood that if she kept her breathing shallow and moved as little as possible, the pain ceased to be all-consuming. But that left room in her nervous system for the other agonies to make themselves felt. There was a dull ache in her lower back. Kidneys, she thought. Her head throbbed and when she moved her jaw, lightning shot from the point of her chin to the top of her skull. A fire burned between her legs, spreading up into her groin. The pinkie on her left hand was hot and swollen. Probably broken. The least of her worries.

She’d been determined to do whatever it took to survive, to make it home to Torin. But it had quickly dawned on her that her captor was as determined to find fault as she was to obey his every whim. She’d fallen into the hands of a man whose only satisfaction came from causing pain. It wasn’t enough just to rape her. He had to make the excuse of her inadequacy to hurt her. He’d subjected her to humiliating sexual acts, all the while maintaining the sick pretence that she was a failing wife. God help any genuine wife who had fallen prey to this monster, Bev thought, shuddering involuntarily, a groan of pain seeping from her bruised lips.

He’d ripped the tape from her mouth while he’d been fucking her in the kitchen. He said he wanted to hear her appreciate his sexual prowess. But if she made any other kind of noise, she’d be sorry. Tasering would be the least of her worries.

Then he unchained her and dragged her upstairs. He fastened her to another metal eye in a room furnished with nothing but a bed covered with a rubber sheet. He punched her hard in the face and forced her on to the bed, tying her by her wrists and ankles so she was spread-eagled across it. He’d left her alone briefly, then returned with a can of shaving foam, a pair of scissors and a plastic razor. ‘If you move, I’ll cut you to ribbons,’ he said, as matter of fact as if he’d been asking for sugar in his tea. Then his hands had been on her, snipping away at her pubic hair, carefully trimming it to the skin. Her flesh crawled at his touch, but she bit her lip and forced herself not to flinch. Next came the shaving foam, then the rasp of the razor against her most tender skin. Bev had never shaved herself; being blonde, she hadn’t even needed a bikini wax for sunshine holidays. The feeling of air against her bare skin was strange. But at least he was careful and he didn’t hurt her. She wondered why, when his sole aim till then had been to punish her.

The respite didn’t last long. This time, he made her beg. Hating herself, she did as she was told, though not convincingly enough to avoid another beating. When he’d finally reached the point where he couldn’t raise an erection, that had been her fault too. Bev refused to remember what had come next. Some things didn’t bear thinking about. She thought she’d passed out in the end.

Now she was back in her box. Her kennel, he’d called it. As if she was an animal. Bev had seen plenty of anger in her life. But she’d never come across such a sustained level of aggression directed at a stranger. Not even rape victims. From what she’d seen in the hospitals where she’d worked, women were only beaten this badly, this systematically, by their partners. This was domestic violence gone rogue.

And she was caught at the heart of it.

Tears seeped from her swollen eyes. She’d tried to hold on to the promise of seeing her son again. But Bev was no fool. She knew she couldn’t withstand another night like that. She’d seen his face. She could identify his home.

She wasn’t going to make it out of here alive.

T
ony had always liked the room where he visited Dr Jacob Gold. Nothing in it reminded him of anywhere he’d spent any significant amount of time; it was emotionally neutral. The walls were lemon yellow, broken up by four large paintings of beaches, seascapes and tidal estuaries. Two armchairs at an angle to each other sat on either side of a gas fire, separated by a striped rug in muted colours. In the shallow bay window sat a chaise longue with another armchair close to its head. A low table sat in the centre of the floor displaying an exotic collection of polished sea-shells.

It was the kind of calm space that was perfectly suited to the supervision sessions most psychologists saw as a key part of their professional lives. The relationship was all about helping them to develop skills and become better practitioners, which was something Tony took seriously. The problem he had with supervision was that he didn’t have a whole lot of respect for most of the supervisors he’d encountered. He was well aware that his was an unconventional mind. It wasn’t arrogance to acknowledge he was also smarter than most of the people doing his job. Then he’d heard Dr Gold speak about damaged lives at a symposium. This, he thought, was the man for him. He’d approached him afterwards, but Dr Gold had refused. ‘I don’t do supervisions,’ he’d said in a tone that left no space for discussion.

That had never stopped Tony. ‘I know why,’ he said. ‘Compared with your patients, practitioners are boring. Well, I’m not. I’m the one passing for human.’

Dr Gold frowned, turning his attention properly to the little guy in the ill-assorted clothes and the bad haircut. That had been back in the days before Carol had made some subtle changes that Tony had barely noticed happening. ‘Who
are
you?’

‘You remember that serial killer in Bradfield last year? Young male victims?’

Something shifted in Dr Gold’s expression. ‘You’re the profiler.’ Tony nodded. There was nothing more to be said. Either Jacob Gold would bite or he wouldn’t. They stood, eyeing each other up, heedless of the conference bustle around them. ‘Come and talk to me next week. I’m based in Leeds. You can contact me via the university.’

And so it had begun. After that first session, Tony knew he’d found someone who could help him live with himself and his work, his achievements and his mistakes. Luckily for him, Jacob Gold had also discovered someone worth breaking his own rules for.

Tony had always conceived of the role of supervisor as analogous to that of the priest in confessional. As he understood it, the theory of Catholic confession was that you went when you had sins to confess; that the priest helped you to see the error of your ways; that you underwent a penance to remind you of the way, the truth and the light; that you departed, ostensibly to sin no more; and that whatever you brought into the box stayed between you and the priest. And presumably, God. Though He never seemed to intrude much on the practical proceedings of the Church.

Tony made an appointment with Dr Gold once or twice a year, when some aspect of his clinical practice was troubling him, when he felt he wasn’t dealing well with some element of his professional life, or, more rarely, when his personal life was throwing him conundrums he couldn’t readily solve. A fifty-minute hour under Jacob’s gentle probing usually suggested a solution to whatever he’d brought to the session. At the very least, it brought Tony a degree of clarity. The equivalent of Catholic penance was the process of digging away at the roots of the issue during their session. And of course, he would leave with the firm intention of making the changes that would resolve his difficulty.

And often he would fail.

But that was part of the process too.

Tony knew he should have talked sooner to Jacob after the debacle with Jacko Vance. He was conscious that he’d been avoiding it. Jacob, who wore his supervision lightly, had clearly been well aware of the media coverage and had left a message of support. Which, in the terms of their relationship, had been the equivalent of shouting, ‘Oi, get your arse down here, pronto.’

But he was here now, and that was what mattered. Today, he’d chosen the armchair rather than the chaise longue. Jacob sat across from him, long legs crossed, an elegant notebook open on his lap, Mont Blanc pen lying in the crack between the thick cream pages. ‘How are you?’ It was the question that always began their sessions. Unless Jacob had been living on a desert island with no access to the electronic media, he had to have a pretty good idea, given the coverage of the recent events in his life.

‘Well, let me see.’ Tony steepled his fingers in front of his chest. ‘BMP decided they no longer need my services, my new home was burned to the ground, people died because I wasn’t good enough at my job and Carol walked out of my life because she needs someone to blame for her brother’s murder and in her head, I’m that someone. By the same argument, another colleague would have grounds for blaming me for the fact that she’s been blinded and disfigured for life from acid burns, but she’s forgiven me and I’m not sure, but that almost feels worse. I’m living on a boat with my books in storage, but on the positive side, one of my former police colleagues came round last night looking for my insights. Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?’ His tone was light but he knew that wouldn’t fool Jacob. Hell, it wouldn’t fool a block of wood.

‘And which item in this catalogue of disaster is the one that costs you most peace of mind, would you say?’

The trick with these sessions, Tony had found, was to try to answer without pausing for thought. His discomfort generally came from thinking too much. Trying something different was one of the reasons for supervision. So he replied at once. ‘Carol. I failed her. And she’s out of my life. I don’t even know where she’s living. What she’s doing to get through the days. And I miss her. Every single day, I miss her.’

‘What makes you think you failed her?’

‘I’m supposed to be able to work out what’s going on inside the heads of people with aberrant minds. But on this case, I was thinking in straight lines. It’s as if I forgot I was dealing with someone whose defining characteristic was wrong-footing everyone around him. I didn’t explore the possibilities properly. I had half my mind on other things and I didn’t drill down deep enough. And people died. Among them Carol’s brother and his partner.’ Tony hung his head, the sense of failure as vivid as it had been at the time. ‘If I’d been rigorous, they would have been warned. And the chances are, they’d be alive today.’

‘You know this is magical thinking, don’t you? You’re claiming control over circumstances you can’t control.’

‘Don’t, Jacob. Don’t try and get me to let myself off the hook. I know I didn’t do my job well enough. I’m not looking for excuses. I’m looking for a way to move forward from the consequences.’

Jacob picked up his pen and made a short note. Just a few words. ‘To move forward, you have to accept the truth of a situation. Not persist in myth-making. Wouldn’t you say?’

‘It’s not myth-making. It’s acknowledging failure.’

Jacob’s considering expression didn’t alter. ‘He was a clever man, your opponent?’

‘Yes. An exemplar of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. An arch-manipulator.’

‘So, a man perfectly capable of second-guessing whatever tactics you might have chosen to employ against him?’

Tony gripped the arms of his chair. ‘Maybe. You’re saying he would have found a way to circumvent whatever defences I’d constructed?’

‘He had the advantage. He was working in the shadows. In the interstices. It’s impossible to guard against someone like that if they are clever enough and determined enough. He was determined to have his revenge. Or so it seems to me. Does it seem so to you?’

It was an invitation to a shift of perspective. Tony wanted to grasp it, but that very desire made him suspicious. ‘I think I should have stopped him.’

‘You don’t think you might be taking responsibility for the actions of another?’

‘I know I didn’t kill Michael and Lucy. I know I have no direct responsibility for what happened. But I can’t escape the indirect responsibility. It’s what Carol believes too.’

‘If Carol didn’t hold you responsible, do you think you would feel this level of guilt? This is not the first time that victims have died in the course of an investigation you’ve been party to. I’ve sat in this room and listened to your grief on that score. But all I have heard from you in terms of responsibility is a wish that you could have done better or done differently. Not this scourging guilt.’

And this time, Tony had no instant reply. At last, he said, ‘Adler would have had a field day with this, right?’

‘How might he have characterised this, do you think? How would you characterise it if a patient presented with this shift in their belief system?’

‘I’d think it was hubris. I had a friend once. She knew me when I was a teenager. She was kind to me, but she thought I needed toughening up. She used to say, “You’re like a man with a big nose who thinks everybody’s talking about him. Well, they’re not, and the sooner you thicken that skin of yours, the happier you’ll be.”’

‘Was she right, do you think?’

Tony gave a rueful chuckle. ‘I don’t think I ever learned the lesson. I’ve always thought that was why I had such powerful empathy.’

Jacob nodded, so slight a movement that Tony wondered whether he’d imagined it. ‘And still you haven’t answered the question. If Carol didn’t hold you responsible, do you think you would feel this level of guilt?’

‘Probably not.’ The honesty was hard but there was no point in being here if he didn’t try.

‘And if this source of feeling bad about yourself was reduced or removed, do you think the other things that are causing you difficulties would be made easier?’

‘That’s one of those questions that provokes only one answer,’ Tony said, an edge of annoyance in his voice.

‘And that may well be why you need to ask it.’ Jacob sighed. He closed his notebook and put it on the floor next to him, pen aligned with the end. ‘Tony, I’ve been your supervisor for many years. I like to think I have formed a good idea of how you function. I know you have made an accommodation with aspects of your personality that many people would find problematic. I also know you want to move forward in your practice and in your personal life. For a long time, Carol Jordan has been the centre of your emotional life. At times, she has appeared to be the only component of your emotional life. Would that be a fair assessment?’

Tony’s shoulders were tightening involuntarily. He had an uneasy sensation in his stomach. Jacob had never spoken to him in these terms. He’d probably never actually said so much in the whole of a session before. ‘I do have other friendships,’ he said, hearing his own defensiveness. And who were those other friends, when the chips were down? Paula? Alvin Ambrose? Cops who had been colleagues and had grown into more than that. But not the kind of friends most people had. Nobody he went to the football with. Nobody he was on a pub quiz team with. Nobody he’d kept up with from his student days. Nobody he went hillwalking with. Not even anybody he regularly gamed with online.

‘The only one you’ve been bringing into this room for years is Carol.’

‘You think it’s going nowhere, don’t you? You think it’s holding me back? Trapping me in the same place?’

Jacob breathed heavily and pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up to the bridge of his nose in a rare moment of fidgeting. ‘It’s not what I think that matters. But we both know there is significance in you even asking those questions in those terms.’

Tony’s expression was bleak, his eyes blank. ‘In so far as I’ve ever loved anyone, I love Carol.’ Even to say it was a wrench, like something twisting in his gut.

‘What would happen if you let that feeling go?’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t just let feelings go.’

‘You can allow time to release you from them. Grief and mourning are part of the process, but there is a process. When you clear out the attic, it’s amazing what you make room for.’ Jacob sighed again. ‘It’s not my job as a supervisor or as a therapist to tell you what to do. But I will say this: living with so much pain is neither healthy nor necessary. You need to look at your life and decide what really serves you. And what you should let go.’

‘You’ve helped me understand one thing today. If it had been anyone else’s brother, I would feel bad about it. But I wouldn’t be taking all the weight. I need to think about what that means for me.’

‘You don’t have to carry this alone. You can always bring it here. And as you reminded me, you have friends. You will find comfort.’ Abruptly, he stood up. ‘Would you wait a moment?’

Jacob left the room without a backward glance. Baffled, Tony stared at the closed door. Jacob had never walked out of a session before, no matter how challenging it had become. What was going on? Had his supervisor heard something outside the room that he’d missed? He fretted over what had happened, finding that easier than returning to his own problems.

And then Jacob was back, carrying a slim hardback book with an olive-green and cream jacket. He handed it to Tony.
Rings on a Tree
by Norman MacCaig. ‘I don’t know how you feel about poetry. But I find it helpful as a way of interrogating myself and my own process. There is a poem in this collection, “Truth for Comfort”. I think it would be a good place for you to start.’

‘You want me to cure myself with
poetry
?’ He couldn’t help his incredulity showing. Jacob, that rigorous psychologist, suggesting poetry was like Elinor Blessing suggesting crystal healing as a cancer treatment.

Jacob smiled, settled into his chair. ‘There is no cure for what ails us, Tony. But I think we can manage something better than palliative care, don’t you? And so, how is work?’

That was one of the things Tony liked about working with Jacob. He didn’t linger once the patient had understood his next step. ‘I’m on a part-time contract at Bradfield Moor again,’ he said. ‘They seem happy to have me back. And I like the work.’ He outlined the bare bones of his clinical practice, explaining his thinking in a couple of interesting cases.