The Winter Foundlings (18 page)

‘That’s just a game. He hasn’t forgiven Nash for writing
The Kill Principle
without his permission.’ I felt like refusing to help. Without me to rely on, Nash would be exposed as hopelessly out of date. But it wasn’t a competition – all that mattered was bringing the two girls home alive. ‘All right, Don. I’m not thrilled, but I’ll play the game. Let me know when you need me.’

He left straight away, clearly amazed to avoid another row, and when I looked out of the window Alan Nash was arriving with his entourage. Tania was striding across the ice in her spiked heels, clutching a box of papers. Three uniforms were scanning the rooftops, as if they were checking for snipers. As they reached the entrance to the Laurels, Gorski appeared, and I raced out of the office, fascinated to see the two superegos collide.

The two men were so busy squaring up to each other that they didn’t notice me loitering in the corridor. Gorski had a six-inch height advantage, and he looked as hostile as ever. Clearly it wasn’t just me he objected to – even eminent professors received the same cold shoulder.

‘I hope you’ll follow safety protocols while you’re in my department, Professor. You know the violence Kinsella is capable of.’

He gave a curt nod. ‘It’s good of you to brave the cold to welcome me, Dr Gorski.’

The professor swept past like he had no time to waste. His victorious smile indicated that he’d toppled an emperor from his throne, and Gorski muttered a string of Polish expletives. If we’d been on better terms I’d have bought him a coffee as a consolation prize. His irritation was still visible when he turned to me.

‘I believe you’re observing my parole board, Dr Quentin.’

‘Thanks, I’d like to see your release procedures in action.’

‘Follow me then. We’re about to start.’

Gorski was silent as we walked to the boardroom. As usual I had to trot to keep up with his hectic pace, and it was obvious he was in no mood to talk. The other members of the board had already gathered in the meeting room. Judith smiled at me across a sea of papers, and I recognised two consultant psychiatrists from the Maudsley, and the head of clinical psychology from Rampton. Two parole requests were being considered at the meeting. One inmate was asking for a prison transfer, and the second was hoping for unconditional release.

When the first inmate arrived, I could tell his chances were slim. He’d been sentenced for assault eight years before, after knifing a man outside a nightclub in Sunderland, and he’d never expressed remorse. His schizophrenia had been diagnosed by a prison psychiatrist. He was fidgeting in his chair, scratching his face with talon-like fingernails. His hair was so lank, it couldn’t have been washed for weeks.

‘Tell us why you should return to prison, Neil,’ Gorski asked.

‘I don’t belong here,’ he snapped. ‘My daughter shouldn’t have to visit her dad in a nuthouse. Plenty of blokes in prison have done worse than me.’

‘There’s a note on your file, saying you’ve been threatening your guards. Can you tell us about that?’

The man’s fists clenched in his lap. ‘They’ve got it in for me, the whole lot of them.’

It took less than five minutes for the board to agree unanimously to reject his parole application. It would be considered again a year later, if he agreed to attend counselling sessions, and took a different course of anti-psychotics.

The next case was more complex. The man’s name was Jamie, and he looked nervous when he arrived, eyes darting round the room, looking for sympathy. He’d been at the Laurels for five years, following two violent rapes. According to his notes he’d made significant progress. He was in therapy with Judith and seemed to be serious about tackling his issues; he had also elected to take medication to suppress his sex drive. The man answered each question calmly and thoughtfully.

‘Do you still have violent sexual fantasies?’ one of the consultants asked.

‘Not for a year or more. I’ve learned to stop the thoughts as soon as they arrive,’ he replied.

Judith tried to persuade the board that he was contrite and safe for release, but his application was rejected on the grounds that his violence could return if he was left unsupervised.

I flicked through my papers as they closed the meeting. Only one parole application from the Laurels had been granted in the last two years: an inmate had been released into the care of Brixton Prison to complete his life sentence. The company of crooks must have seemed preferable to the lunatic howls on the sixth floor, even though his living conditions would be far worse.

Judith approached me when the room emptied. She was wearing her usual array of jewellery, wrists burdened by bracelets that could double as handcuffs. I remembered how she’d looked at Chris Steadman’s party, wrapped around Garfield Ellis like clinging ivy.

‘Do you fancy a drink tonight?’ she asked.

‘God, yes. I could use one right now.’

We agreed to meet at the Rookery later and I felt glad to have bumped into her for two reasons. I was curious about her secret relationship, and the pub’s noise would help me forget about Alan Nash.

A message had arrived from Burns when I got back to my office, inviting me to observe Kinsella’s interview. I gritted my teeth as I put on my coat, knowing that Nash would be overjoyed that I’d been relegated to the sidelines. The air was so cold that it felt like stepping into a giant freezer, and I crossed the quadrangle at my quickest pace. The Met had been given a palatial interview suite on the Campbell Building’s second floor. It had its own observation room, normally used by psychology trainees watching their supervisors carrying out assessments. The professor’s voice greeted me when I arrived, ringing with false goodwill.

‘No hard feelings, I hope, Alice?’

I took care not to blink. ‘None at all, Alan.’

‘Good.’ His bouffant hair quivered when he nodded. ‘We all want the same thing, don’t we? And Kinsella and I are old acquaintances.’

I tried not to ill-wish him as he walked into the interview suite. When I gazed through the door, every surface seemed to be fashioned from glass, and two chairs faced each other, either side of a thick transparent screen. Clearly Nash wanted Kinsella’s secrets, but had no intention of breathing the same air.

Burns was waiting in the observation room and I sat down beside him, forcing myself to concentrate on the task in hand.

‘There’s someone you should talk to,’ I said. ‘Brian Knowles has been a volunteer at the Foundling Museum for decades. He could tell you who Kinsella was close to when he was there.’

A light flashed on behind Burns’s eyes as he scribbled the name in his notebook, then I turned away to look through the observation window. Nash’s back was turned to us, and he seemed to be completing elaborate preparation rituals. He kept squaring his shoulders, and picking invisible threads from his jacket. When Burns’s phone rang a second later, he listened to the message then groaned loudly.

‘Kinsella says he’s ill. He won’t leave his cell.’

My panic rose even higher. Nothing would give the headmaster more pleasure than seizing power: gloating over the fact that the police were under his control, while the girls’ suffering increased every day. If she was still alive, Ella must be hypothermic, and Amita was in danger of lapsing into a coma. Only Nash was oblivious to Kinsella’s act of manipulation. The professor was still sitting in his glass box, waiting for his nemesis, sublimely confident that he would be the hero of the hour.

25

Judith seemed gripped by anxiety when we met at the Rookery that evening. She took a deep breath, as if she was planning to dive under water for a long time.

‘No one else saw me with Garfield, did they?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Thank God for that. It’s such a mess, Alice. Not long ago I was married and everything was normal.’

‘But something happened?’

‘My husband said I was a workaholic, but that was just an excuse. He’d already met someone.’

‘How long have you and Garfield been seeing each other?’

‘Two years. He’s so paranoid about his wife finding out, I can’t even phone him. Sometimes I think he’ll crack under the strain – he’s terrified of losing his kids.’

‘But you’re in love with him?’ Judith didn’t need to reply, her eyes glistening. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘It sounds painful.’

Being a psychologist had stopped me making judgements about other people’s love lives. I’d watched my clients suffer every emotional extreme for the sake of romance, from incest and desertion, to neglect and suicide. By comparison, Judith’s fling with Garfield was a drop in the ocean.

‘When the kids are older, he says we can live together,’ she whispered.

Judith was dry-eyed and calm again, and I wondered if she genuinely believed his promises. Apparently Garfield’s wife was a churchgoer with strong views on separation. She believed that people who deserted their children should be denied access, and the idea of losing his three daughters was more than he could bear.

‘Everyone knows everyone at work,’ Judith said. ‘If word got out, she’d know in minutes. The place is full of Chinese whispers.’

I wondered if the stress of Judith’s job had triggered the affair. Some people might argue that Kinsella had brought them together; she and Garfield had spent more time alone with him than anyone else at Northwood. When I looked around the pub, the place was heaving, the usual crowd of bedlam refuseniks milling by the bar, and it seemed like a good time to change the subject.

‘Do you know Pru Fielding well?’ I asked. The art therapist had stuck in my mind since Chris Steadman’s party; it’s an occupational hazard to worry about people who seem to be in psychological pain.

‘Not really, she’s a bit of a loner. We went for a drink before Christmas, and she let out a few secrets. I don’t think she’s ever had a serious relationship. Her crush on Chris seems to have started as soon as she got here.’

‘She’s liked him for two years?’

‘Unrequited, sadly. Pity, isn’t it?’ Judith glanced at me. ‘What have you been up to anyway? I hear the police are talking to Louis again.’

‘Except he’s not playing ball.’

A frown appeared on Judith’s face. ‘I’m not surprised – Alan Nash is Louis’s worst enemy. When he first arrived, Nash paid regular visits. He promised him a prison transfer, but never followed through. I think he was just collecting details for his book.’

My thoughts slotted into place. The reason Nash wanted to see Kinsella again was crystal clear. In his sequel to
The Kill Principle,
he could cast himself as the genius of forensic psychology. The only problem was that Kinsella despised him, and had nothing to gain from compliance.

‘Did Kinsella make progress during your therapy sessions with him?’ I asked.

Judith shook her head. ‘He was unreachable. The only reason he came was to gain support for a return to prison, but I refused.’

‘You think he’d hurt people there?’

She nodded vigorously. ‘Violence and killing are the only things that make him feel alive.’

‘But he never spoke about his crimes?’

‘I steered him away from it. We focused on his childhood mainly: he was exiled to a boarding school in Kent when he was seven. His parents sent postcards from exotic countries while he got beaten up.’

‘It sounds like you pity him.’

‘Sympathy and understanding are different, aren’t they? There’s no justification for what he did, but his childhood gives it a context.’ Judith’s expression was so sombre, it looked like she’d witnessed every type of human suffering. But after a few seconds her face brightened again. ‘Look who’s arrived.’

Chris Steadman had walked into the bar, with Tom a few yards behind.

‘Are those two close?’ I asked.

‘God, yes. The lost boys. They’re thick as thieves.’

They were queuing shoulder to shoulder for drinks, and Tom was chatting animatedly for once. From a distance the two men looked like brothers. It was only when I studied them more closely that the differences were obvious. Tom was the picture of health, but Chris was skinny rather than slim, his peroxide hair an artificial copy of his friend’s.

‘An odd couple, aren’t they?’ Judith commented. ‘Chris is happy-go-lucky, but poor Tom’s a victim of his past. The only thing they’ve got in common is their IQ.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re both super-bright. Chris was a star student on his Masters course and Tom won a scholarship to Oxford. Don’t be fooled by the physique – the guy’s as sharp as they come.’ She observed my stunned expression from the corner of her eye. ‘Are you still seeing each other?’

‘Not any more, relationships aren’t my strong point. But how did Tom end up running the gym if he’s such an intellectual?’

She gave an enigmatic smile. ‘Ask him yourself. I’m not sharing any more secrets tonight.’

Judith carried on drinking whisky long after I switched to mineral water, and we stayed in the pub until closing time. It was clear that her relationship with Garfield gave her more pain than pleasure. At eleven o’clock I was relieved when she called a taxi, instead of trying to drive home. Her words were slurred when she leant down to kiss me goodbye.

‘Thanks for listening, Alice. One day I’ll return the favour.’

Through the window I watched her totter across the icy pavement to the waiting taxi. I finished my drink and steeled myself to go back into the cold. I was pleased to have avoided an awkward encounter with Tom, even though I couldn’t help feeling intrigued by the mysteries that surrounded him. But when I reached the porch, he was standing directly in front of me, putting on his coat, blocking my escape route.

‘I’d hate to think you were following me.’ A slow grin dawned on his face. He seemed to be waiting for me to collapse into his arms.

‘Maybe it’s the other way round. You turn up everywhere I go.’

‘It’s just lucky timing.’ His hand settled on my waist. ‘Why don’t you come back to mine?’

His offer was incredibly tempting. Even if it meant nothing, sleeping with him would wipe my mind clean as a new blackboard.

‘I’d better not. Tomorrow’s a busy day.’