Borderliners (19 page)

‘Do you mean that we should be ready to intervene sooner?’ asked Dr Gostik, his brow furrowed.

‘Well, something like that,’ said Dr Vaizey.

‘There’s something else, as well,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard things on the grapevine about an annual ceremony in which people who have displeased the community leaders are ‘cleansed of their sins’. In other words, punished in some way. This ceremony apparently takes place on the night of the village ball. As you know, this year’s event is happening in two weeks’ time, and we’re all attending. In the last couple of weeks I’ve certainly noticed higher anxiety levels in the people I’m worried about and I wondered if there might be a connection. I wanted to ask: have there been problems around this time of year in the past? Have you noticed increased levels of ill health amongst vulnerable people in the village?’

There was another silence.

‘Well, yes,’ Dr Vaizy said finally. ‘Everybody knows about
that
annual ceremony.’

Dr Rushden glared at him. ‘About what, Dr Vaizey?’

‘It’s the anxiety of my patients which worries me,’ I said.

Dr Rushden sighed. ‘I’m not sure what we can do. Look, what I want to get to here is this - we certainly don’t want anyone else swallowing tablets and turning up in the middle of our surgery in the way that Joan Mumford did. That was extremely unfortunate. We thought Elena might know something which might shed light on her suicide. She doesn’t. But she has her suspicions. We need to be cautious, too, and it won’t do any harm to keep our eyes open.’

‘So we just keep an eye on people? Nothing more?’ I said.

‘Yes. Everyone agreed?’ With this, Dr Rushden closed the item and moved on.

On the way out of the meeting, she stopped me, motioning that I should follow her to her consulting room. Taking my leave of the other doctors with a nod, I left the room behind Dr Rushden, noting how she bustled down the corridor in her neat, grey skirt suit. Her consulting room was tidy. There was a small bookshelf above her desk which displayed medical reference books filed by author in alphabetical order. The standard sink, scales, bed and trolley were in all the usual places, but there wasn’t a speck of dust on them nor a piece of equipment out of place. Even the antibacterial soap dispenser was full to the brim with no droplets oozing down onto the sink.

We sat down, Dr Rushden behind her desk and me on the seat opposite where the patient would normally sit, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl. I waited whilst the older woman fired up her computer and found the file she wanted to show me.

‘So I suppose you know what I wanted to talk to you about?’ she said, still tabbing through her folders. Without waiting for a reply, she tapped her forefinger on the enter key. ‘Ah! Here it is. Now.’ She turned the screen round to face me. ‘Four suicides in twelve months, all patients of yours. Is this normal in your view?’

I took a deep breath in. ‘Well, I’d expect a couple. Four seems a little anomalous but it’s not completely outside of the norm.’

Dr Rushden raised her eyebrows. ‘Not completely, no, but very much approaching abnormal. You see, we used to have a problem with suicides in this village, especially in the eighties and nineties when the miners lost their jobs and there was no work to replace it. But in the last few years we’ve managed to get on top of things. And with no need of a resident psychotherapist.’

I drew myself up so that I was sitting really straight and fixed her with a level gaze. ‘Dr Rushden. I can’t deny it’s a little odd. But, as I said in the meeting, I don’t believe things are right in this village. Why were all the people who took their own lives all members of the Charismatic Community?’

‘Well, half the village are members, Elena. It makes sense.’

‘Supposing it does,’ I conceded. ‘Why were all the suicide victims people who had recently fallen out of favour with the community?’

‘Very difficult to prove.’ I noticed how Dr Rushden’s lips had hardened into a straight, thin line. She took another breath. ‘You see, you’re delving into matters which are none of your business and none of mine either. As our colleagues said just now, our duty is to treat our patients’ symptoms. If you think something untoward is going on, that’s a matter to be brought to the attention of the police. We can keep an eye on things, but without proof we need to be very careful.’ There was another pause as she scrolled down the page with her mouse. ‘At the moment, Elena, it looks as if you are the link between these people. You found them all dead, you were treating them. If you make a fuss, it may backfire.’

I folded my arms across my chest. ‘As they say “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”,’ I quoted.

‘Hmmm. Have you thought that maybe this isn’t the ideal practice for you? Wouldn’t you be better off in a bigger town?’

‘I’m not a quitter.’

Dr Rushden tapped another key and her screen saver flashed up.

I got up. ‘I can’t give up on this, Sian.’

She nodded. ‘Well, I’ll be monitoring you. If you need to talk, my door is always open.’

I turned and left the room, rubbing my nose. Retaining my poise, I strode back down the corridor to my consulting room, trying to banish the red glow I could feel burning my cheeks. If Dr Rushden wasn’t on my side, she might be on theirs. I stopped in my tracks, my eyes wide as the realisation hit me that this had been the whole point of the notes. ‘Whoever is not for me is against me’? If I wasn’t on their side, I was the enemy, and the enemy would be dealt with. I wondered what this might entail, and in a sudden flash of empathy, I felt as I imagined my patients had. I put my head down and frowned. Maybe this time my dear neighbours had bitten off more than they could chew. I wasn’t one of the patients and I wasn’t vulnerable. In fact, quite the opposite: I was trained to stand up for those in need and more than willing to do so. I paced the remaining distance to my room, more determined than ever to continue my investigation into Julia and Iain’s community. Still, it took a few minutes for me to still the beating of my heart.

Later on Linda came in, as requested, but the appointment was peculiar and wrong-footed from the start. Her sister, Kate, came in with her. She was quite a bit older but smaller than Linda, and a little plumper. She had the same mousy hair and critical expression, although I felt she was more accepting of the curve balls life might throw at her. She was also cagey, although I had become accustomed to seeing this type of behaviour when people knew bad news was imminent.

I gestured for the two women to come in and apologised for the wait.

‘Hello Linda.’ I turned to her sister. ‘So you must be Kate?’

‘Yep.’

‘I'm glad you came actually,’ I said. ‘I wanted to talk to you both a bit more about Linda’s recent medical check-up, and Linda, about why you need to keep coming to me for treatment.’

‘I’ve been worried about Linda for some time,’ Kate interjected, whilst rummaging around in her bag for what looked like a children’s craft box with some sheets of paper inside. ‘Before we talk, I think you should have a read of this,’ she continued as she extracted some paper from the box. ‘I sent it to a mental health charity a few months ago, before Linda.…’ She tailed off, glancing at her sister for a moment as she handed me the sheets.

As she did so, I glanced back over at Linda, by her sister’s side. Her eyes had an empty and hopeless quality. Panning down to take in a slightly unkempt air, I was drawn to a pendant Linda was wearing around her neck on a black on a leather shoelace. A tiny sword encased by two skeletal hands, it glinted in the light. I swallowed.

Shaking my head to rid myself of the image, I looked at the sheets of paper Kate had given me. They contained an email Kate had sent to a charity some months ago. I caught sight of tears, well hidden with an inclination of the head, a hand and a quick smile. A prickling sensation crawled over me as I read it. Kate had included details, not only of her sister’s ill health, but of her connection with a certain ‘Charismatic’ group. I noticed she didn’t use the word ‘community’.

After a quick scan, I looked up from the letter. I knew most of Linda’s patient history, but her connection to the Charismatics concerned me. I had to bring this girl back into treatment, an easy enough job, but I couldn't reconcile the cold practicalities of this case with the feelings of unease which were slinking through my veins, causing my head to lighten and my stomach to turn. I noticed my hands were shaking slightly.

'Linda, can you tell me how you're feeling?' I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

The clock on the opposite wall beat time to a lengthening silence, cars came and went outside the surgery, and practice nurses laughed outside in the corridor. The stillness in the room elongated and enveloped us as I looked from Kate to Linda, and back to Kate again. Linda was wringing her hands and blinking fast. Although I fixed her with my kindest and most professional expression, I was unable to get anything back from her. As gently as I could, I explained to Linda that I thought it might be more helpful if I referred her to the hospital mental health unit.

Kate listened, lip curled and eyes glittering. ‘That’s what the charity said might happen.’

I addressed Linda directly. ‘I’m going to give you a letter and I want you to take it with you to the specialist at this address.’ I paused to print off the name of address of the hospital I referred people to under these circumstances. I also fired a quick email off to her GP, to let him know what was happening.

Linda cleared her throat. ‘I’m so afraid,’ she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper before falling into a mute silence again.

I waited for her continue but when she went back to staring blankly ahead, Kate got up.

‘Come on then, Linda,’ she said. ‘We’ve wasted enough of Dr Lewis’s time today. You can’t sit here staring into space forever.’ She pulled Linda up by the arm.

‘It doesn’t matter if you’re not ready to talk yet,’ I interjected. ‘But you must come back soon, if only to let me know how your appointment at the hospital went.’

The pair left the door open, leaving me to stare through the gap at their retreating backs. Just as the two women were about to turn the corner at the end of the corridor, Linda broke away and ran back towards me, fumbling in her jacket pocket as she did so. Breathless, she threw a folded piece of paper down on my desk. ‘I’m so afraid, I’m so afraid,’ she mumbled, terror replacing the former emptiness in her eyes. ‘Don’t tell Kate!’

Seeing that Kate was striding back down the corridor towards us, I took the folded paper without a word and put it in my top drawer, nodding wordlessly to Linda as I did so. Then I got up and accompanied Linda back to the door, patting her on the shoulders.

‘Try to take deep breaths. That will help with the anxiety. And come back and see me any time. The door is always open here for you.’

Kate reached the doorway and grabbed Linda by the arm. She looked flustered so I walked both women back to reception before giving them a sympathetic smile and bidding them goodbye a second time. When I returned to my consulting room I picked up the phone to ask Lucy to hold the next patient for a couple more minutes whilst I wrote up the appointment. She sounded irritated, as usual, but I was used to that and put the phone down before she could protest.

Sitting down at my desk, I unfolded Linda’s semi-crumpled page. The crackling of the paper under my fingertips gave it a fantastical quality of its own, almost as if it contained electricity between its folds. But when I saw what was printed there I dropped the page. I felt as if I had been stung.

It was a message which read in a scrawling hand:

‘You will be expected at the next outdoor gathering.’

I put down the paper, lost in thought, ignoring the insistent buzzing of the internal telephone which I knew would be Lucy badgering me to hurry up. Gathering myself together, I called up Linda’s notes on my computer and trawled through them. Unable to find anything untoward, I Googled Linda’s name. Reading down the results my eyes came to rest on an entry from the Charismatic Community newsletter, which was about a year old. I sat back and considered what I found, squinting at it warily.

‘Welcoming a new member to the flock!’
screamed the headline with a picture of Linda underneath flanked by Julia and Iain in front of their house. I scanned through it quickly, remembering that Linda had been welcomed into the Charismatic Community the year before. Now that I came to think of it, I remembered there had been a lot of activity around Julia and Iain's house that summer and someone in the village council had mentioned the rapid expansion of their organisation’s membership. Caught up with a boyfriend in another town and a whole heap of other distractions, I’d thought nothing of it. As I pondered it now, it occurred to me that there had been some untoward gossip at the village council. Some of my colleagues there had been less than impressed with the large numbers of villagers flocking to the Charismatic Community that summer. There had been speculation about unconventional practises and some of the council members viewed the community’s activities with suspicion. If I remembered rightly, one of the most disparaging had been Vince. I made a mental note to ask him about it at the next opportunity.

I shuffled closer to the computer. Although the doctors had taken the time to consider my concerns I felt alone among them. Dr Rushden was sceptical and the others were paying me lip service at best. I didn’t think they would be much help. Tapping on the keys I brought up my saved searches on links between cults and mental ill health. When my bookmarked page came up, I tabbed through, brooding over the various pieces of information I’d pulled up. It wasn’t enough yet, I needed more.

I tried a different tack, deciding to check out some more of the women in Julia’s prayer group. Previously I’d spent some time matching up some of the patients on my list with the people I’d seen in the community - at the party, the festival, the prayer group and other places. There weren’t any obvious connections, although Julia fit the bill of a charismatic leader. Such a person could be good or bad, so that in itself wasn’t what bothered me. But often charismatic leaders were found to head up cults and terrorist organisations. They could be great politicians or powerful criminals.