Burn Patterns (33 page)

‘You are making a very good case for the prosecution.'

Iris glared.

Gillian said, ‘Yet, looking through your files and the notes accompanying every stage of uncovering the incest, the police charges and your process in Rodney's subsequent treatment in remand, your behaviour is above reproach. Some shorthand in the notes but it is all there, caring, diligent, procedurally correct.'

Iris smiled. Gillian was speaking impeccable psychologist. It was easy to forget she was good at her job, and a top-shelf advocate.

Gillian said, ‘In fact, looking at the files and knowing all the shit that was going down in you and around you, it's amazing you functioned so well. You are a bloody machine.'

‘I can compartmentalise.'

‘Maybe some of the compartments might have lower walls or a spring clean.'

Iris sipped her tea. Gillian gulped her coffee.

Iris said, ‘What can we do for Kimberly Fitzmorris?'

‘Right. We could work up a few ideas about her treatment. A list of the best people who work with children, especially in abuse, would be a start. We need to let her mother vent. She needs to. She's still fighting her own guilt, her inner doubts about complicity. Her mother is sick, isn't she?'

‘Damn. I forgot to ask about her mother.'

‘Shame on you. Anyway, no one operates in a vacuum. It did
happen, Iris. You planted nothing. The words are Kimberly's. She has years of treatment ahead and her mother has to admit the truth before we can start.'

‘Yes. I knew you'd understand, Gillian. I can pay for people.'

‘Not necessary.'

‘I want to.'

‘Let me talk to Patricia and the practice lawyers. Can't have an apparent admission of guilt, as you know.'

Iris guffawed, bitterly.

‘Lovey,' said Gillian, ‘I didn't build any of this. I just know where some of the doors are.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Hey.'

‘You're right. If anyone can find a way of making this happen quietly, actually happen, I've come to the right person.'

‘Can my kids swim in your pool?' Her eyes were narrowed.

Iris said, ‘How can I refuse. Your ten year old son watches
The Sopranos
.'

‘We'll leave the machine guns and the horse's head at home, if you cooperate.'

‘Deal.'

Iris got up, as did Gillian. They hugged.

‘Ow,' said Iris, adding, when Gillian stepped back, ‘a recent wound. It will heal.'

Iris drove to Frank's house, an old stone place high on the hill overlooking the harbour.

Frank's wife, Janine, opened the door. ‘Iris!'

‘Janine. How are you?'

‘I'm wrapping. For Christmas.' Janine led Iris down their dark central hallway. The walls were entirely covered with generations of family photographs from around the world. The house smelt of old flowers and cabbage. ‘I'll tell him you're here.'

‘He's not expecting me.'

‘Oh. Oh, well. Hmm. All right.'

‘I'll go out the back, Janine. It's such a lovely day.'

‘Yes dear.'

Iris passed a Christmas tree in the lounge room, wrapping paper, presents and ribbons on the gnarled kitchen table. Soup simmered. Light flooded in from the French doors that opened onto limestone steps down to their small backyard.

The jacaranda still bloomed but had shed flowers. The grass and huge weathered table were covered in purple, abuzz with foraging bees. Iris looked out over the railing at the river, bridges and cranes of the port beyond. The sky was immense.

Rufus, the dog, appeared from a cool place around the side, trotted to Iris, his tail wagging, head bending for a sniff and pat. The children named this one, a constantly moulting, fat golden retriever. Iris realised Rufus reminded her of Frank. Their previous dog had been an ugly Pekinese with bug eyes named Ziggy Freud. A rather obvious joke, Frank lamented. Rufus went away, came back with a rancid-looking bit of pulling rope.

‘'Fraid not, Rufus.'

‘Might need to put in for a new one of those from Father Christmas, I think. Although they are only any good apparently if infused with slobber and gooz.' Frank eased himself down his back steps. He wore big orange shorts, slippers, an enormous t-shirt with the psychedelic design of a motorbike on the front.

‘Gooz. What a good word.'

‘You're looking at the t-shirt.'

‘Where do you hide your hog?'

‘Was a time when I rode wild and free. The kids never believed the war stories. They taunt me every chance they get. This one is nearly restful.'

He hugged her, holding her in the hug.

Iris suppressed a groan in spite of her sore shoulder.

When he released her, he scanned her eyes. ‘You look well.'

‘You sound surprised.'

‘Not now I think about it.' He took the back of one of the chairs, tipped it forward so the jacaranda blossoms cleared, offered it to Iris. ‘The bees only sting if you sit on them.' He went to the other side of the table, performing the same operation before sitting.

‘I've tried to get through to you.'

‘I'm sure. I'm sorry.'

‘Busy.'

Frank sighed. He projected enormous pain. ‘I was constrained, Iris.'

‘It doesn't matter,' she said, not meaning it. ‘Gooz.'

‘I need to explain. You aren't answering your phone, by the way.'

‘Oh. The police have it, or ASIO.'

‘Ah. Okay, well … when James Jules escaped from Fieldhaven …'

‘Have you been talking to him?'

‘Yes.' He saw her eagerness, grimaced. ‘When he escaped, questions were asked, fingers were ready to point. I'm sure I was a suspect. Why did I move him from Biara to Fieldhaven, and then why from Park to the less secure Grange Wing? And then move him again … Where is the drug cabinet? Where was I when …? They moved onto questions about you and your relationship with the patient.'

Iris waited.

‘I invoked patient confidentiality, Iris. Which, as the Hollywood people found during the McCarthy trials, is tantamount to a confession. One of the consequences is the intense focus on you as a suspect.'

‘Yes.'

Frank waited.

Iris said, ‘It's all right, Frank.'

‘We were both being isolated. They also needed me to give any views on where James might be and what he might do.'

‘Me too.'

‘Then you got the church.'

‘Anyone could have done that. Rather obvious.'

‘Afterwards, yes.' Frank grimaced again, looking down towards the harbour. Iris watched his mood lighten. ‘A team of us have been interviewing him. I'm writing up the implications now. All kinds of things are coming out of this.'

Janine brought down two mugs of herbal tea, a battered hat for Frank. ‘Don't tell him, but he's going thin on top.'

‘Is this a calming tea or an energetic tea, Janine?' said Iris sniffing at it.

‘I think it's good for your liver and bowels.'

‘Which can never be a bad thing,' said Iris to comfortable laughter.

Janine headed straight back inside, used to the need for privacy of most of Frank's visitors.

Iris sipped the sweet bitterness. She detected raspberry.

Frank looked out into the water, possibly adding notes to himself about the case.

‘So what did we miss, Frank? How did he fool us?'

Frank grimaced yet again. A convocation of grimaces? A scar of regret?

Iris said, ‘You put me in the middle, Frank. To assess. You have to let me know where I went wrong.'

‘What do you know about Dissociative Identity Disorder?'

‘Split personalities. The Three Faces of Eve. Very rare. Contested. Distinct identities. James Jules is separate and distinct from James the Martian? Is that what you're saying?'

Frank beamed. ‘We've found another.'

‘Another personality?'

‘Yes.'

‘Makes sense. Is it a child?'

‘Good point. There's evidence the psyche learns to defend itself during childhood trauma through this compartmentalising. It's a learned defence and these other personalities grow, taking over in different circumstances, almost like specialists. James the Victim is not James the Martian is not James Jules. We haven't found a child. Not yet. We've found an identity called Zeus.'

‘Zeus.' Iris's head was spinning. Zeus. The zed of Zorro. She said, ‘So, James does not know of Zeus's existence?'

‘He does. Now.'

‘Why now?'

‘Well, we suspect the electrocution. Like an accidental ECT. He had residual drugs in his system, then the electric shock, he achieved new clarity once they revived him. There is also your … final session with him might have incited a confrontation and confusion too. Which might be why he came after you at the zoo. Not as James Jules, though. It was Zeus, seeing you as a threat to Zeus but also a threat to James Jules as the primary identity and main custodian of the shared body. The Martian might have evolved out of the infanticide trauma, but we propose the Martian identity would have established itself earlier. It took over after the child killing because James Jules couldn't cope. Zeus, on the other hand, could regularly pop out to do his business, as he has been doing for some time. The core of both identities would have formed during middle childhood. Detective Pavlovic has a long list of potential crimes the identity who became Zeus may have perpetrated.'

Clever Detective Pavlovic. ‘Does James know of these crimes?'

‘More details emerge with more questions.'

‘He's available for them? His … um, physical body has no alibis?'

‘Being checked. It accounts for why you and I saw no signs. Our patient wasn't privy to the information himself. He is not the person who committed those crimes. His acting out may well
have been a cry for help concerning Zeus as well as his children. By the way, Zeus might have committed that crime, seeing the children as a threat to Zeus's freedoms. James Jules wakes up in the midst of it, an innocent bystander.'

‘Is this another game?'

‘To what purpose?'

‘I'm mad, not bad. Put me in an institution, not prison. I'll look for a way to escape again.'

‘Yes. We have many sessions ahead.'

‘So if you haven't met Zeus, and if he doesn't remember Zeus, how …?'

‘He knows details, even though he's talking in the third person. Zeus did the school. The zoo. He got quite upset about the zoo. He kept asking if you were all right.'

Iris watched the dog stand, stretch in the shade of the tree. She said, ‘James said he was allergic to dogs.'

‘Yes. I make him sneeze.'

‘The bomber, if it's Zeus, has dogs. Lots.'

Frank glanced at Rufus as though inviting input before he said, ‘If the allergy is psychosomatic, it is reasonable to suggest one identity might be allergic while another is not. In fact, if the identities were playing off each other, if, say, the James identity suspected the Zeus identity, he might well have a reaction as a projection, a projection of protest. Massive speculation of course.' Frank was quite excited by it all.

He went on, ‘I asked him if he'd known about Zeus and he said not until he woke in hospital. I asked if he remembered James the Martian. He does. He calls you Jodie Foster. You are sad but you make him happy. I asked if he remembered James Jules and he said, “Quite clearly. I know who I am.” It's a breakthrough. It's almost sudden. I know you gave him a nudge with your hypnosis and I know I joked about the electric shock, yet we must acknowledge we have arrived at a special climax in relation to his inner crisis. His core identity, his biographic namesake, James Jules, has possibly risen up to try to quell Zeus now James the Martian has failed, possibly died. That battle was fought under the church. A massive metaphor, possibly irresistible to both Zeus and James Jules. He's still confused. Oh,
and he said he intentionally grabbed the cord. He thought it the best way to save himself from Zeus.' Frank stopped talking. His smile had become a little delirious.

‘You said Detective Pavlovic was present.'

‘Yes. Detectives, other psychologists who have been on the case, military. It's a bit of a feeding frenzy, already. People are jumping on planes all around the world to get at James. Pavlovic is still asking questions about you, if that is what you want to know. He asked James if Jodie helped him, and he said yes. Pavlovic clarified, “With the school?” and he said no. Later Pavlovic asked why he used the bomb chemical he used. James explained the chemical properties. Pavlovic asked how James knew so much about the chemical. He was a laboratory technician! You were right about his science background. It all clicks into place, afterwards. Someone asked him why Zeus wanted to blow up the school. He said it seemed sexy, ripe for the taking. Oblivious and smug. He thought it suitably challenging. James does not like Zeus at all. He scares him. He described him as vicious and callous.

Frank regarded Iris, steepling his fingers. He entered lecture mode. ‘James swears Zeus tried to kill him. I've been reading up on this. Subsidiary identities can fear they will be ended when the primary identity is “cured”. Why it's essential they are offered integration back into a whole personality with all the memories of all the identities. This raises a central ethical question. Well, it's not really a question and it is perhaps legal rather than ethical. Should Zeus be allowed continued existence? Is Zeus sufficiently independent to be regarded as the legal entity to be charged with heinous crimes; and contingent on that, is James Jules innocent? It's one body. One jail cell, but … the legal implications are mind-blowing. Excuse the pun.'

‘Can I read your report?'

‘No.'

‘When can I see him?'

‘I don't think that would be wise.'

‘He's tried to kill me. Zeus will come out for me, Frank.'