By the Time You Read This (28 page)

43

E
VEN THOUGH
C
ARDINAL’S CASELOAD
was lighter than usual, he still had to pay attention to the petty crimes that are the usual fare in a small city. Break-ins, robberies and assaults demanded investigation, and reams of paperwork had to be completed for court.

In the morning, he had helped track down the former Mrs. Rowley, but Delorme didn’t need him at the moment, so he was making quiet inquiries on the background of Dr. Bell. Internet searches led him to abstracts of papers the doctor had given, boards he had belonged to, degrees he held, and all his affiliations, past and present. He focused on the earliest of Bell’s associations—the Kensington Clinic in London, England. Unfortunately, both the doctors who had been there during Bell’s tenure informed Cardinal that they were far too busy to discuss a former colleague.

He had better luck with Dr. Irv Kantor at the Swindon General Hospital. Dr. Kantor spoke in the sorrowful tones of a former friend.

“I thought Frederick was a good psychiatrist,” Dr. Kantor said. “Hard-working, smart, productive, caring. Nobody had a better understanding of depression. No one.”

“But you sound doubtful,” Cardinal said.

“Well, then there was all the trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Frederick was a resident here, but he received a reprimand for over-prescribing—which meant he would never get a staff position.”

“Over-prescribing what?”

“Sleeping pills. I think the disciplinary committee thought he must’ve been an addict himself from the amount he was prescribing, but he wasn’t. He was just giving them to an awful lot of patients. A number of them committed suicide with the pills he prescribed.”

“Was he charged with malpractice?”

“One patient’s family tried to bring a charge, but they couldn’t get any psychiatrist to testify that it’s a gross error to prescribe sleeping pills to someone who is not sleeping—even if they are depressed. The most any of us could say is that we might not have prescribed so
many
pills. It might have been misjudgment, but not malpractice.”

“I’m surprised you’re telling me about it, then.”

“If that were all there was to it, I wouldn’t. But we live in a post-Shipman world—you’re aware of the physician who killed hundreds of patients?”

“Yes, I read about it. There had been suspicions about him for some time, as I recall, but one hospital did not inform another, is that right?”

“That’s right. Nobody talked to each other. And there was more about Frederick. He left Swindon shortly after the committee’s report. We had all liked him, but we also all breathed a sigh of relief when he left. He joined the Manchester Centre for Mental Health—it’s the biggest psychiatric hospital in the north. A couple of years after he went there, they had an extraordinary number of suicides, something like four times the rate in similar hospitals. There was a story in the papers and demands for a National Health investigation, but it didn’t happen for some reason. Frederick moved away, and I believe the matter was dropped.”

“Where did he move to?”

“I don’t know. Once he left here, our paths never crossed again.”

Cardinal put in a call to the Manchester hospital. The personnel department would tell him only the years of Bell’s employment, the Standards and Practice Committee chair refused to give anything at all without a British warrant, and the chief of psychiatry did not return his call.

Cardinal knew that the relationship between those who diagnose patients and those who actually look after them is often bumpy, if not openly hostile. Which was why his next call was to the head of nursing.

Police in Ontario are not normally allowed to gain information by outright subterfuge, and it was an indication of Cardinal’s overstressed state of mind that he, usually a stickler in matters of procedure, gave it barely a moment’s thought.

The Manchester head of nursing was a woman named Claire Whitestone, who had a mannish voice and a tone that suggested she had fifteen other things she would rather be doing than talking to one George Becker, assistant chief of nursing at Algonquin Bay Psychiatric.

“Algonquin Bay,” Sister Whitestone noted. “Sounds like a place where you might run into igloos and polar bears.”

“Bears and Indians,” Cardinal said. “No igloos.”

“What can I do for you?”

“We’ve got a serious problem over here and I need some help from your outfit. Some information. And your administration, your physicians? Well, it’s like talking to a brick wall.”

“You’ll get no sympathy from me, mate. I bang my head on those same walls every single day. Banes of my bloody existence. What’s the problem?”

“I need background on a psychiatrist who used to work with you. He had problems with a previous employer on matters of over-prescribing.”

“I already know who you’re talking about. If you want dirt on Frederick Bell, I can’t give it to you. Despite all the Shipman fuss, there are still all sorts of rules about sharing disciplinary records. It can be done, but it can’t be done quickly, and it can’t be done through me. You have to go through the—”

“Through the National Health Service. I know that.”

“They’re not going to give you anything over the phone, and neither am I. I assume you have laws against slander and libel in your country?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you’ll understand why I can’t tell you anything negative about that wonderful, wonderful man, that inspired physician, that shining beacon to us all.”

Cardinal definitely got the feeling she wished it were otherwise. He had an answer prepared.

“We’re going to request every record under the sun,” he told her. “But, as you say, that’s going to take time. Meanwhile, we’ve got people dying over here, and you may be able to save us a lot of time and actually save some lives.”

“Get on with it, Mr. Becker. We’re short-handed over here, it’s already been a hell of a day and I’m facing another shift.”

“I can put it to you very simply. We have a situation here where we have a suspiciously high number of suicides. All treated by the same psychiatrist.”

“Are you getting complaints from patients? Patients’ families?”

“One family member took a swing at the doctor—I’d call that a complaint. And another former patient says he kept encouraging her to write out a suicide note.”

A snort and its slight echo were transmitted to Cardinal via satellite.

“So let me put it to you this way: if we
were
to get a detailed report from your National Health Service on this doctor, would it be likely to show a similar pattern? Notice I have not named any doctor.”

“Noted and appreciated, Mr. Becker. If the National Health ever got off its collective arse and did a detailed investigation, it would indeed show similar occurrences here.”

“Was there any suggestion of foul play?”

“Other than negligence? Nothing official. But, you know, in my book, when someone jumps off a building—”

“Someone jumped?”

“I’m no bloody forensic expert, but I always found that one suspicious. Mind you, that’s just me. There was in fact a note and everything. But you say he was
asking
for notes, your doctor.”

“Yes. In at least two cases.”

“That doesn’t sound like good therapy to me. How does it sound to you?”

“Worthy of further investigation.”

“Frankly, Mr. Becker, you don’t sound like a nurse. What are you, exactly?”

“I’m a husband.” The word
widower
would not come to his tongue. It did not even enter his mind until
husband
was already out. “My wife went out one day to take some photographs. It appears she jumped to her death, leaving a note.”

There was the briefest of pauses.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Becker. I’m going to hang up now. You put your question simply, so I can answer it simply. Would an investigation show similarities between our caseload and Algonquin Bay Psychiatric’s? The answer to your purely hypothetical question is a very unhypothetical
yes.”

When he got back to the station, Mary Flower held up a plump padded envelope addressed to him.

“Looks like Christmas arrived early for you, John,” she said, and then she coloured. “Sorry. Stupid thing to say,” she muttered, and turned away.

There was no return address on the envelope. Cardinal took it back to his cubicle, opened it and slid the contents onto his desk. Six shiny
DVDS
.

44

T
HE
DVDs
WERE IN
plain white sleeves with clear plastic windows—no labels save for a white strip on the back where a number was written in blue ink. The numeral seven was written in the Continental style, with a cross through the shaft. Cardinal shoved the discs back into the envelope and went into the boardroom, shutting the door behind him.

There was a large television on a trolley with a combination VCR/DVD player underneath. It was used for reviewing interviews with suspects, procedures at a crime scene and so on. Cardinal pulled a disc from the envelope and stuck it into the machine.

Onscreen: Dr. Bell’s office—the books, the rugs, the oak furniture, the comfortable chairs, all beckoning you to sit down, relax, reveal your heartbreak. All is soft and welcoming here. A young man with thinning sandy hair is seated in the middle of the couch, one ankle crossed over a knee and one hand clasping that ankle. On the surface it’s a posture of comfort and informality, but the jiggling foot gives away a certain nervousness, and the jerky movements of his head speak of someone who is uncomfortable in this office, in the world, perhaps in his own body: Perry Dorn, who killed himself in the laundromat. Cardinal recognized him from pictures on the TV news. Off to one side sits Dr. Bell, notebook propped open on one knee.

The young man spills out his anguish: how he had loved mathematics, how he had turned down an offer from McGill University in order to stay near the woman he is obsessed with, and how she has dumped him. Despair cries out in every crack in his voice, in the defeated slump of his shoulders. The acid of self-loathing burns and sizzles over his words, even those of forced cheer. But the good doctor doesn’t suggest an admission to hospital. Instead, he asks for details on how Margaret, the young man’s beloved, has devastated him.

And then they talk about how he can’t be sure Margaret would even notice his suicide, she’s so preoccupied with her new lover.

“I was just thinking of the laundromat,” Dr. Bell says. “I was thinking how, when you started going out with Margaret, it seemed symbolic. You said yourself it was like you were starting out clean. I remember thinking that a witty remark. Neither of you carrying germs, you said—I’m sure that was your word—of previous relationships. And I was wondering …”

“The laundromat,” Perry says, and tosses a Kleenex onto the coffee table. “Yeah, she’d have to notice the laundromat.”

Cardinal replaced the disc with another. Leonard Keswick, the civil servant who had killed himself after child pornography was discovered on his computer. As a senior administrator at Community and Social Services, Keswick had crossed paths with Cardinal at various civic functions, and Cardinal had often seen him on the evening news.

He fast-forwarded through the preliminaries.

“You know what my wife did when she found out?” Keswick says. “She spit on me. She actually spit on me. In my face. My own wife.” He bursts into tears. Dr. Bell waits patiently in his chair until howls subside into sobs, sobs into sniffles.

“How did the police find out?” Keswick wails, muffled behind a Kleenex. “How could they have known?”

“Didn’t they tell you?” Bell asks with apparent concern. “Surely they have to give you some idea of the evidence?”

“Evidence? The evidence was on my computer! It was full of pictures of thirteen-year-old girls. I don’t know how they found out. All they would say was they were ‘acting on information received.’”

“What do you suppose they mean by that?” Dr. Bell says. He shifts in his seat, rolls his shoulders and cocks his head this way and that, his doglike tics becoming more pronounced.

“I don’t know. Maybe something to do with the Internet portal or provider or whatever they call it. Not that it matters. I’m going to lose my job, I’m probably going to lose my family. And I’m in hell, Doctor, that’s the truth. It’s like I’ve already died and gone to hell, and I just don’t know what to do.”

Keswick had always seemed such a self-possessed, confident person, and now here he was unravelling on his psychiatrist’s couch.

Cardinal began to understand now how Bell’s patients could be completely taken in by his surface warmth. His manner spoke of open arms, a glowing hearth, unconditional positive regard. Cardinal himself had dissolved in the presence of that manner when he had first come to Bell; he had even asked him for advice. All these patients—Catherine, too—coming to the doctor with nothing but a wish for help, for a strong, dependable hand to extract them from the tar pit of despair. Who would suspect that the man who extended it would at the same time be pushing them back down? It brought to Cardinal’s mind the classic definition of seduction: warm manner, low intent.

The date stamp in the corner of the image put the Keswick interview about a year ago, the month of his suicide.

Cardinal ran the disc back a little and hit Play.

“All they would say was they were ‘acting on information received,’” Keswick says miserably.

And from the doctor: “What do you suppose they mean by that?”

“As if you didn’t know, Doctor.” Cardinal hit the Stop button. “As if you didn’t know.”

He pulled another disc out of the envelope. There was a yellow sticky on the front, on which was written in neat script
I’m so sorry for your loss
.

A moment later Catherine appeared on the television screen, and Cardinal’s breathing stopped. His hand, without his willing it, reached out toward her.

Catherine sits in the centre of the couch, hunched forward with her hands clenched between her knees, a posture habitual with her when discussing something of intense interest, the earnest student.

Bell is relaxed, thoughtful, one leg crossed over the other, notepad as always on knee.

“I’ve been feeling much better lately,” Catherine says. “Remember last time I was worried that I was just on the edge of a depressive episode?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t feel that way now. It was just a little anxiety about my project. I’m going to be doing a series of shots at different times of the day—starting with night shots. But it’s going to be precise times of the day: 9 a.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m.”

“I believe you told me they would be aerial shots of some kind?”

“High shots, not aerial. I wanted to take the first set from the cathedral spire, but they won’t give me permission. So I’m shooting my first night photos tonight—you know the new Gateway building just off the bypass?”

“Oh, yes. I didn’t think it was finished yet.”

“It’s mostly finished. I have a friend who lives there, so I’m heading over tonight with my cameras. She’s going to take me up onto her roof—they have a deck out there—and I’m going to take shots over the city. Supposed to be a moon tonight, too, so it should be pretty spectacular.”

Cardinal could hear the enthusiasm in her voice. The doctor could not have missed it either.

“Your friend will be there with you?” Bell says. “I thought you always worked alone.”

“She’s just going to get me out to the roof and then she’s off to a rehearsal. So I’ll have the roof all to myself.”

“So, what’s changed from last week? Last week you were feeling hopeless about your work.” Bell flips back through his notebook. “‘I don’t know why I bother,’ you said. ‘I’ve never done anything worthwhile. Nobody cares about my pictures, and they probably never will.’”

Her own words hit her hard. The change in her face is dramatic, the sudden droop at the corners of her eyes, her mouth open slightly.

She trusts you, Cardinal thought. She’s completely open with you. Catherine is usually far more guarded, especially about her work. But with you she opens right up. She wants your help. She wants your help to fight off her own dark impulses. How did you repay that trust?

“That was …” she begins, then sags a little. “That was …”

“You were thinking you should quit photography altogether. That it was pointless to go on with it. I don’t mean to be harsh, but it’s your deepest feelings we have to bring out in the open here.”

“No, no, I understand,” Catherine says. “I’d forgotten how bad I was feeling last week.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“But I think it was just pre-project blues. I get those. We’ve talked about those before. Whenever I’m starting on a new project, I get anxious and I start thinking of all the reasons not to do it. Once I start thinking that way, I just see my life as a series of failures, and I get blue.”

“‘Nothing I’ve done has any value,’ you said …”

Bastard, Cardinal thought.

“That sounds more than a little blue,” Bell continues. “Nothing you’ve done has any value?”

“That was … I mean … I was thinking—I was thinking. See, that’s what happens when I get nervous about a project: I think of all the reasons not to do it. And the main reason is, who cares? It’s not like I have a long string of successes behind me. You know, by my age Karsh was famous for his portraits, André Kertész had done the most beautiful street scenes as well as these wild experiments, and Diane Arbus had already had an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Why should I bother?

“That’s how I was thinking. But then all those thoughts drop away, and I just think about the work—the technical challenges, how interesting the various exposures will be—and I forget everything else.”

“Interesting you should bring up Diane Arbus.”

“She was great. Here she was, this nice little girl from the Upper West Side, and she’s going off into the scariest corners of New York City taking pictures of transvestites and dwarves and God knows what else. She was brilliant.”

“Probably the most famous photographer of the last century.”

“I don’t know about that. Most famous female photographer, yes. That’s true.”

“After she killed herself, anyway.”

“That was so sad,” Catherine says, as if she has lost a personal friend. “I’ve read everything about her. She and her husband were just so powerfully in love. After they broke up, she was just never the same. She never got over it. I don’t think any amount of work or praise could fix that for her. Not that she blamed him, she still loved him. He still loved her.”

She speaks about her as if they had known each other for years, as if they talked and worked together every day, Cardinal thought. How could I have missed that? Was I just not listening?

“The fact remains,” Dr. Bell says quietly, “she killed herself, and she may not be the most famous photographer, but she’s certainly one of the most famous suicides, and it affected how her work was seen. You’ve obviously thought about her a lot.”

“I love her. Her work has meant a lot to me. And you’re right: the way she died does affect the way her work is seen. It’s as if every photograph is accompanied by this huge red exclamation mark. Like it’s underlined in blood.”

“It increased her fame.”

“Yeah. Still sad, though.”

“And so—and don’t take this the wrong way—I wonder if that might not be somewhere in your mind when you think about killing yourself. Do you think that might be part of the attraction?”

“Oh, God,” Catherine begins. Then a long pause as she looks away, staring offscreen. “Could I really be that shallow? Kill myself to get famous?”

“It’s not totally unrealistic, right? There are precedents.”

Bastard, Cardinal thought again.

“I don’t
think
that’s a factor. I mean, maybe it is, but it’s not conscious, if so. No, when I think about suicide, it’s just because I’m in such pain I just want the pain to stop. I want it to be
over. Done
. That, and I think what a burden I must be to John, how he must hate the sight of me, and I just think, Oh why not take this weight from around his neck.”

“Oh, honey, no,” Cardinal said aloud. “No …”

“But then I think how it would hurt him, how sad he’d be, and I can’t do it.” Catherine shakes her head, flinging away the dark thoughts. “And you know what? I’m never going to kill myself. There’ve been lots of times when I’ve been close, but I don’t know—I seem to have this inner core of strength, and I know deep down I’m never going to do it.”

“I see.” Dr. Bell sits back so that his face is in the shadow. “And you don’t think this is just because you’re in a good mood today?”

“No. This is the real me. This is who I am. Last week was just pre-project anxiety. I’m into it now, I’m ready to work, and I feel—nervous, yeah, I’m always anxious—but I want to get down to work. I want to see how it’s going to turn out.”

With those last words searing their way through his heart, Cardinal drove over to the Crown Attorney’s office on Slater Street.

A DVD player was trundled into a meeting room, and he and attorney Walter Pierce sat in silence watching the work of Dr. Bell unfold beneath a portrait of the Queen as she had looked thirty years previously. Cardinal played him the last sessions of three patients.

Pierce was a big man, barrel-chested, with pale skin and very small eyes that blinked a lot with some nervous disorder. It gave him a gentle, mole-like appearance that had deceived more than a few felons into thinking they could withstand cross-examination from such a harmless-looking creature. Pierce’s greatest asset in court was his voice, a velvet whisper that made the most far-fetched argument seem a reasonable idea that had occurred to you—and a jury—after the soberest reflection.