Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1)

Disorder

Paddy Magrane

Book 1 in the Sam Keddie thriller series

For Di

                                       …Fix on Oedipus your eyes,

Who resolved the dark enigma, noblest champion and most wise.

Like a star his envied fortune mounted beaming far and wide:

Now he sinks in seas of anguish, whelmed beneath a raging tide…

Oedipus Rex, Sophocles – translated by Lewis Campbell (1883)

Part I

.

Chapter 1

North London

Always the same nightmare. Always the same cold sweat on waking.

   Sam Keddie didn’t have the dream every night. In fact, he might have comforted himself with the thought that it occurred less frequently. But that didn’t comfort him in the slightest. That was because, these days, the nightmare seemed more real and terrifying than ever before – as if Sam hadn’t been listening and now his subconscious was shouting to make itself heard.

   Exhausted but too rattled to sleep any longer, Sam headed for the bathroom. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed his knackered state – dishevelled, greying hair; eyes that seemed to have crept back into his skull.

   In his early 40s, Sam knew that he was, on paper, a prime candidate for a mid-life crisis. He’d lost count of the male clients his age who’d complained of feeling trapped in unhappy marriages or careers, who’d succumbed to affairs or low-slung sports cars. But Sam knew such a crisis wouldn’t befall him. Aging wasn’t a problem. His ‘issue’ was altogether more timeless.

   He showered, hoping the hot water would help soothe his agitated brain, then, confident that the face he now wore wouldn’t unsettle his already troubled clients, headed downstairs. In the kitchen he made a strong coffee then sat to look at his diary. It was a full day that began with a client whose name sent a small charge through Sam.

   Clutching his mug, Sam moved from the kitchen to his consulting room at the front of the house. The room was decorated in a calm, pea-green colour and there was a large modern desk of oak and brushed steel by the window where Sam wrote up his notes. Nearer the door, two matching leather armchairs faced each other at slight angles. Sam liked the fact that the chairs were identical, that there was no hierarchy as there was with a Freudian couch. And the slight angle ensured that therapist and client were not head on in an intense encounter.

   Other subtle cues and signals littered the room. There was a certificate of accreditation, which deliberately aimed to reassure, a small bookcase – he disliked the idea of overwhelming his clients with shelves of weighty, leather-bound tomes – with some titles on Rogers, integrative theory and Jung. They were there, not just as his own reference library, but to further convince clients that they were in the right place with the right man. A large houseplant stood on top of the shelves. Sam kept it well fed and watered, keen not to upset any deeply depressed clients with the sight of decay or death in his consulting room.

   There was also a print of a painting by Jack B. Yeats –
Two Travellers
. It depicted two figures in a mystical landscape – a neat analogy, Sam felt, of the therapeutic encounter – the paint applied with a palette knife in a crude, violent fashion. The print tended to serve as a litmus test of a client’s progress. Often, late into their therapy, they would express a negative opinion about it – that it was ugly, or that ‘anyone could do it’. While Sam wholeheartedly disagreed with them, their reaction was normally a good sign, one that signalled their return to better mental health. They’d begun to notice the world beyond them – and felt that their opinions counted again.

   Finally, there was a complete absence of family photos. While other therapists chose to do this to prevent clients distracting themselves with fantasies or feelings about their shrink’s private life, Sam had no photos on display because there was no family. Or none that he cared to think of.

*

The doorbell rang. Sam could make out a shadow against the glass. A tall figure. He opened the door, ready with a comforting smile.

   The man before him was Charles Scott, the Secretary of State for International Development. It was Scott’s second session.

   Just over a week before, Sam had taken a booking for a man called ‘Charles’ and so had no idea that his new client was a Cabinet Minister. When Sam first opened the door to Scott, he sensed only that they’d met before. He knew that, unless he worked out why, this would nag at him. There was also a concern that, if there was an existing relationship, this might muddy the waters of the therapeutic one.

   He invited the man in and, as Scott shrugged off his coat, Sam asked: ‘I’m sorry, but have we met before?’

   ‘I don’t believe so,’ said his new client, his voice soft and flat. ‘You might have seen me in the media though. I’m a member of the Cabinet.’

   Sam had practised for some years and, as his reputation grew, he’d gradually attracted – mostly through word-of-mouth but also because of articles he’d written in a broadsheet – more and more high-fliers as clients. He’d seen journalists, broadcasters, barristers, bankers, and even the occasional celebrity. But Charles Scott was his first politician.

   Hiding his slight surprise, Sam directed him to the consulting room, to an armchair by a small table furnished with a box of tissues.

   As Scott settled into his seat, his head turning to look out of the window to the street, Sam realised he already knew rather a lot about his new client.

   Although Scott’s relatively low-key Cabinet post was one that didn’t bring him into the media glare as often as the Foreign or Home Secretaries, it was a well-known face nonetheless, particularly because of his much-publicised, long-term friendship with the Prime Minister, Philip Stirling. They’d been at university together and joined Parliament at the same time. Scott was one of his most loyal supporters. In fact, if Sam remembered correctly, Scott was godfather to Stirling’s son.

   If this was going to work, Sam needed to clear his head of all that information – and to treat Scott as a fresh slate.

   The session began with the usual practicalities – fees, confidentiality, cancellations. Then Sam asked Charles Scott the question he asked all new clients.

   ‘Can I ask how much of this process you’re familiar with?’

   His new client seemed edgy, which wasn’t unusual for someone on their first session, but this seemed more to do with the front window, which he was still stealing the occasional glance at.

   ‘No one can see in,’ said Sam.

   The Minister seemed to relax a little, slumping back into his chair. Sam was struck by his appearance. In the flesh, Scott, who appeared tall, confident and self-contained on television, was hunched and washed out. Sunk in the seat, he was older than the voice on the phone had suggested – possibly in his early 60s. His skin was pale and lined, his eyes ringed with grey halos.

   Sam sensed that a nudge was necessary. ‘I mentioned the process – and how much you know about it.’

  ‘A little,’ Scott said. ‘I talk, you listen, offering up bon mots from time to time.’

  A trace of sarcasm was a good sign. Whatever the man was facing, he hadn’t completely lost his sense of humour.

   ‘That’s more or less the idea,’ Sam said. ‘The “bon mots” are designed to help us both draw out the important emotional strands from what you’re saying so that we can begin to find ways of overcoming whatever it is you’re going through.’

   Scott raised an eyebrow. ‘“Going through”,’ he said, with a derisory snort. ‘Sounds like it’s a passing phase. Wouldn’t that be lovely?’

   ‘It doesn’t feel as if it will come to an end?’

   ‘No,’ said Scott, looking now as if he were telling the absolute truth, without a trace of irony. ‘It’s hell right now.’

   ‘An unbearable feeling.’

   ‘Utterly.’

   There was a pause. Sam did not speak, aware that Scott was coming face to face with his demons. But Scott did not expand.

   Sam’s experience of first sessions was normally of a volcanic flow of emotional content, but this wasn’t to be such a session. Scott clammed up there and then, the rest of the hour dominated by talk of his wife, Wendy, who suffered with Motor Neurone’s Disease. He talked of her being trapped by her condition, as if a light had gone out, but Sam had the distinct sense that Scott had already worked through this stuff, that he was merely repeating well-rehearsed thoughts. Ten minutes before the end, Scott got up to leave, saying he had an important meeting, but would be back same time next week.

*

Today, Scott looked worse than the previous week. His hair appeared thinner, as if about to fall out in great clumps. His eyes were dead, his skin dry and patchy.

   The Minister shot another look outside. Sam wanted to repeat his assurance that no one could see in, but sensed that this would do little to comfort Scott. He watched his client, the man’s eyes now downward cast but darting rapidly from side to side. Sam remained silent.

   When the Minister finally spoke, Sam felt his skin prickle.

   ‘I’ve done something terrible,’ Scott said. ‘Something that haunts me every moment of the day and night.’

   ‘Right.’ Sam knew that Scott needed little in the way of clever interventions now. He just needed to know he was being listened to.

   ‘Something happened,’ continued the Minister. ‘Something I cannot talk about. And I did nothing to stop it.’

   ‘And you feel dreadful about that?’

   ‘Absolutely shit.’

   ‘A deep sense of guilt.’

   ‘It’s like a bottomless pit.’

   ‘And you’re in that pit, day and night.’

   Scott’s head dipped barely an inch in assent, as if the effort of confirming what Sam had said were herculean.  

   ‘I’m never going to get out,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper.

   Sam paused again, allowing these last words to sink in. This realisation seemed more significant than the shame Scott had spoken of.

   ‘Right now,’ Sam said, ‘you think you’ll never escape your feelings.’

   Scott’s head was down. ‘I know I won’t.’

  ‘You feel alone too,’ Sam offered, reading into Scott’s despair a sense that he faced this on his own.

   Scott closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. ‘Wendy’s all but lost to me. And I can’t burden Eleanor with this. She wouldn’t understand.’

   In Sam’s experience, there were moments when a little optimism was needed. ‘I’ve seen countless people sitting where you are now who thought they’d never get out of the state they were in, countless people who managed to move on.’

   ‘There’s only one way I can move on.’

   ‘Which is?’

   Scott met Sam’s eyes, suggesting to the therapist that the solution was obvious to them both.

   Sam tensed. ‘It might feel that way now, that life is black and white, but I assure you there are many grey areas in between. There are different ways of seeing what’s happening.’

   Scott looked at him, a corner of his mouth raised almost imperceptibly as if to indicate humour in Sam’s assertion.

   ‘What’s happening is crystal clear,’ said Scott. ‘There are no other ways of seeing it.’

   Sam looked at Scott, dropping his head to one side. ‘Mind if I make an observation?’

   ‘Be my guest,’ Scott said, with a shrug.

   ‘You look exhausted. You don’t need a therapist to tell you that extreme fatigue can seriously mar your ability to see things clearly.’

   ‘I don’t sleep much,’ said Scott. ‘And when I do I have nightmares.’

  
Tell me about it
, thought Sam.

   Scott sniffed, a lifeless attempt at laughter. ‘I dream that I’m running through a maze, high walls either side of me. Frantically looking for someone called Hank.’

   His face suddenly took on a deadly serious look. He breathed in deeply and sat up straight, alert and tense. His attention left the room, his eyes scanning the street outside, keen to avoid his therapist’s gaze. Quite what had prompted his sudden wariness, Sam couldn’t fathom. He was about to say something, make a gentle observation about what Scott had felt when he recalled the dream – a sensation so visceral he needed to detach himself from the session – when a noise interrupted his thoughts.

   A car had screeched to a halt across the road, double parking at an angle that suggested the driver didn’t care about other vehicles trying to pass by. It was a dark blue saloon. Sam gave it little thought, but the sight of it appeared to terrify Scott. Even more so when the driver’s window slowly lowered to reveal a bald man with a thick neck. When Sam looked back at Scott, it was as if his client had seen a ghost.

   ‘Are you OK?’

   Scott didn’t answer. He just kept staring at the man in the car. And then, with a surge of acceleration, the vehicle was gone.

   Scott seemed to be locked on the spot where the car had been and then, very slowly, he returned to the room. His face had drained of colour. His bottom lip quivered.

   ‘I should go now.’

   Sam looked at the wall clock behind his client. ‘You still have over half your session remaining, if you want to use it.’

   ‘That’s OK,’ said Scott, already standing. ‘This has been helpful. But I should get back to the office.’

   ‘Would you like to book another session?’

   ‘I’m not sure that will be possible,’ he said. At this, his eyes appeared to well. He quickly pulled himself together. He then reached into his jacket for his wallet and pulled a handful of notes from it. Sam was writing a receipt for Scott when he heard the front door slam shut.