Scared to Live (39 page)

After she'd been interrogated for twenty minutes by Hitchens and Kessen, Fry felt exhausted. Her eyes were dry and her skin felt grimy. She nipped down the corridor to the ladies', where she splashed cold water on her face and practised controlled breathing for a while until she felt calmer.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror over the washbasin. Some days, it wasn't a good idea to do that too often. If she wasn't careful, she could suddenly get a glimpse of a person she'd almost forgotten - the girl who'd lived in those foster homes back in the Black Country. Sometimes it seemed like a million years ago. But at other times, she knew it was really just yesterday. Fry had once seen a newspaper article that began: 'Kate Adie, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Bowen, Larry Grayson, Edgar Allan Poe, Bill Clinton and Steve Jobs . . . What do they all have in common?' The journalist's answer, of course, was that they were all adopted or fostered. It made Fry want to rip the newspaper into shreds and stuff it up the feature writer's backside. As if she might aspire to make it on to a list that included Larry Grayson and Bill Clinton. It didn't fill her with positive emotions to know that she shared something in common with Jim Bowen. And Edgar Allan Poe? Wasn't he stark, raving bonkers? Fry dried her face, combed her hair, and brushed her jacket. There was no reason for her to look as untidy as Ben Cooper. Of course, there were a lot of bad reasons for adopting children. Adoption was often a selfish act, but some of the reasons were selfish in particular ways. Some couples thought it would save their marriage, others wanted to replace an infant who'd died, or provide a companion for an only child. They might do it because all their friends had babies, or because they saw a child as a fashion accessory, or a political statement. They thought adoption would provide company in their old age, or a pension plan, a successor in the family business, or just someone to carry on the name. All of those reasons were essentially exploitative. None of them focused on the child for its own sake. So what had Lindsay Mullen's reason been? Could she believe what Henry Lowther said? Adoption was always tough. But it seemed evident that the Mullens loved Luanne. If her natural father succeeded in getting her back, there was no knowing what her fate might be.

Fry stared at her reflection and shook her head. She was starting to feel better. She was thinking again, instead of just reacting. She needed expert advice really, but it was difficult to know where to go for expertise in baby trafficking. Not every agency was forthcoming with information. She remembered that there was a South Yorkshire Police unit called Operation Reflex, set up to combat human trafficking. An officer from the Immigration Service worked with the team to provide information on individuals who might be involved in immigration crime. But Reflex were interested in women being trafficked for the sex trade. They'd scored a success in Sheffield a little while ago, with the case of a fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl sold into prostitution. The girl had arrived at Heathrow Terminal Three to take up a job selling ice cream, and had herself been sold for the price of a second-hand car. Before she arrived in South Yorkshire, the girl had been passed around from hand to hand, gradually losing her value when she was no longer a virgin and had suffered damage from regular beatings. It was probably what the car trade called depreciation. Fry watched her face change in the mirror. That was better. Now she looked more like someone who was in control.

'Fear is a very interesting emotion,' said Dr Sinclair. 'You can't be afraid retrospectively. You can only fear something that hasn't happened yet.' Setting up the tape for him, Cooper paused before pressing the 'play' button. Damn right, he thought. That was why there were so many things to be afraid of. 'Scared to live,' he said. 'That's the way you described Mr Lowther's current state of mind.' 'That's correct.' Sinclair looked up. 'If you don't understand that concept, then you haven't learned to glimpse what goes on in other people's minds. Some individuals find life unbearable, every day a torment. They become convinced that

continuing to live will be such an ordeal that dying is the only possible escape.' Cooper couldn't think of an answer to that. He started the tape, and they listened to John Lowther's interview in silence for a few minutes. 'Yes, some people go abroad, hunting for whores. No - for babies.' 'Sorry?' 'I'm not sure what you're asking me. Is it time?' 'He's conflating two subjects in his mind here, I think,' said Sinclair. 'The whores and babies thing, I mean.' 'I wondered if John Lowther could be a paedophile. What do you think, Doctor?' Sinclair shook his head vigorously. 'No, there's no indication of that.' 'Are you sure? I'm no psychiatrist, but babies and whores sounds a very dubious association of ideas to me. I understand that Mr Lowther doesn't quite know what he's saying, but isn't that sort of thing called a Freudian slip?' 'Freud has nothing to do with it. You don't understand how this works. What we're dealing with here is not an association of thoughts, but a disassociation. Mr Lowther's brain is skipping so quickly to an unrelated subject that there appears to be no distinction or separation between them, as far as the listener is concerned. That's not the way it is in the patient's mind - his brain just isn't making normal connections, the way ours would. Mr Lowther is probably saying words that sound like the ones he's thinking.' 'OK. Anything else?' Cooper pressed the 'play' button again, and they listened to the rest of the interview. Sinclair jotted a few notes. 'Yes, in this interview, I think we can hear pressure of speech, where the patient speaks quickly and incessantly. Also derailment, or flight of ideas, when he switches topic, sometimes in mid-sentence. That can be in response to an outside stimulus.'

7 like your tie.' 'Yes, that sort of thing. You might also detect a degree of tangentiality, when he replies to questions in an oblique or irrelevant manner. To you, in your profession, that would probably sound very suspicious and evasive, I imagine.' Cooper nodded. Evasive was the exact word that he'd used about John Lowther after his interview. 'In this form of speech, he reaches conclusions that don't follow logically, or his thoughts might have no conclusion at all. Sometimes the individual words are correct, but the manner they're put together is wrong, resulting in what some clinicians call word salad. Sounds rather than meanings govern the connection between words - a clang association. He might also repeat a word over and over, or echo other people's speech.' 'That confusion in his speech was already evident a few days ago.' 'Really?' Sinclair frowned. 'It varies with the individual patient, of course. But perhaps he had stopped taking the medication earlier than we thought.' 'Will this get worse?' 'Yes, as his condition deteriorates, he might become incoherent, using inappropriate words or mispronouncing them, or making up new words altogether.' 'Hunting for whores. No - for babies.' Sinclair shrugged. 'It's impossible to interpret his real meaning without having Mr Lowther here for a proper interview.' Cooper bristled. 'A what?' 'My apologies. I meant a properly structured clinical interview.' Cooper watched Sinclair gather up his notes, plucking up the courage to say what was on his mind. 'Doctor, you said that many people who have psychotic episodes find them a positive experience.' 'Yes. Many of them are non-clinical individuals, of course.' 'Non-clinical?'

'Individuals who have hallucinations but aren't troubled by them, so they don't seek treatment.' 'But if they have psychiatric problems, they should be receiving treatment, shouldn't they?' 'Unless it's a troubling experience, it wouldn't be what we term a psychiatric problem.' 'I don't understand.' Sinclair leaned back in his chair and looked at Cooper. 'Do you believe in the supernatural?' 'Well, I'm not sure ' 'No, of course not. Many of us aren't sure. But, you see, from a neurological point of view, people with a tendency to psychotic experiences show increased activation in the right hemisphere of the brain. The same increase has been found in perfectly healthy people with high levels of paranormal belief, or mystical experiences. Even creative individuals can show a similar pattern.' Cooper opened his mouth to ask whether that meant people who believed in the paranormal were mad, but Sinclair shook his head. 'No, supernatural experiences aren't themselves a symptom of mental illness. But people with different views of reality or unusual opinions have always held a rather complex role in society. Some are considered mad, while others are treated as prophets and visionaries. At the end of the day, the difference comes down to a question of contemporary social attitudes.' 'You seem to be suggesting that almost anyone might suffer from psychosis of some kind.' Sinclair closed the clasps on his briefcase with a click. 'Well, it has been argued that patients with psychotic illness are simply at one end of a spectrum. Some practitioners say that psychosis is merely another way of constructing reality, and not necessarily a sign of illness at all. Only a small proportion of people who experience hallucinations are actually troubled by them.'

The psychiatrist smiled past Cooper, who turned to see Gavin Murfin hovering near the desk. 'Well, I suppose police officers have to be feet-on-the ground sort of people. No time for the imagination, eh? But most hallucinations are quite neutral, you know. They might simply take the form of a voice commenting on what you're doing. People get used to that. In fact, for some individuals it's rather comforting, as if they have a permanent, invisible companion, perhaps a loved one who's died. Believe me, it's not uncommon.' 'I can imagine that.' 'Well, now - instead of something neutral or reassuring, think of a voice that constantly makes negative comments about you and your actions. That's the troubling sort of hallucination experienced by people in clinical groups, who need psychiatric help to deal with them. Treatment isn't necessary unless the experience is disturbing.' They walked down the corridor towards the stairs, passing the busy incident room on their way towards the reception area. By the front desk, the psychiatrist paused to shake hands. He held Cooper's hand a little too long, giving him an appraising stare. 'You know, many hallucinations occur in the phases of consciousness between waking and sleeping. You might hear your name being spoken, or get a feeling of someone being in the room, or of falling into an abyss. All of those are common. There's a sort of paralysis that occurs in the hypnopompic stage just before waking - a sensation like a heavy weight on your chest that prevents you from moving or calling out for help.' 'Oh, yes?' said Cooper, wondering what he might be giving away by his expression. Sinclair smiled reassuringly. 'Generally, people write those experiences off as dreams, DC Cooper. They wake up. And then they get on with their lives.' Cooper walked slowly back to the CID room, and found

Murfin already at his desk, watching Fry heading towards him. 'You know this voice that constantly makes negative comments about me and my actions,' said Murfin. Cooper looked up in surprise. 'Yes, Gavin?' 'It's a relief to know it's only a hallucination. I thought it was my DS.'

When Cooper had briefed her and left for the Heights of Abraham, Fry thought about John Lowther's confusion of speech. He hadn't seemed to mix up his words when she'd seen him on Wednesday - not the way he had later, when he was interviewed. He'd been more vague and confused than anything else. Dr Sinclair might be right. But it was rather more like a description someone else had given her recently. Ignoring the glances of Cooper and Murfin, Fry picked up the phone and called Juliana van Doon at the mortuary. 'Mrs van Doon, what would be the effects on a person who'd suffered only slightly from smoke inhalation?' 'Mild hypoxia? Well, there might be effects on the voice. Coughing, hoarseness, stridor - that's a high-pitched sound, like croup. You could look for singed eyebrows, moustache, or other facial hair. Also traces of soot in the nose or mouth, slight burns to the face.' 'Yes, but what about their behaviour?' 'Their behaviour?' The pathologist hesitated. 'This is just an informal opinion?' 'Of course.' 'Well, I'd say a person suffering from mild hypoxia would appear distracted, and probably clumsy in both their speech and manner. Is that what you were thinking of, Sergeant?' 'Yes,' said Fry, nodding gratefully. 'That's exactly what I was thinking of.'

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He'd forgotten the other voices. Somehow, he'd managed to put them out of his mind, until they started to come back. It was so strange, the way the brain could shut out things that it didn't want to know about, drawing curtains across the darkest corners, no matter how terrible the secrets that lay behind them. These were the voices. The voices that told him to do things. He'd remembered them too late. Much too late. John Lowther's hands trembled as he drove his Hyundai down the A6. His palms felt slippery on the steering wheel, and the windows steamed up so badly that he had to turn the fan on full to clear the condensation from the windscreen. For a moment, he considered letting the glass stay steamed up and driving blind through Matlock, letting fate take its course. But in the next second, he knew the idea had come from one of his voices, whispered almost imperceptibly into his ear. His defensive measures were failing. He switched on the radio, let the tuner find a music station, and turned up the volume. It was Peak FM, playing the Stones - 'Paint it Black'. Perfect. He belted out the words along with Jagger as he passed through the square and over the bridge into Dale Road, oblivious to the stares and laughter of pedestrians

when he halted in traffic. They couldn't hear him, and all he could hear was the music. The best of all worlds. In Matlock Bath, he crossed the Derwent and parked near the old railway station, with its little cowled chimneys, mock timbering and herringbone brickwork. Though the Derwent Valley line was still open to Derby, Matlock Bath's ticket office and waiting room had been converted into a wildlife gift shop. From here, it was possible to walk across the track and follow a footpath to the cable car station. He passed a compound full of spare cable cars. Actually, half cars. They looked as though they'd been cut open to reveal their interiors. The hum of motors and the creak of cables over wheels increased to a rapid whir as a string of cars swung out of their station, dipping and bobbing as they rose. Two strings passed each other high over the village, half hidden by the trees. In the roof of the station building, a huge steel wheel turned the cables. He saw with relief that all the cars were empty. There wasn't much business for the Heights of Abraham at this time of year, with the kids back at school. Arriving at the Treetops Centre, he found a sign that said Where to go next. Good question. Near the High Falls shop were a woodland family, carved by someone with a chainsaw and power file. The elm girl, the daughter of the family, was a young sapling crowned by a giant squirrel clutching an acorn, waiting to chew her bones. A narrow doorway gave access to the base of the Prospect Tower. Halfway up the steps, there was no light from the opening at the top, just the faint glow of a bulkhead light on the wall below the handrail. The outer stones were worn smooth by the feet of thousands of visitors, but the inner steps still bore the mason's tool marks, where they were too narrow to walk on. This tower had been built to take advantage of the views and provide work for the unemployed. But it also contained a rare thing - a true spiral staircase. There was no central column, and the steps tapered sharply, so they were only wide