Blood Therapy, page 7
It was her first and last act of bravery.
It was to be my first act of counseling, or at least the meddling in someone else’s relationship, the success of which would later come under question.
So if Mom were still alive, she wouldn’t say anything about making lemonade.
Life is shit, and then you die.
Yes, that sounds a lot closer to something she would say. Or should have said.
So now, faced with death and murder, I did what any self-respecting therapist would have done.
I practiced my golf putt.
I did this for a good ten minutes. Any kind of skill did, of course, elude me the entire time, but by the end, I had come to a decision.
I grabbed my phone again and called Roger back.
“I’m so sorry that my story of how I came upon a mutilated corpse managed to bore you so, Ollie. I realize I wasn’t paying for the therapy. Entirely my fault. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Roger’s sarcasm was back in working order. The effects of his ordeal were obviously wearing off.
“I didn’t hang up because you were boring, I hung up because you were being an asshole.”
“Listen, Ollie. I feel bad about Angel Watson, but—”
“Roger, shut up and listen. I need you to stay away for a while,” I said.
“What? What do you mean ‘stay away’?”
“I mean, you need to go away somewhere. Thing is, I have information for the police, but when they start looking into the Watsons, they might find all sorts of things. Things that won’t look good to an impartial observer.”
“Fuck, Ollie! You have information for them? So what? Where the hell do you think I can go, hey? To my holiday villa in Spain?”
Roger was shouting now, his voice breaking from hysteria and I could imagine the way he’d be jumping on the spot as he inflicted spit and vitriol on his phone.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen, Ollie,” he continued. “You are going to say nothing. Nothing! What do you think will come of the police talking to you? I’ll tell you for free. It will mean they talk to us, Ollie. And when that happens, our little arrangement, the way we make our money, is gone. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“They’re going to talk to me anyway, Roger.”
He took a breath. “I know. It’s this damned information you’re talking about that is going to be the problem. Don’t you see that?”
I saw only too well. This had the potential to put us out of business. Me, Roger, and by extension… Jess.
“What is the information?” He wasn’t asking. He was ordering me, but of course he didn’t know about the note and its accompanied threat.
“Can’t tell you, Roger.”
“Dammit Ollie!”
“And I’ll have to cancel Victor too.”
“Cancel Victor? Ollie, listen—”
“Roger, I am many things. A murderer is not one of them. If I bring another client into this mess… well, you saw the consequences.”
“I don’t understand. How is this your fault?”
“I’m sorry, Roger. Like I said, I can’t tell you.”
Roger went quiet, all his bluster gone. His voice was tired when he said, “Okay. Do what you must, Oliver Jones.”
We hung up, and I took a deep breath. I had another tough call to make.
“Victor Ramon,” he answered after one ring.
“Victor, this is Ollie Jones. I’m afraid I have to inform you that my assistant has made an error. I am unfortunately not able to see you tomorrow morning. Double-booked.”
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said that’s fine. It was a bad idea anyway.” Victor sounded distracted. He was multi-tasking, I could tell.
The moment clients declare coming to see a therapist a bad idea was usually when seeing a therapist was an altogether brilliant idea. But in this case, I wasn’t about to argue the point.
“Great, well… glad you’re not inconvenienced. Goodbye,” I said.
“Wait!” Victor was suddenly invested in the conversation.
“Yes?”
“If I wanted to… possibly later in life… you know? Could I get in touch?”
“No.”
“What?” I got the impression Victor didn’t hear the word “no” very often.
“I said no.”
“Yes, I heard what you said, but why not?”
“You’re too good at golf,” I said and hung up.
It was true. He was too good at golf. I would have spent all our sessions secretly hating him.
And also, I’d possibly just saved his life.
7
Three visits
I might have been deluded, but I felt I’d just regained a little control when Liz chose that very moment to come by. She strode in as if she owned the place. Elizabeth Archer walked into most spaces in that way, as if she came from money. She did not. She used to work as a schoolteacher. A fact that to this day I find hard to digest. The only evidence of a background in education I could see was in the way she would lecture me, looking down her nose, making me feel small.
We didn’t start out this way of course. No relationship ever starts out this way, otherwise it simply wouldn’t start. No, back then, she had no aspirations to be the wife of a rich man. Or she kept it hidden. Either way, that ambition did eventually surface, and I was found lacking.
We drifted with intention, a somewhat natural decay slowed by the birth of Amy, before resuming shortly afterwards. It wasn’t necessarily ugly—I didn’t have it in me to fight this woman—so I surprised myself by offering to leave. Liz turned the tables on me by leaving me instead.
She stood in reception, undeniably an attractive woman—when she wasn’t being absolutely terrifying. Right then she was slowly scanning the practice from left to right, like a cyborg come to destroy. No scanning needed, as she knew perfectly well which room was mine and could see me through the windowed walls.
We glared at each other in silent anticipation before she marched towards my door.
I regretted sending Jess home for the day.
“Oliver.”
“Elizabeth.” I stayed seated. A small act of defiance, and one that required a great deal of effort.
“Where is that receptionist of yours?” she demanded.
“She does other things too,” I said, and cringed the moment the words left my mouth.
“I’m sure she does.”
“What do you want, Liz? Today is not a particularly good day for me.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then paused. Like a wax model frozen in an expression of rage. It was a move she employed to great effect. Have her prey be aware an attack was coming, but keep them in that state of perilous tension for a moment.
It was quite unnerving.
“Oh, Ollie, what do I want? Just a little thing called a signature. Heard of those? I know you don’t sign that many cheques these days, but you must remember how to make your mark? Just a little primitive ‘X’ will do. Would be appropriate even.”
The divorce papers arrived two weeks ago. I’d opened the envelope, vaguely curious, thinking it didn’t look like the usual mail. God help me, I might even have been a touch excited. I read just the top line before opening my drawer and shoving it in there.
Junk mail.
“I’ve been busy, Liz, I’ll sign them.”
We stared at each other. Liz standing in front of my desk, towering over all of it, myself included. She had been leaning forward, somewhat threateningly, but straightened herself. Nothing more to say, she was now uncomfortable. I quite enjoyed seeing her that way.
“Will there be anything else?”
“Well, is there any good reason you won’t sign them now, Ollie?”
A ton of reasons, Elizabeth.
“I said I’m busy. I need to find them. Jess filed them somewhere.”
She gave a nasty laugh. “You let that floozy file them somewhere? Jesus, Ollie.”
“Is that any way to refer to your sister-in-law? Are you jealous?”
Liz almost choked. “Please. Doug’s sister is no threat to me, and her choices are highly dubious. Choosing to work for you being a prime example.”
“Hey, I thought we were criticizing Jess, not me.”
Liz made as if to have another go, but then her eyes softened and tension left her body. “I don’t actually want to fight with you. I just don’t understand why you don’t let me carry on with my life.”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say. My hand rested on the handle of the right-hand drawer, an instinctive gesture.
Liz sighed and suddenly looked ten years older, while at the same time showing a glimpse of the woman I married all those years ago. It was an unsettling mix.
“Just sign the damned papers, Ollie,” she said quietly and left, her exit small compared to her entrance.
Is that why I was slow to sign them? To reduce her to this? To reduce myself to this?
* * *
There was another knock on my door.
“What is it?” I said, not looking up from my laptop. “Did you want to complain about something else? As I said, I kind of have my hands full here, Liz.”
“Apologies, Mr. Jones. The door was open, so I let myself in. I’m Detective Inspector Mosley with the CID. Can I have a moment of your time?”
In front of my desk stood a woman with close-cropped gray-brown hair, possibly in her forties, with a hard stare and no-nonsense mouth. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Mosley didn’t offer her hand in greeting and despite the apologies offered, did not look like she was asking for permission to be here.
“Inspector?” I stood awkwardly, my chair making a loud scraping sound.
“Detective Inspector.”
“Right. What can I do for you?” I asked.
Mosley glanced around my office. At least she didn’t seem unimpressed, but I would have wagered it had to with her face not being able to show much expression at all. Ignoring my question, she asked, “I just passed—did you say, Liz?—in the hallway. Your ex-wife?”
How did she know?
“Did she say anything to you?”
“You mean how did I know she’s your ex-wife? I didn’t. Just guessed, though you’ve now pretty much confirmed it.” Seeing the look on my face, she graced me with an explanation. “Your line of greeting contained familiarity, so a relationship. It contained also some level of contempt, so a relationship gone wrong. Judging by your age, the lighter skin on her finger where a ring should be… I took a guess.”
Ring fingers were getting me in all sorts of trouble. If DI Mosley wanted to make sure I wouldn’t underestimate her, I’d say she succeeded.
“Okay then,” I said and sat down again, indicating for her to do the same. Nothing to worry about. I would play it cool and choose my words carefully.
“Again, Inspector, how can I help you?”
“That is the question, isn’t it? Let’s see. Angel Watson was a patient of yours. I believe—”
“Client.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mosley cocked her head as if I’d just said something interesting.
“Client. We refer to them as clients, not patients.”
God knows, the latter would have implied I actually helped them get better.
“We?” She made a show of looking around my very empty practice.
“Er, my associates and I.”
This made no sense, but she mercifully let it go, instead shaking her head as if to clear it of the irrelevant information I had just burdened her with. “Angel Watson was a client of yours. You’d just concluded your sessions with Angel and her husband; then a day later she is murdered. I assume you have heard the news?”
I guessed this question, like every other, was designed for me to incriminate myself. I decided to stay as honest as I could while I figured out what to say later.
“Yes. It’s tragic news. They had their problems, certainly, but murder… it’s inconceivable.”
“I see. Well, if you’ll forgive me, Mr. Jones, I think it’s up to me to decide exactly how inconceivable such an act is.”
“Of course, a bad choice of words, apologies.”
Mosley said nothing and sat unmoving, staring at me expectantly as if I would come clean and confess… something.
I was starting to get annoyed. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I know someone who had any reason to want to harm her?”
“Do you know someone who had any reason to want to harm her, Mr. Jones?”
If she was playing with me, there was no sign, her face still impeccably passive.
This was the moment. If I told her about the note and its not-so-subtle threat, all eyes would be on me and my potential connection to the killer. She would make sure this place was turned upside down as the principal focus of her investigation. My call records scrutinized, my methods exposed, my dealings with Roger laid out in the open.
Jess would know the full extent of my nefarious deeds.
Amy would find out exactly what level of professional her father was.
I couldn’t let that happen. I just needed to lie low in the short term, not engage another client. This would go away eventually, like other threats had. The others hadn’t killed to make their point, I thought, but quickly shoved the thought away.
“I don’t, no. Such a violent murder… How can such people exist among us?”
“We’ll you’re the psychotherapist. If anyone could answer that question it would be someone of your profession,” Mosley said.
“I’m a couples therapist. Hardly an expert on serial killers.”
“Who said the murderer is a serial killer?”
I felt a bead of sweat escape down my back. “That kind of… killing, surely the work of a serial killer?”
“What kind of killing?” Mosley’s expression remained inscrutable.
“The, uh, method? Heart cut out… it’s been all over the news.”
She sat perfectly still for a beat, then leaned forward. “Do you know Angel Watson died from electric shock? The mutilation of the body came after.” She sat back in her chair again. This little bomb dropped entirely to see how I would react.
How the hell was I supposed to react to this anyway? Do Mosley and her colleagues sit around in the staff canteen and discuss bizarre ways someone could die?
I cleared my throat. “That’s… interesting?”
“Is it?”
This was apparently meant to be rhetorical, and before I could stumble my way through another answer, Mosley asked another question: “Her husband enlisted the services of a divorce lawyer, Roger Khan. Do you know him?”
Of course I did and she knew it.
“I do, yes. I believe he’s picked up a few clients of mine. I guess word-of-mouth really pays off.”
“Mmm.” Mosley looked up at my certificate on the wall. In reality just a glance, but it felt to me as if she examined it in minute detail. “So you really don’t know anyone that could have wanted to harm Angel Watson?”
“She was having an affair. You should try her husband.” I knew I sounded petulant, but I’d suffered enough of this woman.
“So much for client confidentiality.”
“You’re the law. I’m trying to be of help.” I had no idea if client confidentiality applied here, seeing as I’d never exactly been the bastion of confidentiality in anything.
“And the CID is ever grateful,” she said dryly. “Look, I’ll be in touch, but please let me know the moment you think of anything else that could help the investigation.” She slid her card over the desk, but not very far, so I had to reach some way towards her to retrieve it, appearing much too eager to do so.
“I will, Inspector,” I said. “Detective Inspector.”
She left then, leaving me feeling as if I’d gone twelve rounds with a heavy-weight in a boxing ring.
* * *
I went home to lick my wounds, the day having crushed me in its jaws and spat me out. I knew I’d played things the best I could, but who knows if I’d made the right decisions? And what was I to do next? As always, I needed income. It had been difficult at the best of times, but now with a murderer taking an interest in my clients, I thought it impossible.
I entered my house, absentmindedly going through the usual routine with Frank, before I sank into the living room couch.
And then it hit me. Things were really messed up. A deep anxiety threatened to burst from inside my gut. This was too much. Not that I believed in that kind of thing, but maybe karma had finally caught up with me. Years of messing with others’ emotions now bore terrible fruit in the form of my own overriding emotion: Fear.
As if he knew the score, Frank jumped up on the couch and flopped down next to me, placing his big head on my lap, eyes closed. I closed mine too, allowing the stress of the day’s events to wash over me while picturing the ring on Jess’s finger. I changed my mind: I had not played every situation as well as I could.
The home landline rang, making Frank bark once and jump off my lap, his nails scratching my thighs as he did so.
“Bloody hell, Frank!” I’d gotten a scare as well.
Man and dog stared at the phone on the counter. Another phone that never rang. I was in no mood to speak to anyone, let alone some salesperson selling injury claims.
My mobile vibrated in my pocket. A text from a number withheld read: ANSWER IT.
I walked over to the phone. Adrenaline raced through my veins.
Frank barked once more. A warning perhaps.
I lifted the receiver and pressed answer.
“Who is this?”
“We are you.”
What?
The voice was scrambled, run through some kind of an electrical device that gave it an unearthly growl and dissonant tone.
I waited. They say being a good therapist required one to be a good listener. Well, I would bloody well listen.
The caller out-listened me. Maybe it was the pressure of the last forty-eight hours. Maybe the uncertainty of my future. Or maybe it was the grating breathing into my ear that got to me, but after what felt like ages, I couldn’t stand it any longer.
