The Possessions of Doctor Forrest Read online

  ‘You don’t know who that is?’

  ‘No, I don’t!’

  ‘Tessa. I send you my love. All my love. Kill sends all his love all the way from Dun Laoghaire …’

  I continued to stare calmly at Tessa, my accusation implicit.

  ‘Steven, I’m telling you, I don’t know who that is …’

  I could believe her, I did, except I felt no need to let her off the hook. And then the voice began to sing. ‘Ah, you’re drunk, you’re drunk, you silly old fool …’ And I remembered what Grey had told me of Killian MacCabe’s recently soused behaviour, his bawling of drunken ‘shanties’.

  ‘Yes, I am drunk, on the spirits, and it’s bad, Tessa. But where’s that man of yours? Where’s Dr Steve?’ (Now Tessa stared at me, the tables turned.) ‘And will you ask him, does he remember the time we had that time, down by the water with your man Tom Dole? Has he heard from that fella since …?’

  For a moment I couldn’t believe my ears – a crucial moment, as it happened, for I snatched up the receiver and barked ‘Hello’ only to hear the other handset replaced – dropped? – with equivalent force.

  Tessa’s eyes were narrow. ‘So, a friend of yours then?’

  I suppose I was punch-drunk, since I murmured distractedly, ‘Dr Forrest, I presume.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. That wasn’t Robert’s voice.’

  ‘No. No, it wasn’t. Perhaps he has an emissary …’

  ‘Steven, what are you talking about?’

  But I had not been speaking for her or for anyone else to hear or understand, otherwise I wouldn’t have said it. I am hoping still that I didn’t hear what I thought I heard. But I will have to wait – for the next move, the next communiqué, from beyond the grave.

  13

  Dr Lochran’s Journal

  Like a monster

  September 7th

  Tonight I’m sick of this bloody world, unutterably depressed about the depths to which it drives us.

  The working day had been largely predictable, I was done and headed for the door – when the tannoy called out for a surgeon, any surgeon. A callow boy, Jamaican origin, 11 years old, had taken a gunshot wound in the chest, was sinking fast. No time for nicety, directly to theatre. The bullet – a 9mm pistol round – went in just under the left ribcage and followed a crazy course, ricocheting internally off bone, ruinous damage to the internals. I found it in the thorax, removed it, then stood, blood-boltered, as they pronounced the lad dead. Beyond my control, or anybody’s. So will I be forgiven if I say my deepest regret is that I wasn’t already long gone through the door before the summons went out?

  I had a right to think the day could get no worse, and yet I switched on my phone to a message from Malena, wretched, saying she had been ‘hurt’, ‘attacked’, was in the Royal Free. For some shameful reason the first thought in my head: ‘Rab, what have you done?’ I managed to get hold of her and, of course, the culprit was MacCabe.

  They had quarrelled, he struck her – knocked her unconscious. When she came to, she called an ambulance. It had taken a nurse at the hospital to summon the police. Killian’s whereabouts were – still are – unknown. In the moment, in my outrage, I couldn’t pretend I cared a damn for him, though Malena clearly and unhappily does.

  I drove to the Free directly, all the while weighing two warring thoughts in my head: my usual grim satisfaction in being her champion, but a nagging guilt that I should have foreseen this. Then when I saw her, pale and propped up on a bed, blackened under both eyes, bottom lip lacerated – I was seized by so harsh a delayed urge to get the Irishman in my hands that I had to clench and unclench my fingers, pace out a circle in the cramped little private room. Malena was composed, not in pain, but she’d lost something of herself in this horrible experience, that is clear. Worse, as I feared, she seemed unduly preoccupied by Killian’s ‘plight’ and present whereabouts, as if more concerned for her attacker than for her own condition. I know that some call this love. Dr Hartford would have another word for it, I’m sure. I tried to question her circumspectly.

  ‘Malena, I hate to say it, because I feel responsible, but this was coming. From that night you called me to your house. Surely you must have … feared it?’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘Not “feared”. I’ve been worried, yes. But only for him. He was not the sort of man to do this.’

  ‘But Malena, he did.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not— explicable, Grey. To do this … Only a weak man, a bitter man would stoop to it. Killian was never that.’

  I do believe I groaned. ‘Malena, do you know how many women say this sort of thing right after their men have damn near killed them?’ She met my gaze, shrugged, as though such humdrum statistics were neither here nor there in this exceptional instance. ‘Have you told me everything? About before? Has he hit you before? Before that night I came to yours? Or since then?’

  ‘Grey, no, never. That night – was the great aberration. Killian never drank to be drunk, never lost his head on purpose or lashed out. Not like Robert.’

  I don’t think I was truly surprised by this new information, but certainly dismayed. She saw as much, and was silent.

  ‘Well, possibly you and I have never talked – properly – about any temper of Robert’s?’

  ‘We wouldn’t, Grey. That is between a man and a woman.’

  ‘But you asked me to intervene with Killian.’

  ‘Robert was not … changeable. You could not have changed him, you’ve been allies for too long. But Killian, I thought, he and you could maybe talk …’

  I chewed my lip. ‘Malena, I have to know now, did Robert ever hurt you?’

  ‘No, or I would have left him.’ (I didn’t interject, You mean ‘left him sooner’.) ‘There was never real violence. But his temper made a mood in the house. A climate, a threat. Never that way with Killian, never. That is what I mean, Grey.’

  I didn’t make the obvious point about how relatively little she and MacCabe knew of each other over – what? – nine months of an affair conducted illicitly, amid the unreality of the art world, and a mere five months of cohabitation. Instead I sat and asked as gently as I could if she would go back through what she had told the police. She sighed.

  ‘I hadn’t seen much of him today, this is how our days had gotten to be. But I’d asked my friend Susanne for dinner, we needed to decide what to prepare. I went up to the studio, found him clutching his stomach, staring at the floor. He agreed to come talk to me in the bedroom while I dressed. Then I asked him to fasten a necklace for me, and … I guess he saw, in a drawer of my jewellery box I had my old keys to Robert’s apartment.’

  ‘Wait, you still have keys to Artemis Park?’

  She winced. ‘That’s what Killian said. I didn’t remember to put them in Robert’s hand that day I left, there were other things on our minds. And after that … it never seemed the time, I just forgot. So, they were there. Killian went silent. I knew, he was tense. He stomped out of the room. I couldn’t believe he was jealous, not for that, but it felt so … I went down to the kitchen but then I heard him banging around above, he came down the stairs in his old coat, said he had to go out, see someone, straight away, wouldn’t tell me who …’

  ‘Did you believe him? That there was somebody?’

  ‘I had a— a little suspicion … I didn’t really believe, but I did think, about that night he went to see the woman who’d wanted to commission him, then “changed her mind”. Thinking how different he was after that night, I had wondered, was he keeping a big secret? But then to look at him … He was a man in pain, that was what frightened me, I was sure something was badly wrong with him. He looked sick, not in control of himself. Hunched all the time, roiling his head and shoulders, like an ape.’

  That I could picture all too easily from our last encounter.

  ‘In any case, he wouldn’t listen to me. So I got in his way, barred his path to the hallway. He seized me by the shoulders and just … hoisted me aside, I was s
hocked, I hadn’t imagined such strength in his hands. Then he was stomping off, down the hall, so I flung my arms round his neck, and he twisted and roared at me but I just clung to him, and he began to crash us both into the hallway walls, side to side … I begged him to stop, then I fell, right in front of the door. And I put my whole body against it, thinking this was so absurd, so awful, it had to stop, it just had to. Then I saw the sole of his boot coming at my face. The last thing I knew. For a while …’

  My hands had gone over my eyes, reflexively. When I looked at her again she saw my horror. ‘That is monstrous, Malena.’

  She nodded. ‘A monster, yes, he was like that – utterly maddened, berserk. In the grip of something.’

  ‘Of what? I mean, what you’re describing is junkie behaviour. Craving a fix, a hit.’

  ‘No, no. I would have known it for that if it was. No, something has happened, Grey. He is not the same man. It is simple as that. And my fear now is … he will do something to himself.’

  ‘Malena, you are far kinder than I or anyone else would be. Or the authorities. You told the police all of this?’

  Her eyes fell. ‘What I didn’t tell them, the doctor who examined me did. You should know too, Grey. I’m pregnant.’

  I felt a sick surge in my innards. ‘Is the baby okay?’ She nodded. ‘How many weeks gone?’

  ‘Maybe a month, if you take from my last period …’

  ‘And Killian, he was aware?’

  Another mournful nod. ‘We planned this together. We’d been trying, on my dates, we’d talked about it even before I left Robert.’

  I was quietly going spare. ‘Malena, this makes it so much worse. When did you tell MacCabe the news?’

  ‘Straight away, after my test, a week or so ago.’

  ‘So he already knew, that night I came over?’ I groaned. ‘You tell me this now. How had he reacted when you told him?’

  Again she avoided my eye. ‘A mix of emotion, you might say. I ran to show him the little cross, on the test, and he … he disputed it, said it was too faint. I said I’d done two and the first was the same. He just looked at me … like this was some ironic thing, someone else’s small misfortune. Then he asked if I would leave him be, said he just had to work. I had counted on at least a little euphoria. That’s how people feel in love, isn’t it?’ It was my turn to nod. ‘How could I have misunderstood him so much?’

  ‘But Malena,’ I insisted, ‘do you understand, how outrageous it is, that he raised a hand to you in your condition?’

  I wasn’t sure she was listening, or wanting to hear me, nor was I at all convinced she had given the police the account she ought to, in all its gravity. For sure I knew they ought to be seeking his arrest, while Malena sat there consumed by the pity of it all.

  ‘Malena, listen, I’m sorry but I need you to tell me – anything else you can remember about how Killian changed, acted different, after that night he came back from seeing the Ragnari woman. The night Robert disappeared.’

  Her eyes clouded. ‘No, it wasn’t until the next day we knew Robert was gone.’

  ‘When we knew, yes.’

  She still looked wary. I knew I had to modify my bedside manner, for something of the implacable Hagen seemed to have overtaken taken me. So I changed tack. ‘What did you know about her, this Ragnari?’

  ‘Just some rich patron, collector. He met her at some viewing, she said she was a fan, contacted him after. I didn’t see why they had to meet at night – as if to make me jealous. But he joked about that before he left.’

  ‘Tell me how he was when he came home, that night.’

  She shot me another suspicious look – then laughed softly, as though this were indeed a tale of which she had wished to unburden herself. ‘I remember I heard the key, came down the stairs and he was standing in the hall, in the dark – he’d stolen in so softly, like a thief, you know? Seemed thoughtful. Not crestfallen, though. I asked him how it had gone. He smiled, said it just ‘hadn’t happened’. But he came toward me and – embraced me, so hard, his face in my neck and his nose in my hair like we’d been apart for days, weeks, not a few hours. That night, the next few days were very happy. He was hugely attentive. It was sort of a second honeymoon …’

  She smiled, but in a wistful, broken way, then put a hand to her face, and for some moments she composed herself behind there.

  ‘This is what pains me. He was being so dear. It was funny, I thought he should be working. But he was amorous, like a schoolboy, like boyfriends I had when I was fourteen.’

  I winced, reminded of what Olivia said to me post-coitus the other night, thinking I didn’t care to be identified with this thug.

  ‘He was like, “Oh I don’t need to work right now.” I thought perhaps he was hiding his disappointment for me, like a man does. But he’d had other plans before. They just fell away. Then, well, you know, you saw. He changed – again.’ She looked bitter. ‘We began to argue, like we’d never done before, about who we were, what sort of people we were. And it had just seemed to me that we had known something about each other the first time we set eyes on each other, but now all of that was— illusion.’

  ‘It’s possible. People can become strangers again. They hide parts of themselves.’

  ‘He hid this exceptionally well. This animus, against me, against the world. A bitterness I had never seen in him, never imagined existed …’

  She was tiring, the lure of sleep was strong. I assume she will discharge herself tomorrow. What is for sure is that she can’t go home until Killian’s whereabouts are established. After that, who knows? I asked her to come and stay with us, told her Livy could collect her tomorrow. She agreed to consider it. Then I left, deeply upset. I drove by their house, all dark – not to say that Killian wasn’t up in his lair, crawled into a bottle or rocking in his blasted chair, contemplating his handiwork that day. But, somehow, in my mind, I saw him running – running scared.

  * * *

  Halfway home I remembered to call Olivia, acknowledged her upset and my dereliction of duty. Something worse was rattling her, though – Cal had taken off after dinner without telling her. Hardly a surprise, and it was hardly late. She had done the ring-around, Susan reporting that her Jennifer had snuck out too … So I had a theory. But I had to take her worry seriously, put a lid on the bleak story I had to tell, focus instead on stroking some ruffled feathers. In truth, I worry too, about our connection to our boy. I have no faith in his telling us honestly where he goes out to at night. He’s heard our admonitions, but only grown more covert in his ways.

  At home I went up and admired her impressively moody rendering of the sea at Thorpeness, then we came down and slumped together into the ‘baggy blue’, she in jeans and the loose paint-spattered shirt she considers her ‘smock’. Incompetently I tried to roll her a cigarette, but she stayed my hand with a sigh and took over. I fetched myself a Montecristo and we sat there in our shared funk of smoke and nagging worry. At length I explained about Malena. Livy was appalled, and instinctively sympathetic, of course. Thus my contrition. After a period’s reflection she sighed, smiled forgivingly.

  ‘It’s not easy for me, Grey. The two of you bulls crashing around this place, always going your own bloody way.’

  ‘I know,’ I groaned, fingertips to my temples. ‘I know, darling. Do you think we ought to have had a daughter? Would you have liked that?’

  ‘No, no, it was better we sorted out your son and heir …’ She smiled, a funny mime of female forbearance. ‘If we could have had a second, maybe. I don’t know. If ifs and ands were pots and pans …’

  ‘We’d all be tinkers. Aye.’

  ‘But since it was the one – no, I think difference is a better experience in life. It was more interesting, I think, that this shouty boy-child came out of my body. All ruddy and big-headed, with his little bits and bobs.’ She was suddenly animated, smoking expressively in the way I love to see, as when extolling her beloved Dutch painters or explaining why Jackson Pollo
ck is just wallpaper. ‘Plus, I’m glad you got stuck with the job of role model and not me. The talkings-to, the instructions? Cal’s never really wanted me to talk to him that much. And I’m fine with that. A daughter – we’d have been intense together, I’d imagine. I know I exasperated my mother. And she me. I’m sure I’d have been more anxious with a girl, loading her with my stuff, seeing myself in her – wrongly. Trying to live again through her, basically.’ She settled back in the blue. ‘No, it’s been an education, with Cal, I’ve learned from him, about the male of the species. I get to look at my big handsome boy and marvel at him. I can see how Jennifer must feel. But, I know too – it’s all show and bluster. Deep down he’s a sensitive soul. Like you, big man.’

  I think, finally, I understood. Her worry tonight had not been so real and pressing as the need that we talk just a little in this manner. Soon afterward we heard the key in the door and sat ourselves up in unison. I had to let the boy know we were vexed. Yes, he’d been to see Jennifer. Yes, he is feeling life-pressures, remains tense about Robert. ‘Jenny calms me’ is how he phrased it. Lucky girl, landed with such a job, for Cal’s moodiness could clear a room.

  ‘Come here,’ I said, and pulled him into a bear-hug. He struggled, the little bastard, but I was quite insistent, needing to feel him, needing him to feel me. There is no time for unwarranted anxiety now, not in this house. We are going through too radically disturbed a time in our lives, and we must ride it out with care for each other.

  I ought now to try and preserve that so precious and dearly bought peace, by switching out the light, climbing into my bloody bed, curling up behind my dear girl. For all what dreams may come.

  14

  Dr Hartford’s Journal

  Intruder

  September 8th

  Grey would not say over the phone what was the matter, but I knew by the hard-bitten tone of his few terse words – he was deep in his own stoical version of anxiety. He said he had to see me, and clearly I had to get moving, since he was so awake and so fraught at not-quite-5am. No time to query him, much less be irked, so strange was it to hear the big man sound this troubled.