"It happened the other way round. The depression developed because I wasn't eating, so when they took me into hospital and started feeding me I began to feel better."
He thought it more likely that her improvement was due to antidepressants, but he had no intention of arguing about it. "Do you know why you weren't eating?"
"Yes."
He waited for a moment. "Are you going to tell me?"
"Maybe. If you tell me what Stephanie put in her notes."
She would be satisfied with nothing less than the truth, he thought, although whether she would believe that what he told her was the truth was another matter altogether. "The notes are in my office," he said, "so I can't quote her verbatim but I can give you the gist of what she wrote. You were admitted with severe reactive depression, following the murder of your husband and the loss of your baby. Your symptoms were extreme-in particular, loss of appetite and persistent insomnia. It was clear to Dr. Fellowes that you were very disturbed and that your malnutrition was due not so much to a loss of appetite as a refusal to eat, and she diagnosed you a potential suicide. Your treatment consisted of a combination of drug and psychotherapy and, while she admits that you were extremely hostile to the psychotherapy, your condition began to improve quite markedly after three to four weeks. As far as I recall, you were discharged fit after six weeks, and although you have consistently refused to have your progress monitored at outpatient attendances, Dr. Fellowes regards you as one of her successes." He paused briefly. "Or she did until I requested your notes."
Jinx frowned. "I hadn't realized she thought I was doing it deliberately." She took a thoughtful puff of her cigarette. "It explains why you're all assuming suicide now. Pardus maculas non deponit. The leopard doesn't change his spots," she translated idly, her good eye drifting towards the window where a man was wandering across the lawn. Fair hair, green sweater, brown cords. For the fraction of a second she thought it was Leo, and her heart lurched violently.
"If you weren't starving yourself for a reason, then why were you doing it?"
She waited a moment before she answered. "Because the quack I saw first used hypnosis to unlock my nightmares, and turned me into a psychotic wreck in the process." She shrugged and stubbed out her cigarette. "But a nightmare isn't so bad. Most of the time you don't remember details, and the relief of waking always outweighs the fears." She used her fingertips to sweep the arm of the chair, something she would do again and again during the next few minutes. "I wasn't getting very much sleep admittedly, but other than that, I was coping pretty well in view of everything that had happened. At which point, enter my father." She shook her head. "You have to understand that he'd always loathed Russell, partly because we got married without telling him, but mostly because Russell was twenty years older than I was and had been one of my dons at Oxford. If my father referred to him at all it was always as 'the twisted pedophile.' " She dwelled on that for a moment. "Anyway, about a week after the miscarriage, Adam had an attack of conscience-at least I assume that's what it was-and paid this extremely expensive therapist to counsel me through my double bereavement." She took out another cigarette. "If I hadn't been so shocked by it all, I might have realized he was a charlatan, but you don't think straight in situations like that. Do you know what flooding is?" She flung the question at him as she bent to the lighter.
Protheroe was taken by surprise. "In psychiatric terms? Well, yes, it's a drastic method of dealing with fear. You force a patient to confront the thing he's afraid of, often without warning and usually with no means of escape. It's risky and not always successful, but when it works it's spectacular. It has its place in the treatment of phobias."
"Do you use it here?"
"No."
"Do you use hypnosis?"
He shook his head.
"Then what do you use, Dr. Protheroe?"
"Nothing." He smiled at her expression of disbelief. "No tricks anyway, and no shortcuts. We simply concentrate on restoring self-esteem, and most of the people who come here are halfway to winning the battle before they even walk through the door, because they've already made up their minds they want to be free of whatever disturbs them."
"One of your patients came in yesterday. He wanted to know whether I was on heroin or cocaine, so I presume he's a drug addict himself. He didn't strike me as being halfway to winning anything."
"What did he look like?"
"Tall, skinny, long ginger hair."
He looked pleased. "Matthew Cornell. Well, that's an improvement. At least he's beginning to notice a world beyond smack, poppers, and MDMA."
"Is that why he came to my room uninvited, because you encourage your patients to notice each other?''
"I rely entirely on human nature," he told her without a hint of guile. "In the end, curiosity usually wins out. You're our newest resident, therefore you're of interest. I'm quite pleased Matthew found the courage to defy the restrictions."
"What restrictions?"
"There's a huge notice outside your door, saying: 'Do Not Disturb.' "
"I didn't know."
"You should have looked."
"If it's there, why did Simon Harris ignore it?"
He shrugged. "Are you sure he did?"
"He came in."
"Uninvited?"
"No, he asked me if he should make polite excuses and leave, but I could hardly say I didn't want to see him when he'd come all this way."
"Why not?"
Because no one ever taught me how to say piss off. "I won't be psychoanalyzed, Dr. Protheroe. I won't do group therapy. I won't join in. I won't play games."
"Is anyone saying you must?"
"I know how it works."
"I wonder if you do."
"You were asking me about the hypnotherapist," she said, ignoring this. "He treated me for a phobia that I didn't have. All I had were feelings of guilt about letting Russell down. There was so much blood, and his face was completely raw and pulpy." She pressed a hand to her bandaged eye, which had begun to ache.
"He wanted me to kiss him," she said flatly, mechanically even, "but I couldn't. And then I lost the baby, and there was more blood." She paused. "All I needed was a little time."
He let her sit in silence for several minutes, relentlessly sweeping the chair arm and drawing on her cigarette. "What did the therapist do?" he prompted her finally.
She looked at him in surprise, as if she thought he would have guessed. "He put a raw steak on my face while I was in a trance and then woke me. It smelled of blood and dead meat, and I thought it was Russell come back from the grave for his kiss. It was an awfully long time before I could eat something without being sick."
"Good God!" He was genuinely shocked. "Who was this man?''
She stared at him blankly for a moment. "I don't remember his name."
"Where was his office?"
But she couldn't remember that, either. "Somewhere in London," she told him.
"Okay, it doesn't matter."
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"I've no reason not to."
"How could I remember something so awful if it never happened?"
He didn't say anything.
"You think I've invented it," she accused him. "But why would I want to invent something that never happened?"
Perhaps because nobody's ever been charged with Russell's murder, he thought, for her guilt seemed rooted in a far more powerful anguish than her very natural reluctance to kiss the mutilated face of her dying husband.
Bodies Found in Ardingly Woods
The remains of a man and a woman were discovered yesterday in Ardingly Woods in Hampshire. Cause of death has yet to be revealed but police are not ruling out foul play. "We are asking for help in trying to establish their identity," said a spokesman. "Death is believed to have taken place ten to twelve days ago, but no one matching their descriptions has been reported missing."