‘The whole thing is off the wall, boss, but it’s all we’ve got. Anyway, that’s why I need to talk to your trick cyclist. Sorry, I mean Professor Heath.’
Clarke let that pass.
‘I’ll call you back,’ she said and, without another word, ended the call.
Ten minutes later she was back on the line.
‘Freda says even NHS doctors have to eat. She’ll meet you and me both for an early dinner. Six o’clock at Joe Allen. She’s giving a talk to the Royal College of Psychiatrists at eight and will need to leave around seven thirty. Don’t be late.’
‘I won’t. Will you be able to stay on? I want to pick your brains more about the Timothy Southey murder and generally compare notes.’
‘Vogel, what time did you leave home this morning?’ asked Clarke obliquely.
‘About a quarter to six. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘And you’ll be lucky to get home much before midnight. You don’t change, Vogel, do you? Can’t imagine how your missus puts up with you. You’re like a dog with a bone.’
‘And you’re not, boss?’
‘Ummm, maybe, but I don’t have a missus.’
‘Really, boss?’
‘You’re so pushing it, Vogel.’
Vogel smiled. DCS Nobby Clarke was notoriously protective of her privacy in many more respects than just that of her name. Nobody in the Met knew anything worth knowing about her private life. There were the usual rumours amongst the good old boys that she was a lesbian, but based more on the fact that she had rarely been spotted with a man, other than a colleague, and always turned up to police functions alone.
In spite of the banter, she was and would always be something of a mentor to Vogel. He welcomed the opportunity of discussing everything with her, almost as much as getting the opinion of an eminent psychiatrist.
‘By the way, Joe Allen, that sounds familiar.’
‘I’m quite sure it does. You’ll be able to find your way all right, I expect.’
‘I will indeed, boss.’
He caught the 3.30 p.m. train from Bristol Temple Meads by the skin of his teeth and arrived at Joe Allen in Covent Garden at five minutes to six. He paused briefly outside, remembering his association with the restaurant, known as Johnny’s Club at the time, during the Sunday Club murders. Vogel hadn’t been there since that investigation. It looked much the same as he remembered it. The same theatrical billboards and photographs. The same piano, albeit with a different, female pianist, wearing a hat.
He was the first to arrive and shown to the table in the far corner, where a plaque commemorating Sunday Club remained on the wall. Clarke and Professor Freda Heath arrived a couple of minutes later. Freda Heath was very tall, very black and very beautiful. She was also very clever and at the top of her profession, which, of course, was the only thing about her which really interested Vogel.
Hands were shaken and greetings exchanged. They quickly ordered drinks and food.
‘I asked for this table,’ said the DS, waving one hand at the Sunday Club plaque. ‘Holds a few memories for us, eh Vogel?’
‘Some I would like to forget, boss,’ said Vogel.
‘We solved the case, that’s the main thing.’
Vogel nodded. He would have preferred to have solved it a lot more quickly, before so much damage was done. Now, he was becoming desperate for the Tim Southey, Melanie Cooke and Manee Jainukul murders to be solved, before anyone else was hurt or killed.
‘I hear you have a rather intriguing theory for me,’ interjected Freda Heath.
‘The boss has filled you in then?’ Vogel asked, Freda nodded. ‘So, am I just as crazy as I believe our killer to be, or does any of this make any sense to you at all?’ asked Vogel.
Freda Heath nodded again.
‘It does make sense,’ she said. ‘And it’s possible that this could be an extreme representation of Dissociative Identity Disorder. But you may not be aware, David, that there are a number of highly esteemed figures in my profession who don’t even recognise its existence.’
‘Really? I’ve done some internet research and I would have thought there were far too many case histories on record for any expert to totally dismiss it.’
‘Not totally, perhaps, but it is a reasonable argument to dismiss DID when used as a defence in criminal law as nothing other than a legal ploy. And there are definitely examples of that having been the case in the UK and to a considerably greater extent in the States and then there is the Iatrogenic factor.’
Vogel raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘Cause and effect,’ said the professor. ‘It has often been alleged that the wide publicity given to people of suggestive personality, combined with the credulity and enthusiasm of therapists…’ Freda Heath allowed herself a wry smile. ‘… has been responsible for at least a proportion of those claiming to suffer from DID.’
‘But you don’t go along with that? You believe in DID?’
‘Whether or not I go along with the Iatrogenic factor depends on the circumstances,’ said Freda. ‘There is little doubt it plays a part. But in my opinion, the Iatrogenic factor can detract from the genuine cases out there. Even I am cynical about anything in psychiatry that cannot be clinically proven but, over the years of my work at The John Howard Centre, I have no doubt that I’ve dealt with several, absolutely genuine and involuntary cases.’
Vogel realised he had no idea what The John Howard Centre was, and neither could he exactly recall Freda Heath’s position in the NHS.
Nobby Clarke came to the rescue.
‘Freda’s professor of Personality Disorder for The East London Trust, and The John Howard Centre is their medium security hospital out at Homerton,’ she said. ‘I’ve been there. Trust me. There is unlikely to be any condition of the human mind which hasn’t been seen at the John Howard.’
Vogel was thoughtful.
‘You referred to “totally genuine and involuntary cases,”’ he began. ‘Does that mean that someone with DID has no control over which personality they become at any given moment? Because I am not sure how our man could have continued to function, if that is the case.’
‘Sometimes they can maintain a certain control,’ Freda explained. ‘They have their own ways of keeping an unwanted, alternative identity at bay, for example. If they are with people, they may make an excuse like a visit to the bathroom, or feeling ill if more time is needed, in order to prevent an involuntary intrusion.’
‘How long can someone keep up this business of being several different people?’
‘Much longer than you would think.’
‘Is there always a dominant personality, one which takes precedent over the others and maybe has some control over the others?’
‘More often that not, yes. What we usually talk about is a host. In the case of your man, whom you believe to have several unrelated identities, Saul, Leo and Al, possibly Aeolus too, there is probably a host. Your subject’s behaviour patterns indicate that there is a secretive side to all three of these characters. This secrecy was perhaps obligatory with Al the paedophile, but not necessarily so with the other two, before they turned to murder.’
‘But isn’t the host Aeolus?’ asked Vogel.
‘I doubt it. Complicated as this sounds, I would say Aeolus is the driving force. The personality your man aspires to be, rather than the host. We can assume that he has been going about his day-to-day existence in an apparently normal way for a considerable period of time, perhaps years. This doesn’t quite fit with being a Greek mythological hero. No. I suspect that there’s an unrelated host; someone who appears to be totally normal.’
‘So it’s the host we should be looking for?’
‘Yes. I would say that’s correct.’