“I do want to ask your advice on something.”
“Go ahead. I’m finished blubbering and moaning. And I didn’t even ask about you. I haven’t seen you since Sandra left. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine, thanks.”
“Seeing anyone?”
Banks paused a moment. “Sort of.”
“Serious?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“So it is serious. How about Sandra?”
“Do you mean is she seeing anyone? Yes, she is.”
“Oh.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine, Jenny.”
“If you say so. What was it you wanted to ask me?”
“It’s about Matthew Shackleton. Gwen’s – possibly Vivian Elmsley’s – brother. Apparently he was captured by the Japanese and spent a few years in one of their prison camps. By all accounts, he was pretty disturbed when he came home. Ended up committing suicide five years after the war. Thing is, all I can come up with in terms of psychiatric diagnoses are such vague terms as ‘shell shock.’”
“I thought that went out with the First World War?”
“Apparently not, they just changed the name to ‘battle fatigue’ or ‘combat fatigue.’ I was wondering what sort of diagnosis you’d come up with today.”
“That’s good one, Alan.” Jenny pointed her thumb at her chest. “You want me, a psychologist, to come up with a psychiatric diagnosis of a dead man’s mental problems? I like that, I really do. That takes the biscuit.”
Banks grinned. “Oh, don’t be such a nitpicker, Jenny.”
“This had better be between you and me.”
“Cross my heart.”
Jenny toyed with her beer mat, ripping off little pieces of damp cardboard. “Well,” she said, “I’m only guessing, you understand, but if your man had indeed been a prisoner of war under such terrible conditions, then he was probably suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Banks took his notebook from his inside pocket and jotted a few words down.
“Don’t you dare quote me on this,” Jenny warned him. “I told you, it’s strictly between you and me.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t be called upon to testify in court. I realize this is pure speculation. Anyway, it all happened a long time ago. This condition would have been caused by his experiences in the war and the camp, right?”
“Right. Basically, PTSDs are caused by some event or series of events well beyond the normal range of human experience. Maybe we should redefine exactly what that means these days, given the state of the so-called normal world, but it generally refers to extreme experiences. Things that go way beyond marital breakdowns, broken love affairs, simple bereavement, chronic illness or bankruptcy. The things most of us suffer from on a daily basis.”
“That bad?”
Jenny nodded. “Things like rape, assault, kidnapping, military combat, floods, earthquakes, fires, car crashes, bombing, torture, death camps. The list of divine and human atrocities goes on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture.”
“I get the picture. What are the symptoms?”
“Many and varied. Recurrent nightmares about the event are common. As is feeling that the event is recurring – things like flashbacks and hallucinations. Anything that reminds the person of the event is painful, too, such as an anniversary. Also things that were part of it. If a man was kept in a small cage for a long period, for example, then he would be likely to experience suffocating claustrophobia whenever those conditions were approximated. Maybe in a lift, for example.”
“What about amnesia?”
“Yes, there’s psychological memory loss sometimes. Believe me, most of the people who suffer from this would find the memory loss preferable to the persistent nightmares. But the problem is that strong feelings of detachment, estrangement and separation come with it. You can’t even enjoy your lack of recollection of the horror. People who suffer from PTSDs often find it difficult to feel or accept love, they become alienated from society, from their families and loved ones, and they have an extremely diminished sense of the future. Add to that insomnia, difficulty in concentrating, hypervigilance, depressive or panic disorders.”
“Sounds like me.”
“Much worse. Suicide is also not uncommon. He’s a suspect, I assume?”
“Yes. That was another thing I wanted to ask you. Might he be likely to become violent?”
“That’s a difficult one to answer. Anyone can become violent given the right stimulus. He would certainly be prone to irritability and outbursts of anger, but I’m not sure they’d necessarily lead him to murder.”
“I was thinking he might have killed his wife because he found out she’d been having an affair.”
“I suppose it’s possible he got a bee in his bonnet about it,” Jenny said.
“But you don’t think so?”
“I didn’t say that. Let me just say I hold reservations. Don’t forget the constraints you’ve got me working under.”
“I won’t. Tell me about your reservations.”
“The outbursts of anger in PTSD are usually fairly irrational. By linking them to his wife’s behavior, you’re making it all far more logical, do you see? Cause and effect.”
“Yes.”
“And the other thing is that if he did feel detached and was unable to love, then where does the hate come in? Or the jealousy?”
“So could he or couldn’t he?”
“Oh, no, you’re not trapping me like that. Of course he could have committed murder. People do all the time, often for no reason whatsoever. Yes, he could have heard about his wife having it off with some other bloke and as a result he could have, quite reasonably, come to hate her and to want rid of her. Or he could have just done it in an outburst of irrational rage, for no apparent reason.”
“Whoever did it probably strangled the woman, at least until she was unconscious, then stabbed her about fifteen or sixteen times.”
“Such rage. I don’t know, Alan. From what you’ve told me about this man, and from what I know of PTSD, I’d say that most of his pain and anger would have been directed inward, not out at the world. While I wouldn’t rule it out, I’d maybe hedge on the side of saying it’s unlikely he would have killed that way for that reason. But it’s hard to say anything about someone you’ve never met, never had the chance to talk to. Also, it’s often too easy to pick on the mentally disturbed person as the most likely murderer. Most mentally ill people wouldn’t harm a fly. I’m not saying all of them – there are some really sick puppies out there who manage to keep it well hidden – but most of the obvious ones are harmless. Sad and pathetic, perhaps, sometimes even a little scary, but rarely dangerous.”
“Thanks. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“Well, I’m just glad I can still be of some use to somebody.”
They both sat in silence, nursing what was left of their drinks. Banks thought about Matthew Shackleton’s suffering and about what Jenny had said about his possible alienation, his estrangement from the world of normal human affairs. Maybe that could have made a killer out of him and maybe not. If you couldn’t feel love for someone, why would you feel hate? When Banks first found out about Sandra and Sean, he had hated them both because he still loved Sandra. If he hadn’t cared, he wouldn’t have felt so passionate. Now, the feelings were receding into the distance. He wasn’t sure if he loved Sandra anymore. At least he was trying to make a life without her, reinventing and discovering himself. If she came and asked him to take her back tomorrow, he honestly didn’t know what he would do.
“I fell apart, you know,” Jenny said suddenly, startling him out of his train of thought.
“You did what?”
She played with her hair. A number of expressions battled for pride of place on her face. A sort of crooked grin won out. “I had a breakdown. After all that with Randy. I suddenly found myself alone out there, completely cut off from everything and everyone I’d grown up with, alone in a foreign country. It’s one of the scariest feelings I’ve ever had. I mean, they speak sort of the same language and all, but that only makes things worse, like a parody of all you’ve known. I’m not making myself clear… I felt like I was on another planet, a hostile one, and I couldn’t get home. I fell to pieces.” She laughed. “Do you know the song?”