When Jenny smiled, her green eyes lit up and the lines around them crinkled into a map of her humor. Her tan brought out the freckles across her nose and cheeks.
“How was California?” he asked.
“All sun and surf. Just like ‘Baywatch.’”
“Really?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, not really. You’d hate it,” she said. “Can’t smoke anywhere.”
“And they call it the Garden of Eden. Is that where you developed a taste for fried chicken?”
“Not at all. I’ve always had a weakness for lean, relatively fat-free meat deep-fried in batter and cholesterol. It appeases both conflicting sides of my nature.” She sliced off a chunk of deep-fried chicken breast and popped it in her mouth.
Banks laughed. They finished their meals in silence, then Banks lit a cigarette and said, “Back to Pierce. Look, I know I’m putting you on the spot, Jenny, but I’d like you to work something up for the CPS.”
“Like what?”
“The kind of thing we were talking about. Displacement, for example. Tell me more.”
Jenny sipped her Campari and soda. Banks still had half a pint left, and he wasn’t allowing himself another drink this lunch-time.
“Okay,” Jenny said, “let’s say that he has poor control over his anger. It’s pretty much a commonplace that people often respond to frustration by getting angry, and if their anger is really intense and their inner controls are weakened even further-say by alcohol or tiredness-then it can result in physical assault, even murder. That seems to be what happened with Michelle, but what about Deborah? Had he been drinking?”
“He’d had two pints and a whisky.”
“Okay. Let’s say, then, that we are dealing with displacement, which is a coping pattern. A defense mechanism, if you like.”
“Defense against what?”
“Stress, basically. If a situation really threatens your sense of adequacy, your ego, your self-esteem, then your reactions become defense-oriented, you defend your self from devaluation.”
“How?”
“Any number of ways. Denial. Rationalization. Fantasy. Repression. Things we all do. What it basically comes down to is ridding yourself of the anxiety and the tensions that are causing the pain.”
“Sexual tension?”
“Could be. But that’s just one kind.”
“And displacement is one of these defense mechanisms?”
“Yes. You shift the strong feelings you have from the person or object towards which they were originally intended to another person or object. Often very difficult emotions are involved, like hostility and anxiety. It’s an unconscious process.”
“Are you suggesting he wasn’t responsible?”
“Interesting point. But I don’t think so. I don’t know exactly what the law is, but I’m not saying a person suffering displacement isn’t responsible for his actions, especially violent ones. Just that he might not know the inner processes that are leading him to want to do what he does.”
“Which you can probably say for most of us most of the time?”
“Yes. In less extreme ways.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Displacement is often combined with projection, where you put the blame for your own problems on someone else, or some group.”
“Women?”
“Could be. In extreme cases it leads to a form of paranoia. People become convinced that forces or groups are working against them. He could have formed such a projection of his anxieties and hostilities against women in general. Plenty of men do. That French-Canadian who shot all those women at the college in Montreal, for example.”
“And could he also have displaced his hostile feelings for Michelle onto Deborah, given the stress of the anniversary, the effect of alcohol and the resemblance between the two women?”
“Possibly. Yes. There’s a study by a psychologist called Masserman, done in 1961, where he manages to show that under sustained frustration people become more willing to accept substitute goals.”
“Deborah for Michelle?”
“Yes. Look, I’m a bit rusty on this. I’ll need a few days to come up with something.”
“How about next week?”
Jenny smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“If there’s anything else you want to know, give me a call.”
“Can you get copies of the statements to me?”
“No problem.”
“Okay. Now I really must go.” She stood up and reached for her raincoat. Then she leaned forward and gave Banks a quick peck on the cheek.
When she had gone, he lit another cigarette, vowing it would be his last for the day, and contemplated the remains of his pint. Another half wouldn’t do any harm, he decided, so he went and got one, pouring it into the pint glass because he didn’t like drinking beer from small glasses.
IV
One afternoon about three or four weeks after his committal-he was losing track of time-Owen was taken from his cell to a prison interview room, where he met for the first time the barrister Gordon Wharton had engaged to lead his defense.
In her early forties, Owen guessed, Shirley Castle, QC, was an attractive woman by any standards. She was also the first woman he had seen since his trip to the Magistrates’ Court. She had glossy dark hair that fell over her shoulders and framed a pale, oval face. Her almond-shaped eyes were a peculiar shade of violet, so unusual that Owen wondered if she were wearing tinted contact lenses. She had on a gray pleated skirt and a pale pink blouse buttoned up to her chin. Her perfume smelled subtle and expensive.
Wharton sat beside her with a smug, proprietorial air about him, basking in the glory of her presence, as if to say, “Just look who I’ve got for you, my boy. What a treat!”
Shirley Castle took the cap off her Montblanc fountain-pen, shuffled some papers in front of her and began.
“It doesn’t look very good, Owen,” she said. “I don’t want to give you any false hopes or illusions. We’ll have an uphill struggle on our hands with this one.”
“But all they’ve got is circumstantial evidence.”
She looked at him. “The point is, that they can build a very good case on that. Look at it this way.” She started to count off the points on her long fingers. “One, you had the opportunity. Two, motive in such crimes is so obscure, to say the least, that they don’t really need to establish one. And, three, there’s the DNA, hairs and blood.”
“But I can explain it all. I have done. I never denied being in the area from the start, and I told them the girl bumped into me. Maybe that’s how the hair and blood were exchanged.”
“Maybe. But the police don’t believe you,” she said. “And quite frankly, I don’t blame them, especially given that you only came up with that explanation at the eleventh hour. No, Owen, I’m afraid we’re going to have to fight tooth and nail for this one.”
“Are they still looking for the real murderer?”
“Why should they? They think they’ve already got him.”
“So there’s nobody out there trying to prove my innocence?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Can’t you employ a private detective or someone?”
Shirley Castle laughed. It was a lighter, frothier, more vivacious sound than he would have imagined, given her overall gravity. But it was a nervous laugh, no doubt about that. “To do what?” she asked.
“Find the real murderer. Prove me innocent.”
“Things don’t work quite like that.”
“Well, how do they work?”
She leaned back in her chair and frowned. “We go to court and we give them the best fight we can. There’s no other way. It’s only on ‘Perry Mason’ that the lawyer and the private eye get out on the mean streets and track down the real killer.”
“Just let me tell them my story. I’m sure they’ll believe me.”
“I’m not sure yet if I’m going to put you in the witness box at all.”