‘Who are you?’
‘Doctor Casaubon, of course.’
That may be the case, thought Quinn. But you are not the Dr Casaubon I’m looking for. He was about to say something to that effect, when the elderly Dr Casaubon cut in. ‘Go back out the way you came, then turn right. Take the first door on the right. I’ll be waiting for you.’
‘But … I … I am a police officer. A detective. I’m here on an investigation.’
‘Yes, of course you are. I understand. A detective.’ Dr Casaubon chuckled. ‘We’ll have a good long chat about it. We’ll sort out the paperwork afterwards.’
No, Dr Casaubon, I really am a police detective, thought Quinn. But for some reason, he said nothing.
THIRTY-THREE
Dr Casaubon directed Quinn to recline on a leather-upholstered chaise longue while he drew the drapes, cloaking the tribal masks and fertility symbols that adorned his surgery in discreet semi-darkness. The doctor had a persuasive manner that was hard to resist. But although Quinn took a seat, he refused to put up his feet. That would be a retrograde step, he felt.
‘So, how long have you been a policeman?’ The question came to him from out of the darkness. Its tone managed to be both sardonic and indulgent.
Quinn sensed Dr Casaubon moving to position himself behind him. Yes, they always sat behind you, so that you couldn’t see them as they observed you.
‘I really am a policeman, you know. I can show you my warrant card.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘You seem to be under the misapprehension that I am one of your patients. I don’t want to waste your time, Doctor. I am not … That is to say … I am not …’
‘What are you not?’
‘I am not …’
‘Why can’t you complete the sentence, I wonder? Could it be because you wish to say, I am not ill. But your mind, your unconscious mind, will not permit you to state this blatant lie. When were you first aware of this desire to be a policeman?’ Dr Casaubon’s intonation made it clear that, in his mind, having a desire to be a policeman was not the same thing as being a policeman.
‘I am a policeman. My name is Silas Quinn. I am Detective Inspector Silas Quinn of the Special Crimes Department.’
‘The Special Crimes Department?’ The psychiatrist’s tone became openly sceptical. ‘I haven’t heard of that one.’
‘I don’t wish to take up any more of your time. If you have seen the papers this morning, you may know that there was a vicious attack on a young woman in central London last night.’
Dr Casaubon’s pen scratched the darkness. ‘It was in the papers, was it?’ Quinn had experience in interpreting psychiatrists’ intonations. He understood the doctor clearly enough. He was insinuating that Quinn was a fantasist who had taken the basis of his fantasy from a newspaper account.
‘One of her eyes was forcibly removed from her head.’
‘The newspaper said that, did it?’
‘The woman in question was taken from the scene – it was assumed to hospital – by a man who claimed to be a doctor. Indeed, he gave his name – to me – as Doctor Casaubon. That is why I have come to see you today.’
‘You believe I was the doctor who took her away?’
‘No, it was not you. It was someone else. I apologize for wasting your time.’ But Quinn made no move to get up from the chaise longue.
‘Rest a while. Before you press on with your investigation.’
‘I don’t have time.’ Quinn swung his legs up and lay back on the chaise longue.
‘There is always time to tend to the needs of the soul.’
‘It was after my father died,’ said Quinn suddenly. He was aware of feeling slightly surprised that he had blurted out this confidence. It had been the last thing he had wanted to divulge. He was puzzled as to how the doctor had managed to induce him to confess it, merely by urging Quinn to tend to the needs of his soul. Perhaps that was a technique he could apply when interrogating suspects.
‘Your father’s death affected you badly?’
‘The inquest verdict was death by misadventure. But there were rumours that he took his own life. That was certainly what my mother believed.’
‘And you did not?’
‘Not then.’
‘And now?’
‘There’s a man, who claims he knows the truth about my father’s death. I … I ran away from him, from finding out the truth. I had always thought of myself as a seeker of the truth. And yet, when presented with the opportunity to find out the one thing that I most desired to know, I … ran away.’
‘If you don’t know the truth, you can make it be whatever you want it to be.’
‘They write about me in the newspapers.’
Quinn heard the doctor’s pen scratch excitedly in the dark.
‘They have begun to call me Quick-Fire Quinn.’
‘How does that make you feel?’
‘I don’t like it.’ But Quinn wondered if this were true, even as he said it.
‘There is no truth in it?’
‘No … well, it is true that some of the suspects I have hunted over the years have … died at my hands. But it has been necessary. These are invariably dangerous men. I have a duty to protect the public, and my men.’
‘And yourself.’
‘Is that so wrong?’
‘Not wrong at all. You do what you have to do.’
‘But today, I thought … on the way here to see you … the thought occurred to me … What if I kill them for the same reason that I ran from this man? Because I don’t want to know the truth. I am afraid of the truth! After all these years in the force!’
There was a long pause. Eventually Dr Casaubon coughed, as though in some embarrassment. ‘You really are a policeman, aren’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I believe I can help you. If you wish to be helped.’
‘I don’t need that kind of help.’
‘And yet you came here today.’
‘As part of my investigation.’
‘Of course. That’s how the unconscious works. It always provides a plausible specious reason – a rational explanation – alongside the true reason.’
‘What are you saying? I had no idea what kind of doctor you were before I came here. And I had no control over what name that man last night would give. My unconscious has played no part in bringing me here.’
‘I wasn’t talking about your unconscious especially. The world has an unconscious, you know. You may call it God, if you wish. Although sometimes it seems more like the Devil. In point of fact, it is both. In psychoanalysis, opposing forces are reconciled. The polarity of good on the one hand and evil on the other becomes resolved into a unity in which both good and evil coexist. For instance, it was undoubtedly an evil that this poor girl was attacked. And yet some good has come of it. It has led you here to me, and perhaps to your psychic salvation.’
‘It’s just a coincidence.’
Dr Casaubon chuckled, as if the notion of a coincidence was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. ‘The unconscious is cunning. It always allows us that explanation too. It is consistent with the polarity I have touched upon. It presents us with the path to our own healing, but at the same time provides us with the excuses for not taking it.’
‘With respect, Doctor, this all sounds like mumbo-jumbo.’
‘Yes. That is how you feel about it now. I expect you will change your mind. At any rate, you have found me once. You may find me again.’
In the shadowed gloom of the doctor’s surgery, Quinn was momentarily disorientated. There was some quality in Casaubon’s voice that took him back to an earlier time in his life, to a place he had long believed he had left behind for good: the Colney Hatch Asylum. Indeed, so intense was the sensation that he wondered if he had ever left there.