Death is the New Black Page 7

  Aziza’s case was strangely similar to that of Gracie Short, who’d recommended me to Sara Holt. Intelligent, attractive women with good careers and jackass husbands who had secret alternative marriages, families and money. I can’t imagine expending the energy and subterfuge skills for something like that. Why not just leave the original wife in the first place? Fear? Insecurity? Love?

  When Aziza’s case was complete, we started seeing each other intermittently for about three months until it had to fizzle out. She wasn’t too pleased about this, but I was pretty sure she’d get over it. I just figured she needed some relief after the trauma of finding out about her husband’s behaviour and she had to agree.

  I’m just crossing the road at some traffic lights when I suddenly get the feeling I’m being watched again. When this happens, you tend to assume it’s connected with the case you’re on, but that’s not always true. Whatever the cause, you have to treat it with the same diligence.

  I spot a middle-aged man and his wife examining the contents of an M&S shopping bag. I smile, approach them, point at my watch, tell them that it’s failed and ask them if they have the correct time. This gives me an excuse to alter my position in relation to the road and take a quick glance in the direction I just came from.

  There’s a heavily made-up young Arabic woman in a tight black top, khaki cargo shorts and pink high heels, two men in dark blue overalls unloading scaffolding from a lorry and a well-dressed woman in a silver fox fur coat waving at someone on the third floor of one of the houses. She’s left-handed. Everything looks fine.

  It may be nothing, of course, but if it is, they’re keeping their distance, which means my not noticing is important to them in one way or another. This is usually the sign of a professional, which always has to be of concern, but I’m also aware that I might be imagining things. When any degree of counter surveillance is hot-wired into your brain, you do get the occasional false alarm.

  On the other hand, that’s three times in less than twenty-four hours that I’ve got the surveillance shivers and I’m not usually wrong. Ah well.

  Aziza’s practice is in a solid-looking nineteenth century town house, sandwiched in between two more modern buildings, just after the intersection with Queen Anne Street. The exterior of the ground floor is painted white and festooned with colourful hanging baskets.

  Presumably you don’t want things to look too dreary and unwelcoming if you’re a psychiatrist.

  I check the brass plaque and there she is: Dr A. Elserafie MBChB MRCPsych FRCPsych. I press the buzzer.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Good morning. I have an appointment with Dr Elserafie.’

  I’m buzzed in without question and approach the elderly lady sitting at the reception desk. She looks up and smiles, waiting for my details.

  ‘Sorry. I don’t really have an appointment. Could you just buzz her and tell here that Daniel Beckett is here? I’ll just go and wait in there. Thanks very much indeed.’

  I give her my best grin and disappear into the waiting room before she can say anything. As this is a medical place, I’m depending on them being nice and understanding.

  I sit down, pick up an old copy of Condé Nast Traveller and wonder what I’m going to say to Aziza, if I can get a word in. I’m alone in here, which is good. If she’s got any patients who urgently need their wallets emptying, they obviously haven’t arrived yet.

  I can tell she’s come into the room without looking up. Firstly, she has a strong presence and secondly, she wears Amber Mystique by Estée Lauder, a distinctive, woody perfume with an unmistakable aroma.

  Aziza is about fifty-five, Egyptian, alluringly and strikingly attractive, with jet black hair flecked with grey tied into a tight bun, beautiful soft olive skin, great cheekbones, big brown eyes shadowed with green and a full, sensual mouth painted with dark red lipstick which is presently pursed into a sour expression of indignation.

  She stands with her arms folded and stares at me. She’s wearing a crimson and purple long-sleeved velvet blouse buttoned up to the neck, a black pencil skirt, black stockings and black court shoes. Even in this straitlaced work attire you can tell she has a knockout figure. For a second, I remember what it was like being with her; the way her face changed, the unexpected intensity, the brazen snarl of lust on her lips, then I put it all out of my mind: this is business.

  ‘What the fuck do you want, Daniel?’

  I stand and put my hand out for her to shake. I know it’s a waste of time, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. A kiss on the mouth would be out of the question, I’m guessing. I can see the receptionist craning her head to see what’s going on. The room smells of furniture polish. Aziza keeps her arms folded. Oh well.

  ‘I need to have just five minutes of your time, Aziza. I’m working on a case where a woman seems to be the victim of a campaign of psychological harassment…’

  ‘Seems?’

  ‘That’s why I wanted to speak to you. I just wanted to run a few examples past you and get a quick opinion. I want to see if this is worth continuing with before I start looking into it in detail.’

  She stares at me in silence for about ten seconds. Her eyes are boring into my skull. ‘Who is this woman?’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Come into my consulting room.’

  We walk past reception and I follow her up to the first floor. Her consulting room is a tidy, sparse place; beige walls, beige carpet, two bookshelves filled with psychiatry books, a sideboard with a small stereo on the top, two large black leather sofas facing each other, two chairs, a couple of side tables and not much else. I’d expected to see a psychiatrist’s couch, but maybe they don’t use those anymore. By the window there’s a large desk with a green leather top and on it, a banker’s lamp with an orange shade.

  On the wall there are four framed certificates, and three inconsequential paintings of the countryside. Aziza points to one of the sofas, so I sit down. She sits on the one opposite, still staring at me with pursed lips, her posture straight-backed, tense and uncomfortable.

  Her hands are clasped tightly together and I notice she still wears all her gemstone rings – malachite and lapis lazuli on the left hand, black tourmaline, sapphire and pink topaz on the right. She isn’t saying anything, so I take that as a cue for me to start. Typical psychiatrist’s ploy; they can’t help themselves.

  ‘OK. First, nothing I’ve been told by this client can be corroborated. There are no witnesses to any of the events that I’ll describe and no hard evidence of any sort. I only have her word for any of this. Whatever, the stress of it drove to her to get a prescription of diazepam, which I’ve since taken off her as a confidence builder.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The only connecting factor to all the events is that they’ve taken place over a four-week period, as far as my client can tell. There may have been events before this, but if there were, she was not aware of them and/or didn’t connect them to the harassment she’s been experiencing more recently.

  ‘Some of the events may just be coincidentally similar and not connected to any theoretical campaign of harassment. She is taking on a large amount of important and stressful work and this became public knowledge about six weeks ago. On the face of it, it could seem as if the events I’ll describe are a concerted effort to put her off her stride, though, once again, there is no proof of this.’

  She fiddles with the malachite ring. She looks downwards to the left. She quickly smiles to herself and then raises an eyebrow.

  ‘You have ruined me for other men, Daniel. I just thought I’d better tell you. I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty. Yes I am. I am saying it to make you feel guilty and to make myself feel guilty by saying it. I want to punish you. God knows I have tried to find satisfaction by other means, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.’

  I knew this wouldn’t be easy. I guess I’ll just have to plough through it, insensitive as it may seem, and hope some of
it piques her interest. ‘I’ll give you the most interesting example. She thinks that someone has been breaking into her flat. They have not been stealing things and she has not seen or heard them, but they are moving small items around. Things are not where they should be. She is positive that she is not imagining these events.’

  ‘Has this been happening when she is actually in the flat?’

  ‘It’s usually when she is out, though on one occasion it seemed as if someone had intruded while she slept and moved some magazines around in one of the rooms. The police have found no evidence whatsoever of a break-in and nothing showed up on the reception CCTV for that particular night-time visit, if it really happened.’

  ‘Why have you not called me? It’s been over six months. Am I not appealing to you anymore? Am I too old for you? Is that what it is? I don’t seem to recall you being too concerned about my age during the times we were together. You said you liked it. You said I had the eagerness and drive of a thirty-one-year-old. You said that my age excited you.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘You had been through a major upheaval in your life, Aziza. I thought you would now need time to rebuild things…’

  ‘To find out who I really am? Is that what you’re going to say? What utter bullshit, Daniel. That’s the sort of lunacy that psychiatrists come up with. I know who I am and I know what I want; what I need.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘What else is happening to her?’

  ‘People are accosting her in the street. They are obstructing her way, they are calling her by name and insulting her, they are jostling her in the shoulder. It’s a huge variety of deniable actions from a variety of people. She’s never seen the same person twice, at least she thinks not.’

  Aziza looks down at her hands and fiddles with another of her rings. ‘I see. My first thought is that she is suffering from some type of persecutory delusion,’ she says, not looking up. ‘It is the fact that none of it can be corroborated that makes me think that is the case. If a single instance could be seen to be real, then that thesis would instantly collapse.

  ‘The person thinks that something bad is going to happen to them, or is already happening. They think that a person or persons is intending to cause them harm. They think that people are spying on them. They think they’re being followed or ridiculed. This is common in schizophrenia. Does she strike you as being schizophrenic, Daniel?’

  ‘Give me three symptoms that I may have noticed.’

  ‘Disordered speech, flat facial expression, lack of motivation…’

  ‘No. Nothing like that. She’s lively, garrulous, obviously smart, enthusiastic and confident.’

  ‘You find her attractive.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Your facial expression changed slightly when you spoke about her. Your eyes lit up. A wry smile flickered across your mouth. You readjusted your seating position. You used wide movements of your hands as you spoke of her.

  ‘Have you slept with her? Tell me what it was like. Tell me if she pleased you like I did. Tell me the things she said. Did she say the sort of things that I did? Was she that crude? That uninhibited? That vulgar?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘No I have not slept with her. She’s a client.’

  ‘I was a client of yours once. You told me you wanted to sleep with me as soon as you saw me. How old is she?’

  ‘Late twenties.’

  ‘Is that what you like now? Young flesh?’

  ‘She had some sort of nervous breakdown when she was a student. I don’t know if that would help with your diagnosis.’

  She shrugs. ‘That term means nothing, really. I’d need to know the symptoms, causes and what was done about it. What is her body like? Is she slim? Do you fantasise about caressing her body? Do you casually daydream about taking her?’

  ‘Listen, Aziza. I’m not one of your bloody patients.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Someone scratched her car pretty badly with a chisel or something.’

  ‘She could have done that herself. Perhaps all of this is to draw attention to herself in some way. In a sexual way. To draw attention to her suppressed desires. Does she have a lover or lovers? Perhaps she fantasises about a man, a burglar, breaking into her apartment and ravishing her.

  ‘Whatever her work is, perhaps she is trying to give herself permission to fail. Perhaps the stress of her work is too much for her and she’s looking for a way out. Stories, none of them checkable, piling up one on top of the other, and she even goes as far as damaging her own car and hiring a private detective.

  ‘I think about you every single night before I go to sleep. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Daniel? Do you? Can you imagine what those thoughts are like? Do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to be brutally explicit?’

  ‘So you think there’s a good chance that she’s imagining it all.’

  ‘I can never give an accurate assessment without actually meeting her, but the lack of corroboration, the big stressful project on the horizon, a previous nervous breakdown – unless you can prove otherwise, that will have to be my assessment.’

  ‘That’s very helpful, Aziza.’

  This is very similar to DI Bream’s theory, which is interesting.

  It might be something she’s created to excuse herself from possible failure at what she’s trying to do.

  Aziza fiddles with the pins holding her hair in a bun. It falls loosely to her shoulders. Now what?

  ‘Have you any idea how much an initial consultation with me costs, Daniel?’

  ‘Um…’

  ‘Three hundred and fifty pounds.’

  She stands up, glides over to the door and locks it. I look at my watch. Nine thirty-five.

  ‘That seems pretty reasonable.’

  ‘I’ve been ready from the moment I saw you in the waiting room. I hate it that I’m like this. My body is rebelling against my mind. My id is at war with my super-ego. I am like an animal, ready for a mindless rutting, controlled by desires that I cannot understand or control.’

  She pushes a button and speaks, I assume, to the receptionist downstairs.

  ‘Joyce? It’s Aziza. Hello. Yes. Is my ten o’ clock there yet? OK. When he arrives, can you move him forward half an hour? Tell him to go and get a coffee or something? Better still; tell him he made a mistake. I’m seeing him for paraphrenia, after all. I’m not to be disturbed. Thank you.’

  She looks away from me, starts to unbutton her blouse and I wonder if I’ve avoided the three hundred and fifty pounds initial consultation charge. I think I probably have.

  8

  BURGLARPROOF

  I get out of my cab near St John’s Wood tube station and head up Abbey Road. Already, there are about half a dozen tourists hanging around the graffiti-covered white walls of the famous recording studio and several more taking selfies while jaywalking on the nearby zebra crossing. Sara Holt lives in Satterfield Court, which is about half a mile further north.

  It’s an attractive, modern block, perhaps built in the 1980s, though it’s been designed to match the character of the surrounding buildings which are certainly a few decades older. There’s neat shrubbery and a well-stocked garden outside. This is a pretty well-heeled area and you’d be spotted loitering straight away. Even in the thirty seconds I’ve been standing here staring at the building, I’ve attracted several suspicious glances, one of them coming from inside the reception area.

  I count the floors so I can locate the eleventh, where Sara lives. The walls appear to be flat red brick and would be impossible to scale. Even if you could do it, in the daytime you’d be spotted immediately and in the night you’d be illuminated by the powerful spots that I can see dotted around the entrance and behind the hedges. Too high and too dangerous to bother, especially if you weren’t going to steal anything.

  I decide to take a more detailed look at the outside later if I think it’s necessary. For now, I’m just going to head inside, before the concerned secu
rity staff call the police.

  As soon as you push your way through the heavy, spring-loaded glass doors, it’s obvious that you couldn’t slip in here without anyone noticing.

  The first thing you encounter is a burnished steel security barrier with two solid-looking turnstiles. You’d need the electronic passkey to get through these, as Sara mentioned yesterday. The height wouldn’t stop you vaulting it, but the width would; you’d need a run-up of fifteen to twenty feet and there simply isn’t that sort of distance between the barrier and the entrance.

  There are five security cameras aimed directly at the entrance and two more on the ceiling that slowly rotate. If by some miracle you got past the security barrier, you’re then faced with the reception desk and its vigilant staff.

  There are three people here – two sitting, one standing. The standing guy looks like a typical security heavy. He’s about fifty, heavy set and his deportment tells you he doesn’t take shit. He’s talking and laughing with a female receptionist but has pinned me immediately and doesn’t take his eyes off me.

  The female receptionist sees me and smiles. Sitting next to her is a guy in his twenties. He looks up, and then continues with whatever he’s doing on a computer screen. Despite this, he’s watching me too; his eyes flick upwards every couple of seconds and he keeps glancing at the security heavy. It’s a scene you’d normally encounter in a hotel, albeit with a little less vigilance.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ says the receptionist.

  She smiles, stands up and walks towards the security gate. Maybe she thinks I’m delivering something.

  ‘My name’s Daniel Beckett. I’m here to see Sara Holt in 11a. She’s expecting me.’

  ‘Just one moment, sir.’

  The young guy is already calling up. After a second or two, he nods to the woman, a green light appears on the turnstile and I walk through.

  She walks over with me to the lift and presses a button on the wall. She’s blonde, petite, has a cute wiggle and looks undeniably foxy in her grey uniform. I wonder what it would be like to sleep with her. ‘Eleventh floor. Turn left when you get out.’