‘That’s not the kind of language I use,’ said Willis mildly. ‘I try to avoid the more obvious cliche´s.’ He paused. ‘But let’s say I had suggested such a conversation, do you think I’d have left the pair of you to go it alone? How would that help me understand anything?’
‘You could have drooled over Jen for half an hour while she gave you a blow-by-blow account.’
Interesting choice of language. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘No idea, Doc . . . but she’s dressed up like a dog’s dinner to impress someone.’
‘You, presumably. Part of her distress seems to be that she was hoping to mend fences and was upset when you said you weren’t interested.’
‘She knew that before she came. We were dead in the water long before I went to Iraq.’
Willis eyed him thoughtfully. ‘What went wrong?’
‘It didn’t work out.’
‘Why not?’
Acland stared at the floor as if the answer lay there. ‘It just didn’t. Has she said any different in her letters to me?’
‘No. They’re bland and anodyne, and only evoke memories of happy times.’
‘She likes war movies. Soldiers get wounded and nurses read to them. She’d never write anything to her detriment.’
Willis frowned. ‘You seem to know her better than she knows you. She doesn’t give the impression of a woman who believed the relationship was –’ he echoed Acland’s phrase – ‘dead in the water.’
Acland raised his head and there was a sardonic gleam in his eye. ‘You’re about to make a liar out of me, Doc.’
‘How?’
‘I told Jen you didn’t go by appearances.’ He paused. ‘You’ll be putty in her hands if you forget what her profession is. She can produce any emotion you like –’ he snapped his fingers – ‘just like that. None of it’s real.’
‘Her distress seems real. Why would you want to strangle her, Charles?’
Acland shrugged. ‘Ask her. She’ll be a lot less distressed by the time you get back . . . as long as she’s got her bag.’ He held the man’s gaze for a moment. ‘What’s she already told you?’
‘That she tried to touch your cheek and you went berserk. She said you crushed her hands.’ He left out the end of Jen’s sentence, where she’d claimed in hysterical tones that he’d enjoyed hurting her.
‘She didn’t know what was wrong with me till I turned to face her. That’s when she started on the screaming routine.’
‘So you decided to strangle her to shut her up?’ murmured Willis ironically.
Acland shifted his position against the wall. ‘I never came close to strangling her. I wanted to give her a fright . . . persuade her to back off and leave me alone. Do you think I couldn’t have snapped her neck if I’d wanted to?’
‘That’s hardly the issue, Charles. You shouldn’t have put your hands on her at all.’
The lieutenant cracked his finger joints one by one. ‘But it’s OK for her to put her hand on me? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Not if it was inappropriate.’
‘It was. I told her at least twice not to come any closer . . . even warned her I’d hurt her if she didn’t back off.’
‘Did you want to hurt her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
The knuckle-cracking tic worked harder and faster. ‘No.’
Willis didn’t believe him. ‘Are you going to tell me why having Jen too close worries you?’
‘You don’t know her the way I do.’
‘Then tell me about her. Describe your relationship.’
‘There’s no point. She’s history. I’m not planning to see her again.’
‘Are you sure? You seem to have strong feelings for her still.’
Acland dropped his hands to his sides abruptly, as if he realized how much they were revealing about him. ‘Only anger,’ he said with apparent calm. ‘First, that she came at all . . . second, that she took no notice when I asked her to leave . . . and third, that she thought she could change my mind if she stayed long enough.’
‘Has she behaved like that before? Is that why you described her as manipulative?’
‘Yes.’
‘What were the other occasions?’ He sighed at the lieutenant’s expression. ‘I’m not trying to catch you out, Charles. I’m trying to work out if you’re safe to send to London. At the moment I’m deeply confused about the relationship you had with Jen. On the one hand, you describe her rather crudely as “a damn good fuck” . . . On the other, you react violently the minute she tries to touch you. Was your pride hurt when she ended the engagement? Is that what we’re dealing with here?’
Silence.
‘Why pretend indifference when you clearly don’t feel it?’
Acland leaned more heavily into the wall, as if his legs weren’t strong enough to support him. ‘It’s not a pretence. I am indifferent. If she’d left when I asked we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘Why do you think she didn’t?’
‘She won’t accept “no”. It isn’t a word she hears very often. I’ll put money on you giving her permission to sit in your office so that you can go back and pat her hand. Everyone falls for the act.’
‘You’re right about the office, but not about the hand-patting,’ said Willis mildly. ‘Therapists tend to avoid physical contact for fear their actions will be misconstrued.’
‘You’d better be careful, then. She’ll probably sit in your lap if she thinks she can persuade you to repeat what I’ve said.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘You’ve repeated what she’s been saying.’
‘But she isn’t my patient, Charles, and I have no duty of confidentiality towards her. She’s a virtual stranger who was brought to my office in tears, claiming she’d left her bag in your room and was too frightened to ask for it back. Without her train ticket and money for taxi fares she can’t get home. What did you expect me to do? Throw her out on her ear and tell her it was her fault for coming without an invitation?’
The sardonic gleam reappeared in Acland’s eye. ‘You really do need to be careful, Doc. If you’ve already bought into the fear and the vulnerability, the next thing you know you’ll be driving her home like a proper little gentleman.’
‘Is that what happened to you the first time you met?’
Acland nodded.
‘And you wouldn’t recommend it?’
‘It depends how willing you are to be exploited.’
*
Willis cursed fluently under his breath as he returned to his office. He’d had to work hard to persuade Charles to accept a room with Susan Campbell between operations and he was extremely reluctant to see the arrangement fall apart. To date, the lieutenant’s two recuperation periods had been spent in a hotel in Birmingham, where he’d appeared to neglect himself. On both occasions, he’d returned to the hospital showing signs of early malnourishment, but any suggestion that he stay with his parents was met with a brick wall. As an old friend and psychiatric colleague who ran a bed and breakfast in London, Susan had offered an alternative, but whether she’d be willing to take Charles now was anyone’s guess. With little difficulty, Willis transferred his irritation to Jen. Rather than tell a lie, Charles would avoid a question or say nothing, signalling his unwillingness through a variety of physical tics, but Willis had no such faith in Jen’s honesty.
She said you told her to come...
Five
WILLIS FOUND THE HOSPITAL’S head of security, Gareth Blades, waiting in the corridor outside his office. The man, a burly ex-policeman, took him by the arm and led him away from the door. ‘Ms Morley’s inside with your secretary. I thought I’d catch you before you went in. What’s been going on between these two, Bob?’
‘It seems to be a case of who you want to believe. Has Ms Morley changed her mind about reporting it to the police?’