‘You’re the boss.’
Twenty minutes later, and after three passes up and down the street, the cabbie drew into a parking space and turned round. His expression was wary, as if he’d begun to suspect that his passenger’s disfigured face was a reflection of something warped inside. ‘We can do this all afternoon, mate, but the meter’s ticking and I need some proof that you can pay. I reckon you’re looking for somewhere to doss . . . but that somewhere ain’t gonna be this cab.’
With a sigh, Acland took out his wallet. ‘I know which house it is. I just don’t know if I want to go in,’ he said, sorting the fare.
The driver grew more amenable at the sight of cash. ‘I feel the same every time I visit the ex’s place to take my kids out.’
Acland handed over a twenty-pound note. ‘I don’t suppose you know of a cheap hotel somewhere? I don’t care which part of London it’s in.’
‘How cheap?’
‘Thirty quid a night.’
The cabbie laughed. ‘You’ve gotta be joking. It’s the height of the tourist season. You could get lucky on a last-minute deal somewhere, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg to drive around looking for it. If you’ve a laptop, you might find something on the internet, but I wouldn’t bet on it. London’s expensive.’
‘What about a pub?’
‘Same problem.’ The man handed over the change. ‘I’d stick it out here for a night if I were you and have a rethink in the morning. Cheers.’ He pocketed the tip Acland gave him and eyed him sympathetically. ‘Why don’t want you want to go in? What’s waiting on the other side?’
‘Questions,’ said Acland wryly, opening the door and backing out with his kitbag.
‘And you won’t have an answer for any of them, eh? Or not ones that you want to give. Mother?’
‘Close enough.’
‘That’s the difference between the sexes, mate. Blokes are happy to hold up their hands and take a caning . . . women insist on examining the bloody entrails. If you don’t believe me, talk to my ex-missus. She rips my guts out every time I see her.’ He drew away from the kerb with a hand raised in farewell.
Acland slung the kitbag over his shoulder and walked the fifty yards to Susan Campbell’s house. ‘You said come back any time,’ he reminded her when she opened the door. ‘Did you mean it?’
She looked more like a charlady than a psychiatrist. Her grey hair was piled on top of her head with large red clip and a cigarette dangled from the side of her mouth. It was a poor indication of what she was really like. Acland knew from his previous stay that the untidy, garrulous image she projected hid a genuine toughness underneath.
‘Are you safe to let in?’
‘As safe as I was before.’
‘Mm. Except you seem to make a habit of attacking people just before you come to me.’ She assessed him briefly, then pulled the door wide. ‘I’ve been talking about you on the phone.’
‘I thought you might have been.’ He followed her into the corridor. ‘News seems to travel faster round the National Health Service than it does round the army. What did the doc say?’
Susan led him past her sitting room, where a couple of paying guests were watching television, and showed him into the kitchen. She stubbed out her butt in an over-full ashtray on the table. ‘That you punched an inoffensive, overweight Muslim who’s never lifted anything heavier than a pen all his life.’
‘I damn nearly killed him.’
‘Is that why you came? Are you worried you’re going to do it again?’
‘Maybe.’
Susan pulled out a chair and pointed to it. ‘Sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ She busied herself with a kettle. ‘What other reasons brought you here?’
Acland lowered himself on to the seat. ‘I had to leave my flat and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. It’ll only be for one night. I’ll look for a new place tomorrow.’
‘What happened at the flat?’
‘Nothing. I just don’t like the woman upstairs.’
Susan poured boiling water on to a tea bag and poked it with a spoon. ‘Did you have a fight with her?’
‘Only a verbal one. She takes it personally if a man doesn’t want to sleep with her.’
Susan took what she could from this answer. ‘It’s difficult when people won’t take no for an answer.’
‘Right.’ He thanked her for the mug of tea she handed him, but placed it on the table as if he wasn’t interested in it. ‘What else did the doc say?’
‘That you’re dangerously underweight for your height.’
‘How would he know? I haven’t seen him for weeks.’ Acland watched her for a moment. ‘You should tell him not to believe everything Jackson told him. The woman’s the size of whale. She probably thinks everyone’s dangerously underweight compared with her.’
Susan tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and went on as if she hadn’t heard. ‘That you’re under-employed and have too much time on your hands . . . that you think too much and your thoughts are misdirected . . . that someone should give you a kick up the arse and remind you that you’re a functioning individual.’ She opened her fridge and peered at the contents. ‘I’m a bit short on food at the moment but I can rustle up a cheese sandwich. How does that sound?’
‘Bloody awful,’ he said rudely. ‘Which doc have you been talking to?’
‘Both of them.’
‘What about patient confidentiality?’
‘Quite unbreached. All three of us have treated you at one time or another.’ She took a slab of Cheddar off the shelf and retrieved some bread from an earthenware crock. ‘You can’t run without eating, Charles. It’s elementary mechanics. You’ll end up badly malnourished if you do. How much weight have you lost since you left hospital?’
‘I don’t know. There weren’t any scales in the flat.’
She took a knife from a drawer and cut into the bread. ‘Vehicles don’t function too well when their engines overheat either, so why aren’t you trying to manage your migraines instead of allowing them to control you?’
‘They don’t control me. I’ve worked out a way to live with them.’
‘So what went wrong last night?’
‘It wasn’t a migraine that caused the fight . . . it was a stupid loud-mouthed bastard poking me in the shoulder. And it’s not just Muslims either. An old white guy kept sticking his finger into me this morning when I was trying to get some money out of the bank and I damn near clocked him one as well. I don’t like people touching me.’
‘So I gathered the last time you were here.’ She smiled slightly. ‘But I didn’t ask you what made you lose your temper, Charles, I asked you what went wrong with your method of coping with pain. It’s one thing to say you live with migraine, quite another to suffer such a debilitating episode in public that a doctor has to intervene with medication.’
‘It was a one-off.7 If I’d been allowed to drink my pint in peace I’d have been OK.’
‘I doubt it. Alcohol on an empty stomach is one of the primary triggers . . . as is intense exercise without regular fluid intake . . . prolonged guilt-ridden stress . . . sleep patterns disrupted by nightmares . . . a refusal to take medication. Do you want me to go on?’
‘No.’ He watched in silence as she prepared the sandwiches for him. ‘I’ve had enough lectures to last a lifetime,’ he said with sudden irritation. ‘Everyone I meet has an opinion . . . even the cabbies.’
Susan chuckled. ‘And what were you expecting from me? A hug? You’d have turned catatonic if I’d even tried.’ She wagged a butter knife at him. ‘You knew perfectly well what you were going to get . . . you told Robert I was bossy and interfering. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t wanted a lecture.’
Acland cracked his finger joints. ‘Go on, then,’ he said with grudging amusement. ‘I’m ready. Give me your best bollocking.’
‘Nn-nn.’ She shook her head as she pushed the plate of sandwiches towards him. ‘I’m just the middleman. You need medical attention, Charles. When you’ve eaten those, I’ll call a taxi and take you to a doctor.’