SIXTEEN
A tall woman with long legs clad in tight jeans and a loose-fitting white shirt clasped to her small waist with a wide black shiny belt opened the door to him. She was in her late thirties, with long curly dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes and an attractive elfin face, and Horton didn’t blame Luke Felton for wanting to see her regularly. He reckoned most of the prison population must have jerked off the moment she walked through the gates.
‘I don’t see why I should betray a patient’s confidence,’ she said, waving him into a seat in the small flat which backed on to the railway line in Ryde. Out of the corner of his eye Horton could see the red and black former underground train drawing to a halt at the small station below them.
‘I didn’t know you were a doctor?’ he said.
She flushed. ‘I’m a hypnotherapist,’ she declared defiantly, as though waiting for him to scoff. He didn’t. He told her he wanted to talk about Luke Felton, but he didn’t mention that Felton was out on licence or that he had gone AWOL, and she gave no indication that she knew this.
‘And you were helping Luke Felton with what?’ he asked.
‘It’ll be on his prison records.’
‘I thought you might help us save time.’
‘Why don’t you ask Luke?’ Then her eyes widened and her face paled. ‘Has something happened to him? He’s not killed himself?’
Her slim hand flew to her perfectly shaped, red-lipsticked mouth. Beautifully manicured nails with red polish reminded him of Olivia Danbury, but her words reminded him of Ashley Felton, who also believed his brother capable of committing suicide. And that made him consider the body found in the harbour, before recollecting that Dr Clayton had ruled out suicide and that it was Luke. It was still possible that Luke, rejected by his brother and fed up with being treated like a prisoner at work, had got a lift from Shawford to Portchester Castle where he’d simply walked into the sea. But there were better places to do that — along Southsea seafront for starters, where he wouldn’t have had to wait three hours for the tide to come in.
‘Has he threatened to?’ Horton asked, curious. Walters had made no mention that Luke’s prison record had shown him to be depressed or suicidal.
Lena Lockhart sank heavily on to the chair opposite Horton and said wearily, ‘I thought I’d helped Luke to get over his depression.’
‘What was the cause of it?’
‘Prison, I would have thought, wouldn’t you?’ she replied tartly, her brown eyes flashing.
So she had a thing for Felton. And had Felton come here on his release? If he had he’d already moved on, because even though Horton couldn’t see into the bedroom his finely tuned ears and copper’s antennae didn’t detect anyone else being here except them.
Sternly he said, ‘He was convicted of murder.’
‘Yes, but he didn’t do it. He didn’t kill Natalie Raymonds.’
Horton smirked. ‘That’s what they all say.’ He wanted to provoke a reaction and he got one.
She jumped up, glaring at him. ‘And sometimes it happens to be true.’
‘How can he remember?’ Horton interrupted incredulously. ‘He was out of his mind on heroin.’
‘Yes. But under hypnosis he didn’t recall it at all.’
‘Surely the drugs would have obscured his memory?’
‘No,’ she declared emphatically.
Horton eyed her steadily for some seconds. She was adamant in her belief that Felton had been innocent. Was it just emotion talking? He had several unanswered questions about Natalie’s death himself; perhaps Lena Lockhart could help him get some answers.
‘Tell me,’ he said more gently, and genuinely interested.
She eyed him sceptically. He’d have to try a little harder to convince her. Leaning forward he said, ‘I know nothing about hypnotherapy, so treat me as a complete idiot. Explain to me how it helped Luke and why you believe he didn’t kill Natalie Raymonds.’
She hesitated for a moment, eyeing him warily, unsure whether to trust him. Then his sincere expression obviously made her decide she could. She resumed her seat, though she didn’t completely relax.
‘Hypnosis can help improve the psychological and physical well-being of an individual,’ she began a little warily. ‘In the case of drug addiction it can be used to help change a subject’s attitude and mental thought processes towards using drugs, reducing the urge to take them. Oh, I know it’s not been scientifically proven, but I’ve seen it work. And it worked with Luke.’
Suddenly he saw that their relationship went further back than the Isle of Wight prison and even Winchester. ‘Did you help Luke on his drug treatment programme before prison?’
She nodded. ‘After he was sentenced for the attack on an elderly lady, part of the condition of him being given a community sentence was that he underwent a drug treatment programme. I was living and working in Portsmouth then and I helped Luke handle his withdrawal symptoms. They were pretty severe. But Luke was determined to come off drugs and stay off. So I was surprised when I read that he’d been sentenced for killing that girl while on drugs. I contacted Winchester prison and offered to help him. He had just tried to kill himself so they were keen to invite me over. I knew the prison doctor, and he recommended that Luke be moved to the Isle of Wight where I could treat him.’
‘Go on,’ he encouraged when she stalled, wondering angrily why they’d only been given the edited highlights of Felton’s records and not the full story.
Leaning slightly forwards she said, ‘What I try to do is change an addict’s thought processes so that he or she doesn’t feel the urge to use substances any longer. Through hypnosis, I attempt to modify behaviour by increasing and heightening mental awareness so that the addict is more inclined to receive suggestions and ideas. But before that I need to get to the core of the subject’s inner feelings, especially about themselves, and try and understand why they resorted to taking drugs.’
‘And what did you discover about Luke?’ His genuine interest must have encouraged her because she seemed to forget about client confidentiality. Or was it because she believed Felton was dead? Horton wasn’t about to enlighten her.
‘Luke was a middle child, and we all know what that means. Middle child syndrome. The middle child in a family of three often feels that he or she doesn’t quite belong. He has to fight to receive attention from his parents. The first child always has a special place in its parent’s affections and gets heaps of attention, love and protection. The second child gets some love and attention, but not as intense as the first child and only until the new baby comes along, then the middle child is suddenly sidelined for a younger sibling. The middle child feels it’s being ignored and becomes insecure. It feels out of place and can become troublesome, or a loner, as in the case of Luke. His elder brother, Ashley, was charismatic, confident, an achiever, and his younger sister, Olivia, the much yearned for girl, spoilt, cosseted.’
And from what he’d seen of both Ashley and Olivia he thought that Lena Lockhart was correct in her assessment. Recalling Ashley Felton’s luxury apartment facing the harbour, Horton said, ‘Luke’s brother seems to have done very well for himself. He runs a recruitment company.’
‘I know, and according to Luke, Ashley was the apple of his parents’ eye. Good at sports, likeable, popular, and clever without even trying.’
Horton wondered if Cantelli had managed to ask Charlotte about the Feltons. He’d not mentioned it, so Horton guessed not.
Lena Lockhart was saying, ‘Luke was always urged by his parents to be more like his brother. He slogged for his A levels and got brilliant results, but at a cost — his health and nerves. And when he won a place at Oxford he thought his parents would be over the moon. Ashley had gone to university too but not Oxford, and he’d come out with a first-class honours in business studies. So Luke felt he had to match that. But Luke was reading history. His father, an accountant, couldn’t really see the point of it and told him so, and his mother kept saying how well Ashley was doing working for a blue-chip company as a management consultant at that time. Whether this was as bad as Luke portrayed I don’t know but it’s what he felt. Olivia, four years younger, was attractive, cooperative, enchanting and a budding actress.’