Part 30 (2/2)

'Do they? All of them? I've seen reports of young women, from apparently loving, functional families, entering a.n.a.lysis and emerging a year or two later with accounts of obscene abuse throughout their entire childhood. They give accounts of repeated ritual rape, sodomy, torture, the ingestion of faeces, satanic ritual. Some of us might say that unprecedented claims require a particular rigour of proof, but the supporters of these sad women say that we must demand no proof at all beyond their own testimony. Anything less is collaboration with the abuser. There isn't even a neurological model to explain the process. We all know about memory loss after a single blow on the head in a traffic accident. But there is no precedent for the systematic amnesia of regular, separate incidents occurring over many years. Your own supposed witnessing of your father-in-law murdering your cousin is trivial by comparison.'

'But why did it happen to be Alan Alan that I saw?' that I saw?'

Thelma shrugged. 'Don't ask me. You're the one who knows him. It may be that he was the focus for particular strong feelings during the period of your a.n.a.lysis. At a time when your creative mind was searching for a villain, he seemed like somebody who could be violent to a woman. The imagined murder was the moment when your inner and outer worlds coincided. In a perverse way, it was something of a triumph for the psychoa.n.a.lytic method. It's unfortunate that reality has intervened so stubbornly.'

'But why on earth did he confess?'

'People do, you know. They have their reasons.'

'Oh, G.o.d,' I said, and my head slumped into my hands. 'You're asking if Alan Martello is the sort of man who might deal with feelings of guilt and despair by making a wild, self-destructive, theatrical gesture? You're f.u.c.king right he is.'

Thelma drained her gla.s.s. 'So there you are then.'

I looked at my own gla.s.s. No chance of draining that. There was at least a triple scotch left and I already felt drunk. I stood up, a little unsteadily. 'I think I'd better go,' I said.

'I'll call you a taxi.' She did so and it was barely a couple of minutes before the doorbell rang.

'I suppose you'll be wanting to use me as an exhibit in the crusade against recovered memory,' I said as I stood in the doorway.

She gave a sad smile. 'No, don't worry. Your experience will have no effect whatsoever on their certainties.'

'That can't be true.'

'No? What about you? What would you have thought if you had arrived at your river and found it flowing the right right way?' way?'

'I don't know.'

'Look after yourself on the way home,' she said, as I got into the cab. 'You'll have to phone the police tomorrow morning. They'll need a whole new murder inquiry.'

'Oh no they won't,' I said.

Thelma looked puzzled but the cab was moving off and I was already too far away to say anything.

Forty.

We drove out of London on the A12, against the commuter traffic, and were quickly in the pseudo-countryside between the fringes of London and the Ess.e.x flats beyond. I had the road atlas open on my lap. Except for my directions, n.o.body spoke. We left the main road and entered the mess of roundabouts, corridor villages, industrial estates. A bypa.s.s was being constructed, and we sat for half an hour in a single line of traffic, looking at a man rotate a sign. Stop, go. Stop, go. I looked at my watch repeatedly.

For the last stages of the journey, the map was unnecessary. We followed the blue signs to Wivendon. We parked outside a neo-cla.s.sical building that could have been a supermarket or a tourist centre. But it was a prison.

The others stayed in the car park. I walked up the path, between low privet hedges, to the security gate. My ident.i.ty was checked, driving licence inspected, bag removed from me. A woman in a navy blue uniform smiled but prodded me through my arms and under my dress. I was led through relatively small doors, much as if I were being led through the staff entrance at a munic.i.p.al swimming baths.

I sat in a waiting room, where a flowerless pot plant and old magazines stood on a central table. On the wall was a poster advertising a fireworks display. The door opened and a man came in. He was dressed in brown corduroy trousers and a rough checked s.h.i.+rt, unb.u.t.toned at the neck. His thick, reddish-brown hair hung down over his collar. He was heavy-set, about my age. He held several thick brown folders under his left arm.

'Mrs Martello?' He came and sat down beside me, and held out his hand. 'I'm Griffith Singer.'

'h.e.l.lo.'

'You look surprised.'

'I suppose I'd expected a warder.'

'We try to be a bit more informal than that.'

'How long have I got?'

He raised his eyebrows: 'As long as you like. I'm sorry, you've caught me on a busy day. Is it all right if we talk on the move?'

We got up and he ushered me through the door and along a corridor which ended at two consecutive barred double doors.

'This takes us into the unit,' Griffith said, pressing a simple plastic doorbell which was glued to the wall beside the first door. A uniformed man came out of a gla.s.s-walled office between the two doors. Griffith showed a pa.s.s and my name was checked on a clipboard. It wasn't there and we had to wait for several minutes for someone to come along from the main entrance with a docket.

'How is he doing?' I asked.

'He's one of our stars,' Singer said. 'We're very pleased indeed. This is a new unit, you know. I we only set it up shortly before he arrived and he has been one of the people who has made it work. Do you know anything about us?'

'We've all written. He hasn't replied.'

'The residents here all have long parole dates. Instead of letting them rot, we're putting them together in an environment where they can help each other and also, we hope, spend their time creatively.'

'Swap memories,' I said.

'It's not like you think,' Singer said. 'He's doing terribly well. He's formed a seminar, got everybody involved. He's... oh, good, here's Riggs now.'

Another man in a uniform clattered along the corridor. He panted an apology. I had to sign a slip, insert it into a transparent plastic tag which was clipped onto my lapel. The first door was opened and locked. Then the second door. A warder with a name tag identifying him as Barry Skelton followed us through.

'Am I safe?'

Singer smiled in amus.e.m.e.nt. 'You're safer here than you are out in the car park. Anyway, Barry will be nearby the whole time.'

A corridor with a soft felt carpet and whitewashed walls went in each direction. Singer took my arm.

'I'll try to find you somewhere quiet. There's a storeroom along here that should be free.'

We pa.s.sed a couple of rooms. I glimpsed some men watching a television set. n.o.body looked round. Something I couldn't see what was going on in the storeroom, so we walked on until we reached a seminar room which was empty.

'You go in with Barry,' said Singer and carried on down the corridor. A thought occurred to him and he turned round. 'He's writing a novel, you know. It's rather promising.'

It was a medium-sized room with large windows at the far end overlooking a deserted recreation area. In the centre of the room was a circle of eight orange moulded-plastic chairs. Everything was bright under the strip lighting. Barry stepped forward and lifted one of the chairs and put it down just inside the door.

'I'll stay here,' he said. He spoke in a light Ulster accent. He was a very tall man with pale skin and straight black hair. 'You sit facing me. We're relaxed about the rules here, but you're not allowed to pa.s.s any object between you. If you want to end the interview, for whatever reason, you don't need to say anything. Just touch your identification tag and I'll come forward and escort you out.'

I nodded. I sat in the chair as instructed. I let my face fall into my hands. I needed to gather my thoughts.

'h.e.l.lo, Jane.'

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