Therapy

Dr Penelope Croft had been a practising psychiatrist for twenty-three years.

In that time, she had learned that the most important skill in her profession was not diagnosis, empathy, or even patience. It was the ability to hear something utterly extraordinary and maintain precisely the same expression one would use while being told that someone occasionally had trouble sleeping.

Detective Inspector Jean-Pierre Brookes was testing that ability considerably.

He lounged in the leather chair opposite her desk, one ankle resting across the opposite knee. Despite having been in the room for nearly forty minutes, he had not removed his thick woollen trench coat. Beneath it he wore a charcoal suit, white shirt and perfectly straight tie. His boots were polished. His expression carried the weary intensity of a man who had seen far too much and intended to make that everybody else’s problem.

Most people called him Genie.

Dr Croft had not yet established why.

“So,” she said, resting her pen against her notebook. “Perhaps we could talk a little about your childhood.”

Genie’s gaze drifted towards the rain running down the window.

“I suppose it all began when my mother ran away before I was born.”

Dr Croft’s pen stopped.

There was a short silence.

“Go on.”

“My father had died not long before I was conceived. It was really hard on her, I suppose.”

Dr Croft looked down at her notes.

Mother left before birth. Father deceased before conception.

She considered drawing a line beneath the second sentence, but decided against it.

“How old were you when your mother left?”

Genie’s brow furrowed.

“I just told you. I wasn’t born yet.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“She couldn’t cope after Dad died.”

“Before you were conceived.”

“That’s right.”

“I see.”

Genie nodded.

Dr Croft did not.

“So who raised you?”

“My grandparents. Little cottage by the river.” His expression softened. “Lovely place. It was all fun and games to me at the time. Playing in the sand. Feeling the sand between my toes. Building sandcastles with the mud.”

Dr Croft’s pen stopped again.

She glanced at him.

Genie stared wistfully into the middle distance.

“How did you find it?” she asked. “Growing up with your grandparents?”

“I loved it more than anything. I felt I didn’t need my real parents. Grandad was always teaching me things. Fishing. Woodwork. How to tell if a man’s lying by looking at his left eyebrow.”

“Can you?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“He was a complicated man.”

“In what way?”

“Well, I remember he’d bring a different woman home every night.”

Dr Croft shifted slightly in her chair.

“And how did your grandmother feel about that?”

“Oh, she joined in.”

Dr Croft’s pen hovered above the paper.

“Joined in.”

“They’d play hopscotch.”

“Hopscotch.”

“In the bedroom.”

“Of course.”

“Until the early hours of the morning.”

Dr Croft lowered her pen very slowly.

“As in the children’s game?”

“I assume so. I wasn’t allowed in.”

“I see.”

“I used to hear them through the wall. Grandad was incredibly competitive. Lots of shouting.”

“What sort of shouting?”

Genie thought.

“Mostly encouragement. ‘Harder.’ ‘Faster.’ Occasionally Grandma would shout, ‘Don’t stop.’”

Dr Croft stared at him.

“Hopscotch.”

“That’s what I always assumed.”

“Right.”

“Sometimes Grandad would shout that he was coming.”

Dr Croft closed her eyes for perhaps half a second.

“Coming where?”

“Never found out.” Genie shrugged. “He was already in the bedroom.”

Dr Croft wrote something down.

“What did you do when this was happening?”

“I’d sometimes knock and ask if I could play.”

“And what would happen?”

“Grandad would answer the door with no pants on, absolutely dripping with sweat, and tell me to go back to bed.”

“I see.”

“He really took his hopscotch seriously.”

“Yes.”

“I never understood why they needed three people.”

“There are several possibilities.”

“Grandma must have been the referee.”

“That’s certainly one of them.”

Genie nodded thoughtfully.

Dr Croft looked at her notes.

She had been practising psychiatry for twenty-three years.

She had trained for considerably longer.

None of it had prepared her for Jean-Pierre Brookes.

“Would you describe your childhood as happy?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“No feelings of abandonment?”

“None.”

“Anger towards your parents?”

“Never.”

“Resentment?”

“No.”

“Any particularly traumatic childhood memories?”

Genie considered the question.

“Once I dropped an ice cream.”

Dr Croft waited.

Genie’s jaw tightened.

“Mint choc chip.”

“I see.”

“Never really got over it.”

Dr Croft made another note.

There was clearly no value in pursuing this.

“Perhaps we could move on to your adult life. You’ve mentioned your wife several times.”

The transformation was immediate.

Genie’s face hardened. His shoulders sank. He looked towards the window again, watching rain streak across the glass.

“My wife was murdered.”

There it was.

The reason he’d been referred to her.

Dr Croft softened her voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“Eleven years ago.”

“And you still find yourself struggling with the loss?”

“Every day.”

“I understand you’ve devoted a considerable amount of time to investigating her death.”

“My life.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”

“Do you feel you’ve been able to grieve?”

Genie looked at her.

“How can I grieve when her killer is still out there?”

Dr Croft allowed the silence to sit between them.

“I’ll find them,” Genie continued. “I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care what it costs me. One day I’ll look the bastard in the eye and tell them they took everything from me.”

His phone rang.

Genie sighed.

“Sorry.”

He pulled it from his coat.

“Hello?”

A pause.

“Yes, love.”

Dr Croft’s eyes moved slowly from Genie to her notes.

“No, I remembered.”

Another pause.

“I know we need milk.”

Pause.

“No, you said semi-skimmed.”

Pause.

“Well, I don’t know why you’d say semi-skimmed if you wanted whole.”

Dr Croft stared at him.

“Fine. Whole milk.”

Pause.

“Yes.”

Pause.

“Yes.”

Pause.

“I love you too.”

He hung up.

“Sorry about that.”

Dr Croft looked down at her notes.

Then at Genie.

“Your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Your murdered wife?”

Genie’s expression darkened.

“Please, Doctor. There’s no need to keep reminding me.”

“I apologise.”

“It’s still very raw.”

“I can see that.”

Dr Croft turned to a fresh page.

“Does your wife live with you?”

“Of course.”

“Right.”

“She made breakfast this morning.”

Dr Croft’s pen stopped.

“What did she make?”

“Eggs. Sausages. Bacon. Chicken tikka masala. Ratatouille. Beef Wellington. Six lentil dishes. Sucking pig.”

“For breakfast.”

“Yes.”

“What did you eat?”

“Toast.”

Dr Croft stared at him.

“I was in a hurry.”

“Naturally.”

“I kissed her goodbye, promised I’d find whoever murdered her and came straight here.”

“Has it ever occurred to you to ask your wife who murdered her?”

Genie frowned.

“Of course.”

Dr Croft leaned forward for the first time in the session.

“And?”

“She says it was Derek.”

“Derek.”

“Her yoga instructor.”

Dr Croft felt something approaching relief.

“Then presumably you’ve investigated Derek.”

“Extensively.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“Your wife says he murdered her.”

“That’s hearsay.”

“She is the murder victim.”

“Still hearsay.”

“She witnessed her own murder.”

“Allegedly.”

Dr Croft put down her pen.

Genie leaned forward.

“I can’t arrest a man because my dead wife doesn’t like him, Doctor. I’m a police officer. We have procedures.”

“She’s accusing him of murdering her.”

“And when I have evidence, I’ll act.”

Dr Croft looked at the clock.

There were still twelve minutes remaining.

She had never hated a clock before.

“Let’s discuss your work, then.”

Genie nodded.

“I’m a good detective.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I notice things other people don’t.”

“Such as?”

“This morning I encountered a shattered plate-glass door.”

Dr Croft waited.

“Upper hinge fastening failed first,” Genie said. “You could tell from the fragment distribution. Lateral force exceeded the tensile strength of the mounting. Probably by about thirty percent.”

“You determined that by looking at broken glass?”

“Three seconds.”

“Remarkable.”

“Years of experience.”

“And was there anything else unusual about your morning?”

Genie considered this.

“There was a man outside a bank.”

“What was unusual about him?”

“That’s the problem. I couldn’t determine it.”

“What was he doing?”

“Leaving the bank.”

“Anything else?”

“Balaclava.”

Dr Croft waited.

“Semi-automatic weapon.”

She waited.

“Large canvas sack over his shoulder.”

Dr Croft’s fingers tightened around the arms of her chair.

“What was in the sack?”

“Money, apparently. Some fell out.”

“And the bank?”

“Alarm was going off.”

Dr Croft inhaled slowly through her nose.

“Did the sack have any distinguishing features?”

“Three large dollar signs.”

“Detective Inspector Brookes.”

“Yes?”

“Did it occur to you that he might have been robbing the bank?”

Genie gave a small humourless laugh.

“That’s exactly the sort of thinking that leads to miscarriages of justice.”

Dr Croft said nothing.

“Something was off about him, though.”

“Something.”

“I could feel it.”

“But you couldn’t determine what.”

“No evidence.”

“Of course.”

“I trust my gut, Doctor. But my gut isn’t enough.”

“Quite.”

Genie glanced at the clock and stood.

“Well. That’s our hour.”

“We have nine minutes.”

“Duty calls.”

He straightened his tie, which had not moved.

“Detective Brookes.”

He stopped at the door.

Dr Croft looked down at six pages of notes which, taken together, constituted a sustained assault upon causality.

“Why does everyone call you Genie?”

Genie stared at her for several seconds.

“Nobody does.”

He opened the door.

“Same time next week, Doctor.”

Then he was gone.

Dr Croft remained perfectly still.

From somewhere outside came a tremendous distant crash.

A moment later, something that sounded almost metallic echoed across the city.

TWANG.

Dr Croft looked towards the window.

Then back at her notes.

She picked up her pen and wrote one final sentence.

Recommend further sessions.