David Jackson - The Helper

Doyle struggles to keep his voice level. ‘The baby?’

‘Yeah. Lorna and her husband, they were trying for a baby for years. Finally she got pregnant. Went full-term, but something went wrong. It was stillborn.’

‘When was this?’

‘About two years ago. Before I knew her, in case you got any funny ideas about me being the father.’

The thought hadn’t crossed Doyle’s mind. ‘She told you this?’

‘Yeah. That’s how we were. We were open with each other. She was crazy about me.’

Thinks Doyle, Well, who wouldn’t be? What with your fighting prowess and your shiny locks and your remarkable profile and-

‘And I was crazy about her too, you want the truth.’

Doyle detects for the first time a note of genuine emotion in Podolski’s voice. Nice save, man. Maybe you’re not such a prick after all.

‘It musta hit her hard.’

‘Yeah,’ says Podolski, nodding. It seems to Doyle then that Podolski has finally dropped his shield. His body language has changed. He’s no longer out to impress with the macho bullshit. He’s just being himself. Alone and frightened and grief-stricken.

Then Podolski adds, ‘They went through a bad time, both her and her husband. In fact, I think he was worse, the way she told it.’

Okay, thinks Doyle. The million-dollar question.

‘Did she talk to someone about it? I mean, at the time. A psychologist, someone like that?’

‘I dunno. I guess so. I mean, you’d think that must be routine, right? When you go through something like that?’

Absolutely, Doyle thinks. Routine. The hospital would have provided counseling. No doubt about it. Lorna Bonnow must have talked to a shrink.

It’s something. Doyle doesn’t know what, but it’s something. It fits a pattern.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘That’s been useful.’

Podolski seems surprised. ‘It has? That’s all you want to know?’

‘For now.’

He walks to the door, but turns just before he leaves.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he says. And means it.

The first thing he does when he gets back to the squadroom is to make a phone call to the husband.

‘Just a quick question or two, Mr Bonnow, if that’s all right. I understand that you and your wife lost a baby a couple of years ago.’

Bonnow pauses before answering. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Maybe nothing. We’re just trying to make sure we look into every possible reason for your wife’s death.’

‘I don’t understand. How on earth could the loss of our baby lead to my wife’s murder?’

‘I’m not saying it did. We just want to talk to people who she had any prolonged contact with. That includes the people she worked with, but also anybody else, such as the people at the hospital where your wife gave birth.’

‘Oh. I see. That’s pretty. . well, that’s very thorough. I didn’t think. . I thought the police had given up on my wife, ya know? That other detective — Lopez — he didn’t give me much hope that you would ever catch this lunatic.’

‘Well, I have to tell you, Mr Bonnow, we’re working some long shots here. But we’re not giving up just yet.’

‘Oh. Okay. That’s good. What do you want to know?’

‘The hospital. Which one was it?’

‘Mount Sinai.’

‘Mount Sinai? Here in Manhattan?

‘Yeah. Lorna thought she could get better care over there. I was against it. I was worried we’d get stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge with her pushing out a baby, ya know?’

‘Okay. And after the birth, I assume you were offered counseling to help you deal with it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was that also at Mount Sinai?’

‘Yes it was.’

‘You saw a psychologist, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you happen to remember his name?’

Doyle hears an expulsion of breath.

‘It was two years ago. I can’t remember things from that long ago.’

‘Try, Mr Bonnow, please.’

The line goes quiet.

Say Vasey, thinks Doyle. Please say his name was Vasey.

‘The only thing I remember about him. .’

‘Yes?’

‘Is that he was Indian.’

The disappointment pushes Doyle’s eyes closed. ‘Indian?’

‘Yes. To be frank with you, I could hardly tell what he was saying. The whole thing was a complete waste of time, ya know?’

Doyle is starting to believe that this conversation is a waste of time too.

‘All right. Thank you, Mr Bonnow. That gives me something to look into.’

‘So you’ll keep looking, right? You haven’t given up?’

‘No. We haven’t given up. We won’t give up until your wife’s killer is locked up, I promise you.’

‘Thank you.’

Doyle hangs up the phone and sighs.

An Indian.

A shrink yes, but certainly not Vasey. Not even under a different name. This is not what Doyle had hoped to hear.

But he can’t give up. It’s all he has to go on. It’s still possible that there is a connection between Vasey and this Indian doctor.

Doyle slides a telephone directory across and looks up the number for Mount Sinai Hospital on Fifth Avenue. He calls the switchboard, asks for the records department. When he gets put through, he explains who he is and what he wants, which is the name of the psychologist who counseled the Bonnows about two years ago. In response, they tell him that their records office has only a skeleton staff on Sundays, and that it would take them at least a day to find the information he is requesting. They also inform him that they would need to see a court order before they could release that data.

Doyle hangs up. So much for that.

He can’t wait a day, and he can’t ask for a court order.

Sighing again, he leaves his desk and goes to fetch the printouts of Vasey’s client records. He limits himself to the past five years, but it’s still a forest’s worth of paper. He sits down with them, starts to work his way through them yet again, this time looking for any mentions of an Indian psychologist or Mount Sinai Hospital.

The process eats hungrily into the time he has left.

And he finds nothing.

‘So, have you come to apologize?’

Anna Friedrich lounges back in her expensive white leather sofa and crosses her impossibly long legs. Doyle tries not to let himself be distracted by those legs, but it’s difficult when they’re so naked and exposed. Not that she’s indecent in any way. She is wearing a baggy woolen sweater and a band of black material that at least has pretensions of being a skirt. But those legs do tend to dominate the view. He thinks it must be like being an umpire at a tennis match for nudists. How the hell can you be expected to keep score?

‘Apologize for what, Ms Friedrich?’

‘For the way you treated Andrew? For the way you tried to label him as a criminal?’

‘We were doing our job. You know better than most that we had to ask him those questions.’

‘There are ways of asking.’

‘He was linked with two murder victims. It was important that we got to the truth.’

‘Yes, well, you didn’t, did you? Because if you had, Andrew would still be alive.’

Doyle didn’t come here for an argument. To curtail it, he drags his gaze away from Anna Friedrich and her legs, and sets it free to wander around the room. In response, the room shouts money back at him. Doyle doesn’t think he could even afford the wallpaper: it would probably cost less to paper the room in hundred-dollar bills. There’s enough scarce hardwood in the furniture here to make conservationists weep. And the carpet is so plush it makes him feel as though he has bath sponges tied to his feet.

‘Your boyfriend working today?’

‘Yes. In Saudi Arabia.’