Simon Kernick - A Good day to die

I introduced myself with a smile of my own, and announced my business.

'Please take a seat, Mr Kane. I'll let Dr Cheney know you're here.' She stood up and disappeared through a door behind the desk, while I admired the certificates from various psychiatric bodies testifying to Dr Cheney's high standards in the field. I know any idiot could buy these sort of things over the Internet and there was no guarantee that they meant anything, but I had a feeling that in Dr Cheney's case, they did.

The secretary emerged a few seconds later to inform me that, if I'd like to go through, the doctor would see me now. The words immediately brought back terrible memories of visiting the medical profession in my youth, and I was glad I had nothing wrong with me. Or nothing Dr Cheney could cure, anyway. The secretary asked if I'd like a coffee, and I thanked her and said that I would. Milk, one sugar. It was all very civilized.

I stepped inside Dr Cheney's huge office, which was decorated in the same style as the reception area but on a significantly bigger scale, complete with a number of chairs and several desks, but no sign of that old classic, the couch. A slim, tanned woman with a well-worn face and wide brown eyes stepped seemingly out of nowhere and shook my hand with a powerful grip. Her eyes appraised me coolly from behind a pair of fashionable black-rimmed glasses, but the smile itself was warm.

We exchanged pleasantries and she invited me to take a seat in front of her desk, which was at the far end of the room. It was immaculately tidy.

'What is it I can do for you, Mr Kane?' she asked, sitting down with her back ramrod straight and folding her hands slowly and carefully across her lap. It was a disconcerting gesture, and if it was meant to put her patients at ease it didn't work, but then I assumed it was being done specially for me.

I briefly explained the facts of the case, as they concerned her. 'Three people are dead: Mr Khan, Mr Malik and Miss Taylor, all of whom are connected with each other. There is, as you're no doubt aware, a major police investigation going on into the murders, but Mr Malik's uncle wants a second opinion.'

'And one private detective's work is better than the combined expertise of the Metropolitan Police?'

'At the moment, the combined expertise of the Metropolitan Police isn't getting very far. The investigation's been going for close to six weeks, and they've yet to make an arrest, let alone bring a charge of murder against anyone. And until Miss Neilson brought up the subject, Ann Taylor's death wasn't even being treated as part of the inquiry. As far as I'm aware, it still isn't. I'm certainly not suggesting that I can do any better than the officers involved in the case, but I'm hoping I can come at it from a different perspective, and get somewhere that way.'

She nodded slowly, as if accepting my answer, while continuing to appraise me. 'You are aware that what is said between a doctor and her patient is entirely confidential. Therefore, I can only repeat to you what Ann wanted brought out into the open, nothing else.'

She paused for a moment while her secretary came in with the coffee, and I told her that I was fine with that.

'How much of the history do you know?' she asked.

'I know the basics. That she was referred to you by another doctor, who felt she had a possible personality disorder that might have been the cause of the violent attack she committed. And that you got her to remember aspects of her past, which led to her father being arrested and charged with offences of child abuse. But I know very little about the details of the abuse, other than that it was very serious.'

Dr Cheney gave me a thin smile. 'Let me explain something to you, Mr Kane. I'm not a great believer in what in most circles these days is called repressed memory syndrome.' I think I must have looked a bit blank, because she continued, 'Repressed memory is when a patient is considered to have undergone a trauma or traumas so intense that the brain's only coping mechanism is to wipe the memories clean. Effectively, the patient forgets what has happened and carries on with life. It's believed by some within the psychiatric field that these memories can be returned to the conscious mind by certain types of treatment, particularly hypnotherapy. Naturally, it's an area of huge controversy, since it allows for accusations to be made where there is no corroborating evidence, and therefore perfectly innocent people can find themselves facing criminal charges for acts they never committed. But this wasn't the situation with Ann. You see, I wouldn't describe her memories as wholly repressed. I think she knew perfectly well what had happened to her, but created a veneer of toughness to try to cope with it. However, when I uncovered what had happened in her past, the accusations she made were not, I felt, taken seriously enough by the police, because of the controversy surrounding this issue of repressed memory. Although the jury at her trial believed her and she was found innocent of the charge against her by reason of diminished responsibility, the police took a more cynical view of her claims, and their investigation into the allegations was wholly inadequate.'

'But they arrested her father, Richard Blacklip.'

'Yes, they did that. They had little choice but to do that. However, his abuse was what might euphemistically be called the tip of the iceberg.'

'So what were they? The claims she made?'

'That she was introduced to sex at the age of four by her father, shortly after her mother died. That at first the abuse simply involved him touching Ann intimately, then steadily became more serious as she grew older. Intercourse, both vaginal and anal. Oral sex. For years, she slept in his bed every night and believed that what was happening to her was normal, although Blacklip constantly reminded her never to tell a soul, and during the whole time she spent with him, she never did. Her schoolwork was below average, but not significantly so, and she went through the schooling system without any of her teachers becoming unduly concerned, although as time went by, her attendance levels began to drop off.

'Ann described to me how the relationship between her and her father began to change when she was about nine years old. For the first time, he began involving other people — men he described as her uncles, although she'd never seen any of them before. He would take her to different houses, to what he called "parties", where his friends — these men he called her uncles — would sexually assault her, usually in a group setting. She wasn't sure of their exact number — she said somewhere between five and eight, and the majority of them wore masks. Her descriptions of the events that took place, and how things were organized, had the very real ring of authenticity.'

'But, given her background, it's possible she could have made them up?'

Her expression suggested very strongly that it wasn't. 'In my professional opinion, and this is exactly what I told the investigating officers more than a year ago, she was not making these allegations up. She was telling the truth. And this was evidenced by the fact that on further investigation, it transpired that her father had child-abuse convictions dating back many years and under several different names.'

'Christ,' I said. 'Poor girl.' Once again I was reminded of the empty, directionless and ultimately short life of Ann Taylor. Without a father like Blacklip, I wondered how different things could have been. Could she have grown up into a well-adjusted and happy young woman? Of course she could have done. As far as I was concerned, Blacklip had killed her just the same as if it had been his fingers round the syringe that had pumped her full of drugs. If ever I'd needed justification for what I'd done to him back in Manila, then this was it.