John Matthews - Past Imperfect

'… So, to re-cap: at no point were you informed by Ms Calvan that information from the sessions might be used for a murder investigation?'

'No, I was not.'

'We have heard earlier from Doctor Calvan that in fact this was intimated or suggested by her. Was even this perhaps done?'

'No. I don't remember any such sort of suggestion.'

Lambourne had made it patently clear that he wasn't aware, with some earlier displays of annoyance: other objectives put before his clients interests he considered a serious ethical breach. His patient's progress could have been adversely affected.

Recalling the comment, Corbeix saw a last minute chance to fight back. His leg muscles protested as he rose. A few minutes back and forth with Barielle, and the questions were posed:

'As Prosecutor Corbeix has suggested, Dr Lambourne, in regard to your comment about the possible adverse affects to your patient: is it not true that this tactic of getting Eyran Capel to face events surrounding this past life murder finally led to a breakthrough in his treatment?'

'Yes, it did.' Reluctant admission. 'Though I think this might have been more by good fortune than design.'

'You were also, I believe, clearly informed that Inspector Fornier and a notary would be present for one of the final sessions.'

'Yes, but I was told that this was purely for 'filing' of possible additional information about the murder.'

'Did it at no time occur to you that this 'filing' might have also included a re-investigation of the murder?'

'No, I'm afraid it didn't.'

But Lambourne's final tone had been lame, tentative, thought Corbeix. A couple of weak strikes back, but Corbeix doubted it would be enough. Lambourne was dismissed and Stuart Capel called.

As Corbeix watched Stuart Capel go through the preliminaries of his name, age and relationship with Eyran Capel — his earlier sense of hopelessness settled deeper. Barielle would ask Capel if he'd been aware that the final sessions were aiding a murder investigation — and Capel would say he hadn't. Corbeix would raise a few small points and objections, but would it make any difference? He doubted it. They'd been lucky to scrape through the last hearing, and Barielle had warned that if any such circumstance arose again…

'… You and your wife were given charge of your brother's son as godparents, is that correct?'

'Yes, it is.'

'And at what point did you become aware that Eyran might be mentally disturbed and need treatment?'

'About two to three weeks after I took him out of the hospital in California.' The questions brought back the memories. Vapoured breath on mist air as Jeremy was lowered into the ground. The first bad dreams. Racing upstairs as he heard Eyran screaming .

'The first indication that the boy might be disturbed I understand was because of a series of dreams. Is that correct?'

'Yes, it was.'

'And as a result of the disturbing nature of those dreams, you finally entered the boy into sessions with Dr Lambourne?'

'Yes. Dr Lambourne had been recommended by Eyran's surgeon in California. Dr Torrens.' Christmas in Oceanside, just him and Eyran. Taco dips and Turkey. Distant, hesitant looks. The first moment it struck him: this isn't the Eyran I remember!

Barielle made quick work of the reasons Calvan was finally called in, the switch over from conventional to regressionary therapy. This was ground he'd already covered in detail with Lambourne and Calvan.

But at the mention of her name, Stuart thought: She'd come up with the main theory for the breakthrough with Eyran, brought back the Eyran he remembered, and yet now…'

'… There were two stages to the sessions with Calvan, I understand,' Barielle confirmed. 'The first was just general exploratory. But in the second, coming just over a week later, Dr Calvan apparently proposed a theory that she thought might help Eyran's progress?'

'Yes, she did.' And she was right, thought Stuart. Her theory had worked. And now they wanted him to betray her … plunge home the final knife!

'And as those final sessions were approached — did Doctor Calvan at any time make you aware that they might be used to further a murder investigation?'

But all Stuart could think of was Calvan's expression as she'd come out of the courtroom. Fornier crestfallen as she told him. Betrayal . It was wrong. He fumbled hesitantly. 'I'm not sure. I believe she did.'

Thibault looked up sharply, adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses and squinted. Barielle stared at him intently. Doubt, disbelief.

'Are you sure about this, Mr Capel? This is quite a crucial point.'

Fornier looking despondently at the floor . The distant, hopeful light he'd seen in Fornier's eye earlier in the wheat field suddenly gone. Defeat. Sat now on a bench in the coolness of the corridor next to Eyran. Two survivors. The last fleeting image before he'd entered the hearing room. More confidently: 'Yes, I'm quite certain. She mentioned it at the outset of those final sessions.'

Thibault was on his feet. 'But this is preposterous! We have heard from both Dr Lambourne and even from Doctor Calvan's own mouth — that this in fact was not the case.'

'If anything is indeed preposterous, then it will be for me to suggest,' Barielle admonished. He asked Thibault to sit down and refrain from further interruptions. Then he couched the same question to Capel less confrontationally: 'Can you explain these apparent discrepancies in testimony?'

'Doctor Lambourne I'm afraid might be my fault. Perhaps I did neglect to mention it. But if Doctor Calvan claims not to have said anything, then she's selling herself short. Perhaps she truly forgot that she'd mentioned it to me. A lot of other issues at the time were far more pressing — not least of all finding a cure for Eyran. It's easy for something like that to get buried.'

Corbeix observed Thibault's silent fury, and gloated. Due deserts for his tactics. Initial disbelief from Barielle, then finally acceptance. As a functionary of the law, his first duty was to record testimony, not interpret it. Regardless of any doubts Barielle still harboured, the file would show that Marinella Calvan had pre-advised of the final sessions being used in a murder investigation. No mistrial!

Corbeix was almost sure that Stuart Capel had lied, but why? Perhaps best in the end if he didn't know; no possible later self-recriminations that he'd nailed Duclos partly through unfair advantage. All he knew was that the cramps in his legs were suddenly gone. He was steering his boat towards port, and all he could see ahead was clear flat water.

‘Un Coca-Cola et une biere.’

The waiter put down their drinks. Stuart Capel nodded and he walked away. Eyran sipped at his coke and looked towards the beach.

‘Are you okay now?’ Stuart asked.

‘Yes, fine.’

Stuart had promised Eyran a visit to the beach after the ordeal of testifying, and Le Lavandou was one of the first they came to on their way back from Aix.

Eyran had been fine at first. Swimming, floating on his back, feeling all the tension drift from his body. But as he’d come to sit next to Stuart on the beach, the outline of the harbour and headland somehow seemed familiar. A sense of deja vu.

‘Have we been here before?’ he’d asked.

‘No. Only to the beach at Cannes. But you came with your mum and dad to the South of France a couple of years before you went to America. You’d have been, what, five or six.’

‘Maybe that’s it.’ But Eyran knew in that instant it wasn’t. He remembered other things from that holiday, but not this beach. The voices around, people talking and calling out, the excitable screeches of children playing and splashing in the shallows, echoed and rattled inside his head. And then the other familiar images suddenly flashed through: the wheat field, the nearby village square, some men playing boules they’d passed. It was almost as if his nervousness with the trial had blocked everything; then as soon as he relaxed, the gap in his mind opened.