Elizabeth George - A Great Deliverance

The use of the modifier was not lost on Gillian. “Someday?” Her arm encircled her waist in a gesture very like her mother’s.

The psychiatrist appeared to be evaluating her reaction. He answered in a way that indicated that her single-word response had communicated far more than she realised.

“Yes, Roberta is very ill.” He put his hand on her elbow and guided her through the door in the panelling.

They walked through the locked ward, the only noise among them the muffled sounds of their footsteps on the carpeting and the occasional cry of a patient from behind the closed doors. Near the end of the corridor, a narrow door was recessed into the wall, and Samuels stopped before it, opening it and switching on the light to reveal a small, cramped room. He motioned them inside.

“You’re going to find yourselves crowded in here,” he warned, his tone of voice indicating how little he regretted the fact.

It was a narrow rectangle, no larger than a good-sized broom closet, which in fact it once had been. One wall was completely covered by a large mirror, two speakers hung at either end, and a table and chairs were set up in the middle. It was claustrophobic and pungent with the smell of floor wax and disinfectant.

“This is fine,” Lynley said.

Samuels nodded. “When I fetch Roberta, I shall switch these lights out, and you’ll be able to see through the two-way mirror into the next room. The speakers will allow you to hear what’s being said. Roberta will see only the mirror, but I’ve told her that you will be present behind it. We couldn’t have her in the room otherwise, you understand.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Fine.” He smiled at them grimly as if he sensed their apprehension and was glad to see that they-like himself-were not anticipating that the upcoming interview would be a diverting lark. “I’ll be in the next room with Gillian and Roberta.”

“Is that necessary?” Gillian asked hesitantly.

“Considering the circumstances, yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“The circumstances?”

“The murder, Mrs. Clarence.” Samuels surveyed them all one last time and then buried his hands deeply in the pockets of his trousers. His eyes were on Lynley. “Shall we deal in legalities?” he asked brusquely.

“That isn’t necessary,” Lynley said. “I’m well aware of them.”

“You know that nothing she says-”

“I know,” Lynley repeated.

He nodded sharply. “Then I’ll fetch her.” He spun smartly on one heel, switched out the lights, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

The lights from the room beyond the mirror gave them some illumination, but their close little cell was alive with shadows. They seated themselves on the unforgiving wooden chairs and waited: Gillian with her legs straight out in front of her, staring passionately down at the scarred tips of her fingers; Jonah with his chair next to hers, cradling its wooden back protectively; Sergeant Havers slumped down, brooding on the darkest corner of the room; Lady Helen next to Lynley, observing the unspoken communication between husband and wife; and Lynley himself, lost in deep contemplation from which he was roused by the touch of Lady Helen’s hand squeezing his own.

Bless her, he thought, returning the pressure. She knew. She always knew. He smiled at her, so glad that she was with him with her clear-eyed sanity in a world that would shortly go mad.

Roberta was very much as she had been. She entered the room between two white-clad nurses, dressed as she had been dressed before: in the too-short skirt, the ill-fitting blouse, the flipflopping slippers that barely sufficed to give her feet protection. She had, however, been bathed in anticipation of the interview, and her thick hair was clean and damp, pulled back and fastened at her neck with a piece of scarlet yarn, an incongruous note of colour in the otherwise monochromatic room. The room itself was inoffensive and barren, devoid of decoration save for a trio of chairs and a waist-high metal cabinet. Nothing hung on the walls. There was no distraction, no escape.

“Oh, Bobby,” Gillian murmured when she saw her sister through the glass.

“There are three chairs here in the room, as you can see, Roberta.” Samuels’s voice came to them without distortion over the speakers. “In a moment I’m going to ask your sister to join us. Do you remember your sister Gillian, Roberta?”

The girl, seated, began to rock. She gave no reply. The two nurses left the room.

“Gillian’s come up from London. Before I fetch her, however, I’d like you to look round the room and accustom yourself to it. We’ve never met in here before, have we?”

The girl’s dull eyes remained where they had been, fixed on a point on the opposite wall. Her arms hung, inanimate, at her sides, lifeless, pulpy masses of fat and skin. Samuels, undisturbed by her silence, let it continue while he placidly watched the girl. Two interminable minutes dragged by in this way before he got to his feet.

“I shall fetch Gillian now, Roberta. I’m going to be in the room while you meet with her. You’re quite safe.”

The last declaration seemed entirely unnecessary, for if the hulking girl felt fear-felt anything at all-she gave no sign.

In the observation room, Gillian got to her feet. It was a hesitant movement, unnatural, as if she were being propelled upward and forward by a force other than her own free will.

“Darling, you know you don’t have to go in there if you’re afraid,” her husband said.

She did not reply but rather, with the back of her hand upon which the heavy scoring from the metal brushes stood out like cutaneous veins, she stroked his cheek. She might have been saying goodbye to him.

“Ready?” Samuels asked when he opened the door. His sharp glance made a rapid assessment of Gillian, cataloguing her potential weaknesses and strengths. When she nodded, he went on crisply. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be in there and several orderlies are within calling distance should she need to be quickly subdued.”

“You act as if you believe that Bobby could really hurt someone,” Gillian said and preceded him to the next room without waiting for a response.

The others watched, waiting for a reaction from Roberta when the door opened and her sister entered. There was none. The big square body continued to rock.

Gillian hesitated, her hand on the door. “Bobby,” she said clearly. Her tone was quiet, but matter-of-fact, the way a parent might speak to a recalcitrant child. Receiving no response, the young woman took one of the three chairs and placed it in front of her sister, directly in her line of vision. She sat down. Roberta gazed through her to the spot on the wall. Gillian looked towards the psychiatrist, who had pulled his chair to one side, out of Roberta’s vision. “What should I-”

“Talk about yourself. She can hear you.”

Gillian fingered the material of her dress. She dragged her eyes up to her sister’s face. “I’ve come up from London to see you, Bobby,” she began. Her voice quavered, but as she proceeded, it gathered strength. “That’s where I live now. With my husband. I was married last November.” She looked at Samuels, who nodded encouragingly. “You’re going to think it’s so funny, but I married a minister. It’s hard to believe that a girl with such a strong Catholic background would marry a minister, isn’t it? What would Papa ever say if he knew?”

The plain face offered neither acknowledgment nor interest. Gillian might have been speaking to the wall. She licked her dry lips and stumbled on. “We have a flat in Islington. It’s not a very large flat, but you’d like it. Remember how I loved plants? Well, I’ve lots in the flat because the kitchen window gets just the right kind of sun. Remember how I could never get plants to grow in the farmhouse? It was too dark.”