Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense (2 page)

two

Georgia's reaction startled me.

“You should take it seriously, in case.”

“In case of what?”

“It turns nasty.” Georgia crossed her arms underneath her large breasts. She had a
no-nonsense
look, which I imagined wasn't the one she used in the consulting room.

“Are you serious?”

“For God's sake, Kim, we're in a dodgy business.”

“That's a bit overdramatic, isn't it?”

“We rummage through the emotional rubble of people's lives and sometimes those people are frankly …”

“Mad? Is that what you were going to say?” I flashed a mischievous grin.

“I was going to say disturbed.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Actually, I was going to say mad as a box of frogs,” Georgia blustered. “Sorry.”

I let out a laugh. Deep down, I hoped it would ease the tension. No chance. I glanced around the bustling bar. A wave of pain rolled across my shoulders.

“Seriously,” Georgia said, “you know the dangers.”

“We trade in secrets and taboos—both come with a price tag.”

“And remember the price tag can be damned expensive.”

“You mean transference?” When a client becomes fixated on the therapist was what Georgia meant.

“It happens more often than you think.”

“But I'm no longer working in the kind of areas that invite that particular problem. My present clientele consist of terrified young women under the age of
twenty-five
whose only goal in life is to resist it. They're too
self-consumed
to pose a threat to me or anyone else, for that matter.”

Georgia picked at her salad. “Christ, I hate lettuce,” she said morosely. “How come you manage to stay so slim?”

“Genes and nervous energy. At this rate I'll soon be the diameter of a pencil.”

Georgia raised a smile and munched thoughtfully. “Do you think it's linked to the mysterious chocolates?”

“Oh those. I'd forgotten.”

“You're a terrible liar,” Georgia said, her look arch.

I absently ran a finger down the scar tissue on the side of my face and thought about the accompanying message. Made up from assorted pieces of newsprint, the crazy arrangement of letters had set my teeth on edge. It simply said: BEAUTY QUEEN.

“I like chocolates, as you well know.” Georgia patted her ample tummy. “But if someone sent me a huge box with an anonymous note attached, it would frigging freak me out.” She forked in another mouthful of lettuce. “You kept the note as evidence?”

“I shredded it.”

The fork hovered in midair. “You did what?”

“I know. I'm an idiot. Honestly, Georgia, I thought it was a
one-off
.”

Georgia was having none of it. “This speaks of progression, a pattern. First the chocs and now the mirror.”

I averted my eyes and took another bite of sandwich in a bid to lighten the atmosphere and distract Georgia, who was homing in on me like a radar device.

“Anything else you'd care to share, Kim?”

“Not especially.” I reached for my glass of water, flashed a smile, and asked Georgia about her forthcoming holiday in Italy.

“Is this the technique you usually adopt with clients?”

“I usually use thumbscrews.” I grinned. “Stop evading the question.”

“Pot, kettle, and black.”

“Okay, Miss Marple,” I said, with a huge sigh. “For three clear months after Chocciegate, nothing happened. Any unsettling feelings evaporated until …” I stalled. Stuff like this didn't happen to people like me. I couldn't get my head around it. For fuck's sake, who would want to pay
me
this level of attention? Georgia didn't say a word, didn't fill in the gap, just looked, rapt, all eyes.

I cleared my throat. “Then three weeks ago, there were a number of silent phone calls to the flat.”

“Jesus. You never said a word.”

“Well …”

“What did you do?”

“Switched on the answering machine.” And poured myself a drink, I remembered.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Did you check the number?”

“Withheld.”

“You haven't reported it to the phone company as a nuisance call?”

“I tried. It didn't get me very far.” Georgia looked as if she couldn't trust what she was hearing. “I hope you don't stare at your clients like that,” I said.

“This is you and me,” Georgia flashed back. “I don't normally conduct
one-on
-ones in a bar.” She took a thoughtful bite of chicken. “Are you usually this cool under pressure?”

I forced a smile. This wasn't pressure. Pressure is waking up in the morning and finding the ground from underneath you rent open. Pressure is being trapped in a home life of testosterone, competitiveness, raised voices, and barked commands. Pressure is being teased at school because you're the only kid in the class whose mother doesn't exist. Pressure is being talked about because your face looks funny. This, on the other hand and make no mistake, was abuse of power, a form of control that was potentially criminal.
Chest-deep
in the past, I almost missed Georgia's next question.

“Does Chris know?”

“Sure.”

“And?”

“Obviously he was worried by the calls.”

“Worried?”

I let out a giddy laugh. “Will you stop repeating everything I say?”

“Is it any wonder?” Georgia said, not a bit apologetic. “I suppose you blinded him with science.”

“
If you mean did I tell him that all forms of behaviour, however aberrant, contain a subtext beneath, yeah, I did.” I'd blithered on about the ways in which people indulge in inappropriate behaviour to disguise fear and hurt, some more extreme than others. I'd assured him that it was my profound belief that even the nastiest exterior cloaked a good person. What I didn't tell Chris was that making silent phone calls was sometimes the precursor to something far more serious.

“And the caller didn't utter a word?” Georgia pressed.

I shook my head. No threats. No demands. I should have felt relief. I'd felt nothing of the sort. Even then, I knew that it was personal. I dreaded to think what Chris would make of the mirror.

“Want my professional opinion?” Georgia said.

“Nope.” I grinned. “But I expect I'm going to get it.”

Georgia pushed away her plate, leant slightly forward like a judge summing up a case for the jury. “Slotting the mirror into a clinical context, anorexics and bulimics are as much governed by mirrors as they are scales. When an emaciated anorexic regards herself, she only sees a distorted, overweight version.”

“While BDD sufferers stare with the firm hope that their appearance will somehow be acceptable to them, a hope that's always dashed,” I chipped in.

“Right,” Georgia agreed. “Ergo: the mirror is significant. I reckon it's one of your clients.”

I shook my head.

“No?” Georgia had a shrewd gleam in her eye.

“Making silent phone calls isn't a female pursuit. Women are too verbal, too
language-orientated
.”

“There are exceptions,” Georgia said. “Whether it's a man or woman, what's the motivation? Is she making a statement about her appearance? Maybe this person is reaching out and saying that she too has been scarred in some way, that she—” Georgia broke off, embarrassed, and splayed the fingers of her right hand as if they would do the talking for her.

“Is like me,” I finished off the sentence. Scarred on the outside. Scarred on the inside.

“Sorry,” Georgia said, flashing an apologetic smile. “But do you see what I'm driving at?”

Frankly, I'd thought of nothing else. “So this is someone's desperate plea for help?”

“Maybe, but that doesn't mean that she isn't dangerous.”

I didn't speak. For all the outward show, an unexpected spurt of anger banged between my ears. How dare this person upset my life. “There is another more obvious motive.”

“What's that?”

“He wants to frighten me.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I can't think of anyone I've pissed off. Confrontation isn't really my thing.” Passive aggression, Chris had flung at me once, which I thought was mighty unfair because that was more his line.

“So you've absolutely no idea who it might be?”

“No.”

I'd spent oceans of time trying to figure out the personality, attempting to identify an obsessive theme or signs of psychoses, but there was so little to go on and no real indicators. “There's no face on which to focus, no clue to identity, no idea what this individual might be capable of, from which direction he'll come, whether he'll lose interest or step it up.”

“He? You're really set on it being a male?”

“Oh yeah, this is a guy, all right.” Everything about the situation told me a man was involved. “You know what? I guess, on a professional level, I should be intrigued.”

“I hope you're not,” Georgia said with disapproval. “This isn't taking place in the safe and cosy confines of the consulting room. He's out there, in your life, in your face. If you admit interest, you'll be entering into the perpetrator's game.”

“Maybe that's the object of the exercise.”

“Go to the police, Kim.”

“With what? It's not as though I've been followed or anything like that.”

“Would you know if you had?”

“Of course,” I insisted.

“I'm not so certain.” Georgia glanced at her watch. “Bugger! I've got to go.” She gathered up her belongings and gave me a hug. “Just make sure you keep a note of the calls and detail anything else that happens. Then, for God's sake, Kim, go to the cops.”

three

I stepped out into
the sunshine, tilted my head to a sky the colour of French navy, and told myself that I felt better. Whatever was happening to me was only upsetting if I allowed it. Tonight, I'd drive to Devon; I'd see Chris and all would be well in my little world.

I set off down Montpellier Walk, bars on one side, gardens with bandstand on the other, music from a brass band in full spate competing with the low growls of Ferraris and Aston Martins. The leafy promenade stretched out before me like a wide street in a continental city. Cheltenham at its finest: smiley, glossy, and wealthy.

Cutting across the road at the lights, my mobile rang. A brief glance at the number told me it was Alexa.

“Hi, Alexa,” I said, breezy and cheerful.

“Kim, have you got a moment?”

I glanced at my watch and frowned. “I'm heading back to work.”

Alexa let out a noise, midway between a groan and a howl.

“What's up, honey?” I headed off past the Town Hall and into Oriel Road where it joined the trendy Bath Road and “Notting Hill” of Cheltenham.

“Brooks wants a divorce.”

“Oh God, I'm sorry.” Alexa, an old school friend with whom I'd lost touch for the best part of a couple of decades, had tracked me down three years ago. Her marriage seemed fine when we first hooked up. Recently, it had taken a nosedive.

“I thought we'd be able to work it out, but he's adamant,” she said, audibly gulping back tears. “He's even gone to a solicitor.”

“So he's absolutely serious?”

Alexa's response was a strangled cry.

I waited several beats. “You'd probably be wise to do the same.”

“Get a solicitor? But I can't,” Alexa wailed.

I kept on walking. Ellerslie Lodge, my destination, rose into view.

“When did all this blow up?” I said.

“Last night.” Another torrent of tears broke over the airwaves. I genuinely felt sorry for her.

“You're still in shock, you poor thing. Look, I have to go now, but can I call you tonight when I get back to Devon? We can have a proper talk then.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice thick with crying.

“Are you at work?” I said as an afterthought.

“Couldn't face it.”

“Go and make yourself a cuppa and have a lie down.”

“Thanks, Kim. I really appreciate it. Sorry to hold you up.”

“You haven't,” I said. “It's fine. Speak to you later.”

Ellerslie Lodge, a pioneering
fifteen-bedded
residential home, housed thirteen- to
eighteen-year
-old anorexic girls. Either they'd recently come out of hospital or were trying the Lodge as a last ditch attempt before it was deemed necessary to remove them to a more clinical setting.

Splitting my time between Bayshill Clinic and Ellerslie, an eight-
minute walk away, allowed me a degree of professional latitude. At Bayshill, a white stucco
double-fronted
house that could easily pass for an insurance firm or design outfit, the atmosphere was serene and calm. Ellerslie was generally messier, the clients higher maintenance, the vibe highly strung. I actually preferred the latter because I believed that I could initiate more change. On a purely practical level, it offered a pragmatic solution to the perennial Cheltenham parking problem. Unlike Bayshill, the Lodge had extensive parking facilities and I parked my silver Celica there every Monday morning and picked it up every Friday after work.

Cathy Whitcombe, the senior nursing sister, greeted my arrival with a friendly smile.

Her kind face and
easy-going
manner often falsely lulled people into thinking that she was a pushover. “All quiet on the Western front. Ellen's settling in well.”

“The girl from Stroud?”

“She seems to have chummed up with Kirsten.”

“Brave,” I said with a laugh. Argumentative by nature, Kirsten was one of my more challenging clients. “So who am I seeing this afternoon, Cath?”

“Ellen, Carla, and Lauren. Before you do, could you pop into Jim's office? He's got a proposition for you.” Cathy wore a wide smile.

“What sort of proposition?”

“More celebrity work.”

I groaned inside. I'd already taken part in a television discussion for the BBC in which I'd talked about the work carried out at Ellerslie
Lodge. The episode had been the most
knicker-wetting
experience of my life, and that was saying something. The unscheduled mention of my facial disfigurement by the presenter had felt like random violence. I didn't relish the idea of another stint in front of the camera.

“Is he in his office?”

“
Knee-deep
in referrals.”

“Will I be able to cross the threshold?” Jim's office bore all the hallmarks of a student squat.

“No comment,” Cathy laughed.

I crossed a large, comfortably furnished hall that smelt of polish and coffee. A
deep-seated
sofa ran the length of a wall hung with watercolours of beach scenes. Magazines lay in a lazy heap on a coffee table, and a spectacular arrangement of flowers sat on a pillar near the wide, sweeping staircase, the effect undeniably welcoming.

Jim Copplestone, the resident psychiatrist, looked up from a pile of medical literature. My boss, he oversaw my cases from a medical perspective and took care of the few clients who displayed more complicated and serious disorders requiring drug intervention. Whereas my primary degree was psychology, his was medicine. With his long dark hair, streaked with grey, he had the louche exterior of an
out-of
-work musician, one of the reasons, I suspected, for his popularity with the girls.

“Just the woman,” he beamed.

“I gather you want to twist my arm,” I said, returning the smile.

“A finger perhaps, nothing more. It's a
phone-in
programme, BBC Radio Gloucestershire. They're after a general discussion to highlight the problem of eating disorders. Apparently it's come back into vogue.”

I pulled a face.

“Mine is not to reason why,” he said, “but anorexia just got sexy again.”

“Terrific. I'll make a note to tell my clients.”

“Now, now,” he chuckled. “Think of it this way, it provides a wonderful opportunity for you to talk about the Lodge.”

“How come you're not doing it?”

“They prefer a woman.”

“
They
being the same people who think anorexia is sexy?”

“The audience we're trying to reach, darling.”

“Cool. I'm fine with that.” I recognised when I was snookered.
In spite of the rise in the number of boys with the disease, young women were most vulnerable. And young women preferred talking to women. It wasn't scientific; the possible
long-term
health
complications, like infertility and osteoporosis, were particularly
gender-specific
.

“Good,” he said conclusively.

“Not so fast. What's in it for me?” I threw him a playful smile.

He slowly reached up and put his hands behind his head. “You drive a hard bargain, Slade. What would you like?” Leaning back expansively in his chair, the curve of his lips suggested that he was open to offers. You old flirt, I thought. Jim's company and office banter made me feel briefly normal again.

“A couple of bottles of decent wine?”

He flashed me an expression of mock disappointment. At least I thought it was. “You're a terrible woman.”

“I know, and none of that cheap
two-for
-
a-tenner
muck,” I said, determined not to give ground. “When am I expected?”

“Monday, at noon. I've got the name of a contact here, somewhere.” Jim plunged his hand helplessly into an overflowing
in-tray
.

“You'll be there all day. Catch me later.” Anxious not to be late for my first appointment, I winked and left him to it.