Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] (21 page)

‘No,’ said Gill. ‘There isn’t for any of us.’

There was a beat of self-conscious silence before Anna felt compelled to set the record straight. ‘Actually, Jamie will only be staying with me as a short-term measure,’ she said. ‘I’ve already been to look at a residential home and it seemed very nice.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Did Anna sense a cooling towards her, or was it paranoia striking again? ‘It’s called The Beeches,’ she elaborated. ‘Do you know it?’

Gill looked uncomfortable. ‘No. We’ve never considered anything like that. I couldn’t think of having anyone else care for Suzie. We haven’t left her with anyone else in nineteen years.’

Anna was appalled. ‘What do you do if you want to go out?’ she asked.

‘We don’t,’ was the simple reply. ‘We haven’t been out together since she was born.’

Anna didn’t know what to say. It seemed like a life sentence that Gill was proud of and suddenly Anna wondered how her parents had coped.

‘It’s good to see you here, anyway, Anna,’ Gill was saying. ‘I hope you enjoy the evening.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

Shortly after that, the meeting was called to order, but to Anna’s discomfort, the first item on the agenda was the news of Eddie’s death, followed by her introduction to the group as Jamie’s new carer, making her feel more fraudulent than ever.

The session then began encounter-group style with a general sharing of problems, especially relating to sleep.

Anna listened to people describing many of the difficulties she’d already experienced with Jamie, though often far more extreme, leaving Anna marvelling at the resilience of the human spirit. One couple admitted to never having had an unbroken night since their twenty-seven-year-old, doubly incontinent son, had been born.

Although it made caring for Jamie sound like a picnic, there was a ring of familiarity to it all, and Anna began to find some small comfort in the knowledge that she was not alone. In fact she realised, with a jolt, that she felt less of an outsider here than she had done in the pub earlier in the day.

The first guest speaker of the evening was an alternative therapist, who recommended the use of aromatherapy and massage in encouraging good sleeping habits. Her philosophy sounded wonderful, although the large woman sitting next to Anna remained healthily sceptical, ‘My Andrew would love it,’ she murmured to no one in particular, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘Considering he can’t stay still for two minutes and he hates being touched, it would be perfect.’

The alternative therapist was followed by a clinical psychologist, who advocated the use of behavioural techniques for the management of routines. The principles seemed to be well founded in theory, and successful, if individual intervention could be given for twenty-four hours a day.

Professor Ivan Fellowes, the final speaker, was tall and authoritative, and was introduced to the group as a visiting consultant from the Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre and specialist in the treatment of sleeping disorders, particularly for people with autism.

Not surprisingly, his was the more conventional medical approach, advocating the use, in certain circumstances, of drugs. He explained that while, in the early days, treatment had been confined to some fairly crude anti-depressants, in recent years much more refined versions of the treatments had been developed, reeling off a list of names that could have been varieties of potato for all the meaning they had for Anna.

His presentation was altogether much more professional with accompanying overhead transparencies, copious handouts and an almost scripted commentary, beginning with a detailed look at different areas of the brain and the impact that certain substances might have. He talked at length about a group of recently developed drugs known as PSTIs, that worked, he said, by controlling the release of hormones that regulate sleep, aggression, and anxiety levels.

But as the professor went on to describe in great detail the various neurochemical processes that could be influenced by the use of pharmacological treatments, Anna could see him being far more at home addressing other medical experts, and noticed faces beginning to glaze over.

Almost a week of disturbed sleep was taking its toll on her too and her powers of concentration were suffering. Interest was briefly revived as Professor Fellowes described some highly successful trials of the different medications, which made them sound like wonder drugs, until he followed that with a damning indictment of the potential and actual side effects. Anna drifted away again, her parents’ opposition to medication for Jamie apparently vindicated. They had travelled this route years ago, with endless visits to Dr Payne and even an assessment with an expert in London, before rejecting the idea of medication outright.

When the lecture ended, Anna found herself standing in the queue for coffee beside Dr Fellowes and felt obliged to offer some comment.

‘It was a very interesting talk,’ she said, neutrally.

The professor smiled an acknowledgement. ‘But was it useful?’ he wanted to know.

‘Not really in a practical sense. Drug therapy isn’t an option for my brother, Jamie. He was removed from a respite placement for that reason.’

But having been present when Anna was introduced, the professor looked surprised. ‘It was Eddie who invited me to come and speak tonight,’ he said. ‘He seemed keen to learn more about what the possibilities for Jamie might be.’

‘Did he?’ Now it was Anna’s turn to be surprised.

‘Oh yes, he was very interested in the effects of particular medications. We had several telephone conversations about it. I’m only sorry that, in the event, we were unable to meet.’

So what had changed Eddie’s mind? Afterwards, when the main body of the meeting was over and people were beginning to disperse, Anna went with all the other carers to collect their charges from the recreation room. En route, she went to thank Gill for an interesting evening. What followed seemed to come from nowhere. Gill’s husband wandered over while they were talking. ‘We ought to be getting back, love,’ he said to his wife, smiling at Anna.

‘Yes, of course. Well it’s nice to meet you, Anna,’ Gill said, rather formally. ‘And if there’s anything we can do.’

The now habitual offer tailed off, but Anna was nonetheless grateful for it.

But as Gill moved away, her husband lingered a moment and suddenly and unexpectedly, his expression hardened. ‘I hope you’re not going to start stirring things up, like your brother did,’ he hissed at Anna, under his breath. ‘There’s no point in dragging up the past. We all have to move on.’

And with that he walked away, leaving Anna flabbergasted.

Francine, standing a few feet away, had witnessed the exchange.

‘What was that all about?’ Anna asked her, baffled.

‘Oh don’t worry about Jim,’ Francine was dismissive. ‘It doesn’t take much to get him going. He gets a bit intense.

It was just that your brother had a journalist’s instinct, didn’t he? Asked a lot of questions. It didn’t always go down well.’

But the incident left Anna feeling unsettled and angry.

It had been another long evening. After time spent pursuing mobile phone companies only to establish that Kerry-Ann’s number was untraceable, Mariner had whiled away a couple of hours attending to overdue paperwork, before reluctantly deciding that it was time to go home. On his way out, he almost fell over a box of assorted hardware in the corridor. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked the duty sergeant.

‘The surveillance techs have been spring cleaning,’ said the sergeant. ‘That’s all the obsolete stuff waiting for disposal.’

Something lying on the top of the pile caught Mariner’s eye. He knew who could use one of those and, what’s more, it would give him the perfect excuse to take a detour on his way home.

‘So it’s all being thrown away?’ he checked again.

‘Waiting for the bin men, so to speak,’ the sergeant confirmed. ‘Help yourself.’

Mariner did, and sorting through the rest of the box he came up with the unit’s other component part, batteries even included. He ran a quick check to make sure that it still functioned. It did. That would do nicely.

Turning into the residents’ parking bay outside Anna Barham’s flat however, he was disappointed to note that her car wasn’t there. He had the choice of waiting it out or going home. A brief flashback of Jenny’s orgasmic cries came back to haunt him, and he settled for the former, flicking on the radio to keep him occupied.

‘Impotence can strike any man at any age, for a variety of reasons,’ a health expert was saying. ‘And in tonight’s programme we’ll be exploring how this and other common problems can affect thousands of men.’ God but life was full of cruel coincidences. Mariner reached out again to switch it off. His love life might not be at its best right now, but impotent? No way, Jose. His finger hovered over the on/off button. On the other hand, he had precious little else to do. Leaving it on, he slid down in the seat, closed his eyes and pretended not to listen.

Dazzling headlights sweeping over him roused Mariner from a graphic description of the premature ejaculation avoidance technique. Anna and Jamie Barham were home.

He jumped up, and in his haste to silence the radio, banged his knee hard on the dashboard. Shit! He turned it off, refusing to allow his mind to speculate on where Anna and Jamie might have been until this hour, but was reassured that at least that they were alone. Mariner waited while Anna parked up, then, picking up the tracking device from the seat beside him, climbed out of his car.

He hadn’t expected to be welcomed with open arms, but, as he limped over, carrying in his hand the small black box sprouting wires, he saw how tired she looked and noted, with some disappointment, her apparent indifference towards him. He pressed on regardless, holding up the equipment for her to view. ‘Hi. I saw this, and thought of you,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ she said, forcing some kind of enthusiasm towards the so-far unidentified object. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a Kestrel Short Range,’ said Mariner, helpfully.

‘Oh,’ she said, not even remotely hooked. ‘Do you want to come in, then?’ It was a reluctant, ungracious invitation, but she’d made it, so Mariner accepted. If the tracker was to be of any value, she needed to know how it worked.

‘I’d almost given up on you,’ he said, conversationally, as they travelled up in the lift. ‘Been somewhere nice?’

‘A lecture about PSTIs,’ Anna said, provocatively.

‘Pesticides? That must have been fascinating.’

That raised a smile at least. ‘No, not pesticides: P.S.T.

Jamie!!’ Her shout came from nowhere. As the lift doors had opened on to the third floor, Jamie bolted out ahead of them, not in the direction of the flat but towards a gaping doorway at the end of the landing. Running after him, Mariner grabbed Jamie’s sleeve and hauled him back just in time, slamming the door shut before he could escape.

‘God, why are people so thoughtless!’ Anna said, white faced. ‘That’s the door leading up to the roof garden. It’s meant to be kept locked.’

‘Do you have a residents’ group?’

‘I’ve already told them…’

‘Perhaps I should have a word.’

Her resigned sigh said, ‘suit yourself. Safely inside her flat, Anna settled Jamie in front of a video, while Mariner made himself comfortable at her kitchen table. When she joined him he attempted to demonstrate the finer features of the tracking device.

‘It’s easy to use,’ he explained. ‘You just attach this clip to his clothing somewhere, and the receiver will tell you where he is in relation to you. Just set the central arrow in the direction that you’re looking and Jamie’s position will be shown on the screen.’ The LCD display he showed her looked like a miniature radar. ‘It’s a fairly crude gadget,’ he admitted, ‘but it will give you an idea of direction and distance for up to a mile, so if you use it straight away, it should be effective.’

‘Thanks,’ Anna said. It was grudging, but there nonetheless, and he hadn’t done this for gratitude, had he?

‘So, tell me about these pesticides,’ he said, moving on.

‘PSTIs; Potent Serotonin Transporter Inhibitors,’ she recited again, struggling to remember the terminology.

‘They’re the types of medication used to manage the behaviour of autistic people.’

‘Oh. Any good?’ Mariner asked, out of politeness, after all, he’d started this.

‘It was complicated,’ Anna said. ‘Too much for my limited brain capacity. But Eddie had arranged it, so they said, and I felt obliged to display some interest.’

‘You sound surprised.’

She frowned. ‘I am. Was. It’s not something I would have expected him to think about. You heard what the centre manager said. He’d taken Jamie out of his respite care placement precisely because he didn’t want Jamie put on medication.’

‘And because he couldn’t afford it.’

‘Yeah, whatever. But after what I heard tonight? Frankly it’s enough to put anyone off.’

‘Even if it means a good night’s sleep?’ Mariner had already noticed the dark circles under her eyes. ‘Perhaps Eddie was having second thoughts.’

‘He wouldn’t have. Mum and Dad were always completely opposed to medication for Jamie, too. He wouldn’t have gone against their wishes.’

‘But that was then, this is now. Things move on, don’t they?’

‘Not that much. Some of the side effects described tonight were horrendous.’ She shuddered.

‘Perhaps you need to weigh those against the benefits,’ said Mariner.

She shot him a look, but then probably the last thing she needed was someone else offering unwanted advice. ‘So how’s your investigation going?’ she asked, blatantly turning the tables.

Now it was Mariner’s turn to shrug. ‘Slowly,’ he said.

‘There are a couple of things we’re following up.’

‘Escort agencies?’ She wasn’t comfortable with that line of thinking, but Mariner could only be honest with her.

‘Eddie had definitely been making enquiries in that area,’ he said. ‘We’re on the trail of the woman I saw Eddie with, the one in your photograph, too. We think her name is Kerry-Ann, not Kay. We haven’t exactly found her yet, but we do know who linked her up with Eddie.’