The Intercom Conspiracy (21 page)

Patients with a smattering of knowledge can be trying. I had not intended to smoke myself, but his interpretation forced me to change my mind. I couldn’t let him feel that he had taken charge of the interview. Fortunately, I still had the cigarettes in my hand. I smiled as I reached for my lighter.

‘Do you think you need reassurance?’ I asked.

‘What I need,’ he replied promptly, ‘is a drink. But I suppose that kind of oral reassurance is out. I’ll settle for the cigarette.’

I lit both our cigarettes and said: ‘Let us go back to this man Schneider. You say that you knew him and that he smelled of lavender water.’

He made a gesture of irritation. ‘Forget the lavender water for the moment. If I’ve got to tell you the whole story I’ll have to go back to the beginning.’

‘Very well.’

‘I edit a newsletter called
Intercom
, Doctor. Have you heard of it?’

‘I have seen a copy.’ I did not mention that it had been shown to me by a colleague as a classic example of transatlantic paranoia; but the guarded tone of my reply did not escape the patient.

He grinned. ‘I won’t ask you what you thought of it, Doctor. I can guess. Well, a month or two ago
Intercom
changed hands.’

His story took over an hour to tell. Once or twice, in the earlier stages, I stopped him to ask for clarification of something he had
said; I wanted to see what effect interruption would have on his train of thought; but after that I let him go on without interruption. If the patient is willing to talk freely it is as well to let him do so. There was a manic quality about his way of telling it, of course, but after a while I began to suspect that this was to some extent a cultivated mannerism, part of his journalistic stock in trade. I made no attempt at that time to make a judgment about the truth of the story. If it was fantasy, it was singularly well-organised fantasy. On the other hand, it came from a man who, on his own admission, had made fantasy his business and was inclined to be proud of his success with it – a schizoid personality. I would need more evidence before I could formulate an opinion.

When he came to the end I asked two questions.

‘Have you told anyone else about this? I don’t mean here at the hospital, but before the accident.’

‘Val knows some of it.’

‘Val?’

‘My daughter Valerie.’

He had slumped down in the bed and was looking very tired. I decided to postpone further questioning.

‘I’ll look in and see you again later,’ I told him.

‘You do that,’ he said and closed his eyes; but as I reached the door he spoke again.

‘The briefcase, Doctor. I had it with me in the car. I’d like to know it’s safe. And I’d like you to see the file that’s in it. I think the police have what remains of the car.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said.

I found the house surgeon having coffee in the staff common room. He is one of those men who expresses his distrust and ignorance of psychiatry by being facetious about it. He greeted me with an expectant grin.

‘Well, what’s the expert verdict?’ he inquired. ‘Deranged or merely cracked?’

‘Possibly neither.’

He looked at me as if he thought that
I
was cracked.

‘I’d like to speak to the daughter,’ I went on. ‘Do you know if she returned?’

‘She did. But even if she’s still here you won’t get very much out of her. Very nasty temper she has. Says papa’s been framed by the police and that we’re aiding and abetting.’ His smile became sardonic. ‘I gather she doesn’t think much of your specialty. Better be careful or she’ll have your head off.’

Mlle Carter had evidently made an impression on him. I looked forward to meeting her.

I found her eventually in an otherwise empty waiting room in the main building.

There is something I should explain here. Valerie Carter and I have come to know each other well during these past few months and I hope that we will shortly be married. I mention this because any account I give now of our first meeting is bound to be coloured to some extent by our present relationship. I can only try to be objective.

A nurse introduced me to her.

I saw an extremely beautiful young woman with a pale, clear complexion, dark, almost black hair and her father’s angry eyes. She was wearing a red and black cloth coat. Her response to the introduction was disconcerting.

She gave me a nod and then said crisply, ‘I was told that my father was being examined by a psychiatrist. I would like to see that gentleman.’

I bowed. ‘That is why I am here, Mademoiselle.’

She stared. ‘You are the psychiatrist?’

‘Dr Thomas is the senior physician in charge of the neuropsychiatric unit,’ I said. ‘However, he is at present attending a professional convention in Paris. I am his assistant and I examined your father. Please sit down, Mademoiselle.’

I look younger than I am. I know she wanted to ask me if I were really qualified to conduct a psychiatric examination; but she restrained herself. She would hear what I had to say first. If she did not like what she heard,
then
she would question my competence. She sat down.

‘How is my father, Doctor?’

‘His physical condition seems good, but with head injuries one always has to be careful. We will know better by Monday.

‘You say his physical condition seems good. Do you mean that his mental condition
doesn’t
seem good?’ She had coloured slightly and her eyes had narrowed. I was on dangerous ground.

‘That is what I want to discuss with you.’

She considered me for a moment, then gave a curt nod. ‘Very well. But I may as well tell you, Dr Loriol, that I have already been to see that imbecile Commissaire. He seemed to feel that the statement my father made after the accident should be treated as a joke. If that is your approach, too, any discussion between us would be a waste of time.’

‘My approach, Mademoiselle, is purely medical. I don’t know exactly what your father said after the accident. I wasn’t there. I do know that he had been drinking quite a lot before the accident. It may well be that after it he wasn’t very coherent.’

‘My father is
always
coherent.’

‘He had suffered a concussion, you must remember, and been found unconscious. A period of confusion would be understandable. However, his earlier statements need not concern us now. What I am concerned with is the statement he has just made to me.’

‘Well?’ She was still very much on her guard.

‘In my opinion it calls for investigation.’

‘By the police, do you mean?’

‘By you and me initially, Mademoiselle, if you agree. Your father told me about a series of incidents, of certain strange things that he says have been happening to him.’

‘Didn’t you believe him?’

‘I believe that
he
believes that these things happened and that they are interrelated, but that is not the point. I asked him if he had told anyone else about these strange happenings – before the accident, I mean – and he said that he has told you about some of them. Has he?’

‘Of course.’ She looked at me a trifle pityingly. ‘But how does
that help you? If my father believes what he is saying, the fact that he tells me what he tells you isn’t evidence that what he is saying is based on reality.’

‘No, but I think that you yourself were actually involved in one incident. You were there when two Americans came to his apartment and questioned him, I understand.’

For the first time the suspicious, defensive look left her. ‘Yes, that’s right. I was there.’

‘Your father says that they were CIA men.’

‘He said that one of them was.
They
said they were from a news magazine, but they certainly behaved very strangely. It was quite unpleasant.’

‘Would you tell me about it?’

She told me. She also told me about the inquiries she had made concerning the man Skriabin and what she had learned from her friend in the UN library. That was something that her father had omitted from his account. But it fitted in. That was the moment when I began to accept the fact that the story her father had told me, fantastic though it might be, could possibly be true.

I did not immediately say so, however, and that was a pity, in more ways than one. But I was in a difficult position. I had legal as well as medical responsibilities in the case, and extreme caution was indicated. If I concluded that the patient’s account of his experiences represented fact and not fantasy, it would be necessary to defend my findings to the police and probably other law-enforcement agencies as well – for obvious reasons, I already had the federal security service in mind. The police are notoriously resistant to psychiatric evidence when it threatens to contradict their own preconceived findings. I had no reason to believe that the security service would be any easier to deal with. Before I committed myself to an opinion I would have to be certain that I stood on absolutely solid ground. I had Dr Thomas’s reputation and that of the unit to consider as well as my own.

Valerie was watching me with narrowed eyes, waiting for my
reaction to what she had told me. I responded as noncommittally as I could.

‘Thank you, Mademoiselle. You have been very helpful.’

‘I also saw the car that was following him,’ she said, ‘the car with the Fribourg plates.’

‘Did you actually see it following him?’

‘Well no, but it was there in the street outside our apartment.’

‘You saw a car with Fribourg plates,’ I said carefully. ‘That isn’t a very rare sight in Geneva, is it?’

She sighed. ‘No. I understand. It isn’t evidence.’

I stood up. ‘I expect you would like to see your father now. He said that he sent a message asking you to bring him his spare glasses. Did you get the message?’

‘Yes, and I have the glasses.’ She too was standing now. She turned to face me. ‘Dr Loriol, you can’t really believe my father is insane, can you?’

The question was both a statement of her own conviction and an appeal to me to share it with her. I regret to say that I replied evasively.

‘I would be most reluctant to believe it, Mademoiselle, I assure you. His room is in the annex. If you will come with me I will show you the way.’

She said no more, but I knew that I had disappointed her. In the annex I handed her over to the nursing sister in charge and then went back to my office.

There I telephoned the police and asked to speak to Commissaire Vauban. He was not available, so I spoke to the duty officer instead. I did not discuss the patient; what I wanted to know about was the briefcase with the Bloch file in it which Carter had said was in his car. The duty officer was helpful but there was not much he could do. The damaged car had been towed to the police garage. It was still there. Nothing had been removed from it and nothing could be removed from it without proper authorisation. The duty officer promised that he would mention the matter to Commissaire Vauban as soon as he could.

Almost twenty-four hours elapsed before I was allowed to examine the contents of that briefcase.

By then the damage had been done.

VALERIE CARTER
transcribed tape interview

At first the day had been frightening. As it wore on it became maddening.

It was at the hospital, where I went after the telephone call from the police, that I learned that my father was going to be charged with drunken driving. Then I saw that cretinous policeman Vauban. From the commissariat I went to Maître Perriot’s office. He was the
notaire
my father used when he leased the apartment and made his will.

In my confusion I had forgotten that it was Saturday. Of course, Perriot’s office was closed. I found his home number, however, and telephoned him. He was quite helpful until I told him about the drunken-driving charge. Then he tried to back out. I wouldn’t let him; but all I could make him promise was that he would see my father on Monday at the hospital. He insisted that there was nothing he could do before. He may have been right, but I didn’t think so at the time.

I had a sandwich in a café and went back to hospital. I still wasn’t allowed to see my father; instead I saw a pompous fool of a house surgeon who told me about the psychiatric nonsense and gave me the message about the spare glasses. I went and got them from the apartment. When I returned to the hospital for the third time they told me to wait.

I wasn’t disappointed in Michel, in Dr Loriol. I was furious with him. Quite unreasonably, I admit. He was absolutely right to be careful. No, that’s unfair. I was furious because I had tried hard to make him commit himself and failed. I wasn’t in a very reasonable state of mind that afternoon.

If I had been I wouldn’t have helped my father to do what he did.

When I went in he began by being shame-faced and apologetic, but that phase didn’t last long – about two minutes, I would say. Then he told me what had happened the previous night when he had gone back to his office.

I was horrified, naturally, and as angry as he was. We had plenty to make us angry. I told him about Maître Perriot’s weak-kneed reluctance to become involved and about my ridiculous interview with Commissaire Vauban.

He remembered the Commissaire.

‘That fish-eyed phony,’ he said. ‘I might have known.’ He said some other uncomplimentary things about the Commissaire that I won’t repeat.

I suppose we both got very worked up, or depressed and desperate, or all three, if that’s possible. You see, everything looked so black that day. Here were these bogeymen, as my father called them, behaving like gangsters, and all the police did when he told them what was going on was to say that he must be insane and charge him with drunken driving. Things were in such a hopeless mess and there seemed to be no one we could turn to. I didn’t even consider Michel; at that stage I thought of him as one of the enemy. It’s easy to say now that, if we had been patient and wise and waited for the air to clear and the truth to prevail, everything would have been all right. It is as easy – and about as sensible – as telling a person who has just fallen from the top of a high building that, if he had had the presence of mind to relax all his muscles before he hit the ground, he wouldn’t have broken so many bones.