The Silent Patient (31 page)

He raised the gun and pointed it at my head. I shut my eyes. I heard Gabriel screaming—
“Don’t shoot don’t shoot don’t—”

A click. And then a gunshot—so loud that it blew away all other sound. There was silence for a few seconds. I thought I was dead.

But I wasn’t so lucky.

I opened my eyes. Theo was still there—pointing the gun at the ceiling. He smiled. He put his finger to his lips, telling me to keep quiet.

“Alicia?” Gabriel shouted. “Alicia?”

I could hear Gabriel writhing in his chair, trying to turn around to see what had happened.

“What did you do to her, you bastard? You fucking bastard. Oh, Jesus—”

Theo untied my wrists. He dropped the gun to the floor. Then he kissed me, ever so gently, on the cheek. He walked out, and the front door slammed after him.

Gabriel and I were alone. He was sobbing, crying, barely able to form words. He just kept calling my name, wailing, “Alicia, Alicia—”

I remained silent.

“Alicia? Fuck, fuck, oh, fuck—”

I remained silent.

“Alicia, answer me, Alicia—oh, God—”

I remained silent. How could I talk? Gabriel had sentenced me to death.

The dead don’t talk.

I untied the wire around my ankles. I got up from the chair. I reached down to the floor. My fingers closed around the gun. It was hot and heavy in my hand. I walked around the chair, and I faced Gabriel. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. His eyes widened.

“Alicia? You’re alive—thank God you’re—”

I wish I could say I struck a blow for the defeated—that I was standing up for the betrayed and brokenhearted—that Gabriel had a tyrant’s eyes, my father’s eyes. But I’m past lying now. The truth is Gabriel had my eyes, suddenly—and I had his. Somewhere along the way we had swapped places.

I saw it now. I would never be safe. Never be loved. All my hopes, dashed—all my dreams, shattered—leaving nothing, nothing. My father was right—I didn’t deserve to live. I was—nothing. That’s what Gabriel did to me.

That’s the truth. I didn’t kill Gabriel. He killed me.

All I did was pull the trigger.

CHAPTER TWO

“THERE IS NOTHING SO PITIFUL,”
Indira said, “as seeing all someone’s possessions in a cardboard box.”

I nodded. I looked around the room sadly.

“Surprising, really,” Indira went on, “how few things Alicia had. When you think how much junk the other patients accumulate … All she had were some books, a few drawings, her clothes.”

Indira and I were clearing out Alicia’s room on Stephanie’s instructions. “It’s unlikely she’ll ever wake up,” Stephanie had said, “and quite frankly we need the bed.” We worked in silence mostly, deciding what to put in storage and what to throw away. I carefully looked through her belongings. I wanted to make sure there was nothing incriminating—nothing that might trip me up.

I wondered how Alicia had managed to keep her diary hidden and out of sight for so long. Each patient was allowed to bring a small amount of personal items with them upon admittance to the Grove. Alicia had brought a portfolio of sketches, which I presume was how she had smuggled in the diary. I opened the portfolio and flicked through the drawings—they were mostly unfinished pencil sketches and studies. A few casual lines thrown onto a page, immediately coming to life, brilliantly evocative, capturing an unmistakable likeness.

I showed a sketch to Indira. “It’s you.”

“What? It’s not.”

“It is.”

“Is it?” Indira looked delighted and studied it closely. “Do you think so? I never noticed her drawing me. I wonder when she did it. It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. You should keep it.”

Indira pulled a face and handed it back. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Of course you can. She wouldn’t mind.” I smiled. “No one will ever know.”

“I suppose—I suppose not.” She glanced at the painting upright on the floor, leaning against the wall—the painting of me and Alicia on the fire escape of the burning building, which had been defaced by Elif.

“What about that?” Indira asked. “Will you take it?”

I shook my head. “I’ll call Jean-Felix. He can take charge of it.”

Indira nodded. “Shame you can’t keep it.”

I looked at it for a moment. I didn’t like it. Of all of Alicia’s paintings, it was the only one I didn’t like. Strange, considering it had me as its subject.

I want to be clear—I never thought Alicia would shoot Gabriel. This is an important point. I never intended nor expected her to kill him. All I wanted was to awaken Alicia to the truth about her marriage, as I had been awakened. I intended to show her that Gabriel didn’t love her, that her life was a lie, their marriage a sham. Only then would she have a chance, as I had, to build a new life from the rubble; a life based on truth, not lies.

I had no idea about Alicia’s history of instability. Had I known, I never would have pushed things so far. I had no idea she would react like that. And when the story was all over the press and Alicia was on trial for murder, I felt a deep sense of personal responsibility, and the desire to expiate my guilt and prove that I was not responsible for what had happened. So I applied for the job at the Grove. I wanted to help her through the aftermath of the murder—help her understand what had happened, work through it—and be free. If you were cynical, you might say I revisited the scene of the crime, so to speak, to cover my tracks. That’s not true. Even though I knew the risks of such an endeavor, the real possibility that I might get caught, that it might end in disaster, I had no choice—because of who I am.

I am a psychotherapist, remember. Alicia needed help—and only I knew how to help her.

I was nervous she might know me, despite my having worn the mask and disguised my voice. But Alicia didn’t seem to recognize me, and I was able to play a new part in her life. Then, that night in Cambridge, I finally understood what I had unwittingly reenacted, the long-forgotten land mine on which I had trodden. Gabriel was the second man to condemn Alicia to death; bringing up this original trauma was more than she could bear—which is why she picked up the gun and visited her long-awaited revenge not upon her father, but upon her husband. As I suspected, the murder had much older, deeper origins than my actions.

But when she lied to me about how Gabriel died, it was obvious Alicia had recognized me and she was testing me. I was forced to take action, to silence Alicia forever. I had Christian take the blame—a poetic justice, I felt. I had no qualms about framing him. Christian had failed Alicia when she needed him the most; he deserved to be punished.

Silencing Alicia wasn’t so easy. Injecting her with morphine was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. That she didn’t die, but is asleep, is better—this way, I can still visit her every day and sit by her bed and hold her hand. I haven’t lost her.

“Are we done?” asked Indira, interrupting my thoughts.

“I think so.”

“Good. I have to go, I have a patient at twelve.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“See you at lunch?”

“Yes.”

Indira gave my arm a squeeze and left.

I looked at my watch. I thought about leaving early, going home. I felt exhausted. I was about to turn off the light and leave when a thought occurred to me and I felt my body stiffen.

The diary. Where was it?

My eyes flickered around the room, neatly packed and boxed up. We’d gone through it all. I had looked at and considered each and every one of her personal items.

And it wasn’t there.

How could I have been so careless? Indira and her fucking endless inane chatter had distracted me and made me lose focus.

Where was it? It had to be here. Without the diary there was precious little evidence to convict Christian. I had to find it.

I searched the room, feeling increasingly frantic. I turned the cardboard boxes upside down, scattering their contents on the floor. I rummaged through the debris, but it wasn’t there. I tore apart her clothing but found nothing. I ripped open the art portfolio, shaking the sketches to the floor, but the diary wasn’t among them. Then I went through the cupboards and pulled out all the drawers, checking that they were empty, then hurling them aside.

But it wasn’t there.

CHAPTER THREE

JULIAN MCMAHON FROM THE TRUST
was waiting for me in reception. He had a big build, curly ginger hair, and a fondness for phrases such as
between you and me
or
at the end of the day
or
the bottom line,
which frequently popped up in his conversation, often in the same sentence. He was essentially a benign figure—the friendly face of the Trust. He wanted to have a word with me before I went home.

“I’ve just come from Professor Diomedes. I thought you should know—he’s resigned.”

“Ah. I see.”

“He took early retirement. Between you and me, it was either that or face an inquiry into this mess.” Julian shrugged. “I can’t help but feel sorry for him—not a particularly glorious end to a long and distinguished career. But at least this way he’ll be spared the press and all the hoo-ha. Incidentally, he mentioned you.”

“Diomedes?”

“Yes. He suggested we give you his job.” Julian winked. “He said you were the perfect man for it.”

I smiled. “That’s very kind.”

“Unfortunately, at the end of the day, given what happened to Alicia, and Christian’s arrest, there’s simply no question of keeping the Grove open. We’re closing it down permanently.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. So in fact there’s no job to be had?”

“Well, the bottom line is this—we’re planning to open a new, much more cost-effective psychiatric service here in the next few months. And we’d like you to consider running it, Theo.”

It was hard to conceal my excitement. I agreed with pleasure. “Between you and me,” I said, borrowing one of his phrases, “it’s the kind of opportunity that I dream about.” And it was—a chance to actually help people, not just medicate them; help them the way I believe they should be helped. The way Ruth helped me. The way I tried to help Alicia.

Things have worked out well for me—I’d be ungrateful not to acknowledge that.

It seems I’ve gotten everything I wanted. Well, almost.

*   *   *

Last year, Kathy and I moved out of central London to Surrey—back to where I grew up. After my father died, he left me the house; although it remained my mother’s to live in until she died, she decided to give it to us, and she moved into a care facility.

Kathy and I thought the extra space and a garden would be worth the commute into London. I thought it would be good for us. We promised ourselves we would transform the house and made plans to redecorate and exorcise. But nearly a year since we moved in, the place remains unfinished, half-decorated, the pictures and convex mirror we bought in Portobello Market still propped up against unpainted walls. It remains very much the house I grew up in. But I don’t mind the way I thought I would. In fact, I feel quite at home, which is ironic.

I arrived at the house and let myself in. I quickly took off my coat—it was sweltering, like a greenhouse. I turned down the thermostat in the hallway. Kathy loves being hot, while I much prefer being cold, so temperature is one of our little battlegrounds. I could hear the TV from the hallway. Kathy seems to watch a lot of TV these days. A never-ending sound track of garbage that underscores our life in this house.

I found her in the living room, curled up on the sofa. She had a giant bag of prawn cocktail crisps on her lap and was fishing them out with sticky red fingers and shoveling them into her mouth. She’s always eating crap like that; it’s not surprising she’s gained weight recently. She hasn’t been working much in the past couple of years, and she’s become quite withdrawn, depressed even. Her doctor wanted to put her on antidepressants, but I discouraged it. Instead I advocated her getting a therapist and talking through her feelings; I even offered to find her a shrink myself. But Kathy doesn’t want to talk, it seems.

Sometimes I catch her looking at me strangely—and wonder what she’s thinking. Is she trying to summon up the courage to tell me about Gabriel and the affair? But she doesn’t say a word. She just sits in silence, the way Alicia used to. I wish I could help her—but I can’t seem to reach her.

That’s the terrible irony: I did all this to keep Kathy—and I’ve lost her anyway.

I perched on the armrest and watched her a moment. “A patient of mine took an overdose. She’s in a coma.” No reaction. “It looks as though another member of the staff may have administered the overdose deliberately. A colleague.” No reaction. “Are you listening to me?”

Kathy gave a brief shrug. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Some sympathy might be nice.”

“For who? For you?”

“For her. I’ve been seeing her for a while, in individual therapy. Her name is Alicia Berenson.” I glanced at Kathy as I said this.

She didn’t react. Not even a flicker of emotion.

“She’s famous, or infamous. Everyone was talking about her a few years ago. She killed her husband … remember?”

“No, not really.” Kathy shrugged and changed the channel.

So we continue our game of “let’s pretend.”

I seem to do a lot of pretending, these days—for a lot of people, including myself. Which is why I’m writing this, I suppose. An attempt to bypass my monstrous ego and access the truth about myself—if that’s possible.

I needed a drink. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a shot of vodka from the freezer. It burned my throat as I swallowed it. I poured another.

I wondered what Ruth would say if I went to find her again—as I did six years ago—and confessed all this to her? But I knew it was impossible. That I was altogether a different creature now, a guiltier thing, less capable of honesty. How could I sit opposite that frail old lady and look into those watery blue eyes that held me safe for so long—and gave me nothing but decency, kindness, truth—and reveal how foul I am, how cruel, how vengeful and perverse, how unworthy I am of Ruth and everything she tried to do for me? How could I tell her that I have destroyed three lives? That I have no moral code, that I’m capable of the worst kind of acts without remorse, and my only concern is for my own skin?