You Are Dead

35

Friday 12 December

‘You’re very quiet tonight, darling,’ Jacob Van Dam’s elegantly dressed wife, Rachel, said. Even when they dined alone they always dressed smartly. It was something they had done all their married life, to make it more of an occasion, and the time in the day when they caught up with each other.

The psychiatrist sat at the far end of the oval mahogany dining table, in the smart dining room of their Regent’s Park mansion, cradling his crystal goblet of claret, staring pensively at the light reflecting in its facets from the chandelier above. The grilled lamb cutlets on his bone-china plate lay untouched and growing cold, along with the petits pois and gratin potatoes Rachel had lovingly prepared.

‘Yes, well,’ he said pensively. ‘It’s been an interesting day.’

‘Would you like to share it with me?’ Then after some moments, she said, ‘Dreadful, the news about Logan, I just can’t believe it. No one has any idea where she might be. The police are doing everything they can, apparently. I spoke to Tina myself, earlier, she’s in a terrible mess. She said the police don’t think it’s kidnap, because there’s been no ransom demand — they say it’s more likely she’s been abducted. Apparently they’ve said if someone her age is abducted it is likely to be a sex offender — and the chances of her being alive lessen the longer she’s not found. I feel helpless.’

He barely heard her words he was so consumed by his thoughts about Dr Harrison Hunter.

Whoever Dr Harrison Hunter really was.

U R DEAD

The man had lied to him. His niece had no such tattoo — no tattoos at all. She had been missing, possibly abducted, since yesterday evening. So what was the connection with this man and Logan?

The proper course of action would be to call the police. But Hunter’s threat had felt very real. The only thing that mattered now was finding Logan and making sure she was safe. He needed the man to come back, then he would find a way of ensnaring him. Getting the truth out of him. But how long did he have? The rest of tonight? The weekend?

What if Harrison Hunter was just delusional? Someone who had read the Argus, and was imagining his involvement?

And had fallen at the first hurdle. U R DEAD. Logan had no tattoos.

He sipped some more wine, then sliced into the first cutlet. It was pink in the centre, just how he liked it. ‘Beautifully cooked, my dear,’ he said.

She gave him one of her penetrating stares. ‘Is it something you can tell me about?’ she asked.

‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘No.’

‘It is so terrible. I mean, what on earth can have happened to her? She’d broken off her engagement — do you think her boyfriend might be behind this? Or involved in some way?’

He continued to stare at the light dancing off the glass. Then he dipped his fork, with a morsel of cutlet, into the mint jelly on the side of his plate and began to chew. When he had swallowed he said, ‘Rachel, have you ever in your life had to make a decision that you don’t feel equipped to make?’

‘You’re talking in riddles again, my love. Like you so often do.’

‘I apologize. This is delicious, by the way.’

‘Good.’

He dabbed his lips with the linen napkin. ‘Patient confidentiality.’ He picked up his glass and stared, forlornly, at it. ‘That’s the decision.’

‘What kind of a decision?’ she prompted.

‘Well, imagine for a moment you are me, in my office. A new patient comes in, who confesses to killing people. My assessment is that he’s delusional. But what if I’m wrong and he has killed? I may have to report this to the police. But if it’s merely his fantasy, then I would be failing in my duty of care if I report him. He will never again talk openly with confidence to anyone. He won’t trust anyone again.’

‘Is that what happened to you today?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does this have anything to do with Logan? Was he telling you he’s the man who abducted Logan?’

He sliced another morsel of lamb. ‘No, he didn’t claim that, he claimed he knew who had taken her.’

‘Can you tell me anything about him?’

He chewed slowly, then sipped his wine. ‘I can’t say too much, but this man told me something that he assured me would be proof of his bona fides. I checked it out after he left — part of the reason I was so late home tonight — and it wasn’t correct. Which leads me to believe he is — I’m not sure...’

‘A fantasist?’ his wife prompted.

‘That would be the easy conclusion,’ Van Dam said. ‘I’m foxed.’

‘Then you should call the police and tell them your thoughts.’

The psychiatrist sat silently for some moments, then drank another sip of his wine. ‘And risk Logan’s life?’

‘Why would that risk her life?’

‘Because this man told me categorically not to go to the police.’

‘That’s how seriously you take him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then somewhere inside that strange brain of yours, that I’ve never managed to penetrate fully in all the years we’ve been together, you must believe, deep down, he was telling you the truth.’

Van Dam smiled at his beloved and wise wife. ‘Yes, yes I do.’