Blue Monday

Chapter Twenty-four

Tom Garret was visibly excited to meet someone who knew what he was talking about when he described the neurological aspects of facial recognition.

‘The old idea of the photofit was based on this primitive notion that we see faces as a collection of bits – blue eyes, a large nose, bushy eyebrows, a sharp chin – and when we put them together we have a face we recognize. But that’s not how we really see faces and that’s why photofit reconstructions look ridiculous.’

‘Not exactly ridiculous,’ said Karlsson.

‘Comical. And almost useless. As you know’ – and now he turned firmly towards Frieda – ‘the fusiform gyrus area of the brain is specifically associated with facial recognition and if it’s damaged the patient is unable to recognize any faces at all, even of close relatives. We’ve harnessed that idea in creating this program based on holistic facial recognition.’

‘Excellent.’

Frieda leaned more closely towards Garret’s monitor.

Garret continued talking about evolutionary facial composite systems and genetic algorithms until Karlsson coughed and reminded them that Rosalind Teale was sitting outside. ‘Is it all right if we stay here?’ he said.

‘That’s fine,’ said Frieda. ‘But please leave everything to me.’

Frieda had read the file and seen photographs but she was still shocked by Rose Teale’s appearance. She looked like someone who had suffered a traumatic episode the previous day, not more than twenty years in the past. Had this woman not received any help? Had she not been attended to? Rose glanced around her, at Garret, who was tapping at a keyboard and didn’t look at her; at Karlsson, who was leaning on the wall with his arms folded. When Frieda stepped forward and introduced herself, she didn’t ask questions, just let herself be led across the room and placed in a chair. Frieda sat opposite her. Karlsson had said that it might make Rose feel better to be useful. Looking at the passive, defeated woman in front of her, Frieda doubted that.

‘I’ve done everything,’ she said. ‘I’ve tried to remember. I’ve gone over and over it. There’s nothing left.’

‘I know,’ said Frieda. ‘You’ve done everything you possibly could.’

‘So why am I here?’

‘There are ways of accessing things in your mind that you don’t know are there. It’s nothing magical. More like opening an old filing cabinet that you’d forgotten about. I’m not going to ask you any questions,’ said Frieda, ‘and none of us expects anything of you. I just want you to bear with me for a moment. Can you do that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’d like us to try something. I don’t want you to think about it. Just do as I say.’ Frieda now let her voice become softer. ‘I know that you’re probably feeling tense, coming into a police station and talking to people you don’t know, but I’d like you to sit comfortably and relax as if someone was going to read you a story. I want you to close your eyes.’

Rose looked distrustful. Her eyes flickered towards Karlsson. He remained impassive. ‘All right.’ She closed her eyes.

‘I want you to think back to that day,’ said Frieda. ‘I want you to go back there and imagine yourself leaving school, walking along the pavements, crossing the road, looking at shops, people, cars. Don’t say anything. Just imagine yourself doing it.’

Frieda looked at the young woman’s face, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the flickering eyelids. She waited for a minute. Two minutes. She leaned forward and spoke even more quietly, almost in a whisper. ‘Don’t say anything, Rose. Don’t try and remember anything. I want you to do something for me. Just imagine a woman. Young or middle-aged. You decide.’ Frieda saw Rose’s features flicker in puzzlement. ‘Just do it,’ she continued. ‘Don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. Just think of a woman. Any woman, whoever comes into your head. Maybe she’s standing on the edge of the pavement, by the kerb. She’s just got out of a car and she’s looking around. Put her in the scene with you. Look at her. Can you do that?’

‘All right.’

‘Have you done it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wait,’ said Frieda. ‘Wait and look at her. Look at the woman who came into your head. Remember what she looks like.’

A minute passed. Frieda saw that Karlsson was frowning at her. She ignored him. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You can open your eyes now.’

Rose blinked, like someone who had just woken and was dazzled by the light.

‘I want you to go over and sit with Tom and he’s going to show you something.’

Tom Garret stood up and gestured Rose into the chair he’d been sitting in. As she sat down, he made a questioning face at Frieda as if to ask, Is this for real?

‘Go on,’ said Frieda.

He gave a shrug. On the screen was a grid showing eighteen female faces.

‘None of them look like her,’ said Rose.

‘They’re random,’ said Tom. ‘They’re not meant to look like her. What I want you to do is to click on the six that feel most like her. You should do it quickly without thinking too hard. Don’t worry. There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s not a test.’

‘What’s the point of this?’

‘It’s just an exercise,’ Frieda told her. ‘I want to see what happens.’

Rose gave a sigh, like someone giving in reluctantly. She put her hand on the mouse and moved the cursor around.

‘None of them are like her,’ she repeated.

‘Choose the ones that are closest,’ said Tom. ‘Or the ones that are least unlike.’

‘All right.’ She clicked the cursor on one face, the narrowest, then on another, then another, until six were highlighted. ‘Is that it?’

‘Now click “done”,’ said Tom.

She did so and the screen refilled with eighteen new faces.

‘What are these?’ Rose asked.

‘These are generated from the six you chose,’ said Tom. ‘Now choose six more.’

She went through the process again, then again and again, over and over. Occasionally she stopped and closed her eyes before continuing. Looking over her shoulder, Frieda could see a change gradually occurring. A crowd of strangers was gradually evolving into a family group whose resemblance grew stronger and stronger. The face became thinner, the cheekbones more prominent, the almond shape of the eyes more pronounced. After twelve generations, the faces didn’t just look like a family but siblings, and after two more generations they were almost identical.

‘Choose one,’ said Tom.

‘They’re almost the same.’ Rose hesitated. The cursor wavered around the screen before landing on one of the faces. ‘That’s it.’

‘That’s the face you saw?’ said Frieda.

‘I didn’t see it. It’s the face I made up in my imagination.’

Now Karlsson came over and looked at the image. ‘What about the hair?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t see the hair. The face I made up was wearing a scarf.’

‘I can do a scarf.’ Tom clicked on a drop-down menu and the face appeared eighteen times with different kinds of scarf. Rose pointed at one.

‘Is that it?’ said Frieda.

‘A bit,’ said Rose. ‘It’s quite like it, I think.’

‘That’s good, Rose,’ said Frieda. ‘You’ve done really well. Thank you very much.’

‘What do you mean I’ve done well?’

‘I know it was hard for you, going back there. That took courage.’

‘I haven’t been back there. I didn’t remember anything. I just pictured a face and then you tried to re-create it. It’s clever but I don’t see how it helps you.’

‘We’ll see. Could you wait outside for a moment?’

Karlsson waited until Rose was safely outside the room and the door was closed. ‘What was that about?’

‘Don’t you trust your own facial-recognition system?’

‘I don’t mean the facial-recognition system. I brought you in here because I thought you might be able to hypnotize her or something. Wave a needle in front of her eyes. I thought you could do some of your psychological stuff and dredge up hidden memories. Instead you got her to make up a face.’

‘I did some research work a few years ago,’ said Frieda. ‘I was working with people who had areas of blindness in their visual field. What we did was show them a collection of dots that were in the area of their visual field that wasn’t functioning. They couldn’t see them, but we asked them to take a guess at the number. In most cases, they would guess right. The input was bypassing their conscious mind but was still being processed. There was no point in going over Rose’s conscious memories. She’s spent her life going over and over them. By now they’ve been hopelessly contaminated even if she did see something. I thought this might be a way of bypassing all that.’

Karlsson looked across at Tom Garret. ‘What do you think? This is all bullshit, right?’

‘You’re talking about blindsight, right?’ Tom asked Frieda.

‘That’s right,’ said Frieda.

‘Bullshit,’ Karlsson repeated. He was clearly very angry.

‘I haven’t heard about it applying to memory,’ Tom said.

‘I thought it was worth a try.’

Karlsson sat in the chair and looked at the screen, at the middle-aged woman in a scarf staring back at him. ‘Did you really?’ His tone was thick with sarcasm. ‘This is just playing stupid fucking games. Blindsight!’

‘Can we print it out?’ Frieda asked Tom, pointedly ignoring Karlsson, but he took the sheet of paper as it came out of the printer and waved it in her face.

‘This is so much rubbish. Rose probably just made it up. To be helpful. She’s the helpful kind. She doesn’t want to disappoint us.’

‘Right,’ said Frieda. ‘That’s the most likely.’

‘And if she didn’t make it up, if you really did tap into some memory of the day, this might just be the face of a woman who was out doing her shopping.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And if, and it’s about the biggest fucking if I’ve ever come across, this woman was involved, then what we have is a picture of someone from twenty-two years ago with no suspects to compare it with, no witnesses to ask.’

‘You could show the picture to other people who were around at the time, to see if they remember anything.’

‘And? If they did – which they won’t – what use will that be? Can you bring them in here and put them in a trance and get them to imagine an address?’

‘That’s up to you,’ said Frieda. ‘You’re the detective.’

‘This is what I think.’ Karlsson balled up the print-out and flung it towards the metal bin, but missed.

‘That’s clear, at least,’ said Frieda.

‘You’re just wasting my time.’

‘No. You’re wasting mine, Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson. And wasting it rudely.’

‘You can leave now. Some of us have got real work to do.’

‘Gladly,’ said Frieda. She stooped and picked up the screwed-up paper.

‘What do you want that for?’

‘A souvenir, maybe.’

Rose was outside, sitting on a chair with her hands in her lap, staring into the distance.

‘We’re done,’ said Frieda. ‘And we’re very grateful to you.’

‘I don’t think I helped much.’

‘Who knows? It was worth a try. Are you in a hurry?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ten minutes.’ Frieda took her by the forearm and steered her out of the station. ‘There’s a café down the road.’

She got a pot of tea for two and a muffin in case Rose was hungry, but it lay untouched between them.

‘Have you ever had counselling?’

‘Me? Why? Do you think I need it? Is it that obvious?’

‘I think anyone would need it who had gone through what you went through. Did you never have any help after your sister disappeared?’

Rose shook her head. ‘I talked to a policewoman a bit, when it happened. She was nice.’

‘But nothing else?’

‘No.’

‘You were nine years old. Your sister disappeared from under your nose. You were supposed to be looking after her – at least, that’s what you thought. In my view, a nine-year-old can’t be responsible for someone. She never came back and you’ve felt guilty ever since. You think it was your fault.’

‘It was,’ Rose said, in a whisper. ‘Everyone thought so.’

‘I very much doubt that – but what matters now is that’s what you thought. What you think now. You’re like someone whose psyche has developed around the central overwhelming fact of your loss. But it’s not too late, you know. You can forgive yourself.’

Rose looked at her and shook her head slowly from side to side, tears gathering in her eyes.

‘Yes, you can. But you need help to do it. I can make sure you don’t have to pay for it. It would take time. Your sister is dead and you need to say goodbye to her and build your own life now.’

‘She haunts me,’ whispered Rose.

‘Does she?’

‘It’s as if I’m never without her. She’s like a little ghost beside me. Always the same age. We’re all getting older, and she’s there, a tiny girl. She was such a worried little thing. So many things scared her – the seaside, spiders, loud noises, cows, the dark, fireworks, going in lifts, crossing the road. The only time she didn’t look anxious was when she was asleep – she used to sleep with her cheek resting against her hands, which she pressed together, as if she was praying. She probably was praying when she fell asleep actually – she was probably begging God to keep the monsters away from her.’

She gave a small laugh and then a wince.

‘It’s all right to laugh about her, and it’s all right to remember the ways in which she wasn’t perfect.’

‘My father’s made her into a saint, you know. Or an angel.’

‘Hard for you.’

‘And my mother doesn’t mention her.’

‘Then it’s time for you to find someone else to talk to about her.’

‘Could I come and talk to you?’

Frieda hesitated. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’ve been involved with your case from the point of view of the police. It would blur the boundaries. But I can recommend someone who I know is good.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So it’s a deal?’

‘All right.’