Fallen Gods

Twenty-Nine

"As I see it, Maggie, we don't have anywhere else to go after this," said Stevie Steele, keeping his voice low, even though he and the detective superintendent were alone in the small waiting room.

"The girl was there when the picture was unpacked. She was there when the device was ignited, even though she hadn't been invited to the ceremony, as George Regan has just confirmed with the practice manager at Candela and Finch. Okay, we don't actually have her on camera pushing the button on the remote, but we've got solid grounds for bringing her in, regardless of what this guy's going to say to us."

"Maybe so. No, certainly, you're right," she answered, 'but for safety's sake I still want to speak to him. The girl's still an outpatient in terms of the Mental Health Act. If this thing ever does wind up in court, I want to make sure there's no chance of our being accused of ignoring her rights as such. And there's something else too."

"What's that?"

"I'm not a one-hundred-per-cent book operator, Stevie. I have instincts and I pay heed to them until they prove unfounded. My instinct here is that this solution is too bloody easy. I cannot shake the feeling that there's a bigger picture… excuse the bad analogy.. and that we're not seeing it. Now tell me honestly; don't you feel that too?"

The young inspector flicked a white flake of dandruff from the lapel of his blazer. "Show me an angle we haven't covered, ma'am," he challenged. "Did she have an opportunity to plant the device? Yes, she did. Once Cahal O'Reilly had verified its arrival in safe condition, he and his secretary had to hurry back to George Street from the RSA for an evening committee meeting. They left Andrea there. No one at the gallery can remember her leaving, or can say for sure that she didn't have access to the picture alone. That part of the building isn't covered by cameras either. As for the device, it wasn't large; she could have had it in her handbag. And to top it all, she asked if she could go to the arrival of the container from Bilbao."

"I know all that; now answer the question."

Steele gave her a sidelong, killer grin. "Yeah, okay. It's on a bloody plate and I'm like you. I get more satisfaction out of working for a living, which is what you're really saying. But consider this; I haven't even met this girl, yet I feel sorry for her. I don't want her to be the one who puts her away, maybe for good. Don't you think that could be true with you as well?"

"Maybe," she conceded, as the door opened and a tall man in his late twenties, dressed in a white coat, bustled into the waiting room.

"Sorry to keep you," he exclaimed extending a hand to Rose in greeting as the detectives stood. "I'm Adam Broadley, Andrea's mentor." He grinned. "Okay, I'm her shrink, but I prefer to think of myself that way. We'll talk here, if it's all right with you; we'll get more privacy here."

"Fine," said the superintendent. "I'm Maggie Rose, and this is my colleague Steven Steele. Has the probation officer explained to you what it is we want to talk about?"

"Not in detail, but enough."

"And you're okay about this, from an ethical viewpoint?"

"Sure. You're police officers so you know Andrea's history already, and you know the circumstances of her sectioning. Where I'm slightly uneasy is in talking to you without her being aware of the fact, but I'll reserve the right to stop if I feel that I'm going too far."

"That's agreed," said Rose, 'so let's get straight to it. Do you know where Andrea is working?"

"With the Church of Scotland? Yes."

"And you approve of that, given her history?"

"I don't see anything wrong with it," Broadley answered. "In fact it's probably a positive element in her treatment. She's schizophrenic, as you know; split personality in old-fashioned terms, but it's a bloody awful description. This illness can manifest itself in many ways, but in this case the patient hears voices. More and more these days, people think that their computers are talking to them. I call it the software syndrome. Andrea's experience is more of the traditional type. Her father's profession may have something to do with it, for she gets the word straight from God. A bit like Joan of Arc without the armour."

"But with twenty-first-century weaponry instead," Steele pointed out.

The young man laughed. "True. If St. Joan had had nuclear capability… it would have shortened the Hundred Years War, that's for sure. But Andrea Strachan, fortunately, is not a very determined warrior. If God was choosing someone for a mission, he'd look for someone more physically adept than her. Anyway, to answer your question, the fact that she is actually working in the HQ of an established religion is on balance good for her, in that it takes God out of her fantasy world, and puts him into her everyday life."

"What put the voice in her head in the first place?" Rose asked. "What made her attack that church?"

"Again I think her father's profession may have something to do with it. Mr. Strachan is a very conservative Christian. He does not approve of un orthodoxy in any form. It's obvious to me that Andrea's picked that up from him and that in her mind it's taken wings."

"I understand." The detective paused. "At this stage, Adam, I think it would be best if I stopped asking questions and told you something.

When The Holy Trinity by Isobel Vargas went up in flames in the Royal Scottish Academy on Saturday, Andrea was right there in the room."

Adam Broadley looked up at the ceiling, almost theatrically. "Ohhh dear!" he said, slowly.

"You think it's possible then?"

"I don't know for sure. She responded very well to her early treatment, and she's having no problems with her medication, but that sort of experience, or confrontation, would still be pretty dangerous for her. Did it happen through her work?" Rose nodded; he frowned.

"What sort of people is she working with, in that case? Didn't they know of her psychiatric history?"

"Not in that amount of detail."

"You mean her father didn't tell them when he arranged the placement?"

"No. He told them in broad terms what her illness was, but he didn't tell them about the way in which it manifested itself. And of course since the case was dealt with summarily in court, and was barely reported, there was no way in which they could reasonably have known about it, other than from him."

"Bloody families!" Broadley exclaimed. "No matter how enlightened or intelligent they are, some of them still treat this illness like it was fucking… excuse my French… leprosy. It makes me so angry."

He smacked a big fist into the palm of his other hand, then grinned.

"I'm still relatively new in my profession," he exclaimed. "I still have normal emotional reactions; I haven't become infected by my patients yet. Listen, I think I know what you want to ask me, so I'll save you the trouble. Yes, I think you should interview Andrea as soon as possible, but with one proviso; that I can be there."

Maggie Rose smiled. "That was going to be my next question," she said.

"Thanks for volunteering."