Here The Truth Lies Read online

  I squint at the image. It looks old, as if it’s been taken from a 1940s illustration of a pulp detective novel. “Nothing.”

  “Just describe the situation you’re looking at, as you find it. What’s happening? What are the characters thinking and feeling? What happened before this? What’s going to happen next?”

  I still make no response.

  “OK. Let’s try another.” He holds up a second card.

  It’s a black-and-white image of a woman sitting on a couch. She’s looking over her shoulder at a middle-aged man with a pipe in his mouth who’s saying something to her.

  “What’s the story here?”

  I can’t think of any kind of story to explain what I’m seeing. “Who smokes a pipe these days?”

  Berinski shows no surprise. “It may take some time for you to get the hang of what we’re trying to do, Emma. You see, I want to hear how you freely associate to these images so I can begin to unlock your past.”

  He holds up more cards, all monochrome. A young girl holding a doll while an older woman reads to her from a book. A woman staring into space. A woman hiding behind a tree while a younger woman below her hurries by on a beach. I make half-hearted attempts to say something about each of them.

  Berinski can tell my heart isn’t in it. “If you don’t try, Emma, we won’t get anywhere and I won’t be able to help.”

  I pull the Kautek letter from my bag. “I’m not here for analysis, doctor. I’m here because of this.” I hand it to him.

  He takes his time reading the letter. “I see.” He pauses to place the image cards back into his desk drawer. “I’ve heard of Kautek’s work but I didn’t suspect he’d gone as far as this.”

  “Dr. Berinski, he did something to me that robbed me of my past and left me with a false identity. What I need to discover is, can it be undone? Are there ways that you could give me myself back?”

  “What Kautek did was deeply unethical.”

  “But there could be a way?”

  He frowns. “It might be possible, but you must be aware there are dangers. If you were suddenly returned to the trauma you were escaping from, the consequences are unpredictable.”

  “It’s a chance I need to take.”

  He leans back in his seat. “I want you to think about this carefully. Be sure you fully understand what you’re asking me to do. And that you are strong enough to face whatever appears. I’ll do everything I can to make this as safe as possible but, in the end, this must depend on you.”

  I smile. “Thank you.”

  I now understand the significance of what Kautek said in the letter. I would need someone to guide me if and when I chose to make the journey. Perhaps that person is Berinski rather than James Walsh.

  “I don’t need time to consider. I want to go ahead.”

  I tense my hands, awaiting Berinski’s reply.

  He gives a reassuring smile. “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for you understand the dangers of any attempt to go back if, as you suspect, that past has been taken away from you.”

  “I’m aware of the risks.” I pause. “More than anything, I want my life back.”

  “Kautek used hypnotherapy to alter your past. That was completely unethical. If what he did had become known he would have been censured for it. Struck off. But our best chance of counteracting what he did is hypnosis itself. You’re prepared to consent to that?”

  “Yes, if that’s what it takes.”

  He switches on a small box that gives off a pulsing light. “I want you to look at this while I speak.” His voice becomes softer, the words more drawn out. “Relax. Let your mind drift. When I clap my hands, I want you to go back to when you felt most threatened. When you hear my hands clap again, you will return. Do you understand?”

  I stare at the pulsing light. “I understand.”

  Berinski claps his hands.

  I’m ten again. I’m being taken by the hand and led from a parked car, along a shrub-lined pathway towards the front door of a house. I look up but can’t see the face of the man leading me. Yet, I know the house and where I’ve seen it before. It’s the house in Morden.

  As the door opens, the sound of music and children’s voices comes streaming out. I’m being taken to a party.

  Inside are balloons and streamers but I don’t feel a moment of happiness. A dark foreboding is all there is. I stand stock still in the hallway, refusing to enter the room where the party is taking place.

  The voice of the one holding my hand, whose face I cannot see, booms above me. “As I told you. You will not let me down. You understand?”

  “Yes, father.” It’s my own voice.

  “Now go in and join in the party. And look like you’re happy.”

  I look up as my father finishes speaking and see his face for the first time.

  I know that face.

  The scene shifts.

  I’m in a place I’ve been taught to call home.

  Where is mother? I want my mother.

  Here is my father again. “Mummy’s out for the evening. With friends from work. I’m here to look after you now.”

  I’m in the bathroom. My father is bathing me and then drying me on a white, fluffy towel.

  “Time for bed. Would you like a story?”

  “Yes, please, Daddy.”

  The story is about a secret. A secret that has to be kept between a young girl and her father. A secret that, if it were told, even to the mother, would lead the family into great suffering.

  My father sits on the bedside and smiles. “You know it’s more than a story, don’t you my dear?”

  “Yes, father.”

  He begins to remove his clothes. “That’s right. It’s our secret. One we must keep as close as anyone ever can.”

  He slips into the bed beside me and strokes my hair.

  A new sound demands my attention. The sound of hands clapping.

  I shudder back to attention. I gaze around for a moment, wondering where I am. Then, I look up and there is Berinski with a concerned expression. I’m back in the consulting room.

  Berinski speaks first. “Are you OK?”

  I’m still disorientated. “I think so.”

  “You were shaking so violently, I had to bring you out.”

  He listens as I tell him what I’ve experienced.

  His questions are chosen with care. “The man, the one who abused you, was your father?”

  “Yes, it was him.”

  “Your adopted father?”

  “Raymond Wilsden.”

  He pauses before continuing. “And you knew of this man, before you went back.”

  “Yes.”

  “From where.”

  “From an investigation I’m involved in.”

  “So, here we have to be careful. What if I were to tell you that there is nothing to have prevented you from projecting him into what you have just experienced?”

  I shake my head. “But how could I ever have invented him?”

  “I didn’t mean that. Your experience is real because you have recalled it in the freely associated state of the hypnosis. But your father is clearly at the center of the trauma. Your need to protect yourself from the pain of living through this again could lead to you substituting another figure in your father’s place. Someone from your present, waking world.”

  “No. It’s not like that. It was him. I know it was him.”

  Berinski lets the moment pass. “Tell me about the house in Morden? That’s part of your current investigation, too?”

  I can tell where this was heading. “No, that was real, too.”

  “But you knew about the house before you went back?”

  “Yes. But that doesn’t mean that what I was seeing didn’t take place there. I have a photo of it in my collection of important things. The reminders that give me any insight into my past. I don’t know why I would have a picture of the house, but it’s something I’ve always had.”

  He nods. “I suspect it wa
s Kautek. From what I know of the man, it’s what he would have done. In case you arrived at the point of questioning all that he had tried to make you become, a place he would have hoped you would never arrive at, he armed you with a scrap of information that could lead you to the truth. If you were determined enough to pursue this to where it would lead, at whatever cost, it was proof enough that the new identity would not hold any longer and you deserved a direction towards a way out.”

  “It was a test?”

  “If you like. It was a failsafe of his method.” He pauses. “So, is this the secret, the one that Kautek told you about in the letter?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “You seem so sure.”

  “I am. I’ll know it when I see it.”

  Berinski gives a smile that says the session is about to come to a close. “OK. We’ve made good progress. And you’re now aware of the perils of making a one-to-one interpretation of what you’ve experienced. That’s all we can achieve for today.”

  I thank him. “Can’t we do more?”

  He shakes his head.

  “When can I see you again?”

  “Tomorrow. Then, we’ll resume.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Lesley and her four helpers work at speed to make sense of Marsha Kent’s life from the traces left behind.

  She comes into Ives’s office with a tray carrying two mugs of coffee and places both on the DI’s desk. She pulls up a chair and takes hers, blowing on the steaming drink to cool it.

  “We’re starting to get to the bottom of what Marsha Kent was involved in.”

  Ives takes his drink. “You’re going to give me her life story.”

  “Not exactly, Steve. It’s easier to ask what version would you want to hear first. The expected. Or the unexpected.”

  “Let’s start with what we’d expect. Sounds like that might be a whole lot less complicated.”

  Lesley sips her drink. “OK. There’s her record, and that’s straightforward up to a point. Back in the day she was quite a player on the Southampton club scene, by all accounts. Pulled in and cautioned for soliciting and running a brothel, but never convicted. Her partner then was Brian Cooper who’s currently serving life for murder.”

  Ives recalls the case. “I was new to the force back then and only involved in community policing. But we all knew about Cooper and hated him for killing a child. No one shed a tear when he was put away. And no one wants to see him back out in the wide world, not after what he did.”

  “Except maybe Marsha. They have a child, Cheryl. Marsha has cared for her on her own the whole time Cooper has been in prison.”

  “And that slowed her down?”

  “You might say that. There’s nothing further on her record. To all intents and purposes she’s been a model citizen.”

  “She’s kept in contact with Cooper?”

  “Yes. Visited him twice a month. Phoned him every week. Looks like they remained an item.”

  “So, tell me about the intents and purposes.”

  “Well, her story starts to look a little different when you look into her recent social media activity.” Lesley pauses to take another swig of the coffee. “It’s the usual story. They think they’re being so clever using a false ID, thinking no one will know what they’re doing but they continue using the same IP address and that’s like an open goal for us.”

  “So, she’s been unconventional on line?”

  “No, not in that way, Steve. She’s been devious and determined. We’re still trying to piece it all together. The activity goes back over five years. And that’s something else people don’t often realise. Whatever you post on the Internet seems temporary but in reality it’s there forever.” Lesley drains the cup. “She’s been out hunting.”

  “Hunting?”

  “Pedophiles. She used a dozen personas over that time but each and every one of them has been that of a male looking for underage sex. She’s been in chat rooms and bulletin boards that get closed down as soon as the outside world understands what their real purpose is. She became fluent in the secret language the pedos use to try to cover their tracks. In every way, she appeared to be one of them.”

  “Enough to take them in?”

  “More than that. To get to discover who they are. To begin to dig beneath their own secret identities.”

  “So, June, what are you suggesting?”

  “We need to fill in more of the details, but I think we know why Cargill took the risk of making contact with her. Marsha Kent told him who to target. When he got wounded, he went back to her for help.”

  “You’re saying that Cargill’s victims have all been pedophiles?”

  Lesley nods. “The gouging on their chests. It’s the letter ‘P’. But it doesn’t stand for Peter.”

  “So, why attack pedos? What kind of grudge would a woman like Marsha have against them?”

  Lesley shakes her head. “And how and why would she want to involve a man like Cargill?”

  “Any sign of our victims in the names she was unearthing?”

  “Not yet. She was trawling in a murky world of aliases and pseudonyms where true identities are shifting and illusory. But we may be able to make the connection if we keep looking.”

  “There’s nothing emerging from Cargill’s online activity?”

  “We haven’t been able to get a fix on that as yet. Looks like he’s been more skilled at it than Marsha and covered his tracks with end-to-end encryption. Makes it more difficult.”

  “So keep on trying.” He pauses. “Anything else.”

  “We ran a cross-check to find any links between Marsha’s activity and what we found to be the common links between Cargill’s three victims. What came back was one name: The Assent Trust. Cavendish, Bishop and Finch all had connections with it and Marsha Kent made repeated visits to their website over a four month period.”

  “You’re sure her interest wasn’t something casual?”

  Lesley shakes her head. “She made repeated and detailed searches on the Assent site. And was clearly searching for something there.”

  “So, we have a meaningful connection.” Ives pauses. “And then there’s this.” He leans forward in his chair and turns his computer screen to show Lesley the image of two women walking along a street. “This is taken from a security camera that’s twenty yards up the road from the nail bar where Marsha Kent worked.” He points at the screen to pick out one of the women. “Do you know who that is?”

  Lesley squints to be sure. “Looks like Emma Chamberlain.”

  Ives smiles. “Just so. The image is timed the day before the hit and run that killed Marsha. That means Emma Chamberlain must have been one of the last people to see her alive.”

  CHAPTER 58

  At home I’m still shaking from what I’ve learned from the session with Berinski. The emotional strain of going back to events in my childhood I’ve been conditioned to forget weighs so heavy upon me I’m about to cry.

  I glance at the bottle of scotch, now over half empty. There’s no doubt I shouldn’t be drinking again but the lure of the golden fluid is irresistible. The sharp contours of my life retreat into softer focus as the whisky does its job. Time to let go and drift towards the possibility of sleep.

  The phone rings and I lurch back into awareness. The call from Brian Cooper. I’d forgotten all about it.

  He sounds no more welcoming than last time. “I’ve used time on other calls. Sweetheart, we have five minutes.”

  “I’ll do my best to help.”

  “Get down to what you want to say.”

  I decide to dive straight in. “Tell me about Ray Wilsden.”

  “What about him?”

  “You knew him in Southampton.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You were close to Marsha. She told me you all feared Wilsden, and he had enough information about everyone to pull them in at any time.”

  “You’ve been to see her?”

  “A few days
ago.”

  “So, yeah. Wilsden played with the paranoia. I guess he must have enjoyed it. Like a cat playing with a mouse before the final kill. Watching for the last twitch. So, yes, he played with that for the power it gave him. Letting it be known he was talking to this or that person. Getting people to sit with him in his car where they could be seen and rumors would spread that this or that person was in with him.”

  “What do you mean? In with him?”

  “They were using stuff and he’d chosen not to run them in. And as a result they must be giving him something in return. Like information on others. Wilsden used them to build a picture of the whole drugs scene so he could pick anyone off any time he wanted.”

  “So, what kind of power did he hold over you?”

  “Not much. Or so I thought. I was from out of town. He wasn’t really on my case.”

  “What about Marsha? She was local.”

  He breathes harder. “Yeah, sweetheart, he knew enough about her. Too much. I used to warn her he was about to come after her but she laughed it off. Said she had him under control. That worried me. She wouldn’t say what she meant.”

  I can tell from his replies that news about what has happened to Marsha Kent hasn’t reached him.

  I take a deep breath. “Brian, there’s something you need to hear. And it’s not easy.”

  He says nothing.

  “Marsha has been killed in a hit and run. They’re still looking for the driver.”

  It’s a long time before he replies. When he does, the swagger in his voice has gone. It’s filled with a new anger.

  “You got her killed.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “What else? You go to see her. She dies. Why didn’t you leave well alone?”

  “Because I’ve been trying to help you.”

  His voice rises to a just concealed shout. “And that’s the kind of help I can do without.”

  “You two were close?”