Alice

Alice leaned close to the one-way glass of the interview room, the tip of her nose almost pressing against it, watching the interaction taking place inside.

The psychologist was just about to conclude his third interview with Carney and Alice, irrationally, found his gentle manner irritating. Carney’s solicitor sat beside him, her face set in an expression that said she was very pleased with how it was going.

The door to the interview room opened and Sylvia from Reception popped her head around it.

‘Do you want me to bring the psychologist in here when he’s done and have Carney taken back to the detention centre? The unit officers who brought him over are waiting down in Reception and getting on my nerves.’

‘Bring the doc and the solicitor in here,’ Gallagher answered. ‘Let Alice obsess over Carney in the fish bowl a bit longer. And get us some tea, will you? Good girl.’

‘Excuse me?’ Sylvia arched a thinly plucked eyebrow. ‘Have you mistaken me for Catering? And by the way, if you call me a good girl again, I’ll have you up in front of a tribunal. Arsehole.’

‘I love it when she talks dirty,’ Gallagher said loudly over the slamming door.

‘What are you on about?’ Alice barked.

‘Sylvia wants a go on me.’

Alice snorted.

‘No, she doesn’t.’

‘She does.’

‘She really doesn’t. You’d be no use to her.’

‘Do you think I can’t perform because of my sciatica, DS Moody? Because I’m telling you, I don’t mind letting a woman do the hard yards on top.’

‘That’s fierce gentlemanly of you. I’m sure your Angela would be proud. But it’s less about your back and more to do with the fact that Sylvia is gay.’

‘She is not. She was practically begging me for it in O’Donnell’s at the last work do.’

‘Really? She must have got a whiff of your vagina.’

Alice smiled smugly. Gallagher was a good copper but, like many in the force, a misogynistic little git.

The door opened again and in came the psychologist, a bland, balding man with a weak chin and a self-important air. Carney’s solicitor, a tiny little woman from the legal aid centre, followed him. She had a quiet squeak of a voice and avoided direct eye contact. Alice, who’d dealt with her before, knew they were deliberate affectations to hide the woman’s truly ruthless nature. Still, she admired her and had groaned when she’d seen who’d been assigned. It took something to be an achiever in a predominantly male workplace. Alice of all people knew that.

‘I’ll be doing up a report for the Director of Public Prosecutions,’ the psychologist said before anybody else could get a word in.

‘We know that,’ Gallagher interrupted. ‘We just want to get an indication of your thinking. DS Moody is in charge of this investigation.’

‘Hmm. Well, from the monitoring sessions and the interviews, I have garnered enough information for a preliminary evaluation.’ The pyschologist massaged a carefully cultivated evening shadow and furrowed his eyebrows in academic concentration. ‘I must stress, it’s all early-days conjecture. I’ve never had to work this fast before. It’s unprecedented. But I appreciate everybody is under pressure in this instance to be seen to be acting. That’s certainly the impression my boss gave me.’

‘And?’ Alice said impatiently. ‘We’re all dying to hear your take on this.’

‘Look, all I can give you is a synopsis.’

‘That will do.’

‘Right. So, Mr Carney has been through a number of traumatic events recently. His father died last year in tragic circumstances. He fell into a canal on the way home from his local. His father had an ongoing drink problem and his relationship with JP was fractured. JP’s mother left while he was still a child and that, alongside the loss of his father, left a mark. JP has very few memories of her but it seems she had some form of mental illness. He doesn’t know if she’s alive or dead, but I imagine you can track her down easily enough.

‘As a teenager and younger man, JP fell in with a bad crowd and experimented with soft drugs. But he says he steered clear of alcohol – up until recently, anyway. The night before his attack on Mr McNamara, he consumed a large quantity of booze and cocaine.’

‘There were traces of alcohol and drugs in his bloodstream,’ Gallagher said. ‘Not enough to have prevented his actions, obviously.’

‘Yes, though you would have to imagine that, unused to hard drugs in particular, it would have had quite an effect on his thought process. Anyway, after a difficult start he seems to have straightened himself out. That fell apart in the last year, following the death of his father and then the loss of his job last month. The company he worked for shut down as a result of economic pressures. JP has spiralled downwards in the weeks since.

‘You know already that on the night he attacked Mr McNamara, he was under the influence. He’s insisting he doesn’t remember how he got over to the south side of the city. Most of that twenty-four hours seems to be a blur for him. However, he is absolutely clear on one thing. He recalls exactly what he did to Mr McNamara. Notwithstanding his admission that he has no recollection of how he got there, he knows what happened inside the McNamara home. He’s not claiming he blacked out. JP says he felt something snap when he entered the house and had no control over his subsequent actions.’

Alice held up her hand.

‘Okay, this is all great stuff, Doctor, but none of it is new. Here’s what we actually need to know. In your professional opinion, is he attempting to con us? Did he leave his home that day determined to kill somebody? Did he enter the McNamara home intending to kill Harry McNamara?’

Carney’s solicitor started to protest but stopped when she saw the psychologist shake his head.

‘Look, as I said, this is just an initial review but having watched JP closely for the last week, read the notes from his daily interview sessions with my colleagues in the detention centre and listened to his account of events three times, no, I do not believe that was his intention. He has suffered intense anguish and upheaval in his life. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that his recent unemployment triggered a delayed response to that trauma and he experienced a clinical episode of some sort on the night of 1 October – a unique psychotic response. But of course I can’t make a definitive statement. JP will have to be moved to the Central Mental Hospital in the meantime for further assessment.’

‘But why?’ Gallagher asked. ‘Why did he snap? What was it about Harry McNamara?’

The psychologist sighed. ‘The McNamaras are wealthy, their home reflects that, and their security and stability might have been a tipping point for Mr Carney. JP is very convincing in his assertion that he had no clue as to the identity of the man he assaulted. If that’s the case, then he was attacking what the man represented. And he’s not denying that. So in answer to your first question, Detective Sergeant Moody, no. In my opinion, he’s not trying to con you. He didn’t act with criminal intention.’

‘He walked into the man’s sitting room with a fucking golf club,’ Alice growled. ‘What was his plan – to ask the owner of the house for a tour of the course? How can we be sure he’s not a psychopath?’

‘He committed a crime, we’re all agreed on that. It’s whether he acted compos mentis that’s the question. And no, you don’t have to be a psychopath to have a psychotic episode. Like I say, it’s absolutely possible that Harry McNamara, in the moment of the attack, symbolized everything Mr Carney is not, everything that is wrong or absent in his own life – happy home, happy wife, happy man – and it flicked some sort of switch in him. That is credible and also not without precedent. I reviewed some international cases before coming here this afternoon. A teamster in America lost his job in railway construction during the financial crash. He walked into an estate agents and shot the owner, a man completely unknown to him. Why an estate agent? Because his home was about to be repossessed by the bank.’

‘Well, that’s a flawed example if ever I heard one,’ Gallagher said. ‘The teamster clearly knew he was killing an estate agent – he targeted him. He’ll have been done for first-degree murder, regardless of whether he knew the man personally or not. Carney there is saying he’d no idea who he was battering, or why he did it, which is important from our perspective. It precludes motive. And let me warn you, just in case you’re thinking of becoming some sort of celebrity quack in this case and doing interviews spouting that kind of shite, it’s not going to happen.’

‘I’m sensing a lot of hostility from you,’ the solicitor said, just as the psychiatrist began to protest. ‘Towards my client and towards the court-appointed medical professional.’

‘Not as much hostility as your client showed Harry McNamara when he was smashing his skull in,’ Gallagher snapped, bending down so his face was level with hers.

She frowned, trying to look apologetic and sympathetic at the same time.

‘I understand your irritation,’ she said, ‘but let’s take a moment to reflect. I’m having to convince that young man to let me mount a defence. He wants to take full responsibility for something he’s clearly not responsible for. He did not want to talk to us about his childhood and he’s insistent we don’t use it, though we can all see he’s a very damaged individual. That’s no ordinary hard-done-by whiner we’ve got. He handed himself in, for heaven’s sake. He’s a young man who’s as much a victim in this as anybody else.’

‘He’s the victim?’ Alice said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

‘Detective Sergeant Moody,’ the solicitor squeaked, ‘can’t we all be happy that my client will cooperate all the way with your good selves in clarifying his role in this tragic affair? We all want to see this cleared up, don’t we? A little bit of compassion might go a long way here.’

‘I’m reserving that for Harry McNamara – something I never thought I’d hear myself say.’

‘I understand why you’re sceptical. I really do. But, of course, after this assessment is written up, we will be asking a judge if JP is fit for trial and, if it’s determined that he is, we will be looking at a plea of diminished responsibility and a verdict of not guilty. And of course if Mr McNamara pulls through, we will all be relieved.’

‘If Mr McNamara pulls through, he’ll be a fucking vegetable,’ Alice retorted, shaking her head. ‘By the way, you know Julie McNamara says JP whispered something to her husband as he lay almost bleeding to death? Sounds a bit calculated, doesn’t it? And yet JP says he doesn’t remember saying anything. Which would be a very deliberate lie if Julie is right.’

‘He told you that when you paid him a little visit in his holding cell, isn’t that correct? When I wasn’t there?’

‘It was just an informal chat.’

The solicitor frowned as Alice danced on the head of a pin.

‘Mrs McNamara must be mistaken. It was a very shocking episode; I imagine her recollection of it is quite shaky.’

‘It’s actually incredibly vivid,’ Alice retorted. ‘I imagine she sees it replayed in her head every time she closes her eyes. Probably will for the rest of her life.’

She plonked herself in a chair when the two had left, giving the closed door a one-fingered salute.

‘There you go,’ she sighed. ‘Temporary insanity, a few years in the funny farm. Even if we get attempted manslaughter, what sort of a sentence does that carry versus attempted murder? Five years, a little bit of rehabilitation, then what? He’ll be back out on the streets, the rest of us hoping he doesn’t have another fucking moment. Unique psychotic episode, my arse.’

Gallagher tugged at his beard.

‘I don’t know, Alice. There’s nobody who thinks more than me that it’s voodoo science, the whole head-doctor profession. But maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. There seem to be a few simple facts we can’t ignore. McNamara has led a charmed life; JP, anything but. He got sozzled and lost the plot and Harry in his big, fancy house was on the receiving end. I know it’s not nice to imagine Carney not getting the full hammer of the law but, you know – he hasn’t exactly had it easy up to now and he won’t have it easy if he ends up in the funny farm.’

‘Very liberal-minded of you, Sarge,’ Alice replied. ‘You know you’re just being contrary, don’t you? If that solicitor had started on about human rights and the plight of the working classes, you’d have been preaching about bringing back the death penalty. Hellfire and eternal damnation for shoplifters.’

Gallagher shook his head. ‘Give me some credit, Moody. And look at it this way – if we do get this into court, there’s no guarantee that a jury wouldn’t stand up and start applauding Carney. McNamara is a banker, after all. Who hasn’t wanted to kill one?’

‘I don’t buy it,’ she said, ignoring him. She stood up and went back to the one-way glass to stare in at Carney. He was still sitting, gazing at a spot on the wall across from him, oblivious.

‘Is that your line for the Director of Public Prosecutions? You don’t buy it? Have you any actual proof JP Carney wanted to kill McNamara? Like a shred of evidence that he knew the man?’

‘You know I don’t. So far, we haven’t found a single determinable line connecting JP Carney to Harry McNamara. They moved in completely different orbits. McNamara was a leading banker and Carney has had nothing but really shit to average-shit jobs. Yeah, sure, he’d every reason to resent and hate Harry McNamara for being a rich prick while he had nothing, but he’d had to have known him at least to want to kill him. It’s only been a week though. I need more time.’

‘What’re your next steps?’

‘I’m going to talk to somebody who knows about men like Harry. Some finance whizz-kid who might help me see the link between Harry and JP. She can’t fit me in until next week. So let JP have his little stay in hospital while I get to the bottom of it. And you know I will.’

‘Do you need more back-up? One of the other detectives? You can’t do this all on your own.’

‘I’m fine. I’ve plenty of support. Doherty is tracking down Carney’s family. The mother, anyway. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else, unless he’s estranged from somebody and not telling us. All his early records are in London, and the Met are tighter than a wasp’s arse when it comes to giving us the time of day.’

‘Yes, well, don’t let anything slip because you don’t like asking for help, Moody. I know you.’

‘Have I ever let you down, Sarge?’

Gallagher didn’t reply. Not yet, she hadn’t. But there was a first time for everything.