Doctor Bodie reflected with some rancour on how the hard-faced police detective running the murder investigation at the prison had dismissed his offer of help with nary a consideration for the fact that he had a PhD in forensic psychology.
The police had refused to share any kind of official information about the murders with him despite the fact that had they done so, he might actually have been able to give them insight into which of the inmates could potentially have been responsible for committing such horrendous crimes, because from what he’d heard, the murders had sounded particularly gruesome.
But if that’s how the police wanted to play it, then so be it. They were just cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
He took a sulky slurp of tea from his ‘World’s Okayest Dad’ mug and placated himself with the knowledge that probably the reason they’d excluded him from the investigation was because they were treating him as a potential suspect in the case, as they were just about everyone else in the place, inmates and staff alike.
There was a knock on the door. He sighed and made himself forget about the police and their murder investigation. Composing himself, he put on a welcoming smile.
‘Come in,’ he said.
The door opened. It was Bailey Pike.
Her follow-up appointment was due today and he was pleased to see her. At least he had something interesting to focus his skills on. The more he found out about this particular inmate, the more intrigued he was by her.
She sat down opposite him. Once again she had her head tilted away from him, her hair hanging down over one side of her face, her arms and legs crossed – her overall demeanour giving the impression that being here constituted something of an inconvenience for her.
He had analysed the tests that she had done the last time she was here and the results had proved to be most interesting. Her answers indicated a level of pathological dissociation indicative of some kind of traumatic experience. What he hoped to achieve today was to gain some insight into the nature of that trauma.
But first things first. He smiled at her.
‘Have you done your homework?’
She frowned in puzzlement.
‘Your thought diary?’ he said.
‘Oh that. Sorry, I completely forgot about it.’
He sighed. This didn’t come as a total surprise to him.
‘Like I said in our previous meeting, Bailey, if you want to get better, then you have to want to help yourself.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor. It genuinely slipped my mind. I got sidetracked with some other stuff.’
He gestured at the sheets of paper on the table in front of him. ‘These are the tests you did last time you were here. Remember? The results are quite revealing.’
‘Revealing?’ A wary look.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You were referred to me because you threw yourself off a balcony. An attempt at suicide or self-harm tells me that you’re clearly troubled in some way. Looking at your test results, I’m wondering if this is down to a traumatic experience which happened to you in the past.’
He saw a flash of something in her eyes. Raw emotion. Pain. Fear. But then, just as quickly, it was gone, the grey eyes staring at him cool and calm once again.
‘You can tell that just from this test?’ she said, a sceptical tone in her voice.
In truth, he didn’t need a test to know that something unpleasant was locked up inside that head of hers. With her mannerisms and her scar, which he guessed was the outcome of some violent encounter, it was hardly an outlandish assumption to make. And with almost twenty years’ experience as a forensic psychologist he had become particularly attuned to reading people like her.
‘Would you like to talk about it?’ he asked.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Traumatic experiences, if unaddressed, can be the cause of major mental health issues. They can lead to suicide attempts, self-harm and other highly detrimental behaviour.’ He paused. ‘Have you heard of something called post-traumatic stress disorder?’
She nodded and looked away.
‘When we undergo a particularly traumatic experience, the mind can compartmentalise that experience. It’s like a defence mechanism in order to help us preserve a functional sense of self and prevent emotionally unacceptable material from entering our consciousness. But because those memories aren’t properly integrated, they’re not anchored in any context of time or place like normal memories are. That means that when they intrude, which can happen quite suddenly, it feels like—’
‘Like they’re happening right now,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘Like you’re re-living them. Like you’re actually there all over again, seeing the same things, feeling the same feelings, smelling the same smells.’
Excitement gripped him. At last, he was getting somewhere! He had finally broken through that defensive shell of hers.
‘Yes, Bailey! That’s precisely it! I’m so glad you understand what I’m saying. You see, talking about it, although it might be painful, can help to reintegrate those traumatic memories into your consciousness and thus get rid of those unpleasant intrusions.’
He saw the shutters come down – a tautening in her jaw muscles, a sudden frostiness in her eyes.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she replied.
‘Why not?’ He was genuinely puzzled by her unwillingness to discuss the issue. After all, it sounded like she was well aware that she had a problem.
‘I just can’t,’ she said. ‘So please don’t ask me about it again.’