The aim of therapy is not to correct the past, but to enable the patient to confront his own history, and to grieve over it.
ALICE MILLER
I CLOSED ALICIA’S DIARY and placed it on my desk.
I sat there, not moving, listening to the rain pelting outside the window. I tried to make sense of what I had just read. There was obviously a great deal more to Alicia Berenson than I had supposed. She had been like a closed book to me; now that book was open and its contents had taken me altogether by surprise.
I had a lot of questions. Alicia suspected she was being watched. Did she ever discover the man’s identity? Did she tell anyone? I needed to find out. As far as I knew, she only confided in three people—Gabriel, Barbie, and this mysterious Dr. West. Did she stop there, or did she tell anyone else? Another question. Why did the diary end so abruptly? Was there more, written elsewhere? Another notebook, which she didn’t give to me? And I wondered about Alicia’s purpose in giving me the journal to read. She was communicating something, certainly—and it was a communication of almost shocking intimacy. Was it a gesture of good faith—showing how much she trusted me? Or something more sinister?
There was something else; something I needed to check. Dr. West—the doctor who had treated Alicia. An important character witness, with vital information on her state of mind at the time of the murder. Yet Dr. West hadn’t testified at Alicia’s trial. Why not? No mention was made of him at all. Until I saw his name in her diary, it was as if he didn’t exist. How much did he know? Why had he not come forward?
Dr. West.
It couldn’t be the same man. It had to be a coincidence, surely. I needed to find out.
I put the diary in my desk drawer, locking it. Then, almost immediately, I changed my mind. I unlocked the drawer and took out the diary. Better keep it on me—safer not to let it out of my sight. I slipped it into the pocket of my coat and slung it over my arm.
I left my office. I went downstairs and walked along the corridor until I reached a door at the end.
I stood there for a moment, looking at it. A name was inscribed on a small sign on the door: DR. C. WEST.
I didn’t bother to knock. I opened the door and went inside.
CHRISTIAN WAS SITTING BEHIND HIS DESK, eating takeaway sushi with chopsticks. He looked up and frowned.
“Don’t you know how to knock?”
“I need a word.”
“Not now, I’m in the middle of lunch.”
“This won’t take long. Just a quick question. Did you ever treat Alicia Berenson?”
Christian swallowed a mouthful of rice and gave me a blank look. “What do you mean? You know I do. I’m in charge of her care team.”
“I don’t mean here—I mean before she was admitted to the Grove.”
I watched Christian closely. His expression told me all I needed to know. His face went red and he lowered the chopsticks.
“What are you talking about?”
I took out Alicia’s diary from my pocket and held it up.
“You might be interested in this. It’s Alicia’s journal. It was written in the months leading up to the murder. I’ve read it.”
Christian looked surprised and a little alarmed. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“Alicia gave it to me. I’ve read it.”
“What’s it got to do with me?”
“She mentions you in it.”
“Me?”
“Apparently you were seeing her privately before she was admitted to the Grove. I wasn’t aware of that.”
“I—don’t understand. There must be some mistake.”
“I don’t think so. You saw her as a private patient over several years. And yet you didn’t come forward to testify at the trial—despite the importance of your evidence. Nor did you admit you already knew Alicia when you started working here. Presumably she recognized you straightaway—it’s lucky for you she’s silent.”
I said this drily, but I was intensely angry. Now I understood why Christian was so against my trying to get Alicia to talk. It was in his every interest to keep her quiet.
“You’re a selfish son of a bitch, Christian, you know that?”
Christian stared at me with an increasing look of dismay. “Fuck,” he said under his breath. “Fuck. Theo. Listen—it’s not what it looks like.”
“Isn’t it?”
“What else does it say in the diary?”
“What else is there to say?”
Christian didn’t answer the question. He held out his hand. “Can I have a look at it?”
“Sorry.” I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
Christian played with his chopsticks as he spoke. “I shouldn’t have done it. But it was entirely innocent. You’ve got to believe me.”
“I’m afraid I don’t. If it were innocent, why didn’t you come forward after the murder?”
“Because I wasn’t really Alicia’s doctor—I mean, not officially. I only did it as a favor to Gabriel. We were friends. We were at university together. I was at their wedding. I hadn’t seen him for years—until he called me, looking for a psychiatrist for his wife. She’d become unwell following her father’s death.”
“And you volunteered your services?”
“No, not at all. Quite the reverse. I wanted to refer him to a colleague, but he insisted I see her. Gabriel said Alicia was extremely resistant to the whole idea, and the fact I was a friend of his made it much more likely she’d cooperate. I was reluctant, obviously.”
“I’m sure you were.”
Christian shot me a hurt look. “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“Where did you treat her?”
He hesitated. “My girlfriend’s house. But as I told you,” he said quickly, “it was unofficial—I wasn’t really her doctor. I rarely saw her. Every now and then, that’s all.”
“And on those rare occasions, did you charge a fee?”
Christian blinked and avoided my gaze. “Well, Gabriel insisted on paying, so I had no choice—”
“Cash, I presume?”
“Theo—”
“Was it cash?”
“Yes, but—”
“And did you declare it?”
Christian bit his lip and didn’t reply. So the answer was no. That was why he hadn’t come forward at Alicia’s trial. I wondered how many other patients he was seeing “unofficially” and not declaring the income from them.
“Look. If Diomedes finds out, I—I could lose my job. You know that, don’t you?” His voice had a pleading note, appealing to my sympathy.
But I had no sympathy for Christian. Only contempt. “Never mind the professor. What about the Medical Council? You’ll lose your license.”
“Only if you say something. You don’t need to tell anyone. It’s all water under the bridge at this point, isn’t it? I mean, it’s my career we’re talking about, for fuck’s sake.”
“You should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you?”
“Theo, please…”
Christian must have hated having to crawl to me like this, but watching him squirm provided me with no satisfaction, only irritation. I had no intention of betraying him to Diomedes—not yet anyway. He’d be much more use to me if I kept him dangling.
“It’s okay,” I said. “No one else needs to know. For the moment.”
“Thank you. Seriously, I mean it. I owe you one.”
“Yes, you do. Go on.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to talk. I want you to tell me about Alicia.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
CHRISTIAN STARED AT ME, playing with his chopsticks. He deliberated for a few seconds before he spoke.
“There’s not much to tell. I don’t know what you want to hear—or where you want me to start.”
“Start at the beginning. You saw her over a number of years?”
“No—I mean, yes—but I told you, not as frequently as you make it sound. I saw her two or three times after her father died.”
“When was the last time?”
“About a week before the murder.”
“And how would you describe her mental state?”
“Oh…” Christian leaned back in his chair, relaxing now that he was on safer ground. “She was highly paranoid, delusional—psychotic, even. But she’d been like this before. She had a long-standing pattern of mood swings. She was always up and down—typical borderline.”
“Spare me the fucking diagnosis. Just give me the facts.”
Christian gave me a wounded look but decided not to argue. “What do you want to know?”
“Alicia confided in you she was being watched, correct?”
Christian gave me a blank look. “Watched?”
“Someone was spying on her. I thought she told you about it?”
Christian looked at me strangely. Then, to my surprise, he laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You don’t really believe that, do you? The Peeping Tom spying through the windows?”
“You don’t think it’s true?”
“Pure fantasy. I should have thought that was obvious.”
I nodded at the diary. “She writes about it pretty convincingly. I believed her.”
“Well, of course she sounded convincing. I’d have believed her too if I hadn’t known better. She was having a psychotic episode.”
“So you keep saying. She doesn’t sound psychotic in the diary. Just scared.”
“She had a history—the same thing happened at the place they lived before Hampstead. That’s why they had to move. She accused an elderly man across the street of spying on her. Made a huge fuss. Turned out the old guy was blind—couldn’t even see her, let alone spy on her. She was always highly unstable, but it was her father’s suicide that did it. She never recovered.”
“Did she talk about him with you at all? Her father?”
Christian shrugged. “Not really. She would always insist that she loved him and they had a very normal relationship—as normal as it could be, considering her mother killed herself. To be honest, I was lucky to get anything out of Alicia at all. She was pretty uncooperative. She was—well, you know what she’s like.”
“Not as well as you, apparently.” I went on before he could interrupt, “She attempted suicide after her father’s death?”
Christian shrugged. “If you like. That’s not what I would call it.”
“What would you call it?”
“It was suicidal behavior, but I don’t believe she intended to die. She was too narcissistic to ever really want to hurt herself. She took an overdose, more for show than anything else. She was ‘communicating’ her distress to Gabriel—she was always trying to get his attention, poor bastard. If I hadn’t had to respect her confidentiality, I’d have warned him to get the hell out.”
“How unfortunate for him that you’re such an ethical man.”
Christian winced. “Theo, I know you’re a very empathetic man—that’s what makes you such a good therapist—but you’re wasting your time with Alicia Berenson. Even before the murder, she had precious little capacity for introspection or mentalizing or whatever you want to call it. She was entirely consumed with herself and her art. All the empathy you have for her, all the kindness—she isn’t capable of giving it back. She’s a lost cause. A total bitch.”
Christian said this scornfully—and with absolutely no detectable empathy for such a damaged woman. For a second, I wondered if perhaps Christian was borderline, not Alicia. That would make a lot more sense.
I stood up. “I’m going to see Alicia. I need some answers.”
“From Alicia?” Christian looked startled. “And how do you intend to get them?”
“By asking her.”
I walked out.