Fry had once seen a newspaper article that began: ‘Kate Adie, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Bowen, Larry Grayson, Edgar Allan Poe, Bill Clinton and Steve Jobs … What do they all have in common?’
The journalist’s answer, of course, was that they were all adopted or fostered. It made Fry want to rip the newspaper into shreds and stuff it up the feature writer’s backside. As if she might aspire to make it on to a list that included Larry Grayson and Bill Clinton. It didn’t fill her with positive emotions to know that she shared something in common with Jim Bowen. And Edgar Allan Poe? Wasn’t he stark, raving bonkers?
Fry dried her face, combed her hair, and brushed her jacket. There was no reason for her to look as untidy as Ben Cooper.
Of course, there were a lot of bad reasons for adopting children. Adoption was often a selfish act, but some of the reasons were selfish in particular ways. Some couples thought it would save their marriage, others wanted to replace an infant who’d died, or provide a companion for an only child. They might do it because all their friends had babies, or because they saw a child as a fashion accessory, or a political statement. They thought adoption would provide company in their old age, or a pension plan, a successor in the family business, or just someone to carry on the name. All of those reasons were essentially exploitative. None of them focused on the child for its own sake. So what had Lindsay Mullen’s reason been? Could she believe what Henry Lowther said?
Adoption was always tough. But it seemed evident that the Mullens loved Luanne. If her natural father succeeded in getting her back, there was no knowing what her fate might be.
Fry stared at her reflection and shook her head. She was starting to feel better. She was thinking again, instead of just reacting. She needed expert advice really, but it was difficult to know where to go for expertise in baby trafficking. Not every agency was forthcoming with information.
She remembered that there was a South Yorkshire Police unit called Operation Reflex, set up to combat human trafficking. An officer from the Immigration Service worked with the team to provide information on individuals who might be involved in immigration crime.
But Reflex were interested in women being trafficked for the sex trade. They’d scored a success in Sheffield a little while ago, with the case of a fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl sold into prostitution. The girl had arrived at Heathrow Terminal Three to take up a job selling ice cream, and had herself been sold for the price of a second-hand car. Before she arrived in South Yorkshire, the girl had been passed around from hand to hand, gradually losing her value when she was no longer a virgin and had suffered damage from regular beatings. It was probably what the car trade called depreciation.
Fry watched her face change in the mirror. That was better. Now she looked more like someone who was in control.
‘Fear is a very interesting emotion,’ said Dr Sinclair. ‘You can’t be afraid retrospectively. You can only fear something that hasn’t happened yet.’
Setting up the tape for him, Cooper paused before pressing the ‘play’ button. Damn right, he thought. That was why there were so many things to be afraid of.
‘Scared to live,’ he said. ‘That’s the way you described Mr Lowther’s current state of mind.’
‘That’s correct.’ Sinclair looked up. ‘If you don’t understand that concept, then you haven’t learned to glimpse what goes on in other people’s minds. Some individuals find life unbearable, every day a torment. They become convinced that continuing to live will be such an ordeal that dying is the only possible escape.’
Cooper couldn’t think of an answer to that. He started the tape, and they listened to John Lowther’s interview in silence for a few minutes.
‘Yes, some people go abroad, hunting for whores.No – for babies.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Is it time?’
‘He’s conflating two subjects in his mind here, I think,’ said Sinclair. ‘The whores and babies thing, I mean.’
‘I wondered if John Lowther could be a paedophile. What do you think, Doctor?’
Sinclair shook his head vigorously. ‘No, there’s no indication of that.’
‘Are you sure? I’m no psychiatrist, but babies and whores sounds a very dubious association of ideas to me. I understand that Mr Lowther doesn’t quite know what he’s saying, but isn’t that sort of thing called a Freudian slip?’
‘Freud has nothing to do with it. You don’t understand how this works. What we’re dealing with here is not an association of thoughts, but a disassociation. Mr Lowther’s brain is skipping so quickly to an unrelated subject that there appears to be no distinction or separation between them, as far as the listener is concerned. That’s not the way it is in the patient’s mind – his brain just isn’t making normal connections, the way ours would. Mr Lowther is probably saying words that sound like the ones he’s thinking.’
‘OK. Anything else?’
Cooper pressed the ‘play’ button again, and they listened to the rest of the interview. Sinclair jotted a few notes.
‘Yes, in this interview, I think we can hear pressure of speech, where the patient speaks quickly and incessantly. Also derailment, or flight of ideas, when he switches topic, sometimes in mid-sentence. That can be in response to an outside stimulus.’
‘I like your tie.’
‘Yes, that sort of thing. You might also detect a degree of tangentiality, when he replies to questions in an oblique or irrelevant manner. To you, in your profession, that would probably sound very suspicious and evasive, I imagine.’
Cooper nodded. Evasive was the exact word that he’d used about John Lowther after his interview.
‘In this form of speech, he reaches conclusions that don’t follow logically, or his thoughts might have no conclusion at all. Sometimes the individual words are correct, but the manner they’re put together is wrong, resulting in what some clinicians call word salad. Sounds rather than meanings govern the connection between words – a clang association. He might also repeat a word over and over, or echo other people’s speech.’
‘That confusion in his speech was already evident a few days ago.’
‘Really?’ Sinclair frowned. ‘It varies with the individual patient, of course. But perhaps he had stopped taking the medication earlier than we thought.’
‘Will this get worse?’
‘Yes, as his condition deteriorates, he might become incoherent, using inappropriate words or mispronouncing them, or making up new words altogether.’
‘Hunting for whores. No – for babies.’
Sinclair shrugged. ‘It’s impossible to interpret his real meaning without having Mr Lowther here for a proper interview.’
Cooper bristled. ‘A what?’
‘My apologies. I meant a properly structured clinical interview.’
Cooper watched Sinclair gather up his notes, plucking up the courage to say what was on his mind.
‘Doctor, you said that many people who have psychotic episodes find them a positive experience.’
‘Yes. Many of them are non-clinical individuals, of course.’
‘Non-clinical?’
‘Individuals who have hallucinations but aren’t troubled by them, so they don’t seek treatment.’
‘But if they have psychiatric problems, they should be receiving treatment, shouldn’t they?’
‘Unless it’s a troubling experience, it wouldn’t be what we term a psychiatric problem.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Sinclair leaned back in his chair and looked at Cooper. ‘Do you believe in the supernatural?’
‘Well, I’m not sure –’
‘No, of course not. Many of us aren’t sure. But, you see, from a neurological point of view, people with a tendency to psychotic experiences show increased activation in the right hemisphere of the brain. The same increase has been found in perfectly healthy people with high levels of paranormal belief, or mystical experiences. Even creative individuals can show a similar pattern.’