Before I Let You In (36 page)

I honestly thought as we entered adulthood that they were mine and I was theirs. I had integrated myself into their lives so completely that I was part of the machine rather than the third wheel.

Until that day.

I’d gone into town on my lunch break to post some letters when I saw them together. Without me. It will sound meaningless to you; in thirty years of friendship of course we’d met without all three being present before, but not often, and usually only because the other couldn’t make it. We’d dropped in to one another’s houses without sending out group invites, but if you asked me why this time was different, I’d say I just knew. In that moment all my fears were confirmed – theirs was the true friendship and this would the beginning of my descent into loneliness. You see, I had no one else. I had put all my eggs in their basket, so to speak; even Michael wasn’t really mine. There had always been something stopping me from giving myself fully to relationships, and this was the consequence. How many clandestine meetings had there been? How many furtive glances –
don’t let Karen know, let’s make it just the two of us.

And once I’d seen them, and I’d known, it was all I could think about. Our every interaction was tainted with their imagined betrayal; my time in their reflected sunlight was coming to a close.

Jessica Hamilton walked into our lives at just the right – or the most horrifically wrong – moment. As soon as I met her I knew there was something not quite right about her, that she was wearing a mask not too different to my own, but it wasn’t until I saw her with Adam that I knew how dangerous she would be, to me and my friends. I didn’t know what she wanted or why, but I knew that I had to protect them from her. This was my chance to show them how much they needed me. My psychiatrist, Sheila, tells me that I can’t have seen what I thought I saw; that Adam was there innocently and Jessica wasn’t there at all, but I don’t believe that. If all this was for nothing, then what does that make me?

But they couldn’t – or wouldn’t – see the danger that was right in front of them. I had to make them realise! The things I did – moving Eleanor’s car, setting Bea up on a date doomed to remind her of the past – I was never putting them in real danger. I was always right there, ready to swoop in and remind them I was the only person they could rely on. Not Adam, or Fran. Not even each other. And when they realised how much of a threat Jessica Hamilton was to them, it would be me they turned to, to tell me I was right all along. To ask me to help them.

The police say that Jessica, or Anne Lenton as we now know her to be, was never interested in my friends; that it was me she wanted to cause trouble for, but I know that can’t be true. I was protecting them. And when I went to Eleanor’s house that afternoon, I just wanted to make her see. I’d been careless; she’d recognised the bracelet I’d hidden in Adam’s car from an old photograph – so stupid to use an old one of my own, but I hadn’t worn it in so long, I never thought she’d remember it – and she started accusing me of all sorts. She thought I was the one having an affair with her husband. Me! She didn’t even believe Jessica existed. It was far from the vision I’d had of promising her I would fix everything for her and her falling gratefully into my arms. I can’t pretend it wasn’t frustrating, or that when she lashed out at me I didn’t push back, just a little harder than I’d intended. When I saw the blood, I realised what I’d done.

And there it was. The second person I’d loved was dead because I couldn’t save them. First from my mother, and then from Jessica Hamilton. Because she was responsible – I wasn’t in any doubt about that. She might not have been in the room, but it was her fault. All I ever wanted to do was love them, protect them from everything. They needed me. I just wanted to save them all.

You can’t fix me.
Those were some of the first words she said to me, and I remember thinking she was wrong. I fixed people all the time, it was my job. It turned out that she never wanted to be fixed. She was there to fix me, she was my Inspector, my Marley’s Ghost. But I don’t feel fixed. And I don’t think I ever will be.

Final report – Karen Browning

Psychiatrist: Dr Sheila Ford.

Length of treatment: 1 year and two months.

Karen suffered severe trauma as a result of bereavement in childhood, resulting in her blaming herself for the death of her sister. Although she recognises that the responsibility for her sister lay solely with her mother she still bears the emotional scars caused by guilt and as such has spent her life trying to atone for the accident by protecting those around her. The almost symbiotic relationship she has cultivated with her close group of friends has reinforced her belief that she needs to ‘save’ these women, and when there was no immediate threat her mind manufactured one in the form of her patient Jessica Hamilton.

There is still much work to be done with Karen. The God complex that she has cultivated since the death of her sister in childhood has given her the inflated belief that the harm she caused was all collateral damage in the grand scheme of keeping her friends safe from outside threat, and I understand from police reports that it is believed she has been manufacturing ways in which she can protect her friends for quite some time – although the events of twelve months ago mark an accelerated decline in her mental state. Confronting what really happened will be the last emotional barrier to breach, after which I fear we may see a complete breakdown. Once Karen loses the image she has of herself as protector and admits that she was the sole threat to her friends, there will be considerable fallout.

Having worked with Karen Browning for over a year now it is my opinion that she remains a high-risk patient, with the severest risk she poses being that to herself. It is my recommendation to the courts that Karen Browning should remain in custody for the maximum sentence available.