Black Valley (10 page)

‘Well, I must be off.’ She paused. ‘I’ll see you next week, perhaps. I’m Jessica, by the way. Jessica Mayhew.’

‘I’ll look forward to hearing from you, Jessica.’ He looked into her eyes. She held his gaze for a moment. ‘Goodbye.’

‘Bye.’

She turned and walked towards the door. Her heart was beating. She was surprised at her own boldness.

When she looked back, he smiled and held up a hand, and she responded to the gesture in kind. Then she went over to Mari.

‘Out on the pull, I see,’ Mari murmured as she joined the group of actors. ‘Nice work, Jess. He looks pretty fit for a professor.’

‘Oh shut up.’ Jess felt herself blushing. ‘It wasn’t like that, anyway. We were just talking about the paintings.’

‘Sure you were.’ There was a smile playing on Mari’s lips. ‘Come on, let’s go and get a drink somewhere, shall we?’

‘I’ve just got to go and say goodbye to someone. I’ll be back in a minute.’

Jess made for the group by the microphone, where Elinor and Blake were standing together, side by side, saying goodbye to people. Isobel hadn’t reappeared. From time to time, Elinor leaned
casually against Blake’s shoulder, as if exhausted by the effort of socializing. Obviously, it had been a challenge, throwing this party so soon after Ursula’s death, and they were both
relieved now that the party was nearing its end. Yet there was a body language between the two of them, a casual familiarity with each other’s touch, that belied what Elinor had said about
him in the last session, and suggested that they might be on more intimate terms than she’d implied.

‘Jess. I’m so glad you came.’ Elinor took her hand and squeezed it. She seemed slightly drunk and rather overemotional, but her affection was genuine. Clearly, she’d
found Jess’s presence at the party reassuring.

‘It was a pleasure.’ Jess spoke with sincerity, but she kept her tone formal, gently removing her hand.

‘Let me introduce you.’ Elinor turned to her brother-in-law. ‘Blake, this is Jessica Mayhew. Jessica, Blake Thomas.’

Blake put out his hand, and gave her a broad smile, showing rows of straight white teeth. Close up, he was remarkably good-looking, with that striking black hair and dark eyes one often sees in
Wales. There was a faint trace of Swansea in his accent, à la Richard Burton, which only added to his appeal.

They shook hands. Blake’s grasp was firm, confident. It’s definitely him, Jess thought. The man on the green. No doubt about it. And now that she saw his handsome face up close, she
could see why he had reason to swagger.

‘Dr Mayhew, I should say,’ Elinor went on. ‘She’s my therapist.’

As Elinor spoke, Jess felt his hand go limp in hers for a second. She looked up, and saw the colour drain from his face. Then he recovered himself.

‘Good to meet you, Dr Mayhew.’ He withdrew his hand. She noticed that it was shaking slightly.

‘And you. Lovely party.’

‘Thanks.’ He ran a hand through his hair, as if exhausted by the strain of the evening. Then, rather abruptly, he turned to the next person in the queue, who was waiting to say
goodbye.

‘See you next week, then.’ Elinor spoke in a low voice.

Jess nodded in response. Then she turned and walked quickly to the doorway, where Mari was waiting for her.

The following Tuesday, after seeing two clients, Jessica went over to the deli, bought herself a cappuccino, and came back to the consulting rooms. Her next client of the day
was Elinor Powell, and she wanted to reflect on the case for a few minutes before she arrived.

She sat down in her armchair and looked up at the white relief on the opposite wall. The circle in the centre of it gauged her mood: if she was upset, it vibrated slightly against the white
square behind it; if not, it sat quietly, glowing rather than throbbing. Today it was motionless. She was encouraged by that; she might be struggling to keep up these days, both at work and at
home, but at least she was in a reasonably calm frame of mind.

She leaned back in her chair, casting her mind back to when she’d last seen Elinor. It was perhaps unfortunate that they’d met at the party, but Cardiff was a small place, and
bumping into clients was par for the course for any psychotherapist practising in the city. Indeed, Jess often reminded herself that, in the early days of psychoanalysis, Freud himself had been
very casual about such informal social encounters; he regularly took his patients out to tea, visited their relatives, wrote letters to their friends, and so on. The idea that therapy should
– or could – take place entirely within a bubble, hermetically sealed off from the outside world, was a modern invention.

No, Jess mused, there was nothing disastrous about seeing Elinor briefly in her own milieu; indeed, it had been enlightening, in many ways. But it did break into the ‘frame’ of the
therapeutic encounter – the setting of a secure, confidential environment with boundaries and ground rules – so she’d need to bear that in mind during the upcoming session.

Clearly, the twin issue was deeply significant. The fact that, as it turned out, Elinor was a twin made all the difference to her psychological make-up, and might well have been a factor in
triggering her claustrophobia. But why hadn’t Elinor told her about it? Possibly because she took Isobel so much for granted that she didn’t realize the information was significant. As
one of Jess’s former clients had remarked, ‘being a twin is like being in a marriage from the day you are born, without knowing you’re in it’. The twins’ relationship
may have been suffocatingly close, and perhaps the sudden death of their mother had exacerbated the problem, at least for Elinor, pushing her into acute claustrophobia.

Jess moved her gaze from the white relief to the window. It was open just a crack, in readiness for Elinor’s session. The weather was still cold, and she could feel a draught coming in
from it again.

She furrowed her brow, remembering Freud’s dictum that neuroses always have an unconscious purpose. What was the hidden purpose of Elinor’s claustrophobia? Perhaps, after the loss of
their mother, to express a symbolic need to resume her stifling relationship with her twin; or, more pragmatically, to draw Isobel away from Blake, bring her back by her side, to look after her as
a kind of surrogate mother.

Which raised the question of Blake’s role in Elinor’s life. Elinor had voiced her doubts about him in the therapy, but initially Jess had been sceptical, reasoning that she was bound
to feel some resentment towards him as her sister’s husband, especially as she herself wasn’t married. Yet Blake’s behaviour at the party had, in actual fact, been rather
suspicious: when Elinor had introduced her as her therapist, he’d seemed thoroughly rattled. Maybe he did have something to hide, after all.

And what about Blake and Elinor’s body language at the party, towards the end, when Isobel had left? While not overtly amorous, it had revealed an intimate, if not necessarily sexual,
connection between them. If Elinor was indeed betraying Isobel by having a secret affair with Blake, or at least some kind of complex dalliance, she could well be projecting her guilt about that
onto Blake, blaming him for her mother’s death, and becoming more and more troubled herself in the process . . .

There was a knock at the door.

Jess realized that she hadn’t left it ajar, as she usually did before Elinor’s session, and hurried over.

She opened the door. Elinor stood outside, dressed only in a thin T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. Her face was milky white, and she was shivering.

‘You look frozen. Come in.’

‘I can’t.’ There was a vein throbbing at Elinor’s temple, the blue visible beneath her translucent skin. ‘I just don’t feel too good today.’

‘OK.’ Jess made a snap decision, disturbed by Elinor’s appearance. ‘Let’s go and do the session in the park. I’ll get my coat.’

She went over to the hat stand, grabbed her bag, and put on her coat – the green tweed. Then she picked up the baggy woollen cardigan she’d kept in the office for Frank’s
session, and a thick, knitted scarf of Rose’s that she’d borrowed one chilly morning, and brought them out to Elinor.

Elinor took the cardigan, quite meekly, and donned it, buttoning it up at the front. It came down to her knees. Then she wrapped the scarf around her neck. She looked like a child, wrapped up by
its mother for a winter walk.

Jess got out her keys and locked the door. Then they set off down the stairs.

‘What happened to your mac?’

‘It got wet.’ Elinor didn’t offer any further explanation.

Jess was concerned. Elinor’s condition seemed to have deteriorated markedly since their last encounter; she was neglectful of her appearance, to the point where she wasn’t even
bothering to dress properly for the weather, and she seemed unable to stand being indoors for even a moment, let alone a fifty-minute session in the consulting room.

They walked down Cathedral Road, towards the Llandaff Fields. There was a bench by the river there where Jess often went to sit and watch the water birds, and to think. She’d take Elinor
there, she decided. It was a calm spot, and few people passed by, except for the odd cyclist or dog walker.

They didn’t talk as they walked – Elinor was too tense to make conversation. On the way, she had an attack of nerves and needed to pee, so they had to stop at the public toilets. She
was anxious about going, afraid that she might get locked in, and Jess had to reassure her she’d be waiting right outside if anything went wrong. When she emerged, they walked on quickly to
the riverside.

They found the bench, and sat down. It was a grey, misty day, and there was little activity in the river, except for a few ducks dabbling in the shallows.

‘So.’ Jess settled herself on the bench. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

Elinor sat beside her, her body inclined slightly towards Jess, with a gap between them. ‘It’s just the pressure, I think. It’s been building up. First there was the private
view, which stressed us all out, and then yesterday Blake was taken in for questioning.’ She paused. ‘This policewoman just won’t give up.’

‘The same one as before?’

Elinor nodded. ‘DS Lauren Bonetti, her name is.’

The name was familiar. Jess had come across DS Bonetti in connection with another of her patients a while back. She’d taken a bit of a shine to her, in fact. She was a bright, inquisitive
woman who pursued a case until she found out the truth, Jess knew. She’d respected her for that, and had felt a certain kinship with her.

‘As far as I can see, the investigation has been dropped by the rest of the team. They think the thief killed Ursula by accident, in the course of carrying out a robbery. They have no
leads, they haven’t come up with any evidence, and they’ve left it at that. But Bonetti isn’t satisfied. She seems to suspect that Blake had something to do with it all.’
Elinor paused. ‘She gave him a pretty hard time, apparently. She’d been to see Mia, Blake’s business partner, in London and found that their stories didn’t match up.
She’d checked their schedules, got hold of all sorts of little details – train times, and so on. In the end, he confessed that he hadn’t been with Mia at all. He said he’d
been visiting Hefin Morris, and he hadn’t told her because Hefin wanted to keep it a secret. She asked where they’d met, and he said at a service station up in the valleys. So now
she’s checking that out.’ Her voice began to tremble. ‘They let him go, but I expect they’ll want to speak to him again. Isobel’s terribly upset.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Elinor nodded. ‘She’s been in such a state ever since Ma died.’ Jess noticed that now Elinor was able to call a spade a spade, without any evasions. ‘She had to leave the
party early the other night – she just couldn’t cope with it all.’ Elinor paused. ‘I worry about her. She seems very introverted at the moment. She won’t talk to me at
all about any of it, not properly.’

Jess gazed out at the river. A cormorant landed on a rock, further towards the middle, where the water was deep.

‘Perhaps she’s not ready yet.’

‘We used to talk about everything, though.’ There was a note of sadness in Elinor’s voice. Then she fell silent, following Jess’s gaze.

‘You know, I really don’t think you ever told me you had a twin,’ Jess said, breaking the silence at last.

Elinor frowned. ‘Well, I suppose that’s because I don’t really think of myself as a twin any more. Isobel and I used to be very close, when we were growing up. Inseparable,
actually. Even when we left school, we went up to London together, shared a flat, went to Goldsmiths, took the same painting course. She had a very different style from mine. Her paintings were
always big and abstract, while mine were small and figurative. The tutors liked her work, and she was seen as an up-and-coming talent. But then when Pa got ill, she dropped out to help him run the
gallery. That’s how she met Blake . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

They watched as the cormorant dipped to catch a fish, but came up with its beak empty.

‘After she married him, she stopped taking an interest in me,’ Elinor continued. ‘Little by little, we began to see less of each other. Blake was nice enough to me, but they
never included me in their life together. They never invited me to go on holiday with them or anything.’

Jess couldn’t see why a married couple would invite a sibling along on holiday, but she didn’t say so.

‘And it’s been like that ever since. Isobel virtually never gets in touch, unless she needs something. It’s all about Blake now. Blake this, Blake that. I get sick of hearing
about how bloody marvellous he is sometimes.’

Again, Jess found Elinor’s attitude surprising. Obviously a married woman would be more interested in her husband’s doings than her sister’s. But Elinor didn’t seem to
understand that.

‘I feel totally excluded from their relationship, to be honest,’ Elinor went on. ‘It really upsets me.’

Jess was puzzled. She pictured Elinor at the exhibition, after Isobel had left, lolling her head against Blake’s shoulder. Elinor’s complaint didn’t seem to tally with what
she’d seen that night.