‘We’ve missed you,’ he muttered, retreating to safety afforded by the physical barrier of his oak desk, lowering himself into his chair. ‘How was the tour?’ he asked, when she had settled herself into the chair opposite.
‘Now I know what living in prison feels like, except that prisoners get better food and their own television set.’
Gideon laughed. ‘Did they chain you up in the bowels of the boat 24/7?’
‘Ship.’ She half-smiled. ‘Ship is the technical naval term. Type 45 Destroyer, if I’m being really pedantic.’
‘Pedantic is good in this job. I like pedantic, but not when it’s directed at me. Type 45 Destroyer. Did they chain you up in the bowels of the destroyer 24/7?’
‘I must have been away from other lunatic psychologists for too long – you’ve lost me completely.’
Holding up a paint brochure, squares of bland off-whites, insipid greys and beiges lined down the page, he squinted at her through one eye.
‘Farrow and Ball colour trends, 2016. Tallow – a perfect match, I’d say. You mustn’t have seen the light of day. Certainly not the light of any Middle Eastern sun, anyway.’
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘My skin colour is on trend, if nothing else.’ She waved a hand back over her shoulder towards the door. ‘Should we try this again, perhaps? I’ll go out, come back in and you can attempt to avoid the insults. We don’t all have the benefit of a year-round tan.’
Gideon smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve missed you. It’s been dull around here without your chippy attitude to keep me on my toes.’
Originally from Zimbabwe, these days he was almost more English than the English with his tweed jackets, faux Tudor semi-detached on the outskirts of Farnham, Land Rover Discovery, solid middle-class wife and two boys. Jessie had met his sons once, had felt gauche and awkward beside them even though she was five years older than the eldest – both boys a stunning, olive-skinned mix of their black father and English rose mother, both following their father to Oxford.
‘Has Mrs D roped you into doing some DIY?’
‘Sadly, yes, as my pitiful government salary doesn’t run to the eye-watering sums charged by Home Counties building firms.’ Flipping over the brochure, he read in a desiccated monotone: ‘“Is your kitchen looking tired and dated? We can simply resurface your current cabinets in a colour and finish of your choice.”’ He tossed the brochure on the desktop. ‘Various shades of battleship, sorry, destroyer grey are all the rage these days, evidently, though why Fiona can’t continue residing with the browns we have lived with happily for the past twenty years, I have no idea. Never mind the damn kitchen, it’s me who’s tired and dated. Maybe Farrow and Ball can resurface me while they’re at it, two for the price of one.’ Reaching for his bifocals, sliding them on to the bridge of his nose, he fixed Jessie with a searching gaze. ‘Ready to get back to work?’
‘I assume from your tone that my answer needs to be an emphatic “yes”.’
Gideon patted a stack of files on the corner of his desk, ten centimetres high. ‘Preferably accompanied with a beatific smile and boundless energy.’ Sliding a thin cardboard file from the top of the stack, he held it out to her. ‘Here’s your number one. Ryan Jones: sixteen-year-old male trainee, Royal Logistic Corps, Blackdown Barracks. Referred by Blackdown’s commanding officer, Colonel Philip Wallace.’
Jessie flipped open the file. One typed sheet inside. ‘Why was he referred?’
Gideon shrugged. ‘An open-ended “we’re concerned with his mental state”.’
‘Isn’t the CO a bit high up to be referring trainees?’
Another shrug. ‘From what I know of Philip Wallace, he likes to have his finger in every pie on that base.’
Jessie nodded, taking a moment, eyes grazing down the first page to digest the key details of the referral. Gideon was right – there was little more information than he had just told her. The referral was a triumph of saying nothing in one page of tight black type.
Ryan Thomas Jones
Sixteen and five months
Joined the Army on 2 November last year, the day of his sixteenth birthday
Keen.
Keen or running away from something. In Jessie’s experience, people joined the Army for one of three reasons: patriotism, financial necessity, or to escape. There was a fourth, she privately suspected, though had never voiced: the opportunity to kill people legally. That last one was reserved for the nutters. Which one was Ryan Jones? Probably not the fourth, as Loggies weren’t frontline fighting troops.
Looking up, she met Gideon’s gaze. ‘When is he coming in?’
‘Two p.m.’
‘Oh, OK. So I get the morning to organize my office, drink coffee, chillax. That’s unexpectedly generous of you—’ She broke off, catching his expression. ‘No … I don’t get the morning to chillax. Instead, I get to …’ She let the sentence hang.
‘You get to go to Royal Surrey County Hospital.’
‘And why would I want to do that?’
‘I got a call from Detective Inspector Simmons ten minutes ago. He needs your help.’
‘Since when did we provide psychologists to Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes?’
‘Since DI Simmons asked me nicely. It seems austerity is pinching them as hard as it’s pinching us.’
‘Why does he need a psychologist’s help at the hospital?’
‘He’ll fill you in.’
‘Cryptic.’
‘Not deliberately so. There is an Army connection, he said.’
Jessie’s eyebrows rose in query, but Gideon didn’t provide her with any more information. Stretching his arms above his head, waving one hand vaguely towards the window as he did so, he added, ‘I was in a meeting when Simmons called, so our conversation was brief. You’d better get going. He’s there now, waiting for you at the entrance to A & E, and I have another meeting starting’ – he glanced at his watch – ‘five minutes ago.’ He began searching around under the piles of files, books and papers on his desk, continuing to talk as he did so. ‘Welcome back, Jessie. As I said, I’ve missed you.’ A fleeting, wry smile. ‘And so, as you can see, has my desk. It has felt your absence most keenly. You can’t see my mobile anywhere, can you?’
Ducking down, she retrieved Gideon’s mobile from the floor and handed it to him. ‘Here.’
‘Ah. Thank you.’
‘But that’s it. No more Mrs Doubtfire from me.’ Rising, she tucked Ryan Thomas Jones’s file under her arm. ‘Your desk is going to have to make its own way in the big wide world without my help. Sink or swim. Eat or be eaten.’
Gideon’s eyebrow rose, but he didn’t reply. As she left the room, Jessie glanced back. He was still watching her, the expression on his face conflicted: a part of him hoping that she was right; the other part knowing, from thirty years’ experience as a clinical psychologist, that such deep-seated psychological disorders as hers were far from simple to cure. Jessie hoped that she was right too. She had navigated this morning without so much as a tingle from the electric suit; had navigated her time abroad with only three mild episodes. She’d even managed to leave the house with the kettle handle crooked and an unwashed coffee cup in the sink. Progress. Real progress.
She hoped that settling