Decca had the grace to smile back.
`Has it always been the focus of your practice?'
`No. I went into private practice about six years ago. Prior to that I was resident psychologist at a social welfare unit in St Albans for nine years.'
`You would have had your hands full there,' Crockett said.
`It gave me a reasonably broad perspective,' Decca said.
`Can you remember what kind of work Mr Kransky was engaged in when he began coming to see you?' Crockett asked.
`He was working as a builders' labourer, I believe. He'd only been in the country a short time and was struggling with the language,' Decca said. She was finding it difficult to know how much to reveal about Oleg. `I don't think it was the kind of work he was accustomed to.'
`But he had no difficulty communicating with you?' Crockett asked.
`I had the luxury of time and patience,' Decca said.
There was an uncomfortable pause. Crockett was doing all the talking, Decca noted. Archie kept darting sidelong glances at the younger man as if he wasn't quite following the conversation. Was this what they called `good cop, bad cop'?
`Can you tell us what country Mr Kransky came from?' Crockett asked.
`No,' Decca said.
Crockett put down his pen and looked at her. Archie folded his arms across his chest.
`Not because I don't want to,' she added, quickly. `I simply wasn't ever able to work it out. I assumed he was from Poland.'
`It's a reasonable assumption, given his surname,' Crockett said. `Then again, he could have been of Polish origin but travelled to Australia from somewhere else.'
`I suppose so,' Decca said.
`Is Oleg Kransky a psychopath, Miss Brand?' Archie asked at last.
`That's a difficult question to answer,' Decca said.
`Give it a shot,' said the DSS with a mirthless grin. When Decca smiled and shook her head, he ploughed ahead before Crockett could get back in on the act.
`In your professional opinion would you consider him unbalanced enough to be capable of killing his wife and then making an attempt on his own life?' Archie leaned forward across the table towards her until his face was uncomfortably close.
Decca stiffened then decided not to let the older man intimidate her.
`Mr Kransky stopped coming to see me in July of last year,' she said, her tone no longer conversational. She paused while she considered giving Archie the bizarre details of Oleg's last appointment, but just as quickly thought better of it. `We had made some progress with his therapy. He mentioned his wife frequently during our sessions. I gained the clear impression that he loved her very much.'
`And did you gain the impression that she felt the same way about him?' Stock asked with a sneer. Decca said nothing. `Did Mr Kransky mention what his wife did for a living, by the way?'
`I understood she worked as a hotel manager,' Decca said.
Now it was the turn of the two men to say nothing.
`She earned enough to support them both but part of Mr Kransky's problem stemmed from the pressure he felt to be the main provider in the marriage.'
`Yes. You mentioned that he had only been in the country a short time and—' he leaned over to look pointedly at his notes, `was still struggling a little with the language.'
Decca nodded and Archie gave her a broad smile.
`And yet his wife held an Australian driver's licence issued in 1998.' He let the statement dangle while Decca struggled to compose herself.
`Did Mr Kransky mention that his wife had travelled to Australia separately, many years prior to his arrival?'
`No,' Decca said. Her head was reeling. Oleg had told her they had been apart for six months! That it was a `trial separation'. Six years was something else altogether.
`I can't help getting the feeling that this information has come as a bit of a surprise to you, Miss Brand,' Archie said, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips.
`Detective Senior Sergeant,' Decca said slowly, `I came to tell you what I could, within the parameters of patient confidentiality, about a previous patient of mine who—'
`Who happens to be suspected of torturing and brutally murdering his wife,' Stock said, getting up from the table. `You'll forgive my frankness, Miss Brand, but given your time at St Albans I'm sure you've heard worse.'
The DSS rested his big hands on the table, looked down at her and sighed.
`We have a man in custody whose wife is dead. And yet he's refusing to speak to us. We know nothing about him. We don't know where he's from, what he does for a living, whether he has any friends, whether he has any enemies. We've got nothing to go on, except for one small clue, Miss Brand.' His eyes bored into her. `Your card.'
`Now, if we had found an appointment card for, say, his barber, we would have gone through exactly the same process as the one we are going through with you. And, barbers being the shrewd observers of humanity we know them to be,' he said, looking back at Decca, `maybe we would have garnered a lot more information by now.'
Decca made to reach for her handbag.
`But, by a stroke of luck, we find that this man, who may or may not have killed his wife in a fit of rage, was seeing a psychologist less than a year ago.' Stock was building to a crescendo. `And we figure, reasonably enough, that this psychologist might be able to shed some light on why this man is acting in the way he is!'
`You want my professional opinion, Detective Senior Sergeant?' Decca asked. `I'd say it was high time you enrolled in an anger management course.'
Her heart was racing. She was both angry and scared, but she would not be bullied.
`I will prepare a statement and mail it to you.' Decca rose from her seat. `Now, if you don't mind, I'm expected elsewhere.'
Stock came around the table to face her, blocking her access to the door.
`Do you think the fact that Mr Kransky had recently discovered that his wife was working as a prostitute would have been enough to tip him over the edge, Miss Brand?' he asked quietly.
`Good night,' Decca said.
CHAPTER NINE
Zan hated keeping secrets. She was a straight shooting, devil-may-care kind of woman. Not telling her best friend about Alex had been a strain.
The cutlery glittered on the tablecloth beneath the candelabra. A hum of television, punctuated by the occasional giggle, drifted down the hallway from her daughter's bedroom where the one-eyed babysitter was hard at it with a selection of Disney DVDS. Zsa Zsa had recently turned ten years old but The Little Mermaid still held its charms.
Zan realigned the side plates and straightened the chairs.
They'd been friends since high school. Birthday presents were the only things she and Decca had ever felt the need to hide from one another, until now. How would Decca react to Alex? `Who's the nerd?' Alex was a caricature of the nutty professor: scrawny; unfashionably neat hair; and thick, horn-rimmed glasses. He was quietly spoken but with a rapier wit.
Zan caught sight of herself in the full-length gilt mirror. Tilting her head to one side, she reached up to twist some fiery red curls around a dress rose pinned above her ear. The candlelight danced amongst the golden clusters of her drop earrings and smoothed out the lines on her neck. She ran her hands down the side of her full bosom and over her ample hips, and smiled. Zan had never been shy of flaunting her assets. Today she was swathed in skin-tight, green cotton spandex that embraced the `goddess' paradigm of plunging necklines,