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“What?”
He sighed. “I said, ‘Where’s your inhaler?’ Your breathing’s starting to go all weird.”
I frowned. “Um, in here somewhere, I think.” I fumbled unseeing through the contents of my handbag until Nat took it from me. He looked inside, took the blue plastic inhaler out and calmly handed it to me. I took two blasts and handed it back to him like an obedient child.
“Well done,” he said and took me in his arms again, just as the paramedics jostled their way through the mob to be briefed on the situation by the steady and unruffled Sergent Mendoza.
“Oh God Nat, don’t let go of me,” I pleaded as every fibre in my body ached to join the terrified man only metres away and protect him from the impending assault.
“I won’t. It’ll be over really quickly now,” Nat soothed. “You don’t have to watch this.”
“Oh yes I fucking do,” I stated and forced myself to look.
*****
From the precise, focused actions of the paramedics, it was clear they were about to go in. I knew there was no point in trying to talk Finn down now he’d already flattened an officer, and I told myself we were lucky that he hadn’t been tasered and hauled off to the police station, but that didn’t stop the ache in my chest.
A police officer accompanied the medics and approached Finn first, his arms outstretched and palms open as he walked slowly up the steps to the church. It was like watching a sacrificial lamb approaching its slaughter. Finn had been a bare-knuckle fighter since he was thirteen and despite his current state I knew he could take any amount of pain before he dropped, so it was never going to end well for the nervous young man in uniform.
Sure enough Finn dived at the officer and went down brawling, but then in one clean move two of the medics put him into a head and arm lock whilst the third took a syringe and injected Finn in the back of his thigh, straight through the fabric of his jeans. He gave one last silent howl and collapsed into the arms of the paramedics, dead to the world.
“Christ, that was grim,” Nat said, and finally released his hold on me. “Do you want me to call a taxi to get you to the clinica?”
As the crowd started to drift away at the end of the show, I could only give a mute nod.
Chapter Four
Lilith
I could do this next part. Had done it so many times as a teenager with a schizophrenic mother who was politely described as a ‘Poor Coper’ by every agency that had attempted to work with her, so that even now I could fill in the same forms and answer the same questions without any real thought.
I sat in a huge leather armchair in a comfortable side room at the Clinica del Valle and cradled a freshly-brewed coffee whilst I went through the first stage of Finn’s admission with a polite, proficient young clerk, telling her everything she needed to know as though I were an automaton.
Functionally, the entire process was made far easier at the age of twenty nine, thanks to a private hospital that was trying to disguise itself as a luxury hotel and the possession of a bank balance that opened doors such as this with more efficiency than a battering ram. Emotionally however, I felt myself teetering at the edge of a cliff edge and I was glad when the pleasant young woman left to process my account details; I needed a moment to reposition my mask.
“Ms Bresson?” A clipped Hertfordshire accent called my name. I wasn’t surprised; the Clinica del Valle might have a Spanish name but it catered almost exclusively to Santa Marita’s wealthy and ageing ex-pat community. A significant percentage of its hefty fees went towards ensuring that most of its senior consultants spoke fluent Received Pronunciation as their first language.
A tall, stately woman with close-cropped white hair and a face entirely free of such fripperies as make-up walked over to where I sat and offered me her hand. “I’m Edith Cavendish, consultant psychiatrist here at the Clinica. I know you’ve just talked to one of our reception team, but I wonder if you’d be willing to provide me with a little more detail?”
“Please, call me Lilith.” I shook her hand and she took the seat that had been vacated by the receptionist. “So where do you want me to start?”
Cavendish balanced her notepad on the arm of her chair and smiled at me. Her severe features immediately softened. “I feel I should disclose that I followed Lady Albermarle’s trial rather closely – I was intrigued to see if her attempt to claim a personality disorder as a mitigating factor in her plea would be successful, and utterly delighted when it failed – so I do know a little about Finn’s background. But if there’s anything else you feel might be helpful, now’s the time to tell me. Do you feel up to that?”
I nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
Over a second coffee, brought wordlessly to my side by yet another immaculate young assistant, I told the psychiatrist everything I knew that might help her to heal Finn. Cavendish made the appropriate noises to indicate that she was listening, but for the most part she let me talk whilst she made copious notes.
*****
“Well that was quite remarkable.” Cavendish gave me another wry smile once I’d finished telling her whatever details I could dredge up. “If I wasn’t an admirer of your work as an artist, I would have assumed that you had a medical background.”
I was exhausted and unprepared for compliments. “I’m sorry, I don’t get you.”
“Well, it’s the middle of the night, you appear to have used your partner’s blood as warpaint – the same partner who’s currently having what we professionals would call a significant wobbler in a room just down the way.” She moved her pen down the page. “And yet you’ve just sat here and detailed Mr Strachan’s general history, his auditory hallucinations, drug addiction and reduction schedule, weight loss and sleep pattern.” She paused to raise an eyebrow as she re-read her notes. “Goodness. Or lack of it. It certainly makes a change from being told by a dazed relative that a new arrival has been ‘acting a bit funny for a couple of days’; I believe the only thing you’ve missed out is his shoe size.”
“British size eight, Continental forty two,” I said without hesitation, “and none of that knowledge has sodding well helped him, has it?”
Cavendish steepled her fingers and glanced at her notebook again. “From what you’ve told me about Finn so far, I’m staggered he didn’t just collapse in a heap the moment you left Albermarle. There’s nothing that would have helped him out there tonight Lilith, but what you have done these past months is bought him some breathing space. It’s let him build up his strength so we can get him through this.”
