Chapter 12

King’s College Hospital, South London

Thursday, July 18; 09:55

The following Thursday, I turned up for my second ‘consultation’ with Lilian, looking forward to some answers. Her reassurances during our previous session that I’d a) retain my anonymity and b) could quit at any time convinced me to really give this a go. I had nothing to lose. Ever since my encounter with Meehan, I’d been craving a clinical explanation. I had pored through all the books I could lay my hands on about the subject, but had found nothing that remotely chimed with my bizarre hyperreal encounters.

What these books did reveal is that universities have entire departments dedicated to the study of sleep and sleeping disorders. Somewhere, there was a forest of solid academic research on the subject, some of it based on people with extreme conditions. I’d little doubt Lilian had spent the week negotiating these woods, tracking down the rare condition that I suffered from. Part of me even dared to hope that the diagnosis would come with a bespoke solution, one that didn’t involve secure hospitals or surgery.

‘Hi Doner,’ she said, this time around making my name sound like it should be followed by kebab.

Her hair was tied back again, but less severely. She’d even allowed herself a jaunty curl at the fringe.

‘Hi Lilian,’ I said, offering an awkward hand, ‘I’ll try to stop for breath this week, let you get a word in.’

She shook it limply, avoiding my eye. Strange, surely, for a shrink? Perhaps she was shy.

She wanted to go all the way back to my childhood scrapes with St Johnny Giles. I regurgitated it all again, a little resentfully. How much more did she need to know?

Over the course of the hour, she kept recycling the same stock questions:

‘How did that make you feel, Doner?’

‘What would you have wanted to happen?’

‘What do you think this meant?’

I found myself making stuff up, rather than confess I’d never given it much thought. Even my honest answers seemed to disappoint her, as if they weren’t what she’d been hoping for. By the end, her relentless probing for extra insight and meaning had worn me out. Tired answers morphed into defensive agitation.

After one more: ‘What do you think this meant?’ I snapped.

‘I was rather hoping you’d be able to tell me, Lilian. That is why I’m here after all. For answers.’

‘Maybe you have to find the answers within yourself?’

Oh for fuck’s sake, I thought. ‘What does that even mean?’

‘Why are you feeling so … defensive, Doner?’

‘Look, I don’t need therapy, Lilian. I’m not interested in exploring my feelings, okay?’

‘What would you like to happen?’

‘I’d like to know why dead people are attacking me in the middle of the night. That’s why I’m here. Remember?’

‘Why do you think this is happening to you?’

‘You know what I think? I think that when I get close to the body of someone who’s died violently, they find a way to communicate with me. I think Marion was trying to tell me something.’

‘Tell you what, Doner?’

‘I don’t know. My gut reaction the first time was that she was trying to lead me to her killer. I know that sounds mad, but that’s the only explanation I could come up with. The second time, in the car, I just don’t know. She seemed to place a lot of emphasis on slamming doors. I’ve been thinking, maybe this is a clue to what happened to her.’

There, I said it, out loud, I told myself. She let it hang in the air until I felt myself shrivel with embarrassment.

‘That’s a wonderful concept,’ she said finally, treating herself to the faintest smile, ‘but highly improbable.’

How fucking probable is any of this, Lilian? I felt like shouting. Dead people battering me in the middle of the night surely merited some lateral thinking? At least I’d come up with a theory, which was more than she’d managed.

‘Have you been back to the scene of Marion’s death, since the second attack?’

‘No.’

‘And she hasn’t come to you since then?’

I didn’t bother answering.

‘So it’s difficult to prove that theory, isn’t it?’

Easy for her to say – I would have to be pretty desperate before I’d put myself in the way of Marion’s deranged spirit again.

‘Okay, well that’s all we’ve got time for today,’ she said, getting to her feet and bouncing her papers on the table, like a newsreader during the credits.

She turned back suddenly, decisively. ‘Look, Doner, I’m not questioning you, or judging you. I’m just exploring the things that happened to you, so that I can make a judgement on them. Does that make sense?’

I’d made an arse of myself, so forced a smile: ‘Look I’m sorry, Lilian. I’m just not used to talking about it.’

‘Well you’ll be pleased to know you won’t have to for a couple of weeks now. I’m going on holiday. Can I book you in for Wednesday 7th August?’

‘Of course,’ I said, walking out of her office, certain that I’d never set foot in her surgery again.

Chapter 13

London, England

Monday, August 5; 15:30

August arrived, sticky, fuming and breathless, cranking up agitation on South London’s seething streets and tense estates.

It had been more than a month since Marion Ryan’s murder and the police had still made no arrests. The story no longer got a single mention in the media.

That afternoon, Fintan rang me with news: Shep was taking over the investigation. DS Dan Shepard. How on earth had he become involved?

Later, I found a mysterious handwritten note on my desk instructing me to meet the man himself at six p.m. that evening, at the Feathers. The site of my glittering career before joining the police, and mine and Shep’s first meeting. I’d left suddenly, unannounced and under a cloud.

I’d been bartending about a week when I noticed that Seamus, the manager, neither took nor was offered money for drinks by certain officers. I assumed this was some sort of arrangement for the nightly ‘lock-in’, and that these officers would expect the same from me. So whenever I handed a drink to a cop – and you can always recognise a cop – I never asked for money. Those not ‘in’ on the racket paid as a matter of course. The rest thought me terrific at my job.

I was about to ring the bell one night to scatter civilian drinkers when a voice behind me said: ‘Do you not want paying for this?’

‘Sorry, miles away,’ I smiled.

‘Detective Superintendent Dan Shepard,’ he said, holding out a hand. I held out mine. ‘That’ll be one pound forty,’ I said, and he laughed.

Looks-wise, he could have been Sean Connery’s tress-blessed younger brother: dark, arched eyebrows, thick white, collar-length hair, knowing blue eyes that always seemed mildly amused by something. He had the aura of someone born to power; he owned the room.

‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

‘A small town in the Midlands,’ I said, ‘the flat bit you drive through to get to somewhere nice.’

‘Oh I know it well,’ he said, ‘I spent most of my summers in the Midlands, as a kid.’

‘So you know Tullamore?’

‘Of course. My people come from Tipperary, Clonmel.’

‘I hear it’s a long way,’ I teased.

‘Well, my heart’s still there, I can tell you. God, I used to love it. Everyone making a fuss of you, giving you cake and lemonade. The nights in the pub. Later I found out that my old man used to have to borrow the money to go, and a suit. Can you imagine?’

Another middle Irish son, I thought, having to find his own way.

‘What did he do here?’

‘Spent his life working on the buildings, until it killed him. His last job was in ’76, digging the tunnel so the tube could get to Heathrow airport. The irony was he’d never once flown home himself. He never had the dough.’