10
MARK
The psychiatrist,Dr.Kline, is with a patient, so his receptionist told us to wait in the anteroom. This office is in one of the Austro-Hungarian Empire-era mansions in the city center, but the room we’re in is sparsely furnished in that minimalist Scandinavian style, which is very clean and comfortable, but also too cold and sterile for my taste. It also clashes with the otherwise stately look of this room, namely its high ceiling, gleaming honey-colored hardwood floor and stylized white doors that match the window frames. The receptionist’s faint, flowery perfume is filling the room unobtrusively yet relentlessly, making it smell like spring, but a fake kind.
I just got back from the hallway where I spent the last ten minutes trying to keep my voice down as I spoke to the carpenter fixing my roof. He was supposed to get started yesterday but hasn’t yet. He keeps making excuses, and he’s already trying to raise the price.
“My cousin’s a contractor,” Sojer says to me as I sit down next to him in one of the white plastic, egg shaped chairs. “I can give you his number if you want. What is it? The roof?”
So much for trying to keep my voice down. Everyone in this whole building probably heard me.
“Yes, that would be great. The whole roof needs to be redone, down to the rafters,” I say.
I’m not a big fan of hiring based on familial associations. That’s how I got stuck with the contractors that did not do a very good job on the house in the first place. They came highly recommended by a distant cousin of mine. But I also don’t know if there’s any way other than through recommendations to actually find a contractor here. Besides, if the job will take at least a month, then I need someone who can get started right away.
So I copy the phone number from Sojer’s phone and am just about to go back into the hall to make the call, when the door behind the receptionist’s door opens.
A tall man, wearing sleek grey slacks and a white shirt unbuttoned at the throat so it can fit a wine-colored neckerchief, walks in. His eyes zero in on the two of us with laser precision, but a second later he’s all smiles for the patient—a woman about my age with long, wheat-colored hair tied in a messy bun at the top of her head. She’s dressed in the latest upper middle class style of baggy jeans coupled with a baggy shirt and cardigan. Shabby chic, Eva calls it, and I’m glad she’s still opting for more form-fitting clothes.
“Same time next week, then,” the doctor tells her. “And really try to work at it. You'll be happy that you did.”
She nods and leaves the office, murmuring a goodbye to the two of us.
“These two gentlemen are from the police,” the receptionist announces. “They would like to speak with you.”
“Europol, actually,” I say as I walk to him and introduce us. “We have a few questions about Ana Kobe. She was a patient of yours, as I understand it.”
The laser focused look was back in his eyes as I mentioned Ana’s name, but it’s gone again as he invites us into the office.
“Ana was not a patient of mine for long, but I hope I can be of some help regardless of that,” he says as he follows us into his office and shuts the door.
This room is decorated in the same minimalistic style in shades of grey—from light to dark to bluish. The thick, floor length, dark blue curtains on the windows are pulled back, but the glass is so fogged up I can’t see anything through it.
He gestures for us to sit on the low sofa next to his wide, plush arm chair. Maybe it’s just me, but this room does not make me want to spill all my deepest secrets and problems. It’s too hot in here, for one thing, and there’s no life in it, not even a shelf with books or something. Even those mock-up rooms in furniture stores have books.
“Ana was a very reticent patient, which I believe to have been the result of deep trauma and years of poorly structured therapy. I am certain that given more time, I could have helped her,” he says pompously.
“So you know she’s dead?” I ask. “How did you find out?”
Her name didn’t appear in the news.
He glances at each of us, then clears his throat. “I consult as a forensic psychiatrist. A colleague who knew she was my patient informed me of her death and briefed me on the case.”
So he is the doctor Sojer thought he was, and he wasted little time telling us. Good. He clears his throat again. I think that’s some sort of tell with him. It possibly means that he’s lying. Or maybe it just means he’s nervous. Neither are very good signs. While I know that colleagues will talk to each other like he’s saying, it has only been two days since Ana’s body was found.
“You seem to have taken a big interest in Ana,” I say. “But her mother believes the opposite though. She said you just prescribed the medication and didn’t try very hard to treat her beyond that.”
The doctor scoffs and leans back in his armchair, crossing his arms over his chest and one leg over the other. “Ana’s mother. I could say a lot about her. But I’ll just say that she was the root cause of most of Ana’s problems. She was narcissistic and histrionic at a minimum, and her daughter never measured up to the high standards she set for her. Standards that could never be met because they weren’t meant to be. She blamed her daughter for costing her the man she wanted, and that’s something her daughter could never repay.”
So he did talk to her.
“We have reason to believe that Ana was contemplating suicide on the night she died,” I say. “She might have wanted to go into the river.”
The doctor shakes his head. “No, I do not believe it. The reason Ana went to the river almost every night was because watching it flow by soothed her. She imagined it taking away all her problems and she had been doing it for years, as she told me. The river was the one thing she could always count on being there for her.”
“So it’s not a stretch to suppose she wanted it to take her away too,” Sojer says, speaking for the first time.
“That’s not how it works,” Dr. Kline says. “The river was a positive thing in Ana’s life and her suicidal tendencies were a negative. Going to the river was her way of fighting to live, of banishing the suicidal thoughts. She had good cause to be depressed given her diagnosis, but in a way—a complicated, subconscious way—it also made her want to live. That’s why I prescribed her the medication. It works for her, while talk-therapy takes time, especially in a deep-seated illness such as hers.”