‘A colleague of Gabriel’s has…’
‘It’s that Wendy Clarke, isn’t it? The divorced woman who couldn’t stop making googly eyes at him at a Christmas party. She’s clearly a fantasist. You shouldn’t believe anything she says. It’s wishful thinking on her behalf.’
‘I’m afraid we do believe her, Beth. It all makes sense,’ Stacey said, fighting down the nagging doubt in her mind that she was missing something. She still couldn’t completely reconcile the picture of the polite, professional, hard-working Gabriel with the man who had walked out on his wife without a word. But the evidence said otherwise, and given that she had no clear reason for her unease, the boss wouldn’t let her spend another second guessing her own findings.
She swallowed and continued. ‘I think Gabriel needs some time to clear his head and he’ll be back soon,’ Stacey said, reaching across and squeezing Beth’s hand.
She snatched it away. ‘I suppose this means you’re going to scale down the search, stop actively looking for him because you’re convinced he’s gone off to find himself.’
‘There will still be observations, and the missing persons record will remain open until he’s found, but there’s little more we can do to actively investigate his—’
‘Get out,’ Beth said, standing.
‘Please try to—’
‘I mean it,’ Beth said, pointing to the door. ‘I trusted you and you’ve completely let me down. Leave my house and don’t ever come back.’
Stacey gave her one last look before doing exactly as she’d been asked.
FORTY-NINE
‘If you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin,’ Stephanie said, folding her legs beneath her again. Three mugs of coffee had been placed on the side table.
Her voice and tone were still the right side of cocky, but it was as though she’d now donned the attitude as a defence mechanism. Whatever it was she had to say, she was already in self-protection mode.
‘The first day or two in there is okay. You talk with counsellors, you have group meetings where everyone discusses their reasons for wanting to change their sexuality. On day three they begin the therapy – aversion therapy.’
‘We’ve seen the chair,’ Kim said.
‘No, you haven’t,’ Stephanie answered. ‘If you’ve been given the guided tour, you’ll have seen the show chair. That’s child’s play. I’m willing to bet you never made it to the third floor cos that’s where the real fun happens. The show chair gives you a little buzz. You can feel it but it’s nothing compared to the real one. There’s no massaging on that one.’
And this was the exact reason Kim had wanted to speak to an ex-patient. She wasn’t going to get the truth from the guided tour.
‘How does it work?’
‘You’re hooked up to a machine with electrodes all over your body, including your head. It’s like a lie detector but extra. It measures your emotional responses. If you react in any way to the stimulus, you get a shock.’
‘Can’t you just get up?’
Stephanie shook her head and pointed to her wrists. ‘You’re tied in position. Obviously you’re not told how bad it’s going to be or how long you’re going to be there, and once they lock the door and turn off the lights, it’s just you and the big screen. Your sense of time and reality begin to blur. The screen never goes off. They start with pictures and videos of straight couples – having dinner, walking on the beach – and then straight into girl-on-girl action. You instantly get a good shock. Doesn’t matter if you close your eyes, the sounds are still there. The videos get worse and more graphic, and the shocks get longer and more intense.’
‘How long are you in the chair?’
‘Depends on how long it takes your mind to give in.’
Kim thought about the scars on Jamie’s wrists. She was guessing it had taken him a while.
‘How long for you?’
‘Twenty-seven hours.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Bryant cursed.
‘But how does your mind adjust?’ Kim asked, trying to imagine the horror of what she was being told.
‘Do you love or hate Marmite, Inspector?’
‘Hate it.’