'We've both been rather busy. He works in the day and has to study at night. I barely get an evening to myself . . .'
'So neither of you feels the need to make the effort? Last time we met I recall you said he'd declared himself.'
Declared himself. Where did he get these phrases from?
Jenny shrugged. 'I suppose I have to take most of the blame.'
Dr Allen nodded, as if she had confirmed his theory. 'I sense that you're feeling somewhat disconnected from your emotions. Helpful as the new medication is, perhaps it has allowed you to retreat a little too far from the issues.'
'I thought I was doing pretty well. No incidents, no breakdowns.'
'On that level I'm very pleased.'
'But you'd be happier if I was suffering a little more - is that what you're saying?'
'I'm sorry; I think we're in danger of a misunderstanding-'
She didn't let him finish. 'I know how much you want to experience a big eureka moment, find some hidden memory that's going to put everything right again, but to be honest, Dr Allen, I think I've moved beyond that now. Imperfect as things may be, I'm coping, and that's a hell of an improvement.'
'That's all to the good.' He hesitated, glancing down at his notebook. 'I just have to check.'
She recognized that tic. He always looked down when he was hiding something. 'Check what exactly?'
His cheeks flushed with embarrassment. There. She had nailed him.
'Well, since you feel strong enough to have this conversation I'll be honest with you. I . . . I'm a little concerned that just as we were making strides you've retreated into avoidance, and you've found a way of burying your feelings that allows you to function on one level, but on another might be making things worse.'
'I thought this treatment was about helping me to cope.'
'It is, but it's also about cure, and about not making things worse. I feel we're at a tipping point, Jenny.' His left hand reached for the knot of his tie. 'Look, I think it's best for both of us if I'm completely honest. I respect the fact that you're an intelligent, professional woman, but in some ways it makes my job harder - you feel able, quite rightly, to question my approach. But I remain certain of my diagnosis: you have a buried trauma which lies at the root of your generalized anxiety syndrome. I would like to persist with a fortnightly course of regression therapy for at least six sessions. If you don't want that, I suggest I refer you elsewhere.' He sat back in his chair and fixed her with a look. 'We have twenty minutes. Shall we try?'
Jenny said, 'What, in your opinion, might happen to me if I passed on the offer?'
'Experience has taught me that there is invariably a day of reckoning. Painful as it may be, I really do recommend you give this a chance.'
She thought of the files stacked up on her desk, the emails and telephone messages that would be waiting for her in the office, the calls she would have to make, the endless petty but important battles each day brought. She wanted to say to him, All right, but just not now.
Jenny said, 'Can I call you?'
Dr Allen closed his notebook. 'By all means, but you'll understand that it may not be me who sees you next time.'
Jenny spent the remainder of her commute to work on the phone, the recently acquired hands-free turning the once private space of her car into an office. Government fraud officers had broken into a disused industrial unit and discovered the crudely embalmed bodies of five elderly Asians whose various pensions and allowances were still being claimed by their relatives. The last thing the police wanted was to get involved in what they called an 'all Indian', and they were trying to offload the legwork onto the coroner's office. Jenny was dealing with the crane collapse - six phone calls from victims' lawyers before nine a.m. - and told the Detective Superintendent in charge to forget it. She had barely hung up when Alison called with the news that a nine-year-old girl had been declared dead on arrival at the Vale from suspected alcohol poisoning. Jenny sent her to witness the autopsy and take statements from the ambulance crew and A & E team. The thought of a pre-pubescent body stretched out in the morgue