Have they said “I’m sleeping with your best friend’s husband?” That’s weird, right?’
‘It’s not that simple.’ Through the windscreen Karen could see the whole of the park. She watched as a small boy, wrapped up against the elements, hauled himself up the steps of the slide and sat stubbornly at the top, refusing to move until his mother laughed and clapped at his achievement. Then he threw himself down, his mother still acting as though it was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. Had her mother been like that, once upon a time? Had she thought that every step Karen took, every slide she climbed, every new word she uttered was some amazing feat? She was sure life must have been like that once, but she had no memory of it. No recollection of a time when she wasn’t someone to be either snapped at or ignored.
‘You know you can talk to me about anything, Karen.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, Bea, it’s that I don’t know where to start. I’ve already spoken to Robert about this and he basically said I was losing my mind. Michael thinks I’m overreacting. I don’t want to tell you just for you to think the same.’
Bea looked as though she was going to put her hand on her knee but thought better of it. Karen had never been one for physical contact between friends; she always used to make jokes about her personal space that weren’t jokes at all, but now she wished she was the type of person people felt comfortable hugging. Or someone who felt comfortable asking to be hugged.
‘I’m not going to think you’re crazy. You’re one of the most level-headed people I know. You’ve met my family, right? Now that’s crazy.’
Karen smiled for what felt like the first time in weeks.
‘And I don’t have to remind you how confidential this is? You can’t tell Eleanor anything, not until we’ve figured it all out.’
‘Absolutely.’
Karen knew that Bea broke confidences, because she’d broken other people’s to tell her juicy bits of gossip countless times – she just had to trust that she wouldn’t break this one.
‘Okay.’ She took a deep breath in through her nose. ‘This client – the one I told you both about the other day who I think has a fixation with me – well it transpires that she’s been sleeping with a married man.’
Bea nodded but didn’t interrupt – probably in case she changed her mind and stopped speaking.
‘Well, like I said before, she said a few things that concerned me.’ It occurred to Karen suddenly that she couldn’t actually tell Bea the things Jessica had said, because Bea didn’t know what she herself had done. ‘Some personal things that led me to think they were a dig at me specifically, rather than at psychiatry and psychiatrists in general.’
‘Like what?’
Karen went for a ‘don’t push your luck’ look and must have hit it, because Bea shrank back slightly and didn’t ask again.
‘Anyway, she mentioned that she was fixated on the wife of this guy, and that she’d been doing things to make her life difficult. Things like changing diary appointments and hiding letters to make her think she was losing her mind.’
‘She sounds charming,’ Bea snorted. ‘But I’m still not sure why you think it’s Eleanor. Just because she missed a couple of appointments …’
‘There’s more. She started talking about the kids. After that thing with Noah, she practically admitted she’d taken this woman’s child.’
‘Whoa.’ Bea held up a hand. ‘She said that? Then shouldn’t you be speaking to the police instead of me? Even if she’s not talking about Eleanor, she sounds dangerous.’
Karen sighed. ‘She’s clever. She hasn’t said anything that I can use as strong evidence that she’s a danger to anyone. It’s all so abstract that it’s like she’s goading me, like she’s picked me personally to tell her story to. Then she slipped up and I’m almost certain she said his name, even though she denied it afterwards.’ She paused, still not a hundred per cent sure that she was doing the right thing giving Bea this much detail. ‘It was Adam.’
Bea let out a breath. ‘We have to tell Eleanor.’
Karen had been afraid she would say that. As much as Bea pretended to understand patient–psychiatrist confidentiality, she wasn’t invested in this situation the way Karen was. If she was wrong … well, even if she was right, there wasn’t a good enough reason to break privilege.