hear it.
She was in her own world, bent over the table, examining her paints with a small smile. She picked up the sable brushes and stroked them as if they were delicate flowers. She unpacked three tubes of oils—Prussian blue, Indian yellow, cadmium red—and lined them up. She turned to the blank canvas on the easel. She considered it. She stood there for a long time. She seemed to enter a trance, a reverie—her mind was elsewhere, having escaped somehow, traveled far beyond this cell—until finally she came out of it and turned back to the table. She squeezed some white paint onto the palette and combined it with a small amount of red. She had to mix the paints with a paintbrush: her palette knives had immediately been confiscated upon their arrival at the Grove by Stephanie, for obvious reasons.
Alicia lifted the brush to the canvas—and made a mark. A single red stroke of paint in the middle of the white space.
She considered it for a moment. Then made another mark. Another. Soon she was painting without pause or hesitation, with total fluidity of movement. It was a kind of dance between Alicia and the canvas. I stood there, watching the shapes she was creating.
I remained silent, scarcely daring to breathe. I felt as if I was present at an intimate moment, watching a wild animal give birth. Although Alicia was aware of my presence, she didn’t seem to mind. She occasionally looked up, while painting, and glanced at me.
Almost as if she was studying me.
* * *
Over the next few days the painting slowly took shape, roughly at first, sketchily, but with increasing clarity—then it emerged from the canvas with a burst of pristine photo-realistic brilliance.
Alicia had painted a redbrick building, a hospital—unmistakably the Grove. It was on fire, burning to the ground. Two figures were discernible on the fire escape. A man and a woman escaping the fire. The woman was unmistakably Alicia, her red hair the same color as the flames. I recognized the man as myself. I was carrying Alicia in my arms, holding her aloft while the fire licked at my ankles.
I couldn’t tell if I was depicted as rescuing Alicia—or about to throw her in the flames.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I’ve been coming here for years and nobody ever told me to call ahead before. I can’t stand around waiting all day. I’m an extremely busy person.”
An American woman was standing by the reception desk, complaining loudly to Stephanie Clarke. I recognized Barbie Hellmann from the newspapers and TV coverage of the murder. She was Alicia’s neighbor in Hampstead, who heard the gunshots the night of Gabriel’s murder and phoned the police.
Barbie was a Californian blonde in her mid-sixties, possibly older. She was drenched in Chanel No. 5, and she’d had considerable plastic surgery. Her name suited her—she looked a like a startled Barbie doll. She was obviously used to getting what she wanted—hence her loud protestations at the reception desk when she discovered she needed to make an appointment to visit a patient.
“Let me talk to the manager,” she said with a grand gesture, as if this were a restaurant, instead of a psychiatric unit. “This is absurd. Where is he?”
“I am the manager, Mrs. Hellmann,” said Stephanie. “We’ve met before.”
This was the first time I’d felt even vaguely sympathetic to Stephanie; it was hard not to pity her for being on the receiving end of Barbie’s onslaught. Barbie talked a lot and talked fast, leaving no pauses, giving her opponent no time to respond.
“Well, you never mentioned anything about making appointments before.” Barbie laughed loudly. “For Christ’s sake, it’s easier to get a table at the Ivy.”
I joined them and smiled at Stephanie innocently. “Can I help?”
Stephanie shot me an irritated look. “No, thanks. I can manage.”
Barbie looked me up and down with some interest. “Who are you?”
“I’m Theo Faber. Alicia’s therapist.”
“Oh, really?” Barbie said. “How interesting.” Therapists were obviously something she could relate to, unlike ward managers. From then on, she deferred solely to me, treating Stephanie as if she were nothing more than a receptionist, which I must admit rather wickedly amused me.
“You must be new, if we’ve not met?” I opened my mouth to reply, but Barbie got there first. “I usually come every couple of months or so. I left it a bit longer this time, as I’ve been in the States seeing my family, but as soon as I got back, I thought I must visit