Disordered Minds

tracking me down. You were a real pain, Billy. The folks'd click their fingers and you'd come messing up my life again ... and you never even asked yourself if I wanted to be found.'

'The first time I did, we lost touch with you,' he said prosaically. 'Was that what you wanted? I can't believe it. You couldn't take their money off me quick enough every time I turned up. You had upward of a thousand quid in a couple of years ... but you were damned if you'd come by and say thank you. That's all they wanted, to see you once in a while and know you were still alive.' He sipped his coffee. 'It was you got the buzz out of me traipsing around after you, made you think you were important. It's the same reason you let men hit you-you want the attention.'

'Cut the crap,' she said with a bitter edge to her voice, 'I'm not in the mood. I had a habit up to three years ago and it turned me into a zombie.' She raised her eyes again. 'Go on, tell me how you found me. I know you're dying to.'

'I had a visit from a woman councillor about ten days ago. Her name was George Gardener...'

Jonathan took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He was still painfully thin, with wrists and hands protruding from his cuffs like paddles, and George wondered if he had ever developed beyond the bullied adolescent who grew too fast for his clothes. She recalled Roy's derisive comments about Howard Stamp's 'scrappy little beard' and 'sparrow chest,' and wondered if Roy had spotted the same similarities between Howard and Jonathan as she had. It would certainly explain his attempt to see Jonathan 'off.' George doubted Howard had ever left his house without running a gauntlet of abuse, which raised the question, how did he find the courage to leave it at all?

'What would I say to her?' Jonathan asked. 'I'm sorry? It'll never happen again? It will, George. If her father slapped her twenty times, I'd still run away. I'm like my mother. I'd rather anyone had their jaw broken than me ... including Emma. I'm everything she called me ... I'm everything my mother was.' He drew a shuddering breath. 'And I hated my mother.'

'Therefore Emma hates you,' said George flatly.

'I don't blame her.'

'Except it's a grand example of transference, Jon-a cockeyed view of the world where past relationships poison present ones.' She gave a small laugh. 'Let me put it another way-if you chose to play your mother, then what role did you give Emma? What did you want her to be?'

'Girlfriend ... partner ... lover. We didn't have any problems till her father showed up.'

'Are you sure?'

Jonathan had been watching an elderly man approach along the pavement. He had a tiny Yorkshire terrier on a lead and every time the dog showed an interest in a lamppost, he yanked it away like a hairy yo-yo. It was obvious he resented the animal, either because it belonged to his wife or because he thought the red ribbon in its fringe reflected badly on him, but the harshly snapping lead was an easy cruelty.

'...you can be so unkind, Jon. I'm not your keeper ... nor am I responsible when things go wrong for you...'

He shifted his attention back to George. 'I don't know,' he said honesdy. 'I was never that close to anyone before. I was a disappointment sometimes, but I didn't mean to be. I usually received a lecture when it happened.'

George looked intrigued. 'So you turned her into a nanny? How interesting. I'm not surprised she packed her bags. Women today don't even want to be nannies to their children, let alone their husbands.'

'I did not,' said Jonathan irritably. 'She may have acted like one sometimes, but that wasn't my choice. I wanted an equal.'

'Then your signals are confusing. We all get treated according to the reactions we provoke, Jon. I've known you half a second but it's obvious everyone nannies you ... Emma, Andrew, me ... even Priscilla Fletcher while she was stealing your wallet. I expect you have secretaries at work who do it.' She raised her eyebrows in inquiry. 'It's wonderful for your ego-means there's always nanny to blame when things go wrong-but quite incompatible with a mature relationship between equals.'

He turned away angrily to watch the old man. 'I didn't ask you to do this,' he said in a strained voice. 'I made a simple statement. I said I didn't want to talk to Roy. If you'd respected that, we wouldn't be having this conversation.' He paused briefly, as if wondering about the wisdom of saying anything else, before letting rip: 'You're like Emma ... you go on and on ... pick, pick, pick ... and for what? So that I'll stand up to some fucking bastard I hardly know, just because you don't like the way he treats you.'

'We all have transference reactions of some degree or other,' George countered mildly. 'My father blighted my life.'

Jonathan glared at her suspiciously. 'That's not the impression you give. You always talk as if you were fond of him.'

'I was. No other man came close. Why do you think I've never married?'

Louise looked very shaken by the time Billy had finished the account of his meeting and telephone call with George Gardener. Her hands were trembling so much that she couldn't lift her cup without spilling the coffee. 'If you knew it was me, why the hell did you tell her to go to the Trevelyans?' she hissed.

'Because she was going to go anyway ... maybe not immediately, but she'd have got round to it eventually.' He lit a cigarette and offered it to her. 'I thought it was quite clever of me,' he said with as much artistry as she used in her lies, 'so a thank-you wouldn't come amiss.'

Tears glittered on her lashes as she fumbled the cigarette into her mouth. 'What's clever about it? I'll have a sodding detective on my doorstep next.'

'So? You can prove you aren't Cill Trevelyan. I'm sure the folks still have your birth certificate.' He lit a cigarette for himself and leaned forward. 'The reason it was clever is that, by being helpful, I persuaded this Gardener woman that Priscilla Fletcher isn't Louise Burton. That's not to say she won't find out, but at least it gives you time to come up with an explanation.'

She stared at him with suspicion. 'For what?'

'For a kickoff, why you've turned yourself into Cill's clone. Why have you, as a matter of interest?'