She flashed him a nervous smile, placed a glass of red wine on the table, hooked her bag on the chair arm and slithered into the seat. She looked from Maynard to Cole. The pause became an awkward silence before she said, “Maybe this was bad idea.”
Maynard jumped in and smiled warmly, “We were talking business, work from work, and you’re very welcome.”
She looked at Cole and said, “Don't let me stop you.”
As he met her gaze through a trail of smoke Cole gave nothing away. He said flatly, “Sam said the interview was a disaster?” “Sam was right. I wasn't there, obviously, but I heard every word.” Maynard put in, “During your session with Lawrence what did you discuss?”
She flashed the therapist an uncomfortable glance. Even before their first encounter she had heard about him. Who hadn’t? People who made a living reading between the lines were always unsettling. Apprehension dried her mouth and she took another sip of wine. She held on to the glass and said, “I made out I was a neighbour – a friend
– of Helen Harrison, had seen the painting he did for her and wanted one of me. I told him it would make an ideal present for my husband.” “I didn’t know you were married.”
“I’m not. Is it important?”
Maynard shrugged. “Maybe not, but most people can tell. And John Lawrence knows more about psychology than most psychologists. Don’t let him fool you. He’s as dangerous as they come. There’s only one place for people like him and it’s not on the streets.”
Cole cut in. “I assume he was given the all clear?”
Maynard smiled. It was a psychologist’s joke. He said, “You really don’t want to go there. A personality disorder is just about the most imprecise term in the medical dictionary. It covers everything from the obsessive- compulsive to the narcissistic to the paranoid to the schizoid. You can control it, if you’re lucky, but you can never cure it. As someone once said about X-rays, there’s no such thing as a safe dose of radiation. The same goes with the personality disorder.” He turned back to Anian. “Have you been involved in undercover work before?” She shook her head.
Cole said sharply, 'And as far as we're concerned she's not doing it again.”
Maynard nodded. He’d hit a nerve. He said, “The fine line between eliciting an admission and entrapment.”
“I know the difference,' she said evasively. “Inspector Wooderson has already pointed it out. It’s done with now so it doesn’t matter.” Cole ground out his cigarette. “Let’s have some background, Geoff. The original sheets leave a lot of holes.”
Maynard paused for a moment while the past flooded back and once again he was looking for links to that mysterious agent that tipped a man toward insanity. He said, “An only child. Until national service his father was a local-authority driver who spent most of his time down the bookies or in the local. When he was posted away John and his mother were left sharing a council-house in South London with another, equally impoverished family. But his mother was the driving force whether his father was there or not and they formed an intense attachment. His father was posted to Cyprus and eventually they joined him there. In the military school in Nicosia Lawrence proved to be an average student, and the only thing that stood him out was his unwillingness or inability to make friends. Classmates and teachers that we traced all mentioned that he was shy and very much a loner.” Maynard smiled and for a moment came back from the past. “It’s become something of a cliche, hasn’t it? Find me the loner and I’ll show you next year’s problem.” He nodded and continued, “He went through his school life without a girlfriend. A- level results earned him a university place. But let’s go back to Cyprus. He was eight when his brother arrived. Massive complications during the pregnancy resulted in his mother coming back to the UK where she was hospitalized for some months. Even after the birth mother and baby were in and out of hospital and this is the first indication we have that the relationship between Lawrence and his mother was under pressure. With children, perceived rejection is even stronger than jealousy. In Lawrence’s case I’m pretty certain that this perceived rejection lit the fuse. Despite two major operations to correct a congenital heart condition, his brother died at the age of two. His mother never got over it. Alcohol, liver disease, premature death at thirty-nine. John was nineteen.” Maynard looked from Anian to Cole, waiting for a response. It was too equivocal for Cole. He shook his head and murmured, “What else?”
“Nothing else. The trauma’s never left.”
Anian’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “I don’t buy it. You don’t go attacking people because of childhood rejection.”
“Some people do. There’s not enough weight given to rejection at a certain age. Think of the crimes of passion in the adult world. The suicides. There is nothing more devastating than rejection.” Cole lit another JPS and through smoke asked, “What became of his father?”
Maynard nodded. “Good question. He left the forces on compassionate grounds, obviously, and a couple of years after Lawrence’s mother died he married again. This was in the mid-sixties when Lawrence was at university. After that they met only a handful of times. His father, complete with new family, emigrated to Australia. He came back for the trial and there were a couple of photographs taken outside the Bailey but that was about it.”
Cole said, “Earlier you mentioned Jesus Christ. What were you getting at?”
“We were discussing motives. I was convinced there was a religious connection.”
“Knifing women?”
“Pregnant women. I was thinking about the massacre of the innocents, one of Herod’s moments of infanticide – and there were many. But that was to do with the death of male children and when Lawrence carried out his attacks he couldn’t have known the sex of the unborn child. Even if he had the medical records back in seventy-six sexing was not the general rule. Even then, he was clever enough to have made the distinction.”
Cole said, “So, you've changed your mind?”
“I still think there's a religious connection.”
“So, religion. What else?”
“Sex, obviously, and its result, pregnancy, and then the slaughter.” Cole said, “But against the child, not the woman?”
“That’s where I was going. But it was a long time ago.” He turned to Anian. “If you meet him again, don’t mention you’re pregnant.” “I'm not.”
“Don't mention it anyway.'
She laughed. Then realized Maynard was serious.
Cole said pointedly, “She’s not going to meet him again, Geoff.” Maynard watched them, fascinated by the strange chemistry of attracting opposites.
Cole continued, “She’s going to stay right out of the way.” Maynard smiled as though he knew something that Cole did not. “Of course she is,” he murmured. “It was just speculation.” He glanced again at Anian and in that fleeting exchange, her tell-tale eyes betrayed her.
Geoff Maynard hoped that he was mistaken and that she had indeed called a halt to the sittings, for he knew without a doubt that she wouldn’t stand a chance with Mr John Lawrence.
Chapter 21
Before he slept Cole thought about the woman. He wondered whether there was any truth in the rumour that she had kept Jack Wooderson busy for a few months. Perhaps it was the ambiguity that he found so unsettling, the element of uncertainty, that she could be frivolous and irresponsible and yet, a moment later, quite cold and relentless. Somewhere there, lay the appeal.
In the next room where the windows and curtains were fully opened, where the lights from the traffic came in with the chilled air and skirted over the flower-patterned wallpaper – a reminder that Cole had once been married – Geoff Maynard was thinking about another woman If indeed it was a woman.
She's new in town, he thought, she had to be, and yet her knowledge of the area indicated otherwise. But people didn’t recognize her and, what was more, she had no fear of confrontation with the competition. So if she was local could it mean…
