Dance With the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

‘Did he record it?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, guess what –’ dodgy Darius grinned, a gold tooth glinting beneath his leering top lip ‘– it’s your lucky day.’

I tried not to let his Romanian-beggar oral chic put me off. After all, I needed him to get me back to work. But I couldn’t stop staring at it, or wondering if any personal affectation on the planet could make him look less trustworthy. A toupee perhaps? Or a glass eye. No, the gold tooth still triumphed.

‘The Commission for Racial Equality has just announced it’s backing a test case brought by a machinist from County Antrim against his former employer. He’s claiming that Irish jokes on the shop floor made his day-to-day life intolerable.’

‘That’s ridiculous, he lives and works in Ireland.’ I laughed. ‘Anyway, how could he hear all these hurtful gags over the racket of his machine?’

‘I know.’ Darius shrugged. ‘But it’s going to happen and with the Commission’s support, he can’t lose. If I hint to the Met that we’re talking to the Commission about your case, and specifically Glenn’s near-the-knuckle racial stereo-typing …’

‘Hang on a minute, Darius. He wasn’t being racist. If anything …’

‘You want to get back to work, don’t you?’

‘Is this the only way?’

‘It’s the best way.’

‘So you … we’re playing the race card?’

‘The race card’s the ace card, baby. You only have to show it and the other side folds.’

While Darius set about rigging the disciplinary deck, he insisted I attend a consultation with one of his preferred psychologists.

‘We need to deliver a clean bill of mental health,’ he explained, ‘and this man will help. All you need to show is that you’re not mental now, and he’ll report that whatever episode you suffered in Glenn’s office had been a one-off. He’s even got a name for it, Bouffe Delirante, which translates as ‘a puff of madness’. Bollocks, I know, but because it sounds exotic, they fall for it every time.’

‘Right, so I won’t have to go into anything else then, like my insomnia or childhood or any of that stuff?’

‘Not unless you want to.’

Dr Swartz proved to be everything you’d expect from an ageing quack winding down an undistinguished career in leafy Finchley, right down to his Einstein tribute grey thatch, hairy ears and bumbling, distracted disposition.

I told him that I couldn’t remember anything of the Glenn incident, which seemed to suit him no end. What I hadn’t considered was how we’d fill the remaining 55 minutes of our appointment.

Like a newborn snuffling out nipples, wily old Swartz instinctively located my crippling insecurities, one by one, then latched on.

I wouldn’t mind but I knew the psychology mating dance pretty well by then, having tangled with that trainee shrink a few years’ back. They use questions like pawns to manoeuvre you into a vulnerable position, all the while reassuring you that you’re making these moves all by yourself. It goes on and on until, cornered, you run out of patience and invent a fit-all conclusion of your own, just to get the hell out of there.

‘What about sleep?’ came his opening gambit, ‘do you get restful, unbroken sleep each night?’

‘Who does?’ I quipped, fighting fire with fire.

‘How many hours?’

I suddenly remembered Fintan’s proclamation that he could never trust anyone who is incapable of lying. Now I understood what he meant. Swartz peered imperiously over his double-glazed reading glasses, wordlessly breaking me.

‘I’ve never been a great sleeper, to be honest, doctor. Four or five hours a night is plenty.’

‘Why obfuscate, young man? How much sleep do you get, on average, each night?’

I pictured a puff of madness swirling about the room like a mini-tornado, waiting to pounce.

‘Three hours,’ I muttered.

‘Would you say that’s down to a specific anxiety, or a more general malaise?’

‘I had it down as insomnia, sir. I’ve had it all my life, off and on.’

He shuffled uncomfortably in his leather seat.

‘Have you read Percy Pig?’

I looked at him in amused disbelief.

‘I thought they just did sweets, sir. Do you mean the back of the packet?’

He frowned. ‘No … Pirsig. In his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig writes: “It’s a puzzling thing. The truth knocks at the door and you say ‘go away, I’m looking for the truth’. And so it goes away. Puzzling.” I’m asking you, Donal, why don’t you answer the knock on your door?’

‘Interesting hypothesis,’ was all I could think to say, playing for time.

He smiled in satisfaction, as if we’d just shared some sort of intellectual in-joke: ‘Very good. I suspect you’re toying with me now.’

I smiled back, because I felt it would anger him less than looking bewildered.

He stood suddenly, making me start. ‘Damned seat. There’s no purchase in the leather. I have to perch upon it, like I’m sitting on the blasted lavatory.’

‘If you can suffer another hypothesis, Lynch,’ he declared, flouncing off towards his Georgian window, ‘I introduce clients with sleep troubles to my old friend, the worry worm, that niggling little creature that burrows its way into your brain at night and wriggles about so that you can’t drop off. The W–O–R–M in my worm stands for work, old or overweight, relationships and money. When it comes down to it, one or more of these is the source of almost all human anxiety. So allow me to dissect your little wriggler. This work incident … clearly you suffered insomnia long before it, so I’m discounting that. You’re not getting old or overweight, so that rules out the ‘o’. It’s got to be either relations or money. Are you in debt?’

‘No, thankfully.’

‘In a relationship?’

‘No, and I’m tempted to say I’m thankful for that too.’

‘How did you lose her? The last serious one?’

I felt cornered. ‘She cheated on me. Twice.’

‘How long ago did this take place?’

’Almost two years ago.’

‘Her name is?’

‘Eve Daly.’