When You Are Mine(78)

43


I ring the intercom. Tempe answers.

‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘Can we talk?’

The automatic lock releases and I glance up the stairs, expecting to see Tempe waiting on the landing. We climb. Knock. The door opens with a flourish. Tempe’s smile evaporates when she sees Coyle standing behind me.

‘Hello, Maggie,’ he says.

I expect to see surprise or anger. Instead I see fear. She steps back, shaking her head.

‘No. No. I’m not going. You can’t make me.’

‘Can I come in?’ he asks gently.

‘How did you find me?’

Her gaze turns to me and she doesn’t need an answer.

We are all in the sitting room, which has suddenly become very small, and Tempe looks ready to tear down the walls to escape.

‘I only want to talk,’ says Coyle. He turns to me. ‘You can leave us now.’

‘Please don’t go,’ says Tempe. ‘Protect me.’

Coyle looks aggrieved. ‘You can’t keep making up stories, Maggie.’

‘Don’t call me Maggie!’

‘You don’t like it?’

‘It makes me want to puke. It’s my mother’s name for me.’

‘The one on your birth certificate.’

I’m still hovering in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

‘Are you taking your medication?’ he asks.

‘No. It poisons my mind.’

‘I’m trying to make you better.’

‘Is that why you zapped my brain?’

Dr Coyle opens his palms. ‘You were given electroconvulsive therapy. You gave us permission.’

‘I was tricked.’

‘You were depressed. Suicidal.’

‘You made me that way,’ says Tempe, wrung out with self-pity. ‘You were trying to control me – tell me what to think and do – but I’m happy now.’

‘Why are you happy?’

‘I have friends.’ She looks at me hopefully.

‘What else makes you happy?’

It’s a simple enough question, but almost impossible to answer. Happiness isn’t objective or measurable and cannot be plotted on a scale or a graph.

Tempe has taken a seat, perching on the edge of an armchair with her eyes closed. She is breathing in short gulps, as though fighting pain. I feel like a voyeur who is intruding on her grief, but at the same time, I want to stay and learn more. I notice the fine hairs on her arms, the scrap of dried skin on the edge of her foot, the loose weave of her jumper, the smudge of misapplied mascara. Everything about her seems clearer now: the troubled girl who became a troubled woman. No longer a figment, but still a mystery.

Tempe’s eyes flash open and she reaches out towards me. ‘Whatever he’s told you, it’s not true – not any more. I’m better now.’

She starts to cry. Genuine tears. I ask Coyle if I can talk to him for a moment in private. He follows me to the kitchen.

‘I’m concerned about what happens next,’ I whisper.

Coyle glances through the open door. ‘I can’t make her come back to Belfast with me, and I don’t have enough information to have her sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but if she were to return as a voluntary patient, I could make sure she was safe.’

‘What do you mean “safe”?’

‘In a secure environment. Close to her family.’

‘You talked about medication. What was she taking?’

‘A regime of neuroleptics.’

‘What is that in layman’s terms?’

‘Risperidone is an antipsychotic.’

He must recognise the look on my face.

‘She is more likely to harm herself than anyone else. The medication controls her obsessive behaviour and stops any negative thought loops.’

‘I think she’s become fixated on me.’

Coyle doesn’t answer immediately. ‘Clearly, you’re a stronger personality than Mallory Hopper.’

You hardly know me.

‘What if I walk away?’

There is a beat of silence. The tip of Coyle’s tongue emerges to wet his lips.

‘Maggie could find someone else to rescue, or she could try to win you back.’





44


Willesden Crown Court is a squat red-brick building in Acton Lane in the shadows of a Catholic church that is far grander and more imposing than the humble courthouse, which begs the question, what judgement should people fear most – the earthly or the heavenly? Metal shutters protect the twin front doors, flanking a life-sized coat of arms with an English lion and Scottish unicorn who are supporting a quartered shield. Below is the motto: Dieu et mon Droit (God and my Right).

People are milling on the paved forecourt, waiting for their cases to be called. This is where divorces and child custody applications are decided; marriages ended, possessions divided and lives uncoupled. The end of the line. All change.

Alison Goodall is waiting for me, looking anxiously up and down the street, as though afraid that I’ve changed my mind and decided not to come. I don’t want to be here, but she begged and I promised. She is applying for a Domestic Abuse Prevention Notice, which would prohibit Goodall having any contact with her or the children for twenty-eight days. The police should have done this for her, but Alison has had to make a private application.