“You know what’s going on, don’t you? What is all this? What is he doing all this for?”
“You go to him,” Luana repeated. “He tell you.”
At the front desk of the custody suite, John was handing over his Cartier watch and his Montblanc fountain pen, essaying some light banter with the duty sergeant, when he heard a familiar voice drift in from the reception area beyond.
“I need to see him. It’s all a mistake. Let me see him.”
“That’s my wife,” he said. “She wants to withdraw the charge. Anna!” he called loudly.
“She can’t come in here,” the sergeant declared. “Hold on a second and I’ll see what’s happening.”
When he put his head around the door to the public waiting area, there was a young woman, sobbing against the bosom of an older one who held her close, soothing her.
“Everything all right out here?” asked the concerned sergeant.
“Fine,” the older woman replied in clipped tones.
“Why would he cheat on me? With my best friend,” the younger woman wailed.
“Because he’s ill, Anna. We know it. And you and I are going to see to it that he gets some help. We can afford the best private clinic in the country. He’ll be the John we know and love before you know it. We just have to make sure the police know that he needs care, not legal action.”
“I’m sorry, this is John Stone you’re talking about?” the sergeant queried.
“Yes, we’ve come here to ask about getting him a psychiatric assessment.”
“Ah. I think you need to let me know a bit more.” The sergeant sat down beside them, ready to listen.
“I need to ask you a few questions, John, if you’re up to it.”
“I’m up to it. And it’s Mr. Stone to you.”
The narrow room contained no more than a cot with a plastic mattress and a small table and chair. The only window was high up in the wall and didn’t open. Around the wall, messages were scrawled, last words for the world, in different-coloured biros. Mainly names and dates, though some were pleas, some were curses, most were snippets of disturbed thought. The room was n
ot clean and it smelled of desperation.
“Okay.” The psychiatrist wrote something down. “Mr. Stone. Why do you think you’re here?”
“For a holiday. I’m going to complain about this room though. Where’s my free fucking Wi-Fi?”
The psychiatrist looked up. “You were brought here by the police. They don’t generally get involved in people’s holidays.”
“Are you married, Dr. Empathy?”
“No.”
“Try and keep it that way. Then you won’t find that your penniless, orphaned young wife tries to take you to the cleaners by having you fraudulently certified insane.”
“Nobody’s certified anything. This is an assessment, that’s all.”
“Well, let’s see if you can assess this. I’m a millionaire. I married a girl who had nothing. Within weeks of the wedding, she has started shagging some eager young buck from her office. She doesn’t want me, but she wants my money. What do you think she might do about that?”
“You think she has orchestrated this? Set you up?”
“That’s one assessment, isn’t it? And that is the problem with assessment in general. One person’s can be quite different from another’s. I’m as sane as you are.”
“Well, the referral wasn’t only from your wife, to be fair.”
“My sister has seen me twice in a year.”