Black Fly Season. Giles Blunt
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cinders of the CNR railway tracks. It is this building that houses the hospital’s psychiatric ward. On any given day, the half-dozen or so patients that wander its halls consist of attempted suicides, drug overdoses, or emotionally symphonic teenagers – patients not deemed crazy enough or long-term enough for residence at the local Ontario Psychiatric Hospital, where Catherine went to recover from the worst of her depressions.
Cardinal and Delorme were here to check in on Jane Doe, but Cardinal was having trouble focusing, just now, the sight of a hospital having thrown his mind back upon Catherine.
Perhaps there was no cause for concern. Perhaps Catherine’s excitement about her trip was just that: excitement. She hadn’t flown off on any flights of fancy; she’d made no grand announcements of omnipotence, unveiled no cosmic plans for changing the nature of reality as we know it. Perhaps it really was just girlish excitement about going to the big city on a photographic project. In a normal woman, it would have been no cause for concern. But in Catherine…
Cardinal and Delorme took the elevator to the third floor, the psychiatric wing. They had arranged to meet a neuro-psychologist who had been brought in to try and help their mysterious redhead recover her memory. City Hospital did not have a neuropsychologist on staff. There was only one in the entire city, and he was there on loan, teaching a course at Northern University’s school of nursing: Dr Garth Paley.
If I ever need a shrink, Cardinal thought as Dr Paley introduced himself, I want one who looks just like this guy. Paley was dressed in a tweed jacket and jeans, which gave him the look of a man who could be comfortable in the library or in the bar. Although he was not more than mid-fifties, he had grandfatherly white hair and a silvery beard. His brows were dark, shadowing his eyes in a way that gave them a perceptive, almost prehensile, look. A man who could understand and empathize before you even said anything. Some people are just perfectly suited to their jobs; Cardinal often wished he were one.
‘I appreciate your letting me know you were coming up to see my Jane Doe,’ Dr Paley told them. ‘Please sit.’
The office they were in might have been anywhere. It had the usual computer, the usual metal bookshelves bolted to the wall. It was an uncomfortable place and didn’t suit Dr Paley at all.
‘A couple of things you should know before you talk to her,’ he said. ‘First off, you mentioned on the phone, Detective, that you were hoping her amnesia was temporary. The short answer is, it isn’t amnesia.’ Dr Paley grinned at them, his cheeks suddenly rosy. Santa Claus as a youngish man.
‘I don’t understand,’ Cardinal said. ‘She doesn’t remember who she is or where she’s from…’
Dr Paley raised a manicured finger. ‘That isn’t amnesia. It’s post-traumatic confusion. We don’t know what the mechanism is, but basically when the brain receives a jolt it’s as if all the pathways get scrambled and information doesn’t flow the way it normally does. But she hasn’t really forgotten who she is, she just can’t retrieve it.’
‘She will be able to, though, right?’ Delorme said. ‘She will remember eventually?’
‘Oh yes. Dr Schaff assures me that the actual brain damage is minimal. We can expect normal affect to return, probably in a week, maybe three at the most. And by then she should have pretty much a continuous autobiography, too.’
‘And what about the crime itself? Getting shot?’
‘That she will never remember.’
‘Can’t blame her,’ Delorme muttered. ‘For sure, it must have been pretty horrific.’
‘That’s not why,’ Dr Paley said. ‘She’s not repressing the memory – the information just isn’t there. People make the mistake of thinking memory is like a videotape. It isn’t. It’s not a recording of what happened. Two sets of encoding have to go on before an event is stored in long-term memory. First, it has to be processed by the brain in a way that makes it comprehensible. Then, it varies, but in about twenty minutes, half an hour, the information gets encoded into long-term memory – different location in the brain, different recovery system. If some trauma shocks the brain before this happens, it will be as if the event itself and everything within about a half hour on either side of it never happened.’
Cardinal sagged. ‘So we’re not going to get any info out of her?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘Can’t you use hypnosis?’
‘God forbid. Hypnosis has been thoroughly and completely discredited. You remember all those child abuse witch hunts? Satanic ritual abuse? Day-care centres that were the scene of orgies? There’s never been any corroborative evidence for any of it. Furthermore, the interview records show that those bits that weren’t infantile fantasy on the part of the children were memories put there inadvertently by overzealous police, prosecutors, and social workers. Same with sodium amytal. You’ll get what a patient thinks you want to hear, you won’t get the truth. Don’t worry. You’ll get lots out of this young woman eventually. Just not a direct memory of who shot her and where. Think of it like a computer. You know what happens if you’re typing something up in your word processor and there’s a power failure before you save it?’
‘Yes,’ Delorme said. ‘Unfortunately.’
‘It’s a pretty exact analogy. And I want to caution you before you talk to her. Please note my words, now. People in a confused state are extremely suggestible. If you go in there and suggest maybe her brother shot her, she’ll start “remembering” that her brother shot her. So please – for the good of this young woman as well as for the good of your own case – do not make any suggestions to her as to how she might have come to be shot, or even how she might have come to be here. If you hint that maybe she was going to school here, something like that, she’ll start remembering that she was going to school here. That’s why I videotape all my interactions with her; I want people to know that her memories are hers, not mine.’
‘False memories are the last thing we want,’ Cardinal said. ‘But we need to find out who might be after her.’
‘I hope you do. Just don’t ask her.’
‘Even without suggesting an answer?’
‘You’ll only slow her progress. She’ll try and try to remember, and it’ll upset her and that’s only going to set her back.’
Dr Paley picked up a mug with a picture of a fat tabby on it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve just made some tea. Will you have some? Or coffee? It’s pretty awful stuff, I’m afraid.’
Cardinal and Delorme demurred.
‘You know what it’s like,’ Dr Paley continued, ‘when you’re trying to remember a name or a movie title that’s just on the tip of your tongue? You try and you try and you can’t do it. Then half an hour later when you’re not trying, it comes to you.’
‘So what are you going to do for her?’ Delorme said. ‘Just keep her in bed for three weeks?’
‘No, we’ll let her have the run of the ward when she wants. I go at things sort of sideways. I’ll be giving our young friend cues of various sorts. Various stimuli – music, images, smells that might provoke a response. Well, tell you what, why don’t you go in and introduce yourselves. She won’t remember you from the other day, Detective, but maybe you can establish some kind of rapport. Why don’t you meet me in the staff lounge when you’re done? It’s just down the hall on the right, past her room. I’ll have something to show you.’
Cardinal and Delorme went down the hall. The door to the girl’s room was manned by a uniformed cop named Quigley. Cardinal was going to pass by with a nod, but Quigley was clearly relieved to have some company.
‘No one’s come to visit,’ he said. ‘Except Dr Paley. I think she’s getting a bit better though.’
‘Has she been out of her room, yet?’
‘Nope. But they leave the door open most