Chapter Fifty-Four
Jane gets back from her visit to Stella Madden two hours later and takes the dogs straight out for a walk.
As they run ahead of her through the dark mounds of dead bluebells, she uses her phone to search for the mysterious therapist for whom she has only five letters and six numbers to work with.
She also has no idea what kind of therapist she is looking for.
But she googles every single possible combination of letters to make words out of them, surnames, street names, anything, and adds the word “therapist” to all of them.
She’s pretty sure it’s Dover Street in Mayfair, but it’s the doctor’s surname that is eluding her.
Dr. “Tw” something. She’s tried Twining, Twigg, Tweedy, and nothing.
The dogs have started running circles around her now as they approach the brook beyond the woods, and she knows they are expecting her to throw sticks for them.
She finds a handful and hurls them one by one through the air until all four of their wagging tails disappear below a dip for a moment, which she uses to run another search before they all return.
By the time they all make it to the brook she has thrown sticks roughly thirty times and the dogs are panting and ready for a short rest.
There’s a small bench here; her grandfather had put it in place for her grandmother, for whom this was a favorite spot.
The bench is green now, a touch slimy, and Jane pulls her waterproof coat down low before she seats herself.
How lovely it would be, she thinks, if someone could give the bench a jet spray, give it some love, bring it back to her grandfather’s dreams, and she finds herself for the first time feeling the responsibility for this job falling to Rosebery’s potential next owner, instead of her.
While the dogs tip-tap around on the cool, wet pebbles in the brook, she googles “surnames beginning with Tw.” And there it is.
Twist.
Dr. Anthony Twist, to be precise, of 26 Dover Street, London, W1.
Dr. Anthony Twist, according to Google AI, is a renowned London psychotherapist specializing in the practice of EMDR.
Jane immediately googles EMDR and discovers that it stands for “eye movement desensitization and reprocessing” and is a therapy designed to help individuals process traumatic memories and reduce their emotional distress.
She goes onto Dr. Twist’s website and sees that he works in a very rarefied environment, absolutely the type of environment that both Tony and the Viscount had allowed Jane to grow very used to during her years married to them. Plants, sofas, a smiling receptionist behind a walnut desk.
What now? she wonders. Dr. Twist will be bound by patient confidentiality; he won’t be able to tell her anything about his sessions with Jasper Black.
But maybe she could find another way in?
Let’s face it, she thinks, she has enough of her own traumatic memories to deal with; she is damaged and distressed—she could do with some EMDR, she’s sure she could.
She goes to the contact page and finds the phone number for Dr. Twist’s clinic and presses it in.
Five minutes later she has an appointment for 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
It’s going to cost her ￡250 for an initial consultation, but she pushes the discomfort to the back of her mind.
That’s one Botox appointment, she thinks.
She can live without Botox for a few more months.
It’s not as if anyone would even notice.
She turns off her screen and puts her phone back in her pocket. “Come on, boys,” she says, “let’s go back and get you all hosed down.”
Jane has lentil soup for dinner and a glass of prosecco that Shannon had left at the bottom of a bottle in the fridge.
It’s virtually flat and far too sweet, but it gives her the gentle release she’s looking for before she can face ending the day.
The boys follow her up to bed and take their usual places on her bed, Reggie in his own bed at the side, sighing heavily.
It’s barely 9 p.m. and still light at this time of the year but she can’t bear to eke the edges of the day out in the gloom of the kitchen or the morning room.
She pulls up Dexter’s last message to her on WhatsApp and starts to type:
Hi, beautiful. Guess what? Jasper is a filthy flasher.
He’s also run away from the circus and nobody knows where he is.
The circus was in—guess where???—when he disappeared—Little Belmont!
Latest theory—Daisy came down from London to meet up with him.
BUT—Daisy OF COURSE thinks Jasper’s her uncle.
Strong possibility, according to other sources, that he might NOT be.
Jessamine’s ex, the cheesemaking actor, says she told him she was infertile.
In other words, Daisy might have been lured down to meet her uncle Jasper, who might not even be her uncle, but is, it seems certain, a pervert and an incredibly damaged, possibly dangerous individual.
Anyway… I’m back in town on Wednesday for the day. Want to meet up?
Dexter replies immediately.
OMGOMGOMGYES.