Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
DAN
‘Well, I don’t know about you, gov, but I wouldn’t want to walk through this place late at night on my own,’ Davis remarks as we pull up outside Larksmere High Security Psychiatric Hospital.
It’s our second stop in Leeds, since we arrived this morning, hoping to find as much information as we can on Erin.
Or, better still, find her in the flesh.
I don’t disagree with Davis’s observation as I stare up at the imposing old Victorian building with its dirty red-brick facade and two large turrets on either side.
The enormous clock, set in the middle, gives it the appearance of a face somehow, the arched, dark entrance like a wide-open mouth, ready to swallow you whole.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Detective Chief Inspector Riley, DS Davis.
Please, come through to my office, take a seat.
’ Dr Wainwright ushers us through into quite a grand, Regency-style room with a high ceiling and fancy cornicing.
A huge, arched, stained-glass window faces out onto the pleasantly green and neatly kept sprawling gardens that surround the imposing building.
Even the impressive vista can’t ameliorate the oppression all around me though.
Larksmere isn’t a happy place, you can feel it in the walls, though judging by Dr Wainwright’s affable smile beneath his bushy beard, I’m sure he would beg to differ.
‘Nurse Ledbury said you were here to talk about Erin Santos.’ His brow creases in concern, adding, ‘She’s OK, isn’t she?’ His eyes dart between us. ‘She’s not long been discharged, you realise, just a month or two ago. I’d heard she’s been doing well by all accounts…’
‘We’re investigating a murder, Dr Wainwright,’ Davis says.
‘Good God,’ – I see the whites of his eyes as they widen – ‘she’s not been murdered, has she?’
‘No, sir, she hasn’t,’ she reassures him. ‘It’s in relation to the recent homicide of a man named Milo Harrison.’
‘Well, thank goodness for that at least. I mean for Erin, not this poor Milo chap.’ His eyes shift focus between us once more. ‘So, why exactly are you here? What does it have to do with Erin Santos?’
‘Dr Wainwright. You were Erin’s primary psychiatrist while she was a patient here at Larksmere, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s right, I was. Erin came to us in 2019, after she was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.’
‘And you diagnosed her yourself?’
‘Of course. She was my patient.’
I look over at the wall to the left of me, spot the painting above the huge bookcase that’s crammed with antique leather-bound books.
It’s an oil on canvas portrait of Dr Wainwright looking terribly regal, with his chin raised and his glasses perched halfway down his nose.
It’s in keeping with the period feel in the room and, I imagine, Dr Wainwright’s opinion of himself.
‘But by the time she left Larksmere, she was repentant for her crimes and, I believe, with the continued help of prescribed medication and God’s love, she could be rehabilitated, hence why I was in favour of granting her recent release.
’ He pauses. ‘These things don’t happen quickly, or without much due consideration and discussion, you understand. ’
‘Was Erin schizophrenic, Dr Wainwright?’ Davis asks.
He taps his fingertips together as he considers his answer.
‘She was certainly delusional when she first arrived – she held recalcitrant beliefs that weren’t based on any reality, refusing to change her mind even when presented with evidence to the contrary.
She was experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations.
I believe she heard voices – or at least one other than her own internal voice – and she appeared disorganised, disorientated.
I remember that she was quite lethargic when she joined us initially, very out of sorts – she had anhedonia. ’
‘Anhed—?’
‘Onia – anhedonia,’ he explains. ‘She couldn’t find the joy in anything. She had a loss of interest in pleasure, in life itself.’
I should imagine most people who find themselves here would. Even the set of colourful flower paintings on the adjacent wall look somehow depressed.
‘And how was Erin’s behaviour throughout her stay here, was she a good patient? Was she ever aggressive or violent?’
‘Violent? No, never.’ He shakes his head. ‘Generally she interacted well with staff and fellow patients and largely abided by the rules we have here at Larksmere, and she accepted her treatment without incident, or some of it anyway.’
‘Some of it?’
‘Well, Erin wasn’t keen on the idea of ECT; she objected most vociferously to it initially. There were times, in the beginning, when she needed to be sedated to allow us to… help her. But eventually she complied.’ He breaks eye contact, looks away.
‘What did she tell you about Samantha Valentine? I’m presuming you know who I’m talking about when I mention that name?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’ He pushes his glasses further up his long face.
‘I got to know Samantha quite well over the years. Erin told me a lot about her, in great detail. Samantha was another identity, if you will, a character that enabled Erin to mentally transform between one version of herself and another.’
‘And that was your belief, was it, Dr Wainwright?’
‘My belief? Detective Chief Inspector?’ His bushy ginger eyebrows start to twitch.
‘It was my professional diagnosis that Erin was suffering from dissociative identity disorder and that she had created another identity, Samantha Valentine, in a bid to protect herself from her childhood trauma, and later, from the truth that she had killed a man. Though I suspect it was even more complex than that.’
‘How’s that? I’m sorry,’ – I apologise, playing to his ego – ‘I’m afraid I’m only a detective, not a trained psychiatrist.’
He links his fingers together on top of his antique leather desk.
‘Of course.’ He nods, graciously, now that he’s certain I know my intellectual place.
‘Erin Santos was a somewhat depressed, traumatised individual. She had BPD – that’s borderline personality disorder – and she showed signs of bipolar disorder.
Her mistrust of others prevented her from forming meaningful and lasting relationships throughout her life.
However, this sadly perpetuated her loneliness and ability to feel socially accepted, and I believe was largely the reason why she created Samantha Valentine, a character who was dynamic and desirable and magnetic – all the things Erin herself wasn’t, or didn’t believe herself to be.
She, Samantha, that is, was a coping mechanism. ’
‘Like an imaginary friend, you mean?’ Davis chimes in. ‘I had one of those as a kid.’
‘Not quite.’ He cocks his head at Davis with a condescending smile.
‘Imaginary friends are not a diagnostic tool for mental illness, DS Davis, and neither are they necessarily a sign of psychosis or future mental health issues. Having an imaginary friend as a child is a perfectly normal, healthy part of a child’s development, and often provides a sense of comfort, or a way in which to explore one’s creativity, or emotions.
‘Dissociative identity disorder, however, is almost always preceded by some kind of severe trauma as a child, be it abuse, or neglect, critical illness, or experiencing a traumatic event, such as in Erin’s case, witnessing her mother being stabbed to death.
I believe it was this trauma that led to her splitting, and to her creating a narrative whereby she got to be the heroine in the end this time, the one who saved her “friend” from her abusive partner, by killing him. ’
He pauses, thoughtfully. ‘She carried a terrible burden around with her, the guilt of being unable to help her mother, to save her life. And she used drugs and alcohol to self-anaesthetise, to deaden these feelings that were just too painful to live with, like so many of us do, Detective.’
I nod, pause for a moment to digest what he’s told me – that Erin and Samantha are, in fact, one and the same person.
‘So, is Erin Santos a psychopath, Dr Wainwright? In your professional diagnosis?’
He isn’t blinking. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that psychopaths blink less than neurotypicals do.
‘A psychopath…? No… I don’t believe so. She wasn’t highly narcissistic, and she wasn’t sadistic.
Her dissociative identity disorder and the drug-induced delusions were not a good mix, however.
I suspect she killed her victim in a bid to free herself on some emotional level, to absolve herself of the guilt and torment she felt about her mother.
She wanted a chance to rewrite the script and change the ending, if you will.
Ironically, these actions did nothing to prevent the pain of her remorse, they merely transferred it. ’
‘Transferred it?’
‘Throughout her time here at Larksmere, Erin displayed deep regret over the death of Mr Radulovic. I believe she had a genuine conscience about her actions. But Samantha? Less so. Being Samantha allowed her to indulge in the fantasy of revenge – I suspect to get back at the men who’d wronged her, her mother’s killer, for example – which of course regrettably became a reality.
At the start of Erin’s journey with us, she blamed Samantha Valentine, and, I feel I should say, the police, for what had happened to her.
’ He smiles a little apologetically. ‘She never once deviated from this narrative, not until about a year or so ago anyway, incidentally, when she began to find faith.’ He smiles warmly, as though this pleases him.
‘We are, none of us, passive observers of reality, Detective; we are simply narrators. The brain invents stories that may well feel true or real, but oftentimes are based upon our cognitive biases, unhealed wounds and emotional residue.’
‘So we are all of us liars? Is this what you’re saying, Doctor?’
He chuckles, good-naturedly.
‘No, not exactly.’
‘Dr Wainwright, did you ever, at any given point during your interactions with Erin, believe she was telling the truth about Samantha Valentine? Did you ever consider that she could, in fact, be a real person and that Erin wasn’t making her up?’
He sits, motionless for a moment before stroking his beard.
‘I’m sorry, DCI Riley, DS Davis, but perhaps you’d be good enough to explain the direct purpose of your visit here today? I am, of course, most happy to assist the police in any way I can, but it would help me to understand the nature of your questions, and how to answer them correctly.’
I detect a hint of discomfort in his voice now.
‘Well, a straight yes or no would be helpful, Doctor. You see, we arrested a female suspect in the murder of Milo Harrison last Thursday night, at his apartment in South West London. He was stabbed to death in an almost identical crime to the one Erin Santos committed seven years ago, a crime which saw her end up here, in your care. Seven years later, our current female suspect says that she stabbed Milo Harrison while also protecting her friend, Samantha Valentine, in what appears to be an almost identical crime to Erin’s. ’
I hear his sharp intake of breath. He’s still not blinking.
‘And this happened last week? Does…’ He clears his throat, clearly rattled by what I’m telling him. ‘Does Erin have an alibi for the murder?’
‘Of sorts. But we’re waiting on forensics to tell us more.’
He brings his fingers into a praying position and presses them to his lips.
‘And because of this new, similar crime, you think this means Samantha Valentine could actually be a real person? Because that’s not possible, Detective Riley.
’ He shakes his head. ‘Good God.’ He stands abruptly.
‘This is… this is a disaster… the governors… the press… Oh, Lord, we’ve only just released her…
’ He’s talking to himself as he starts to pace the room – they say it’s the first sign of madness.
‘I’m sorry, Detective Riley—’ He stops. ‘But I need to make some urgent phone calls.’
‘Why is it not possible for Samantha Valentine to be real, Dr Wainwright? And please, sit down, there’s no need to panic about this. Erin isn’t a suspect, currently. We just need to find her, talk to her.’
‘Isn’t she?’ His calm, slightly elevated composure of moments earlier has completely vanished.
‘Erin Santos is Samantha Valentine, Detective Riley, the two co-exist inside her mind, they’re intertwined, two parts of the same person.
If Samantha Valentine was at that crime scene, then so was Erin, it would be physiologically impossible for her not to be. ’
The sudden sound of Davis’s phone ringing cuts right through his words.
‘It’s forensics, gov.’ She places her hand over the phone. ‘There’s a hit… DNA found at the scene belonging to…’ She stops, looks over at us.
‘Oh, dear Lord…’ Dr Wainwright’s voice has an edge of fear to it as Lucy slowly begins to nod her head.