Free The Memory Game by Nicci French

Kent in the old comic strip, and he had wavy brown hair flecked with the first hints of grey and very dark eyes.
    'Dr Dermot-Brown, I presume.'
    He smiled and held his hand out. 'Jane Martello?'
    We shook hands and he gestured me in and downstairs into the kitchen in the basement.
    'Would you like some coffee?'
    'Lovely, but oughtn't I to be going into a room and lying on a couch.'
    'Well, we can probably find a couch somewhere in the house if you're desperate. I thought we should have a chat first and see what we think about things.'
    With its ceramic floor and stained-wood panelling and cupboards, the kitchen would have seemed elegant if it had been empty. But there were toys on the floor, the walls were covered with posters, postcards and children's drawings stuck haphazardly with pins and tape and Blu Tack. The walls were scarcely less crowded than the notice board, a largeish area of cork tiling above one of the work surfaces, on which takeaway menus for local restaurants, invitations, notices from schools, snapshots were attached in what looked like a whole series of layers. Dermot-Brown saw me staring around.
    'Sorry, I should have tidied up.'
    'That's all right. But I thought analysts were meant to work in a neutral environment.'
    'This is a neutral environment compared with my office.'
    He took coffee beans from the freezer and ground them, tipped them into a large cafetiere and poured in boiling water. He rummaged in a cupboard.
    'I ought to give you some biscuits but all I can find are these Jaffa cakes. If I allow one for each child, that leaves one over. Would you like it?'
    'That's all right. I'll just have coffee. Black, please.'
    He poured coffee into two mugs and we sat down on opposite sides of the scrubbed-pine kitchen table. A smile was playing across his face as if the whole encounter seemed slightly comical to him, as if he was only pretending to be grown up.
    'Now, Jane - is it okay if I call you Jane? And you must call me Alex - why do you think that you need therapy?'
    I took a sip of coffee and felt the usual overwhelming desire. 'May I smoke?'
    Alex smiled again. 'Well, Jane, one idea I have about therapy is that it's a sort of game and for it to work we both have to agree on some ground rules. One of them is that you don't smoke. I have small children in the house. It also guarantees you at least one benefit from your sessions, even if you achieve nothing else. The other benefit of the rule is that it's very easy for me to abide by because I don't smoke. There is a good chance that I'll be relaxed and in control while you're neurotically suffering from nicotine deprivation, and that's good as well, at least for me.'
    'All right, I'll do without.'
    'Good, now tell me about yourself.'
    I took a deep breath and sketched out my situation, there, over the coffee, which he topped up, in that kitchen, my elbows on the rather sticky table. I told him about my separation and the discovery of Natalie's body. I talked a bit about the Martello family, this wonderful inclusive group that we were all meant to feel privileged to be connected to. I described my single life in London and its dissatisfactions, though I left out my sexual escapade. It took rather a long time and when I had finished Alex waited before responding. His first statement was an offer of more coffee. I felt a bit deflated.
    'No, thanks. If I have too much it makes me all trembly.'
    He ran his finger round the rim of his coffee mug in a slightly fidgety way. 'Jane, you haven't answered my question.'
    'Yes, I have. I said I didn't want any more.'
    Alex laughed. 'No, I mean, why do you feel you need therapy?'
    'Isn't it obvious?'
    'Not to me. Look, you're having to deal with life on your own after - what is it? - twenty-one years of marriage. Have you ever lived on your own?'
    I shook my head.
    'Welcome to the world of being single,' Alex said in an ironic tone. 'You know, I sometimes have a fantasy of what it would be like if I wasn't married