Free Suspect by Michael Robotham

suspected she had seen someone like me before. Her questions were so precise. She knew about history taking and cognitive therapy. She was too young to have studied psychology, so she must have been a patient.
    She talked of feeling worthless and insignificant. Estranged from her family, she had tried to mend fences but feared that she would “poison their perfect lives.” As she spoke and sucked pieces of chocolate, she sometimes rubbed her forearms through her buttoned-down sleeves. I thought that she was hiding something, but waited for her to find the confidence to tel me.
    During our fourth session she slowly wound up the sleeves. Part of her was embarrassed to show me the scars, but I also sensed defiance and a hint of self-satisfaction. She wanted me to be impressed by the severity of her wounds. They were like a life map that I could read.
    Catherine had first cut herself when she was twelve. Her parents were going through a hate-fil ed divorce. She felt caught in the middle, like a rag dol being pul ed apart by two warring children.
    She wrapped a hand mirror inside a towel and smashed it against the corner of her desk. She used a shard to open up her wrist. The blood gave her a sense of wel -being. She was no longer helpless.
    Her parents bundled her into the car and drove her to hospital. Throughout the entire journey they argued over who was to blame. Catherine felt peaceful and calm. She was admitted to hospital overnight. Her cuts had stopped bleeding. She fingered her wrist lovingly and kissed her cuts good night.
    “I had found something I could control,” she told me. “I could decide how many times I cut, how deep I would go. I liked the pain. I craved the pain. I deserved it. I know I must have masochistic tendencies. You should see the men I end up with. You should hear about some of my dreams…”
    She never admitted spending time in a psychiatric hospital or in group therapy. Much of her past she kept hidden, particularly if it involved her family. For long periods she managed to stop herself from cutting. But with each relapse she punished herself by cutting even deeper. She concentrated on her arms and thighs, where she could hide the wounds under her clothing. She also discovered which creams and bandages helped minimize scarring.
    When she needed stitches she chose accident and emergency centers away from the Marsden. She couldn’t risk losing her job. She would give a false name to the triage nurse and sometimes pretend to be foreign and unable to speak English.
    She knew from past experience how nurses and doctors regard self-mutilators— as attention seekers and time wasters. Often they get stitched without anesthetic. “If you enjoy pain so much, have a little more,” is the attitude.
    None of this changed Catherine’s behavior. When she bled she escaped the numbness. My notebooks repeat her words, “I feel alive. Soothed. In control.” Dark brown flecks of chocolate are stuck between the pages. She would break off pieces and drop them on the page. She didn’t like me writing. She wanted me to listen.
    To break the cycle of blood, I gave her alternative strategies. Instead of reaching for a blade I told her to squeeze a piece of ice in her hand, bite down on a hot chili or rub liniment on her genitals. This was pain without the scarring or the guilt. Once we broke into her thought loop, it was possible to find new coping mechanisms, less physical and violent.
    A few days later Catherine found me in the oncology ward. She had a bundle of sheets in her arms and was looking anxiously from side to side. I saw something in her eyes that I couldn’t recognize.
    She motioned me to fol ow her into an alcove and then dropped the sheets. It took me a few moments to notice the sleeves of her cardigan. They were stuffed with paper towels and tissues. Blood leaked through the layers of paper and fabric.
    “Please don’t let them find out,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
    “You have to go