Read Online A Plea of Insanity by Priscilla Masters - Free Book Online
Authors: Priscilla Masters
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completely by the time she left the ward and wandered back to her office, along dingy corridors lined with prints of bottle-kilns and famous potters whose names were still household names – Wedgwood, Minton, Midwinter. Everywhere in Stoke, you can see clues to its main industry, china. From the marl pits from where they dug the clay to the scarred landscape which yielded up its coal, the bottle-kilns where the clay was fired to the canals used to transport the goods country. No – worldwide. Stoke is justly proud of its heritage. Outsiders may joke about the ugliness of the Potteries but they have their own, utilitarian beauty.
As her footsteps tapped along the floor she contemplated the two problems she had been faced with, the woman who had killed a baby she appeared to have adored and the link between acute psychotic illness and recreational drugs, particularly marijuana, amphetamines and ecstasy. It was a subject ripe for clinical research and for her Fellowship of the Royal College she would have to produce some original, meaningful ideas backed up with case studies and statistics.
Heidi would have managed it
.
For a moment she was filled with self-doubt. Perhaps she was not up to such a complicated and difficult subject as personality disorder. Maybe she should switch her specialist interest to the link between paranoia and soft drugs.
But Barclay’s notes were heavy in her hands, waiting to be explored like a video-nasty, the finger ready to press play on the remote control
.
You must choose a research subject which interests you – invigorates you – obsesses you, even.
It was a dull dusk. Except for that last half hour the sun had hardly shone all day. Now the greyness of the city was further dampened by a thick swathe of mist which had wrapped itself around the buildings, muffling their shapes. The hospital was on an elevated site, peering down on rows and rows of slate-roofed terraced houses and two tall tower blocks, most displaying a friendly, yellow light. But they were outside the perimeter of the hospital and seemed remote. By the time she reached her office the windows peered out on a blank, mysterious world, full of shape but with no detail. The quadrangle was deserted and black except for pools of light which spilled out from the long ward windows and the fuzzy lamps shining from the main entrance. A harsh shriek came from somewhere, maybe an urban fox, more likely a patient experiencing the horrors that sat on the shoulders of mental disturbance. The sound echoed and died. And then all was still again except for the distant sounds of a city night, traffic, the thump thump of a car stereo, intermittent claps of noise as a hundred doors opened and closed again.
It all seemed very far away and her office very near and claustrophobic, Heidi’s death closer than anything out there.
She must get used to being in here.
Claire left the window, switched the small reading lamp on and began to scan through Barclay’s notes.
He had first come to the attention of Greatbach as a teenage outpatient, referred to Professor Cray because of repeated petty thieving, break-ins, helping himself, basically, to anything he wanted. Initially the crimes seemed innocuous but Claire knew the words concealed somethingmore. Her eyes were drawn to the edge of her ring of light, into the darker corners of the room.
Imagination was a strange thing. She could have sworn something moved.
Gulio?
How had Heidi first known he was intending her harm? Something in his manner? A word? Or had her first intimation been …
She must not think of it.
Return to Jerome Barclay.
She bent back over the notes. It was typical sociopathic behaviour which had quickly been diagnosed as such and appropriate treatment – cognitive therapy – commenced, turning the psychopath around to face himself in the clearest of mirrors.
You cannot treat personality disorder by medication but age does wither it. People grow out of their nastier
As her footsteps tapped along the floor she contemplated the two problems she had been faced with, the woman who had killed a baby she appeared to have adored and the link between acute psychotic illness and recreational drugs, particularly marijuana, amphetamines and ecstasy. It was a subject ripe for clinical research and for her Fellowship of the Royal College she would have to produce some original, meaningful ideas backed up with case studies and statistics.
Heidi would have managed it
.
For a moment she was filled with self-doubt. Perhaps she was not up to such a complicated and difficult subject as personality disorder. Maybe she should switch her specialist interest to the link between paranoia and soft drugs.
But Barclay’s notes were heavy in her hands, waiting to be explored like a video-nasty, the finger ready to press play on the remote control
.
You must choose a research subject which interests you – invigorates you – obsesses you, even.
It was a dull dusk. Except for that last half hour the sun had hardly shone all day. Now the greyness of the city was further dampened by a thick swathe of mist which had wrapped itself around the buildings, muffling their shapes. The hospital was on an elevated site, peering down on rows and rows of slate-roofed terraced houses and two tall tower blocks, most displaying a friendly, yellow light. But they were outside the perimeter of the hospital and seemed remote. By the time she reached her office the windows peered out on a blank, mysterious world, full of shape but with no detail. The quadrangle was deserted and black except for pools of light which spilled out from the long ward windows and the fuzzy lamps shining from the main entrance. A harsh shriek came from somewhere, maybe an urban fox, more likely a patient experiencing the horrors that sat on the shoulders of mental disturbance. The sound echoed and died. And then all was still again except for the distant sounds of a city night, traffic, the thump thump of a car stereo, intermittent claps of noise as a hundred doors opened and closed again.
It all seemed very far away and her office very near and claustrophobic, Heidi’s death closer than anything out there.
She must get used to being in here.
Claire left the window, switched the small reading lamp on and began to scan through Barclay’s notes.
He had first come to the attention of Greatbach as a teenage outpatient, referred to Professor Cray because of repeated petty thieving, break-ins, helping himself, basically, to anything he wanted. Initially the crimes seemed innocuous but Claire knew the words concealed somethingmore. Her eyes were drawn to the edge of her ring of light, into the darker corners of the room.
Imagination was a strange thing. She could have sworn something moved.
Gulio?
How had Heidi first known he was intending her harm? Something in his manner? A word? Or had her first intimation been …
She must not think of it.
Return to Jerome Barclay.
She bent back over the notes. It was typical sociopathic behaviour which had quickly been diagnosed as such and appropriate treatment – cognitive therapy – commenced, turning the psychopath around to face himself in the clearest of mirrors.
You cannot treat personality disorder by medication but age does wither it. People grow out of their nastier
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