The meanest Flood

intercom because everyone else had gone home and there was only the counsellor in the building. Ruben checked his watch - 7.35 - and hit the intercom button with the index finger of his right hand.
    There was a grating sound from the grille. It sounded like a steam train pulling into a station. And her voice, when it came, was distorted. The register was wrong for a human being, too high. It would’ve been all right as special effects, one of those films that have human beings flying over treetops, women who are hybrids, crosses between people and animals.
    He pushed his face close to the grille. ‘What did you say?’
    The hybrid again. ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Ruben Parkins. I’ve got an appointment.’
    The grating sound made him pull away. ‘Push the door and come upstairs.’
    Weird, seeing the place like this. Every time Ruben had been to the surgery previously the place was buzzing. There were the receptionists in their white coats, old-age pensioners and mothers with babies. One time he’d been here and a guy had a heart attack in the waiting room, clutching his chest and rolling around on the floor. Some of the kids thought it was a circus. Doctors came out of their rooms, running down the stairs to get the receptionists to help. In the end it was one of the single mums who’d called an ambulance on her mobile. Didn’t stop the guy from dying but the paramedics said it could’ve done if she’d rung a minute earlier.
    The place was deserted, eerily silent. Ruben walked the length of the hallway and started up the winding staircase. Plush pile carpet, ebony handrail polished as bright as a saint’s foot.
    When he got to the upper floor he didn’t know if he should sit in the waiting room or go into the doctor’s surgery. But the counsellor’s voice sang out, saying, ‘Come straight in, Mr Parkins.’ Nothing like it had sounded over the intercom. Fairly good voice, middle-class, like Katherine’s, you could tell she’d been studying somewhere. A woman who understood you had to sound the vowels and the consonants. But there was no edge to it, she didn’t need to put you down.
    She was sitting behind the doctor’s desk. Slim woman, stylish, short brown hair, thirty-five, forty, silver choker round her neck, black round-necked top with long sleeves. A smile on her face, but not too wide.
    ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Have a seat.’
    There was no choice about seats. There was the one she had which was obviously taken, and then there was the one this side of the desk. Wooden job with arms, no padding. Ruben sat on the edge of it. He waited.
    ‘My name’s Sarah Murphy,’ she said. ‘I’m not a doctor. The doctors in the practice retain me to talk to some of their patients. I don’t have access to medical records.’ She paused to make sure she had his attention. Held his eyes without blinking.
    ‘Sometimes people come to the doctor with a problem that isn’t strictly medical. Maybe it falls somewhere between a medical definition and what we call a life problem. When the doctor thinks that is the case she suggests the patient comes to see me, and she thought that in your case which is why we are meeting here now.
    ‘We can meet six times, and usually the client feels better about things after that time. If it’s necessary we can then arrange a further six meetings. If there has been no change in the client’s condition then the doctor could prescribe medication, or she might want to get a second opinion.
    ‘Do you want to ask me any questions?’
    ‘She thought I was inhabited by depression,’ Ruben said.
    ‘And what do you think?’
    ‘If the police had found the guy, I wouldn’t be here.’
    ‘The police?’
    Ruben took a deep breath. ‘Kitty was my girlfriend. She was killed in her own bed. Somebody came in and knifed her. I found her the next morning and the police think it was her ex-husband. He’s on the run.’
    ‘Is this the same case I’ve been reading about in the newspapers? The private detective?’
    ‘Yeah. He killed another woman in Leeds. Now he’s gone missing. But the police had him when he killed Kitty and they let him go.’
    ‘You’re telling me that you’re depressed because the police let the murderer go.’
    ‘Yeah. They shoulda kept him. Banged him up. Then the other woman would still be alive.’
    ‘You knew the other woman, the one in Leeds?’
    ‘No, I was just saying.’
    ‘Because it seems to me that the main reason you’re depressed