Page 5 of The Man Made of Smoke

But I wanted to know what was on the other side of the door.

“I’d like you to take hold of the handle,” I said. “Do you think that you can do that, Richard?”

“Yes.”

“How does it feel?”

“Scary.” He grimaced, his eyes still closed.“Sharp.”

“I know. You don’t have to turn it if you don’t want to.”

“But it’s safe?”

“Yes,” I said. “There’s nothing in there that can hurt you anymore.”

“It feels like there is.”

“Because it’s like a splinter underneath your skin,” I said. “Eventually you get so used to it that you forget that it shouldn’t hurt. And even if removing the splinter is painful at the time, it might help eventually. It’s the only way to heal.”

I set the hypocrisy I felt to one side. This wasn’t about my own splinters or doors. I had to concentrate on my patient, especially given what might happen next. The things Richard had already described to me were terrible enough. It was difficult to imagine how much worse the deeply buried memory waiting for him here might be.

“I understand,” he said. “I’m turning the handle now.”

“That’s good, Richard. I’m here.”

A few seconds of silence. Then he frowned.

I said, “Where are you, Richard?”

“I’m on a pier.”

“At the seaside somewhere?”

He nodded slowly, but he was still frowning to himself, as though he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to be obviously traumatic, and that seemed to have taken him aback a little.

“I’m on the promenade,” he said. “I think that’s what it’s called. It’s wooden, anyway. There are amusement arcades on the other side of the road. And on this one, there’s some bollards. There’s steps down to the beach and the sea.”

Knowing his history, I considered my next question carefully.

“Are you on holiday with your family?”

“No,” he said. “Just my mother.”

I made a note in my file. As a child, Richard had been the victim of violence at the hands of various men who had drifted in and out of his mother’s life. As far as I knew, she herself had never hurt him. It was interesting to me that, even after everything he’d been through, he still thought offamilyas requiring one of those abusive men to be present.

“Can you see anything else?” I said.

His demeanor changed suddenly. His face contorted.

“It’s the ice-cream van,” he said.

“Nothing here can hurt you, Richard.”

“I’m not scared of it.” He shook his head. “It makes meangry.”

I looked down at his hands. His fists were clenched now.

“That was how it made you feel at the time,” I said. “But it’s important to remember that you’re not there anymore. You’re looking at this from the outside now, and you don’t need to feel anything at all about what you’re seeing. You are calm. You are detached.”

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