Page 22 of No Safe Place
‘Ah. Yes. Well, for a condition half the population claims to have, OCD is very little understood,’ Simon said, his tone reassuring. ‘It’s partly why it’s such a difficult illness to treat. Why don’t you tell me what youdoknow?’
It was like being put on the spot at school.
‘Well, I know some people wash their hands to excess. Or check the house before they go out, flick on light switches.’ Field knew enough not to say anything about keeping thingstidy or lining pencils up in a row. ‘Like I said – I don’t know anything, really.’
‘What you’ve described there are thecompulsions, Detective. It goes a lot deeper than that, I’m afraid.’
It wasn’t a rebuke. She felt uncomfortable, the room warmer than a moment ago – but she did need to understand this stuff. For the case. ‘How would you explain it? To a lay person, I mean.’
He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Okay. Take your handwashing example. A person may be convinced that their hands are dirty, even though they have just washed them and can see quite plainly that their hands are clean.’
Simon looked down at his own palms. His tone was patient, not patronising.
‘They know that thinking their hands are dirty is irrational, but the anxiety is building. If they move about the house with these dirty hands, how many surfaces might they touch? What might they contaminate? What if that previous handwash wasn’t thorough enough?’
He looked up at her, over the top of his glasses. ‘So? They wash their hands again. And performing that compulsion brings relief – albeit temporary relief – from the anxiety. It’s like taking paracetamol for a headache. But—’ he held up an arthritic finger ‘—and this is the crucial part, the relief that the compulsion bringsreinforcesthe idea that there was actually something wrong in the first place.’
Field nodded, her impatience biting at her. She needed to move on to practical and tangible questions.Who were David’s friends? How had he seemed in the past few weeks?
But Simon Dawes wasn’t done.
She suspected that this speech was something Dawes had delivered before, for an audience of students, maybe. He was expressive, hands constantly moving, illustrating his points.
‘Now this pattern of thinking, the decision to perform the compulsion – it can take place in seconds. Imagine spending almost every waking moment of the day, bargaining with yourself. If I act out this compulsion – wash my hands, check the gas again, perform that ritual, avoid touching that, say that phrase out loud, ask my partner for reassurance – then I can dampen down the anxiety enough to go about my day.
‘And they’re not always big things. They can be tiny, seem insignificant on their own. But the whole cycle can be playing on a loop, multiple times a minute, hundreds of times an hour – with little to no respite.’
‘That sounds exhausting.’ Field spoke quietly.
Where could you escape to, she wondered, if you were under attack from your own thoughts?
‘Quite,’ he agreed.
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘I don’t think I could do it.’ Field sat back in her chair. ‘Your job, I mean.’
‘Not my job anymore.’ Simon sighed. ‘I got out years ago, took the academic route. David could have done the same. Any university would have bitten his arm off. Cushty teaching job, contributing to papers, wood-panelled office.’
She was glad he’d brought them back to David. It felt like terra firma, compared to the last five minutes.
Field cleared her throat. ‘Why didn’t he go the academic route?’
Simon hesitated. ‘Well, he always did solid research, and he taught modules at KCL. But he always kept an active practice, had patients. It was like heneededto be doing the doing, you know?’
‘I know a few coppers like that, to be fair,’ Field said. ‘Would rather die of a heart attack during a drugs raid than ride a desk.’
Was that her? Would she be one of those old hands who had to be managed out?
Simon carried on. ‘Some psychologists avoid treating OCD, you know? Don’t like it.’
‘Really?’
He leaned towards her. ‘You give a lot of yourself to OCD patients. You’re always searching for the real fear. The obsessions might manifest in any of those things we discussed – but there’s always something deeper at play. You deal with all the anxiety and the compulsionsandat the same time, you have to work back to where it all comes from in the first place.
‘And what is the difference between healthy fear, and what’s OCD? There’s no clear line.’ He raised his hands to the ceiling. ‘We can’t promise them they won’t get sick, or their family member won’t get hit by a car.’
Her head was reeling. She was too tired for this level of philosophical conversation.
