The child was deep in sleep. Just as well, he thought, considering how loud the father had the television on. Other than the sounds coming from the living room, the place was as good as an empty house. He made his way back down into the bedroom he’d just left and closed the door behind him, placing a chair against the handle to give him ample warning of anyone heading his way.
Having no real expectations about what he was going to find didn’t deter him. He had learned over time that the things people kept, and the way they kept them, could give some very interesting insights. The first thing he noticed was a postcard by the bed from Sweetmount Nursing Home. It was addressed to Kate Pearson, and had a very nice message from staff at the home. They wanted to thank her for the beautiful flowers she had brought on her last visit. Four of them had signed their names at the back. The picture on the front was of a very fine-looking building. In small letters on the bottom right of the card was the address of the nursing home, in Greystones. He put it into his jacket pocket.
The bedroom was divided between male and female things: wardrobe space, bedside lockers, everything, including the under-sink cabinet in the en-suite, had a separate section for the joint occupiers of the room. The upper shelves in the wardrobes had the more interesting items, such as photo albums, jewellery, odd bags, various books and magazines. Ms Pearson had an intelligent selection of reading material, another pleasant surprise, especially when he saw her small green copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. It was dated 1931 and had been a present from her late father: ‘To Kate, with love always, Dad.’ It had all the classics, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, but no Blake, something that always annoyed him, such a shame that he had been left out.
Pulling open the drawer in the dressing table, he found it jammed with papers and other smaller items. Instinctively, he was intrigued. When things were jam-packed in that manner, it was generally a good sign that something of value might be found. His instincts didn’t let him down. The drawer was full of the usual mishmash of personal items, such as old cheque book stubs, prescriptions, letters, receipts, loose photographs. He noted the random manner of the drawer’s contents and put his first black mark against Kate. He examined each item in detail, having found in the past that if you rushed this type of thing, you could miss something important. His patience paid off when his search turned up an item that exceeded even his expectations.
At first, he wasn’t sure what the contents of the A4 brown envelope were. It was addressed to Kate’s mother, Gabriel Pearson. The report inside was very thorough and, judging by the date, it was completed when Kate was quite young. He knew that psychological assessments of children were not an uncommon occurrence; one of his clients from Newell Design, an ex-principal, had said they were now ten a penny.
This was different, though. The report on Kate Pearson had been done over twenty years before, which would have been unusual enough for the time. She did come from an educated family of course, a privileged family, but still, he felt this discovery might turn out to be extremely relevant. Closer examination of the report didn’t reveal the usual suspects his ex-principal friend had alluded to, dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADD. Certainly, Kate’s intelligence was not in any doubt. She had received a rating in the 99 percentile, meaning she was top amongst her peers, a fact that increased his admiration for her. According to the report, what Ms Pearson suffered from was something the child psychologist referred to as a thin psychological skin. It would seem the younger Kate had extreme sensitivity to the ways others dealt with her; he could relate to this sort of sensitivity. An incident had occurred when she had been twelve, an attack while out with her friends. The girl had got away unharmed, but the event had left its scars nonetheless. It was noted that her mother had found the event difficult to cope with as well, a factor that the report concluded added to the girl’s feelings of being vulnerable. Other than a series of exercises to help Kate gain back her confidence, there seemed to be little else mentioned as a way of moving forward.
To William, it was obvious that the principal problem was her mother. He could see immediately that, like him, Kate had suffered from a lack of attention. Oh yes, he knew her mother’s type, full of her own importance. Although ill-equipped to cope at that tender age, Kate had managed her survival alone.
As the envelope was addressed to Kate’s mother, more than likely it had only come into Kate’s possession after her mother began to reside at Sweetmount Nursing Home.
A further search through the drawer brought very little else by way of value, apart from a small pearl earring, missing its match. This he put in his pocket along with the postcard, as a token from his visit.