A few hours pass before Abdi replies again: “I have given the work to Mrs. Griffith now, but I’ll come to see you. Will this affect my scholarship?”
There’s no response from the teacher. I have to assume they continued the conversation in person, because Abdi sent his last message just half an hour before the proposed lunchtime meeting.
I show the emails to Woodley. His eyebrows rise as he reads.
“I’ll say it again: There’s always trouble in paradise.”
“Let’s contact the teacher. I want to know if this was a one-off incident or a habit for Abdi.”
“You’d have thought somebody would have mentioned it when we were there.”
“Indeed.”
“I’m not surprised, though. Nobody’s perfect, are they?” Woodley says.
“You mean Abdi, or the school?”
“I meant Abdi, but it could apply to both. Anyway, I was coming to tell you I’ve just got off the phone with Noah’s therapist. He can see us in half an hour if we can make it.”
“We can make it.”
We might be on a fool’s errand on this occasion, but I still get a kick out of grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair and heading out for an interview at short notice. It’s the adrenaline, and the hope that if you keep plugging away and talking to people, you will uncover that crucial bit of information that can break a case open.
I never want to become that detective who’s haunted by a case that he couldn’t solve. I’ve met one or two older officers who’ve found it impossible to let go of a sense of failure when that happens. Some of them stay obsessed even after they retire.
We find the therapist in a ground-floor room in which the lower part of the window is frosted for privacy, but the view through the top is of the entrance to a busy ambulance bay. The decor is small-child-friendly, which is to say it’s hard on the eyes unless you love primary colors. It’s a far cry from Dr. Manelli’s muted nest. I wonder how Noah felt about being in that space once he became a teenager.
We sit on low-slung chairs, all knees and ankles.
The therapist is a middle-aged man with a hipster beard and shaggy hair. He wears an open-neck shirt and black chinos. His identity badge is tucked into his shirt pocket. He swings his foot continually in a way that I find irritating.
“I don’t know what I can tell you,” he says. “You’re aware of the confidentiality code that I have to work within?”
“I’m aware of it, but Noah Sadler is fighting for his life and we need information.”
“I was very sorry to hear that.”
“What I’m hoping you can do to help me is to provide some insight into Noah’s friendship with a boy called Abdi Mahad. They were together when the accident took place.”
“You know I can’t share Noah’s confidences, not unless I have reason to believe that I need to in order to protect him from serious harm.”
“How much more harm do you want him to be in?”
“That’s a misinterpretation of the clause, and you know it.”
He’s steely, but I’m not surprised because I’m well aware of the confidentiality rules. I pored over them when Dr. Manelli first shared them with me, at the start of my own course of therapy.
“I’m wondering why you thought it was appropriate to invite us to meet you in the middle of an urgent investigation, where a boy’s life is at stake, when you’re not willing to share information with us?”
I’m not being fair, but I want to see if it’s possible to rattle him. Woodley plays good cop.
“Cases like these are extremely sensitive, we’re very aware of that. All we’re trying to do is to minimize the distress that Noah and his family have to go through. I’m sure you can understand.”
“I can understand that and sympathize with it, but I can’t break the confidentiality code.”
He folds his arms across his chest, hugging himself. It’s Body Language 101. He’s not going to spill the goods.
There’s a loophole I’m aware of, though, when the client being treated is a minor. It’s amazing how much you can research when you’re up most of the night.
“Do you share information with Noah’s parents?”
“I share a limited amount of information, things we pre-agreed with Noah when he first began his therapy.”
“What sort of things do you share?”
“Detective, how many ways do you want me to say it? I can’t discuss the details of my client’s treatment.”
“But we could ask his parents, because they’re not bound by confidentiality.”
“You could.”
“Do you usually share with both parents, or just one of them?”
I think I know the answer to this already, and I’m right.
“It tends to be his mother.”
“Thank you.” I’m not surprised to hear that, but neither am I encouraged, because I suspect she’s more protective of Noah than her husband.
“Except that there was one matter that Noah allowed me to share with his father and asked me not to mention to his mother.”
He uncrosses his arms and turns a copper bracelet around his wrist.
“Which was?”
“Nice try, Detective. That’s all you’re getting.”
“Thank you for your time.”
As we drive back to HQ, the daylight is beginning to leach away. Headlights snap on around us and the dash in our pool car glows the kind of neon green that makes your eyeballs ache. Woodley says, “Nicely played, boss.”
“Thanks.”
“But if you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t we just approach his parents and question them about it directly?”
“In the state they’re in? No. This is better. Now we know who and what to ask.”
I walked as fast as I could through Queen Square and then kept going a bit randomly, because I wasn’t sure where I was. I passed shops from which mannequins looked blankly at me, and big office buildings. I was trying to find another place on the water, but I must have taken a wrong turn.
Abdi followed. He stayed a little distance behind me. I wished he would catch up and walk with me properly, but he didn’t. I tried not to check over my shoulder too many times. I used reflections from shop windows to see where he was.
I was thinking hard as I walked, trying to work out what to do next. My breath was getting short.
We finally reached the waterside again, and there was another bridge, but the road went across it, so it was far too busy. A police cruiser passed and slowed down beside us, but didn’t stop. I noticed Abdi melted into the shadows when it did that.
I got lost again, once I’d crossed the bridge, and I was starting to seriously flag by the time we reached Temple Meads station, but at least I recognized it. Beside it, I saw the entrance to a dark street that disappeared between some old railway buildings. No cars were turning down there.
I cut down it. Abdi followed. I slowed my pace because it was a bit scary, and he couldn’t help but catch up with me a bit.
I heard something splashing before I saw the canal. There was movement on the water surface, but I couldn’t see what it was. As I walked along the canal path, the noise of the city center faded.