‘Have you heard from Victim Support?’
Fiona nodded, a letter had come yesterday.
‘They can help. Or we have a counsellor here, if you’d like someone to talk to. Just let me…’ She turned and hit some keys on her computer. Read up a bit. ‘Cognitive behaviour therapy can be very useful, that’s what Hazel’s trained in, good success rate reported. The other usual treatment is antidepressants. Some patients find a dual approach most useful.’
Fiona listened to her talk about side effects and the need for gradual withdrawal. ‘It may be that you’d prefer to wait and see if there is any recurrence.’
‘No,’ Fiona said quickly. The prospect of that terror clawing through her again, the flailing fear, the feeling that she was dying, was untenable. She asked for a prescription and said she would like to try the CBT. Dr Melling said there might be a wait but Fiona would get a letter as soon as an appointment was available.
Fiona filled the prescription at the pharmacy next door to the surgery. To be taken with food, it read on the label. She wasn’t hungry but she wanted the medicine so managed a couple of oatcakes and cheese.
She prayed the drugs would work quickly to protect her from the panic returning. She also hoped they would stop the pictures that were lodged in her skull. The relentless carousel of images shuttering on and on. Blink, Danny’s palm on the grass. Blink, his eyes rolling back in his skull. Blink, his mother on her knees, her face torn wide with grief.
Mike
Ian was ready to sack Mike. He’d had customers on his back: several express deliveries not received, the firm’s golden guarantee rendered worthless.
Mike explained the situation and Ian had nowhere to go with it. Took a while for his body to catch up with his brain: face still grimacing, shoulders flexing as he processed the fact that witnessing a murder probably did count as a rock-solid excuse. Mike promised to stay late, clear his backlog, half-hoping Ian would give him a break, put some of his sheet on to one of the other couriers, but Ian just nodded and clapped him on the back. Trying for matey. Failing.
Word spread fast and a couple of the lads caught up with Mike in the loading bay. Mike was holding court describing the scene, telling it like a story, when Ian came out of the office, hitching his pants up. Already had the gut of a man ten years older.
‘Best get on.’ Mike broke up the little gathering before Ian could. ‘Shocking, no two ways about it. I tell you.’ He headed for his van.
‘Never seen a dead body,’ one of the younger men said.