Don’t Trust Me: The best psychological thriller debut you will read in 2018. Joss Stirling

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       Chapter 11

       Emma, 13th January 2011

      It’s been a rough week. This treatment cycle is no picnic and there are times when I just want to opt out, pretend none of it is necessary. I can see myself doing it, ripping out the IV, flushing the pills, striding out into the sunset. I would if I had the energy but I’ve had a continually streaming nose and felt like death since the weekend. Funny, as the treatment is the thing that’s supposed to stave that off, not bring it prematurely into my body. I sit on the sofa in the kitchen, too tired to do much else but watch Michael at work. I’m so grateful to our friends helping out to give us this time. Biff has gone with Katy to the shops getting food and some supplies for the house. They’ll enjoy that time together and it gives me a break.

      I wish they’d stop asking me what I want to eat, though. I don’t bloody well want to eat anything.

      I asked Michael how his book is going. He went off on a little lecture about the limitations of Eysenck’s personality types as applied to the personalities of serious offenders in the judicial system. I won’t tell him that it’s not what he says but how he says it that I’m listening to as I murmur ‘really?’ and ‘that’s interesting’ at appropriate moments. He has hopes the book is going to take his work to a larger audience than he’s managed so far on the conference circuit. The police might appreciate him but I know he craves a bigger stage. I’m pushing him to come up with a catchy title. Anything with Eysenck in it will remain on the academic shelves. Type M for Murder is my best so far, with a wordplay on Michael’s use of the concept of personality type. I’m sure I can come up with something better if I lay on the sofa much longer; some good has got to come of enforced inactivity.

      Michael certainly has the face for popularising psychology; the camera will love him with his square jaw, astute gaze and wavy auburn hair – no geeky egghead here, no sir. He may not be the most academically successful psychologist ever, but he certainly is in contention for the most handsome. It’s like Hollywood has already cast him in his own biopic. I tease him that he wants to be a celebrity and he gets flustered, so I know I’m on the right track there. I can read people; I suppose that’s one of my talents.

      Being this sick gives me plenty of time to think about my own career – one of the drawbacks, really. Have I done the right thing with my life? If I do get out of this and recover enough to return to work, would I go back to the same job? No, I think I’m done there. I can’t imagine walking into the classroom to preach what I didn’t practise. I can’t tell the students that I got away with skirting the rules just barely and some of the things I did seem crazy in retrospect. God, I was so driven – I saw myself as a crusader, saving young lives from radicalisation, ends justifying the means and so on. I can’t claim that I wasn’t warned. You get sucked in, thinking it’s your responsibility to save the day. It’s not a job where you can shelve your concerns as you approach home and put some distance between yourself and what weighs on you. Even doctors have that luxury. No, like a soldier in a combat zone, you have to live it twenty-four seven.

      And what does weigh on me? I don’t think I’ve been fair to some people I met. They might’ve had better intentions than I gave them credit for and still I reported them. But I have a priority now that goes above and beyond any person I brushed up against in the job. Biff says I made the right choice leaving. Michael is a great guy, a safe pair of hands. He’ll make up for any shortcomings that I introduced into the situation. On my own I’m pretty crappy; with him I make half of a good team.

      That’s got to count for something. I hope Katy will think so when I explain.