Chapter 7

7

I rush after him and he stops, turns to me with a stony expression. "I'm so sorry," I say, taking out my phone again. "I can delete it if you want." He doesn't say anything, his silence cuts in reproach.

"I feel bad, I can explain. It's not what it looks like."

"Oh, and what does it look like?" he says evenly.

"Look, it's only for a visual prompt for background color when I'm writing it up. It helps me to remember. Honestly, that's all." Words spill out in a guilty rush and he gives me a wary look. "Honestly, I'm happy to get rid of it." My finger hovers on the bin icon.

"I guess if it's useful for your piece..." he says, finally. "And if you want to know, it was taken in Morocco on the edge of the Sahara."

"She looks lovely," I say, glancing down at the screen image in my palm, the way she smiles directly at Nate in a secret sort of way, their two helmets at the edge of the picture. "Was it an amazing place to visit?"

He gives me a strange look. "I wouldn't know. I didn't take the picture. Motorbikes aren't my thing."

"Ah, I see. Sorry, I assumed..."

"Well, I trust you won't be publishing it." He sighs. "Come on then, let's get into this."

I follow him out of Eva's study back through to a small featureless meeting room off the hallway. A copy of Nate's book lies on the table. Neatly laid out are two notepads and two glasses of water. There are also two printouts of the interview questions I sent over, as requested. He sits down opposite me, scans the list and glowers.

"Before we begin, how were you after the tests?" He studies me, a flicker of curiosity returning to his eyes. "Any late-hitting headaches or dizziness?"

I think for a moment back to that morning in the Rosen, the cold scientific scrutiny in his gaze as he observed my discomfort. But something else too. The subtle enthrallment, pleasure even, that had unsettled me.

"I guess I found it quite educational playing lab rat for the morning."

"Really? Well, I'm glad it wasn't too painful an experience for you after all."

"Are you? I thought that pain was sort of the point."

"You coped admirably, nonetheless. I guess now it's your turn to make me suffer. I'm curious, how do you think your intro will go? Something like, ‘Nate Reid rests his elbows on the table, looking anxious and uncertain, completely out of his comfort zone,'" he parodies.

"That's really how you feel?"

He runs the tip of one finger across his jawline. "I'd prefer to be exactly where you are right now, asking the questions."

"We can ease into it. Why don't we start with your favorite subject: your book The Pain Matrix ? Where did the idea come from?" I press Play and watch his shoulders soften as he leans back.

No one really cares, obviously. But it's a classic warm-up, indulging the interviewee as they talk up whatever product they're plugging. It's that time when you can let them enjoy the sound of their own voice before you go in hard with the real questions. I hmm and aah in all the right places as he explains his groundbreaking research into the brain's "pain-modulation circuit," the key to understanding how we all have power to control our responses.

He relaxes into his subject. They always do.

I'll let him go on as long as it takes to feel that his ego is sufficiently stroked. Then I can lead him to riskier territory. But, for now, I nod attentively as he talks, try to observe the small unintended clues and micro expressions he is giving away. I write down my observations in shorthand. Japanese denim. Designer linen shirt. Jaeger-LeCoultre watch. Vintage trainers. Works a little too hard on his appearance.

"And what about you? Did you enjoy the book?" He gives me a long assessing look.

Way too dry, I want to say, too much terminology. What would have saved it was a ruthless editor. Maybe he's learned he needs a little more help for his next writing project.

I enthuse about it anyway, ready with a specific detail I rehearsed earlier. "I found it fascinating, that bit where you talk about Catholics reporting less pain if they're exposed to religious imagery before you test them. The idea that our worldview can affect our threshold was intriguing. I liked that quote you concluded on too," I say, only to imply I'd reached the final chapter, which I hadn't. "Nature has placed us under two powerful masters. One is pain, the other pleasure."

"Almost. Nature has placed us under the governance of two sovereign masters. Although my interpretation is that pain is something we should celebrate as much as pleasure."

"Celebrate? Really? Not quite the word I'd use to describe those threshold tests."

"Maybe you should," he muses. "Pain is a better friend to humans than pleasure in many ways, making sure we've survived down the centuries."

"You seem to feel strongly about how much we should appreciate pain. I wonder if all your patients feel the same?"

There is a brief silence and the room feels somehow smaller and more airless.

"I mean, those patients who were unable to rely on that reflex to protect them? How did watching them firsthand impact your conclusions?"

He nods imperceptibly, looks into the middle distance for a long moment. "You mean Eva. Yes, it was incredible luck, really, that we met at all."

I pause, wait for him to go on, a bit. It still surprises me how you can drop in a question that you dread asking and yet meet so little resistance, as if it's almost a relief for them to confront whatever subject has hung over them.

"An anesthetist introduced us. Eva came into A even after living with CIP all of her life, she still didn't realize how easily she could harm herself. She didn't process danger in the same way as—" he pauses "—you or I might."

"How did you feel, witnessing that struggle in her?"

The muscles under his skin tighten. "Feel? You like that word, don't you? For neuroscientists, it doesn't hold much weight."

"How can you ignore that word when pain and feeling are inseparable?"

"That's not how a scientist views it. We prefer our language to be objective."

"Okay," I sigh. "How did you react?"

"That's better. Really, I just wanted to help her."

"Of course." I nod. The air traffic controller in my head starts to scream directions. Keep him talking about Eva. Keep him on track a little longer. Bring him into land . "You know, Jade was telling me earlier that Kath is pushing to reopen the inquest over Eva's death."

He slowly looks up from the table.

"I'm curious, what are you both hoping to prove in a new inquest, if it happens? Are you worried you'll be implicated again?"

"Implicated?" His voice is low, eyes flashing darkly as he points to the printed questions in front of him. "This wasn't on your list, was it?"

"It was a follow-up question. You can't expect it to be a straight Q and A," I say, reasonably, but instantly regret my words as his features harden into contempt.

"No. You're done here."

I freeze. The atmosphere is charged, ugly. The way he turns on me is so unexpected that, for a moment, I wonder if it's really happened. He looks as if he's about to lash out, stands up too abruptly and knocks his glass of water off the table. It smashes to the floor and he curses again, rifles through his jacket to locate a crumpled pack of cigarettes and strides out. "You lot are all the fucking same, aren't you?"

I sit for a moment in shock, now alone in the study.

How dare he? All he had to do was decline the question. My hands tremble as I bend down to pick up the broken glass. My default setting , I think bitterly, always forced to navigate the periphery of male volatility, sweeping away the evidence. Nothing to see here. I tut, impatiently pick up the shards, but as I do, one of their edges nicks me. Beads of blood ooze from the cut, small but deep, on the pad of my thumb.

Slipping into the kitchen, I spot him through the open door, his somber outline a mass of negative energy hunched over a lighter. Jade is with him too. She must have heard the commotion and run to his aid. As if he is the one in need of help. How familiar their body language seems from this distance, her slim arm looped around his shoulders.

Nate turns around and catches my eye, steps away from Jade and rushes in. He glances at my thumb, the steady drip of blood down my inner arm.

"Christ, what happened?"

"It's nothing. I was trying to clear it all up and..." My voice wobbles imperceptibly. "Have you got a plaster?"

Jade disappears and Nate instructs me to hold my arm up to stem the blood, fetches a first-aid box, plasters, antiseptic. I study him as he carefully applies a dressing.

"You know," he muses softly. "I remember Eva standing here in almost exactly the same spot once after cutting herself badly. A broken wineglass, her foot was bleeding but she didn't even notice..." I nod, make a mental note of this for my piece, as he passes me a glass of water and some acetaminophen. "You won't need stitches, a minor laceration, we can safely say."

I nod, relieved. His phone vibrates.

"Excuse me, I need to take this," he says, walking back outside. I wait a minute or two before I follow him, slipping my recorder into my pocket. The smell of burning embers drifts over from a neighbor's garden. He's finished his call and leans back against the glass door. He offers me a cigarette.

"No thanks," I say reflexively but immediately change my mind. "Actually, go on." I haven't smoked for years but something in me is tempted by the illicitness of it, the spontaneity.

"Anna, I'm sorry I lost it back there, it was unprofessional. You're probably thinking, does he always lose his temper so easily?"

I look at him levelly. "And do you?"

"Never. It was a mix of a lot of things. It's been so long since I've gone over all that. I—"

I let him finish but he can't seem to find the words.

"I would have walked out of the interview," I say, shaking my head slowly, "but I didn't, because I assume that's what you would have wanted. An easy way out. I wasn't going to let you off that easily." I pause. "You know by answering some of these questions, it could put you in a better light? I think if you're honest, our readers will respect you for it. I imagine you're not just doing this interview to sell this book, but maybe there's another in the pipeline. Makes sense. Try to engage with the public again, regain their sympathy?"

"Impressive, Anna." He smiles ruefully, then continues before I can protest. "Okay, well, let's start again. You asked earlier if I'm on Kath's side. The answer is, yes, absolutely, although I'm not sure she's on mine." He holds up a hand. "Actually, scratch that."

"Sure. But if she isn't, why is Jade here and helping out in the lab?"

"It's something she agreed to a while back before—" He pauses. "Before I decided to write a memoir. It sounds like you've already put two and two together."

"I think I read something about it," I say, vaguely.

"It's a new project, something my publisher and I are working out at the moment, but it's about Eva, and a personal account of my grief, our relationship, lots of things. But Kath sees it as a huge betrayal, I think." He shrugs lightly. "At least she and I are in agreement over the next inquest. Neither of us think the investigation was thorough enough. We still don't know what really happened to Eva."

"But we do know she died of a heart attack—"

"It's not as simple as that. There are too many loose ends."

"So what do you think really happened?"

"I don't entertain theories," he says, pointedly, flicking the cigarette end onto the damp earth where it glows and dies. I stare at a wall where a vine has spread across it, tentacle-like, suffocating the camellia beneath.

"The press seemed to wonder if someone else was in the house that day, even though apparently the inquest couldn't prove it."

"All speculation." His voice falters. "It was unimaginable really, coming home and finding her, like something out of a horror film...those ruined sculptures around her. Not being able to save her."

Nate's features soften and he looks lost in his thoughts. I wonder how he can still live here with reminders everywhere, the shadowy outline of her studio through the cypress trees, lined up like sentries guarding a tomb.

He offers me another cigarette, exhaling a trail of silvery smoke into the damp air. I tilt my head over his lighter, cup my hand around the flame. I consider telling him about the day I spoke to Eva, but think better of it.

I remember it clearly. How my mood was jagged all morning. I hadn't slept. Tony was staying over before he caught an early flight to New York and his noisy nocturnal presence in the apartment kept me awake, as usual. The click of the light switch in the hallway, the metallic echo of his ring on the stair rail. Clink , clink , clink as he reached the top. Up and down, round and round, his footsteps, his tics and rhythms stalked my dreams.

I had sniped at him the next day for keeping me awake. He'd apologized but I could tell he was upset. He said he found it hard to live with me anymore, that I was always on edge. Then he turned from me, that familiar wounded expression in his eyes, a look that always skewered me with guilt. Before I could say another word, he was gone. I had sat on the sofa in the early morning light, sad, emptied out, and then my phone rang. It was her. Eva's voice instantly lifted me from my stupor. She had talked about her therapy practices, and I felt warmed by her enthusiasm, transported. I had hinted briefly, when she asked, about the exhaustion, some familial pressures still lingering in my life, anxiety, no more than that.

"You don't sound like someone in therapeutic need," she reflected and for a moment I wanted to tell her about my squabble with Tony. "But I can tell you're self-aware, thoughtful, the sort of person who'd benefit." A pause. "I really think you are. One session at the clinic where I train, if you fancy it. For a piece? They could do with the publicity."

My skin prickles and I rub my arms. Why is it that some people are so difficult to refuse? Nate looks at me again, pulling me back into the moment. I'm surprised by the concern in his gaze.

"Come on, let's get you back inside. You look like you've seen a ghost."

Jade throws me a sharp glance as we walk in. She tells him he has a 2:00 p.m. conference call with a professor at Columbia and he checks his watch. "Well, we've got around twenty minutes left, so I'm not sure what you—"

"I'd love a guided tour." Jade raises her eyebrows imperceptibly to Nate and walks away. He hesitates. "It would be so useful for context. No photos, I promise." I hold up my phone, conspicuously switch it off.

"Alright," he says finally. "Not her studio though. But I can show you the house." I follow him down the glass stairs into the basement, which feels entirely disconnected to the space above. The ceilings are lower and it's darker down here. Even the smell is different, a mix of old carpets and wood chippings.

"We kept as much of the Victorian cellar as we could." He pushes open the paneled door of his study. One wall is exposed brick, the rest of the room is a dense burgundy, the floorboards are painted black. There's a couple of Persian rugs and a worn-looking leather sofa facing a marble fireplace. "I'm the only one who worked in here," he says, catching my expression as I notice a lock on the inside of the door.

"Ah, the man cave," I say, looking at papers piled on a battered antique desk, dirty mugs on the floor.

"Eva loved the idea of styling everything like a glossy magazine." He makes a face as he turns and sits down on the sofa. I place my recorder on the coffee table in front of him and press Record. My eyes flit around the room, hungry for detail. Over the mantelpiece is a row of macabre cat portraits. I've read about Nate's passion for collecting Louis Wain, an Edwardian artist.

"Bit weird," I say, stepping forward to take a closer look.

"Not really, once you know more about him," he says, standing next to me, absorbed by the anthropomorphized creatures staring back at us, wild-eyed and garishly psychedelic. "I put them up last month. I like the way they capture the artist's turbulent state of mind."

"Schizophrenic?"

"Possibly. Specialists could never agree. But if you look at an MRI brain scan that's tracking, say, physical arousal, the way the colors light up look weirdly similar." He points to one of the more abstract florid prints, saturated swirls and curlicues.

"Sorry, before we continue, I just need the washroom."

"Of course, second door on the left," he says, scrolling through messages on his cell phone.

I don't need to, really, but a bathroom break is a chance to gather your thoughts, retreat away from the watchful eye of your interviewee. Their surroundings are more likely to give them away than anything they'll ever tell you.

Leaving my recorder on while they're alone is another old ploy. If I'm lucky, it might pick up something in my absence; a flirtatious compliment from an aging actor, an intimate phone call, a spat with a book PR over an indiscretion they shouldn't have let slip. Always worth a try.

I lock the door and wash my hands, catching my reflection in the mirror. My pupils look dilated, my cheeks glow, as if I'm running a fever. The room is windowless and opulent, shimmering like a dark gem; the walls are jewel-toned and the taps are burnished gold. Coppery mosaics line the floor, glittering like coins. It's like stepping inside a Fabergé egg.

Above the sink is a small vintage medicine cabinet; Apotheke , it says in italics that curve across the frosted glass. I lift the latch. It exudes the faintest medicinal aroma, musty and antiseptic.

There's Nurofen, acetaminophen, earbuds and antihistamines. So far, so regular. On the shelf above is a black leather glasses case. I take it down, snap it gently open and inside, find a slim strip of pills with a printed label.

Dr. Nate Reid. Fentanyl. Prescribed in May 2019.

I've written stories about fentanyl, how dangerously addictive this synthetic opioid can be. What chronic pain could the King of Pain be suffering?

I rattle the blue discs in the blister pack and replace them, thinking about his behavior earlier, how it had flared up from nowhere. At the Rosen that morning he had seemed completely in charge, as if nothing could phase him. But his unpredictability today, an inability to self-regulate, suggests something else is going on. Vulnerable, fragile, someone struggling to cope.

In the end it is Jade who sees me to the door while Nate excuses himself to take his work call. She stands on the step and watches me as I leave.

I look back at the house, buttery in the afternoon sun, and toy with precisely the right adjectives to bring this to life in my profile. Usually, I savor these moments when the interview is over and I can take stock, reflect on how I'll write it up, but now intrusive images flicker cine-style through my mind. The color rising on my cheeks, the clumsy way I'd almost tripped over my bag in my haste to get out of there. All the time I could feel his eyes in my back.

Worst of all, I wasn't able to go deep about the publishing rumors, whether he'd drawn up a shortlist of ghostwriters. For all I know, thanks to the excruciating outburst that robbed the interview, he's writing it on his own.

It starts to rain, a steady drizzle darkening the pavement. I take in the row of terraces opposite that stare back at me, their windows like lidless eyes. The sky is ashen, the real world is a shade grayer after Dr. Reid's interiors. Time to go. I check my phone. A few work emails, a voicemail alert from Tony asking me what I'm up to and when is a good time to call, but then another notification flashes up:

Dr. Nate Reid is following you!

I click straight through to his X profile.

Nate Reid

@natereid100

Neuroscientist at the Rosen Institute, Sunday Times bestselling author, host of BBC's Grey Matters . Latest book: The Pain Matrix .

10 Following 480k Followers

Instinctively, I follow him straight back. Now, at least, I have his attention.