Hi Tulkinghorn works out of a gothic apartment block near Alton Park, over in the Thirty-Seven. I sat there in the narrow corridor, like a patient, with an ear-sufferer on one side of me and a throat-sufferer on the other. The parched secretary sat in her cubbyhole pushing paper around and answering the phone: “Doctor’s office?” Younger guys in smocks, like interns, sloped in and out with clipboards and vials. Walls of folders and binders, floor to ceiling: What? Fading biopsy reports. Dust-coated urinalyses. Mr. Ear and Mr. Throat both groaned raggedly when the woman nodded me through. I passed from the corridor shadows into the Germanic tang of Tulkinghorn’s surgery and the usual smell of mouthwash.
I’d like to be able to say that Hi’s tan made him look like death warmed up. But he just twinkled away, self-sufficiently enough, there behind his desk. Now, this I do remember. When I was hallucinating, in the little room at Colonel Tom’s, visited by visitors, some of them real, some of them not, and wondering how the hell I was going to get through the next half hour, I’d sometimes think: I know. I’ll fuck one of these ghosts. That’ll kill some time. But I didn’t want to fuck Hi Tulkinghorn. He has too much death knowledge, soberly absorbed, in his pale blue eyes. Careful here. Don’t say Hi.
“Doctor.”
“Detective. Take a seat.”
“How was the cruise? Your wife make money?”
“She broke about even. I’m sorry I missed the funeral. I tried to get a flight from Port of Spain. I’ve talked with Colonel and Mrs. Rockwell. I’ll be doing what I can there.”
“Then you know why I’m here.”
We paused. I opened my notebook and looked down at the page. I was suddenly very impressed by my jottings of the night before. Which said: Nature of the disorder: Reactive/non-reactive? Affective/ ideational? Psychological/organic? From within or without? I began:
Dr. Tulkinghorn, what kind of patient was Jennifer Rockwell?
… She—she wasn’t.
Excuse me? What was her medical history?
She didn’t have one.
I don’t follow.
As far as I’m aware she never had a day’s illness in her life. Except of course in infancy. Her checkups were a joke.
When was the last time you saw her?
Saw her here? About a year ago.
Was she under the care of anybody else?
I’m not sure I understand. She had a dentist, and a gynecologist, a Dr. Arlington. She’s a friend of mine. Same story there. As a specimen Jennifer was close to phenomenal.
Then why was she on lithium, Doctor?
Lithium? She was not on lithium, Detective.
See this? This is Toxicology. She have a psychiatrist?
Certainly not. I’d have been notified—you know that.
He took the Xeroxed sheet from my hand and surveyed it with indignation. With quiet indignation. I knew what he was thinking. Already, he was thinking: If she didn’t get it from a professional, then where did she get it? The next thought being: You can get anything in this city—easy. Yeah, tell me about it. And not from a hoody on a corner but from a smiling piece of shit in a labcoat. The names of the drugs out there can run on for twenty-five syllables… A silence followed. A silence of the kind that must be pretty frequent, in his line of work. In delivery rooms, over test results, in the reflected light of X-ray screens. And then Dr. Tulking-horn gave up on Jennifer. With the slightest flex of his shoulders, he let Jennifer Rockwell go.
Yes, well. At least you’re getting a pattern here. She was medicating her own head. That’s always delusional.
How so?
It’s like mental hypochondria. Psychotropic drugs would tend to intensify that. You’d get a spiral effect.
Tell me, Doc: How surprised were you when you heard?
Surprised. Surprised. Oh, sure. And I was sick for Tom and Miriam. But at my age. In this profession. I’m not sure I’m capable… of astonishment.
And I wanted to say: You guys kill yourself a lot, don’t you. You do: Your rate is three times higher than Joe Shmoe’s. Shrinks top the list at six times higher. Then, in descending order, you got vets, pharmacists, dentists, farmers, and doctors. What’s the connection here, I wonder. Exposure to the natural processes of death, disease, and decay, maybe. Or just exposure to suffering—often dumb suffering. And availability of means. The studies talk about “role strain.” But police have role strain too. And although we’re prone to suicide, we’re nothing like these fucking kamikazes in their sky-blue smocks. Retirement time sees all of us most at risk. I think it’s to do with power. With the daily exercise of power and what happens to you when it’s taken away.