Rachel investigates Kamal as a patient

Rachel investigates Kamal as a patient by arranging therapy with the man she suspects killed Megan Hipwell. Her plan is driven by a hope that she may recover some missing knowledge, but the meetings also expose her to the very reassurance that makes her less able to pursue him as a suspect. What begins as an attempt to investigate Kamal becomes an uneasy mixture of suspicion, confession, and genuine relief.

Reasons for the Appointment

After speaking with Scott Hipwell, Rachel wonders whether something she cannot remember is trapped in her mind and whether she has knowledge she needs to impart. A therapist might help her bring it out, and Kamal is the person she thinks of. Her decision is tied to the memory of seeing him kiss Megan: that glimpse, she believes, changed the course of her life. She feels drawn to him, while also knowing that the attraction is inappropriate and that she has a reason to distrust him.

Rachel’s choice also grows out of her belief that the investigation is being directed at the wrong person. Police have questioned Scott again, and online discussion treats him as a likely killer, circulating images of his public appeal for Megan and comparing his grief with that of other suspects. Rachel finds the speculation cruel and fears it would devastate Scott if he saw it. Having spent time close to him, she believes he is not a murderer. Seeing Kamal as the more relevant lead, she decides to approach him rather than leave the question to public conjecture.

The First Session

On Tuesday, 6 August 2013, Rachel attends her first appointment with Kamal. She has made it the previous morning, asking for him by name; the receptionist’s apparent surprise makes her wonder whether her request is unusual. The session costs £75, a significant expense against the £300 her mother has given her. Rachel is anxious about the meeting and afraid that Kamal might recognize that she knows about his connection to Megan. She worries she will say Megan’s name, so she tries to appear like an ordinary patient while waiting among two other people in a warm, unremarkable surgery.

Once in Kamal’s office, Rachel finds herself following the same routine Megan had followed there. Although she has come prepared to search his face for evidence of the violent man she suspects he is, she gradually stops panicking. Instead, she tells him that for four years alcohol has damaged her life, costing her marriage and job and threatening her health. She describes blackouts in which she cannot remember where she has been or what she has done, and the estrangement she feels from actions reported to her later. Because the remembered experience feels detached from her, she struggles to feel fully responsible for it.

Kamal listens without looking away to take notes or distract himself. He reflects back the problem Rachel is describing: she wants to take responsibility, but finds accountability difficult when she cannot remember the act. He suggests that an apology can still be sincere even when the person apologizing cannot recall the transgression. The exchange is both therapeutic and exposing. Rachel has come to observe Kamal, but instead gives him an unusually candid account of her own conduct and the way memory loss complicates remorse.

Suspicion and the Wish to Return

At the end of the session, Kamal proposes that they continue another time. His smile abruptly restores Rachel’s suspicion: she reads it as a glimpse of the killer she had been looking for and leaves without taking his offered hand. Yet the fear is mixed with recognition of his appeal. His calm and apparent kindness had made her feel safe enough to disclose painful truths, and she can understand how a trusting or troubled person might respond to him in the same way. She feels that, by opening up to him, she has betrayed both Scott and Megan. Most unsettlingly, she also wants to go back.

That contradiction becomes part of the investigation itself. Rachel’s purpose is to study Kamal for signs of guilt, but the session’s emotional effect repeatedly pulls her attention away from surveillance and toward her own needs. Her suspicion does not simply disappear; rather, it is made harder to sustain alongside the experience of being listened to and comforted. The patient role is therefore not just a disguise. It puts Rachel in a relationship where her real distress can compete with, and obscure, the investigative motive that brought her there.

The Second Session

On Thursday, 8 August, Rachel returns while feeling disloyal and uncertain about her intentions. She considers telling Scott what she is doing, but admits to herself that she is not sure she is acting solely for him and has no clear plan. This time she intends to disclose something real—her wish for a child—and watch for an unusual response from Kamal. Her proposed test yields no obvious investigative result.

When Kamal asks about the beginning of her drinking, Rachel explains that she became depressed while trying to get pregnant. She had been unable to conceive, and the depression preceded her drinking. She begins to cry and again allows herself to be comforted rather than monitoring Kamal’s expression for suspicion or guilt. He discusses coping strategies and reminds her that she is still young. Rachel leaves feeling lighter and more hopeful. On the train, she tries to summon the image of the killer she thought she had seen, but can no longer make herself see Kamal as capable of killing Megan.

Significance

The visits show how Rachel’s investigation is shaped by the same gaps and uncertainties that motivate it. She seeks help because she fears that memory may contain something important, yet the act of seeking help brings her into a setting where she can speak openly about her blackouts, guilt, infertility, and depression. Kamal’s professional attentiveness gives her comfort, while her suspicions make that comfort feel dangerous and disloyal.

The change between the two sessions is not a resolution of the question of Kamal’s guilt. Rachel moves from reading his smile as confirmation of a hidden menace to struggling to imagine him as violent, but the evidence of these meetings is her shifting perception, not proof of innocence. Her return, despite guilt and fear, demonstrates the pull of the therapeutic relationship: she wants to continue investigating Kamal, but also wants the relief she experiences in his office. The episode thus places her inquiry in tension with her vulnerability, leaving her less certain of what she sees and more attached to the person she came to watch.