Shadows

New York

She had never seen eyes like his before.

She shuddered slightly as the piercing orbs bore into her like lasers. As if they were staring at her soul, searching for something elusive.

His eyes sparkled like chips of sapphire, the whites surrounding them unblemished but for the tiniest red veins which dared to intrude from his eye corners.

His gaze was unbroken even by the movement of his eyelids and, as he extended a hand to guide her backwards, she felt as if she were drowning in those eyes.

As she lay on the couch she finally closed her own eyes, aware now only of his presence beside her.

The room was dark.

There was little sound.

An occasional cough, muted and self-conscious. And there was his breathing. It became more laboured as he stood over her and he spoke something softly to her.

Without opening her eyes, she raised her hands and began unbuttoning her dress, exposing her stomach. As she touched the flesh of her abdomen she winced and sucked in a painful breath. She almost screamed aloud as she felt his hands touch her flesh. His fingers stroked and probed the area around her navel, pausing every so often over one particular place.

Lucy West lay perfectly still, aware only of the hands which roamed her lower body with swift urgent movements but conscious of the three large intestinal growths which nestled like bloated parasites within her.

The first doctor had suspected ulcers. Nothing more. Tests had shown them to be steadily growing abscesses but a second opinion had revealed what she herself had always suspected.

The growths were tumours. Malignant and deadly. She had been told that they were too far advanced for surgery to make any difference. At the most she might gain a six month reprieve. But of that there was no guarantee.

She felt the hands on her stomach, moving gently.

This man was her last hope.

Jonathan Mathias looked down at the woman on the couch, his brow furrowed. She was, he guessed, forty-five — five years older than himself but the ravages of pain and her disease had carved lines into her face which had no right to be there. She looked twice her age.

Mathias wore a dark shirt, the sleeves Of which were rolled up displaying thick, hairy forearms. As he continued to play his fingers over the woman’s abdomen, the muscles of his arms began to bulge, as if he were holding some great weight. His eyes rolled upward slightly so that she was only in the periphery of his vision. He began to breathe more deeply, less regularly. A bead of perspiration popped onto his forehead and trickled slowly past his left eye.

He sucked in a long breath and held it, raising his hands over the woman.

For what seemed like an eternity, neither moved nor made a sound.

Mathias’ eyes twisted in the sockets, then he suddenly plunged his hands down, as if to drive them through Lucy West’s body.

He grunted loudly, his palms pressed flat to her stomach. His fingers were splayed, quivering wildly. Then, with infinite slowness, he raised his hands an inch or two.

Beneath his palms, the flesh of her abdomen began to undulate in small, almost imperceptible, movements at first but then stronger, more urgent motions.

A bulge appeared just below her navel, the skin stretching to accommodate the pressure from within.

Mathias was shaking now, his hands still positioned mere inches from the woman’s stomach. Perspiration sheathed his forehead and face, glistening in clear droplets on the light hair of his arms.

There was another movement, another undulation, this time an inch or two above-her pubic mound.

Lucy West made no sound. No movement.

Mathias grunted something unintelligible, his fingers curling inward slightly as the third bulge began to streich the flesh until it was shiny. And finally, his eyes swivelled in the sockets until they were glaring down at his own hands.

At the movement beneath those hands.

His entire body jerked spasmodically, as if someone were pumping thousands of volts of electricity through him. His eyes narrowed to steely slits, his teeth clenched together until his jaw began to ache.

The skin just below Lucy West’s navel began to split open.

Like tearing fabric, it began as a tiny hole then gradually lengthened into a rent about five inches long.

Mathias began to breathe rapidly, his cheeks puffing with each sharp exhalation. He noticed a pungent odour as a second tear began to form beneath the first.

There was no blood. Only the smell. A rancid stench of pus which rose like an invisible cloud to envelop him.

He watched as the third razor-thin cut began to open.

Still Lucy West did not move.

Mathias drew in a deep, almost agonised breath and held it, his face contorted unnaturally for interminable seconds. The sensation of heat which he felt in his fingertips began to spread until it seemed to fill his entire body. He felt as if he were on fire. More sweat dripped in salty beads from his face.

He glared down at his hands.

At her stomach.

At the three long thin splits in her flesh. ‘Yes,’ he grunted, his fingers twisting inward like hooked claws.

Something began to move in the cut above her pelvis. Something thick and solid. It was ovoid in shape, a reeking egg-shaped lump which nudged through the cleft of flesh as if coaxed by Mathias. His eyes bulged madly in their sockets as he saw the growth and his body began to shake with increased intensity.

From the cut below her navel another bloodied clot of dark brown matter began to rise.

The three narrow tears drew back like obscene lips, expelling their foul contents, and Mathias reached feverishly for the three rotting growths, scooping them into his hands like so many putrescent eggs.

His fingers closed around the lumps and a single droplet of pus dribbled through and ran down his arm as he raised both hands into the air above the unmoving body of Lucy West.

Mathias kept his eyes fastened on the trio of wounds, now slightly reddened at the edges. He closed his eyes tightly, body still shaking, the growths held aloft like grisly trophies. A vile stench surrounded him, almost palpable in its intensity, yet he seemed not to notice it. As he snapped his eyes open once more he looked down to see that the three rents had closed. The skin looked as smooth and unblemished as before he had begun.

For a moment he stood sentinel over her motionless form.

Another man, younger than Mathias, came forward carrying a shallow stainless steel bowl. He held it before Mathias who slowly lowered his arms, opening his hands to allow the growths to tumble into the bowl with a liquid plop. The man handed Mathias a towel, then retreated back into the shadows.

‘Sit up,’ Mathias said to the woman, his voice a low whisper.

Lucy West struggled upright, aided by Mathias’ outstretched hand,, and once more she found herself gazing into those hypnotic twin orbs of blazing blue.

‘It is done,’ he told her.

Lucy coloured slightly, aware that her dress was still open. With shaking fingers she began to button it once more. Mathias noticed her slight hesitation as she reached her stomach, the flicker of anxiety behind hei eyes as she reached her navel.

He beckoned to his assistant and the younger man returned, carrying the bowl.

Mathias took it from him and held it before Lucy.

She looked in at the growths. They reminded her of rotten plums but for their pale colour. The dark tinge which they’d had earlier seemed to have drained from them, creating the small amount of blood which was puddled in the bottom of the bowl.

She touched her stomach tentatively, both relieved and surprised to find that there was no pain. She pressed harder.

No pain.

It was at that point she broke down.

Tears flooded down her cheeks and she gripped Mathias’ hand, as if threatening to wrench it off. He smiled thinly at her, those brilliant blue eyes twinkling with an almost blinding iridescence.

Another man, also dressed in a dark suit, approached from the other side and placed his hands on Lucy’s shoulders, guiding her away from Mathias who walked forward towards the swelling cacophony of shouts and applause which filled the hall. As the lights inside the building were flicked on once more he gazed out at the dozens of people who stood watching him. Dozens? Hundreds? He wasn’t sure how many. Some could not stand because they were in wheelchairs. Some could not clap because they had withered limbs. Some could not see him because they were blind.

He raised his arms once more, a gesture designed to encompass them all.

The applause and shouting did not diminish for some time, not in fact, until Mathias turned and walked off the stage, the cries still ringing in his ears.

And some of them were cries of pain.

Mathias entered his dressing room and slammed the door behind him, as if eager to be away from any more prying eyes. He leant against the door, wiping the sweat from his face with one blood-smeared hand.

He crossed to the washbasin on the far side of the small room and turned the cold tap, splashing his face with water. As he straightened up he gazed at his own reflection in the mirror above.

Jonathan Mathias was a powerfully built man, his jaw square and heavy. Clean shaven and carefully groomed, he looked younger than his forty years, particularly when his eyes sparkled as they did now. Nevertheless, his forehead was heavily lined and his thick eyebrows, which strained to meet above the bridge of his nose, gave him a perpetual frown. He dried his face and sat down at his dressing table. Even now he could hear the persistent applause generated by those who had yet to leave the hall.

It was like this every time. At every meeting.

He held three a week. The one today had been conducted in a large red-brick building on New York’s West Side. Next time it might be in Manhattan, Queens or the Bronx. Or maybe somewhere in one of the city’s more affluent areas.

Over the years he had found that the rich needed his attentions as badly as anyone else.

Those he didn’t reach in person could see him twice a week on CBS, his hour-long television show attracting an audience in excess of 58,000,000. He was known throughout the country and most of Europe for his abilities as a psychic but, of the man himself, little had ever been revealed. He spoke with a New York accent but the harder edges had been smoothed off and he came across as a cultured man, though he was respected and ridiculed in roughly equal proportions. There were those who still branded him a fraud and a charlatan. With an annual incorhe of 20,000,000 dollars, the barbs seemed to cut less deeply than they might otherwise have done.

He smiled at his own reflection and began wiping his face with a paper cloth.

There was a light rap on the door and Mathias turned in his seat as if he were expecting to see through the partition.

‘Who is it?’ he asked.

‘Blake,’ a distinctively English voice told him.

‘Come in,’ he called, his smile broadening.

As David Blake entered the room, Mathias studied the newcomer warmly.

He was twenty-eight, about five-ten, dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a.

sweatshirt which, despite the folds of material, could not disguise the

powerful frame beneath it. A packet of cigarettes bulged from one of his pockets and, as the young man sat down, he took one out and lit it up.

‘Very impressive,’ he said, re-adjusting the tinted glasses on his nose.

it isn’t intended to create an impression, David,’ said the psychic. ‘You know that.’

own body is a skill which can be learned.’ ‘I agree.’

‘Then I don’t see what this has to do with your powers. I can control other people’s Astral bodies.’ Blake frowned, taken aback by the psychic’s words.

Mathias returned his gaze, unblinking. There was a twinkle in his blue eyes which Blake mistrusted. He studied the American as if he were an exhibit in a museum, trying to muster his own thoughts, it’s impossible,’ he said, softly. ‘Nothing is impossible, David,’ the psychic told him. Blake shook his head.

‘Look, I know plenty about Out of the Body experiences,’ he countered. ‘I’ve met dozens of people who’ve had them but the idea of being able to manipulate someone else’s Astral body …’ The sentence trailed off as he felt his body stiffen. It was as if every muscle in his body had suddenly contracted and the sensation forced a gasp from him.

Overwhelming, numbing cold enveloped him until he felt as if his blood were freezing in his veins. He shuddered, the flesh on his forearms rising into goose-pimples. He caught sight of his own reflection in Mathias’ dressing room mirror and his skin was white. As if the colour had been sucked from him.

Mathias sat unmoved, his eyes never leaving the writer who was quivering violently.

He felt light-headed, a curiously unpleasant sensation of vagueness which made him grip the chair as if anxious to assure himself he were not going to faint.

Mathias lowered his gaze and Blake felt the feeing subside as quickly as it had come. He sucked in a deep breath, the warmth returning to his body.

He shook his head and blinked hard. ‘Are you OK?’ Mathias asked. The writer nodded.

‘Very clever, Jonathan,’ he said, rubbing his arms briskly.

‘Now do you believe me?’ the psychic wanted to know. ‘Can you deny what you felt?’ if you have this ability, how does it tie-in with the faith-healing?’

‘I can reach inside people. Inside their minds. Their bodies.’

‘Then it would have to be a form of hypnosis, to make the subject believe you could cure them.’

I can’t give you all the answers, David,’ Mathias answered, it doesn’t matter.

You can’t alter the facts, you can’t deny what you saw on that stage tonight or what you yourself felt here in this room.’

Blake chewed his bottom lip contemplatively.

‘Think about what I’ve said,’ the psychic added.

Blake got to his feet and announced that he had to get back to his hotel. The two men shook hands and the writer left the building via a side entrance. The sun outside was hot and the pavement felt warm beneath his shoes in a marked contrast to the coolness of Mathias’ dressing room.

He spotted a cab and sprinted across the street, clambering into the vehicle.

As the cab pulled away, Blake glanced over his shoulder at the red brick building, watching as it gradually disappeared from view.

Jonathan Mathias sat before the mirror in his dressing room contemplating his own features. He rubbed his cheeks and blinked hard. His eyes felt as if they had grit in them but, as he sat there, he allowed his hands to drop to his thighs, one hand curling into a loose fist. He inhaled and looked down, his fist opening as he did so.

Cradled there, now shrunken and withered like rotten, foul smelling prunes, were the three growths he’d taken from the body of Lucy West.

towards the bathroom once more.

The steam still swirled around and Blake almost slipped over on the tiles. He lifted the toilet seat and urinated noisily; then, discarding the towel, he turned towards the bath.

There was a body floating in the water.

Blake took a step back, nearly overbalancing, his eyes glued to the naked body before him. The entire corpse was bloated, the skin tinged a vivid blue, mottled from what appeared to be a long time in the water. The mouth was open, lips wrinkled and cracked. A swollen tongue protruded from one corner.

Blake shook his head, studying the face more closely.

He may as well have been looking in a mirror.

The corpse in the bath was identical, in every detail, to himself. He felt as if he were staring at his own dead body.

The writer clamped his eyes shut, screwing up the lids until white stars danced in the blackness. He raised both hands to his head and sucked in a deep breath.

‘No,’ he rasped.

When he opened his eyes again the corpse was gone. Nothing remained in the bath but the water. No bloated body. No deceased look-alike. Just water.

Blake swallowed hard and reached out a hand tentatively towards the surface of the water, staring intently at it as if he expected the apparition to appear again.

He heard soft chuckling and snapped his head around.

It was coming from the bedroom.

The writer felt peculiarly vulnerable and he found his breath coming in low, irregular gasps. He edged towards the bathroom door gripped by a hand of fear which tightened its hold as he drew closer.

Again he heard chuckling.

By this time, his fear had gradually become anger and he stepped into the room without hesitation.

It was empty.

He walked across to the bed. Checked the wardrobes. Passed through into the other part of the room which served as a sitting room.

Empty.

Blake looked around him, wiping perspiration from his face. He was alone in the apartment. He headed back towards the bathroom but, as he reached the door he slowed his pace, his eyes scanning the bath anxiously.

There was no corpse floating there.

The writer licked his lips, finding that his mouth was dry and chalky. He crossed to the sink and spun the tap swallowing large gulps of cold water, then he turned towards the steaming tub once more.

The water looked inviting enough but it was a long time before he would step into it.

Oxford

‘There was so much blood. It was everywhere. All over the floor and the bed.

There was even some on the wall. It wasn’t at all like you see on films or the television. When I shot her in the face her head just seemed to cave in and then the blood started spurting everywhere. I suppose that’s how it got on the wall over the bed, it was like a fountain, especially from her neck. I suppose that’s where the pellets hit her jugular vein. That is the big vein isn’t it?

The jugular? You see when you fire a shotgun at someone from close range there isn’t time for the shot to spread. A shotgun cartridge is full of thousands of little lead pellets but, when you fire from close range, well, it all comes out in one lump. And I was standing very close to her. I had the barrel about an inch from her face.

‘There was some thick, sticky looking stuff on the pillow. It was sort of greyish pink. I think it must have been her brain. I’d seen sheeps’ brains in butchers’ shops and it looked a bit like that so I suppose it must have been her brain. Anyway, when I went to move the body this sticky stuff got on my hands. It felt like … like porridge. I left her on the bed in the end.

‘The baby had woken up, I suppose it was the noise of the gun. It was crying, not loudly, just the way it does when it wants feeding. F

went into the nursery and picked him up but he wouldn’t stop crying. Perhaps

he was frightened of the blood and the smell. That’s another thing they never tell you on the TV. Blood smells. It smells like copper. When there’s lots of it.

‘Well, I just dropped the baby on its head. It didn’t move after that so I thought it was dead. I picked it up again and took it back to the bedroom and put it on the bed beside my wife.

‘I’d left the hacksaw under the bed earlier so I … I only had to decide which one to start with. I cut up the baby first. The left arm to start with.

I cut it off just below the shoulder but as I started cutting it screamed. I think the bang on the head only stunned it. The arm was almost off when it started to scream but it didn’t move again after that. I cut off its right leg at the hip. It was easy, I suppose it’s because the bones are still soft with babies. It wasn’t even a year old you see. There was more blood, more than I’d expected. Especially when I cut the head off. It’s funny isn’t it? You wouldn’t think a body that small could hold that much blood.

‘I left the pieces on the bed then I started on my wife. It was harder cutting her leg off, sawing through the bone was like cutting wood but the noise was different, a kind of squeaking and all this brown stuff dribbled out of the bone. Was that the marrow? I suppose it was. Well, it took me nearly an hour to cut them both up and I was sweating when I’d finished. Butchers must be really fit, I mean, they cut up meat every day don’t they? I was tired when I’d finished and I noticed that there was some … mess … well excrement.

You know … faeces on the bed. I didn’t know that happened when someone died.

That they sh— that they messed themselves.

i cut one of my wife’s breasts off. I don’t know why. Just to see what it was like I suppose. I expected it to puncture like a balloon, you would wouldn’t you? But it didn’t. I just cut most of it away and left it with the other pieces. So much blood though. So much blood. Funny really.’

Kelly Hunt reached forward and switched off the tape recorder.

She had heard that particular tape half a dozen times in the last week. This had been the first time she’d managed to sit through it without feeling sick. She pressed the ‘rewind’ button and the recorder squealed as the spools spun in reverse. She stopped it, pressed ‘play”.

‘… So much blood. Funny really.’

She heard her own voice.

‘And the dream is always the same?’

‘Always. It never varies. Every detail’s the same.’

She switched it off again and ran a hand through her shoulder length brown hair.

Beside the tape recorder on the desk in front of her there was a manilla file and Kelly flicked it open. It contained details of the voice which she’d been hearing on the recording, facts and figures which made that voice a human being. To be precise, Maurice Grant, aged thirty-two. An unemployed lathe operator by trade. Married for ten years to a woman four years younger than himself named Julie. They had a ten-month-old baby, Mark.

Kelly had been working with Grant, or rather studying him, for the last seven days. The recording was one of many which she and her colleagues had made.

She scanned the rest of the file which contained further personal details about Grant.

He’d been unemployed for the last six months and, during that time, relations both with Julie and their baby had become somewhat strained. Kelly tapped the file with the end of her pencil. And now the dreams. Grant always described them as dreams — never nightmares — though God alone knew that what he experienced during sleep was the stuff of nightmares. His detached attitude was unnerving. The tape recordings were made while Grant slept. By a combination of drugs, he could be unconscious and yet able to speak and to relay what he saw in his dreams. Dreams had been studied and monitored in the past, Kelly was well aware of that, but never before had the subject actually, been able to speak whilst in that dream state, to describe the events as dispassionately as if he had been a mere observer.

In order to achieve this state, Grant was given a shot of Tubarine, a muscle relaxant usually used in medicine with a general anaesthetic, which would induce sleep. Prior to that, he would receive 45mg of methylphenidate orally.

The drug was a derivative of amphetamine, designed to stimulate the brain. By this combination, Grant could be forced to dream. His observations would then be recorded as he saw them in his mind’s eye.

Kelly knew, from what she had read in the file, that Grant and his wife had rowed constantly during the months leading up to his arrival at the Institute.

Their marriage was virtually in ruins and Grant sometimes spoke of her with ill-disguised anger. An attitude mirrored, subconsciously, in his dreams.

Kelly looked at the tape recorder once more, wondering whether to run the tape again. Instead she got to her feet and crossed to one of the filing cabinets propped against the far wall. Above it was a photograph of her and several of her colleagues. It had been taken just after she joined the Institute fifteen months ago, two weeks after her twenty-fourth birthday.

The Institute of Psychical Study was a Victorian building set in six acres of its own grounds. The weather-beaten walls were the colour of dried blood, crumbling in places. The entire structure, covered by a clinging network of ivy, looked as though it would collapse but for the tangled tendrils which snaked over it like so much flexible scaffolding. Repair work had been done to the west wing of the building, the renovated brickwork and the large plate glass windows looking strangely innocuous set against the latticed panes which dotted the remainder of the structure. The building was being dragged, albeit reluctantly, into the twentieth century. Telephone wires ran from the pole on the roof, suspended above what had once been belching chimney stacks but were now sealed holes. The gravel driveway snaked away through the grounds until it joined the main road which led into Oxford itself. Cedars and poplars lined the drive like sentinels.

However, if the outside of the building belonged to a more sedate age then the interior was modern, almost futuristic.

The old rooms had, over the years, been converted into fully equipped offices and laboratories, the latter providing every means possible for Kelly and her companions to pursue their very specialized work.

Since its inception in 1861, the Institute had devoted itself to the investigation and recording of all manner of psychic phenomena ranging from hauntings to telekinesis. Within the vast library beneath the building was housed the accumulated knowledge of over a century.

But, during that time, progress had intervened and investigators now used word processors in place of quill pens and electronic surveillance equipment instead of eye-witness accounts and hear-say.

Kelly had plenty of eye-witness information about Maurice Grant including the file which she now slid from the drawer and glanced at.

It held an EEG read-out, one of the many taken from Grant while he slept. She studied it and shook her head. The puzzle was there before her.

The reading comprised five lines, four of which were flat, each representing an area of the brain.

It was the fifth line which interested her.

The tracer had drawn huge, irregular strokes across the read-out, indicating an incredible amount of activity in one particular part of the brain.

Kelly was convinced that it was the portion which controlled the dream response.

And yet she knew that there should have been movement shown on all the lines.

But for that one area of activity, the reading may as well have been taken from a corpse.

The office door opened.

‘Excuse me barging in, Kelly,’ the familiar voice apologised. The man smiled curtly, almost as an afterthought. ‘I wanted to speak to you.’

Dr Stephen Vernon smiled again^ a twitchy, perfunctory smile which never touched his eyes. He was what people euphemistically call portly. In other

words he was fat. The buttons of his grey suit strained against his belly as if threatening to fly off at any moment. He kept his jacket fastened but, like his trousers, it was immaculately pressed. His trousers bore creases sharp enough to cut your hand on, even if the legs of the garment were two inches too short. For a man of fifty-five, Vernon had thick, almost lustrous hair which glistened beneath the fluorescent lights. His moustache, by comparison, resembled the type sprayed on advertising posters by paint-happy kids. He had narrow,

hawkish features and eyes the colour of slate nestled between his puffy eyelids. Grey suit. Grey hair. Grey eyes. Vernon resembled an overcast day.

But, there was a darting energy in those eyes and in that overweight frame.

Vernon was as thirsty for knowledge now as he had been when he’d first joined the Institute nearly twenty-five years ago. He’d spent the last twelve years as its President. He was respected by all his investigators, both for his knowledge and also for his dedication. He would sit, most nights, in his office on the second floor, reading reports. Staying there until the small hours sometimes, when he would wander the empty corridors and deserted labs, enjoying the silence. He felt secure within the confines of the Institute walls.

He lived eight or nine miles away but it was almost with reluctance that he returned home at the end of the day.

Home.

Could he still call it a home when he was afraid to return there?

As Kelly passed him she caught the familiar smell which seemed to follow Vernon everywhere. It surrounded him like an invisible cloud. The scent of menthol. He was forever sucking cough sweets although Kelly had never known him to have so much as a cold. He carried a packet in his breast pocket as if it were a pen. As she sat down he popped another one into his mouth.

‘Have you made any progress with this fellow Grant?’ Vernon asked her.

Kelfy told him about the tape recordings, the recurring nightmares.

‘Yes, yes, I know about those,’ he said, tersely. ‘I heard something about an EEC

Kelly’s green eyes met his slate grey ones and they held each other’s stare for a moment.

‘May I see it?’ he asked.

Kelly handed the read-out to Vernon who shifted the menthol sweet to the other side of his mouth and ran an expert eye Over the series of lines.

‘His brain was stimulated?’ Vernon asked.

‘Yes,’ Kelly told him. ‘We’re still using amphetamines.’

Vernon nodded slowly. As a qualified doctor he realized that the read-out should show much more activity. He was

one of four physicians at the Institute. At least one had to be present to administer the drugs to subjects and to check that there were no adverse effects on them.

‘Then why is only one area of the brain affected?’ he mused aloud.

‘It certainly looks as if it’s the area which controls unconscious thought,’

said Kelly. ‘The reading taken when Grant was awake showed only minimal movement in that region.’ She pointed to the jagged line.

The older man sucked hard on his sweet then folded the read-out and laid it on her desk.

‘Run another EEG while he’s awake,’ Vernon instructed. ‘Then another while he’s asleep — but not a drug induced sleep. I want to see the normal readings.’

Kelly nodded.

Vernon crossed to the window and peered out at the rapidly falling rain.

‘This is very important to me, Kelly,’ he said, clasping his hands behind his back. He reminded her of a headmaster about to admonish an unruly pupil.

‘The reading from the EEG would certainly seem to indicate that the subconscious mind is capable of functioning independently,’ he said. ‘We have to find a way to unlock that hidden area.’

She detected a note of something akin to desperation in his voice. It seemed only a matter of time before they discovered what they sought but time was one thing Vernon didn’t seem to have. Not a day passed without him visiting Kelly in the lab or her office, and it had been that way ever since the research began. There was an urgency about his interest which eclipsed his usual involvement. He was becoming obsessive. And Kelly couldn’t help but wonder why.

She studied his broad back as he stood by the window, his fingers knotted together like fleshy hemp.

‘I’ll see about running the EEG now,’ she said.

Vernon turned, nodded and swept towards the door.

Til be in my office,’ he told her. ‘Let me know as soon as you have the results.’

She smelt the menthol as he passed her, closing the door behind him. Kelly heard his footsteps echo away down the corridor.

She slipped the file back into its drawer, then she herself left the room, walking briskly towards the stairs which would take her down to the laboratories.

Stephen Vernon slumped into the leather chair behind his oak desk and closed his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. In the outer office he could hear the clacking of his secretary’s typewriter. An accompaniment to the tattoo which the rain was beating on his window.

His office was large, as befitted a man of his seniority. It was one of the few rooms in the building which acknowledged a debt to the past. The wood panelling of the wall smelt as if it had been newly waxed, as did his desk.

Opposite him, above the empty fireplace, was a very passable copy of Gericault’s ‘Brigadier Gerard’. Vernon regarded the painting blankly, his mind occupied with other thoughts.

Could the EEG of Grant’s brain truly have exposed an area of the mind previously hidden? The key to the subconscious. After all these years, could he dare to hope for a breakthrough?

He sat forward in his chair and glanced at the phone.

The call might come in five minutes. Five hours. Five weeks.

But he knew it would come and he had been waiting a long time for it.

Paris

‘Keep your eye on the watch.’

Jean Decard focused on the gently twisting gold object, watching as it spun gently around. His breathing had slowed to low rasping inhalations punctuated by small gasps as the air escaped his lungs once more. His right arm was propped up on the arm of the chair, his left lay across his lap.

‘Clear your mind of all other thoughts,’ the voice told him. ‘See nothing but the watch. Think about nothing other than what I tell you.’

The voice seemed to be coming from a hundred miles away.

It was, in fact, coming from Alain Joubert who was kneeling less than a foot or two from him. It was he who was holding the watch, allowing it to turn gently back and forth at the end of its chain.

Beside him, Michel Lasalle watched the proceedings with a pen gripped firmly in his hand, prepared to write down whatever might happen. At thirty-eight, Lasalle was two years older than Joubert but his full features and ruddied complex-ion did not testify to that fact. They had worked together for the past two years and, during that time, had become close friends. Now Lasalle watched intently as Joubert leaned closer to Decard whose eyelids were beginning to sag.

‘You are asleep but you will still hear my voice, you will still answer my questions,’ said Joubert. ‘Do you understand?’

Decard nodded slowly.

‘Do you understand? Say so.’

‘Yes.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Jean Decard.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Sixteen Rue St Germain.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Forty-one.’

Lasalle scribbled something on his pad then watched as Joubert pulled a pen light from his breast pocket and shone it into Decard’s eyes.

‘He’s well under,’ Joubert said, noting the vastly dilated pupils of his subject. ‘But, let’s just make sure.’ He reached back to the table nearby and retrieved two long, thick needles each one about six inches in length. Then, he pinched the skin together on the back of Decard’s right hand and, slowly, pushed the first needle through.

There was no reaction from the subject.

‘Can you feel any pain, Jean?’ asked Joubert.

‘No.’

He took the second needle and, opening the loose fist which Decard had made, Joubert pushed the second needle under the nail of the man’s index finger until only the eye showed. There was no blood.

‘Do you feel anything?’

‘No.’

Joubert nodded to his companion then hastily tugged the wicked points free.

Lasalle pulled a pack of playing cards from his pocket and handed them to Joubert, standing behind his friend so that he himself could see the slim plastic sheets. The first one was the seven of spades.

‘Which card am I holding, Jean?’ Joubert wanted to know.

Decard told him.

‘And this one?’

‘Queen of Diamonds.’

Correct.

‘Next?’

‘Ten of Clubs.’

Correct.

They went through thirty cards and Decard was accurate every time.

‘Amazing,’ said Lasalle. ‘Are you going to bring him out of it now?’

‘In a moment,’ Joubert assured him. Then to Decard; ‘Jean, I am going to think of some words, I want you to tell me what they are.

Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

Joubert scribbled them down on a piece of paper and showed it to his companion. Decard recited the words almost rhythmically.

Joubert smiled. Lasalle could only shake his head in amazement.

‘There will be a bus crash in the Rue De Bologne.’ The words came from Decard with the same monosyllabic drone as before. Both Joubert and Lasalle looked at him aghast.

‘Repeat what you said,’ Joubert urged.

Decard obliged.

‘When? How do you know?’

‘I can see the … the dead.’ He was staring blankly ahead as if looking beyond the walls to something which neither of the other men could see.

‘When is this crash going to happen?’ Joubert asked.

‘At 3.49 today.’

Lasalle shot an anxious glance at his watch.

it’s 3.46,’ he told Joubert.

‘How do you know this is going to happen?’ demanded Joubert.

i can see it now.’

‘How many will die?’

‘Four.’

is it possible?’ Lasalle said, his brow furrowed. ‘Can he really be seeing it?’

Joubert didn’t answer, he merely looked at his own watch and saw that it was

3.48.

Jean Decard was silent for a moment then his mouth opened wide in a soundless scream, his fa^e contorted into an attitude of fear and pain so profound that Lasalle took a step back. Then, with a low grunt, Decard blacked out.

It took the two men ten minutes to revive him and, when he finally regained consciousness, he still seemed to be in a trance. He tried to rise but fell, knocking a table over in his wake. After another thirty minutes he was coherent. His face was ashen with dark smudges beneath his eyes.

Joubert gripped his arm.

‘Jean, can you remember anything of what you said earlier?’

Decard shook his head.

‘I feel sick,’ was all he could say.

Lasalle fetched him a glass of water.

As the three men sat in the room there was a loud knock on the door and, a moment later, a thick-set man in the uniform of a gendarme entered.

‘Which one of you is Jean Decard?’ the uniformed man asked.

i am,’ Decard told him.

‘And you two?’ the gendarme wanted to know.

‘We both work here at the Metapsychic Centre,’ said Lasalle.

‘Step outside, please,’ the gendarme said.

‘No,’ said Decard. ‘It’s all right, what have 1 done wrong?’

‘Nothing, Monsieur,’ said the gendarme almost apologetically, i must tell you that I have some bad news.’

Lasalle and Joubert exchanged glances then directed their gaze back at the uniformed man. He had lowered his voice slightly, an air of expectant solemnity having fallen over the room.

At approximately 3.49 that afternoon, Jean Decard’s twelve-year-old daughter had been killed when a lorry smashed into the bus which was carrying her and her schoolfriends home. There had been three other deaths besides hers.

‘Where did it happen?’ Decard wanted to know, tears filling his eyes.

The gendarme cleared his throat.

‘The Rue De Bologne.’

Michel Lasalle scooped some cool water into his hand and then swallowed it. He felt the tranquilizer stick in his throat for a moment so he swallowed more water, finally wiping his hands on the towel beneath the sink. He exhaled deeply and replaced the bottle of pills in his trouser pocket. He probably didn’t need them any longer but, over the past eighteen months since the death of his wife, the pills had become more than a mere psychological crutch for him. Lasalle was dependent on them, not daring to see what life was like without the temporary relief whichthey brought him. He did not look like a man who had suffered a nervous breakdown, but then again his wife had not looked like the kind of woman who would die suddenly of heart failure aged thirty-five. Lasalle had retreated within himself after her death. Like a snail inside its shell he refused to be coaxed out again by work or friends.

He became hermit-like in his existence. He and his wife had been childless.

She had been infertile

— her Fallopian tubes blocked. Lasalle’s parents had been dead for five years so he had no one to turn to for help. His breakdown had begun slowly, gradually building up like some festering growth within his mind until, finally, his sense of reason seemed to collapse in on itself like a crumbling house.

He turned away from the sink and looked across the room at Joubert who was sitting with his eyes closed, a cigarette held delicately between his fingers.

The ash looked as if it were about to drop off and Lasalle watched as smoke rose lazily from the butt. When Joubert finally moved his hand, the ash dropped on to the carpet. Lasalle quickly trod it in.

Lasalle had worked at the Metapsychic Centre for the past twelve years. The building itself stood on the outskirts of Paris, a large modern looking edifice constructed in the shape of a gigantic ‘E’. Its smooth unbroken lines gave it the appearance of having been hewn from one single lump of rock

instead of constructed piece by piece. Lasalle lived less than a mile from the building, near the church yard where his wife was buried.

As he stood looking absently around the room he tried to drive thoughts of her from his mind but every time he heard of more death, as he had with Jean Decard’s daughter, the memories came flooding back.

His companion, Joubert, had no such ties. He was single once more after the break-up of his marriage but then again he had always found the attractions of work infinitely more exciting than those of domesticity. Despite being two years younger than Lasalle, hewas possibly better informed on the subject of the paranormal, having worked at the Laboratory of Parapsychology in Utrecht for six years where he completed his Ph.D in Human Science. He had then moved on to the University of Frieburg in West Germany prior to joining the Centre in Paris.

Joubert was every bit as different psychologically from his colleague as he was physically. There was a certain detached coldness about Joubert. He saw everyone and everything as potential sources of information and study. The human volunteers with whom he worked might as well have been laboratory rats.

He showed as much feeling towards them. To Joubert, work was everything and knowledge was the

pinnacle. He would never rest until he had solved a problem. And, at the moment, he and Lasalle had a problem.

‘Precognition.’

Lasalle looked at his companion.

‘The business with Decard,’ he continued. ‘The telepathy and then seeing the accident. It had to be precognition.’

‘Do you think he was able to see the vision because it involved his own daughter?’ Lasalle asked.

‘Decard didn’t know that his daughter was going to be one of the victoms, only that there was going to be a crash and that four people would die. The fact that he was close to one of the victims isn’t necessarily relevant.’

‘What are you getting at, Michel?’

‘We’ve tested three people, the same way we tested Decard. The results were the same in each case. Each one showed varying forms of telepathy while hypnotised but, with the other subjects, we brought them out of their trances earlier, quicker. If they had been under longer then they too may have been able to predict future events.’

Joubert got to his feet, crossed to the pot of coffee on the table nearby and poured himself a cup. He took a sip, wincing slightly as it burned the end of his tongue.

‘Depending upon the susceptibility of the subject,’ he continued, ‘there’s no limit to what future events we can learn of.’ A brief smile flickered across his face. Not only could disasters be averted but foreknowledge of events could have its more lucrative side as well. Could a subject foresee the outcome when a roulette wheel was spun? Joubert took another sip of his coffee, this time ignoring the fact that it was so hot.

‘But Decard was only able to foresee the future while in a hypnotic trance,’

Lasalle interjected.

‘Which points to the fact that there is an area of the mind which only responds when the subject is unconscious. An area previously unexplored, with the capacity for prophecy.’

There was a long silence finally broken by Lasalle.

‘I’d better phone the Institute in England,’ he said. ‘They should know about this.’

‘No,’ said Joubert. ‘I’ll do it.’

He stepped in front of his colleague and closed the door behind him, leaving Lasalle somewhat bemused. Joubert

went to his office and sat down behind his desk, pulling the phone towards him. He lifted the receiver but hesitated before dialling.

‘An area of the brain previously unexplored,’ he thought. His features hardened slightly. The discovery, once announced, would undoubtedly bring fame

to himself.

It was not a secret he wanted to share.

He tapped agitatedly on the desk top, cradling the receiver in his hand a moment longer before finally dialling.

Kelly picked up the phone and pressed it to her ear.

‘Kelly Hunt speaking,’ she said.

‘Miss Hunt, this is the Metapsychic Centre.’

She did not recognise the voice.

‘Lasalle?’ she asked.

‘No. My name is Joubert. Alain Joubert. We have not spoken before.’

Kelly disliked the coldness in his voice. She was, however, relieved that he spoke excellent English, just as Lasalle did. Her French was no more than passable.

‘Did you receive the copy of the tape recording I sent?’ Kelly asked.

‘We did,’ he told her.

‘Have you made any progress with your subjects?’

There was a hiss of static. A moment’s hesitation.

‘None,’ Joubert said, flatly. ‘That is why I am phoning. I feel that it is unproductive for our two Institutes to continue exchanging information on this subject.’

Kelly frowned.

‘But it was agreed from the beginning that the research would be undertaken jointly,’ she protested. ‘You would use hypnosis, we would use drugs.’

There was a long silence.

‘The subject we tested today was unreceptive,’ the Frenchman lied.

Kelly sensed the hostility in the man’s voice and it puzzled her.

‘Lasalle told me that your use of hypnosis seemed to be showing results,’ she said, irritably. ‘He was very happy with the way the research was going.’

‘My colleague has a tendency to exaggerate,’ Joubert said, stiffly.

‘Where is Lasalle? May I speak to him?’ He is working. I don’t want to interrupt him.’

‘So you have nothing at all for me?’

‘No.’ The answer came back rapidly. A little too rapidly. Kelly moved the receiver an inch or two from her ear, looking at it as if she expected to see Joubert magically appear from the mouthpiece. His abrupt tone was a marked contrast to that of Lasalle who she was used to conversing with.

Kelly thought about mentioning the EEG on Maurice Grant but, before she could speak, Joubert continued.

‘I have nothing to tell you, Miss Hunt,’ he said, his tone unequivocal.

Til have to tell Dr Vernon …’

Joubert cut her short.

‘Do as you wish, Miss Hunt.’

He hung up.

Kelly found herself gazing once again at the receiver. She slowly replaced it, her initial bewilderment at the Frenchman’s unco-operative attitude subsiding into anger. Joubert had come close to being downright rude. Why, she wondered?

Was he hiding something?

If so, what reasons would he have?

She shook her head, annoyed both with Joubert and also with her own over-active imagination. Nevertheless, he had no right to sever contacts between the two Institutes. Perhaps she should speak to Lasalle, she had his home phone number.

Maybe he would contact her tomorrow.

She sighed and sat back in her chair, listening to the rain beating against the window behind her. On the desk before her lay the newest EEG read-out taken only an hour earlier from Maurice Grant. It looked normal, in marked contrast to the one taken when he’d been in the drug-induced state. She ran an appraising eye over the lines but could see nothing out of the ordinary. There was another polygraph scheduled for later, while Grant was asleep. Perhaps

there would be discrepancies on that one, some kind of clue to the tricks his mind was playing.

She thought about his description of the nightmare. The ritualistic slaughter of his wife and child. She wondered what it all meant.

Oxford

It was well past midnight when the powerful lights of the Audi cut through the gloom of the driveway which led up to Stephen Vernon’s house. The rain which had been falling all day had stopped, to be replaced by an icy wind which battered at the windows of the car as if trying to gain access. Vernon brought the vehicle to a halt and switched off the engine, sitting for a moment in the darkness.

The moon was fighting in vain to escape from behind a bank of thick cloud and what little light it gave turned Vernon’s house into some kind of dark cameo, silhouetted against the mottled sky. He sat there for a few more seconds then pushed open his door and clambered out. The wind dug freezing points into him, nipping at his face and hands. He ran towards the front door and fumbled for his key, his breath clouding around him as he exhaled. He finally found the key and opened the door, snapping on a light as he did so. The hall and porch were suddenly illuminated, driving back the shadows from the front of the house.

The building was surrounded by a high wooden fence which creaked menacingly in the high wind, so Vernon was effectively shut off from his closest neighbours.

The house was tastefully decorated throughout, walls and carpets in soft pastel colours combining to form a welcoming warmth as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him, forcing out the wind.

There was a large envelope on the doormat. Vernon saw the postmark and hesitated a second before stooping to retrieve it. He carried it into the sitting room and dropped it on the antique writing bureau which nestled in one corner of

the spacious room. Then he crossed to the walnut drinks cabinet, took out a tumbler and a bottle of Haig and poured himself a generous measure. As he drank he looked across at the letter on the bureau. When he put his glass down he found that his hand was shaking.

He passed into the kitchen, the fluorescents buzzing into life as he touched the switch. He hunted through the freezer and found a frozen chicken casserole. It took fifteen minutes according to the packet. Vernon decided that that was all he wanted to eat. He hadn’t much of an appetite. He left the polythene-wrapped casserole in a pan of water and wandered back into the living room, ignoring the letter on the bureau which he still had not opened.

The stairs creaked mournfully as he made his way to the first floor. From the window on the landing he could see the two houses on either side. Both were in darkness, the occupants obviously having retired to bed. Vernon resolved to do the same thing as soon as he’d eaten.

Five doors led off from the landing: the door to his own bedroom, that of the spare room, then the bathroom and another bedroom which had once belonged to his son who had long since departed.

The fifth door remained firmly locked.

Vernon paused before it for a moment, swallowing hard.

He extended a hand towards the knob.

A window rattled loudly in its frame, startling him. He glanced at the door one last time then walked across the landing to his bedroom. Once inside he removed his suit, hung it up carefully and changed into a sweater and a pair of grey slacks. Without the restraint of a shirt, his stomach was even more prominent and it sagged sorrowfully over his waist-band. He tried to draw it in but lost the battle and allowed the fat to flow forward once more. Vernon glanced at the clock on the bedside table and decided that his supper would soon be ready so he flicked off the bedroom light and headed back across the landing once again.

As he approached the locked door he slowed his pace.

His breathing subsided into low, almost pained exhalations as he stood staring

at the white partition. He felt his heart beating that little bit faster.

There was a loud crack and Vernon gasped aloud.

He spun round in the gloom, searching for the source of the noise.

The wind howled frenziedly for a second, its banshee wail drowning out his own laboured breathing.

The sound came again and he realized it came from inside the locked room. But it was muffled.

He took a step towards the door, freezing momentarily as he heard the sound once more — harsh scratching, like fingernails on glass.

On glass.

He realized that there was a tree directly beside the window of the locked room, it must be the wind blowing the branches against it. Nothing more.

Vernon felt angry with himself for having reacted the way he did. He glared at the door for a moment longer then turned and padded down the stairs. He walked through the sitting room, unable to avoid looking at the envelope which still lay on the bureau like an accusation. He would open it after supper he promised himself.

He sat in the kitchen and ate his supper, discovering that he wasn’t as hungry as he thought. He prodded the food indifferently, left the plate on the table and went into the sitting room. There he poured himself another scotch and slumped in one of the high-backed armchairs near the fire. It was cold in the room and Vernon pulled his chair closer to the heat, watching as the mock flames danced before him. He downed most of the whisky, cradling the glass in his hand, gazing into its depths.

Above him, a floorboard creaked.

Merely the house settling down, he thought, smiling humourlessly.

He got to his feet and filled his glass once again, finally finding the courage to retrieve the letter. He slid his index finger beneath the flap of the envelope and started to open it.

The strident ringing of the phone pierced the silence and nearly caused him to drop the letter.

He picked up the receiver hurriedly.

‘Stephen Vernon speaking,’ he said.

i tried to ring earlier but there was no answer.’ The voice had a strong accent and Vernon recognized it immediately.

‘What have you got for me, Joubert?’ he said. The Frenchman told him about Decard’s prophecy.

‘Does anyone else know?’ Vernon asked.

‘Only Lasalle,’ the Frenchman told him.

‘You haven’t told Kelly?1

‘No, you told me not to give her any information other than that which you authorised.’

‘What about Lasalle?’

‘He knows nothing of what is going on, he …’

Vernon cut him short.

‘I mean, what has he told Kelly?’

‘She doesn’t know anything about what happened today and from now on / will deal with her.’

Vernon nodded.

‘Vernon? Vernon, are you there?’

He seemed to recover his senses.

‘Yes, I’m sorry. Look, Joubert, when will you know for sure if the experiments have been successful?’

The Frenchman hesitated.

‘That’s difficult to say. I feel we are very close to a breakthrough though.’

‘How long before you know?’

‘You are asking for too much, Vernon. I cannot say for certain.’

Then guess. I have waited too long for this.’

‘You are not the only one.’

There was a long silence finally broken by Joubert.

‘Two days, perhaps a little longer, but I can’t promise.’

Vernon sighed.

‘Remember, Kelly is to know nothing.’

‘And if she becomes suspicious?’

‘I’ll take care of that.’

Joubert seemed satisfied by the answer. The two men exchanged cursory farewells then the Frenchman hung up. Vernon stood motionless for a moment then replaced the receiver, returning to his fireside chair. And his drink.

And the letter.

He opened it and pulled out the piece of paper inside. Vernon took another gulp from his glass before unfolding it.

Before he started reading he glanced, as he always did, at the heading on the paper:

FAIRHAM SANATORIUM

New York

Blake studied his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He shook his head. It was no use. The bloody bow-tie wasn’t straight. As if he were grappling with some kind of angry moth, he pulled it from his throat and tried to fix it once again. He’d been trying for the best part of fifteen minutes but, so far, the bow-tie had resisted all attempts to remain in place and Blake was beginning to lose his temper. He looked at his watch and saw that it was 8.00 p.m., a fact confirmed by the announcer on the TV in’his room who was in the process of introducing another re-run of Magnum.

Mathias had said he would pick the writer up at his hotel at 8.15. The drive to Toni Landers’ house would take twenty or thirty minutes depending on New York’s night time traffic.

Toni Landers was well known, by reputation anyway, to Blake. A stunningly beautiful woman who had, two nights ago, been presented with an Emmy for her performance in one of the year’s biggest television spectaculars. At present, she was packing them in on Broadway in a production of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Tonight she was giving a party to celebrate her triumph. Mathias had been invited and had cajoled Blake into joining him. The writer had been to showbusiness parties before and they usually bored him stiff, self-congratulatory affairs with clashes of ego which ranked alongside the collision of Mack trucks. In Los Angeles they were, intolerable, the acting fraternity turning out in force to every one. Parties in L.A. were given for any reason, usually not good ones. Has-beens, no hopers, and would-be starlets thronged these almost masochistic gatherings where egos were flayed unmercifully. He had met writers who had yet to find a publisher but spoke as if they were the natural successor to Hemingway, encountered actors and actresses

who spoke of the promised part they had in some forthcoming epic but who would more than likely end their days doing what they did between bit parts — either waitressing or cleaning cars.

New York parties were a little different. They had their share of bores, as did any party, but Blake found he could tolerate them slightly more easily because there didn’t seem to be quite such a wealth of pretension in New York as there was on the West Coast. Nevertheless, he still did not relish the prospect of the party but Mathias had asked him, so what the hell?

He was still struggling with his bow-tie when his phone rang. Blake left the recalcitrant thing in its slightly lop-sided position and picked up the receiver.

‘Yes.’

“There’s someone for you in reception, Mr Blake,’ the voice told him.

He looked at his watch. It was 8.15, on the nose.

‘I’ll be straight down,’ he said and, flicking off the lights in his room, he closed the door behind him and made for the elevator.

Blake recognised Mathias’ chauffeur standing by the reception desk. He was taking a few hurried puffs on a cigarette which he reluctantly extinguished when he saw the Englishman step out of the lift. Blake approached him,

by-passing a red faced man who was complaining about the soap in his room being dirty. The chauffeur smiled.

‘Mr Blake,’ he said, ‘Mr Mathias is waiting for you in the car.’

The two of them headed out of the hotel lobby with its uncreasing drone of Muzak, into the symphony of car hooters, shouts and roaring engines which was 59th Street. A police car, its sirens blaring, swept past adding its own noise to the cacophony which already filled the air.

The chauffeur motioned Blake towards a waiting black Cadillac and, as he drew close, the door was pushed open for him. The writer felt like some kind of cheap gangster about to be taken for a ride. The grinning face of the chauffeur behind him and the inscrutable look of Mathias, who was seated in the back, added to that feeling.

The psychic was dressed completely in white. White suit. White shoes. White shirt. The only thing which broke up the pure expanse was a red tie. It looked as though Mathias was bleeding.

‘Good evening, David,’ Mathias said.

Blake returned the greeting. He wondered whether he should mention what had happened the previous afternoon. The voice in his room. The body floating in his bath. He eventually decided against it. He glanced across at Mathias, affording himself a swift appraising glance. The white suit seemed to make the psychic’s feature’s even darker, the areas around his eyes arid neck almost invisible. His hands were clasped gently on his lap and Blake saw that he wore two rings, each one gold set with a large pearl.

‘What sort of day have you had?’ Mathias asked him.

‘Considering I spent most of it in a library, not very inspiring,’ the writer told him.

‘More research?’

Blake nodded.

‘Still trying to unlock the secrets of the mind?’ the psychic chuckled.

Blake ignored the remark.

‘Why did you ask me to come to this party with you tonight?’ he enquired.

Mathias shrugged.

‘You and I have become friends over the past six days and I thought you might enjoy it.’ He smiled. ‘You might, you know.’

‘Are any of the guests clients of yours?’ Blake wanted to know.

‘Some of them have, from time to time, sought my help if that’s what you mean.’

‘In what ways?’

is it important?’

‘I’m just curious.’

‘You’re curious about a lot of things, David,’ the psychic said and looked out of the side window. Blake studied his profile for a moment then he too turned his attention to the busy street. On either side of them skyscrapers rose like concrete geysers spewed forth from the ground, black shapes surrounded by the dark sky. Many were invisible but for the odd lights which shone in some of their windows. It looked as if someone had taken hundreds of stars and hurled them at the gloomy monoliths.

Multi-coloured neon signs burned above shops and cinemas, theatres and clubs, as if millions of glow worms had been sealed inside the glass prison of a bulb. The city that never slept was preparing for another night of insomnia.

i asked you before why it was so important to you to discover the extent of my powers,1 Mathias said, interrupting the relative silence which had descended.

‘And I told you it was because I don’t like mysteries,’ Blake told him. ‘I’ve never yet run into anything that’s beaten me.’ There was a firm, almost harsh, resolution in the writer’s voice.

Even in the gloom of the Cadillac’s interior the psychic’s icy blue eyes sparkled challengingly.

‘There are some things …’

Blake cut him short.

‘… which it’s better not to know.’

Both men laughed.

‘Well, reeling off the world’s worst cliches isn’t going to stop me either,’

the Englishman chuckled. A minute or two passed, then, his tone more sombre, Blake continued:

‘This power, this manipulation of another person’s Astral personality, if you do possess such abilities would you ever consider using them as a weapon?’

Mathias looked genuinely puzzled.

‘I don’t follow,’ he said.

‘If you can control someone else’s mind and actions then there’s no limit to what you can do. To what you can make others do.’

The cadillac was beginning to slow up. Ahead Toni Landers’ house was a blaze of light.

“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?’ said Mathias, smiling.

The chauffeur brought the cadillac to a halt behind a bright red Porsche then clambered out and held open the door for Mathias. Blake didn’t wait for the same treatment, he stepped out of the other side, tugging once again at his bow-tie as he did so.

The tarmac driveway which swung in a crescent before Toni Landers’ house looked more like a car showroom. Blake counted five Cadillacs, a couple of Transams, the Porsche and a silver Plymouth Fury as he and the psychic walked towards the porch.

The house itself was a three storey affair, flanked on two sides by trees, beneath which were carefully tended flower beds. Strings of light bulbs had been hung from the house to the tree branches and it seemed as if a light glowed in every single window of the building. The house looked like a beacon amidst the darkness. It was set slightly on a hill, the nearest neighbour being about five hundred yards away. Even from outside Blake could hear music and, as the door was opened, it seemed to sweep over him like a wave, mingling with the sea of conversation.

A maid took Mathias and Blake through into a spacious sitting room which looked slightly smaller than a ballroom. A staircase rose in a spiral from the centre of the room, leading up to the first floor landing where Blake could see people standing in groups or in couples chatting amiably. Two huge chandeliers hung from the ceiling like clusters of diamonds. But, for all the apparent pomp and grandeur, the house had a homely feel to it. There was a piano in one corner of the room and five or six people were gathered around it. Blake noticed that one of them, a man about his own age, was playing softly, quite oblivious to the sound coming from the Hi-Fi. The writer recognized him as the lead singer with the band currently topping the American charts. He spotted three or four well-known actors and actresses, and a film director he’d seen once or twice on TV.

Toni Landers was standing by the large open fireplace, a glass of champagne cradled in her hand. She was talking to a distinguished looking grey-haired man in his fifties who was perpetually pulling at the end of his nose, doubtless in an effort to disguise the fact he was trying to see even further down the front of her dress than the plunging neckline allowed.

Blake had seen her before but never this close and she was even more beautiful than he had first thought. She was not a tall woman, barely five-six with the benefit of long stiletto heels. She wore a black dress slashed to the thigh which, each time she moved, allowed him a glimpse of her smoothly curved legs. A shock of red hair cascaded over her shoulders, catching the light every so often to glisten like rust-coloured silk. She wore a black choker around her throat, a single diamond set in its centre.

‘Our hostess,’ said Mathias, nodding in her direction. He took a glass of champagne from the tray offered to him by a tubby waitress and Blake did likewise.

It was as he sipped his drink that Blake noticed eyes were beginning to turn in the direction of Mathias. In his white suit, the psychic was even more prominent, but Blake had the feeling that if he’d turned up in a worn-out sports jacket the effect would have been the same. A young woman approached

him.

‘You’re Jonathan Mathias aren’t you?’ she said, the words sounding more like a statement than a question.

‘Yes,” he answered, shaking her hand gently.

He introduced Blake who noticed that the girl seemed somewhat preoccupied. She smiled perfunctorily at the writer then turned back to Mathias, pausing to look at him as if he were a piece of precious metal before returning to the group from which she had emerged.

A man approached and shook hands with the psychic. Blake observed that same look of reverence on his face as had been on the girl’s. He too smiled thinly at the writer then wandered away as if in some kind of daze. Blake looked on with mild amusement as this happened half a dozen times. With people constantly approaching Mathias, Blake felt rather like a dog waiting at its master’s table for any scraps to fall. When a girl in a royal blue trouser suit spoke to him he was so surprised he hadn’t time to answer before she walked away.

Blake took another glass of champagne when the tray came round. It wasn’t that he particularly liked the bloody stuff, but at least it was better than standing there with his hands in his pockets looking like Mathias’ bodyguard instead of a guest.

‘They obviously know you,’ he said to the psychic as the last of his admirers left them. Blake drained what was left in his glass and put the empty receptacle down on a nearby table. God, what he wouldn’t give for a pint. Even a can of luke-warm lager would have been respite enough from the endless flow of champagne.

‘I’ve never met any of those people before, David,’ said Mathias, sipping at his own drink.

‘They know you by reputation then,’ Blake insisted.

‘People are fascinated by what they don’t understand.’ Those ice-blue eyes sparkled. ‘And they can never hope to understand me.’

‘Is that the way you want it?’ Blake asked.

‘That’s exactly the way I want it.’

The two men regarded one another coolly for a second, eyes locked together like magnets.

‘Jonathan.’

Both of them turned to see Toni Landers standing there. She was smiling broadly, displaying a set of teeth which testified to her dentist’s expertise.

‘I’m so glad you could come,’ she said and kissed the psychic on the cheek.

‘You look beautiful, Toni,’ Mathias told her. ‘It’s a long time since we spoke.’

She turned to face Blake who returned her smile when he was introduced.

‘Congratulations on winning the Emmy, Miss Landers,’ he said, motioning to the statuette behind them on the mantelpiece.

‘Thank you, please call me Toni,’ she said. There was a soft liJt to her voice which made Blake feel immediately at ease. She was, indeed, a very beautiful woman combining a radiant innocence with that of uncultivated sexuality.

‘What do you do, David?’ she asked him.

‘I’m a writer.’

‘What sort of books?’

‘Non-fiction, about the paranormal, the occult. That kind of thing.’

‘No wonder Jonathan brought you along,’ she said, slipping her arm through that of the psychic. ‘Are you writing about him?’

‘I’m trying.’

Toni chuckled and reached for her drink which was still on the mantelpiece. A ten by eight colour photo in a gilt frame perched there. It was of a young boy, no older than eight, Blake guessed. The lad was smiling, his blond hair brushed

back behind ears which were a little too large. Freckles dotted his nose and cheeks in an irregular pattern and, even beneath the glass of the frame, his eyes seemed to twinkle with some kind of untold mischief.

‘That’s my son, Rick,’ she told him. ‘He’s staying with a friend for the night.’

Blake cast a quick glance at Toni’s hands and saw no wedding ring. He wondered who the father of the child was.

‘Do you have any family, David?’ she wanted to know.

‘I can hardly look after myself let alone anyone else,’ Blake said, smiling.

‘Rick means everything to me. If you had a child of your own you’d understand that,’ Toni said, her tone changing slightly. She looked longingly at the picture. At her son. It had been an unwanted pregnancy and she had been through a difficult delivery. She still saw Rick’s father now and again. He was one of the top publicity men at Twentieth Century Fox. He still lived in the house they had bought together those nine years earlier. It had been his idea that they live together. He was nearly ten years older than Toni so she listened to what he said. In those early days she would have done anything for him. She had worshipped him and he had adored her. The young, in-demand actress who had played two leading roles within six months of moving to L.A.

from her home in Virginia. She was already commanding fees of half a million a picture and things seemed to be running smoothly until she became pregnant. At first he had accused her of sleeping with other men but, when he finally came to his senses, the decision he made had been swift and, she realized with the benefit of hindsight, almost inevitable.

Get an abortion or get out of the house.

A child, he had told her, would wreck her career. Besides, he wasn’t ready to be a father. For the first time in their relationship, Toni had followed her own instincts. There would be no abortion and if it meant the end of the relationship then so be it. She had gone to stay with a friend, working for as long as she could, finally doing voice-overs for commercials when she was too far advanced.

The combination of the break-up and the difficult birth, (a Caesarean delivery after sixteen agonising hours of labour) had brought her close to a breakdown.

For three months she

languished in the throes of such deep post-natal depression that her close family sometimes feared for her sanity but slowly she began to drag herself out of it. She decided that she had to go on for her baby’s sake. It had been a monumental effort but somehow she had managed it. She began work five months later, helping out an old friend who was with the script department of MGM.

Another month and she had, after rigorous exercise and dieting, regained her shapely figure and, another two months after that, she was offered a leading role in a highly successful ABC series. It had been a small step from there back to films and now, to the stage.

‘How is Rick?’ Mathias asked her, also studying the photo.

‘He’s fine,’ she beamed, the very mention of the boy’s name causing her to perk up. ‘Jonathan was a great help to me when I started work again after having Rick,’ she explained to Blake.

The writer nodded.

‘So, what are you working on next?’ he asked her.

Her smile faded slightly.

‘Well, I have a slight problem there.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Blake said.

‘No, what I mean is, I have a decision to make and it’s difficult.’

‘What kind of decision?’ Mathias asked.

She drained what was left in her glass and placed it alongside the Emmy on the mantelpiece.

Tve been offered a part in the next Star Wars movie but it means being away from home for three or four months. I don’t think I want that. I don’t want to be away from Rick that long.’

‘But you’ve been on location before and left him,’ said Mathias.

Toni shook her head.

‘Only for days at a time, like I said, here we’re talking about months.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ Blake asked.

‘I guess I’ll have to refuse the part.’ She sighed. ‘Shit, my agent won’t be very pleased, he busted his ass to get it for me.”

‘But your son won’t be alone. He’ll have people to look after him won’t he?’ said the writer.

Toni turned to Mathias.

‘Will he be OK, Jonathan? You can tell me. You can … see.’

Mathias sighed.

‘I hope you didn’t invite me here tonight to perform some kind of fairground trick,’ said the psychic.

‘Please,, Jonathan.’ There was a note of pleading in her voice.

‘What do you want to know?’ he said, quietly.

A look of relief passed across her face.

i want to know if Rick will be all right if I decide to leave him for a few months,’ she said.

Mathias nodded. He sat down in one of the chairs beside the fireplace while Toni turned and scuttled off towards a door on the far side of the room. Blake watched with interest. He had an idea what Mathias was going to do, his suspicions confirmed when he saw Toni return moments later with a pack of cards. He could see immediately from their size that this wasn’t an ordinary pack and, as she placed them on the coffee table before the psychic, he saw that they were Tarot cards.

An expectant hush seemed to fall over the room. The Hi-Fi was silent, only the steady click-click of the needle in the run-off grooves came from the speakers. Someone eventually removed it.

The group gathered around the piano stopped singing and turned towards Mathias who was gazing down at the cards, his brow knitted into deep furrows.

Blake took a step backward, his eyes straying alternately from Mathias to the cards and then across the table to Toni Landers. She, for her own part, settled in the chair opposite the psychic. He reached for the pack and shuffled it thoroughly.

‘Now you,’ he said to her, passing over the cards.

She followed his example and handed them back. Some of the other guests moved closer, anxious to see what was happening.

A large breasted girl with straw-coloured hair giggled.

Mathias shot her a withering glance, his eyes homing in on her like radar-guided rapiers. The colour drained from her face and she clutched the arm of the man she was with, as if seeking protection from those piercing orbs.

Satisfied that he would not be forced to endure any further interruptions, Mathias proceeded to divide the cards into ten packs of seven. This done, he held the first pack, face down, before him.

‘Pack one,’ he said, his voice low and resonant in the silent room. ‘That which is divine.’ He laid it on the table.

‘Pack two. Fatherhood.’ That too he placed on the table, above and to the right of the first. ‘Three. Motherhood.’

Blake and the others watched as he laid that one above the first pack, this time to the left.

‘Four. Compassion. Five. Strength. Six. Sacrifice.’

Blake felt a slight tingle run up his spine and wondered if he were the only one.

‘Seven. Love,’ Mathias continued. ‘Eight. The Arts. Nine. Health.’

Toni Landers shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

‘Ten. Worldly matters.’ Mathias sat back slightly. ‘The Tree is complete,’ he announced.

‘Tree?’ said someone behind him.

‘The Tree of the Cabala,’ Mathias answered without taking his eyes from the cards. He reached for the first pack and turned the card, repeating the process until all ten showed their faces.

Blake watched with interest; he had seen numerous Tarot readings over the years, ail symbols usually carrying variant interpretations. He wondered how

Mathias would read them? The psychic held one up.

‘Number eight,’ he said. ‘A decision.’

Toni Landers kept her eyes on the cards, hands clasped on her knees.

The psychic reached for another card.

‘Number seven. Travel.’

Blake noticed that Mathias’ hand was shaking slightly as he reached for the next card. The older man swallowed hard and flipped it over for all to see.

‘Sixteen. Change.’

‘What kind of change?’ Toni wanted to know.

Mathias fixed her in those powerful blue twin-points and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

‘I don’t know yet,’ he said, turning over another card. It was a card of the Minor Arcana. The dagger.

There were eight cards lying away from the cabbalistic pattern made up by the remainder of the pack. Mathias chose one of these but he hesitated before he turned it over, his hand shaking more violently now.

‘What’s wrong?’ Toni asked, her voice full of concern. ‘What can you see? Tell me what you see.’

Blake, like most other people in the room was watching the psychic’s quivering hand. He felt the chill begin to wrap itself around him more tightly, as if someone had clamped him in a freezing vice and was slowly turning the screw.

On the mantelpiece, the photograph of Rick Landers began to shudder, as if biown by some invisible breeze. ‘Turn it over,’ said Toni Landers, exasperatedly. Her breath was coming in short gasps now. ‘I want to see the card. Tell me what you can see.’

The picture of Rick continued to vibrate, its movement unnoticed by ail except the girl with the straw-coloured hair. She could not speak, all she could do was raise one finger in the direction of the photo.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said the man beside her, noticing the movement.

Mathias turned over the final card.

‘Danger,’ he said, breathlessly.

‘What kind of danger?’ Toni demanded, staring down at the card. ‘Tell me.’

‘Your son …’ Mathias began, falteringly.

There was a loud crash as the glass in the photo frame exploded outward as if there were a charge behind it. Slivers of crystal showered the guests nearby and Blake found himself stepping back to avoid the cascade.

A girl near him screamed.

The photo toppled from the mantelpiece and clattered to the ground. Toni Landers tore her gaze from the Tarot cards and saw the remains of the picture lying close by.

As she reached out to pick it up something red and shiny appeared on the photo, welling up from a cut in the paper.

It was blood.

Toni froze, watching as more of the crimson fluid dribbled over the slashed picture.

Blake looked on, mesmerised by the incident.

It was Mathias who finally snatched up the frame and its contents. He laid it gently on the table before him.

There was no more blood. The photo was unmarked.

Blake glanced at the psychic and then at the pieces of broken glass which littered the carpet beneath the mantelpiece.

‘What happened?’ Toni Landers wanted to know. ‘What does this mean?’

Mathias hesitated.

is something going to happen to my son?’ Toni asked. ‘Jonathan, tell me, please.’

He nodded.

is he going to die?’ she demanded.

i saw danger, I didn’t say he was going to die,’ the psychic said in an effort at consolation but it didn’t work.

Toni cradled the picture frame in her hands and stared down at the face of her

son. Tears formed at her eye corners but she fought them back.

Tm not leaving him,’ she said. ‘Not now.’

Mathias swallowed hard then looked up to see that Blake was watching him. The writer seemed relatively unmoved by what had happened. The other guests slowly began to disperse, their conversation now kept to a discreet whisper. The psychic got to his feet and put a hand on Toni Landers’ shoulder.

‘Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn’t done the reading,’ he said.

‘No,’ she whispered, shaking her head. ‘I’m pleased you did. Thank you.’

‘Will you be all right?’ Blake asked her.

Another woman joined them, slightly older than Toni. She smelt of expensive perfume. The woman crouched beside her and gripped her hand. Blake and Mathias wandered across the room towards the open French windows, leading out into the garden. A cool breeze had sprung up and it washed over the two men as they walked out on to the patio.

‘What did you see?’ asked Blake, when they were out of earshot of the other guests.

‘You know how to read Tarot cards, David,’ said Mathias. ‘You saw what I saw.’

‘You know what I mean,’ the Englishman challenged.

‘Her son is going to die,’ said Mathias, flatly. ‘Is that what you wanted to hear?’ He walked across the lawn towards a large ornamental fish pond which lay beneath the drooping arms of a willow. Leaves had fallen from the branches and were floating on the surface of the water. The liquid gleam caught the bright lights of the house in the background.

‘You didn’t read that in the cards did you?’ said Blake, not sure whether it was intended as a question or a statement.

‘No.’

‘Then how did you know the boy was going to die?’

‘You want to know all the secrets, David.’

‘Yes I do.’

‘I can’t give you the answers.’

‘You mean you won’t.’ Blake said, challengingly. ‘What made the photo frame break? That glass looked as if it had been hit with a hammer.’

‘The windows were open,’ Mathias suggested. ‘The breeze could have blown it off.’

“Come on, Jonathan,’ said the writer, wearily. ‘What the hell do you take me for?’

‘What do you think made it break?’ Mathias snarled, his brilliant blue eyes looking luminous in the darkness. ‘This … power of mine?’ The psychic turned and headed back towards the house, leaving Blake alone beside the pond. The writer walked slowly around the pool, catching sight of a fish once in a while. He let out a tired breath. The broken frame. The prophecy. Were they more of Mathias’ tricks? A mind-fuck — as he’d heard it put by an American psychologist? He was beginning to doubt if tricks was the right word. He had seen too much of the man over the past five or six days to dismiss him as a charlatan or fraud.

Blake shook his head and gazed into the pond, as if seeking his answers there.

He caught sight of his own reflection.

Blake froze momentarily, gaping at the vision which stared back at him from the water.

It was his reflection but the features were contorted into a mask of sheer terror. The mouth open in a soundless scream, eyes bulging wide in the sockets.

He took a step back, eyes still riveted to the image, his feet crunching on the hundreds of tiny stones which surrounded the pool. One of them bounced into the water, breaking the surface as it sent out endless ripples.

The reflection disappeared and, as the water slowly regained its stillness, Blake found that his image had also returned to normal. For long moments he looked down, as-if expecting that terror-stricken visage to appear once more, but it didn’t. A particularly cold breeze ruffled his hair and he shivered

slightly, deciding that it was time he returned to the house.

Whistling through the branches of the nearby tree, the wind sounded like soft, malevolent laughter.

3.04 a.m.

Blake pushed back the covers and clambered out of bed. He had been tossing and turning for the past hour and still sleep eluded him.

Mathias’ chauffeur had dropped him back at his hotel just after 1.30. By the time they had left Toni Landers’ house only a handful of people remained and the atmosphere retained the air of solemnity which seemed to have descended after the incident with the cards.

Upon returning to the hotel, Blake had downed a couple of much-needed bottles of beer in the bar then retreated to his room but he had found the oblivion of sleep elusive. Now he stood at his window looking out on the dark mass that was Central Park. Trees bowed and shuddered silently in the wake of the wind and the writer thought how forbidding the place looked once the cloak of night had fallen over it.

He switched on the TV, flicking from channel to channel until he found an old black and white film. Audie Murphy was busy winning the war single-handed for the USA. Blake gazed at the screen for a while then changed channels once more. There was a programme about Chinese cookery so he left it on, turning the sound clown. After five minutes he tired of that as well and switched the set off altogether, seeking comfort from the radio instead. He twisted the dial until he found the rock station, adjusting the volume as Y&T thundered out the opening chords of ‘Mean Streak’.

Outside, the wind crept around the building as if seeking some means of entry, wailing mournfully every so often.

Blake padded into the bathroom and filled one of the tumblers with water which he gulped down thirstily. Then he returned to the bedroom, seating himself at the writing table where his notes were spread out. He had already filled three large pads with information, random jottings, hard facts and a lot of speculation. All that would have to be filtered and sifted through before he could begin preparing his next book. Blake disliked research at the best of times but, in this case, the dislike had intensified. The subject of Astral travel, Astral projection and its related phenomena, he had discovered, was even vaster than he had first thought. The paradox being that the more he learned the less he knew. He had the pieces but could not fit the jigsaw together.

As the author of five world-wide bestsellers he could afford to live comfortably, one of the few writers who ever succeeded in making a decent living from such a precarious profession. The money and the attention had been welcome if somewhat unexpected. Blake had never intended to earn his living from writing books about the paranormal, it had all come about rather suddenly.

He’d left home at twenty, hoping to make his mark as a journalist but working for the local paper covering events like school fetes, or interviewing people who were complaining because their sewers were bunged up, did not hold his interest for long. He began writing fiction in his spare time. Tucked away in his miniscule bed-sit above a laundrette in Bayswater he would return from the office and set to work at his own typewriter. He had left the paper for a job in a West End cinema but the financial rewards were small. He eked out his meagre earnings by supplying pornographic stories to a magazine called Exclusive who paid him fifty pounds for each 5(XX) word opus he delivered. He had a couple of articles published by Cosmopolitan then he decided to write a novel. It took him just three weeks and was subsequently rejected by eight publishers before finally gaining acceptance from a small, independent house. It went the way of most first novels, sinking into obscurity within a month. But, he had never been one to give up easily. He turned to non-fiction and, after six months of careful research and another two actually writing, he produced his first book about the paranormal.

After four rejections it finally found favour with a prominent hardback

publisher.

A Light in the Black had been published two weeks before his twenty-second birthday.

Blake had used the advance to take a holiday. A luxury he had not been able to afford for three years. He returned to find that his book had not only been bought by Nova, a large paperback house, but the American rights had also been sold1 for a substantial sum. Blake suddenly found that he could afford to leave his bed-sit and rent a flat in Holland Park.

Two years and two more books later he bought the place and now, with five world-wide successes behind him, he had, only five months earlier, bought a large house off Sloane Square.

He no longer needed to rush his work either. He now took up to eight or nine months on research and the rest of the time completing the mechanics of the book — the actual typing. Blake was at his happiest shut away in his study working. He was not a solitary man however, quite the contrary in fact. He was well liked by most people. An easy smile always at the ready, he was comfortable around people and yet at times still preferred his own company.

Someone had once told him that the key to popularity was hypocrisy. If it was possible to be all things to all men at all times — do it. Blake had cultivated an easy-going image over the years which even those closest to him found hard to penetrate. He was all things to all men. Those he hated he spoke to with the same apparent warmth which he reserved for those who were allowed to pierce his facade.

Women were drawn to his practised charm, each one made to feel that she was the only girl in his life. The numerous encounters he had enjoyed since leaving home (that number increased once he became well-known) had only ever been superficial. To Blake at any rate. He smiled as he remembered something he’d read, attributed to Saul Bellow. He couldn’t remember the words exactly but the gist of it was there.

‘Telling a woman you’re a writer is like an aphrodisiac. She can’t wait to go to bed with you.’

He chuckled now as he flipped open his pad and reached for a pen.

Outside the hotel bedroom window the wind continued to blow strongly, hammering soundlessly at the panes as if threatening to break in. On the radio The Scorpions were roaring through ‘Coming Home’ and Blake decided he’d better turn the radio down.

That done he returned to his chair and scribbled a brief account of what had happened at Toni Landers’ house that evening, including the incident with the picture frame and also of seeing his own twisted reflection in the pond.

As he wrote he found that his eyelids were growing heavy, as if someone had attached minute lead weights to them. He yawned and sat back for a moment, stretching. It was good that he felt tired, perhaps at last he’d be able to sleep. He scanned what he’d written and sat forward once more, allowing his eyes to close tightly.

The lamp flickered.

It was probably the wind disturbing the power lines, he thought but then remembered that he was in New York where cables ran underground, and not in the English countryside where they were suspended from pylons.

It flickered again, this time plunging the room into darkness for a second or two.

Blake muttered something to himself and peered at the bulb. The bloody thing was loose, no wonder it kept going on and off. He picked up his pen once more, now scarcely able to keep his eyes open. He turned to a fresh page but, before he could start writing, he had slumped forward in his seat and, within seconds, he was sound asleep. The bathroom was full of steam.

Like a swirling white fog it curled and twisted in the air, condensation covering the mirror like a shroud so that when Blake looked into it, his reflection was smudged and unclear. He could still hear taps running, water splashing noisily into what was obviously an overfilled tub. Rivulets of water were

running down the side of the bath which, for some reason, was hidden by the shower curtain which had been pulled around it. Blake shrugged, he didn’t remember doing that.

He reached over and turned off the hot tap, cursing when he felt the heat in the metal. The condensation was on the shower curtain too, pouring down to puddle on the tiles beneath his feet.

Blake pulled back the flimsy plastic.

He shrieked aloud at the sight which met him.

Sitting up in the scalding water, skin covered by hideous welts from the blistering temperature, was a man.

The man was smiling broadly, his lips little more than ragged puffed up sores still leaking clear fluid. His head had obviously been immersed in the searing water because his face was red like a boiled lobster, the skin having risen to form innumerable liquescent blisters, some of which had burst and were spilling their contents down his cheeks. His entire body was scarlet and, such was the intensity of the water’s heat, Blake noticed that three of the man’s fingernails had been scalded free. They hung by thin tendrils of skin from the ends of the raw digits.

Blake stood rooted to the spot, his eyes gaping wide. But, it was not the appearance of the man which terrified him. It was his features.

Scalded and burnt though they were, they were unmistakably those of Blake himself.

He screamed again. The scream woke him.

Blake sat bolt upright in his seat, perspiration beaded on his forehead. The lamp had stopped flickering, the room was bathed in a comforting yellowish glow. The sound of heavy rock music had been replaced by the sound of voices as the DJ interviewed his guest.

It took the writer a moment to realize that he’d been dreaming.

He swallowed hard and looked behind him to where the bathroom door was ajar.

It was dark in there. No running water. No light. No steam.

Blake wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and released a sigh of relief.

‘That’s what you get for trying to work at this time in the morning,’ he told himself, reaching forward to close the notepad.

The page which had been blank before he dozed off had several sentences written on it.

The letters were large and untidy but the handwriting was unmistakably his.

Blake rubbed his eyes and turned back a page. He must have written the words before dozing off. But, as he re-read them, he realized that the words were new. He scanned the spidery writing:

The writer swallowed hard as he scanned the words. His own words. Blake had heard of this kind of thing before, of so-called ‘automatic writing’ but it usually only occurred when the subject was in a trance. Was what he saw before him an example of automatic writing?

He sucked in a deep breath and held the paper before him. This time, he did not intend keeping things to himself. He would tell Mathias about what had happened and about the nightmare. Blake tore the piece of paper from the pad, wincing suddenly as he did so. He felt pain in his right hand and, as he turned it over he saw that his palm and wrist were bright red and swollen slightly.

As if they’d been scalded in very hot water.

Oxford

‘How many days is it since you last slept?’ Kelly asked Maurice Grant who was drumming agitatedly on the table at which they sat. Between them was a tape recorder, its twin spools turning slowly, the microphone pointed towards Grant.

‘Two,’ Grant snapped. ‘Why the hell are you asking? You ought to know, you’re the ones who keep pumping me full off fucking drugs.’ He got to his feet and walked away from the table towards the large plate glass window in the far wall. Outside the sun was shining.

‘Look out there,’ said Grant. ‘It’s a beautiful day and I’m stuck in here with you two bastards asking me stupid questions.’

The man seated to Kelly’s right leant closer.

‘What are you giving him?’ asked John Fraser, quietly.

‘Thirty mg of Methadrine,’ said Kelly. ‘But without the Tubarine to put him out at nights.’

Fraser nodded and scribbled something down on the note pad before him.

The room they were in was light and airy, mainly due to the large window at the far end. Two or three bright paintings decorated the white walls, adding a touch of colour, but the room was dominated by the bulk of an EEG machine. The Elema Schonander Mingograf was the most up to date of its kind and was one of four which the Institute owned. Readings had already been taken earlier that morning from Maurice Grant, over an hour ago according to the large wall clock which hung over the machine. But, at present, Kelly and her colleague were more concerned with Grant’s verbal reactions than those culled from an elec-troencephalogrammatic scan of his brain. He had been deliberately deprived of sleep for the last two nights, unable to live out, subconsciously, the nightmare which he usually experienced.

Both investigators watched him as he paced agitatedly back and forth before the window.

‘Why don’t you come and sit down again?’ said Fraser.

Kelly had worked with John Fraser on a number of occasions. He was ten years older than her but looked closer to fifty than thirty-five. His face had a mottled appearance to it as if he’d been out in the sun too long. His bulbous nose was shiny and reminded Kelly of a bald head. His eyes were rheumy and heavy-lidded like those of a man about to doze off. But he had a lean muscular body which looked as though it had somehow acquired the wrong head. The youthful frame and the haggard features seemed at odds.

i said, why don’t you …’

Grant cut him short.

‘Yeah, I heard you,’ he rasped, hesitating a moment before stomping back to the table where he sat down heavily. ‘Why the hell do you have to keep asking me so many questions? I just want to sleep.’

‘Why do you want to sleep?’ Fraser asked.

‘Because I’m fucking shattered,’ snapped Grant. ‘Do I need a better reason?’

He glared at the two investigators with eyes full of rage. A razor hadn’t touched his face for three or four days now and his cheeks and chin were carpeted by coarse bristles which rasped as he rubbed them.

‘You knew that things might get a little uncomfortable when you first agreed to help us,’ Kelly reminded him.

Maurice Grant didn’t answer. He merely looked from Kelly to Fraser then back again.

‘Are you ready to answer some questions?’ she asked him.

if I do, does that mean I can get some sleep?’ he demanded.

She nodded.

‘All right, ask your questions,’ he said, picking at the skin around his fingernails, chewing it occasionally.

‘When you can’t dream, what do you think about?’ she wanted to know, pushing the microphone closer to him.

‘Things, I …”

‘What kind of things?’ Fraser interrupted.

‘Things,’ Grant hissed. ‘All kinds of things, thoughts.’

‘Can you remember any of them?’ Kelly enquired.

‘No,” he said, flatly.

‘Then try,’ Fraser insisted.

Grant clenched his.teeth, his malevolent gaze swinging round to focus on the investigator.

‘I told you, I can’t remember,’ he said, the anger seething in his voice.

‘Are any of the thoughts to do with your wife and son?’ Kelly enquired.

Grant looked momentarily puzzled.

‘Why should they be?’

‘Look, if you keep answering a question with a question,’ said Fraser, ‘we’re going to be here all day.’

Kelly shot her colleague an irritable glance while Grant rounded on him once more.

‘What is this, some kind of fucking interrogation?’ he snapped. ‘You asked me to answer some que’stions, I’m trying to do that but you keep interrupting me.’ His voice had risen in volume.

‘Are any of the thoughts to do with your family?’ Kelly asked him again.

Grant shook his head.

‘Do you ever think about your wife and son when you can’t sleep?’ Kelly persisted.

‘I just told you, no.’

‘Come on, that’s not natural. You mean to say you’ve wiped them from your memory?’ said Fraser, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Grant brought his fist crashing down on the table top, his voice rising to a shout.

i DON’T THINK ABOUT THEM.’

Fraser regarded the man warily. He was becoming a little nervous of Grant’s aggression.

‘Have you ever wanted to kill your wife and son?’ Kelly asked.

‘Kill them? Why?’ Grant demanded.

‘That’s what we’d like to know,’ said Fraser.

‘Why should I want to kill them?’

‘Because there may be a part of your mind which wants you to,’ Kelly informed him. ‘You’ve had a series of nightmares, in each one you kill your wife and son.’

‘So what?’ Grant snapped. ‘What’s so fucking important about a nightmare?

Everyone has them.’

‘You and your wife had experienced some problems hadn’t you?’ Kelly said.

‘Marital problems.’

‘What if we had? What’s that got to do with this shit about nightmares?’

demanded Grant, angrily.

‘Would you like to kill your wife and son?’ Fraser wanted to know.

Grant got to his feet.

‘This is some kind of fucking game you’re playing with me,’ he growled, pointing an accusing finger at the investigators, both of whom moved back slightly from the table.

‘Tell us the truth,’ said Fraser. ‘You want to kill them, don’t you?’ ‘No, you bastard.’ ‘You’ve told us.’ ‘No.’

‘You want to murder them,’ Fraser said, a little too forcefully.

‘No. NO.’ The shout became a scream of rage and Grant suddenly grabbed the heavy tape-recorder, lifting it from the desk, raising it above his head. The plug was torn from the wall, the spools falling uselessly from the machine.

Kelly and Fraser jumped back hurriedly as Grant spun round and, with demonic strength, hurled the recorder at the large window. There was an ear-splitting crash as the glass exploded, huge thick shards flying out like crystal javelins. ‘Get help, quick,’ Fraser snapped as Grant turned on him. As Kelly bolted for the door, Grant flung himself at Fraser. He hit the table on the way and the two men crashed to the ground amidst the shriek of snapping wood.

Fraser tried to roll to one side but Grant fastened both hands around his neck and began throttling him. Fraser felt his assailant’s fingertips gouging into his flesh and he struck out with one hand, catching Grant a stinging blow across the temple. This only seemed to inflame him more for he straddled the investigator and began slamming his head against the floor.

Fraser looked up into the face of his attacker, the eyes blazing wildly, spittle dotted on his lips as he continued to bang his victim’s head against the ground with gleeful force. Fraser gripped Grant’s wrists and tried to prise open the vice-like grip but the relief was only momentary. He felt himself losing consciousness.

Then suddenly, the pressure on his throat eased and through pain-clouded eyes he saw two men grab Grant and pull him to his feet. Kelly was there too, so was Dr Vernon. He held a hypodermic needle in his hand.

Things seemed to swim before him as he rolled to one side, massaging his throat, the hot bile clawing its way up from his stomach.

‘Strap him down,’ Vernon urged, watching as the other two men dragged Grant towards the EEG. They forced him on to the trolley and swiftly fastened thick leather bonds

around his wrists and ankles securing them. Grant had, however, begun to calm down somewhat and as the electrodes were attached to his head he seemed to stop thrashing about, content instead to eye his opponents with fury. His teeth were clenched, a thin, silvery trail of saliva dribbling from one corner of his mouth.

Kelly crossed to Fraser who was lying amongst the wreckage of the broken table, trying to clamber upright. She knelt beside him and offered a hand but he refused her help, struggling precariously to his feet, one hand still on his throat. He coughed and tasted blood. Vernon gave him a cursory glance then turned his attention back to Grant. The electrodes were in place on his forehead and temples, he was motionless but for the heaving of his chest.

One of the other investigators, a man with a button missing from one shirt cuff, stood beside the machine waiting. Kelly recognized him as Frank Anderson, a powerfully built man in his early forties.

Vernon nodded and Anderson flicked a switch which set the EEG in motion.

The five pencils swept back and forth across the paper as it left the machine, each one an indication of the brain waves picked up from Grant.

The fifth pencil, however, barely moved. Anderson noticed this and directed Vernon’s attention to it. The older man looked puzzled.

‘What the hell does that mean?’ said Anderson but Vernon did not answer.

Kelly joined them, leaving Fraser to stagger over to the broken window where he gulped down lungfuls of air, still wincing in pain each time he swallowed.

‘Could it be the area controlled by the subconscious?’ Kelly said, directing her question towards Vernon but gazing at the virtually dormant line on the read-out.

Vernon didn’t answer.

‘Surely it must be,’ she insisted. ‘Theoretically, there should only be activity in that part of the brain when he’s asleep. Put him out. This could be our chance to find out.’

Vernon did not hesitate. He rolled up Grant’s sleeve, found a vein and ran the needle into it, keeping his thumb on the plunger until the last drop of Tubarine had left the

slender receptacle. Then, they waited.

They waited.

For ten minutes they waited. The only sounds in the room were the ticking of the wall clock and Grant’s increasingly laboured breathing. Kelly stood over his immobile form and lifted one eye-lid, noticing how the pupil was dilated.

‘He’s asleep,’ she said, softly, as if standing over a child she did not wish to wake.

Another five minutes and she noticed movement beneath the closed lids. The unmistakable motions of REM.

‘He’s dreaming,’ she said, almost excitedly.

Vernon seemed not to hear, his eyes were riveted to the EEG read-out.

Four of the tracer lines were barely moving but the fifth was hurtling across the paper with frightening speed. He called Kelly to look at it.

‘It certainly looks as if that fifth line denotes the area of the brain which controls the subconscious mind,’ she said. ‘It oniy registers activity when the subject is dreaming.’

All eyes turned to Grant.

‘If only we knew what he was dreaming,’ said Vernon. ‘My God, this is incredible.’ He was still watching the wildly swinging tracer. ‘It looks as if the area is in the occipital lobe.’ He lowered his voice slightly. ‘The area

of the brain concerned with vision.’

‘Then he is seeing something,’ said Frank Anderson.

Vernon nodded.

The knock on the lab door startled all of them.

At first no one moved but the knock came again, harder and more insistent.

Vernon muttered something under his breath and opened the door, surprised to find his secretary standing there.

‘There’s a phone call for you. Dr Vernon,’ she said. ‘It’s …’

He cut her short.

‘Can’t it wait? I’m very busy here.’ he snapped.

‘It’s the police.’

Vernon nodded, aware of the interest now generated by his colleagues.

Til take it here,’ he announced, indicating the wall phone. He crossed to it and lifted the receiver to his ear.

‘Dr Vernon speaking. Yes, that’s correct.’

Kelly watched him, noticing that his forehead was slowly beginning to crease into a frown.

‘When did this happen?’ he asked. There was a moment’s silence, i see. Yes, I understand.’

‘Look,’ said Anderson, tugging on Kelly’s sleeve.

She glanced down.

The fifth tracer had ceased its frenzied movement and was now drawing lazy parabolas on the read-out.

Kelly crossed to Grant and felt for his pulse, noticing how cold his flesh was to the touch.

Vernon, meanwhile, had replaced the receiver and rejoined his companions.

He sighed, scraping one thumb across his forehead.

‘What’s wrong?’ Kelly asked.

‘The police wanted to know if Maurice Grant had left the Institute during the last hour or so,’ he told her.

Kelly looked puzzled.

‘A neighbour called round to his house,’ Vernon continued. ‘She swears that she saw Grant there.’

‘But that’s impossible,’ Anderson interjected.

‘The neighbour was adamant.’

‘I don’t see why the police are so concerned about where Grant was or is,’

Kelly said.

Vernon sucked in a deep breath.

‘Less than twenty minutes ago his wife and child were attacked and killed in their house. Dismembered the police said.’

‘Jesus,’ murmured Anderson.

Kelly did not speak, her eyes were fixed on the restraining straps which secured Grant firmly to the table.

To Kelly, passing through the door of Dr Vemon’s office was like crossing the threshold into a bygone age. The room, with its panelled walls and huge bookcases bearing endless leather bound volumes, was like something from a museum. It was a room to be looked at and appraised, one to be treated with reverence, much the same as an aged person. It did not seem like a room where anything constructive could be accomplished. It reminded her of the reading room in some gentleman’s club, a place where cigars were smoked and glasses of port sipped. She even felt slightly out of place in it, dressed as she was in a khaki blouse, beige skirt and tan shoes. She felt as if she were intruding on the solemnity of the place, that she would have looked more at home in a crinoline.

Beside her, John Fraser was still massaging his neck, complaining about the pain despite having refused the attentions of a doctor. Vernon himself stood facing the window, looking out over the sun-drenched lawns, enjoying the heat on his face. Despite the warmth in the room he had not undone a single button of his jacket. He popped another cough sweet into his mouth and the smell of menthol seemed to intensify.

Fraser sipped at the cup of tea which Vernon’s secretary had brought five minutes earlier and found that it was cold. He replaced the cup and returned to the more urgent task of rubbing his throat. His head was beginning to ache as well where Grant had slammed it against the floor. AH in all he looked, and felt, fed up with the whole situation. Since he had joined the Institute five years earlier, Fraser had gained something of a reputation as a moaner but today he felt he was justified in his complaints.

His grumblings, however, were not reserved for his work. He’d been married for twelve years and, during that time, his

wife had been forced to endure a continual barrage of bleating and criticism.

Indeed, Fraser only seemed to be truly content when he had a drink in his hand.

He was a heavy drinker and had been since he was eighteen. Fraser was walking the tightrope between social drinking and alchoholism and, just lately, he seemed to be losing his footing.

i don’t see that you have any choice, Dr Vernon,’ he said. ‘Stop the research before any more accidents happen like the one today.’

Kelly looked at him angrily.

‘We can’t stop the research now,’ she said. There’s still too much we have to learn.’

‘That man could have killed me. It would be madness to continue. He’s dangerous.’

‘For God’s sake, John. He was in that state for a reason. He attacked you for a reason,’ Vernon interjected. ‘And Kelly’s right, there’s no question of stopping the research.’

‘You didn’t exactly help matters, John,’ Kelly said. ‘You provoked him to a certain extent.’

‘Provoked him?’ Fraser gaped, incredulously. ‘Jesus Christ. I asked him some questions that was all.’

Vernon turned to face the investigators.

‘If you don’t like the risks, John, there is an alternative,” he said, his voice low but full of authority. ‘If you don’t wish to work on the project any longer you can be re-assigned.’

Fraser shook his head.

‘No, I don’t want that,’ he said. ‘I just think we should move away from the drugs if we can …’

Vernon cut him short.

‘It was agreed between the Investigators at the Metapsychic Centre and ourselves that we would use drugs, they would use hypnosis. It is important that we continue with our own methods. Today’s incident was an isolated one.’

‘How can you be so sure it won’t happen again?’

Vernon fixed Fraser in an angry stare.

it’s a chance we will have to take,’ he rasped. ‘The work we are doing is very necessary. It will benefit a lot of people if we can find some of the answers we seek.’

‘And it will benefit one person in particular won’t it, Dr Vernon?’ Fraser said.

The older man glared at him, his jaw set, the knot of muscles at the side pulsing angrily. His eyes looked like wet concrete.

Kelly looked puzzled.

‘That’s enough, Fraser,’ the Institute Director said and Kelly heard the anger in his voice, well-disguised but nevertheless potent. ‘The research will continue. If you don’t wish to be a part of it then get out of my office now and stop wasting my time.’

Kelly was surprised at the vehemence in Vernon’s tone, at the naked fury burning in his eyes. She saw Fraser visibly blench beneath the verbal onslaught. He slumped back in his chair, trying to hold the Director’s stare but finding himself unable to do so. He lowered his head slightly and began picking at his nails.

Vernon sat down and folded his hands across his stomach, his eyes never

leaving Fraser.

it will benefit one person in particular.’ Kelly looked at her fellow investigator, wondering what he had meant by the statement.

i think it would be best if you left now, John,’ Vernon said, quietly.

‘There’s nothing more to discuss.’

Fraser let out a deep breath and got to his feet. He glanced at Kelly then at Vernon before turning and heading for the door.

‘And the next time?’ said Fraser, chaliengingly. ‘Will you take responsibility for what happens, Dr Vernon?’

The older man didn’t look up.

‘Get out, John,’ he said, quietly.

As Fraser slammed the door behind him, Kelly, too, rose. She was anxious to speak with Fraser.

‘Wait a moment, Kelly,’ Vernon said.

She sat down again, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from her skirt.

‘Do you want me to replace Fraser?’ Vernon asked.

‘I don’t think it’s up to me,’ Kelly told him.

‘You’re the one who has to work with him.’

She opened her mouth to speak but the words remained locked inside and it was Vernon who broke the silence again.

‘This project is too important to be jeopardised by one man.’

Kelly saw that the steel had returned to his eyes.

‘I hope you agree with me?’

She nodded.

‘Dr Vernon, don’t you think that the murder of his wife and child might have some effect on Grant?’

in what way?’

She shrugged, not sure whether or not what she was about to say would sound ridiculous.

‘The catalyst, the object of his subconscious fantasies no longer exists,’ she said. ‘We assumed that his nightmares were unconscious manifestations of actual desires, but now his wife and son are dead he has nothing to direct that hostility towards.’

Vernon stroked his chin thoughtfully.

‘You mean his wife was the object of his fury, the cause of the nightmares?’

he suggested. ‘So, theoretically, the nightmares should stop.’

Kelly nodded.

it’s strange though,’ she said. ‘She was murdered while Grant was under a drug-induced trance, in more or less the same manner as he had previously described. Almost as if the dreams had been warnings. Perhaps that’s the key we’re looking for. Maybe Grant’s nightmares weren’t unconscious desires, they were visions of the future.’

Vernon shifted the cough sweet around inside his cheek where it bulged like a gum boil.

‘Possibly,’ he murmured.

Kelly sat a moment longer then got to her feet.

if there’s nothing else, Dr Vernon.’

He shook his head.

Kelly walked to the door, watched by the Institute Director. He coughed and, as Kelly turned the handle, Vernon spoke once more.

‘Remember what I said, Kelly. This project means too much. There’s a lot at stake. If Fraser causes any trouble I want to know about it.’

She nodded and left him alone in the office.

Vernon dropped his pen, his fingers bunching into a fist.

Fraser.

The last thing they needed now was opposition.

Fraser.

Vernon’s breath came in short, angry gasps. No, Fraser must not be allowed to disrupt the research programme.

No matter what it took to stop him.

Kelly checked in John Fraser’s office, in the labs, in the library.

He was nowhere to be found.

As she made her way back across the polished wooden floor of the Institute’s reception area she spotted him outside, clambering into his familiar red Datsun.

Kelly ran out on to the gravel driveway and across to the other investigator who had already started his engine and was in the process of pulling out.

He saw Kelly but did not slow up until she had reached the side of the car and banged on the window. He rolled it down.

‘What do you want?’ he said, sharply.

‘Where are you going?’ she wanted to know.

‘I’m taking the rest of the day off,’ Fraser said, sarcastically. ‘I’m going to find the nearest pub and have a few beers. Maybe some shorts to wash them down.’ He jammed the car into first, the gearbox groaned in protest.

‘What you said in Vernon’s office,’ said Kelly. ‘What did you mean?’

The roar of the revving engine almost drowned out her words.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Fraser.

‘About the research,’ she said. ‘You said it would benefit one person in particular. Who did you mean?’

Fraser stepped on the accelerator, the back wheels spiining madly. A flurry of pebbles from the driveway flew into the air.

‘Did you mean Vernon?’ she persisted.

‘Ask him,’ hissed Fraser and drove off.

Kelly watched as the Datsun disappeared from view along the tree-lined drive.

She stood silently for a moment then made her way back towards the main building.

She was not the only one who saw Fraser drive away.

From the solitude of his office on the second floor, Vernon had watched the entire tableau.

He stepped back out of sight.

Dr Stephen Vernon poured himself another scotch and returned to his chair beside the fireplace. The gentle strains of the New World Symphony issued forth from the record player and Vernon closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the soothing sound to wash over him. It did little to relax him and he jerked his eyes open almost immediately, seeking comfort instead in the whisky which he downed almost in one gulp, allowing the amber liquid to burn its way to his stomach.

Outside, the wind stirred the branches of the trees and clouds gathered menacingly in the night sky, like dense formations of black clad soldiers.

Inside the house the fire was warm, the room bathed in the comforting glow from the flames and the two lamps which burned, one behind him and the other on the table nearby. But, despite the warmth, Vernon felt uncomfortable. As if the heat refused to penetrate his pores. He swallowed some more of the scotch, regarding warily the A4 size envelope which lay on the table nearby. Only when he had downed the last dregs of the fiery liquid did he find the courage to open the envelope.

Inside was a file, a ring binder, and there was a letter paper-clipped to it.

Vernon read it hastily then balled it up and tossed it into the waste-bin beside him. His grey eyes narrowed to steely slits as he opened the file. The first page, neatly typed, had the familiar notepaper headed: FAIRHAM SANATORIUM

It also bore a photo. A ten by eight, glossy black and white of a woman in her middle forties, a warm smile etched across her face. Even given the monochrome of the photo there was a welcoming radiance about the eyes and Vernon found himself gazing deep into them. The photo had been taken six years earlier.

He turned the page and there was another picture, smaller this time, more recent.

If he hadn’t known he would have sworn it was a different woman.

The welcoming glow in her eyes and the warm smile had been replaced by a

vision from a mortuary. A gaze devoid of understanding stared back at him from sockets which looked as though they’d been hollowed out of the skull with a trowel. The mouth was thin-lipped, little more than a gash across the face.

Hair which had once been lustrous and shiny now hung in unkept hunks, unbrushed and lifeless like kelp. Set side by side the most recent picture seemed to exist almost as a mockery to remind him of what once had been.

Vernon swallowed hard and read the report: SUBJECT NAME: VERNON. JANET (CATHERINE. NEE HAMPTON. AGE: 50

MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED. DATE OF COMMITTAL: 14/5/78 TRUSTEE. VERNON. STEPHEN

PHILLIP. RELATIONSHIP TO SUBJECT: HUSBAND. DIAGNOSIS: DEMENTIA. PARAESTHESIA, CHRONIC PARANOID DEMENTIA, SERIOUS IMPAIRMENT OF SENSORY-MOTOR FUNCTION.

CAUSE:

Vernon closed the file and slammed it down onto the table, almost knocking over his glass. He snatched it up but found, to his annoyance, that it was empty. He looked across at the half-empty bottle of Haig and contemplated re-filling his glass once more but, eventually, decided against it. The file lay where he’d put it, a memory as painful as a needle in soft flesh.

Six years.

Dear God was it that long since he had been forced to commit his wife? That long since …

The thought trailed away but he knew that he could never erase the memory of what had happened.

What had sent her to the verge of insanity.

Vernon got to his feet, turned off the fire and extinguished the lights, then, carrying the file, he trudged upstairs not bothering to put on the landing light. He moved slowly but easily through the darkness until he came to the locked door.

The wind had increased in strength and was howling now, like a dog in pain.

Vernon paused before the door, a cold chill enveloping him like some icy invisible glove which squeezed tighter the longer he stood there.

From the pocket of his cardigan he produced a key and, steadying his hand, inserted it in the lock.

There was a sharp crack from beyond the door, like bony fingers on glass, skeletal digits playing a symphony of torment in the gloom.

He turned the key.

The lock was well-oiled and opened without difficulty.

Vernon stepped into the room, shuddering as he did so. He felt like an intruder in this room. Like a thief in a church.

He heard the harsh clacking of the tree branch against the window and it startled him momentarily but, recovering his composure, he reached over and turned on the light.

The room smelt slightly of neglect, a faint odour of damp mingling with the more pungent smell of mothballs. There was a thin film of dust on everything.

On the bedspread, the sideboard, the chairs, even the photos. He crossed to the wardrobe and opened it. Her clothes still hung there, the smell of naptha more powerful now.

He had kept her in this room for three months before finally committing her.

For three months after it happened he had brought her food and tried to feed her as a parent would feed a helpless child. For that was what she had become.

His Janet. His wife. The woman he had loved so much.

The woman who had been reduced to the mental status of a cabbage by what she had witnessed those six years ago.

He had tried to cope as best he could, he had tried to help her but she had withdrawn deeper inside herself until Vernon had felt as through he were nursing a corpse. Only the movement of her eyes, bulging wide constantly, gave any indication that she was even alive. He had used all his expertise to try and salvage what was left of her sanity but finally he had lost the battle and had her committed to Fairham. The doctors there had made no progress though perhaps it was not surprising when he considered the events which had sent her into this death-like state of catatonia. It would, he

decided, have been enough to send anyone insane.

So far, he had been able to keep his secret.

In the beginning he had thought that he could handle the problem. But, word had spread around the neighbourhood — rumours, speculation and guess-work until finally, he had found that there was no other solution but to lock her up. No one knew why Janet Vernon was in a sanatorium and he knew that, for ail their do-it-yourself detective work, none of the neighbours could ever imagine anything as horrific as that which had caused her to lose her mind.

Now he stood in the room, looking around, listening to the wind outside.

He had left the room just as it had always been. For six years, only he had been inside. It contained too many memories, too much pain.

Vernon flicked off the light and retreated back on to the landing, locking the door behind him. He stood looking at it for long seconds then turned and headed for his own bedroom.

Six years.

He had searched for answers for so long and now, he felt that he might be close. The research was furnishing him with what he’d always sought. A way to cure his wife. A way to unlock her thoughts. No one must be allowed to stand in his way.

But, as he undressed, a thought passed through his mind.

What effect would it have on her? The horror of what she had witnessed that day had festered in her thoughts for so long.

Dare he release those memories?

13

New York

‘It sure beats the shit out of E. T.,’ said Rick Landers, gleefully.

Beside him, Andy Wallace was similarly impressed.

‘You bet,’ he murmured, watching as The Thing devoured another victim, ripping off both his arms below the elbow before exploding from his stomach cavity.

The two boys watched mesmerised as the alien head detached itself and then dragged itself across the floor using a tentacle.

‘Rewind it,’ said Andy. ‘Let’s see it again.’

Rick nodded and scuttled across to the video, his finger seeking out the appropriate button.

‘Yeah, E.T. was OK for kids,’ Andy continued.

‘My mum met the guy who made this picture,’ said Rick, smugly.

‘John Carpenter? Wow, when was that?’

‘At some party I think.’

He pressed the ‘play’ button on the video recorder and pictures once more began to fill the wide screen. The two boys settled down again.

They were both nine years old, Andy perhaps a month or two senior. Both attended the same school about three blocks away. Rick knew that his mother didn’t like him watching too many horror movies, She’d turned the video off halfway through his fifth viewing of The Evil Dead but, today, she was out filming a commercial until six o’clock so that gave him and Andy another two hours.

Andy lived about three houses down from the Landers place. His father, Gordon, wrote scripts for one of ABC’s most successful comedy series and his mother, Nina, was a theatrical agent, so Andy was no stranger to the crazy world of showbusiness.

The Thing had just sprouted spider’s legs and was about to scuttle away when the picture on the TV broke up into a network of lines and dots.

The two boys groaned and Rick leapt towards the video.

From the kitchen, the sound of the vacuum mingled with that of the waste-disposa! unit in the sink.

The noise stopped, at any rate the grinding of the disposal unit did, the vacuum seemed to roar even louder.

‘Mrs Garcia,’ yelled Rick.

No answer.

‘Mrs Garcia,’ he bellowed louder and the vacuum was switched off.

‘What you want, Rick?’ Elita Garcia asked, appearing from the kitchen like a blimp emerging from a hangar. She was a huge Mexican woman who always reminded Rick of an extra in a spaghetti western.

‘The vacuum is screwing up the picture on the video,’ Rick told her. ‘Couldn’t you do it later?’

‘Your mother ask me to have this finish before she come home,’ Mrs Garcia informed him.

‘Yeah, but the video …’

‘I no help that. I do my job, Rick. Sorry.’ And the vacuum started up again.

The two boys exchanged disconsolate glances and surrendered to Mrs Garcia arid her cleaner. Rick switched off the video and the TV and suggested they go into the garden for a while.

‘You no be long,’ Mrs Garcia called above the roar of the vacuum. ‘Your dinner ready soon.’

The two boys had been outside only minutes when Rick heard the approaching tones of an ice-cream van. He guessed it was less than a block away.

Lee Jacobs spun the wheel of the station-wagon, the tyres screaming as they tried to grip the road. The vehicle’s back end skidded and slammed into a parked Ford.

‘Jesus Christ, man,’ snapped Tony Sollozzo, who was kneeling on the station-wagon’s passenger seat. ‘Look where you’re fucking going will you.’

‘You wanna drive, motherfucker?’ shouted Jacobs, sweat pouring down his black face. It beaded in his short frizzy hair

like dew. ‘Are the cops still behind us?’

The sound of a siren answered his question for him and he glanced in the rear-view mirror to see the black and white speeding along in pursuit, lights flashing.

‘Step on it, will you,’ Sollozzo urged. ‘The bastards are gaining.’

if you’d stolen a car with somethin’ under the hood maybe we could outrun those lousy fucks,’ Jacobs protested. ‘Why the hell did you have to steal a fucking station-wagon?’

‘Maybe I shoulda’ walked around some showroom first, picked out somethin’ you liked, huh?’ Sollozzo countered.

‘We shoulda’ just turned ourselves in like I said,’ Jacobs said, swerving to miss a bus.

‘With nearly a kilo of smack in the glove compartment? Are you kiddin’ me?’

‘Stealing a station-wagon,’ Jacobs grunted, trying to coax more speed from the vehicle. ‘Dumb fuckin’ wop.’

‘Who’re you callin’ a wop you nigger son of a bitch. Now drive, man, they’re gettin’ closer.’

The blaring of horns greeted them as they sped through a red light.

The police car followed.

‘What time does Mrs Garcia leave?’ Andy Wallace asked, picking up the frisbee and throwing it back.

Rick Landers watched it carefully, jumping to catch it with one hand.

‘She stays until my mum gets home,’ he said.

‘How come? She never used to did she?’

‘Mum’s been acting kind of weird for the last couple of days,’ Rick disclosed.

‘She says she doesn’t like to leave me on my own too much.’ He threw the frisbee back.

‘My parents are as bad,’ Andy confided, i mean, they must think we’re kids.’

Rick nodded then he cocked his head on one side as he heard the chimes of the ice-cream van once more. It was closer now. Just turning into the street he guessed.

‘You want to get an ice-cream?’ he asked Andy, noticing the look of delight on his friend’s face.

‘You bet,’ he said.

The frisbee was forgotten as they both hurried around to the front of the house.

Lee Jacobs banged his hooter as the station-wagon narrowly missed a woman

crossing the road. He yelled something and turned the vehicle into another street. Beside him, Tony Sollozzo slid a Smith and Wesson .38 from his jacket pocket. He flipped out the cylinder, checking that each chamber carried a round.

‘What you doin’, man?’ asked Jacobs, glancing down at the gun.

‘Just in case,’ murmured Sollozzo, hefting the pistol before him.

‘You crazy fuck, I didn’t know you was packed,’ Jacobs gaped. ‘What you gonna’

do?’

The police car drew closer, its bonnet little more than ten feet from the rear of the station wagon. Sollozzo could see the two uniformed men inside as he turned. He wound down his window, pulling back the hammer on the .38.

Up ahead, Jacobs caught sight of an ice-cream van parked in their way. It was blocking the route. To by-pass it he would have to drive up on to the wide pavement.

Soilozzo steadied himself, bringing the gun up to a firing position.

Rick Landers and Andy Wallace ran towards the ice-cream van, unaware of the two speeding cars hurtling down the road. Andy suddenly stopped as his money spilled out on to the ground. He had a hole in his trouser pocket. Rick chuckled and watched as Andy stooped in the driveway of the house to retrieve his coins. He, himself, reached the waiting white van and asked for a chocolate sundae with lots of nuts. He hoped Mrs Garcia wasn’t watching.

As he turned to see where Andy had got to, Rick saw the two speeding cars.

Sollozzo took aim and fired twice, the pistol bucking in his fist. The first shot blasted off the wing mirror of the police car, the second punched a hole in its windscreen.

The station-wagon swerved violently as Jacobs momentarily took his eye off the road and glared at his companion.

‘Stop it,’ he shouted, reaching for the gun.

‘Fuck you,’ roared Sollozzo, firing again, a twisted grin across his face.

Jacobs looked ahead of him and screamed aloud as the white bulk of the ice-cream van loomed before him.

The station-wagon hit it doing about sixty, the impact catapulting Sollozzo through the windscreen. The steering column came back at Jacobs as if fired from a cannon, the wheel cracking, the column itself shattering his sternum and tearing through him as the two vehicles were pulped by the crash. Almost instantaneously, the petrol tank of the white van exploded with an ear-splitting shriek and both vehicles disappeared beneath a blinding ball of red and white flame.

Rick Landers, standing less than ten feet from the van, was lifted into the air as if by an invisible hand, his body catapulted a full twenty feet on to the pavement by the force of the explosion. His mangled body crashed to the ground, his clothes ablaze.

The patrolman driving the police car twisted the wheel to avoid the blazing inferno, the black and white mounting the sidewalk.

Too late the driver saw Rick’s body lying ahead of him.

He slammed on his brakes but the car was travelling much too fast.

The front offside wheel ran across the boy’s neck, crushing his spine and nearly severing bis head. Blood burst from the shattered corpse, spreading out in a wide pool around it.

Watching from the driveway, Andy Wallace felt something warm and soft in the seat of his pants as he gazed at the carnage before him. A second later he fainted.

Tony Sollozzo lay on the grass nearby, his face and neck shredded by the glass of the windscreen. Flames from the wreckage licked hungrily at his outstretched hand. Above it all a black pail of smoke hung like a shroud.

The two policemen stumbled from their car, the first of them running towards the burning vehicles but unable to get close because of the blistering heat from the leaping flames. The driver knelt and saw the body of Rick Landers lying beneath the car.

‘Oh Jesus God.” he murmured and straightened up, reaching inside the car for

his radio.

He called for an ambulance and some back-up, trying to explain briefly what had happened.

As he walked away he saw that he left sticky footprints behind him where he’d been standing in the pool of Rick’s blood. He dropped to his knees on the grass verge and threw up.

David Blake dropped his pen and yawned. He blinked myopically and scanned the pages which lay before him.

He’d been working flat out since ten that morning, pausing briefly at one o’clock to devour half a cheeseburger and some fries. Most of that now lay neglected on the table behind him.

His stomach growled noisily and he patted it gently. It was time he ate something more substantial.

Blake got to his feet and walked to the bathroom, turning the television on as he passed. A glance at his watch told him it was 5.58 p.m. The news would be on in a minute or two. He smiled to himself. It was time to find out what had been going on in the ‘real’ world. He’d been so immersed in his work for the past eight hours that New York could have disappeared and he wouldn’t have noticed. Once safely locked away, pen in hand, Blake was oblivious to all else.

He entered the bathroom, crossing to the wash basin where he splashed his face with cold water. As he wandered back into his room, a towel pressed to his face, the news was just beginning. Blake decided to hear the headlines then get something to eat. He dried his face off, the water mingling with the perspiration on his forehead.

‘… has promised a crackdown on some of the city’s illegal gambling establishments …’

The voice of the newsreader droned on as Blake opened his wardrobe and took out a clean shirt.

‘… and, as reported in our earlier bulletin, the son of Toni Landers, the actress who plays …’

Blake spun round to face the set.

‘… whose son, Rick, was tragically killed today when he was involved in a car accident.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Blake as a photo of first Rick and then Toni Landers was flashed on to the screen. The writer sat down on the edge of the bed, eyes riveted to the set as the newsreader continued.

‘Miss Landers, who was filming elsewhere in the city was unavailable for comment and it is believed that she is now at her home under sedation. Her son, Rick, is believed to have been killed at approximately 4.15 this afternoon after a stolen car crashed into an ice cream van outside his home.

Both passengers in the car and also the van driver were killed but, as yet, the other three victims have not been named. Police …’

Blake shook his head slowly, his eyes and ears focused on the TV but his mind back-tracking to the party at Toni Landers’ house.

To Mathias.

To the prophecy.

‘Her son is going to die.’ The psychic’s words echoed inside his mind.

‘Her son is going to die.’

Blake sat for a moment longer, then pulled on his shirt and hastily buttoned it up, tucking it into his jeans. He pulled on a pair of boots and, leaving the television set on, he left the room and scuttled across to the elevator at the end of the corridor. He rode it to the ground floor and ran through reception, out of the main doors and past the doorman who was enjoying a sly drag on a Marlboro.

The writer turned to his left and headed for the newsstand on the corner of the street. He fumbled in his pocket for change with one hand as he retrieved a late edition with the other. Halfway down the page was a photo of Rick Landers and, above it:

SON OF ACTRESS DIES IN ACCIDENT Blake handed the vendor some coins, not

waiting for his change, then he turned and made his way back to the hotel.

Once inside his room, Blake read the full story. The details didn’t matter.

The child was dead. That was enough. The writer folded the paper and dropped it on to the bed. He suddenly didn’t feel so hungry. For what seemed like an eternity he sat there, gazing at the TV screen and then at the photo of Rick Landers.

‘Her son is going to die.’ He spoke the words aloud.

Biake got to his feet and switched off the TV. He snatched up the leather jacket which was draped over the back of a nearby chair, pulling it on as he made for the door of his room.

Outside, the storm clouds which had been gathering for the past hour or so were split by the first soundless flash of lightning.

Blake paid the taxi driver, peered out through the rain splashed window then pushed open the door of the cab.

The deluge hit him like a palpable wave, the heavens continuing to dump their load without hint of a respite. The storm was raging, whiplash cracks of lightning punctuating the almost continual growl of thunder. It sounded as if somewhere, deep below the surface of the earth, a gigantic creature was clawing its way up. Rain hammered against the roads and buildings, bouncing off like tiny explosions. Even as Blake left the cab he felt the hair being plastered to the side of his face, the hot droplets penetrating the material of his shirt. He knew that the storm would not clear the air, it would merely make the humidity more acute. Beads of perspiration formed on the writer’s forehead, only to be washed away instantly by the driving rain.

The house of Jonathan Mathias stood before him, a large forbidding three storey building fronted by well-kept lawn and ringed by a high stone wall.

Blake noticed as he approached the wrought iron gates that there were closed-circuit television cameras mounted on each side of the gates. They watched him with their Cyclopean eyes as he walked up the short driveway towards the house itself.

The building was a curious mixture of the old and new. The main structure looked as if it had been built in mock Edwardian style whilst an extension made up of glass and concrete seemed to have been grafted on to the wrong house.

The windows were unlit and the glass reflected the lightning back at Blake, they lowered over him like some kind of malevolent spectre.

There were more closed-circuit cameras above the front door. He rang the bell, pressing it twice and, a moment later,

the door was opened by a man who Blake immediately recognised as Mathias’

chauffeur.

‘Mr Blake isn’t it?’ said the man, eyeing the writer who looked a sorry state with his brown hair dripping and his clothes soaked.

‘I’d like to see Mr Mathias if that’s possible,’ the writer said.

‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s at home,’ the chauffeur began.

‘I’ll …’

‘Let him in, Harvey.’

Blake recognised the voice immediately and, a moment later, Mathias himself stepped into view.

‘Come in, David,’ he said, smiling. ‘You look as if you swam here.’

Blake stepped into the hallway.

‘Come through into the study,’ said the psychic.

Once inside the room, he poured himself a brandy and offered one to Blake who gratefully accepted, his eyes roving around the spacious room. He noted with bewilderment that there were no windows. The only light came from a desk lamp and two floor-standing spotlamps near the drink cabinet. On one wall there was a framed original sketch by Aleister Crowley depicting the Whore of Babylon.

Biake looked closely at it.

‘You knew Crowley?’ he, asked.

‘We met once or twice,’ said Mathias.

‘The Great Beast himself eh?’ murmured Blake, sipping his brandy. ‘A

self-confessed Black Magician.’

Mathias didn’t answer.

Blake allowed his gaze to shift to a photograph. It showed Mathias and another man who looked familiar to him.

‘Anton Le Vey,’ said the psychic.

‘Another friend?’ asked Blake.

Mathias nodded.

‘Another Black Magician,’ the writer commented.

The psychic seated himself behind his desk and cradled his brandy glass in one hand, warming the dark fluid.

‘What can I do for you, David?’ he wanted to know. ‘It must be important to bring you out in weather like this.’ He downed most of his brandy in one swallow.

Blake seated himself on the closest chair.

‘It is,’ he informed Mathias. ‘Have you seen a newspaper today, or watched television?’

‘No, why?’

Mathias finished his brandy and got to his feet, walking past the writer who turned until he was gazing at the psychic’s back.

Toni Landers’ son was killed earlier today,’ he said.

Mathias filled his glass once again then turned round, the bottle still in his hand.

‘JHe was killed in an accident,’ the writer persisted.

‘Do you want another drink?’ Mathias asked, apparently uninterested in what Blake had to say.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ the writer asked, irritably. ‘Toni Landers’ son is dead. Haven’t you got anything to say?’

Mathias regarded him indifferently then shrugged his shoulders.

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, softly. ‘He was only a young boy.’

‘You knew he was going to die,’ Blake said, flatly. ‘You told me at the party the other night, after the Tarot reading. Only you didn’t learn of his death through the cards did you?’

‘The cards act as a guide,’ said Mathias, sipping his drink. ‘They point me toward the truth.’

‘Come on, Jonathan,’ Blake muttered, exasperatedly. ‘You’re not talking to one of your bloody “flock” now.’

The two men regarded one another coolly for a moment, a. heavy silence descending upon them. It was broken by Mathias.

‘I told you that the Astral body can be controlled,’ he said. ‘Well, it can also be projected forward in time. I “saw” that Toni Landers’ son was going to die because I felt no Astral presence from him.’ He sipped at his brandy once again. ‘The Astral body is like the life-line on a hand, someone with the knowledge can “see” it.’

‘Tell my future,’ said Blake, reaching for a pack of Tarot cards which lay on the desk near to Mathias. ‘Do it now.’

He had already begun shuffling the cards.

‘No,’ said Mathias.

Blake divided the cards into ten packs and laid them out in the correct pattern.

‘Do it, Jonathan,’ he urged.

‘I told you, I’m not a fairground showman,’ muttered the psychic, irritably.

He regarded the cards without emotion, his gaze slowly rising until his brilliant blue eyes were fixed on Blake. ‘I’d appreciate it if you would leave now, David,’ he said, quietly.

The two men locked stares for a moment then Blake took a step backward, brushing one strand of hair from his face.

‘Are you afraid of what you might see?’ he asked.

Mathias didn’t answer. His face was impassive, registering no emotion at all.

Finally, he exhaled, his features softening slightly.

‘You asked me about my power,’ he said. ‘This force inside me, it’s the power

of the shadow.’

Blake looked puzzled.

‘Not the shadow cast by sunlight or reflected in a mirror,’ Mathias continued.

“The shadow of the inner self. The alter ego if you like. The Ancients called it the shadow because it represented the darker side of man, the side which only appeared in times of anger or fear. The side which could drive a man to commit acts of which he was not normally capable. Acts which went against his nature. Human nature.’

‘Like a split personality?’ said Blake.

‘No,’ Mathias corrected him. ‘In cases of split personality the victim retains some traces of good within himself. The shadow is wholly evil.’

‘Then your power is evil,’ Blake said.

‘Who is to say what is good and what is evil, David?’

There was another long pause then Blake turned and headed towards the door.

‘I’ve told you as much as I can,’ Mathias said. ‘What more do you need to know?’

‘A lot more,’ he said, opening the door. Then, he was gone.

The psychic sat alone in his study, the Tarot cards still laid out in their cabbalistic pattern before him. He paused for a moment then reached towards the seventh pack. To Love. He turned the card slowly.

Thirteen.

La Mort.

Death. Mathias stared at the sythe-carrying skeleton depicted on the card for a moment then he reached for the top card on the ninth pack. To Health.

Fifteen.

Le Diable.

The Devil.

But he knew that the cards carried much more than their face value. The card marked XV also meant The Great Secret. Mathias smiled to himself. It seemed most appropriate in Blake’s case.

He turned the card on the final pack, the breath catching in his throat as he did so.

Twelve.

Le Pendu.

The Hanged Man.

Mathias dropped the card as if it had been red hot; he swallowed hard and studied the image on the card.

The Hanged Man.

Catastrophe.

He wiped his brow, finding that he was perspiring slightly. It had another interpretation.

Saint or Sinner?

Outside the thunder rumbled loudly and Mathias sat still in his seat for a moment. He finally gathered up the cards, sorting them into some kind of uniformity.

As he reached for the one which bore The Hanged Man he wondered why his hand was shaking.

Oxford

As she approached the door which led into Maurice Grant’s quarters, Kelly looked at her watch.

It was approaching 5.09 p.m.

She slowed her pace, conscious of the sound which her heels made in the solitude of the corridor. She felt strangely ill-at-ease, like a child who has performed, or is about to perform, an act for which it knows it will be punished. Kelly brushed one hand through her brown hair and attempted to control her accelerated breathing. This was ridiculous, she told herself. She had no reason to be nervous.

Over her skirt and blouse she wore a lab coat and in one of the pockets nestled a hypodermic syringe.

She had taken it, along with its contents, from the pharmacy on the first floor. Ordinarily, it was a place only frequented by the four doctors who worked for the Institute, although the other investigators were free to come and go as they wished amongst the rows and rows of bottles and medical equipment. Kelly had found what she sought without difficulty, then she had recovered a disposable syringe from the drawer which was so carefully marked.

Everything in the pharmacy was maintained by a woman in her forties known to Kelly only as Mrs King. She was responsible for ensuring that everything was in its correct place and it was a job which she did very efficiently.

Kelly knew that Mrs King usually left for home at around 4.30 so she had waited until nearly 4.50 before venturing into the pharmacy.

To her relief it had been deserted but still she had felt the compulsion to hurry, wondering what explanation she was going to use if someone should discover her poring over the chemicals which were the domain of the physicians.

She had drawn off 10ml of atropine sulphate and then placed the syringe in her pocket.

Now, as she approached Maurice Grant’s quarters thoughts began to tumble through her mind with increased rapidity. But one in particular seemed to flash like neon in her consciousness. The incident the day before last when Grant had finally persuaded her to undertake this new experiment without either the knowledge or authorization of Dr Vernon. Deprived of sleep for forty-eight hours, Grant had become violent and Kelly remembered how the subsequent tests on him had revealed activity in an area of the brain normally dormant. The question of what would happen to him if he were not allowed to sleep and dream for longer than two days had tortured her ever since. She had wondered what he’d be like after a week but Kelly didn’t have a week.

She would not, could not, wait that long.

The injection of atropine would have more or less the same results.

She knew that, given in overdose, the drug caused stimulation of the brain and autonomic nervous system. The usual dosage was 2ml.

She planned to give Grant three times that amount.

Kelly knocked on the door and waited, casting one furtive glance up the corridor as she did so. The Institute was silent.

‘Come in,’ Grant called and Kelly did so.

He was sitting at a table finishing a plate of fish and chips which had been brought to him ten minutes earlier.

‘Sorry if I’m interrupting your tea, Mr Grant,’ Kelly said.

He smiled and shook his head.

‘I was just finishing,” he told her. ‘That’s one good thing about this place, the food’s terrific’ He belched loudly, excused himself and pushed the plate away.

Kelly thought how different he looked from the last time she’d seen him. In place of the demonic, violent and unkempt would-be killer there was a calm, clean-shaven even handsome man. Grant wore only a white shirt and grey trousers, both of which looked neat and fresh.

‘What can I do for you now?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid we need your help with something else,’ Kelly told him.

‘Which is your polite way of saying “Excuse me Mr Human Guinea Pig, we want you back on the slab,” right?’

Kelly smiled thinly.

‘Yes it is,’ she said.

Grant chuckled.

‘No need to sound so apologetic. After all, I was the bloody fool who volunteered for all this,’ he remarked, good-humouredly.

Kelly had one hand dug deep in the pocket of her lab coat, fingers toying with the syringe.

‘What exactly is it that you want me to do?’ Grant enquired.

‘Do you remember anything about the incident the day before last?’ she wanted to know. ‘When you attacked one of my colleagues?’

He shrugged.

‘Not much. I remember trying to …’ The words trailed off, aimost as if he were ashamed of the recollection. ‘I didn’t hurt anyone badly did I?’

Kelly shook her head.

‘You’d been kept awake for over forty-eight hours,’ she told him. ‘People become aggressive when they’re forced to go without sleep for too long.’

‘Why?’ Grant wanted to know.

‘If we knew that for sure, Mr Grant, you wouldn’t still be here.’ She thought about mentioning the dream theory then decided not to. There was a long silence broken eventually by Kelly. ‘For the last two nights have you dreamed?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘The dream about killing your wife and son?’

He nodded.

‘But it wasn’t as vivid. In fact, last night it was different. I woke up before I killed them.’

‘That was probably because you weren’t given any drugs,’ Kelly told him. ‘The amphetamines we’d been giving you had been intensifying the dreams up until that point.’

‘So, what happens now?’ he asked.

Kelly felt the hypodermic in her pocket.

‘We try a different approach,’ she said.

On the table beside Grant’s bed was a new tape-recorder and Kelly checked that it was working properly. Satisfied, she asked Grant to lie down. There were restraining straps which could be fastened around his wrists and ankles but, as yet, Kelly did not touch them. She ensured that Grant was comfortable then asked him to roll up the sleeve of his shirt which he did. The vein bulged invitingly in the crook of his arm and Kelly carefully pushed the needle into it, one thumb on the plunger of the syringe.

She began to push, the atropine flooding into Grant’s bloodstream.

She watched the markers on the syringe as she forced the liquid into his vein.

0.25ml.

0.75ml.

lml.

Grant still had his eyes open, wincing slightly as Kelly pushed a little too hard on the syringe. She could see the

needle-point beneath his flesh as she pressed on the plunger again.

1.5ml.

2ml.

2.5ml.

She was trying to stop herself from shaking, worried that too much movement would tear the vein open. Grant sucked in a painful breath and Kelly apologised but kept the pressure on the plunger, watching as more of the liquid was transferred to the man’s body.

3ml.

3.5ml.

4ml.

Grant closed his eyes, his chest beginning to heave as his respiration became more laboured. Kelly looked at his face then at the needle embedded in his arm and finally at the markers on the slim receptacle itself.

4.5ml.

5ml.

5.5ml.

Kelly knew that the atropine would not take long to work and, with the increased dosage she was administering, that time should be curtailed further.

6ml.

She hesitated. Grant had closed his eyes tightly now. His mouth also was clamped shut, his lips bloodless.

Kelly, the needle still clutched in her hand, the point buried in Grant’s vein, looked at the man. He was visibly turning pale. Had she given him

enough?

‘Mr Grant,’ she said.

He didn’t answer.

‘Mr Grant.”

A weary grunt was the only reply she received this time.

Kelly pushed harder on the plunger.

6.5ml.

7ml.

Perspiration formed in salty droplets on his face, some running together to trickle in rivulets across his flesh. On his arms too there was moisture, glistening like beads. The skin around the needle was beginning to turn a dark crimson, the blue veins pulsing more strongly.

7.5ml.

8ml.

Grant moaned, his mouth dropping open. Thick sputum oozed over his lips and onto the sheet beneath. His tongue lolled uselessly from one corner and he grunted-again, coughed. Particles of spittle flew into the air and, as he moved slightly, the needle came free.

Cursing, Kelly pushed it back into the vein, ignoring the single tiny droplet of blood which had welled up through the first miniscule hole. She looked at his face which was now grey, streaked with perspiration. She knew she was taking a chance but this had to work.

9ml.

9.5ml.

10ml.

Kelly withdrew the needle and stepped back, dropping the syringe into her pocket once more. She switched on the tape recorder and moved the microphone as close as she dared to Grant. His body began to undergo almost imperceptible movements, tiny muscle contractions which made it look as if he were being pumped full of mild electrical current.

‘Mr Grant,’ she said. ‘Can you hear me?’

He muttered something which she couldn’t hear so she took a step closer, bringing the microphone nearer to his mouth.

‘Mr Grant.’

His eyes were shut, the lids sealed as tightly as if they’d been stitched.

‘Can you hear what I’m saying?’

Grant suddenly grabbed her wrist in a grip which threatened to snap the bones.

Simultaneously, his eyes shot open like shutters and she found herself looking down into two glazed, rheumy orbs which seemed to be staring right through her.

Kelly suppressed a scream and tried to pull away from the vice-like grip but it was useless.

‘Help me,’ murmured Grant, refusing to release Kelly. ‘Oh God they’re everywhere.’

He suddenly let her go, his hands clutching at his face.

‘What can you see?’ she demanded.

Grant suddenly sat up, his face contorted in a mask of rage and hatred.

‘Fucking bastard,’ he snarled, his blank eyes turning to face her. ‘You stinking cunt.’ His lips slid back in a vulpine grin and more saliva dribbled down his chin. ‘She betrayed me. She thought I didn’t know. She thought she could fool me.’

Kelly edged away slightly.

‘Who thought she could fool you?’ asked the investigator, moving to the end of the bed.

‘Her. My wife,’ Grant rasped. ‘Fucking whore. She made me think the child was mine when it was his all along.’

‘Is that why you wanted to kill her?’ asked Kelly, moving towards the restraining straps, waiting for her chance to slip them over Grant’s ankles although she didn’t give much for her chances.

And what if she failed …?

‘Yes, I wanted to kill her. Her and the child. His fucking child,’ Grant raved.

But, his anger seemed to subside with alarming speed and he was cowering once more from some unseen menace. Shielding his face and eyes with shaking hands.

‘Get them off me/ he shrieked.

‘What can you see?’ demanded Kelly, deciding that it was time to fasten the straps.

‘Spiders,’ he told her. ‘Thousands of them. All over me. Oh God, no.’

Kelly managed to fasten the two ankle straps, securing Grant to the bed, at least for the time being. The leather looked thick and stout. She hoped that it would hold.

Maurice Grant wondered why she could not see the eight-legged horrors seething over the floor of the room and onto the bed. Over his body, inside his clothes. He could feel their hairy legs on his flesh as they crawled onto his stomach, up his trouser legs, across his chest, up his neck to his face. And there they tried to force their way into his mouth. He felt one on his tongue and he plunged two fingers into his mouth to pull the creature out. The probing digits touched the back of his throat and he heaved violently.

Above him, the spiders were coming through the ceiling. They were emerging from the stone-work itself and they were getting bigger. One the size of his fist dropped from the

ceiling on to his face, its thick legs probing at his eyes and nose. One of the smaller creatures scuttled up his left nostril, trying to pull the swollen bulk of its abdomen inside the orifice.

From the wall beside him, a spider the size of a football emerged and clamped itself on his arm, pinning it to the bed. Another did the same with his right arm.

Kelly watched mesmerised as Grant wriggled beneath the imaginary host of arachnids but she was not too engrossed to by-pass the opportunity to secure his wrists to the bed.

They’re inside my head,’ screamed Grant as he felt more and more of the spiders dragging themselves up his nostrils, into his ears.

‘I know where they’re coming from,’ he screeched. ‘She sent them.’

‘Your wife?’ asked Kelly, watching as Grant continued to squirm.

‘Fucking cunt. Fucking slut.’

His fear had been replaced once more by rage.

‘I’m glad I killed her,’ he roared. ‘She deserved to die.’

The veins on his forehead bulged angrily as he strained against the straps. ‘I don’t care if anyone saw me. I had no choice. I saw them together’, he said, his body jerking wildly. ‘I saw her with him. He stuck it between her legs, in her mouth. AND SHE FUCKING WANTED IT. I don’t want to see it anymore.’

‘Can you see it now?’ Kelly asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What can you see? Tell me exactly.’

Grant was using all his strength to tug himself free and Kelly noticed with horror that one of the wrist straps was beginning to creak under the pressure.

‘I can see her on the floor of the bedroom. Our bedroom. She’s naked and so is he,’ Grant snarled.

‘Who is he?’ Kelly wanted to know.

‘She’s sucking his cock. He’s using his tongue on her.’

The right hand strap creaked ominously as Grant continued to thrash around.

i don’t want to see it anymore. Never again.’

Kelly wondered if she should get help. Grant was hallucinating madly it appeared but he was largely coherent.

And, at last, she knew why he had wanted to kill his wife and son.

‘She’s rolled over on to her stomach and he’s putting his cock into her. The filthy fucking whore. She wants him.’

“Who is he?’ Kelly demanded.

‘My brother,’ roared Grant and, with that, made one last monumental effort to

break free.

The right hand strap split first, then came free.

i don’t want to see it. I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT,’ Grant bellowed, tugging himself out of the ankle restraints and the other wrist strap. He staggered to his feet, his chest expanding until it threatened to rip his shirt. ‘I don’t want to see it,’ he said again and lurched towards the table in the middle of the room. There, his searching hands found the greasy fork.

i NEVER WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN,’ he shrieked and raised the pronged implement.

Kelly knew that she could never reach the door. Grant blocked her way but, as she looked at him anxiously, she saw that his anger was not directed at her.

‘I won’t watch,’ he said, quietly, studying the fork which he held only inches from his face.

With quivering hand, he pushed the fork through his lower lid and into his eye. With infinite slowness he moved it in a digging action, the prongs gouging muscle and flesh as Grant shoved it further until the eye itself began to thrust forward. The prongs raked his skull as he prised the bursting orb from its socket. Blood gushed down his cheek, mingling with the vitreous liquid as the eye itself punctured. It did not come free but hung, suspended by the shredded remains of the optic nerve.

Mind numbing pain enveloped him but he managed to remain upright, guiding the fork towards his other eye.

Kelly gagged as she saw the prongs burrow through the upper lid this time, the curve of the fork enabling Grant to reach the retina itself. With a final despairing scream he managed to scoop the bloodied eye free of his skull.

There was a muffled, liquid plop as the orb left the socket, a vile sucking sound which was soon drowned out by Grant’s agonised shriek.

The eye itself dropped to the floor and lay there intact until Grant dropped to his knees, squashing it beneath him as if it had been an oversized grape.

Kelly found herself transfixed by those oozing sockets from which crimson was pumping in thick spurts, dribbling into the man’s open mouth.

She finally tore her gaze away and bolted for the door, wrenching it open and dashing out into the corridor.

The room was soundproofed. Until Kelly opened the door, the building had remained quiet but now the agonised shrieks of the blinded Grant echoed along every inch of the building. So great was the dose of atropine he’d received, so powerful the boost to his nervous system, Grant was even denied the merciful oblivion of unconsciousness. He merely slumped to the floor of the room moaning, the remains of one eye still dangling uselessly by a strand of nerve.

Inside the room, the tape recorder obediently captured the sounds of agony.

Preserving them forever.

How much did you say you gave him?’ Dr Vernon asked Kelly, reaching for the syringe.

‘10ml, perhaps a little more,’ she said, quietly.

Vernon nodded and held the hypodermic between his fingers for a moment before setting it down on the table again. He laid it beside the bloodstained fork, allowing his gaze to ponder on the implement for a few seconds. He exhaled and looked around the room. The floor was spattered with blood, droplets of it had splashed a wide area, puddling into bigger pools in one or two places. There was a purplish smudge close to his foot where the eye had been squashed and Vernon moved to one side.

The remains of the restraining straps lay on or near the bed and, he noticed that there were even a few speckles, of crimson on the sheets.

Maurice Grant had been removed about fifteen minutes earlier.

Now Vernon stood amidst the carnage, flanked by Kelly and John Fraser.

Fraser looked distinctly queasy and could not seem to tear his gaze from the bloodstained fork on the table. The mere thought of what it had been used for made him feel sick.

‘Is he going to die?’ asked Kelly, anxiously.

‘The ambulancemen didn’t seem, to know one way or the other,’ Vernon told her.

‘Once the effects of the atropine wear off he’ll go into shock. After that …’ He allowed the sentence to trail off.

‘So, first he nearly kills me,’ said Fraser. ‘Now he more or less succeeds in killing himself. Surely this is enough for you, doctor?’

‘What do you mean?’ Vernon wanted to know.

‘There will have to be a full-scale enquiry into what happened today. There’s no way that you can continue with this research now.’

‘As Director of the Institute / will decide if an enquiry is necessary or not,’ Vernon told him.

‘Do you seriously think that the outside authorities are going to let something like this drop without investigating it?’

‘I couldn’t give a damn about the outside authorities,’ snapped Vernon. ‘What goes on inside these walls is my concern.’

‘And the fact that a man could have died today doesn’t bother you?’ Fraser said, challengingly.

‘Grant knew that he might be taking risks when he agreed to participate in the experiments.’

‘Acceptable risks, yes, but …’

Vernon cut him short.

‘Risks,’ he said, forcefully.

Fraser now turned his attention to Kelly.

‘With all due respect, Kelly, you are responsible for this,’ he said.

‘I realize that,’ she said. Then, to Vernon: ‘I’m prepared to resign.’

‘No,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘That wouldn’t solve anything.’

Kelly could not conceal the look of surprise which flickered across her face.

‘She broke every rule of this bloody Institution,’ growled Fraser. ‘She nearly killed a man as well and you …’

It was Kelly’s turn to interrupt.

‘Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,’ she snarled. ‘I know I was in the wrong. God knows I wish I could repair the damage I’ve done.’

‘The research had to be taken to its logical conclusion,’ Vernon said, supportively.

‘That conclusion presumably being the death of the subject,’ said Fraser, sarcastically.

‘There was no way of knowing exactly how the atropine would affect Mr Grant,’

said Vernon, as if he were defending himself instead of Kelly. She looked on dumbfounded as he came to her rescue.

‘A dose of 5ml is considered dangerous. We all know the effects of the drugs we use. Kelly should have known that injecting Grant with twice that amount would have serious side-effects.’

‘Did Grant actually say anything of use while he was drugged?’ Vernon wanted to know.

is that important now?’ Fraser said, angrily.

Vernon turned on him, his grey eyes blazing.

‘Yes, it is important. The only thing that matters is that this project is successful. If certain sacrifices have to be made then that’s unfortunate but unavoidable.’

‘You’re insane,’ said Fraser, his tone a little more controlled now. ‘This isn’t research to you anymore, it’s an obsession. How many more people are going to be injured or killed before you’re satisfied? Before you have the answers you want?’

‘That’s enough, Fraser,’ Vernon warned him.

‘Do you honestly think that any of this is going to help youT the investigator said, cryptically.

Kelly looked at him, wondering what he meant.

‘Fraser.’ There was more than a hint of anger in Vernon’s voice.

‘What are you looking for, doctor?’ the investigator demanded. ‘Or more

importantly, why are you looking?’

‘This isn’t the time or the place to …”

‘Perhaps if we knew about whatever it is you’ve managed to hide for so long then …’

Fraser’s words were choked back as Vernon lunged forward and grabbed him by the lapels. The older man’s face was flushed and there was a thin film of perspiration on his forehead. He fixed the investigator in his steely grey stare and held him there. Kelly looked on with concern and interest, wondering whether or not she should intervene.

‘This time, Fraser, you’ve gone too far,’ hissed the doctor. He pushed the investigator away, watching as he fell against the table. ‘Now get out of here. Out of this room. Out of this Institute. You’re finished here.’

Fraser dragged himself upright and steadied himself against the table.

‘Perhaps the police might be interested in what happened here today,’ he said, threateningly.

‘The police will be informed, when I think it’s necessary,’ Vernon told him.

‘Now, get out.’

Fraser looked at Vernon a moment longer, then at Kelly.

‘I’m sorry, Kelly,’ he said apologetically and made for the door. They both heard his footsteps echo away down the corridor.

Vernon pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his face. He pulled a chair out from beneath the table and sat down, ignoring the bloodied fork which lay before him. Kelly watched as he popped a menthol sweet into his mouth and sucked it. His face was still tinged red with anger and he shuffled his fingers impatiently before him.

Kelly licked her lips, finding them dry, like her mouth. She wanted to ask Vernon what Fraser had meant, just as she had when he’d made the other cryptic remark two days before.

‘… whatever it is you’ve managed to hide for so long.’ Fraser’s words stood out clearly in her mind. Why had Vernon reacted so angrily?

‘Dr Vernon, Grant said that he’d killed his wife. It was like a confession,’

she said. ‘It’s all on the tape, every word.’

Vernon didn’t speak.

‘What could he have meant?’ she persisted.

it must have been the effects of the drug, you said he was hallucinating.’

‘Yes, but no one mentioned to him that a neighbour had identified a man like him the day his wife and son were butchered. Why should he say that?’

‘Look. Kelly, I think we have enough to worry about with what happened today,’

Vernon said, evasively. ‘And it would be best if you left here. I’ll call you in a fortnight or so, the research can’t continue until after the enquiry anyway.’

‘Can the authorities close the Institute?’ she wanted to know.

Vernon shook his head.

‘No. And don’t worry, your job will still be here when you come back.’

‘Why didn’t you accept my resignation?’ she asked.

‘Because what you did was based on sound theory. It was a chance which had to be taken eventually.’

Kelly nodded although it was not an explanation which wholly satisfied her.

Vernon appeared to have more than a scientific interest in the outcome of the research. The question was, why?

Finally, she slipped off her lab coat and decided it was time to leave. She and Vernon exchanged brief farewells and he repeated his promise to contact her in two weeks.

Vernon waited until she had left the room then he walked slowly around it, his eyes drawn occasionally to the spots and splashes of congealing blood, now slowly turning rusty as it solidified. There was a slight smell of copper in the air. He eventually reached the tape recorder. He pressed the re-wind button and watched as the twin spools spun in reverse. When the process was completed he took the full one and dropped it into his pocket, deciding to listen to it in the privacy of his office. As he made his way out of the room,

two cleaners were entering armed with mops and dusters. They set about removing all traces of the horrors which had occurred in there.

Vernon crunched his cough sweet up and replaced it with another as he walked up the stairs towards his office. His secretary had gone home an hour earlier so he had the place to himself.

Nonetheless, he locked his office door before settling down to listen to the tape.

Twice he played it through, his face impassive, even when Maurice Grant’s shrieks of agony began to erupt from the speaker. Halfway through the third play Vernon switched it off. He sat for what seemed like an eternity, his chair facing

the window, then he swung round and reached for the phone. He hurriedly dialled the number he wanted and tapped agitatedly on the desk top with his stubby fingers as he waited for the receiver to be picked up. He heard the click as it finally was.

‘The Metapsychic Centre?’ he asked. ‘This is Dr Stephen Vernon. I want to speak to Alain Joubert. Tell him it’s important.’

10.06 p.m.

Kelly folded the last of her clothes and laid the skirt gently on top of the other things. The only light in the bedroom came from a bedside lamp which cast a warm golden glow over the room. Kelly decided that she had packed enough clothes and lifted the case from the bed onto the floor. She felt stiff all over, her neck and shoulders in particular ached. She resolved to take a shower and have an early night.

She intended leaving early in the morning.

The day had been an exhausting one both mentally and physically and she felt the need to relax more than she usually did upon returning home in the evenings. She’d only half-eaten her dinner, washing it down with two or three Martinis. The effect of the drink was beginning to make her feel pleasantly drowsy. She unbuttoned her blouse, laying it over a chair before slipping out of her jeans and folding them carefully. Standing before the full length mirror on the wardrobe she unhooked her bra, her breasts remaining taut even when the garment was removed. Kelly skimmed off her panties and tossed them to one side, glancing at herself in the mirror. The reflection which stared back at her was a pleasing one.

Despite the fact that she was only five feet two inches tall, her slender frame gave her an appearance of striking elegance which was normally reserved for tailer women. She had small but plump breasts, her lower body tapering in to form a tiny waist and smooth lean hips. Her legs were slim, usually appearing longer when she wore the high heels she favoured.

Kelly walked through into the bathroom and turned on the shower, stepping beneath its cleansing jets when it was at a suitable temperature. She stood motionless, allowing the

water to run over her face, washing away what little make-up she used. She began soaping herself.

As she stood beneath the spray she allowed her mind to back-track to the events of earlier in the day. To Vernon.

Why was he protecting her? It didn’t make sense. Unless, as Fraser had intimated, he did have something to hide. Vernon obviously saw Kelly as a useful tool.

As she closed her eyes, the vision of Maurice Grant, his eyes ripped from the sockets, flashed before her and she jerked her eyes open again.

She thought of his confession.

Had it been the drugs which had caused his outburst, she wondered? Instinct told her that there was more to it than that. And yet. how could he have killed his wife and son? She and three other people had seen him strapped down at the time the killings supposedly took place.

She stood beneath the shower a moment longer then flicked it off, dried herself and padded back into the bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the phone.

It was a recorded message, which suited her because she didn’t feel much like talking. She scribbled down a few details as the metallic voice droned on then, finally, she replaced the receiver, glancing down at what she had written.

She would catch the 9.30 flight to Paris in the morning.

Paris

The restaurant in the Place de Wagram was crowded, more so than usual because many had sought shelter inside from the rain which was pelting down. Waiters threaded their way through the maze of tables balancing trays and plates precariously on their arms. A wine glass was dropped and shattered loudly on the wooden floor. Lasalle spun round in his seat, startled by the sound. He saw a waiter picking up the pieces of broken glass while a customer complained loudly.

‘Did you hear me?’

The voice brought Lasalle back to his senses.

‘What did you say?’ he asked, blankly, turning back to face Joubert who was chewing hungrily on a piece of meat.

‘I said, I don’t like the idea of her working with us,’ Joubert repeated.

‘Come now, Alain, when these experiments first began it was agreed that there would be co-operation between the two Institutes. I don’t understand your objections.’

‘The experiments carried out in England have not been as successful as ours,’

Joubert complained.

‘How do you know that?’ Lasalle asked, sipping at his wine.

His companion paused for a moment, swallowing the piece of food he’d been chewing.

‘Because we’d have heard more,’ he said, quickly.

Lasalle looked up and saw a familiar figure making her way back towards the table. He tapped Joubert’s arm and motioned for him to be quiet but the other Frenchman merely muttered something under his breath.

Kelly sat down and smiled across the table at Lasalle. Joubert did not look up from his meal. She picked up her knife and fork and set about her salad once more.

She had arrived in Paris over three hours earlier and, after booking into a hotel, she had taken a taxi to the Metapsychic Centre. Once there she had introduced herself to the Director and asked if she could see Lasalle. The two investigators had been friends for some time and he was happy to allow her to work with him.

The reaction of Joubert could not have been more different. Upon hearing that Kelly was to assist them in their experiments he had barely been able to restrain his anger, managing only by a monumental effort of will to disguise his open dislike of her presence.

She had explained, briefly, what had happened with Maurice Grant and why she had been forced to come to France. Joubert had been unimpressed and, when she had asked to look at the notes which the two men had compiled, he had been openly hostile, guarding the files jealously. She wondered why he should have taken such a dislike to her.

‘If you’d let me know you were coming,’ said Lasalle, ‘I could have made up the bed in my spare room. It would have saved you paying for a hotel.’

‘I’m fine where I am thankyou,’ Kelly assured him, smiling.

“When were you thinking of going back?’ Joubert asked without looking up.

‘Not for a while yet,’ Kelly told him.

‘What exactly do you think you can learn here?’ Joubert continued, still not paying her the courtesy of a glance.

‘It’s not so much a case of learning,’ Kelly began. ‘I …’

He cut her short, his dark eyes finally pinning her in a malevolent stare.

‘Then what do you want here?’ he hissed.

Kelly met his stare, her own anger now boiling up. Who the hell did Joubert think he was anyway? she thought.

‘I told you why I came here,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t carry on working at the

Institute in England, not while the enquiry was being conducted. I thought I might be of some help to you.’

‘Don’t you think we’re capable then?’ he said, challengingly.

‘Are you this rude to everyone or have / been singled out for that honour?’

she said, angrily.

Joubert stopped eating and looked at her warily.

‘Can’t we all just finish our food in peace?’ said Lasalle, looking at his two companions.

Joubert put down his knife and fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

‘I’ve finished anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s about time I went back to the Centre.

There’s a lot to do this afternoon.’ He balled up his napkin and dropped it on to the table, getting to his feet. He looked down at Lasalle. ‘I trust I’ll see you later?’

Lasalle nodded.

‘And no doubt you too, Miss Hunt,’ Joubert added, scornfully. With that he pushed past some people who were waiting for a table and headed for the door.

Lasalle watched him go.

‘I must.apologise for my colleague,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry if I’ve caused any trouble between the two of you,’ said Kelly. t ‘Joubert is a good man but, sometimes, he lets our work get to him.’

‘I noticed,’ Kelly told him, spearing a piece of tomato with her fork.

‘Speaking of work, have you made much progress?’

‘There is so much to discover,’ said Lasalle. ‘The unconscious mind is a vast area.’ He took a sip of his wine. ‘We did have some success three or four days ago. A subject named Decard. Whilst in a trance he was able to see the future.’

‘Precognition?’ she said, excitedly.

‘But only while hypnotised. When he was brought out of the trance he could remember nothing of what he had seen.’ The Frenchman paused. ‘It was all rather unfortunate. He foretold the death of his own daughter.’

Kelly sat bolt upright, as if she had just been nudged with a cattle prod.

‘I wasn’t told about this,’ she said.

Lasalle frowned.

‘Joubert was supposed to have relayed the information to you.’

‘I heard nothing,’ Kelly assured him.

The Frenchman looked puzzled and a heavy silence descended momentarily.

Kelly wondered if she should mention the murder of Maurice Grant’s family but she decided against it, content to let the thoughts and ideas tumble over inside her head.

‘What I said about you staying with me,’ Lasalle said. ‘I hope you weren’t offended by it.’

Kelly smiled.

‘Of course not,’ she said.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it but, since Madelaine died, the house has seemed … bigger than it used to.’ He smiled humourlessly.

‘I understand,’ Kelly told him. ‘How are you managing on your own?’

‘I get by,’ he’ said, reaching inside his jacket for the bottle of tranquilizers. ‘With a little help.’ He held one of the capsules before him, swallowing it with some water.

Kelly studied his face, noticing how much he had changed since the last time she had seen him. His dark hair was streaked with patches of grey, particularly around his

temples. Deep lines cut swathes across his forehead and around his eyes and his cheeks appeared bloodless. He had lost weight too she suspected. But, for all that his eyes retained a glint of passion and energy which seemed to have deserted the rest of his body.

‘Probably if we had had children then it wouldn’t have been so bad,’ he said.

‘As it is, there is no one else left for me.’ He gazed at his wine glass for a moment longer then seemed to shake off the cloak of melancholy. A smile spread

across his face. ‘Enough of this,’ he said. ‘How are you, Kelly? Have you any plans to marry?’

She looked at him aghast.

‘Definitely not,’ she said.

‘You mean there is no man waiting to sweep you off your feet?’ He chuckled.

‘If there is he’s keeping himself well hidden,’ Kelly replied.

Lasalle laughed, an infectious sound which cut through the babble in the restaurant and caused a couple of heads to turn.

Her tone changed slightly.

‘Michel, about this man who had the precognitive vision. Decard you say his name was?’

Lasalle nodded.

‘What exactly did he see?’

The Frenchman told her.

‘And was Joubert present when this happened?’ Kelly asked.

‘Yes, he seemed quite excited by it all.’

Kelly brushed a hand through her hair, stroking the back of it with her palm.

Why hadn’t Joubert told her about the incident? Why the secrecy? When the two Institutes were supposed to be working together it seemed only natural that information as important as that should be available.

She wondered what else the Frenchman had neglected to tell her.

Lasalle looked at his watch.

‘I suppose we should be getting back,’ he said.

Kelly got to her feet and the two of them made their way towards the exit.

Outside it was still raining, the banks of dark cloud overhead showing no promise of respite.

As they ran towards Lasalle’s car, Kelly wondered if Joubert’s attitude might change as the afternoon wore on. Somehow she doubted it.

Using a small wooden spatula Lasalle gently applied the sticky conductant to three places on Joubert’s face. One at each temple and another just above the bridge of his nose.

Kelly attached the electrodes carefully and Joubert himself re-adjusted them, lifting his head slightly as Lasalle pressed the last two against the back of his head.

That done, Joubert lay back on the couch, hands clasped across his chest. The Frenchman lay motionless, his eyes peering at some point on the ceiling.

Lasalle reached for his hand. He fumbled along the wrist and located the pulse which he took and noted on a clipboard. Then, like a doctor examining a patient, he took a penlight from his pocket and shone it in his companion’s eyes, checking the pupillary reactions.