Dagger Magic

Chapter Fourteen

THAT same morning, unaware that an old adversary was being drawn back into combat by a new one not yet met, Adam Sinclair braved the early rush-hour traffic into Edinburgh to keep his appointment with McLeod. A tail-back on the Forth Road Bridge delayed him, so that when he pulled the big blue Range Rover into the hospital car park, a few minutes later than he had planned, the inspector's familiar black BMW was already angled into a visitor's space.

He found McLeod waiting on one of the couches near the news kiosk in the lobby, looking over the latest edition of The Scotsman. As soon as he caught sight of Adam, the inspector nicked the paper shut and laid it aside on the nearest coffee table, murmuring something to a denim-clad individual with a wiry red ponytail - a hatchet-nosed, thirtyish-looking man with piercing blue eyes and a prodigious crop of freckles, who towered over McLeod by nearly a head as both men got to their feet. The stranger stubbed out a cigarette and eased the strap of a battered art satchel over one shoulder as Adam came over to join them.

'"Morning, Adam," McLeod said. "This is Alec Peterson, the police artist I mentioned last night. Alec, this is Dr. Adam Sinclair, one of our psychiatric consultants."

Proffering a smile and a handshake, Adam said, "Hello, Mr. Peterson. Sorry I'm a few minutes late. Has Inspector McLeod explained to you what it is we're hoping to accomplish today?"

"Aye, sir." The artist's voice was softer-spoken and far deeper than Adam had expected. "He tells me you're going to interview a hit-and-run victim under hypnosis, to see if she can remember enough to give us a description of the driver. With luck, I may be able to reconstruct a recognizable likeness."

He sounded more than a little intrigued at the prospect, and McLeod gave him a darkling glance.

"I'll warn you again, laddie: Don't let your imagination run away with you. This is a clinical procedure we're talking about, not a stage-magic act."

"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, Inspector."

Adam bit back a smile, prepared, for his part, to make allowances for the uninitiated Peterson.

"Relax, Mr. Peterson - or may I call you Alec? The outward form of what you're going to see may seem a trifle unorthodox, but I assure you its object is quite consistent with normal investigative procedures. The only restriction I'll impose on you is to ask that once the session is in progress, you must make no attempt to address Mrs. Crawford directly, unless I give you permission. She shouldn't be able to hear you, but it could be distracting. I realize that there'll be a need for interaction, once you've established your preliminary sketch. All I ask is that you let me facilitate the dialogue."

"I understand, sir," Alec said meekly. "I'll be ever so quiet."

The party repaired first to Adam's office, where he stopped long enough to slip on a lab coat and check his desk for messages. Having taken note of a staff meeting scheduled for the following week, he led his companions along to the low-security wing, where Claire's room was situated. The charge nurse was seated at the desk, making out a list of medication orders from a stack of charts at her elbow, but she looked up with a smile as Adam approached.

"Good morning, Dr. Sinclair. Here to see your new patient?"

"I am, indeed. Thank you," Adam said as she handed him Claire Crawford's chart. "Did she have a quiet night?"

"I believe she did, Doctor. It was a quiet night for the entire floor. Oh, and young Mr. Balfour asked if he might have a word with you. He's looking very cheerful, these last few days."

Adam paused in his perusal of Claire's chart and looked up. ' 'Colin Balfour is looking cheerful? We are making progress. I'll have a quick look-in after I've seen Mrs. Crawford, probably just before lunch. Will you tell him that for me?"

"Of course, Doctor."

"Thank you. In the meantime, I'll be working with Mrs. Crawford this morning, in her room." He handed back the chart. "These gentlemen are from the police. Mrs. Crawford has agreed to let them sit in on this session, which essentially is a victim interview. I'd appreciate it very much if you could ensure that we're not interrupted for any reason other than a genuine emergency."

"Certainly, Doctor."

Having thus disposed of any staff curiosity about police interest in Claire Crawford's case, Adam led the way toward her room, which was located at the far end of the adjoining corridor. As they went, he unobtrusively moved his sapphire ring from his trouser pocket to the more accessible pocket of his lab coat. Claire's door was ajar, but the vital, invisible tingle in the air about the doorway confirmed that the wards he had set the night before were still in place and still intact. He rapped lightly on the door frame before stepping across the threshold.

"Come in."

Claire was sitting by the window in her wheelchair, awake and fully dressed, and swung herself around as her visitors filed in. During the ensuing exchange of greetings and introductions, Adam made note of her appearance. She seemed sternly in command of herself, but he was uncertain whether to regard this as a good sign or a bad one.

"Well, you're looking rested and alert this morning," he said easily. "How did you sleep?"

Claire shrugged. "Not too badly, thank you. I took the sedative you prescribed. It seemed to help."

"Good. That's why I ordered it. Let's take a quick moment to look you over, and then we'll go work."

He began by taking Claire's wrist and timing her pulse-beat with his pocket watch. While he performed the reassuring ritual, designed to begin setting the stage for what he planned to do, McLeod surveyed the room in preparation for the next phase. The furnishings were limited to the bed itself, a movable writing table, a cabinet on wheels for holding personal effects, and two starkly functional chairs upholstered in orange vinyl.

"Obviously in keeping with the rule, 'only two visitors at a time,' " he observed drily, starting to move one of the chairs closer to Claire. "Alec, why don't you see what you can do to scrounge us up an extra chair?''

The police artist set aside his satchel and disappeared outside, returning a few minutes later with a folding chair. Leaving McLeod and his subordinate to arrange the seating, Adam went to shut the door and set a DO not disturb sign in place, unobtrusively dismantling the wards as he did so.

"I think we're about ready to begin," he remarked, coming back into the room. "Noel, if you and Mr. Peterson would care to get yourselves situated, I'll see to the lighting."

He made a show of adjusting the Venetian blinds while he also dismantled the wards about the windows, tilting the louvers upward to diffuse the morning sun. Returning to join the others, he saw that McLeod had positioned himself and Peterson slightly behind and to Claire's right, where their presence would be least likely to distract. Nodding his approval, Adam moved the remaining chair directly in front of Claire and sat down, almost knee to knee with her.

"I think we can begin now. Are you comfortable?" he asked.

She shrugged, obviously apprehensive, but far less tense than she had been the day before.

"1 suppose."

"Good. Now, we touched yesterday on your recurrent dreams about your accident. Today, however, we'll try to bypass those dreams and have a look at the accident itself. The specific purpose of this exercise is to sharp-focus your memory of the accident and see if it's possible for you to give us a physical description of the driver. From that description, Mr. Peterson hopes to produce a sketch that will help us find the man who's to blame. And once that happens, there's a strong likelihood that the associated dreams will spontaneously come to an end."

Because of Peterson's presence, Adam left unsaid that once the dreams stopped, so would the accidents along Carnage Corridor. Certainly, that was their highest priority in the short term - to ensure that no more innocent lives were lost.

But a longer-term priority had to do with Claire herself. While, at a very basic level, Adam's duty as a physician was to help Claire achieve what peace of mind she could, with regard to her losses - at least to make her functional - Claire's case went beyond the usual mandate of psychiatric medicine, because of the psychic aspects. And even though, in his role as a sometime enforcer of cosmic justice, he could hardly object to justice being exercised, where Claire's drunken driver was concerned, he found it profoundly unsettling at a deeper level, as a physician of souls, that Claire should feel so compelled to catch and punish the person responsible for her situation. Such compulsions were not the hallmark of a maturing soul.

Yet the very existence of Claire's unformed psychic talent, coupled with Adam's brush with the persona of Annet Maxwell - probable evidence of at least one previous incarnation - suggested that Claire possessed greater potentials. But Annet Maxwell had achieved a serenity not yet granted Claire Crawford, also bereft by the loss of husband and children. If Claire was to progress as a soul and achieve the potentials being presented in this life, eventually she, too, must find a healthier way to come to terms with her losses. Meanwhile, finding John Crawford's killer was, indeed, one of their priorities - if only to remove the impetus thai kept triggering Claire's unschooled psychic powers. And to do that, an artist's sketch might well provide conventional law enforcement authorities with just the tool they needed to succeed. Alec Peterson was waiting with pencil and sketch pad poised - and for this, at least, the procedure was fairly straightforward, even if the more complex resolution of Claire's anger might have to wait.

"Having established the ground rules, then," Adam went on, "let's begin with a variation on the same procedure we used yesterday. Claire, you remember what it felt like yesterday, relaxing and settling into trance. You'll find it much easier this time. I'd like you to close your eyes, if you would, and let yourself begin returning to that comfortable, relaxed state of mind. You'll recall that we did some breathing exercises to begin, so I'd like to take you through them again, as you breathe in for a count of five… hold for a count of five… and exhale for five…. In for five…"

A hush settled in the room as he soothed his patient into a state of receptive calm. Though aware that he must exercise some caution in what he said, because of Peterson's presence, he felt confident that the younger man probably would overlook any but the most blatant deviation from "normal" procedure, through not knowing what "normal" was. It was also quite possible that Peterson himself might slip into trance - which would only make matters easier when they finished and it was time to tidy up all the loose ends.

The artist became an anonymous blur as Adam, too, settled into a light trance, as was his usual wont when working with a patient in this manner. He was peripherally aware of McLeod's supportive presence next to Peterson, towering and strong, but everything besides Claire was fast receding into temporary obscurity. At first, Claire's eyes showed an occasional, fugitive glint of blue through her lowered lashes, but gradually the lines of tension ironed out of her face and she relaxed. Her breathing slowed to a whisper, her hands motionless in her lap.

After taking her through several short exercises to deepen her trance, Adam decided it was time to progress to the next stage. A glance at Peterson suggested that the artist was, indeed, coming along inadvertently for the ride - eyes slightly unfocused, pencil poised only loosely over the sketch pad on his knees.

"You're doing very well, Claire," Adam murmured, returning his attention to his patient. "In a moment now, I'm going to ask you to return to the night of your accident. Before that, if you will, I'd like you to imagine that you have before you a very special video machine, with the control beneath your hand. This video machine makes a perfect, three-dimensional recording of everything that happens to you - and it recorded what happened that night of your accident.

"Now, you said that you and your husband had been to a pub earlier in the evening, so in a moment I'm going to ask you to press the Rewind button, to go back to that time, as you're leaving the pub. The very special thing about this video machine is that once you return to that scene and then press the Play button, you will actually be in the recording, reliving that experience. In all respects, you will be back walking along that stretch of road with John, reliving all the sights and sounds and smells - every detail of that night, just as it was when you actually experienced it. It will be exactly the same, in every detail but one. Shall I tell you what that difference is?"

She nodded slowly, passion stirring behind the closed eyelids.

"The difference is that a small part of you is going to remain aloof, as if it's sitting back and watching the tape," Adam went on. ' This detached part of you has its finger on the Pause button - which means that as you relive that night, and this detached part of you watches the tape, you have the ability to stop the action, to freeze-frame, just before the moment of impact, and take a good, long look at the man behind the wheel of the car that struck you. And from that look, you'll be able to describe him to me. If you're willing to do this, please nod your head."

Slowly her head nodded, her right hand shifting position in her lap, as if poised over unseen control buttons.

"Very good," Adam whispered, sitting forward in his chair. "I'm clasping your left wrist now, as I did yesterday, so you'll know that I'm with you, that you've no reason to be afraid. However frightening it may seem, to relive what happened that night, you're perfectly safe - and remember, you're going to stop the tape just before you can be hit; you don't have to relive the actual accident. Are you ready to give it a try?"

Again she nodded.

"Good. Now, on my signal, I want you to push the Reverse button, so that the tape begins rewinding, going back to that night of the accident, starting - now. Watch the screen flicker, too quickly for you to see anything, but you'll know when you've reached that point, right after you and John left the pub. Let the flicker of the screen take you more and more deeply focused, so that you'll know exactly when to push the button…. And when you've gone back far enough, push the Freeze-frame button…."

He watched for nearly a minute as her eyelids flickered, watching the screen he had constructed in her mind. Then, all at once, lips pressed firmly together in concentration, she stabbed at an imaginary button with her right forefinger.

"Good," Adam whispered, giving her other wrist a reassuring squeeze. "Now tell me what you see, frozen there. Describe the scene in as much detail as you can."

Her lips parted, her eyes moving behind her closed eyelids as if surveying what she saw.

"It's the Lanark Road, not far from our house," she murmured. "It's the way we always come back from the pub on Wednesday nights. It's a mild night for May; it isn't even raining. There's a three-quarter moon, so we can see the road quite clearly. It's two lanes here, with a gravel footpath on the side where we're walking - the north side - and a gorse hedge grown up along a barbwire fence that marks the edge of an open meadow. There's a little burn running just the other side of the hedge. I can hear it chuckling over the stones, it's so quiet this time of night. No traffic; just the gurgle of the burn and our footsteps crunching on the gravel…"

"Go on," Adam said quietly, when she did not speak for several seconds. "Tell me about yourself, and John."

"We're walking with our arms around one another's waists. We're very happy; it's been a good evening. I can smell his aftershave, and the smoke from the pub clinging to our clothes, and just a hint of beer on his breath… and the scent of gorse mixed with petrol fumes…."

She smiled faintly. "He's just teased me that soon I won't be able to see my feet anymore. We're so excited about the baby. The doctor told us just last week that it's a girl; we wanted to know. John is secretly pleased, even though everyone says that men are supposed to want sons first. He told me before we were even married that he always wanted a little daughter. We think we might call her Heather, or maybe Alison. We've got plenty of time to decide, though. She won't arrive for a couple more months…."

"It's time to go into that Claire now," Adam prompted softly, when she wound down again. "A part of you remains aloof, fingers poised on the Slow-motion and Pause buttons, but you're walking along that road now, and headlights are approaching. Tell me what you see."

As he spoke, he commended his soul to the protection of the Light and let himself reach out to perceive what he could of what she was experiencing, once again lowering the psychic barriers between them. Though he did not close his eyes, all his own bodily sensations faded, save for the point of contact where his hand still clasped Claire's passive wrist. For an instant he floated dizzily outside himself, momentarily blind and disoriented. Then suddenly he was in the scene Claire had been describing.

A host of new sensations burst in on him from all sides - the gurgle of the waters in the burn, the cool touch of the night breeze, the scent of gorse mixed with a hint of petrol. Even as these sensations registered, a set of headlamps appeared ahead in the distance.

"There're headlights coming," Claire murmured. "They converge like a set of flares. We can hear the roar of the engine, and John grabs me by the sleeve and starts to push me out of the way."

" That bloke's going too bloody fast!' " she said urgently, mimicking her husband's words. " 'We'd better move back.'

"He pulls me away from the verge, but we can't go far because of the gorse hedge. We can hear the engine noise redoubled as the car bears down on us - it's weaving back and forth across the center line - the guy must be drunk! Squealing brakes - it swerves and ploughs right into the verge!

" 'Jesus, he's heading right for us!' " The tone made it clear that again, these were John Crawford's words.

"He pushes me behind him, trying to shield me," she went on, breathing hard, "but there's no place to go! I can feel the gorse tearing at my legs, and the fence behind it hard against my waist, but we're pinned like moths against a win-dowpane, caught in his headlights - "

"Go to Slow-motion!" Adam ordered, right beside her in the vision and fighting his own instinct to recoil. "Slow it all you want," he went on, as one of her fingers jerked spasmodically. "You've got time to watch now. You know you can stop the action, just before it happens, but let the car get as close as you possibly can. You want the best possible look at the driver. It's ten yards away - nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two - Freeze-framel" he ordered sharply.