Mind Games

by Hilary Norman

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you have a gun?’

  Kuntz slowed the runaround right down. ‘No, I do not have a gun.’

  ‘How about one of those fishing harpoons?’ Sam persisted. ‘Anything that would do for a weapon?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, man,’ Kuntz protested. ‘You promised this wasn’t going to get heavy, and suddenly you want a goddamned gun – I don’t have any fucking weapons on my boat, and if I did, I wouldn’t let you have them—’

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ Sam shouted over the wind. ‘If you have any kind of weapon on board you have to let me have it.’

  ‘How about I turn us around and to hell with the Snowbird?’

  ‘How about I make sure you lose this boat after all?’ Sam bluffed.

  ‘You told me you’d replace the boat if something happened to it!’

  ‘Do you see any witnesses to that?’

  ‘You’re a lying bastard, Becket,’ Kuntz shrieked, getting distraught.

  ‘The woman on that boat is in big trouble – can’t you see that?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake’ – the skipper dragged the cap from his bald, perspiring head and flung it into the wind where it was whipped away in an instant – ‘there’s a goddamned flare gun in the other locker in the stern. But I don’t know if it’s in working order.’

  ‘Where’s the key to the locker?’ Sam yelled, on his way.

  ‘It’s open, damn you!’

  Chapter Fifty-six

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Grace,’ Hayman shouted as he came closer again, ‘but you’re really beginning to worry me.’

  ‘I don’t mean to worry you, Peter.’ Her vision was blurring, but Grace could see enough to be sure the hypodermic was still in his right hand, and there was no way on God’s earth that she was going to let him stick that in her without a fight. ‘I just want you to get back to steering the boat so I can get on to dry land.’

  ‘I’ll get back to steering the boat,’ he said, ‘as soon as you’ve calmed down.’

  ‘I’m calm,’ Grace said, backing away. The wind whipped her hair across her face, lashing her cheeks.

  ‘I don’t understand what you said about Marie.’ His glasses were wet, and he put up his left hand to wipe them. ‘Marie who?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Hayman came at her suddenly, took hold of her right arm.

  ‘No!’ she yelled, trying to pull away.

  ‘Come on, Grace.’ Close up, his face looked concerned, his brown eyes perplexed, but he still held on to her arm. ‘I have to do this – I have to calm you down. You’re presenting a risk—’

  ‘To whom?’ She yanked her arm free. ‘To you?’

  ‘To us both – to this boat,’ Hayman yelled. ‘I have an obligation to keep my passengers under control.’

  ‘Broderick was always big on control,’ Grace yelled back.

  ‘What does Broderick have to do with anything?’ Hayman shouted.

  ‘I think he has everything to do with it!’

  She started to back away again, glancing around wildly. The boat was heaving back and forth, and she was still feeling dizzy and sick, but her need for self-preservation seemed to be keeping her upright.

  ‘Grace, what are you talking about?’

  She could see the hatch, thought about getting through that and maybe locking herself in below, but then she truly would be trapped, and maybe, if push came to shove, she’d sooner take her chances in the ocean – it had certainly worked for Broderick, if she was right about Hayman.

  ‘Grace, what is wrong with you?’

  ‘There was nothing wrong with me until I cut my hand this morning.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Now she knew for sure there was no going back. ‘There was nothing wrong with me until you put that stuff on the cut.’ Her back was up against the side of the boat again – she could feel the guardrail pressing into her spine.

  Hayman still had that same confused expression on his face. ‘Grace, what are you getting at? You sound like you think I did something to you.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ she demanded. The sickness had receded again – she thought maybe anger was keeping it at bay.

  ‘I put antiseptic on your cut and covered it.’ He shook his head. ‘Is it throbbing, is that it? Maybe you are running a fever. Let me take another look at that hand.’ He came towards her again.

  ‘You stay away from me,’ Grace said, sharply enough for him to stop dead in his tracks.

  The boat heeled to the portside and for a moment or two they were both clinging to the rail. Hayman threw a look up at the sky.

  ‘Looks like a thunderhead coming. I need to get the mainsail down.’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you – just keep the hell away from me.’

  Grace knew she was talking wildly, maybe crazily – she knew she wasn’t thinking straight – she certainly wasn’t thinking the way a trained, practised psychologist was supposed to think, and for all she knew – all she could be sure of – Hayman might even be right and the thing that had gotten into her system that morning – maybe it was an illness, some virus, she didn’t know – maybe it was muddling her thoughts. And yet, how could she take the chance? The guy had a hypodermic syringe he wanted to plunge into her, and if he was Broderick, then that was likely to mean he was going to kill her . . .

  ‘I am going to keep away from you,’ Hayman told her, keeping half an eye trained on the mainsail and jib. ‘Why don’t you go below, Grace?’ Now he was talking like a psych nurse speaking to a deranged, dangerous patient. ‘There’s a bunk down there. Why don’t you just try and rest until I get us ashore?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Then at least sit over there.’ He gestured to the cushioned seats.

  ‘I prefer it here,’ she told him. ‘It’s closer to the exit.’

  ‘Grace, this is nuts,’ Hayman protested. ‘Even if we weren’t in the middle of a gale, this is no place to go swimming.’

  ‘I’m not going swimming – I’m just not taking orders.’

  ‘I need to get the engine started and get those sails down.’

  ‘I’m not stopping you doing anything, except giving me a shot.’

  ‘Is this all because of the hypodermic?’ he asked. ‘Because if that’s what’s freaking you out, I’ll throw the damned thing overboard.’ He held it out carefully in front of him at thigh level, needle end facing the deck.

  ‘Sure you will,’ Grace said. ‘It’s evidence, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Realization hit Hayman at last. ‘Oh, my God, you think I’m John Broderick, come back from the dead.’

  ‘Except Broderick never died.’

  Very carefully, Hayman slid the hypodermic into his right jeans pocket.

  ‘I don’t know what’s put this nonsense into your head, Grace,’ he said ‘but as a colleague, I have to warn you that you’re in danger of sounding seriously paranoid.’

  ‘That’s one of Broderick’s specialities, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Making people look crazy.’ She took a deep gulp of Atlantic air. ‘How come you knew about Cathy getting the cannabis in vitamin capsules?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Hayman said. ‘I was just guessing.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Why not? You said the cannabis was ingested, and we knew how Marie was given the progestogen—’ He stared at her. ‘That’s what you meant before, wasn’t it? You really think I’m Broderick.’

  ‘Give me one good reason not to.’

  ‘I could probably give you a thousand, given time.’

  ‘Give me one piece of proof now,’ she said.

  The boat heeled again.

  ‘I have to get those sails down, Grace, or we’re going to get pushed right over on our side.’

  ‘I told you,’ she said, coldly, ‘go right ahead.’

  Hayman took a sideways step, then stopped as the boat steadied again. He took off his glasses, wipe
d his eyes – the expression in them was half amused, half angry. ‘Grace, you have to know none of this makes any sense—’

  ‘So prove you’re not Broderick.’

  ‘That’s a little hard right now, wouldn’t you agree?’ He put the glasses back on. ‘The photograph. You said you had a photo of him – do you have it here?’

  ‘Don’t you know the answer to that?’ Grace asked. ‘Didn’t you take a look while you were creeping around my room last night?’

  ‘I told you what happened last night!’

  ‘You lied about hearing me cry out – I wasn’t dreaming, and I didn’t make a sound.’

  ‘Okay,’ Hayman said. ‘So maybe I imagined hearing you – I just came in to see if you were okay.’

  ‘I was perfectly okay, until I heard you come in.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Hayman said. ‘Oh, Jesus, so this is really where all this has come from. Because I walked in on you while you were sleeping—’

  ‘Let’s say it didn’t add to my trust.’

  ‘Did you have doubts before?’

  Hayman looked incredulous. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he repeated. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Let’s say maybe I wasn’t as comfortable with you as I might have been.’

  ‘Not as comfortable.’ He was angry now. ‘So you – Dr Grace Lucca, a so-called psychologist – made the leap from being less than perfectly comfortable with me to concluding I’m a killer come back from the dead!’ He clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘You think I murdered Cathy Robbins’ parents and the therapist, and the aunt, too.’ His face was contorted. ‘And your boyfriend’s father – you think I stabbed him too! Jesus!’

  The wind, which had calmed for a few minutes, shrieked again, lashed at the Snowbird, making her pitch and groan.

  ‘Why don’t you deal with those sails?’ Grace’s fear was growing by the second – it was hard to know if she was more afraid of Hayman now or the maddened ocean.

  ‘I am not going to deal with anything until you move away from the side of the boat.’ He seemed to be struggling to hold on to his temper. ‘I am not going to let anything happen to you.’ He paused. ‘I swear I’ll prove I’m not Broderick, Grace, but you have to get away from the side so nothing will happen to you.’

  Grace stared into his face, trying to see beyond the glasses covering his eyes again, trying to remember Broderick’s features in the photograph and to superimpose them on to Hayman’s.

  ‘Why did you make it your business to find me at that convention?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘I told you why!’

  ‘Because you thought it might be Münchhausen’s related?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Hayman said.

  ‘Except that weeks later, when I’d come to see that the only truly feasible suspect had to be Broderick, you said you’d changed your mind about a parent being responsible – that maybe it was Cathy herself who was guilty after all.’

  ‘Because I could see you were in danger of becoming obsessed with proving her innocence. Because I was concerned you might have taken the wrong route through my suggestions. My God, Grace, if you only knew how far off the beam you are with this whole—’

  ‘Or maybe you were just playing games with me.’ Grace was breathing hard, hanging on tighter than ever.

  ‘Get away from the side,’ Hayman ordered, suddenly.

  ‘Don’t play your power games with me – I told you, I’m not moving.’

  ‘This is bizarre, Grace. I want you away from the side.’ His face dark with anger, he came at her again.

  ‘Don’t you lay a hand on me—’

  The sound and sight of the flare stunned them both. They looked up and saw it curving neatly over their heads like the trail of a small red comet.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Hayman had let go of Grace.

  They both saw the runaround plunging towards them at the same time, and Grace knew instantly, almost before she saw him, that Sam was in that boat.

  A second flare shot up from the Delia, skimmed their heads even more closely than the first.

  ‘Jesus!’ Hayman yelled. ‘Who is that maniac?’

  ‘It’s Sam!’ Grace yelled back, jubilantly.

  Hayman took a step back, and suddenly she saw his right hand snaking into his jeans pocket, and she knew that he was going for the hypodermic again, knew that he was either going to stab it into her or throw it overboard.

  ‘No way!’ she yelled and grabbed at his hand.

  ‘Grace, stop it!’ He wrenched his hand away, then lunged at her – his left arm around her waist was strong. Grace heard chugging, and out of the comer of her eye she saw that the runaround was almost alongside the sailboat.

  ‘Grace!’ she heard Sam yell.

  ‘Jesus, Becket’ – another man shouted – ‘you’re out of your fucking mind!’

  Both men were bawling over the noise of the storm – but Hayman was still holding Grace, and she couldn’t turn around to see what was going on. The Snowbird heeled again, throwing them off their feet on to the deck, and for a moment or two Grace was winded, and she saw Hayman getting up again, but she couldn’t seem to move. A loud thump jarred her, and when she started to sit up the Delia was banging into the side of the sailboat – and suddenly there was Sam, clambering over the guardrail, coming towards her.

  ‘Grace, hang on!’

  She heard the cracking first, as the mainsail ripped, and the mast split and wrenched, and then an awful groaning as the Snowbird reacted. She sounded like a great, living, wounded creature as she rolled and pitched.

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ Hayman yelled. ‘She’s going over!’

  Everything broke loose, went wild. Grace knew she was in the water, knew she was under, and it was so black, and she was swallowing the ocean, and she knew she was going to drown, and the only things that went through her mind then were Sam, and then Claudia, and then Harry, in that order . . .

  And that was all.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t.’

  Grace came to to the sound of a strange voice and someone’s hands pumping at her back to get the ocean out of her lungs – and then she was too busy retching and coughing to think about anything else.

  ‘You’re all right now,’ the voice said.

  The hands rolled her over. Grace stared up into pale, frightened eyes below a bald, domed head, and suddenly reality came back.

  ‘Sam!’

  ‘It’s okay, Grace,’ the bald man said, holding her down. ‘I’m Phil Kuntz, and you’re going to be all right.’

  ‘Let me go,’ she said as violently as she could, her voice still half choked.

  He let her go and Grace sat up, saw she was on the deck of a small boat – the runaround that had rammed the Snowbird. ‘Where’s Sam?’

  ‘He’s in the water,’ the man called Kuntz told her.

  ‘What?’ She struggled to her feet, and he helped her. ‘Sam!’

  ‘He’s trying to find the other guy,’ Kuntz said.

  Grace tore herself away from his hands and got to the side of the boat, and there was Sam, in the ocean, over to the left, treading water and gulping air.

  ‘Sam!’

  The Delia rocked wildly – for the first time, Grace noticed the Snowbird on her side a distance away over to the right.

  ‘Sam!’ she yelled at him. ‘Get up here!’

  He raised a hand, took another big gulp of air, and dived underwater.

  ‘Oh, my God, what’s he doing!’ Grace turned to stare at Kuntz, saw that he was wearing a life vest, saw another on the seat behind him. ‘Why don’t you do something – help him? Why isn’t Sam wearing a life vest?’

  ‘Because your crazy boyfriend took the damned thing off so he could dive for Hayman.’ Kuntz shook his head. ‘Best way I can help now is stay on the Delia with you – if he finds the other guy, we can get the PFD back to him.’ His pale eyes were fixed on the water. ‘I’ve put out a Mayday – the Coast G
uard should be here any time.’

  Grace stared back at the water. There was no sign of Sam.

  ‘Give me the vest.’ She tried to grab at the second PFD. ‘Give it to me – if you won’t help him, I will!’

  ‘No way, lady.’ Kuntz took hold of the life vest with one hand and grabbed Grace around the waist with his spare arm. ‘Not after your man went to so much trouble to save your hide.’

  Sam came up, gasping for air.

  ‘Sam, for God’s sake,’ Grace screamed at him over the wind, ‘give it up!’

  ‘She’s right, man!’ Kuntz yelled beside her. ‘Get on the boat!’

  Sam shook his head, and Grace saw him take another great gulp of air, and then he was arcing back into the water like a strong, dark seal, gone again, down into the depths.

  ‘He’s crazy,’ Kuntz said. ‘He’s not going to find him now.’

  ‘You have to do something!’ Grace was crying.

  ‘I told you, lady, there’s help on the way.’

  He was still gripping her around the waist, but Grace could feel her legs starting to give way, and she’d forgotten for those few minutes how bad she’d been feeling before, and what scraps of sense remained in her warned her that if she got back into the water she’d probably just end up needing to be rescued all over again . . .

  Sam reappeared. It was obvious from the way he was gasping, from the way every sinew on his neck was standing out, that it was getting harder.

  ‘Sam, please give it up!’ Grace begged, her voice cracking.

  ‘I can’t!’ His own voice was hoarse and weak – it was a struggle to hear him. ‘I can’t just let the bastard drown!’

  He was gulping air again – it was obvious he was getting ready to take another dive—

  From somewhere, Grace heard the wail of a siren and a motor. She and Kuntz whirled around and saw the Coast Guard launch and a cluster of smaller boats all heading towards the Delia from one of the Keys.

  ‘Sam, look!’ Grace screamed. ‘They’re coming to help!’

  ‘You can quit now, man,’ Kuntz yelled.

  ‘Not until I find him!’ Sam took a final breath and dived again.

  ‘Sam!’