The Sleepless

by Graham Masterton

  Michael continued to run his finger up the Massachusetts coastline. Past Boston Harbor, past Winthrop Beach and Revere Beach and Lynn Harbor. All of a sudden, there it was, and he was amazed that he had never noticed it before. Goat’s Cape, on the southernmost shore of the Nahant promontory, a fragment of land which jutted into Massachusetts Bay at the very end of a three-mile isthmus, like a leaping dolphin on the end of a line.

  Nahant – where they had found Sissy O’Brien’s tortured body washed up on the beach; and about whose lighthouse Michael had dreamed in his deep hypnotic trance.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Victor, lifting his glasses on to his forehead and closely scrutinizing the map. ‘This is all beginning to make some kind of sense.’

  Michael turned away. His shadow on the wall looked enormous and threatening.

  ‘It’s real, isn’t it?’ he said, tightly. ‘All this conspiracy stuff. It’s real.’

  ‘It’s going to bear some further investigation, let’s put it that way.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Michael, and he could almost feel the floor opening up underneath his feet.

  There was nothing much more they could do that night except drink and watch television and plan what they would do in the morning.

  At ten o’clock, CBS flashed a live news bulletin from Seaver Street. There was no sound at first, but the picture told it all. A black reporter was standing in a debris-littered bar with automobiles and trucks burning in the background. Red-and-blue police lights flashed on his sweating face.

  They heard him say, ‘ – seven National Guardsman killed when their Chinook helicopter came down over Grove Hall, eighteen civilians missing – rioting now totally out of control – governor has declared a state of emergency –’

  ‘End of the world as we know it,’ Victor remarked, drily.

  Back in the studio, anchorman John Breezeman announced, ‘We have just received a release from the White House that the president is “gravely concerned” about the rioting in Boston and has promised the governor his “wholehearted personal support.” ‘

  Michael got up and switched the television off. ‘Let’s get some sleep. I don’t want to face the end of the world with a hangover.’

  But that night, in the very small hours of the morning, Michael had the most extraordinary and frightening nightmare. He was falling through darkness, as he always fell, and he knew that other bodies were falling all around him.

  But as he plunged through the night, he felt somebody jostling against him. Suddenly, he wasn’t falling, but pushing his way through a crowd, and everybody was jostling him. They didn’t jostle like a normal crowd, however. They did it stiffly and erratically, as if they were incapable of standing up by themselves, as if somebody was pushing them and pulling them to make them move.

  As if they were dead.

  Through the crowd, he glimpsed a man in a suit, and the man was smiling. He didn’t speak, he simply waved; and as Michael pushed his way closer, he held out both of his hands, as if he wanted to catch hold of Michael, embrace him, take him into his arms.

  Michael screamed at him, ‘No! Don’t come near me! Don’t come near me!’

  He wasn’t afraid of the jiggling bodies all around him. He wasn’t afraid of the man in the suit.

  He was afraid of the harm that he himself was about to inflict. He was terrified of his own murderous intent.

  If the man in the suit came any closer, Michael was sure that he would have to kill him. Slice him open, like a ripened cantaloupe.

  But the man kept smiling, and pushing his way nearer, and Michael couldn’t turn around, couldn’t escape, because of all of the dead jostling bodies.

  He screamed out, ‘No, Mr President, don’t come near me! No, Mr President, no!’

  Fourteen

  Thomas opened the door of his apartment for them and said, ‘Come along in.’ He was wearing a red checkered lumberjack shirt that showed his greying chest hair. He led the way into a living-room that was prettily decorated but comfortably untidy. There was an aromatic smell of cinnamon and cloves and apple pie, and the sun was shining through the church-like smoke of a recently extinguished cigarette.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ Thomas asked, clearing yesterday’s newspapers from the couch. ‘Half of Roxbury is burning. Two more National Guardsmen killed. It seems to be getting worse, instead of better.’

  ‘We’ve got quite a few things to tell you,’ said Victor, folding up his spectacles and tucking them into his shirt pocket. ‘But first of all you’re going to have to suspend your natural policeman’s sense of disbelief.’

  ‘Sit down,’ said Thomas. ‘Victor, you haven’t met Megan, have you?’

  Megan wheeled her way into the living-room. She was still wearing her off-white broderie anglaise apron, and her nose was smudged with flour. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she smiled. ‘I was trying out an old Irish recipe for apple pie.’

  ‘Hallo, Mrs Boyle.’ said Michael. ‘I’m Michael Rearden. We met just once, at the farmers’ market in Cold Spring Park.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ Megan nodded. ‘How have you been keeping?’

  Michael made a wobbly gesture with his hand. ‘A little off-balance, but not so bad. I came to have a word with Giraffe here, if that’s okay.’

  ‘Of course. Would you like some coffee?’

  Thomas impatiently led them through to his den. There was a small sagging green-velveteen couch and a desk that was heaped with files and papers and magazines. On the walls hung scores of framed photographs of Boston Police Department get-togethers – drink-flushed detectives raising their glasses to the camera.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Thomas; and he and Victor sat side by side on the couch, rather uncomfortably, with their thighs pressed together. Thomas closed the door, then sat behind his desk and eased himself back in his old-fashioned wooden chair.

  ‘This O’Brien investigation,’ Michael began, ‘it’s opening up a whole great can of worms.’

  Thomas lifted his hand. ‘Before you start, I’ve had a message from the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department. They’ve found another body with puncture wounds in the back – just like Sissy O’Brien’s and just like Elaine Parker’s.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘You don’t know it, but I sent out statewide bulletins that any cases of torture or unusual injury should be reported to the Boston homicide squad immediately. This one came in at 3.30 this morning.’

  Michael waited. He could sense that Thomas was finding this difficult; and he had more than half an idea why he was finding it difficult.

  Thomas said, in a strained voice, ‘The body was found in thick woods about a half mile north of 151, close to John’s Pond. There were signs of sexual interference, although I don’t have all of the details just yet. But the doctor who examined the body believes that death was caused by the insertion of some kind of needle or needles into the back – needles which penetrated the suprarenal glands. Just the same as Elaine Parker, just the same as Sissy O’Brien.’

  Thomas’s face was very grey. He hadn’t slept since Sheriff Maddox had called him in the early hours of the morning; and in any case he hated to break this kind of news to anyone.

  ‘From – uh – personal documents found nearby – Sheriff Maddox provisionally identified the body as that of Joseph K. Garboden.’

  Ever since Thomas had started talking, Michael had suspected that the body was Joe’s. But all the same he found that tears were sliding down his cheeks, and that he was overwhelmed by a huge sense of grief and abandonment, almost as painful as losing a parent. Victor, unsentimentally, put his arm around him, and gave him a comforting squeeze.

  ‘What was the estimated time of death?’ Victor asked.

  ‘Day before yesterday, just before noon, judging – aheh – by the flesh-fly activity.’

  ‘That means that he probably died only about a half hour after he left Michael’s house at New Seabury.’

  Thomas nodded. ‘I’m very sorry, Mikey. I knew Joe just a
bout as well as I knew anybody in this town; and I liked him a whole lot better than most.’

  ‘Does Marcia know?’ Michael asked him, wiping his eyes with his fingers.

  ‘Dick Maddox sent two of his deputies to tell her.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Michael. ‘When he didn’t answer his mobile phone, and he didn’t go back home – I knew that something bad must have happened.’

  ‘I’m real sorry,’ said Thomas. ‘I know that you and Joe went way back.’

  There was a quick rap at the door, and Thomas opened it. It was Megan, bringing a tray of coffee and barmbrack, an Irish fruitcake which she baked herself. She wheeled herself around and set it carefully down on top of a heap of Guns & Ammo.

  She was just about to leave when she turned and stared at Michael with those green crème-de-menthe eyes and said, ‘What did you say?’

  At first, Michael didn’t understand that she was talking to him. But then he stared back at her, confused, and said, ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You said something,’ she told him. ‘I was just setting the tray down and you said something.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t say a word.’

  ‘I’ve just had to tell him about Joe Garboden,’ put in Thomas, taking hold of her hand.

  ‘No, no,’ Megan insisted. ‘You definitely said something. You said, Hillary.’

  Michael felt a crawling sensation in his hands, as if he were holding them, unwillingly, in jars full of yellow centipedes.

  ‘Hillary? You heard me say “Hillary”?’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ said Megan.

  ‘Oh, come on now, honey,’ said Thomas, laying his hand on her shoulder. ‘I didn’t hear Mikey say anything at all.’ He turned to Michael and said, ‘Megan had her first hypnotherapy session day before yesterday ... ever since then she’s been spooked. I know you recommended it, but I don’t know. I’m not so sure.’

  ‘You had hypnotherapy?’ asked Michael, intently.

  Megan nodded. ‘I had Aura Therapy with Dr Loffler at Brigham & Women’s. It did a whole lot to ease my pain, but now I keep having hallucinations. Well – not exactly hallucinations, but little odd experiences, like hearing people talking when they’re not talking. I keep thinking I have to go someplace ... that I ought to be getting myself ready to leave. The trouble is, I don’t know where.’

  ‘Have you heard the name “Hillary” before?’

  ‘I don’t know. It seems familiar. I don’t know why it should.’

  Michael turned to Thomas. ‘In all of my recent hypnotherapy sessions, I’ve seen this tall white-haired guy called “Mr Hillary”. In every trance, I meet him on the shore at Nahant Bay, and he takes me to the lighthouse. He keeps saying that I ought to join him, that I’m one of his kind. And inside the lighthouse, he introduces me to all of these white-faced young men. The same white-faced young men have been watching my house at New Seabury, and the same white-faced young men have been keeping an eye on Victor and me ever since we got back to Boston, and the same white-faced young men were following Joe when he left us two mornings ago.’

  ‘I’ve seen them, too,’ put in Victor, in case Thomas thought that Michael was exhibiting the signs of too much emotional stress.

  Michael said, ‘What we came here to tell you was that we caught two of them cutting off my hypnotherapist’s feet.’

  ‘They were doing what?’ asked Thomas, incredulously.

  ‘Cutting off his feet, with bolt-cutters. They killed his receptionist, and presumably they were going to kill him, too. Fortunately, Victor managed to stop most of the bleeding, and the paramedics flew him to Boston Central for microsurgery. He’s there now. He was in shock when we found him, but he managed to confirm what Victor and I had been theorizing already ... that the pilot of John O’Brien’s helicopter was flying under post-hypnotic suggestion – and that’s how the driver of the pick-up truck knew that he was going to crash on Nantasket Beach.

  ‘He also gave us his notebooks and Filofax ... and in his notebooks he makes several references to “H”. We looked through his Filofax and came across the name “Mr Hillary, Goat’s Cape.” Goat’s Cape is at Nahant, where the lighthouse stands.’

  Megan was holding Thomas’s hand and even without her flour-smudged nose she was looking pale. ‘The lighthouse. That’s right. The lighthouse.’

  ‘You’ve seen it, too?’

  ‘When I was under hypnosis. Way in the distance. A white, stubby lighthouse.’

  Thomas frowned. ‘It isn’t possible for two people to have the same experience under hypnosis, is it? People can’t have the same dreams, can they? How could you two have both seen a lighthouse?’

  ‘It can happen,’ Victor put in. ‘Both Michael and Megan have been under Aura Hypnotherapy, which is different from regular hypnotherapy. It makes their minds accessible to external influences – to other people’s auras. It could be that Michael’s therapist and Megan’s therapist both had contact with this “Mr Hillary” character, in which case it would have been perfectly feasible for both Michael and Megan to see his lighthouse while they were under hypnosis.’

  Megan shivered. ‘It’s frightening.’

  ‘What’s even more frightening is this,’ said Michael. He lifted his briefcase off the floor, opened it, and passed over the Parrot photographs that Joe had hidden in Mashing magazine.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ asked Thomas.

  But Michael said, ‘Just take a look. Read the captions on the back. Then make up your own mind what it’s all about.’

  Thomas turned the photographs this way and that. ‘They’re kind of blurry, aren’t they? Deale Plaza, November 22, 1963? But that’s –’

  After that, Thomas was silent. He scrutinized all of the photographs, read through all of the captions. Megan poured coffee, and they sat together sipping it while Thomas stared at the photograph of the white-faced young men on the grassy knoll and said nothing at all.

  ‘What do you suggest we do?’ said Michael, eventually.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. This is way, way over my head, this kind of investigation.’

  ‘But you’re not going to tell Commissioner Hudson, are you? Or the FBI?’

  ‘I don’t see what else I can do.’

  ‘You can help us track down this “Mr Hillary”.’

  ‘That won’t be difficult. We have his address.’

  ‘You can bring him in for questioning.’

  ‘Oh, yes? On what grounds? Suspicion of appearing in other people’s hypnotic trances?’

  ‘Giraffe, this is serious,’ said Michael. ‘Joe died because of it, Sissy O’Brien died because of it, Elaine Parker died because of it. All of those people who were lost at Rocky Woods, they died because of it. The evidence here is that JFK died because of it, too.’

  Thomas slowly shook his head. He tucked the photographs into their envelope and handed them back. ‘It’s all guesswork, and wild guesswork, at that. The official autopsy report is that John O’Brien and his family died accidentally – and, let’s face it, the only person in the world who hasn’t been accused at one time or another of assassinating John F. Kennedy is the Pope.’

  The phone rang. Megan answered it in the living-room, and then called, ‘Thomas! It’s David Jane. He says urgent.’

  ‘Pardon me,’ said Thomas, and picked up the phone. ‘Go – o – od morning, David, what’s going down now?’ He listened, with a single muscle working rhythmically in his cheek. Then he said, ‘Fifteen minutes,’ and put down the phone.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Victor.

  ‘You’d better come with me,’ Thomas told him. He stood up, and finished his scalding-hot coffee in quick, sharp sips. ‘A SWAT team managed to take possession of half of Seaver Street. They’ve occupied Patrice Lacombe’s apartment, among others.’

  He buckled on his shoulder-holster, and tucked in his service revolver. Victor helped him to shrug on his russet-brown coat.

  ‘They’ve found some bodies,’ sa
id Thomas. ‘One of them is Verna Lacombe, Patrice Lacombe’s wife. The other is Detective Ralph Brossard, from the nark squad – the same detective who accidentally shot Patrice Lacombe’s baby and started this whole war off in the first place.’

  Michael asked, ‘Can I come along, too?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Thomas. ‘More than my life’s worth, just at the moment. One more civilian dead, and the Globe’s going to have us for breakfast.’

  Victor gripped Michael’s shoulder. ‘I’ll catch you later. Don’t worry – I’m not going to let you get cut out of this.’

  Once they were gone, Megan said, ‘What about some more coffee?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Thanks all the same.’

  ‘I’m very sorry about your friend Joe,’ Megan told him.

  ‘Well, me too. That’s why I want to hunt down this “Mr Hillary”. ‘

  Megan said, ‘How can anybody appear inside a hypnotic trance, the way he did to you?’

  ‘I don’t know. But the way Victor explains it, this Aura Hypnosis is very powerful. I didn’t even understand that my therapist was using it, until Victor told me.’

  ‘Dr Loeffler explained it a little,’ said Megan. ‘He told me that everybody has an aura ... he said it’s like bright coloured light that extends to two or three times the size of your physical body. Some highly-sensitive psychics can actually see it. He said that when he put me under, I would be aware of a white or pink light, and that would be his aura following mine, into my subconscious.’

  She smiled. ‘I suppose it’s pretty personal, really – letting a strange man into your subconscious. It’s worse than letting him search through your dressing-table drawers.’

  Michael said, ‘I saw that pink light, too, when Dr Rice took me under. I never knew what it was. I guess that Dr Rice didn’t want me to be aware that he was following me.’

  ‘Were you very badly traumatized?’ asked Megan. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking.’

  Michael shook his head. ‘I was out to lunch for months.’ He took Dr Rice’s zinc-and-copper disc out of his pocket, and held it up. ‘If it hadn’t been for this little baby, I think I would have gradually gone mad. And I mean seriously mad – beyond recovery.’