by A J Waines
Con admitted he’d woken the previous night with those same images and couldn’t get back to sleep. ‘Those have been my darkest hours, so far. And yes,’ he didn’t look up, ‘I did think for a split second about not being here anymore.’
‘Toppin’ yourself?’ asked Terry, his eyes shifting constantly, unable to focus on one thing.
Con nodded. ‘For me, it was more like knowing I shouldn’t be here,’ he replied. ‘I knew I’d only got out because I’d forced my way ahead of others. Like some grotesque queue-jump.’
‘Yeah – I feel like that, too,’ said Terry, picking at a solid drip of candle wax on the table. ‘It’s like I need to be punished for what I did. I’ve got this feelin’ like I’m worthless most of the time.’
I studied their faces. They both had the same blank, lost look. I needed to get my message across, but they were both so close to the edge. The last thing I wanted was to make things worse.
‘You’re both going to have to be extremely vigilant about your mental state from now on,’ I said, switching from one to the other.
I managed to get Terry to agree to phone me every day, morning and night, with an update on how he was coping. I gave him an open invitation – more like an instruction – to call me immediately if he experienced any suicidal impulses. He also agreed to allow himself to be supervised – to tell friends and family – and to make sure he wasn’t alone over the next few days. We agreed to meet again and review the situation in two days’ time.
After Terry had gone, Con reached out and held me close.
‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly.
‘You won’t be thanking me when I have you tailed like a Mafia gangster from now on.’ I said, attempting a smile. I knew my response was flippant, but it was either that or let myself drown in an all-consuming panic.
He pulled a face. ‘I won’t mind if it’s you.’
‘Whenever possible, it will be.’ I trailed my finger down his cheek. ‘Not for the rest of today, though. And I suggest you don’t arrange to see Justin for the time being. Not until we find out more about this.’ He turned away, unhappy. ‘It’s not safe,’ I said, tugging him back to face me.
I rang Miranda. ‘Can you be at my place this afternoon?’ I said. ‘I need someone to keep an eye on Con.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’
I gave her only the essential details. She wasn’t an ideal choice by any means, but there was no one else I could call on at such short notice – and at least they knew each other.
‘I’m not his babysitter,’ she complained.
‘Please do this for me. Don’t let him out of your sight. Seriously, for one minute.’
‘What if he goes off somewhere?’
‘Go with him. I’ll take over as soon as I’ve had a meeting with someone.’
‘Can’t you just give him a sedative or something?’
‘Drugs aren’t always the answer, Miranda. You should know that.’ I grimaced as soon as I said it.
‘You always have to make it personal,’ she said and hung up.
Con and I caught a bus back to Clapham. On the way, I began typing a transcript of the tape I’d just made. I wanted to be sure of the exact words Con and Terry had used to describe their flashbacks.
Miranda arrived and made it clear through hissed whispers just how much my request had ruined her day.
‘Miranda, I wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t really serious.’ I held her wrists, shook her a little to make her look at me. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight, okay?’
She rolled her eyes and put the TV on. I joined Con in the hall. I hated leaving him, but I had to start making headway before it was too late.
On the train over to Waterloo, I finished off the transcript. As I did so, a further revelation broke through to the surface.
When I’d spoken to Terry and Con, I’d held the notes from my sessions with Jane and Jake out of sight on my lap. Now I examined them all together, I hit on an extraordinary discovery. I could see it right in front of my eyes, in black and white. It was more than the one phrase, scorched oil, that all four victims used to recount their experiences – there were other duplicated expressions using the exact same words. It was a break through that left me completely baffled.
It was as though they’d each learnt their accounts from a script.
Chapter 23
Dr Imogen Reiss was waiting inside the Royal Festival Hall by the gift shop. Without hesitation, I threw my arms around her, almost knocking her over.
‘I heard about the suicides…through the grapevine,’ she said. ‘I was going to call you.’
Imogen had been my tutor during my psychology training and we’d kept in touch ever since. She wouldn’t let me down. Tears flooded my eyes as I realised she was the only person I could say that about, right now.
‘Sorry,’ I said, sniffling into a tissue.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, scooping one of my tears away gently with her thumb. ‘You’ve got every reason to be upset.’ She held my shoulders. ‘What support are you getting at work? Who’s your supervisor?’
‘Good question. Professor Schneider was supposed to find a new one for me ages ago.’
She grunted. ‘He’s hopeless. What’s wrong with him? You need to make a fuss about it, Sam.’
Imogen was the sort of person you’d want leading your team, whatever you were undertaking. She took charge without being bossy and always made sure the quietest voice was heard. She also knew when to lighten up. Her wicked humour always broke any tension and continued to take me by surprise.
We climbed the stairs to the celebrated restaurant overlooking the Thames. I wanted to treat her for taking time out of her busy weekend schedule at Guy’s Hospital, plus there were spectacular views of the water through the wall-to-wall glass panels. Not that I took the opportunity to enjoy any of it. I had too many questions. We clinked together our glasses of mineral water and I filled her in on the situation.
‘Under what circumstances might someone believe something fictional is real?’ I asked. ‘Supposing they don’t have mental health issues or aren’t taking mind-altering substances.’
Imogen’s field was human motivation; I was certain she’d know about forms of coercion. She stared out over the water pensively. ‘What have you considered already?’
‘The obvious one is subliminal messages,’ I said. ‘Could these individuals have accidentally picked up a hidden message from an advert? A TV programme? Could they all have seen the same YouTube video or listened to the same CD?’
‘Possibly, but all the research I’ve read suggests that the effects, if any, are minimal and short-lived.’ She twirled the stem of the glass as she spoke. ‘Conscious persuasion has much more impact.’
‘What about hidden triggers; words or images that could cause people to act in certain ways?’
She shook her head. ‘They don’t have much effect. There was an interesting experiment on a television show, in the late fifties, where the message “telephone now” was flashed up three-hundred and fifty times over half an hour, but there was no notable increase in calls. Things haven’t moved on much since then. Covert messages generally only nudge people to do things they were already intending to do.’ She shrugged. ‘You can buy tapes if you want to stop smoking, say, but they only work if you want to give up.’
‘What about false memory syndrome? I know psychoanalysis came in for a lot of stick in the nineties when that label came on the scene.’
‘Well – patients can have an apparent recollection of an event that didn’t actually happen, usually after hypnosis or relaxation therapy.’ She picked up a crouton from her plate and nibbled it. ‘But, even under hypnosis the patient is always in control, always able to “come back” to being fully awake, if they want to.’
I nodded. We’d covered all this at university.
‘And hypnosis can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do – like killing yourself,’ I concluded, feeling like we
were getting nowhere.
Imogen gave me a sad shrug. ‘Exactly.’
She tucked into her Caesar salad. I hadn’t touched my risotto. A persistent fluttering in my stomach stopped me from picking up my fork and the more I looked at the mushrooms, the more they turned into slugs embedded in wet concrete in my mind.
‘How’s Con?’ she said, changing the subject. ‘How’s his arm?’
‘Oh, that’s on the mend,’ I said. I paused, waiting for her to finish her mouthful. ‘Actually, Con’s been affected by this too, he’s one of the people I’m talking about.’ I told her what had happened.
She snatched a breath and leant forward. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. No wonder you’re so worried.’ She put down her knife and fork. ‘I’m not sure I see a link between the flashbacks and the suicides per se,’ she said. ‘Are you certain the patients have no previous mental health issues?’
‘One of them had made an attempt before,’ I said.
‘There you are then. It doesn’t mean Con will. How much do you know about his medical history?’
‘He’s flagged up difficult times in his past, but it doesn’t sound like he’s ever had any mental health issues. I’ve never been worried by anything.’
It wasn’t the sort of thing you necessarily delved into when you were getting to know someone: Hi, I’m Sam – by the way, have you ever tried to kill yourself?
She shrugged. ‘That’s a good sign.’
‘How can I find out where Con and the others got these images from? Was it the same place, do you think?’
Imogen sat back. ‘Are you sure you’ve got this right? You’re going headlong down this brainwashing tack. It started after that fire at Liverpool Street, didn’t it? Couldn’t they have simply exaggerated what happened to them?’
‘None of them were there – I’m sure of it.’
‘Are you absolutely certain?’
‘What they said…the layout of the station…their experiences, their injuries – or lack of them – don’t match what happened at Liverpool Street.’
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘let’s try a different tack. Let’s suppose there was something sinister going on. What do these four people have in common?’
‘I’ve racked my brains but I can’t find anything. They have totally different professions, live in different parts of London, they’re different ages, have different interests.’ I stared at my untouched meal. ‘I’m a common factor – they all know me.’
‘But this problem didn’t originate with you.’
I thought again. Then it hit me. I didn’t know how I’d missed it.
‘There is a connection,’ I said, sending my eyes sharply to her face, my mouth gaping.
Before I’d spoken to Imogen, I’d been aware that St Luke’s Hospital was a common link between the three patients I’d been seeing for PTSD, but I hadn’t been able to work out how Con fitted in. It was only after I reflected on Imogen’s earlier question about Con that I realised where I’d been going wrong. It was his arm. Con had been given over a dozen stitches after he’d fallen off his motorbike two months ago. He’d been seen at St Luke’s.
The hospital was the one concrete link between all four of them.
Fluttering on the edge of my mind, something else was bothering me. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.
When I got home, Miranda was furious.
‘So you trot out to lunch – Con told me – for the whole bloody afternoon and leave me to do your nannying for you?’ She was pulling on her jacket.
‘I wasn’t socialising,’ I said. ‘I was meeting an expert on motivational psychology.’
She sneered at me. ‘I’m off.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the bath.’ She flung open the front door and slammed it so hard, my post flew off the windowsill.
In spite of her reservations about my line of questioning, Imogen had promised to email me some recent research on mind-control and I intended to spend the rest of the day scouring the articles, while keeping Con occupied with some DVDs and a Chinese takeaway.
I put the kettle on and opened up my laptop. I could hear the radio playing from the bathroom; an old song, Vienna by Ultravox, and decided to leave Con in peace. He liked to sing in the bath and I expected him to break into song any moment. Once the kettle had boiled, I waited for his voice, then when I couldn’t even make out any splashes of water, I crept closer to the closed door. The only sounds were the sultry tones of Amy Winehouse now, hissing away, slightly off station.
How long had Con been in there?
A shaft of dread shot down my breastbone.
‘Con? CON? Are you okay?’
I tried the handle, but the door didn’t budge. I hammered on the wood.
Standing back, I considered whether I’d have enough strength to break down the door. I thumped it again with my fist and pressed my ear to it. No sound except the DJ. I took a deep breath, turned sideways and positioned my shoulder in front of the door. I was about to launch myself at it when there was a tiny click and the door opened. Con was bleary-eyed, one of my towels wrapped around his waist.
‘I fell asleep,’ he muttered. ‘Has she gone?’
I nodded.
‘There’s something I’ve just remembered,’ he said, leaning against the door frame, still dripping. ‘Oh God, this is really bad. It just hit me when I got out of the bath…’
‘What is it?’ I said, half holding him up.
‘There was a woman with a baby. Wrapped in a blanket…just ahead of me on the escalator. I’d forgotten until now. It was before the massive fireball filled the ticket hall. There was billowing smoke and everyone was freaking out, pushing and shoving to get out.’ He ran his hand through his hair and shuddered. I reached past him to grab my dressing gown.
‘The woman with the baby broke into a run, but someone caught her on the arm and she fell. Within seconds, the fireball exploded in the hall. I knew the baby must have landed on the floor. I could hear the mother screaming right near me, but I kept going. I didn’t stop to help.’
He melted into sobs. ‘I didn’t stop. What kind of man am I?’
I held him, his body twitching and shuddering with remorse.
‘Listen – there was never any record of this,’ I said, with authority. ‘I know for a fact that no one was killed in the fire. The baby didn’t die, Con.’
His sobs grew louder, hearing me perhaps, but unable to believe what I was saying. He was doubled over, howling like a wounded bear.
‘So you…keep telling me. But, it was so real. And in any case, I’d do the same – if it happened again. I know I would.’
‘You don’t know that,’ I said firmly.
He shook his head, spraying water over me, ‘Why is this happening to me?’
‘I don’t know…’
He stood staring at me as if I had the answer.
‘Put this on,’ I instructed, holding out his T-shirt. He looked bemused as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it, then lifted his arms at my instruction and allowed me to pull it over his head. It was like dressing a child.
His weeping gradually subsided and he stood around while I made hot drinks. He was mopey, but less agitated.
The chicken chow mein arrived later and we sat with platefuls of it tumbling over onto our laps, staring blankly at the television screen. Neither of us were hungry. I was keeping an eye on the clock, aware that I’d asked Terry to call me at nine to check in. I didn’t want to miss him.
I left Con on the sofa and scrabbled around in the bottom of my briefcase for the memory stick with copies of all my case-notes and plugged it into my laptop. I sat in the chair opposite to keep an eye on him and, with my handwritten notes on the chair arm, I started to go through everything line by line.
The answer was here right before my eyes, I was certain.
Chapter 24
While Con watched a Woody Allen DVD, I ran through every word of the accounts and transcripts of the fire, looking, not f
or the facts this time, but in detail at every emotional shift. A picture started to emerge. The same dominant feelings were cropping up in each account, based around guilt, shame and remorse.
Each of the victims had been suffering not just unpleasant flashbacks, but a tremendous emotional charge. They not only seemed to have false memories, but feelings of overwhelming guilt for not helping others. So much so, that two of them had committed suicide.
I switched to looking up online information on brainwashing and its history; how it was done, how effective it was. I trawled through page after page, and read about various techniques used during the Korean War in the 1950s, to persuade prisoners of war to defect. It turned out afterwards, though, that most of the prisoners had simply gone along with the indoctrination methods to make escape more likely, they hadn’t seriously been taken in by it.
I moved on to articles about mind-control and found reports of torture techniques where individuals were kept in drug-induced comas for weeks and given electric shocks. I knew for a fact that nothing like that had happened to Con recently.
It was all too extreme. It all sounded a bit old-fashioned, too. What about more modern methods of programming people’s minds? Perhaps I should be researching illusionists or TV hypnotists?
When the film ended Con got up, looking a little more animated and asked if I wanted to play a game of cards.
‘Sorry, Con. Not now.’
‘Coffee?’ he volunteered.
‘Go on, then.’
He smiled, but it faded quickly. He leant against the doorframe. ‘Am I going mad?’ he said.
‘No. Of course not.’
‘I can’t get the fire out of my head. Why does it seem so real…? How can…?’ His questions dried up.
‘I don’t know.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I think you might have been involved in some weird brainwashing process.’