by Chris Parker
Mike was a huge man, a former bodybuilder, with a love of modern jazz that bordered on obsession.
This was their first meeting since Ethan’s arrest. And since Peter had informed his friends of Nic’s departure.
‘How are you coping?’ Mike asked.
‘As well as anyone could be,’ Peter said.
‘To be fair you ought to, you’ve got more experience than most.’
‘Some pains hurt more than others.’
‘Fair point.’ Mike emptied nearly half of his pint glass in one swallow. ‘So the summary is, you’re unlucky in love but lucky at work. After all, it couldn’t have worked out much better with Ethan Hall.’
‘He could have stayed in his hospital bed.’
‘True. But once he upped sticks he could have caused a lot more harm than he did. Essentially you’re telling me that he got out, got involved with Calvin Brent, and got himself arrested before he could do any damage.’
‘Any damage that we know about.’
‘If no one hears the tree fall in the forest, does it make a noise?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘I’m just saying. If he did something and we never get to know about it, it’s not our concern.’
‘It doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt people.’
‘Some pains are quieter than others.’
‘Fuck off again.’
Mike finished his beer and ordered another. ‘This guy has got under your skin, hasn’t he?’
‘More than anyone. It’s not because of his crimes, it’s because getting under your skin is what he’s best at. He gets into your mind and influences you. Even when you don’t want to be influenced. Even when you’re fighting with everything you’ve got to stop him. I thought Marcus was way out on his own in the way he can get inside your head and lead you to places you didn’t think possible. I was wrong. Ethan is in a different league.
‘I’m telling you, Mike, even when we had him penned in a corner it was like he was ready for us. He behaved as if he was in control all the way through – until we managed to throw him off just long enough for us to jump him. Even then it was touch and go.
‘This is the first time I’m asking you to prosecute someone and I can’t tell you I know the extent of their power. He does things with words and looks and gestures that make guns seem limited.’
‘A courtroom is a different place. It has its own culture and rules. You know that. Ethan doesn’t. His trial is going to be a whole new experience for him. He is going to be in my world, not his.’
‘But you are going to have to put him on the stand.’
‘And if I do, he’s going to be dancing to my beat.’
‘You’re not getting it,’ Peter leant across the table. ‘I had to pull all of the firearms officers out of the room. He was hypnotizing them. And me. If I hadn’t been expecting him to do such a thing none of us would have escaped. And being ready for him only bought me an extra few seconds. I’d have been toast if it hadn’t been for Renton talking to me when he did.’
‘Have you considered the possibility that, because you knew all the stories about him, you were preconditioned to be susceptible to a force that might not have been there?’
‘This is me you are talking to.’
‘And by your own admission, you regard Ethan as a most special human being. It’s absolutely possible you are over-egging this guy. After all, and I don’t mean this in anyway to be an indictment of your own ability because I know just how very good you are, Ethan’s locked up right now. For the second time. If he is such a superstar, how come you’ve caught him twice in such a short space of time?’
‘Because he doesn’t know the rules of our game.’
‘Exactly! The prosecution rests.’ Mike turned his attention to his beef madras.
Peter sipped his beer. Over the last week he had been thinking a great deal about Ethan Hall. The synesthete was now in prison awaiting trial. At Peter’s urging, he had been isolated from the general population and was under constant supervision in a single cell in the hospital wing.
There was a good reason why Ethan Hall was a loner and why Darren Smith had wanted him out of his house. The notion of actually living with Ethan was absurd and frightening.
Who’d have thought I’d have something in common with that sick fuck?
The thought stabbed like a knife. Peter let it go, reminding himself not for the first time that there was enough pain in the world without creating your own personal batch.
No, it wasn’t Ethan’s brief time with Darren Smith that was scratching at his insides; it was the Calvin Brent connection. There was no way the gangster would have helped Ethan without demanding something in return. And he would have expected payment in advance. So what had Ethan done for him? The answer to that question held the key to unlocking the whole thing. Only no one was offering an answer. Brent certainly hadn’t when Peter visited him five days ago. The Numbers Man had played his poker face, insisting he had never met Ethan, that Matt had been acting of his own accord and had then become the innocent victim of a cornered madman. Beyond that there had been no reports of any crimes suggesting Ethan’s involvement.
Silence reigned.
Only that didn’t make everything all right. In fact, potentially it made things worse. Mike was wrong. If a tree fell in the forest and no one heard it, there was still a tree down. If enough trees fell unseen and unheard the result would still be the same: nature herself would be changed and the consequences would be catastrophic.
Peter Jones looked at his curry and realized he had lost his appetite. His gut was telling him something was wrong. He just didn’t know what.
53
You know it isn’t over, don’t you?
A part of you is desperate to believe it is, but that part of you is made up of weakness, desperation and denial.
It always ends after it ends.
I thought you knew that by now. I thought you might have learnt something. I thought you might have realised that I have been in control every step of the way. Everything you have done. Every thought. Every action. Every emotion. Every decision. All determined by me.
Do you really think I need to be in the room to influence you? Do you really think bricks and mortar or time and space restrict me? Do you really think influence is so easily contained?
If that were the case, the past could never limit or move you. The future couldn’t inspire or scare you. The words you heard yesterday would not replay, unbidden, in your mind and affect the way you feel. And yet they do, don’t they?
If that were the case, you would be able to grow or dissolve your beliefs with ease. Only you can’t, can you?
You have no idea how to manage your beliefs because the influence that created them follows their scent no matter where you run, it tracks them down and finds its way in no matter how firmly you lock the door.
You cannot escape me because I know how to tighten the beliefs that bind. Just as I know how to release them and replace them with something even worse.
This is the great truth of it all. You are still the herd, rushing towards the edge, thinking you have made the best of decisions yet staring up at the ceiling in the middle of the night fearful and wondering. I look up in the middle of the night and see the future. Yours. The one I am about to create.
So please do just one more thing for me: enjoy this time if you can.
Do everything in your power to make this brief spell feel safe and good and true. Cling for all you are worth because I haven’t finished with you yet. I’m not even close to finishing with you.
There is a war coming.
Believe me.
Marcus Kline – and Ethan Hall – will return in
Faith, Summer 2018.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Marcus Kline, the world’s greatest communication guru, owes his existence to four people: Mairi, Alan, Matthew and IbA.
Mairi helped bring him to life during two fabulous weeks in France.
Alan provided great knowledge about campaigning communications and was instrumental in the selection of Marcus’s hair styling.
Matthew ensured that this, the second part of Marcus’s story, is now in your hands.
IbA started it in the mid-1970s when he began teaching me how to read the lines on peoples’ faces.
I am – and will always be – grateful to you all.
DCI Peter Jones, the great detective and Marcus Kline’s best friend, owes all of his wisdom and professional ability to PJ. Big thanks to him for the adoption and the insights.
Chris Parker is a specialist in Communication and Influence. His fascination with the power of words and how they can be used to create intrapersonal and interpersonal change began in 1976. It became a lifelong study that has underpinned almost four decades of work in a variety of professional roles and contexts. A Licensed Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Chris is a highly-experienced management trainer, business consultant, lecturer and writer. He has more lines on his face than most and is afraid to read them.
Chris is also the author of thriller Influence (the first in the Marcus Kline trilogy) and two critically acclaimed poetry volumes, Debris and The City Fox.
“I was reading Chris Parker 20 years ago. He was amazing then and he is amazing now.”
– Geoff Thompson, BAFTA winning screenwriter
INFLUENCE – paperback
£6.99
ISBN 9781909273061
Influence kills…Influence is the greatest force on earth. Influence equals power, the power to affect people and events. The most powerful people alive have the greatest influence. And they can use it for good or bad. Marcus Kline is the world’s leading authority on communication and influence. He can tell what you are thinking. He can see inside you. He can step inside your mind. Yet when a series of murder victims bear the horrific hallmarks of an intelligent and remorseless serial killer, Detective Inspector Peter Jones turns to Marcus for help – and everything changes.
As the killer sets a deadly pace, the invisible, irresistible and terrifying power of influence threatens friendships, reputations, and lives. When events appear to implicate the great Marcus Kline himself, everyone learns that the worst pain isn’t physical…
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“A punchy, powerful book that is unlike anything else I’ve read”
“Unnerving, gripping and utterly compulsive read”
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