Regrets rarely troubled Billy, but today’s unplanned and unprovoked attack on the man’s chauffeur might cause him some problems. His mother was right – it had been stupid to allow his rage at Maddox to overcome him. The red mist had descended – an infrequent experience these days, but one that still occasionally managed to take him by surprise.
On seeing Maddox’s car, he had yanked the steering wheel to the side and jammed his foot on the brake, kicking his mother’s foot aside simultaneously. The next thing he recalled was smashing the paintwork with the oar before that old git had appeared from inside the car.
Billy had reacted to the man’s threatening stance, the tone of his voice, but at least he had maintained control over the power delivered by his kick. No serious injury. He hoped.
The possible unpleasant consequences were shoved from his mind as he went back to his thoughts about Powers and Maddox.
Both trained as forensic psychiatrists. Both had worked at Broadmoor, the hospital for the criminally insane, though Powers had retired from there. Maddox had been referring some patients’ details to Powers, and buried in amongst their emails was one that included a rather nasty paedophile who was up for assessment.
A former schoolmaster. A rather brilliant one at that.
A video had surfaced, and the school, a very posh one, had contacted the police. Mr Smith had been arrested, charged and imprisoned. Maddox was treating him and wanted Powers’ opinion before recommending release.
Billy had been delighted when he read that Smith had been let loose while being treated with a form of chemical castration that limited his perverted desires.
None of that mattered.
Billy had discovered the video the police had confiscated – the one he had played a brief clip from for Smiffy earlier today to ensure he had the man’s full attention. That short film had also been the inspiration for the creation of some other incriminating evidence. And that guaranteed the tutor’s total compliance.
It helped that Billy was adept at lying, too.
His unsuspecting tutor had no idea the trouble it would cause him when a certain Mrs Leech contacted him and offered him a highly-paid position working with her precocious son, who had to be home schooled for some unexplained reason. No references were required as her son had personally requested Smith – his services had been ‘recommended’ to Billy by previous tutors who had struggled to keep up with him.
‘If it seems too good to be true, it surely is.’ The gurgle of Billy’s laughter echoed around the wooden rafters of his attic.
He pulled a thin file from his drawer and flicked through the images he had set up during one of his earliest sessions with Smith – photographs involving the two of them, snapped in Billy’s study room.
Both naked.
Posed in a variety of suggestive, almost pornographic scenarios. A convicted paedophile, hired as a trusted tutor for a disturbed young man, clearly taking advantage of his position of power.
Although identifiable as Smith, the adult male’s head was always turned away from the camera lens, just enough so that his closed eyes were not visible to the viewer…
‘Thank you, Temazepam. Hahaha!’ As his giggling died away, Billy listened again for his mother’s footfall.
Nothing.
All quiet in the Leech household.
Billy was ready for bed too. Well, almost. One more ritual to ensure his dreams would be as vivid as possible. He tucked the file back in the bedside drawer, took a twist of paper from a box inside, and measured out a tiny dose of the powder he had liberally sprinkled on his Nana’s meal at lunchtime.
Lysergic acid diethylamide.
Strange, he thought, as he licked the powder from his palm. It occurred to him that a more accurate acronym should reflect the first letters of the three words in English – LAD seemed far more appropriate than LSD, the abbreviation in common use thanks to the German who first created the drug.
And just like Billy, this other ‘LAD’ could be dangerous, if not treated with respect.
With the covers pulled up to his chin, Billy drifted off, all the while imagining exactly how much Smiffy would regret dissing him tonight.
***
Doc had listened to Dickie and Jack discussing the Leech boy’s threats with only half his mind on their conversation. Far from being sleepy, he was hyper alert.
When Judy’s scream had woken him this morning, he had not been prepared to slip back into his old life, convinced he had left it behind when she agreed to marry him. His own dark side had been dormant since then. Jack had once described it as Doc’s pet psychopath, one that resided in a remote part of his brain, lurking there, always ready to spring into action when needed.
Like today.
He was always reluctant to indulge this unwanted and unwelcome side to his character, one that could empathise and understand criminals capable of the worst sorts of deeds. Serial killers, torturers, child molesters, and rapists who then murdered their victims. Even necrophiliacs – who did the same, but in reverse order. He’d met them all, treated some of them, helped convict others. From the crazed and demented through the highly disturbed and deranged, to the worst of all. The stone-cold killers.
The psychopaths.
Peter Leech. His brother Shaun Leech.
And now, young Billy Leech?
Was he merely an angry young man, as Dickie had just asserted?
Or was psychopathy imprinted in his DNA?
When he had first met Billy and they had shared a few hours together, many moons ago, Doc had thought the lad well adjusted, all things considered. He’d not even suspected the possibility that Billy might be developing similar traits until their last session together, and even then had dismissed it as unlikely after he heard nothing more from the boy. Right now, every fibre of his being was electrified, with his dark side screaming in his head that he was being naive. He had not realised he had been staring at Dickie until he heard him ask:
‘...And why are you both looking at me like that?’
Jack too had a serious, troubled face. His teeth were slightly bared, and a semi-frown twisted his eyebrows. Even his nostrils were flared – an atavistic reaction of prey to a potential threat, expanding the nasal passages to test the air for a predator’s scent.
Doc wondered if his own expression was similar as he answered. ‘Let me tell you what happened sometime last night, Dickie, and what else we discovered this morning.’
After Doc brought Dickie up to speed on the details of the dead pets, and the significance of their appearance, he then explained their newly created theory.
‘Jack and I think Billy Leech is behind these events. He managed to insinuate himself into my life, with a plea for help, but after what’s transpired today, I’m now certain it was just a ruse to allow him to obtain confidential files on his father and his uncle.’
‘Allow the little bastard to steal confidential information.’ Jack was about ready to explode again. ‘And not just on his old man and uncle, either. That brat nicked a whole mountain of stuff.’
Dickie’s reaction was initially sceptical, though as they recounted the events, he became more open to the idea that one of his patient’s offspring might pose a real threat to his wellbeing. His next question did not surprise Doc.
‘Children are never formally designated as psychopaths, Colin, as you well know… But I can see why you might think he has the necessary makings of one. Cold, callous, unempathetic. I don’t know him well enough to make a proper judgement, but those characteristics certainly tally with his mother’s description of his behaviour towards her.’
‘What did she tell you about the kid then?’
‘I really can’t say, but you might find out more by speaking with her yourself, Jack. I’m keen to hear what Colin heard from the horse’s mouth. Are you able to share anything with us? Or will you be breaching patient confidentiality?’
Although Doc had told Jack he felt under obligation to Billy not to divulge the
content of their meetings – in fact, he had not even told Judy who the lad was at the time, in case that caused her some unnecessary distress – his meetings with the boy had been on an informal basis, with no payment, and not even a commitment from Doc that he was offering a professional service. He had told Billy he was not a counsellor, and had only agreed to chat on that basis. Just a friendly ear, a sounding board, though admittedly an expert on psychopaths.
‘Morally and ethically, I should say nothing at all. But these are exceptional circumstances. And Billy Leech is an exceptional young man.’ Doc dredged up the details from their early meetings, where the boy had been polite and respectful. He had probed Doc about psychopathy, asking about genetic links, taking away various research papers Doc had recommended he should read. ‘He’s incredibly bright. He was only thirteen or so, but he studied everything I gave him on the subject. It’s like his brain’s blotting paper, absorbing anything that interests him.’
‘Does he have total recall. Is he eidetic too?’ Dickie was blessed with a photographic memory, an advantage in life he had fully exploited. He sounded disgusted as he added, ‘What a waste of talent.’
‘I don’t think so. A highly-trained memory for sure, but not like yours.’
‘Tell us what happened during your last meeting with him. You suggested earlier that you began to suspect he wasn’t all he seemed after that final session.’
‘He started to talk about his uncle–’ Doc’s explanation was interrupted by Jack’s angry voice.
‘Peter Leech. That murdering bastard killed friends of mine. On the force. Along with a load of civvies.’
‘Yes. I thought Billy would still be traumatised by the night his uncle visited, the night his father died. The night his mother was tortured and left with her life-changing facial disfigurement.’
‘He wasn’t suffering from post-traumatic stress? Really?’ Dickie was familiar with most of the details of the events from that time, shared with him almost exclusively by Jack. Doc was always reluctant to discuss the Peter Leech case and for years, he had even refused to utter the man’s name. Even so, Dickie knew enough to be put out by Doc’s assessment. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘He was at first. Didn’t speak for three years. But the lad’s resourceful. He was experiencing vivid nightmares, wetting the bed, reliving that horrific night every time he slept. Screaming his uncle’s name and yelling about his father’s murder while he slept. Yet he refused to talk during his waking hours. His mother sent him for counselling but he just sat and listened. Did nothing, said nothing.’
‘So, what changed, Colin? What prompted him to start speaking again?’
‘Something sparked in his mind when his psychotherapist told him about lucid dreaming–’
Dickie nodded, connecting the dots already, but Jack interrupted, grunting at Doc as he said, ‘Lucid dreaming? What the fuck is that and what’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Well, this is probably more Dickie’s domain than mine.’ Doc let the other genius in the room explain.
‘When we dream, our subconscious is making sense of our experiences in its own inimitable fashion. Repetitive nightmares are an unfortunate form of short circuit, if you will. A loop occurs inside the brain when it’s unable to come to terms with an event in real life, so the subconscious keeps replaying variations of it over and over. Quite recently, psychotherapists have been using a new technique to help veterans and others suffering traumatic stress induced nightmares. Training them to break out of that cycle.’
‘Lucid dreaming?’ Despite the late hour and the scotch, Jack was still on the ball. Doc could see he was eager to understand everything, no matter how esoteric. ‘What does it mean then?’
‘Some people can naturally cross over between the subconscious and the conscious mind while sleeping. While experiencing a dream, such an individual is aware that he or she is asleep, that what they are doing and seeing is not real. Most of us wake up when that happens, as our conscious mind interrupts our sleep state.’
‘Blimey. Never heard of that. So, what good does it do? Surely the nightmare would just seem more real, if you know you aren’t dreaming.’ Jack thought about it for a moment longer. ‘Ah, I see… You just wake yourself up if you’re having a nightmare?’
‘That’s the first step these specialist psychotherapists use to help a trauma victim who’s suffering nightmares. With some further training, a lucid dreamer can actually control the events going on in their subconscious mind during sleep.’
‘Control your dreams?’ Jack threw Doc a look that said Dickie was completely crazy.
‘It’s true, Jack. Lucid dreamers can do things that are impossible in real life. Only your imagination limits what you can achieve while sleeping. Flying, levitating, passing through walls, viewing things you could never hope to see in the physical world.’
‘Is this an actual thing? People do this? In their sleep? Sounds totally barking mad to me.’
Dickie poked a tongue around the inside of his cheek and made a sucking noise, as if he too thought it was weird. Then he explained more craziness to Jack.
‘Have you ever heard of astral projection, Detective? Or maybe, remote viewing, perchance?’
‘Nope. Just hearing those names sounds like a load of mumbo jumbo to me.’
Doc was intrigued by Dickie’s train of thought, even if Jack sounded dismissive. Doc had never looked into lucid dreaming beyond a superficial interest, just enough to understand how Billy Leech had overcome his nightmares. Now, he suspected there was much more to this than he had first thought. He listened as Dickie educated them both.
‘It may seem like it, though the Americans and the Russians take these things rather more seriously than we do. The CIA created a department dedicated to remote viewing… The rather strange belief that practitioners could send their spirits to observe any desired event, anywhere in the world – the universe in fact. Astral projection. There was a book about it, inspired a film starring George Clooney.’
‘A book and a film.’ Jack nodded to himself. ‘It’s fiction, then?’
‘Hollywood thoroughly sensationalised the story, of course, but the program was real. The CIA and the people they employed in pursuit of their psychic spying plans thought it real enough too. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that these so called psychic individuals were merely experiencing a form of wakeful lucid dreaming.’
‘Oh, right. That makes sense – but what about the Leech brat? He thinks he’s psychic, does he? Let me guess. He’s communicating with his dead relatives. His murderous dad and uncle. Phahaha. The twat…’ Doc and Dickie watched scotch spray from Jack’s nostrils, as he tried to drink through his mirth. He grabbed a tissue and blew his nose, his face scrunching with pain. ‘Cor blimey. That burns a bit.’ He sniffed and mopped the tears from his eyes. ‘Bugger. That was a waste of good whisky… Ignore me. Yeah, I am a bit pissed.’ As he recovered he quizzed Doc with his eyes, looking for some confirmation. ‘The boy’s deluded then, ain’t he? No such thing as ghosts. And as for this astral bollocks. It’s just plain silly.’
Doc had another interpretation, one that didn’t involve spirits.
‘He told me, that final time we were together…’ Doc could visualise the boy, standing in his study, hands on hips as he stared Doc down. ‘It was then that his whole attitude shifted. He transformed before my eyes, from the passive patient he had been into a scowling, snarling, spiteful adolescent. Full of pent up aggression.’ For those few minutes at the end of that session, Doc had felt malevolence emanating from the boy, but had dismissed it, had not given Billy Leech another thought since.
Until today.
Doc was back in that meeting, reliving the sensations. This time, the devious part of his mind reached out and assessed what he had seen and felt. The conclusions were disturbing.
‘Go on, Doc. Don’t keep us in suspense. What did he say?’
‘He said his uncle, Peter, had been visiting him. Had
told him all about me. And said I would die a painful death. Then he said those around me would suffer too.’
Jack was dumbstruck. Dickie was fascinated.
‘Lucid dreaming… The boy recreated his uncle in his sleep. After turning the nightmares around he must’ve started communicating with the man in his dreams. About you… In his subconscious, you really were to blame for the bad things that happened to his family, just as he said. But…’
‘I’m afraid so, Dickie.’ Doc and the Professor had reached the same conclusion, though Jack was still struggling to come to terms with this psychobabble, as he would describe it. It was time for Doc to sum up the problem for his down to earth detective pal. ‘Billy Leech is projecting on to me the hatred his uncle harboured for me. There was plenty of evidence of Peter Leech’s animosity towards me in the files he stole. The ones detailing my involvement with his family.’
Jack was finally on board, eyes wide as he spluttered out his own conclusion. ‘Oh Christ, Doc. You think he’s internalised all that stuff. And as a result, he’s got it in for you… The cat and the dog… You were right. They’re a warning of worse to come.’
‘I believe so.’
‘And you think he wants to take revenge? On you… Not for letting his uncle out on parole. But for killing the bleedin psycho.’
***
‘Hello Billy boy. How you doin, my son?’
Warmth saturated Billy’s senses as his uncle’s voice reached him.
He glanced down, could see the sheepskin rug below his crossed legs as he floated a metre or so above. He looked up and the sloping roof of his attic became transparent then dissolved, opening up to the clear night sky, full of coruscating stars flickering a welcome to him.
He rotated in mid-air as the walls of his home also evaporated and the rug too disappeared, leaving him alone, suspended in space.
‘I feel fantastic, Uncle Peter.’
Speaking that name conjured an image of the man before him. The battered facial features, the massive bull-like body, the green eyes that glowed in the dark. Compelling, mesmerising in their intensity.
Gaslighting (DP, DIC03) Page 9