Unlike Donald, Dr Woodrow had been in many such similarly tricky situations and he knew that maintaining a calm, superior air of confidence in the face of such a threat, was paramount to their survival. But irrespective of the personal danger they faced, he subconsciously made a mental note to accept the recommendation that had been put before the board of directors by Dr Petrie, for scanners to be placed at all significant locations around the clinic. He’d fought the proposal on the grounds that the clinic wasn’t an institution like an asylum but a place of recovery and recuperation and that the intrusive metal detectors would only cause the patients more stress.
Now though what saddened Dr Woodrow more than the thought of increasing the security of the clinic at the expense of the patient’s freedom to recuperate, was the thought that he’d personally let his patient down, by not spotting the signs earlier.
It was apparent that something had affected Samantha’s ability for rational thought but quiet what that was, would have to form the basis of her further treatment and for that he knew she would need to be hospitalised and cared for in a more secure unit than the Ambleside Clinic. But even worse, was the fact that his stubbornness and his insistence on partnering Donald with Samantha had now placed them all in mortal danger.
As if frozen in time and waiting for the inevitable to happen, the doctor tried to recall other similar cases, where patients had lived apparently normal lives bearing the burden of a dual personality and in every case that he could remember, the insane half of their dual psyche had always proved to be the more dominant. But history had also showed that even the patient’s dearest friends and family had been unaware of the dangers they faced from the hidden monster that lurked just under the cloak of normality, waiting for the moment that it could break free from the shackles that repressed its evil side.
Staring at Samantha, Dr Woodrow searched desperately for any clue as to what may have triggered the change in her behaviour. He could only imagine that the car accident might have actually created a medical smokescreen that covered up her existing paranoid schizophrenia and reversed the status quo of her personalities. The doctor sought to assuage his feelings of guilt and apparent incompetence by telling himself that whatever had happened that night on that dark stretch of road, may have been as a result of her schizophrenia not the cause of it. She was and probably always had been a ticking time-bomb.
As for his failing to spot the spilt personality in Clarence Dickens, he was content in his own mind that no one… not even the police nor his colleagues knew that John Smith had such a violent past. He couldn’t… wouldn’t be held responsible for something that no one had foreseen.
But rather than clear the thought of that day from his head, all the flashbacks achieved was to focus the doctor’s mind on Clarence Dickens’s evil, laughing face and the carnage that he’d left behind and it was the horror of that explosion of violence, which snapped him free of his subconscious reverie, and the feeling of guilt which had smothered his mind.
Experience had taught him that the only action worse than trying to wrestle the knife from Samantha’s hands, would be no action at all… He’d tried that strategy with Dickens and all it had done was drive the madman to a more bloody final act of destruction.
Just as Dr Woodward had reached his own watershed, Samantha’s attention was distracted by a sudden movement outside the window. Seeing his opportunity and realising that there might not be another, the doctor prised himself free from his chair. He knew that if they were to avoid another incident like the one involving Clarence Dickens then he would need all of Samantha’s attention focused solely on himself and not on the door or what was happening outside the window.
“So Samantha, where is your friend now… because you’re right, I don’t want to upset her, especially if I can help you.” Dr Woodrow asked.
“I’m right here doctor.” Samantha replied creepily, in a way that sounded as if she were possessed by the devil. “Right in front of you.”
Dr Woodrow tried not to look surprised or concerned but failed. It was the eyes that were the hardest to control and his had widen just sufficiently to give his innermost thoughts away.
“Ah! Your eyes betray you doctor… Samantha told me they would, but you mustn’t blame her, she really had little choice in the matter for I can be so very persuasive.” She explained with an icy charm.
“Where is Samantha? What have you done with her?” Dr Woodrow asked calmly, as his composure returned in an instant and his eyes remained fixed on his patient’s. He wanted to sneak a peek at the knife, to see how she was holding it and what threat it posed but his brain forbade him to look… to feed her ego’s lust for power.
“I’ve locked her in her room and she’ll stay there until she learns to control her weak, feeble self. She still hasn’t learnt that all men will desert her eventually… its’ not my fault or her parent’s, she’s only got herself to blame for everything that’s happened to her. You know you should ask her about the crash, when you see her next. They said it was a tragic accident… well there was nothing tragic about it and it certainly wasn’t an accident… and I should know because I was there. I saw it all.” Her voice rose with a frisson of excitement at the memory of crash.
“Well if you think I should, of course I will… but I can’t ask her anything if you don’t unlock the door and let her out of the room, can I? So why don’t you allow her come and talk to me?” The doctor’s control of his voice and his emotions was paramount to the ploy and even though he thought she might be past the point of no return, it was a strategy worth trying.
“What do you take me for, a complete idiot?” The coldness of her reply gave him the answer he’d expected. “You want to speak with Samantha and turn her against me, don’t you? Well you can’t see her, not until I’ve sorted out all this mess… I mean I’m only doing this for her you know… because she’s too weak and feeble minded to do it for herself.” As if playing a game of human chess, Samantha moved to her left, so she could see Donald… the object of her little game.
“Here’s the deal doctor. You either let Samantha leave here with Donald or he has to stay at the clinic with her.”
As Donald watched on helplessly, Samantha pointed the knife at him in a way that was unmistakably threatening.
“Personally, I’d just as soon slit his throat and be done with him, but for some reason she seems to have grown attached to him… I told her, he’ll be like all the rest… only interested in himself and as soon as he’s got what he wants, he’ll dump you and move on. You do know that going to the Ambleside Hotel was Samantha’s idea don’t you? She thought it would help him and bring them closer together. Of course, I told her it wouldn’t work but she wouldn’t listen to me… oh no she knew best.” As she spoke, she wielded the knife under the doctor’s nose.
“He showed her that bloody card he carries around with him like some form of security blanket and she recognised it as being like the one she’d seen at the hotel… do you remember? You should, because you were there.”
Unlike most of his patients, the doctor had no problems recalling his past or the day in question…. It had been the week after Donald had arrived at the clinic and they’d gone to the town shopping as part of her therapy. It was the day that cook had asked him to call in at the kitchen shop and pick up the item she’d ordered… the kitchen shop, the shop that was full of knives. His mind pictured the shop’s layout and as he looked around, he remembered the display of Swiss Army knives...
“But I bet it wasn’t Samantha that stole the knife from the kitchen shop, was it?” He asked, as he shadowed her every movement and blocked her line of sight. The mention of the knife intrigued Donald. The idea that Samantha might not have stolen the knife from the camping shop made him feel slightly better about the sudden change in her demeanour, but that relief was outweighed by the grim prospect of what she might now be plotting.
“Of course it wasn’t… I just used her to get me into the shop and then
I just took what I wanted whilst you were so busy running your little errand.” She replied dismissively, with little respect for the doctor. “It’s not the first time… I’ve done it before and nobody ever suspected Samantha, why would they? If you want to blame someone though blame Dickens… he was laughing at you all the time. Dr Woodrow… the great healer of minds. He had you dancing to every tune he played on that old violin didn’t he? And you believed it all. Well if it helps you doctor, he fooled me too. I mean where do you think he got the knife that he killed those two nurses with? And then he just left me here with her… I pleaded with him to take me with him but he just laughed at me and said I was mad. Me mad! That was rich, don’t you think, coming from someone as disturbed and as messed up as he was? ”
“He was mad?” Donald shouted with an overdose of incredulity. “You should hear yourself… you’re the one that’s totally insane! You need locking up and the key throwing away.”
“Oh the mouse roars does it? Well let’s see if the little rat can bleed as well…”
~~~~~
“You’re getting married… when?” Helen spluttered out the words, as if she’d been given six months to live.
“Next month. Henri wanted us to have a quiet affair. He even suggested that we go over to France and get married there without telling anyone… but I told him, his family are more than welcome but they have to come over here… and that’s really why I wanted to speak to you or Patrick… we’d like to use the hotel.” Rachel said with a hint of glee. If the news of the proposal didn’t wipe the smirk of Helen’s face, then the fact that it would all be happening right under her nose most certainly would.
“And you say Henri proposed right out of the blue, without any warning?” Helen couldn’t believe the news. He’d said nothing to her about it… in fact he’d always said just the opposite.
“Yes, isn’t it amazing? I mean I was completely bowled over. If I’m honest I think it was you and Patrick tying the knot that helped, he saw how happy it had made you and I think he just wanted the same happiness for me… It’s wonderful isn’t it?” Rachel twisted the knife another turn, as she revelled in the pain that was swamping Helen.
“But she told me that you had proposed to her!” Helen screamed, as she hit Henri’s chest with her small clenched fists.
“No it was her. She caught me unawares… said it was a leap year or something and then she proposed to me… I didn’t know what to do or say but if I’d have said no, we could have kissed goodbye to any part of the insurance money she’ll get, now that Tom has been finally declared dead and then there’s the house... I don’t know how much the estate is worth but it’s got to be close to a million.” Henri squirmed, as he held Helen’s hands and then slowly pulled her close into his body. “Look it won’t change anything between you and me. I love you and I know you love me… how do you think I feel when I leave you and imagine Patrick crawling all over your body… it’s hard but in the end we’ll be together and we’ll have enough money to set up our own restaurant somewhere away from here.”
“I know… you’re right but…” Helen sniffled and wiped her eyes on Henri’ hand. “But it was such a shock… what I don’t understand is why she lied? Why tell me that you’d proposed to her.” She pulled back as the disturbing thought flashed through her head. “Henri! You don’t think she suspects, do you?”
“Suspects! What Rachel? No, never. She’s too innocent and stupid to see what’s going on right under her own nose… No it’s nothing like that let me assure you. It’s vanity, pure and simple, she doesn’t want you to know that the only way she’d get a proposal was if she threw herself on the floor and begged… which let me tell you is more or less what happened. Anyway, I know her, if she suspected anything she’d be straight round to Patrick telling him all about us and how we’ve been cheating on them both behind their backs.”
“I guess you’re right.” Helen said seductively, as she pushed Henri onto his back and without another word straddled his body. “Well if you’re sure they don’t suspect anything, let’s not waste any more time talking… you need to make the most of being a single man.”
“You’ve agreed to marry Henri… are you mad Rachel. For Christ’s sake you’ve only just got rid of one dead weight and now you want to go and shackle yourself to another waste of space.” Patrick’s jealous outburst had shocked Rachel, but the more he’d gone on about the impending nuptials and what a bad idea it was and how she shouldn’t go through with it, the more she’d been turned on by the whole affair.
“Look it won’t make any difference to us… I’m only doing it to protect what’s mine and to get my hands on what Henri’s has, before he dumps me and runs off with Rachel… who by the way will fleece you for every penny she can when the time comes. Whereas this way, neither of them screw us… we screw them.” She locked her lips around his and found his unwilling tongue to dance with. Gently Patrick disentangled himself from Rachel’s boa constrictor-like embrace and held her firmly at arms’ length.
“Do you think Helen would do that… really? Christ that would really make the shit hit the fan.” Patrick’s face contorted, as the unpalatable truth sunk home. For her part Rachel could only watch helplessly, like a spectator at a boxing fight, as he mulled over the news and what it would mean for him. She knew that he didn’t love his wife, like he loved her, so there had to be something darker behind his reaction… behind the look of absolute fear.
“What’s the matter Patrick? Millions of people get divorced every year… I mean you don’t have any children. Ok you might have to sell one or two of the hotels but that’s all, we’ll get them back once we’re together again… you see if I’m not right.” Rachel followed him across the bedroom to the window that looked down across the pool to the neatly manicured gardens beyond. With a gentleness that he’d never felt from Helen she wrapped her arms around his body and rested her head on his back. Patrick had to admit that on every other occasion it would have done the trick and he’d have forgotten all about the problems before him… but this was different, this was a problem that no amount of kind words or animal lust would make disappear. Rachel pulled back as she felt his torso stiffen under her touch. It was like watching a leaf of the mimosa plant curl and tighten into a ball.
“What is it Patrick? Please tell me, if I didn’t know you better I’d say you were scared of losing Helen.” It wasn’t something that Rachel hadn’t wanted to contemplate but perhaps her choice in men had let her down again.
“It’s not so much the thought of losing Helen… it’s more the thought of what she might try to take with her that worries me.” He wiped his mouth with his hand nervously and then moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
“They’re only bricks and mortar, we can replace them.” Rachel purred reassuringly, kissing his hands.
“That’s true but they’re not mine to lose… not really.”
“But if the hotels don’t belong to you, she can’t take them… can she?” Rachel thought it an innocent enough question, if not a little naïve but then she’d always found that playing dumb worked best where men were concerned.
“Oh the hotels, the business even the house… they’re all in my name but they don’t belong to me. I’m merely a sort of guardian.”
Rachel’s face told its own story and prompted Patrick to explain further.
“Clarence Dickens.” Patrick let the name sink in.
“What the man who abducted you the other night… that Dickens.” Rachel asked incredulously.
“The very same. The man might be a psycho but he’s a rich psycho and one that can’t keep his millions in a bank but neither can he be seen to own a legitimate business, so…”
“So he gets others to run them for him?” Rachel finished Patrick’s explanation without knowing or wanting all the gory, dirty details.
“He takes a cut each month and anything above that I get to keep… unfortunately Mr Dickens doesn’t take kindly to late payers, hence the unannoun
ced meeting on the way back from Truro. You see he likes to keep a low profile… you know away from any unwanted prying eyes... especially those of the police and tax authorities.”
“How much do you owe him?” Rachel asked, as she lay back on the bed and twiddled the strands of her hair.
“About two hundred thousand in unpaid profits, then there’s the ten or twenty million he has tied up in the businesses.” He told her the amount, as if it were no more than the hotel’s petty cash float.
“Jesus Patrick… I’m guessing Helen doesn’t know.”
“No, of course not. She thinks I inherited the money from my family in Dublin… but that’s another little secret, well two actually… I have no family in Ireland and what relations I do have could give church mice a run in the poverty stakes. Why do you think there were none at our wedding?”
“Why don’t you just turn Dickens over to the police and be rid of him… I mean someone like that must be wanted for more than parking on yellow lines.”
Rachel’s view of her future with Patrick had taken an unexpected turn for the worse with his news about Clarence Dickens but she hadn’t given up completely on the man, although part of her thought it would be worth losing him just to see the look on Helen’s face when she found out that they were completely destitute… the house, the helicopter, the hotels, probably even the clothes on her back were all the property of Dickens… maybe Helen herself was his, to be toyed with and fucked as he saw fit. If she wasn’t careful, she thought she might even start to feel sorry for the poor dumb bitch.
“What we need Patrick…” Rachel said sitting bolt upright on the edge of the bed. “…Is for someone to kill your business partner and then for them to have some sort of unfortunate accident themselves… perhaps they might commit suicide or maybe one of Dickens’s associates would wield some form of gangland retribution.”
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