by Wes Markin
Dr Harris was an enigma. A warm cradle that softened and soothed. That offered safety and security.
That healed …
… The day after Dr Harris had reached out a hand, Alan had waited behind in the lecture hall. He’d approached the doctor while he was logging out from his laptop.
‘Dr Harris?’
‘Yes?’ Harris didn’t look up from his screen.
‘I just wanted to say thank you for last night.’
The doctor finished what he was doing first, and then looked up. ‘Ah, the boy with the fire. Alan, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’re you thanking me for?’
‘For helping me up. For making me feel better about the whole situation.’
‘Well, you’re welcome, but I cannot say I did very much. Bullies are bullies, and heroes are heroes. I just simply pointed out which side you were on. Well, I’m glad to see you’re back up and at it, Alan, and don’t think me rude, but I’m going to have to dash I’m afraid. Got an appointment with a coffee, and a colleague too. Yes, the colleague is secondary to the coffee.’ He chuckled. ‘I think I told you about the extensive wine menu I was subjected to last night?’
Alan nodded.
Harris smiled again. ‘See you later, young man.’
As he walked away with his laptop under his arm, Alan danced from foot to foot, desperate to say something, but not knowing exactly what. When Harris reached the lecture room door, Alan called out. ‘Dr Harris?’
Harris turned, but he didn’t say anything.
‘Do I look like a freak?’ Alan said loudly.
Harris started to walk back towards him. ‘A freak? What’s that exactly, Alan?’
‘Someone different, odd...’
Harris stopped in front of him. ‘Well, we can’t all be the same. It really doesn’t work like that.’
‘Maybe, but I’m so peculiar that I can never fit in.’
‘Why? Because you dress differently and have scoliosis of the spine? The colleague I’m meeting, Chris, has halitosis so bad it curls your toes; yet, he’s the most popular man I know. I struggle with the notion of a freak. If people define you as a freak, it is nothing but an opinion, and we all know the weight of opinions, don’t we? However, if you define yourself as a freak, that is a whole different scenario. Then, I guess, it can become a fact. Do you think you’re a freak, Alan?’
Alan opened his mouth but couldn’t find an answer.
Harris held up the palm of your hand. ‘Don’t … think about it. But it is a question you have to answer. No one else can, and especially not me. I, myself, had to make a very similar decision a very long time ago.’
‘And what did you decide?’
Harris smiled and looked at his watch. ‘I really have to go.’
‘Dr Harris, I really want to see you again.’
‘Why?’
‘I know you practise in a medical centre near Roundhay Park. Can I come?’
‘I’m afraid not, Alan. I’m not permitted to treat my own students.’
‘Please,’ Alan said. ‘There’s something about the way you talk to me, you help me. No one else has ever made me feel so calm.’
‘My ex-wife would be surprised to hear that. Look, Alan, we’ve barely spoken for more than ten minutes.’
‘I spend most of every day dazed and lost. I cannot remember the last time that I didn’t feel like that. Until last night. And now too...’
Harris sighed. ‘Well … I guess with you being so complimentary. Pad?’ He nodded down at the notepad in Alan’s hand.
‘Sure.’ Alan handed it over.
Harris wrote his address down. ‘This Saturday, 5pm. That’s my home address. Come around the back of the house though. You really can’t tell anyone, you do know that don’t you?’
‘I don’t talk to anyone, Dr Harris.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Harris said. ‘You talk to me …’
Now, these many months later, Alan was walking down the path at the side of Dr Harris’ house to his back garden, as he’d done on so many occasions.
The path had not been used since Alan’s last visit on Christmas Eve, so the deep snow broke in at the top of his boots and dampened his socks. He turned into the small garden. It was hard to tell now, in the dead of winter, but Dr Harris kept his garden in good condition. He looked up and noticed that he’d been trimming back the branches on both old oaks in the far corners of the garden.
The first time Alan had been to this garden, he’d been impressed. Not so much by the vast array of flowers, but rather the symmetry. Both sides of the garden took on the same pattern, and colours. Dr Harris had been meticulous in the planting.
On that particular day, Harris had stepped up alongside him and said, ‘Do you like my garden?’
‘I like the balance and the order.’
‘Yes, me too.’
‘I have no balance and order.’
‘In what way?’ Dr Harris said.
‘Look at my body.’
‘Physically? Well, yes, you aren’t the most evenly shaped person, but you know, not many people are evenly shaped.’
‘Most are more evenly shaped than me.’
Dr Harris pointed at Alan’s head. ‘But how is the balance and order in there?’
‘I don’t know. Not good, I guess.’
‘Let’s go inside and begin. Let’s find out. But first, try one of these. I’ve been baking.’ He held up a tray of cookies.
Inside, Alan sat on the couch in the doctor’s office. They talked for a while, until Alan started to feel light-headed. ‘Sorry, doctor, I feel dizzy.’
‘It’s been a hot day, lie back on the couch and I’ll get you some cold water.’
Alan lay back. He looked up at the walls. It was covered in colourful artwork. It seemed to be swirling and moving. He closed his eyes.
‘Are you okay?’
Alan opened his eyes and saw that the doctor was now kneeling on the floor. His face, which now took on an unusual reddish tint, was closer to his.
‘I feel funny,’ Alan said.
‘Drink some of this.’ Harris cupped Alan’s head and lifted it slightly, so he could press a glass to his lips.
‘Thanks.’
‘Can I be honest with you, Alan?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I gave you something. It was in the cookie.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing dangerous. Just something to help you relax. I noticed you were on edge. It makes it easier for me to help you. I give it to all of my patients.’
‘Is that really allowed?’
‘Of course. It’s a legal drug. But don’t worry about that now. You could just go with it?’
‘It is starting to pass. I’m less dizzy, now, and I do feel more relaxed. Quite happy, actually.’
‘Euphoria is always a welcome side-effect,’ Harris said and smiled.
Harris lowered Alan’s head back down and put the glass on the floor. ‘I’m sorry for not asking your permission regarding the medicine, Alan. I can be quite impatient when it comes to healing. The sooner I can help, the better. If you are feeling betrayed, or disappointed in any way, I’ll not be able to help you.’
‘No … it’s okay,’ Alan said. ‘I trust you.’
‘Good, Alan, because that will make what I’m about to tell you that little bit easier. I have another name, another persona if you will, one that I use to really help people. Do you mind me becoming that person now?’
Alan shook his head. He noticed that the reddish tint had spread from the doctor’ face and bled into the surroundings.
‘Good. My name is the Conduit. I am a channel. I become the piece that is missing from inside people, and I allow the thoughts, feelings and behaviours to move fluidly through me and within them. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
Despite the peculiarity of the situation, Alan felt comfortable. More so than ever before. Maybe it was the drug, maybe it was just the gentle rhythm of Dr
Harris’ voice, or maybe it was just the hope of a better tomorrow. Whatever the reason, he welcomed the doctor into his mind.
And he led him down a dark path that he wouldn’t normally travel down.
He was thirteen years old on a Friday night. The only night of the week Alan was forbidden to leave his room. And when his parents checked on him, on the hour, every hour, until one in the morning, they would knock quietly on his door, and he would unlock it. They’d ruffle his hair, kiss him on the forehead, and tell him how much they loved him. They’d ask him to lock the door again, and when in bed, think about all the wonderful things they could do that weekend as a family.
Alan stumbled from the dark path, sat upright on the sofa and, gulping for air, looked into the doctor’s eyes.
Harris placed one hand on Alan’s shoulder to steady him. ‘Breathe, Alan.’
After Alan had caught his breath, he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘For losing it.’
‘On the contrary, you didn’t lose anything.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Finding the darkness is the first step.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Tell me, Alan, are you repulsed when you look in the mirror?’
‘It depends. Not by my face, but the rest of my body, yes … yes, I am. The lack of order … the uneven—’
Harris held up the palm of his hand to silence him. ‘I want you to consider the possibility that it isn’t your appearance that repulses you, but something else – something inside you, inside that darkness. What happened back then when you were thirteen?’
‘I can’t recall much. I remember this one time being crouched on the balcony looking over. I recognised a younger lad from my school being dropped off by his father. He looked terrified, while his father looked unstable. Drink, or possibly, drugs? I don’t know. I remember, a few days later, following that boy home by hopping on the same bus. He was from a rundown council estate in Chapel Town.’
Harris took a deep breath. ‘Were your parents exploiting families in poverty?’
‘Yes,’ Alan said.
‘Did you realise that at the time?’
‘In my own immature way, I must have done. But there was obviously a lot of denial. At first, I tried to convince myself that they may have been helping. We were wealthy, they weren’t. My mother ran a successful company importing from China that she inherited from her mother … at least, that’s what she always told me. I hoped, I really hoped, they were just giving back.’
‘When did you find out the truth?’
‘When they were arrested and … and … something else happened.’ Alan felt tears in his eyes.
Harris still had his hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘What else happened?’
He stared at Harris. Tears were running down his face now. ‘I don’t want to go there.’
Harris brushed his tears away. ‘But that is exactly where you must go. That is the source of everything. It is only through going back into the darkness, and accepting it, can you start to heal from it. The revulsion you feel is not from your crooked posture, it’s from what lies deep into those shadows. It’s where you must go … next.’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know if I can face it.’
‘Do you want me to go with you?’
‘Yes. Would you?’
‘Of course, but first …’ He pulled a small contraption from his pocket and switched it on. It produced a slow flashing light. ‘I must hypnotise you. Let me be your conduit, Alan, let me help you embrace the darkness.’
Alan nodded.
The Conduit held the flashing light in front of his eyes …
Alan was distracted from this memory and pulled back to the present day by a tapping at the patio door behind him. He turned from the snow-caked garden and the skeletal trees.
Dr Harris was standing there. He was smiling at him through the glass.
10
IT WAS LATE afternoon when Yorke and Gardener reached the hotel carpark in central Leeds.
Moments before, he’d finished a conversation over the speakerphone with DS Paul Breaker from the West Yorkshire Constabulary. Breaker hadn’t been involved in the shambolic Alan Brislane investigation; he was just the unlucky boy that was now picking up the pieces. He was polite and sounded competent. Yorke wasn’t surprised. Madden would have raised merry hell on her phone call, and knowing they were now under scrutiny, this northern constabulary would be putting the best on this old investigation.
Yorke relayed, in detail, his interviews with Helen Brislane, and Dr Eli Moss. He discussed his suspicions regarding the relationship between them, and the possibility that this may have started prior to Brislane’s disappearance. Yorke advised Breaker to contact Moss’ former secretary to query Helen’s appointment with Moss on the day her husband vanished. As far as Yorke was concerned, the appointment sheet that Moss himself would send over would be null and void.
‘And if you find out that there never was an appointment, try and find out where Helen Brislane got to when she was supposed to be with him.’
‘Don’t worry, sir, I will be doing.’ He sounded assured.
‘And phone me night or day with anything.’
Outside Welcome Break, in the carpark, Yorke turned to Gardner. ‘I’m going to go and meet DCS Benjamin Rosset about the massacre. You check us in, please.’
The incident room that Rosset led Yorke into was far more impressive than the ones he was used to back in Wiltshire. It was stocked so full of technology that the room hummed. He couldn’t remember seeing so many officers together in one space; some were at standing desks on the phone, others were hunched over computers. There was even a line forming at the photocopiers. Did austerity take a wrong turn somewhere when it arrived in Yorkshire? Yorke wondered what the point of him being here was; if they couldn’t solve a crime with this kind of resourcing, then God help them all.
Rosset smiled. ‘I can see from your expression, Mike, that you think we’re throwing a lot at it.’
‘The thought had crossed my mind, sir, but I guess the response fits the crime. Besides, if you’ve got it, use it.’
‘Yes … it does look impressive, I admit, but then, it has left some investigations operating on a shoestring. I hope it doesn’t turn out to be a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation. But I made this call for the following reason.’ He took Yorke to the incident board and pointed at a sickening collage. ‘We didn’t get the fire out in time.’
Yorke’s eyes flicked between the images. He counted sixteen bodies burned beyond recognition, each with a name tattooed beneath the photograph. Yorke wondered as to Rosset’s motivations for displaying them so boldly at the front of the room. Motivation for his team, perhaps? He didn’t query it.
‘You have to go back to the Cumbria Shootings in 2010 to find something this bad. Twelve died that day. Let’s hope this monster, Mayers, opts for the same way out as Derrick Bird … but until then, he’s loose, and so,’ he turned back to look at an incident room which probably looked more like a Virgin Media Call centre, ‘no expense spared.’
He turned back and tapped a photograph of an elderly lady. ‘Thank God for Audrey Houghton, or we’d have no idea what went on in that place. Not much evidence survived that inferno. We found the charred tin which contained the lighter fluid that started the fire in Drigg’s room. We also have his gun of course. A Smith and Wesson Shield EZ. A good choice for the elderly. Easier to handle for those with arthritis. I don’t want to be ageist, and I know he was ex-military, but do you really think Driggs negotiated the dark web to acquire himself one of these?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Yorke said. ‘Mayers gave it to him. On one of their little walks – along with the lighter fluid I expect.’
Rosset raised an eyebrow. ‘While he was controlling his mind?’
There was a tone. Yorke looked away. There was no point in being angry. Why would you believe it? Un
less you’d lived through it. He looked back. ‘Have you read the files on the Severance investigation, sir?’
‘Twice. Look, Mike, you shouldn’t blame me for being sceptical. You know I’ve watched my fair share of Paul McKenna shows, and I’m sure there is truth to hypnosis, but this … the slaughter of sixteen innocent people … you cannot tell me he wasn’t aware of what he was doing?’
‘Oh, he was aware alright,’ Yorke said. ‘But that’s hardly the point is it? The point is not what you’re aware of, it’s what you believe. Let’s go to your office and talk. You invited me here because of my personal experience with the Severance case. The files are thorough, but they’re not everything. By the time we’ve finished talking, you will know that Bernard Driggs was just another victim in this whole sorry affair, and your priority then will be to stop there being anymore.’
Yorke didn’t need to provide chapter and verse. Rosset had spent the last twenty-four hours poring over the Christian Severance files. What Rosset needed was an understanding of what made the crazy doctor tick. Then, he would truly understand what a devastating adversary he faced.
‘Louis Mayers chooses patients based on their background. He looks for those considered damaged. And not just damaged, but rather, devastated. Christian Severance had been abused by a teacher, Susie Long had witnessed her uncle euthanising her grandmother—’
‘Bernard Driggs had witnessed his friends being killed during the Falklands war. He also sustained a catastrophic injury that almost killed him.’
‘Yes. So he would fit the profile.’
‘But why is he turning them into monsters? What’s the point?’
‘The point to Mayers is bigger than any of us could ever imagine. He, too, experienced trauma. Before he became the Conduit, he was a successful psychiatrist in the treatment of insomnia. Renowned, rich … he had it all. Two of his insomniacs, high-flying bankers addicted to cocaine, entered a state of psychosis due to sleep deprivation. Because they knew each other, they came together, and shared their beliefs. They believed that they were victims of a malicious doctor experimenting on them—’
‘Sounds like they were about right!’
