by Wes Markin
‘I don’t think so. I think what happened next created the Conduit. The two patients purchased guns. The day they went for Mayers, they killed three other patients and his receptionist. Unbelievably, Mayers survived his wounds. As you can imagine, he suffered devastating PTSD. That’s when Dr Martin Adams came into the picture. He was working on a new therapy for PTSD at the time. HASD. Healing. Acceptance. Sharing. Displacement. He offered Mayers treatment under this new programme.’ Yorke then went on to explain the principles in more detail.
‘And this is where all of this started. With this HASD?’ Rosset said.
Yorke nodded.
‘So is it worth contacting Dr Martin Adams, the pioneer of this shitstorm?’ Rosset said.
‘Yes, if he’s willing,’ Yorke said, reaching for the coffee on the table between them. ‘His project fell by the wayside, for obvious reasons, and I heard he was struggling to get his career back on track.’
Rosset made a note.
‘But I cannot say for sure how much use he will actually be. The way that Mayers twisted and adapted this treatment, first with Christian Severance and several others, and then, even more catastrophically, with Susie Long, have made this therapy a rather different animal.’
‘Well, considering the purpose of the treatment was to heal someone of their PTSD, it seems to me he is just making it worse. He’s just antagonising his patients.’
‘He would disagree with you. The philosophy remains intact. He wants to heal, and believes he is doing so. The healing takes place when the patient accepts the trauma within them, shares it with the therapist under hypnosis, before displacing it.’
‘Displacing, or murdering?’
‘In this instance, Mayers sees it as the same thing. Whatever it takes to free the patient from the shackles of their anxieties.’
‘They’re hardly healed though if they then go and blow their brains out?’
Yorke nodded. ‘I’ve thought about this a lot. I guess the patient is irrelevant to Mayers when the process is over. Keeping a healed patient alive is just too much high risk for him. Look, I’m not saying that Mayers actually healed Bernard Driggs, obviously I do not believe in the effectiveness of his barbaric treatment, but it’s not what I believe that is important. Mayers will have believed Bernard was healed. He’d achieved all he was going to achieve, and now Bernard would simply be a liability. So, he would have programmed him to commit suicide.’
‘Or Bernard could have just woken up, seen what he’d done, and then shot himself from guilt?’
‘Possibly. But again, this is irrelevant, as we do not care less about the success in Mayers’ approach. All we care about is what Mayers believed. He thinks he is on the road to greatness. Somewhere he is recording everything he does in great detail. One day, when he is dead or alive, I don’t suppose that matters too much to him, he will unleash his discoveries.’
‘So he believes he’s changing the face of psychology? Wow. That really is a new level of grandeur!’
‘I’ve come across it before,’ Yorke said. ‘When obsessives like this believe something this much, and when they are driven to this extent, the combination is not only powerful, but deadly.’
‘You’re telling me.’
They continued talking until they were interrupted by a Management Support Assistant bringing in another tray of coffees.
Rosset stirred four sugar cubes into his. While watching this in disgust, Yorke weighed up whether to tell him about the other reason he was in Leeds. Some of the resources back there in the interview room could be put to excellent use in the hunt for both Robert Brislane and Mark Topham. And if their disappearances were connected to the Conduit, could he be impeding this investigation by holding back on this information?
Yes, he could.
It meant betraying Gardner, but what choice did they have in all of this anyway? If Topham was still alive, which was unlikely, he was going to prison for a very long time. Gardner didn’t seem to want to accept this, but it was completely non-negotiable. It would break all of their hearts, but if Topham was still alive, he was going back to Salisbury to face justice.
So, when all was said and done, full disclosure was surely the only option.
He took a mouthful of coffee and was just opening his mouth to say something when there was a knock at the door. A wiry male officer, wearing a suit so tight that Yorke wondered how on earth he could walk, poked his head in. ‘Sir, they’ve recovered the phone Bernard Driggs used.’
‘Destroyed though, surely?’
‘No. Audrey Houghton just pulled it out of her bag. She doesn’t know how it got in there. The doctor at the hospital that contacted us suggested that she probably put it in her bag while she was in shock before she fled the building, and then forgot.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘It’s on its way here.’
Rosset turned to Yorke. ‘Listen, it’ll be a good half hour until it gets here, and then another chunk of time for the relevant parties to have a good look at it. Would you like to go and get settled in your hotel, and then I’ll contact you when we have something? You can even come back in then after you’ve refreshed?’
Normally, the answer would be a resounding no. Walking away from a moment like this in an investigation was like walking into a clearly marked electric fence. Instinct wouldn’t allow it. But, he had Gardner back at the hotel. Hopefully, she would just be twiddling her thumbs, waiting for him, but knowing Gardner, he doubted that very much. He had to be really careful that she didn’t cause any serious problems while they were up here.
Yorke nodded. When I come back, he thought, shaking Rosset’s hand on the way out, I’ll tell you everything about Topham and Brislane, and Gardner will just have to accept that this is the right thing to do.
Alan Sants stroked the dog’s head. It leaned back and nuzzled his hand.
‘It’s strange,’ Alan said. ‘But the more I see him, the more I pet him, the more I really do see him as an animal.’
‘We’re all animals, Alan,’ Harris said.
‘Yes, but there is an order, I guess.’
‘Yes, an order we imposed. Anyway, let’s not get into that. I’m just pleased to see that you two have become so close. Mark relishes your visits you know. He’s far happier when you’re around than when he’s stuck here alone with little old me.’
Alan’s eyes settled on the pruning saw leaning against the wall. He knew that Harris had been cutting back trees, but he also knew the saw had other uses.
‘I have a present in the bag.’
‘Not for me though, I hope. I told you presents are wholly inappropriate when I’m treating you.’
‘No, the present is for Mark. I think he’ll like it. I think you will too.’
Harris stepped alongside Mark and settled his hand on his shaved and pitted head. ‘The wonderful thing about a diet of deprivation is the gratitude you can then feel. Mark will be grateful. Of that you can be sure.’
Alan had been a month into his therapy when he’d first met Dr Harris’ dog Mark. It was a significant day in Alan’s development because it was also the day that he’d finally reached the darkness inside himself …
In the visualisation, Alan stood by the Conduit and watched his younger self from the side of the room. Despite knowing that the doctor couldn’t get involved with what was about to happen, he was grateful for his presence.
His restless thirteen-year-old self was rocking back and forth in bed. The room always felt warmer on a Friday night, probably because there were always so many people downstairs, and hot air rises. He’d already undone the top buttons on his pyjamas, but it wasn’t cutting it, so he sat up and peeled the entire thing off.
The knock at his door made both Alans, young and old, flinch.
His younger self looked at his bedside clock. It had been less than an hour since his parents’ last check.
‘Don’t open the door,’ Alan said.
He felt the Conduit’s hand settle on h
is shoulder.
‘I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to see.’
The Conduit didn’t reply. Alan looked at him. The doctor offered a sympathetic expression, but then gestured for him to look back. They’d worked long and hard to tunnel into this dark memory, and it was now essential, that they observed it.
When Alan turned back, his younger self was already padding across the room, eager to see his parents.
‘Please,’ Alan called out. ‘It’s not mum and dad. It’s not them …’
The younger Alan couldn’t hear the man from his future.
Alan took a step forward. The Conduit gripped his shoulder. The strength of the large man prevented him moving any further. He shouted instead. ‘THEY BROKE THE RULES … THEY CAME UPSTAIRS!’
His younger self opened the door and stepped backwards in surprise. A Chinese businessman, late forties, with silver hair stood there. He came into the room, knelt, and offered a gift.
‘A Mud Man,’ Alan said. ‘He was the exporter who’d given my mother them before. And now he’s giving me one too.’
With wide excited eyes, his younger self took hold of the Mud Man.
The businessman turned and closed the door.
Alan turned back to the Conduit. ‘I still don’t know if he thought I was just one of the children my parents brought to the house. Another one of those poor children from that Chapel Town estate, who were earning ridiculous amounts of money for their parents. For years, I thought who would do that? Sell their own children? Sell other people’s children? But as time has gone on, I’ve realised that innocence is often a fairytale, and so many more people hide away poison than you first might think.’
The Conduit spoke for the first time in this visualisation. ‘You must watch.’
Alan didn’t want to watch, but he also didn’t want to let the Conduit down. The man beside him was his last chance. Justice had failed him. So, too had the health service. This could be his final opportunity to heal.
To no longer be a freak.
He turned and watched.
At first the businessman was gentle. He petted the boy, and attempted to soothe away the anxiety, but eventually, his true intentions were revealed. Before long, they were lying down on the bed together.
Alan didn’t need to see the terror on the face of his younger self. He remembered it all too well. He still felt it most days, and he most certainly felt it right now, watching.
When the man became aggressive, Alan was glad to see the fight in the boy. Yes, he’d lost – his damaged self in the present was living proof of that – but, still, the fight made him proud. He scratched at the man’s face, kicked at him, spat at him, and it was only when he was turned over, and the bigger man flattened him down with his weight that the battle was lost.
Alan cried as he watched the next few minutes of his memory.
When his parents arrived too late to prevent anything, Alan felt no sympathy for their despair. Their faces melted.
‘Alright for other children, but not their own?’ Alan said to the Conduit. ‘In a way, at least some good is about to come from my experience.’
‘What?’ The Conduit asked.
‘Watch. Watch their whole sordid little enterprise come crashing down.’
His father was a small, slim man, but he was agile, and prone to displays of sudden aggression. He grabbed the businessman by his hair and dragged him off his son and the bed.
The man landed with a thump on the wooden floor. He scurried backwards and was a pathetic sight. Naked from the waist down.
‘That’s my son,’ his father said, approaching.
‘I didn’t know, I didn’t know.’ His Chinese accent was strong.
His father started to kick him.
The boy was crying, and his mother was already over there consoling him. She had her arms around him. ‘I’m sorry … I’m sorry.’
Over the sounds of the businessman being pummelled, Alan could barely hear his younger self explain to his mother what had happened, but two words came through loud and clear. ‘Mud Man.’
Her eyes widened and she took the Mud Man from her son’s hands.
Alan traced the palm of his hand. He remembered the pain he’d felt there all those years ago. He’d clutched it in a fist so tightly during the ordeal that it had drawn blood.
‘It was a good Mud Man,’ Alan said. ‘He carried a long fishing spear. It was sharp to the touch.’
Seeing that her husband was in the process of beating a man to death, his mother darted over to him and placed her hands on his shoulders.
It seemed to work. His father backed away, gasping for air. The businessman groaned and rolled onto his front. In the background, the boy curled himself up into a ball and continued to sob.
As his mother embraced his father, desperately trying to calm him, the man made it up onto his knees.
His father came away from his mother. ‘A fucking Mud Man?’ He grabbed it from her hand and swung back towards his son’s abuser. ‘You gave my son a fucking Mud Man and then raped him?’
The businessman was on his feet now. He was unsteady. There was blood running from his nose, and his lip. He stood at the open door with his back to the balcony just outside.
‘I didn’t know,’ the rapist continued.
‘Are you fucking blind? This is the first floor. You were told to stay on the ground floor.’
His father stepped forward and the bastard held up the palms of his hands. ‘Please … I was looking for the toilet.’
‘The toilet is on the ground floor. Would you like this back now you blind prick?’ He held the Mud Man upside down in his right fist, so the fishing spear was pointing down. He drew his fist back and stabbed the businessman in his left eye.
He screamed. Blood and fluids spewed down his face. He reached up and covered his punctured eye with his hands, while the father slammed the spear into the other eye.
‘Now I accept your excuse,’ his father said. ‘You’re blind. You made a mistake.’
The man stumbled backwards, clawing at his damaged face. He hit the balcony backwards, flipped and was gone.
His mother and father approached the balcony and looked over.
‘Hitting the ground floor put him out of his misery,’ Alan said to the Conduit. He gestured at his younger crying self. ‘Mine was set to continue.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘The sick bastards and the children below who’d not already fled the house when the noise had started upstairs, didn’t think twice about leaving when the body landed in front of them. I think my mother and father tried to do something about the dead man, but it was all too late. Chaos had come, and chaos breeds weakness. The children saw the weakness in the enterprise that held them, and summoned the courage to come together, and get help.’
‘And your parents are still in jail?’
‘My father, yes. My mother, no. Cancer. She tried to get out on compassionate grounds. She was refused, but she died in hospital, and I was allowed to hold her hand.’
‘And how did that make you feel?’
‘Relief.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the guilt was too much for her too bear.’
‘Some would say deserved?’
‘She deserved it, but I didn’t want to see her suffer.’
‘That’s very noble. And your father?’
‘I speak to him on the phone.’
‘Do you ask him why they did what they did?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I know already.’
‘How?’
‘Because the darkness that exists in him, and existed in my mother, exists in me too.’
Alan looked around Harris’ office. Without even realising it, he’d been eased out of the visualisation. He sat up on the sofa. Harris was busy making notes behind the desk.
‘How do you feel?’ Harris said.
‘I understand it more now.’
&n
bsp; ‘Acceptance. Now, come with me. You shared with me and now I want to share something with you.’
To date, Alan had only seen the back room and the office of Harris’ house, so he was surprised to be led into the interior.
He was further surprised by the naked man lying asleep on his side in Harris’ dining room.
‘What the—?’
‘Sit for a moment, Alan, do not let shock overwhelm you. There is much to be learned here.’
‘Who is this?’ Instead of sitting, Alan moved closer, so he was standing directly over the man.
‘It’s not who it is, it’s what it is.’
‘I don’t understand …’ Alan knelt and looked at the man’s scarred body. He ran his fingers over a metal collar that fixed him to D-ring on the wall.
‘He was Mark Topham. A police officer in fact,’ Harris said.
Alan stared up at Harris with wide eyes. ‘This is torture.’
‘On the contrary, Alan, he is happier than he has ever been. Do you know what a lobotomy is?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, they used to give them to people consumed by madness. Some considered it barbaric, but then, these critics weren’t the sorry souls trapped in hell. Just imagine the release of pressure that came with the cracking of the frontal lobe, Alan. One minute, they were clawing at their faces, the next minute, they were as calm and obedient as a trained dog.
‘Mark came to me in this condition. He was rabid, beyond help. He wanted to kill me. It was too late for me to help him in the way I’m helping you, and how I’ve helped many before you, but there was something I could offer him.
‘I could release the pressure. Not with a lobotomy, you understand. That is too crude a method. It also takes too much of the person away. Mark still exists in the animal you see before you. He still understands the world around him. But he is completely under control, and is obedient.’
Alan ran his eyes down the sleeping man’s body and they settled on the mass of scar tissue around his groin. He looked back up at Harris. ‘You’ve castrated him.’
‘He is a dog, Alan. If I’d left him with desire and instinct of that nature, how would I have truly tamed him?’
