The line delivered by the innocent five year old boy was so similar to the case he had read on the internet, that it amazed Nic. Yet, Nic believed it was genuine.
Later that afternoon, David had asked his mother who 'Zoggy' was, and told her that Paul had asked his mother and father to look after him.
David's mother had written to Paul's parents and enquired as to the identity of Zoggy, only to discover that he was Paul's pet cat.
The families had never met each other before, and they lived on opposite sides of Chicago.
After that David did not speak of Paul again.
.
Nic poured himself another glass of wine, and then read another five case stories. They were all remarkable. All amazing. All seemingly true...he could not fault the people whom he had interviewed personally, and he could not detect any sign that they had been lying. Also, Nic could see no motivation for them to make any of it up. He had made it clear that he would not be making any aspect of his studies public, and that this research was independent and being conducted by the makers of SP-X4, purely for their own records.
After finishing the fifth case study, he had made himself something to eat, and then sat down to think.
He had to understand why the rate of these experiences had jumped from being statistically minute to almost 80% of all transplant operations that involved SP-X4.
Something was niggling him at the back of his brain.
A thought. A gem of an idea.
His subconscious was gently prodding him.
Nic closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and relaxed.
And in that moment, Nic began to understand.
Chapter Forty Two
.
.
The Dome
Edinburgh
11.00 p.m.
April 17th
.
.
"Okay," Susie said, looking up from her notebook and paying all her attention to Peter, her pen poised, ready to write everything down. "What do we know so far?"
"Actually, probably not that much. We know it's a man. We know he probably likes spicy sausages. And I'm pretty sure that he likes to climb mountains. In fact, I think he has climbed the Matterhorn. Remember I told you about the visions I had in Zermatt? One was like a dream in which I dreamt that I was standing on top of the Matterhorn, and the other, the vision I had when looking up at the ledge on the vertical face of the Matterhorn, was as if it was me looking down from above through the eyes of someone perched on that little ledge. I think that whoever the murderer was, he had been standing there at some point during his ascent of the Matterhorn."
"That's a start. But there must be more if we think about it."
"Like what?"
"Like, for example, that if both of these two women that he had killed were so attractive, then maybe this guy is also quite good looking."
"Is that relevant?"
"Could be. Maybe worth remembering. Maybe not."
They sat in silence for a second.
Peter reached out, almost absentmindedly, and picked up a knife that was lying on the table from the earlier place setting for dinner.
He started to stroke the edge of the blade with his thumb. Lost in his thoughts.
Susie watched him. A shudder ran down her spine, and she reached out and took the knife away from him, stretching across to another empty table behind her and dropping it onto the white tablecloth.
Peter looked up, a light shining in his eyes.
"Write down that I seem to be becoming interested in knives. I just realised that just now...I keep picking them up, playing with them. In fact, fuck, you won't believe this but yesterday I went out and bought a new set of cutlery. Ask me why?"
"Why?"
"Because when I was washing up the dishes from dinner the other day, I realised just how old my dinner set was and how blunt the knives were. It's really started to annoy me recently that I can't cut the meat on my plates properly...Shit, was that me or him? Did I want to buy new knives or did that other fucker, the murderer want me to?"
"Hey...calm down. You don't need to swear so much...you never used to swear!? ...Anyway, don't worry about it...You're right. Your cutlery is old. You've had it for years, and yes, the knives are probably blunt. Don't worry about it..."
"But write it down, anyway, just in case...you know...and also write down that I am bloody swearing more than I used to."
She wrote them both down.
"Peter, you mentioned that when you described the second murder you were standing looking out of a window...can you close your eyes and think about it now...and if you can, try and think about what you can see out of the window...Is there anything distinctive about what you can see? For example, can you tell what country you are in?"
Peter closed his eyes. Susie said nothing.
"But don't fall asleep..." Susie said, jokingly.
"SSssssshhhH!!!" Peter replied, wincing up his face without opening up his eyes.
"Every time I do this, it becomes a little clearer. I can see rooftops, slates...brown walls...I think this is England. It's not like the council houses we have in Scotland, and the buildings don't look like any ones we have in the Scottish countryside...
"Or is it abroad?"
"No...They look like British, ...English houses..."
"Okay..."
"..Shit...yes, and in the distance down the side of one of the buildings I can see half a bridge. I can see a bridge!"
"Brilliant! How tall is the bridge? Is it big?"
"Quite big...it's not like the Forth Road Bridge or the Forth Rail Bridge...no, it's not a rail-bridge...I can see people walking across it..., I can't see any cars...there are no cars...it's a pedestrian bridge."
"Okay. So, we'll have to google all the decent pedestrian footbridges in England, and see if we can find a match. Maybe you could try to sketch what you've seen as well.
Then perhaps we can go and try and find it, try to recreate the angle from which you saw it, and then try to identify the house and the window you saw it from..."
"Wooahhh... slow down! How many bridges are there in England…?"
"I'm just making a plan, okay...I'm guessing that if the dream or vision keeps becoming clearer, you will come up with something else that may even help us to identify it more definitively...It's really important that from now on you carry a little notebook around with you and start writing down any names, place names, words, anything that might pop into your mind? Okay?"
"Good idea."
"Anything, okay?"
"Fine, I've got it. Listen, I've been thinking...all those amazing stories that we read on the internet, about all those people who'd had transplants like me and then started having things happen to them. Supernatural things... I've read them all again a couple of times each, and I noticed that a lot of them, probably most of them, are quite old. They were written years ago. I've been wondering...how many others like me are there now? Is what's happening to me commonplace, or the exception? Was this something that started happening like 'Crop Circles' or 'Alien Abductions' where lots came out of the woodwork all at the same time as everyone started imagining that it had happened to them too, and then it all faded away, or is it something real that still happens all the time?"
"You're right. I'd spotted that as well...and I think I have an answer..."
"Which is what?"
"You write an article about this, requesting that anyone who has had similar experiences to you recently or in the past three years, should come forward, tell others, share their experiences and join the debate again now..."
"Great idea," Peter said, smiling."...But I'll say 'a friend' of mine had a transplant etc...I just don't think that I should openly admit to people that it was me, because people might think I'm a freak or something."
"True. Never thought of that. And we shouldn't mention room '326' or anything like that either."
"Let's just keep it vague... I'll say I'm doing research for 'my friend' and w
ant to gather recent experiences of anyone who has experienced personality changes after receiving a transplant, or anything else remarkable or strange. Let's test the waters...see what's out there."
"Done. I'll write it tomorrow."
.
Outside the Dome, Susie and Peter stood to zip up their coats. It had got quite cold. Peter looked at his watch. It was late.
"I'll get you a taxi," he said.
"Not yet...can we just walk for a bit. Get some fresh air?"
Susie wrapped her arms around Peter's, and they started to walk along George Street, Susie resting her head against his shoulder. She smiled. Peter smelled good.
They walked without talking, each person lost in their own thoughts.
When they got to the end of George Street, Peter turned to Susie, one hand on each shoulder, looking into her eyes, and was about to ask something, when Susie reached up her hand and touched his lips with her fingers.
"You don't need to ask, Peter. The answer is yes. I wasn't there for you before, when you needed me, but tonight I want to be. I don't think either of us want to be alone just now."
Susie leant forward and kissed Peter on the lips. Then she turned, waved at a taxi, and when it pulled up in front of them, they both climbed in.
.
The next morning Peter woke up in Susie's bed alone. She had already left for work. He had slept deeply, without any dreams, and had woken up feeling good. Very good indeed.
The smile receded however, when Peter found the note on the pillow beside him.
.
"Thank you for last night Peter. It was lovely to fall asleep in your arms again. I don't know how to say this, but perhaps, given everything that is happening just now, we should enjoy last night for what it was, but not read anything more into it than that? The last thing I want to do is to ruin what we have. You are too important to me. So for now, let's imagine that last night was just a pleasant dream. A beautiful dream that I shall never regret, but which we should perhaps not repeat? Does that make sense?
For now, let's put all our energies into our plan. Okay?
About the newspaper article we discussed...Leave it to me! I'll draft something up this morning, and call you at lunchtime so that we can discuss it.
Please get some rest!
Hugs,
Susie"
".
--------------------
.
The article was published two days later. It was a small article, not too detailed. It ran on Page 4 of the Friday evening paper edition as well as the online version. Susie and Peter tweeted the article, and put a link to it on their Facebook pages. It was 'Liked' and 'retweeted' by a thousand people by Saturday morning, and was picked up and copied by several of the major Sunday newspapers.
In the viral world that is today, the theme of the article caught the public's imagination. When Susie went to her computer on Sunday morning to re-read some of the 'supernatural' cases that had caught her interest before, she typed in " Organ transplant and personality change" and discovered that the top ten links that came back were from articles in the US and Canada that had referenced her article and her request for volunteers to come forward and contact her with new stories.
By Monday morning Peter and Susie had over one hundred emails from people who were keen to share their experiences and find out if they were the only ones in the world experiencing such things, or if others were too.
By Tuesday they had three hundred emails.
And by Wednesday both she and Peter were convinced that something very, very strange was happening.
They had stirred the pot, and the cauldron had begun to boil.
Chapter Forty Three
.
.
Knutsford
England
April 20th
3.00 p.m.
.
.
It had been well over a month since the police had visited Carolina with the news that her ex-boyfriend had most probably been found dead in the Shetlands.
Carolina had cried on and off for a few days, before she finally accepted the inevitability of it all. They weren't in love any more when she had split up with him, but she felt guilty. Had he killed himself because of her?
It made some sort of weird sense that he was dead. It explained things. He wasn't living at the flat he used to rent, and Carolina didn't have any other address for him. No one who she knew that had known him had heard from him at all. It was like he had just disappeared off the face of the planet.
Where had he gone?
Being dead at least explained why he didn't return anyone's calls...
.
The police had offered to take her up to the Shetlands by car. She had refused. They had then offered to fly her up in a small private charter, but Carolina didn't like small airplanes. She didn't even like big airplanes.
Then the police had arranged for a film of the corpse to be made available, and invited her down to the station to view it.
That had really spooked her out.
How would she react?
How would she feel when she saw the body of a man who had probably died because of her?
She had changed her mind. She couldn't do it.
Maybe later.
The police had not pressurised her at all. They understood. They would give her some time, although ultimately the Coroner would probably insist on her help.
The thoughts wouldn't go away though, and one day Carolina woke up and realised she had had enough. She needed to know one way or the other. So, she had agreed to go and view the video.
Luckily, one of the neighbours had offered to look after Sam for the afternoon... just in case she needed some space to pull her emotions together after the viewing.
.
When she arrived at the station, she was met by the same friendly female police officer who had visited her at her home, and she had escorted her into a room at the back of the station.
Two seats had been placed in front of a large, flat screen LED TV, and as soon as they sat down, another female officer came in carrying some fresh tea and two glasses of water.
They sat down.
They had talked for a while. The police officer had asked after Sam, how he was. "Sam was a nice little boy."
Pleasantries.
And then the police officer had asked if Carolina would prefer to sit by herself, or would she like the other police officer to remain with her...If she wanted, the police officer could stand at the back of the room?
Carolina had thanked her for her kindness.
"Would you mind if I was left alone?...Could I call you when I am ready?"
The female police officer had nodded.
"When you are ready," she said as she got up to leave the room, "...simply press the play button on this remote control." She handed Carolina the remote, smiled, and left.
Carolina sat for a second, plucking up all her courage, then picked up the remote, took a deep breath, and pointed it at the TV.
The screen came alive.
A body was lying on some sort of flat table or mortuary slab, covered in a sheet.
A person in a white coat walked over to the table, back turned to the camera, and started to remove the white sheet.
Carolina felt light-headed, dizzy...the room in the police station suddenly felt too small. Her heart started to beat incredibly fast...
She stood up from her seat, fighting with the urge to simply run from the room, to escape back to her house, not to have to face this after all, but then she thought about the poor parents of Gary, wondering where their son was, hoping, praying that he was still alive.
Taking a deep breath, cradling her face in her hands, she forced herself to continue to watch the images on the TV.
The white sheet had been removed, and she could now see the whole body on the table.
He was large. Possibly about the same height as Gary: it was difficult to tell exactly from the film on the TV. The ca
mera moved closer towards the face, slowly showing the body as it went. For a second it hovered above a tattoo on one of the arms.
For a second, this confused Carolina. She squinted at the image on the screen and shook her head slightly, removing the hands from the sides of her face...
The camera had moved on now, traversing up the body.
As the image came to rest on the face, Carolina fought with a confused mixture of feelings within her.
The image on the screen was horrific. The face had been smashed in and although it was now clean and as presentable as possible, it had clearly been horribly disfigured and damaged. At the sight of it, her stomach churned, and she fought with the urge to throw up.
Yet, at the same time, she felt confused. Very confused.
What she was seeing simply did not compute.
For a few seconds she felt a sense of relief, and she almost voiced the words "Thank God...it's not Gary!"
But then she remembered the tattoo, a vision momentarily resurfacing within her memory, and simultaneously the mutated face became clearer in her mind.
No, it was not Gary.
But as one problem was removed, another replaced it.
With a feeling of immense dread, she realised that she knew exactly who it was.
Involuntarily, she screamed aloud, felt the world go black, and she fainted.
Chapter Forty Four
.
.
The Bunker
Delaware
April 24th
.
.
Nic White stared at his laptop screen, deep in thought. What should he do now? As usual, his instincts had been spot on. He had known, known, the instant that he had noticed the word 'journalist' in the case notes of the patient in Scotland that it would spell trouble. Journalists are clever. They sniff something wrong. Then they dig. And they don't stop digging until they have a story.
Nic had received four tweets from different members of his team in the past half an hour. All were sharing with him and a million others in their lives, the link to a newspaper article in the Evening News, the city newspaper for the capital of Scotland.
After reading the article Nic had browsed some of the many discussion groups that he was a part of in the world of genetics and medicine, and there were already several posts in the different groups that had referenced the article. It seemed that organ transplantation and the possible adoption of donor characteristics had suddenly become the hot topic of the day.
BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS Page 19
