Influence

by Chris Parker

  Peter sighed. ‘How long, then, before you can make some sort of conscious sense of what you have seen?’

  ‘That’s impossible and, therefore, totally inappropriate for me to answer. You can’t force that sort of thing out of your subconscious. It’s not like an orange or a lemon that you just squeeze the juice out of.’

  ‘What about hypnosis?’ It was Nic who asked.

  ‘Good question.’ Marcus raised his glass in salute. ‘A really good hypnotist can absolutely help a client to access and use subconscious resources to create change or resolve a problem. They can also empower them to remember things they cannot consciously recall.’

  ‘So why not hypnotise yourself, or get someone else to do it to you, so that you can consciously identify those hidden cues?’ Peter took up the questioning again.

  ‘Because I don’t believe there is enough there at this stage to make it worthwhile. I’m picking up the tiniest scraps of information, so even if we release them from my subconscious they won’t give us anything concrete to work on; there simply isn’t enough right now.’

  ‘Then we’re back to square one: how can you be so sure you are right?’

  ‘Because I’m me.’

  Peter Jones took a long, slow drink of his wine. When he stopped Nic poured more into his glass.

  ‘Right now this is a private conversation between two friends who just happen to extremely good at what they do. Right?’ Marcus’s voice slowed, his tone becoming softer and yet even more compelling. ‘My task is to identify associations that everyone else will miss and that will lead you to your killer in the fastest possible time. And that’s what I can do. I recognise and, when necessary, make associations. It’s what I’m best at. What you don’t want me to do, and what I can’t afford to do, is make assumptions. Let’s be clear about this. The skill in using one’s intuition to its full lies in being able to recognise in an instant the very specific feeling that tells you you’ve seen something accurately. You have to be able to acknowledge the feeling and then hang on to it in a glimmer of a second. There is literally no time for hesitation. This is the crucial thing. If you are just a millisecond too slow your conscious mind will automatically second-guess the message your subconscious is sending and – bingo! – you will create your own assumption rather than acknowledge a genuine association.

  ‘Assumptions are dangerous,’ Marcus went on, ‘not only because there is a very real possibility they are inaccurate and we then base our communication and behaviour on them, but also because they act as blinkers. Once we assume something to be the case, we go looking for the feedback that supports the assumption; we rarely actively seek to challenge it. So over time the assumption becomes stronger and is accepted as part of our reality.

  ‘Real associations differ because they are based on fact, even if these are facts that we only recognise and act upon subconsciously. The bottom line is, that the quality of our life experience – and that absolutely includes our problem-solving capabilities, Detective Chief Inspector – is determined by our ability to identify and manage associations.’

  ‘Yeah, of course it is.’ Peter turned towards his partner. ‘I assumed that’s what he would say.’

  Nic laughed and ran his hand through his hair before addressing Marcus. ‘I always said that you should be the lecturer and not me.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Marcus chuckled. ‘I only want to work with worthwhile clients, really committed, skilled and enthusiastic learners and, naturally, sarcastic and ungrateful policemen. The associations between me and the general student population would, I’m sure, become negative very quickly.’

  ‘Fair point.’ Nic had long regarded Marcus as more of a pre-eminent professor who had no interest in teaching the masses than a lecturer like himself, committed to education for all. ‘It’s a shame, though.’

  ‘The real shame,’ Marcus countered, taking the conversation back to its original topic, ‘Is that I don’t have any more to offer yet about the identity of the killer.’

  ‘Maybe there won’t be any more,’ Nic suggested. ‘Maybe the killing is a one-off.’

  Peter felt his heartbeat quicken. That was his secret hope at every murder scene. Maybe this is a one-off. And often it was. And in those cases the culprit was usually found quickly and close to home. Peter’s dread – every senior detective’s greatest fear – was that a single murder proved to be the first act of a serial killer.

  When the murder was a one-off and the killer was never caught, at least no more lives were lost. When dealing with a serial killer though, the consequences were infinitely more severe, the game was for the very highest stakes. Another death and the responsibility would, in part at least, be on Peter’s head for not making an arrest quickly enough. And if the killing spree continued…

  Peter shivered slightly and hoped that Marcus Kline hadn’t noticed. The awful truth – the terrible hope that every detective clung to when a second killing occurred and a series was identified – was that the second crime scene offered some new and compelling evidence; that a second death made the process of detection easier. If only, Peter thought, society knew how we are obliged to think. What would they make of us?

  ‘This isn’t a one-off.’ Marcus’s voice cut through Peter’s contemplation even though it was directed at his boyfriend. ‘I’m afraid this isn’t going to end quickly or, I suspect, easily.’ Marcus turned very deliberately to face the detective.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Peter felt the question pulled out of him by the intensity on the other man’s face.

  ‘Because, as I said earlier, this guy is looking for something and he isn’t going to stop until either you catch him or he finds what he’s looking for. And he didn’t find it with his first victim.’ Marcus’s eyes softened. ‘So I am afraid my friend – and I hate to say this – your film marks the first act in what I am sure is going to turn into a nightmare.’

  23.

  Anne-Marie was desperate to sleep. She didn’t actually feel tired despite the long journey from Nottingham to Devon; she just wanted to fall asleep. In truth, she hadn’t felt remotely tired since the consultant shared his bleak news with her.

  And, she reminded herself again as she tossed and turned in the bed and stared up at the pitch black ceiling, she hated how words lied in the way that photos never did! Sure, sometimes you staged a photo, but you only ever did that to bring out a greater truth, to make the point more obvious, more attractive, more challenging, more… appropriate.

  Words, though, words could be used like wallpaper, they could cover and disguise a multitude of sins. Words could distract and dissuade and deny. They were too often self-serving little bastards that created in their user a feeling of superiority and in the listener a sense of doubt or despair or, perhaps even worse, inappropriate certainty!

  Try as she might Anne-Marie couldn’t remember the consultant’s face. She could remember how he refused to look at her when he spoke the most damning words, how he kept hold of his pen throughout, occasionally dotting the sheet of paper on his desk as if punctuating his delivery with unwelcome full-stops. She could remember how incredibly polished his black brogues were and the very precise crease in his pinstripe suit trousers. She could even remember the sound of the wall clock ticking, how obvious it was in every awkward silence. She just couldn’t remember his face. And that, like so many things at the moment, was really, really annoying. It was just one more thing that should have been under her control and wasn’t.

  And he wasn’t a consultant! That was just another of those word-lies that she hated so much. He didn’t consult. He didn’t engage in a genuine two-way process. He didn’t ask any genuine questions. In fact, as far as she could remember, he didn’t even listen. He was just a faceless expert who understood biological processes, medical procedures, statistics and likelihoods, who spewed out facts and hopelessness in equal, uncaring measure. And if she could ju
st remember his damned face Anne-Marie was sure that she would, finally, be able to sleep.

  In an ideal world everything, she had come to realise in the short time she had been alone in her country cottage, had its own time and place. And when everything stayed within its own time and place the world ran smoothly. Nightmares belonged in your sleep. Sleep was not only their proper home it also provided the escape route. People always and inevitably woke up from nightmares that assailed them in their sleep. It was the nightmare that had broken out of its designated time and place to wreak havoc through the waking hours that could really destroy you. Waking nightmares knew how to keep you prisoner. It was simple. They refused to let you enter the sanctuary of sleep.

  So Anne-Marie stared up at the ceiling and tried like hell to remember the so-called consultant’s face because that would mean she was regaining some control and that, in turn, meant she would remember how to sleep. And sleep would give her at least some limited escape from her waking nightmare.

  Anne-Marie sighed with impatience and rolled onto her left shoulder. The alarm clock on the bedside table showed 1.26am. She wondered where Marcus was right now and what he was doing. Somehow, she found it easier to imagine that he wasn’t asleep either.

  24.

  Marcus chose, as he always did when alone, to walk home from Peter and Nic’s large, detached house near the Queen’s Medical Centre. It was a walk that took him just over thirty minutes. It was a time he used for the silent practice that was central to his ability to look with clarity and communicate with both elegance and impact. He particularly welcomed the opportunity to walk silently late at night when the city was for the most part quiet and still, the very opposite of the bustling, energetic daytime.

  The evening had threatened to not end well, with Nic becoming extremely concerned by Marcus’s prediction of an impending nightmare. Nic had wanted to know just what Marcus imagined would happen, and what the risks were, and why he was so certain. Peter, for his part, had simply nodded and remained silent for some time, lost in his own thoughts as Marcus worked to calm Nic’s anxiety. Only when Marcus had worked at least some of his magic and Nic had demonstrated a return to his usual state, had Peter looked at him and smiled and offered his own assessment.

  ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve faced a new and potentially challenging situation. You need to remember that it’s not only what I’m paid to do, it’s what I’m trained to do. And it’s what I’m good at. The nature of the killing might be unusual and, if Marcus is right, the motive equally so, but the actual game we are playing is the same as always. Someone commits a crime and I have to detect and prove who did it. I have a great team around me and beyond them I have the biggest gang in the land at my disposal if I need them. Even without Marcus the odds are stacked in my favour, but with him…well, we are an unbeatable double act.’ Peter paused for only a half-beat as he saw Nic’s eyebrow raised questioningly in what was clearly meant to be a sign that he had regained his composure. ‘An unbeatable professional double act at least,’ he added, reaching out to squeeze the other’s hand.

  The three men had shared another glass of wine and talked about the latest cinema releases for a good fifteen minutes before Marcus had decided that it was time to leave.

  As he made his way up Derby Road, Marcus replayed the internal film he had created of Peter seeking to convince Nic that this killer was no different from all the others he had hunted and caught. To Marcus, Peter’s internal state had contradicted his assertion; the clues were unmistakable. In his mind’s eye he watched again as Peter paused just before he claimed that the odds were overwhelmingly on his side, he saw the briefest glance down as the Detective reached for Nic’s hand, he heard the slightest of tremors in his voice. Everything revealed an unnecessary adrenaline release; a sense of doubt at best and of fear at worst. Marcus had never seen his friend so obviously lacking confidence.

  Marcus blinked and the film returned to its place in his subconscious. He had walked barely another half a dozen paces when unwanted and unexpected thoughts of the killer disrupted the calm of his mind. The intrusion brought him to a halt. It was the first time he could remember that he had been unable to control his mental processes. He stamped his right foot repeatedly on the pavement as if trying to shake the thoughts free. They simply expanded in response, filling his consciousness as if to make the point that any attempt to remove them would result only in a more compelling invasion.

  What the hell are you looking for? The voice in his head asked a killer he could not yet visualise. What did you need to find when you revealed the brain? What is the compulsion that drives you?

  A police car drove past, the driver looking pointedly at the unmoving pedestrian. The biggest gang in the land, that’s what Peter had said. Sometimes, though, size is a hindrance not a help. In the right environment it is safer to be small, disregarded even; if you don’t want to be identified, it is essential that you are never really seen, never recognised for who – or what – you really are. Sometimes, Marcus acknowledged, invisibility can be the greatest of all attributes.

  For now the killer was invisible and unknown. That was his advantage. Yet Marcus found it impossible to believe that he wanted to remain that way. The nature of the killing was bound to attract media attention once details were leaked and beyond that there was something – something he had seen in the film, something that he couldn’t quite bring out of the shadows of his mind – that told him the killer wanted to be known.

  The question is what do you want to be known for? The unwanted voice in his head asked unbidden. And to whom do you want to be known?

  Marcus growled at his lack of self-control and set off again, walking a faster pace, using his movement in an attempt to create a pattern interrupt that would silence his mind. To his anger and surprise the voice stayed with him every step of the way asking questions that he could not hope to answer, that he would never normally ask at this stage in the process. Marcus began to sweat. Is that because of me? The voice wanted to know. Or is it because you are going too fast for yourself?

  Marcus stopped dead and looked up at the night sky. The cloud cover was low and dense. He could see neither the moon nor any stars. This time he knew precisely what the voice was referring to. And, no, he wasn’t going too fast. If anything he had been too slow in making the decision that he had finally, and irreversibly, come to on the very same day that the killing had happened.

  Decisions, Marcus taught, were the planning equivalent of full stops. When a person told either themselves or others that they had made a decision it had to mean that the process of information gathering, questioning and evaluating was over. A decision, properly made, brought with it an end to the previous internal chatter. A decision meant that one process had ended and another was going to begin. Decisions signified finality. They were the dot that marked the gap between Alpha and Omega.

  In Marcus’s experience too many people claimed to have made a decision and then went on to ask for advice, or took some additional time to re-examine the conclusion they said they had come to. Marcus applauded thoroughness; attention to detail was something he insisted upon from his staff at Influence. The key, though, was to avoid ever misusing the word: only ever say that you have made a decision when you are certain that the full stop has been placed.

  And Marcus Kline had made a decision. The full stop was clear and definite and it was followed by as yet unimaginable challenges and opportunities. For all concerned.

  Even though he had nothing to say right now, no one to tell, no reason to glance down as he shared his decision, Marcus still felt himself swallow. His hands still trembled slightly.

  When Anne-Marie returned from her current assignment, he would find the right time and share his decision with her. He would tell her that he was going to file for divorce.

  25.

  Peter Jones waited until Nic had gone to bed and then he began to pace the le
ngth of the open plan lounge-dining room. Ten paces from one end to the other. Ten. Not more, not less. Ten even paces, not counted, just felt. Ten paces and then turn round and repeat. Ten paces so well grooved they created freedom rather than restriction. Ten paces that Nic, in his fake film trailer voice, loved to refer to as ‘The walk of thought.’ Ten paces all far more real and meaningful and necessary than cinema films that were intended to engage and distract the imaginations of the populace. Ten paces that were only ever taken when real monsters were at large. Ten paces associated with thought and commitment and decision-making, all of which were focussed on saving lives.

  Peter always lost track of time when he paced the room. He just let the movement release the images, events and statements of the previous twenty-four hours and, as he remembered them, he sought to find connections he had missed. Tonight his task was even more difficult than normal because of Marcus’s talk of an impending nightmare. Peter had never heard his friend be so certain and so pessimistic, as if he had recognised something that he was unable to share. What made it even more challenging and debilitating for Peter was that Marcus had gone at least some way to verbalising his own intuitive feeling about the killing.

  There was something different about this murder that went well beyond the simple fact that he had never before seen a man scalped and with the top of his head cut off. There was some sense of purpose that Peter was sure Marcus had felt – as he had – that changed the very nature of the game. It was a sense of purpose so obvious and profound, if as yet unexplainable, that it had stopped Marcus from asking the most basic and human of all questions:

  Who was the victim?

  His name was Derrick Smith. He had a criminal record for a range of minor crimes associated with drugs and low-level violence. Under normal circumstances his killer should have been easy to identify as a member of his criminal circle. Only Derrick had seemingly turned his back on crime after his most recent release from prison. According to those who claimed to know him best, Derrick had found God during his latest incarceration. He had been trying to break away from those people with whom he had previously worked. He was trying to become a new man. Whilst Peter couldn’t help but doubt his chances of success, the evidence did indicate that Derrick was not under threat from any of his previous associates.