by Wes Markin
After five minutes, Yorke’s frustration grew. Where are you, Harry?
He didn’t want to have to phone Jake to apologise again.
Finally, the disposable phone started to ring.
‘Yes, Mike?’
‘They know all about it,’ Yorke said.
‘What?’
‘Your plan. Joan Madden confronted me. You’re being watched. The information you pried out of two of our officers has been compromised, and they’ve been suspended.’
‘What? Bradley? Suspended?’
Bradley. An older officer, close to retirement; he’d be taking it early now. Yorke was well aware of Bradley and his old school methods.
‘Yes. Precisely, Harry. Your efforts continue to ruin lives. And the irony is, we now have the information to act on it ourselves, so I’m telling you to stand down, before you cause any more problems.’
‘I can’t do that, Mike.’
‘What the hell are you talking about, Harry? It’s done. Finished. Madden and company are watching you.’
‘Well, thanks for the heads-up. I’ll make sure I give them the slip later.’
‘But they know! They’ll probably get to Proud before you.’
‘But do they know? Really, Mike? Have they worked it out yet?’
‘Of course.’
‘So, tell me Mike, where is Proud?’
Yorke pounded the steering wheel with his fist. ‘I don’t know but I’m sure they do.’
‘Well, I’ll take my chances.’
‘I could just go to Bradley myself, right now, and get the location.’
‘You could, and you may even get there before me, but then what? You’ll have to admit you are working with me.’
‘Still, I’ll take my chances. No one will believe it. And I’ll do anything to stop you committing murder.’
‘I’m dying anyway.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Yes, it is. You were there. I held my dead wife in my arms. She was riddled with buckshot. Do you not remember?’
‘Of course, I remember.’
‘Now, I have the chance to put something right for once. To even the scales.’
‘It won’t bring her back and it won’t earn my forgiveness.’
‘Maybe not, but I’ll try. Goodbye, Mike.’
‘Wait, Harry…’
But the phone was dead. Yorke punched the wheel again. He bit his bottom lip to hold in his anger. He didn’t want to be heard. He exited the car and worked his way through some bushes, picking up scratches on his hands. Eventually, he made it to a narrow stream.
Checking there was no one about, he smashed the phone to pieces on a rock, and scattered the debris into the stream.
Susie Long’s world pulsed like the heart of a demented creature.
She was aware that she was in a living room, because out of the swelling, bloated chaos around her, she identified a television and some sofas.
The large man with the moustache came through the soup and knelt before her. He dabbed at her face with a handkerchief. It took her a while to remember him from the car earlier.
‘There, there, Susie. The medicine can make you dribble to begin with, but it’ll pass, as will the wooziness. Then we can begin.’
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘I cannot understand a word you are saying, Susie, just try and relax for a moment.’
‘LET ME FUCKING GO!’
‘Please calm down. Half of your mouth is not currently moving, you may feel like you are speaking right now, but I can assure you that you’re not.’
She started to cry, but just like the speaking, she wasn’t sure if it was actually happening. She’d never felt so disassociated.
‘Please nod if you can understand what I am saying to you, Susie?’
She assumed that she’d managed to nod because he continued to talk.
‘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. Nod if you understand.’
She nodded again.
He tilted her head so she could see Severance sitting on the sofa. He had one leg thrown over the other, and he stroked his chin as he observed. He presented himself almost professionally, like a doctor, rather than a vicious killer who had castrated that man in the plastic coffin.
‘You have, of course, met Dr Severance already. He was a successful doctor, you know. He achieved so much in his short career.’
Severance turned away.
‘And he would have gone on to achieve so much more if your father hadn’t destroyed his face. But you know all of this already, don’t you? If it wasn’t for me, Susie, you’d be dead already. Did you know that?’
At such a comment, she expected her heart to beat wildly. The fact that it continued to drum slowly in her chest made her feel even more unstable. Everything was at odds with itself.
‘I’ll repeat the question - did you know that?’
Susie shook her head.
‘So, I saved you, and you owe me. I hope that with some time together, with some more of my medication, you could help me further my research? Would that be okay?’
‘No … I want to go home.’
The Conduit shook his head and tutted. ‘I understood your refusal, but not what you said after that.’ He held up a syringe. ‘Would it be necessary to administer more of this medicine? I was hoping that it would be unnecessary.’ He held her arm and pointed her wrist upwards and towards him.
She tried to pull it away, but it didn’t move. Whether it was the tightness of his grip, or her lack of motor control, she wasn’t sure.
She shook her head. ‘No more.’
‘Good,’ the Conduit said, releasing her arm.
She flinched, or at least thought she flinched, when she noticed that Severance was now standing behind the Conduit. He was stroking the tangle of welts and scars that twisted around his mouth like spindly animal claws.
‘There is darkness in all of our lives, Susie. So much darkness. No one is exempt. That is what I have learned over the years, through my own experiences, and the countless experiences of others. Rather than always trying to smother the darkness, push it away, contain it – sometimes we need to embrace it. The sense of freedom that comes from that is indescribable. Just ask Dr Severance behind me.’
She glanced up and he was nodding.
‘So, I’m going to help you find that darkness inside yourself.’
He pulled a small contraption from his pocket and switched it on. It produced a slow flashing light. ‘To do that, I must hypnotise you. The drugs in your system will help with this. If you consent, the impact will be more powerful. Let me be your conduit, Susie, let me find the darkness inside you, and let me help you embrace it. Do you consent, Susie?’
She couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason she nodded. It may have been the Conduit’s voice, which was soothing and protective like her father’s had been so many years ago. It could have been the scarred man intimidating her. Possibly, it was the drug tangling her system in knots.
Having consented, the Conduit held the flashing light in front of her eyes.
Wearing sunglasses, Christian Severance left the Conduit to his work. His time, like Chloe’s and Sturridge’s, was drawing to an end. He glanced at his watch, noting the hour. His final plan had already been initiated, the flies were being drawn in, and he needed to ensure that he, the spider, was there, within plenty of time, to spring the trap.
As he descended the path, he enjoyed the sunshine. The Conduit had been referring, at length, to the darkness in their lives only moments ago. And he was right, Severance had experienced more than his fair share. The light, the burning brightness, was something to savour in these final hours.
He scratched his thigh. There was an itch there that was really starting to bother him.
When he got into his car at the end of the driveway, he pulled his wall
et out of his inside pocket and looked down at a picture.
Whenever he was under any doubt as to whether he was doing the right thing, he looked at this picture.
He started the car. It was time to finish what he’d started.
For such a successful man, breaking new ground in the world of psychiatry, Yorke was surprised by how poky Dr Martin Adams’ office was. Littering the desk were a couple of half-drunk cups of tea; piles of lecture notes and essays; and an old desktop computer which hummed louder than the fan in the corner of the room. Yes, he still lectured, but surely, his fame, published works, and treatment of many would have earned him a reasonable amount of money? Maybe this was all a University offered to a mini-celebrity?
Yorke was still shaken up by his phone call to Harry which had ended abruptly and without resolution. He knew his only course of action was to locate the suspended officer, Bradley, and acquire the information that had led Harry to Proud. However, he couldn’t do it right now. Interviewing Adams was the number one priority. Not addressing this first would seem all too obvious to Madden and his other colleagues. Yorke felt like he was running out of time in both situations. He felt suffocated.
Not only were the surroundings a surprise, but so too was the man himself. He was a jittery fellow, who shuffled papers and teacups around to clear space, muttering, ‘Sorry for the mess, Detectives.’
Eventually, he took a seat opposite them. He pulled off his glasses and chewed on the arm as he listened to the reason Yorke and Jake were here. Yorke congratulated him on his success with HASD and queried him as to why he wasn’t achieving more recognition and reward.
‘It always takes a while for people to realise the impact of newer techniques. HASD has been a long and arduous process.’ He smiled. ‘But one I’ve relished. I’ve never been a person to rush into success, Detective Yorke. It will come in its own time.’
You might realise that it is not coming any time soon when I explain why I’m here, Yorke thought. ‘Have you heard of a man called Christian Severance?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Chloe Ward or David Sturridge?’
‘No, and no again, Detective.’
‘I have only just been introduced to the basic principles behind HASD today, Dr Adams, and as you will soon be aware my knowledge is just that … basic. Could you tell me how many patients have been treated by HASD?’
‘Why hundreds of course!’
‘So,’ Jake said, ‘is it possible that Chloe Ward and David Sturridge were treated by HASD?’
‘I suppose. I could double check, but I suspect that the answer will still be the same. My memory is exceptional. I have studied my case studies to within an inch of their lives.’
‘How many people are there on your team?’ Yorke said.
‘Eight in total.’
‘We will need to speak to all of them. Today, if possible.’
‘Of course, I will give you their names. Five are on campus. Three are off-campus today. I also have one new starter today…’
‘Dr Neil Solomon?’ Yorke said.
‘Yes … that’s right. You’ve done your research.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, are you going to tell me why the sudden interest in HASD?’
Yorke and Jake looked at each other. This was always the most difficult bit. Revealing the important information, but not all of it. Control filters needed to stay in place. When people approached them with information, they had to be sure that the information was fresh and not contaminated by knowledge which had been strategically held back.
‘We have reason to believe that a series of crimes has been committed using the HASD treatment.’
Adams raised an eyebrow and shook his head. ‘I don’t understand. That sounds … ridiculous.’
‘Do you know someone called the Conduit?’
‘The what? The Conduit? No, of course not.’
Yorke talked through the way HASD could have been adapted in a similar fashion to how it had been explained back in the incident room at HQ. He left out names and specific crimes. Adams turned pale, and started to tremble.
‘So, this is connected to what happened to that police officer, DC Ryan Simmonds, and that school principal, Amanda Werrell?’
Yorke looked at Jake and then back at Adams. ‘You do have a good memory for names.’
Adams nodded. He took his glasses off, stood up and sighed. Then he started to pace around behind his desk, stopping occasionally to stare out of his small, dirty window.
‘The adaption of medical practice is nothing new. But I have never heard of anything so … barbaric. You’d have to go back to the Victorian ages to find such despicable actions.’
‘So you have no idea who could be responsible for this?’
‘No, but I hope you find them and stop them soon, because it sounds like the last three years of my work is about to go up in flames.’
Yorke looked at Jake and then pulled out Chloe’s picture of the Conduit.
‘Do you recognise this man?
Adams turned to one side, clutched his mouth for a moment and gagged violently; then, he vomited on the floor.
Susie Long could feel the Conduit in her head. Not just his voice, which seemed to sporadically vary between the hypnotic and the soothing, but rather him – his whole being.
As a result of this, he was able to drag her back to her darkest memory.
Susie remembered being only eight in this memory, but she was yet to make an appearance. He’d brought them into this room earlier than she’d originally been there. She looked at the Conduit, who stood alongside her in the visualisation. He reminded her of a spirit in A Christmas Carol, showing Scrooge the way to enlightenment.
The room was well lit. The windows were open, allowing in the fresh air. The curtains flapped gently.
Because they had arrived early, her beloved grandmother was still alive. Her breathing was shallow, and she was slipping in and out of consciousness frequently, but the woman who’d been such a huge part of Susie’s life until this point was still present.
Susie approached. She could feel the Conduit beside her, but he stopped at the foot of the bed, while she came around the side to look down on her grandmother’s face. She was asleep, dreaming away her final moments. Susie looked back at the Conduit. He offered her a sympathetic expression.
Then, she looked over the bed at her uncle Roland. He was readying a syringe.
She told him to stop, but it was of no use, because she wasn’t physically there yet. Her real self would, just about now, be leaving her grandmother’s living room where other members of family waited for their turn to spend some final minutes with her. Everybody expected her to die tonight; nobody, except her uncle, expected it to end this very moment.
He was doing it for her, she realised, to alleviate her great suffering.
But, still, despite her great pain, it felt wrong. Not only was her uncle playing God, but he was taking on a burden that he shouldn’t have.
So, she tried again, to tell him to stop, but he didn’t hear her, couldn’t hear her, and he pushed the needle into her arm. At that point, eight-year-old Susie came into the room. She watched her smaller self look up at her uncle in surprise. ‘What are you doing, Uncle Roland? What are you putting in Granny’s arm?’
Her uncle withdrew the needle and placed it in his inside jacket pocket. He beckoned the younger Susie over and put an arm around her. Clutching her grandmother’s hand together, they watched her take her final breaths, and disappear.
The older Susie spoke to the Conduit in the visualisation. ‘I didn’t fully understand what I had witnessed then. Not until years later did I realise. But I accepted it. I loved her, and it was mercy. He did it because he loved her and her pain was destroying him.’
Mayers looked down at his dribbling patient. He’d understood most of what she’d just said. His cocktail, which included a higher dose of lysergic acid diethylamide than he normally used, had almost reduced her to
an incomprehensible wreck, but now, she was becoming more coherent.
This, of course, excited him. She was poised delicately between clarity and disarray, making her incredibly malleable. She had let him into the site of her trauma, and under normal circumstances, they would now work on acceptance. But this had never been about normal circumstances; and, besides, she’d accepted the trauma already.
So, he would have to work on undoing that acceptance.
What could he term this technique? Rejection?
He would work on making her reject her trauma, and then when she was at her lowest point, he could alter her behaviour.
He ran his fingers over his moustache. It could take a long time.
He looked at his watch. Severance would be back early evening.
Which meant he did have a couple of hours to kill.
Dr Neil Solomon sat alone in his car and watched the house he had followed Mayers to, feeling more and more unprofessional with every passing second.
He was parked several houses back, on the opposite side of the road, buffeting himself with the aircon. If he didn’t, he’d be asleep by now. The outside temperature gauge on his car read thirty-five degrees.
He couldn’t believe this was happening, but this man, Mayers, had him spooked. Three past suicide attempts coupled with a disastrous therapy session could not be ignored.
Was this a test by Adams? Was he supposed to flag up Mayers to Adams as a suicide risk to prove that he knew what he was doing?
Or, had Mayers been accurate in his warning that Adams would view it as ridiculous and condemn him to paper-pushing in a back room until his contract expired?
Whichever way you viewed it, he was certain of one thing: following him to his house to check on him was unprofessional and dangerous.
However, two things had kept him glued to the spot. Firstly, Mayers had drawn the lounge curtains when he’d arrived home. Why? It was a hot, sunny day. Of course, there could be a thousand and one reasons – the light was shining on his television screen, perhaps? But still, it had been enough to send a further bolt of adrenaline through him and keep him rooted here for longer.
