by Wes Markin
Then, there was the man who left. Who was he? Mayers’ file painted him as some sort of recluse with very little in the way of family. He had no sons, and his wife had left him a long time ago. Was this a new partner? Was Mayers gay? Again, there could be a thousand and one reasons, but his curiosity was piqued further.
But he had to call it sooner or later - leave or commit himself to the ridiculous task of knocking on Mayers’ door. He ran through the scenario. He would have to admit that he’d followed him, then he would have to claim that it was out of the goodness of his heart, and finally, he would have to pray Mayers didn’t report him.
Bloody hell! Is this where paranoia got you?
His phone rang. Mark Topham flashed up.
‘Shit.’
He hadn’t completely forgotten that he was due at the station. How could he? That in itself had been a curious request, and under normal circumstances, he’d have bolted there. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
Yet, seeing his partner’s number now, just sent a bullet of guilt though him, to add to the already mounting catalogue of neuroses.
‘Fuck it,’ he said.
He got out of his car, locked it with the remote over his shoulder, and headed to Mayer’s front door.
15
AFTER DR ADAMS had stopped vomiting, he became tearful and identified the man depicted by Chloe’s talented hand as Dr Louis Mayers.
‘But … there must be some mistake.’ He dabbed vomit from the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. ‘He’s been with us since the beginning. He was the first patient.’ He moved the handkerchief to the tears. ‘And ... he’s my friend. Who drew that?’
‘A victim of the Conduit. I believe this depiction to be accurate.’ Yorke turned to Jake. ‘DS Pettman, you know what to do. Let me finish up here. You join the team, but collect as much information on this man as you can, on route.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Jake would request Armed Response to Mayers’ house. There were now clear grounds to believe that Susie was there, and her life was in jeopardy. Jake left the room without further comment; he had to return to Salisbury at pace.
Yorke said, ‘Tell us as much as you can, Dr Adams, we have a situation here, based around your project, and it has spiralled out of control.’
Yorke took notes as Adams told him everything he knew. Dr Mayers was the first person he’d treated three years ago. His experience had been particularly harrowing – a shooting in his office that had resulted in the deaths of patients and office workers. They’d made ground-breaking progress. It was his treatment that had made Adams believe anything was possible. ‘If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have gotten this far.’
‘If it wasn’t for him,’ Yorke said, ‘I wouldn’t be sitting here.’
He described their relationship in-depth. ‘He is brilliant you know. The best psychiatrist I have ever worked with. His wisdom, enthusiasm and, most importantly, his creativity are second-to-none.’
Adams was avoiding eye-contact. He was distraught; social norms had flown out of the window.
‘Look at me, Dr Adams, and listen carefully to the next question.’
Adams complied.
‘Do you think that he was creative enough to modify, adapt and, potentially, develop his own treatment from yours?’
Adams sighed. ‘Isn’t that the sign of any good doctor?’
It wasn’t how Susie remembered it. The windows were closed. The curtains didn’t flap gently under a welcome breeze. Instead, there was the cloying smell of death.
Because they had arrived early to the event, 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 thin, and she was yellowing. 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 knife.
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.
Her grandmother opened her eyes and looked at her son. Within seconds, her cheeks were wet with tears. Susie’s uncle looked down on his mother with malice.
So she tried again to tell him to stop, but he didn’t hear her, couldn’t hear her, and he bared his teeth.
‘You bitch,’ he said. ‘You always made me feel so worthless.’
He put the blade to her throat. She widened her eyes, and looked up at her son. ‘I loved you,’ she murmured.
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 do you have against Granny’s neck?’
He dragged the weapon over the loose folds of skin, and there was a tearing sound.
There were tiny spurts of blood from the weak flickers of a fading heart, and the red blossomed on her white sheets.
Her uncle pulled the weapon away and examined its bloody blade while his mother gurgled her final breaths beside him. When she finally stilled, he turned to the younger Susie and beckoned her over.
She turned and ran.
Mayers noticed that Susie Long was sweating. It was an extremely hot day, but still, the excessive perspiration surely came from her visceral experience, and the adrenaline bubbling within her.
After he finished talking her through the visualisation, he sensed success. Already she spoke of the event as if it was a fully realised occurrence, rather than a work of fiction.
Excited, he left her in her drug-induced state of hypnosis, and prepared to start the visualisation again. How many times he would have to do this to achieve full rejection of the actual events, he had no idea, but he didn’t mind. It was enjoyable and this was what he did best.
He began the visualisation only to be interrupted by a knock at the door.
Severance was out of breath, but he was content. It was done and it had been successful.
As he looked into the small unit at his handiwork, he reached down and scratched his thigh. He winced. It was now starting to burn.
He paused at the door to his storage unit, and instinctively reached out for the light switch, checking himself just in time.
No. Light was needed. He turned one last time and looked on the final strands of his web.
Two voices collided in his memory.
Anthony Morris and Andrew Salton.
Severance smiled. Here was the final stage of his displacement.
He sneered at the prone figures, looked down at the blood on his shirt and left the unit.
Jake made it back in time to watch the BMW X5s pile in. Armed Response. They only usually came when there was a report of firearms, but Jake hadn’t found it difficult to get Superintendent Joan Madden to authorise it in this instance. A seventeen-year-old girl’s life was in the balance. There wouldn’t be a fight to deliver the press release if she didn’t survive and they hadn’t thrown the kitchen sink at it.
As Jake sat on the bonnet of his car, he noticed the light dimming, so he glanced up at the rounded and bumpy cumulus clouds. A thunderstorm wasn’t long off. Not a bad thing. The humidity was unbearable, and it needed to rain, but he didn’t want to get caught in a downfall. Let’s get this done quickly.
Armed Response assembled outside Dr Louis Mayer’s bungalow. It wasn’t the best-looking bungalow, Jake considered. The concrete was crumbling, and the red-tiled roof was patchy and in need of work. It stood out on a street of well-kept properties.
A small man appeared at the fence that ra
n the perimeter of the garden beside Jake. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and held a grease-stained spatula in one hand. Jake noticed the barbecue smoking away in the man’s garden.
‘What’s happening?’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of you here.’
‘Please ensure you take cover, sir. I’d like you to move back into your house.’
‘Why are the police armed?’
‘Please, sir … if you could just go inside.’
Shit. Jake noticed other residents were emerging into their front gardens to take a look. Not that you could blame them. This was not an everyday occurrence on Elm Grove Road.
He hoped there wasn’t a show. This needed to go smoothly. The phones were already starting to emerge. He grimaced when he thought how hungry the press would be for that footage.
He moved down the street, instructing the phone-wielding residents to move indoors. Some went back into their houses, some gave the appearance that they were complying, and then lingered.
Behind him, he could hear the armed officers knocking on Mayers’ bungalow and demanding entrance. They weren’t getting it.
Jake flinched when the officers crashed through Mayers’ front door.
Several residents ran into their houses.
That did the trick.
He wiped sweat from his brow and turned around, noticing that one female resident was still standing in her garden. As he crossed over the road, he held the palm of his hand in the air, beckoning her to leave her vantage point and head inside.
He paused when he reached the other side of the pavement. He recognised her. He felt a swelling in his stomach that threatened to explode. He clutched hold of a lamp post to steady himself and took a deep breath.
It was his sociopathic ex-girlfriend, Lacey Ray.
‘Dr Neil Solomon,’ Mayers said, looking at the dishevelled psychiatrist in his doorway. ‘I would say I was surprised to see you, but I’m not really.’
‘Yes, sorry, Dr Mayers—’
Mayers shushed him with a finger to his mouth. ‘Don’t be, Doctor, I know why you are here. When has caring about your patients ever been a crime?’
‘Yes, forgive me. It’s hot. Relentlessly hot. And it’s my first day … and I just felt that our session went badly. And I was worried.’
‘About me?’ Mayers held out his arms. ‘As you can see, I’m just fine. Don’t be so hard on yourself. In fact, while you are here, Doctor, you can help me with something.’
‘Of course, anything.’
Mayers stepped to one side and let Neil into the house. He closed the door behind both of them. ‘This way please, the first door on your left. The lounge.’
Neil walked ahead of Mayers. ‘What do you need my help with?’
‘Fixing something.’
‘Okay…’ Neil looked back and smiled. ‘I warn you my DIY skills are not the best!’
‘No, you misunderstand, I need help fixing a patient.’
Neil paused before reaching the door, and turned. ‘You have a patient in there?’
‘Yes,’ Mayers said. ‘A young lady. Her name is Susie. And she’s troubled, and needs fixing.’
‘But, you are not practising anymore?’
Mayers shrugged. ‘What can you do? Once a doctor, always a doctor.’
Neil grew pale. ‘Still. This doesn’t feel right…’
Mayers shushed him again. Gently. ‘Just hear me out. This girl has suffered immensely. Do you know what she witnessed, Doctor? Murder of the most heinous design. Her own grandmother, whom she adored, having her throat cut by her uncle, whom she also adored.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yes, and she was eight.’
Neil sighed. ‘What a thing to see.’
‘I know,’ Mayers said, nodding, ‘so, here I am, treating her with HASD. I know, inappropriate. And, by all means, when you leave this house, report me. I am tired. So, so tired. But first, you must let me finish what I’ve started. And you can help me with that, Doctor, you really can. She’s accepted and shared her experience. Help me finish this now. Help me with her displacement.’
‘But my training with displacement is limited, Doctor. My guidance from Dr Adams is clear. I am to perfect my approach to acceptance before practising sharing. I mean, what process are you following for displacement?’
‘You know Route 4, don’t you?’
‘Of course. To visualise the experience happening to another person, to truly share the experience, and to completely free yourself from that crushing sense of isolation. It’s the pinnacle of the treatment. But it really is the most extreme treatment, and is only done with months of preparation, and several practitioners.’
‘That’s why I’ve asked you for help.’
‘But we are not even in a clinical setting, Doctor! I really must insist, the treatment is in its infancy.’
‘Just take a look at her first, Doctor, that’s all I ask. See, and then decide.’
‘I have decided already.’ He sighed, turned and opened the door. ‘But I will look—’
Mayers watched, and smiled, as Neil ran to Susie Long, who was slumped back on the sofa, drooling. She was murmuring to herself, and her eyelids fluttered. Neil fell to his knees and clutched her hands.
‘My God, Doctor! She’s sweating and trembling. You need to call an ambulance. What’s happened? What have you done?’
Mayers approached Neil from behind and bent at the knees so he was low enough to loop his left arm around his neck. Then, with his right wrist, he applied as much pressure to the back of Neil’s head as was necessary to cut off his blood supply.
‘I broke her.’
Neil tried to fight, and writhed in the headlock for a few moments, but Mayers was strong, and it wasn’t long before he was unconscious.
‘And now I’m going to fix her.’
‘Are you okay?’
Jake looked down at the manicured hand on his arm, and then up at the attractive face of the woman he’d mistaken, thank Christ, for Lacey Ray.
‘Yes.’ Jake relinquished the lamppost, and stood up straight, adjusting his suit. ‘It’s too hot for a suit. Took a dizzy spell.’
The woman had bobbed blonde hair with a razor-sharp fringe, and shapely eyebrows. She wore a summery, flowery dress and expensive Louis Vuitton sandals. It had been an easy mistake to make at a distance; she did look like Lacey Ray.
‘You with them?’ She nodded over at Armed Response.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you in charge?’ A ghost of a smile floated across her face, and again he thought of Lacey Ray, who was always the master of the flirtatious comment.
‘Partly,’ he said.
‘Thought so, the suit gave it away.’
Jake realised that she still had her hand on his arm. He also saw that she didn’t have a wedding ring on, and then admonished himself deep inside for checking.
Go easy on yourself, he thought, you’ve just had one hell of a scare.
She withdrew her hand and then quickly thrust it back out for a handshake ‘I’m Caroline.’
‘Jake.’ He shook her hand.
‘Detective?’
‘Yes,’ he said, deciding to leave off the Sergeant, for fear that he might end up admonishing himself again for trying to impress her.
‘Do you need to come in for a glass of water? You still look rather pale.’
‘No, I’ve got to get back on duty, really. But, ma’am, could I ask you to go indoors for the moment, at least until response have stood down?’
‘Caroline, please.’ She smiled. ‘And yes, of course. If you take my card.’
She handed him a card. She was a beauty therapist.
‘Thanks.’ He felt the word scratching at the sides of his throat as it exited.
She smiled. ‘Tell your wife about my micro-blading service – I’m running a discount at the moment for new customers.’
‘Yes.’
She smiled. ‘And whenever you need a glass of water – you know where I am.’
‘Yes … thank you … Caroline.’
Jake’s mind whirred as he headed back towards Armed Response.
Why Lacey Ray?
He’d pushed that woman so far to the back of his mind these last months that she’d been struggling to find any air time whatsoever. But, here she was, sneaky as ever, emerging from his sub-conscious, re-announcing herself, clawing at his sanity.
But it was hot. Operation Autumn and Operation Coldtown had taken their toll on his sleeping. No good detective slept when the investigation peaked, and the adrenaline flowed. He shouldn’t read too much into it.
So, as he approached Mayer’s house, he tried to focus his thoughts.
And that’s when his mind drifted back to the beautiful woman he’d just met.
Caroline.
Yorke was driving away from the University of Southampton when he received the call from Jake telling him that Dr Louis Mayer’s house was empty. A build-up of post at the front door and the rotting kitchen bins indicated that it had probably been standing empty for weeks.
According to Dr Adams, Dr Louis Mayer’s had attended an earlier appointment with Dr Neil Solomon. If this was confirmed, then at least they would know that Mayers was still in Wiltshire, and not halfway to Australia.
At the end of the call, Jake said, ‘Are you alright, Mike?’
‘Mike instead of Sir, eh? Guess you are worried! Why do you ask?’
‘Well, it’s just…’
‘Go on! Spit it out!’
‘Well, chucking Parkinson’s phone out the window. Wow. I’ve never seen you react like that before.’
‘It’s nice to be less predictable.’
Jake laughed. ‘But really, sir, with what happened to Emma today, nobody would expect you to keep pushing yourself like this.’
‘It’s nothing to do with Emma, Jake. It was to do with Parkinson. You know what he’s like.’
