‘Five. Four. Three. Two. One.’
Skinner's eyelids flashed open, wide. His eyes seemed to stand out slightly as he stared at the ceiling, but they did not seem to be focused on anything in the present.
`Think your happy thought, Bob,' said O'Malley. `Concentrate on your present happiness, and let it drive everything else to one side. Concentrate, and talk me through it as you do.
What are you thinking about right now?'
`Sarah and Jazz,' he said at last. 'In Spain, by the side of the pool. The sun's going down, and I've got a beer in my hand… Alex, on the day when she came back from Europe and took us all by surprise. Sarah again, and me, on the day we got married.'
`Good. That's your reality, remember. That's your life today. The memories that we've unlocked over the last three days might be terrible, but they are things in the past, and they can't hurt you any more than they have already.'
Bob pulled himself up to a sitting position on the bed, drew Sarah to him, and hugged her, hard enough for him to wince from the pain of the healing wound in his ribs. 'I know that,' he said, looking over her shoulder at O'Malley. 'But it amazes me that I was able to keep them so deeply suppressed, and for so long. Imagine, for all those years, I didn't have the balls to face the truth of my own experiences.'
`No,' said the psychiatrist. 'In my experience your reaction is a sign of exceptional strength of character, and of very strong mental control. You should never have been put in that position at that air crash all those years ago. You were still a very young man, you had been on the same plane a week before; then to find the body of your friend's child… To expose you to that was inexcusable behaviour by your commanders.'
Skinner smiled at him. 'Give them a break, Kevin. They really weren't to know, and I didn't say anything. Mind you, it explains one thing. Eddie McGuinness went on to become Deputy Chief Constable, and latterly I worked quite closely with him. Yet I had this in-built dislike of the man that I could never explain to myself. I can now. The fact is that any half-fit man could have climbed up to look in that cockpit window. Eddie ordered me to do it because Pender was throwing up, and because he didn't have the bottle himself to face what might have been in there.'
`What was in there, Bob?'
`Nothing. The crew had run to the back of the plane before the impact. It was the Captain's body that was trapped under the fuselage.'
`Yet when you looked through the window, in the dream’. O'Malley stared at Skinner.
'That was quite remarkable,' the psychiatrist said. 'In fact, I've never encountered anything like it. First, as a very young adult you had an experience which would have left most people mentally scarred for life. You coped with it by taking all the detail of it, walling it up, entombing it in the depths of your mind.
`But then, a few years later, you had an experience that was even worse. Infinitely worse, in fact. You dealt with that by taking it and hiding it, for extra security, actually inside your first terrible memory, behind the wall, in that tomb in your subconscious!
Remarkable, quite remarkable. Bob, if you'll allow me, I'd like to publish a report of your case, on a Mr X basis, of course.' I'll need to think about that!'
'Naturally, but I hope you'll agree. You know,' he went on, 'it's pretty obvious how those locked memories were disturbed.'
`Sure, through me being called to a second air crash.'
O'Malley shook his head. 'No. Not just that. I'm aware that you rehearse situations like these — but that hasn't been enough to trigger any memories. The crash itself might have knocked a couple of bricks out of the wall, but it would have repaired itself pretty quickly.
It was the cockpit, and especially the moment when you had to break into it to rescue the child. That's really what knocked down all the mental barriers. Not only were you smashing into that cabin, but also into your own subconscious!'
`The man in the cottage,' said Skinner slowly. 'He appeared in the original dream, the one I had when I was under sedation. Why didn't he reappear under hypnosis?'
'I think he was probably just a side-effect of your sedation. You obviously knew who he was, so I'd say that he relates to a separate experience, but one that you've come to terms with to an acceptable degree.'
The two men looked at each other in silence until Sarah squeezed her husband's arm. 'Bob, how did you come to be at the scene of Myra's accident? Surely they didn't send for you?'
'No, love. I was driving home after my shift. It was as simple as that. I got there a minute after the Fire Brigade and before the ambulance. The car was so smashed up
that I didn't even realise it was her… until I looked inside, and caught the scent of Chanel No. 5.' His voice tailed off.
`But… what you said about the brake-fluid pipe. Why would anyone want to do that to Myra?'
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and stood up, then took a few steps towards the window. She watched him as he turned back to face her.
`That's the whole point, love,' he said quietly. 'Myra was driving my car that day. It was a souped-up Mini GT job, and it went like shit off a shovel. Hers was an elderly Triumph 2000, a big genteel thing that she took to work, and that the pair of us used to take Alex around in. One of the police mechanics did homers in his lunch-breaks, and he looked after it for me. So I had the Triumph in town that day, being serviced. Normally, I'd have been driving the Mini.'
Was the cut pipe investigated?'
I'm sure it wasn't. I have to assume now that it was only me who saw it, and I was in no state to talk to anyone about anything.'
`No,' said the psychiatrist, 'nor to face up to the realisation. That's why your defence mechanism clicked in again.'
I guess so,' said Skinner. 'Anyway, after the accident, our traffic guys found some mud on the road. They assumed that Myra had been travelling too fast… which she usually was when she drove the Mini… and that she'd hit it. The Fatal Accident Inquiry verdict was accidental death, end of story.'
He turned and with a warm smile, leaned across to O'Malley, and shook his hand. 'Thanks Kevin, for the last three days, and for draining the mental abscess.
`How do you feel now?'
`Cleansed. The toothache's gone for good. All of a sudden I feel physically stronger too.
I'm almost ready for action again. Know what? I'm looking forward first of all to a natural sleep, then to getting out of this place.'
‘Woah, hoss,' said Sarah. 'This is your physician speaking. She, and Braeburn your surgeon, are telling you that you have another week in here.'
He glowered at her, in real annoyance. 'Well, if I have, I'm buggered if I'll spend it reading magazines. I want to see Andy tonight for an update on the crash investigation… AND I want him to set up a team meeting in here for tomorrow. We've got to get a result from this investigation, and fast.'
She smiled. 'How do you know Andy hasn't made an arrest?'
`Come on, if he had, not even you could have stopped him from telling me all about it.'
'Ah, but you forget. He's not just dealing with your wife now. He's dealing with a potential mother-in-law. In fact, he hasn't just made one arrest. He and Jimmy have made four.'
Skinner's eyes widened in astonishment.