The Doll's House

Soon I’m lying back on the bed, the room now lit by vanilla-scented candles. Gerard is asking me to count backwards from two hundred. I can smell the wax burning, the light in the room softening. More than anything, I want to release my mind of all thoughts. This time I feel different. It’s as if some sort of soft cloud is gathering, telling me to really let go. I count down the numbers, my voice getting lower with each one, as if it, too, wants to give way to this release.

The numbers start to get mixed up. I’m finding it harder to remember the next one. I raise my index finger to tell Gerard that I have lost track. He is asking me to visualise the garden, the one with the flowers smelling so rich that their scent is stronger than any other I have experienced. I can feel the grass beneath my feet, as the relaxation touches some safe layer below my consciousness. I almost look for the staircase, even before Gerard mentions it. The steps that will take me down deeper, to a place beyond the wild flowers and the beautiful garden I can now see.

This time the stairs are different too. They are the stairs of Seacrest. Gerard is telling me the staircase can look however I want it to look. It can be made of any material I want it to be made of, marble, stone, wood, but no matter how hard I try, the stairs remain unchanged. He is asking me to count again, and when the numbers get muddled, he tells me to raise my index finger. I’m counting backwards from one thousand. The staircase feels as if it goes an awful long way down. Gerard tells me there is no limit to the number of steps in it. The more I go down, the deeper my hypnotic state will be. I begin to wonder if I’ve lost track of the numbers, but my conscious mind keeps jumping in. It tells me to keep counting. As if it needs more time, as if it has decided that it doesn’t want my subconscious to take over.

Gerard asks me if I want to raise my index finger, and I reply, ‘Not yet.’ I keep walking down the stairs, and all the time I feel as if there may be nothing more than an abyss below me, one I’m not yet ready for. I hear Gerard’s voice once more. He’s saying, ‘Clodagh, your conscious mind is putting up resistance. We’re going to try something else. Is that okay?’

I hear myself say, ‘Yes.’

‘Clodagh, I want you to continue with the counting, but I also want you to move your eyes from right to left, then back again. I want you to keep doing this, and while your eyes are moving back and forth, you will also count backwards from thirty-seven. At some point, Clodagh, I’m going to tap you on the forehead, and when I do, it will aid your journey into your subconscious. At no point will this cause you any pain. Do you understand me, Clodagh?’

‘Yes.’

Gerard has spoken to me about this before, in case we ever get into difficulty in attempting to regress. He told me that the physical act of him touching my forehead, while my conscious mind is trying to count, will confuse it – a form of shock treatment allowing the subconscious part of my brain to step in, jerking it back into memory. When this happens, it can cause a sudden change to my physical condition. It’s not unusual to feel a huge swell of emotion. The sheer shock of snapping from my conscious to my subconscious mind might even bring me back to the trauma, or past event, that I may be least prepared for. If this happens, and he feels I’m at any risk, he will pull me out of my regression.

I have no idea at what point he will tap my forehead. I’m finding it harder to count down the stairs, while moving my eyes from right to left, and back again. I’m still counting backwards from thirty-seven. I can feel those soft, dark clouds all around me, as Gerard’s hand taps my forehead twice, and I know I’m going back.





Ocean House, the Quays


Kate put the framed photograph of herself, Declan and Charlie face down in her desk drawer. Soon she would replace it with a different one, with only her and Charlie in it.

Her next appointment wasn’t for another half-hour. She looked at her case notes. Keith Jenkins’s body had been discovered in the early hours of Saturday morning. It was now Thursday. O’Connor would need all the luck he could get when he was talking to Butler.

She knew all changes in pattern meant something. The killer had changed his modus operandi with Jimmy Gahan: the attack and drowning had happened in the same area. Altering behaviour wasn’t unusual, and familiarity with the victim might have initiated the change. Repetition of a similar location could well connect him personally to the area, choosing it because of some attachment, irrespective of its suitability. The creation of mental shortcuts, whether during repetitive tasks, like making breakfast or sitting behind the wheel of a car to drive to work, is perfectly normal. In this regard, killers were no different. In general, people’s activities are mainly confined to familiar neighbourhoods, which are often connected to their home or work, acting as mental anchor points.