When the process was complete, Tom pressed a second lever, labeled, ballast.
The ballast gates opened, and the ghost ship’s hull filled with water. The weight dragged the ship’s hull deeper into the water.
Tom grinned. “All right, let’s go.”
The chief asked, “Where?”
“Back to Vernazza, of course. There’s work to be done…”
Chapter Eighteen
Inside the cockpit of the police helicopter, the pilot reported that a small, modern fishing boat left the Azzurra sea cave.
Standing at the helm was a tall guy, most likely a tourist, out for a day on the water.
The pilot took note of the vessel, but dismissed it as being irrelevant, because it was merely a quarter of the size of the ghost ship.
And had an open wheel house, with no canopy or covered section below its decks.
Chapter Nineteen
Sam Reilly watched Catarina enter the apartment again.
Her face was even more striking than he remembered, but it was set with worry.
“What is it?” he asked. “Did you have any luck?”
“I did. I got the blood tests and the suitcase,” she said, handing him the metallic case.
He took it and glanced at the case, wanting to open it right away, but decided to wait. He needed to know what she had found.
When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “What is it? What did you find?”
“Your blood results came back with a combination of benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and opioids.”
Sam looked up. “Great. Does any of that explain my amnesia?”
“I think so.”
“So, does that mean, when they wear off, I’ll start to remember things?”
“It might, but probably not as fast as you’re hoping.” She sat down next to him and took his hand. Her face was full of concern and otherwise unreadable. Her eyes darting away, trying to avoid his gaze, as though she was undecided about how much to say or in what order to say it.
“There’s something else?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“All right. So tell me.”
“Do you know anything about Electric Convulsive Therapy?”
Sam’s lips parted in a smile. “No. I can’t say I do.”
“It’s predominantly used as a last line of treatment options in patients suffering from severe depression, mania, psychosis, and catatonia by altering the blood chemistry in the person’s brain.”
“Okay, if you say so,” Sam said, waiting to see where this would go.
“That exact cocktail of drugs found in your system is commonly used during ECT.” She waited for his reaction to the news. Finding none, she continued. “The barbiturates are used as an anaesthetic sedative to make you unconscious and unaware of the procedure, whereas, the benzodiazepines are muscles relaxants designed to help minimize the seizure and prevent injury, and the opioid, blurs your perception of any residual pain.”
“You think I had ECT?”
She nodded. “I’m pretty certain you did.”
“So I’m crazy?” He felt a lump in his throat that made him want to choke. His face was crestfallen. “Is that it? I’ve escaped an insane asylum and gone on a killing spree?”
“I don’t think it’s like that at all.”
“It sure seems like the most plausible option. Maybe I should call the police now, before I have the chance to kill anyone else?”
“It’s okay, I don’t think you’re suffering with a mental illness or that you’ve just escaped from an insane asylum.”
“Then what?”
She paused. Took her time and made her words deliberate. “The most common side effects of ECT are confusion and memory loss. Immediately after treatment, you may experience confusion, which can last from a few minutes to several hours. You may not know where you are or why you're there. Rarely, confusion may last several days or longer.”
“But it comes back?”
“Some of it, but not all. Some people have trouble remembering events that occurred right before treatment or in the weeks or months before treatment or, rarely, from previous years. This condition is called retrograde amnesia, or in your case, global amnesia. You may also have trouble recalling events that occurred during the weeks of your treatment. For most people, these memory problems usually improve within a couple of months after treatment ends.”
“Well, that rules out any chance of me getting my memory back before I need to be at The Hague in the next couple days.”
“Probably.”
She looked worried.
Sam said, “What aren’t you telling me?”
“You’re right. I’m keeping something from you and you have a right to know. Worse than that, you need to know.”
“Go on.”
“The hospital I work at in Levanto performs ECT. I checked the register. There was one male person who had ECT performed last night. The register said his name was Pinco Pallino and under diagnosis, was simply the words, ongoing treatment, and the medical authority for the procedure was by a Dr. Tal dei Tali.”
“Okay… so what does that mean?”
Catarina looked sympathetic. “First off, Pinco Pallino, is the Italian equivalent of John Doe, used in the place of a patient’s name when their details aren’t yet known. But ECT is used as a last line of treatment options, in patients with long term mental health problems, untreatable using traditional drug therapy and counseling.”
“Any chance maybe the guy’s name really was Pinco Pallino?”
“It’s possible. But pretty unlikely.”
“But not impossible?” Sam asked, hopeful. “So, can’t you ask the authorizing doctor?”
“Ordinarily I could, but the doctor in charge of the procedure was from out of area.”
“Does that happen very often?”
“It’s not uncommon. Psychiatrists rotate in and out of the region. Sometimes, patients who have unusually complex histories, might be transferred here from out of area, for specific treatment. Psychiatrists get sick and sometimes we bring in locums from outside… so it’s not impossible.”
“Okay, so what did the doctor say?”
“Nothing. I couldn’t track her down.”
“Why not?”
“Because Tal dei Tali is the Italian equivalent of Jane Doe. But the most compelling evidence was the anesthesiologist records.”
“Why? What did they say?”
“They didn’t leave any more details about who you were or where you had come from, but they did identify you as six foot exactly and a hundred and seventy-five pounds.”
Sam glanced at himself in the reflection of the window. “How close am I to that?”
“We could weigh you if I had any scales — which I don’t — but I didn’t need to.”
Sam swallowed hard. “What are you saying?”
Catarina squeezed his hand sympathetically, and met his eye. “I’m saying… this didn’t happen to you by chance… someone intentionally did this to you.”
Chapter Twenty
Sam let that thought sink in.
Someone had intentionally erased his memory. That much was now a certainty. They had gone to the trouble of drugging and sedating him so that they could perform ECT on him for the sole purpose of taking away his memory.
The question was, why?
What did he know that was so valuable that someone would want to go to such extreme lengths to make him forget?
For that matter, why not kill him in the first place? None of it made any sense.
Catarina asked, “Are you okay?”