Sue raised the paperweight again, but the sound of rustling in the undergrowth stopped her. Heart thudding, she looked up straight into the eyes of a large panting collie. The dog just stared at her with its tongue hanging out and its head cocked to one side, as if it wondered what the hell was going on. Sue felt more naked under its gaze than she had under Keith’s, and she quickly pulled down her bra and began to button up her shirt. The dog just stood there, watching her with that pained and puzzled expression in its eyes.
Then she heard a faint cry in the distance. The dog’s ears pricked up and with a final, despairing glance at her, it turned and ran off through the thicket toward two distant figures standing on the path. This place was too dangerous; she had to get out before someone else came. First, she took Keith’s Ordnance Survey guide from his back pocket. She would need that to find her way back to the main road. Then she felt for his pulse. She didn’t really know where to look, except from programs she’d seen on television, but she couldn’t feel anything on his wrist. Quickly, she hit him once more, just to make certain. Surely one of the blows must have fractured his skull, she thought. She wiped the paperweight carefully on his shirt, wrapped it in paper handkerchiefs and put it back deep in her holdall.
Next she piled all the loose brush and dead leaves she could find over Keith’s body. He looked so innocent lying there, such a babe in the woods. Then she remembered the pressure of his muscles as he had pushed himself away from her, rejected her, and that split second of balance when their strength had been equal and she had killed him. She patted her hair and brushed the leaf mold and twigs from her jeans, then hurried back toward the path. Looking behind her, she couldn’t see anything of Keith, just a small mound that looked like an old tree stump. She followed the map about three-quarters of a mile to the main road without passing another soul. Not that it mattered anyway. If anyone did recollect her, it would be Martha Browne they remembered. The police might find Keith soon, and they would make inquiries and track down the bus driver too. But it would be Martha Browne he remembered. And as soon as she got to the toilets near Whitby bus station, Martha Browne would disappear forever and Sue Bridehead would return.
At the bus stop, she caught her breath, then sat on the warm brick wall at the bottom of someone’s garden, where she watched the ants and smoked a cigarette as she waited for the 4:18 back to Whitby.
34 Kirsten
You realize it might take several sessions,” said Laura Henderson, brushing some ash off her white coat, “and even then there’s no guarantee?”
Kirsten nodded. “But you can do it?”
“Yes, I can do it. About ten percent of people aren’t susceptible to hypnosis, but I don’t think we’ll have much trouble with you. You’re bright, and you’ve got plenty of imagination. What did Superintendent Elswick say?”
Kirsten shrugged. “Nothing much. Just asked me if I’d give it a try.”
Laura leaned forward. “Look, Kirsten,” she said. “I don’t know what’s on your mind, but I sense some hostility. I want to remind you that what goes on between us in this office is confidential. I don’t want you thinking that I’m somehow just an extension of the police. Naturally, they’re keeping tabs on you, and when they found out you were seeing me they made inquiries. I want you to know, though, that I haven’t told them anything at all about our sessions, and nor would I, without your permission.”
“I believe you,” Kirsten said. “Besides, there’s been nothing to tell, has there?”
“Hypnosis might change that. Do you still trust me?”
“Yes.”
“And even if we do come up with something, even if the man told you his name for some reason, and you remember it, none of what we discover will be of any legal use.”
“I know that. Superintendent Elswick just said that I might remember something that would help them catch him.”
“Right,” Laura said, relaxing again. “I just don’t want you to expect too much, that’s all-either from the hypnotherapy or from the police.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. Are you going to get your watch out and swing it in front of my eyes?”
“Have you ever been hypnotized before?”
“Never.”
Laura grinned. “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t carry a pocket watch. I’m not going to make hand passes at you, either. And my eyes won’t suddenly start to glow bright red. You do need something to fix your attention on, true, but I think this’ll do fine.” She picked up the heavy glass paperweight from on top of a pile of correspondence. Inside, caught in the glass globe, was what looked like a dark green tangle of seaweed and fronds. “Do you want to start now?”
Kirsten nodded. Laura got up and closed the blinds on the gray afternoon so that the only light left shone from a shaded desk lamp. Then she took off her white coat and hung it on the stand.
“First of all,” she said, “I want you to relax. Loosen your belt if it’s too tight. It’s important to feel as comfortable as possible physically. Okay?”
Kirsten shifted in her chair and tried to relax all her muscles the way she had done in yoga classes at university.
“Now I want you to look at that globe, concentrate, stare into it. Stay relaxed and just listen to me.”
And she started to talk, general stuff about feeling at ease, heavy, sleepy. Kirsten stared into the globe and saw a whole underwater world. The way the light caught the glass, the green fronds seemed to be swaying to and fro very slowly, as if they really were seaweed at the bottom of the sea, weighed down by so much pressure.
When Laura said, “Your eyelids are heavy,” they were. Kirsten closed her eyes and felt suspended between waking and sleep. She could hear a distant buzzing in her ears, like bees in the garden one childhood summer. The soft voice went on, taking her deeper. Finally, they went back to that night last June. “You’re leaving the party, Kirsten, you’re walking out into the street…”
And she was. Again it was that muggy night, so vivid that she really felt as if she was there. She entered the park, aware of the soft tarmac path yielding under her trainers, the amber streetlights on the main road, the sound of an occasional car passing by. And she could almost recapture the feelings, too, that sense of an ending, the sadness of everyone going his or her own way after what seemed so long together. A dog barked. Kirsten looked up. The stars were fat and blurred, almost butter-colored, but she couldn’t find the moon.
She was at the center of the park now, and she could see haloed streetlights on the bordering roads. She felt a sudden impulse to sit on the lion. The grass swished under her feet as she walked over and touched the warm stone of the mane. Then she mounted it and felt silly but happy, like a little girl again. She thought of cockatoos, monkeys, insects and snakes, then she threw her head back to look for the moon again, and felt herself choking.
Laura’s voice cut through the panic, steady and calm, but Kirsten was still struggling for breath as she tried to drag herself out of the trance. She could feel the callused hands with their stubby fingers over her mouth, and she was being turned around, pulled off the lion’s back onto the warm grass. The world went dark and she couldn’t breathe. The cloud in her mind hardened and gleamed like jet, blotting everything out. She felt her back pushed hard against the grass, a great weight on her chest, then she burst up to the surface, gasping for air, and Laura reached forward to hold her hand.