Sin (39 page)

"That's good, Sin. I'm pleased
to hear that. But what about my offer of help?"

I was tiring quickly of this
play, but I hadn't pulled an ace to help me win the hand. All I had
was those jokers, and they weren't the rib-tickling kind. In a
second your mind can change its... erm... mind, flipping from one
decision to an opposing one before you can blink, with little more
impetus than a whisper of breeze. My mind wasn't flipping but I
caught a choice in the palm of my hand.

I leaned back. "Thanks, doc, but
I'm good. I appreciate the offer but I feel I must decline."

My mother always told me manners
cost nothing. She told me that with every clip around the ear and
slap on the back of my head.

Connors didn't say anything. I
tried to read his expression, but his face was a picture of calm. A
felucca floating stationary on the waters of the Nile. A reaction
would have been nice. It would have been polite to show fear,
concern, perhaps a touch of anger. There was nothing. The hint of a
smile was all.

"That's fine. Really. If you
don't want my help, that's up to you. You do realise, don't you,
that I can't let you leave? You're a danger."

I was a danger, I knew that very
well. People had died, innocent and guilty alike. That was the
whole point of me coming here, and trying to kill myself. The
person whom I was most a danger to, however, was the good doctor
himself. I didn't think he was aware of that. I tried to appear
calm myself, to mirror the impassive mask on his face. Inside my
insides were roly-polying and handy-standying like a child at his
first junior gym class. I could almost feel the bubbles fizzing in
my belly popping out on my face to show just how un-calm I really
was. I had to stay my hand from touching my cheek.

"Well, we can maybe talk about
that," I said. Of course we could. Over a Starbucks. In the
park.

"Maybe." He obviously didn't
agree. Oh well. He wouldn't be offering to pay for the coffee
then.

He looked down at the chair he
was standing next to, as if seeing it for the first time.

"What do we have here?" he
asked. "A little late night fun? Does Sinny have a girlfriend?"

Sinny? Had he really just called
me that? I think my grandmother had called me Sinny once upon a
long time ago, but no-one else had ever thought to sweeten my name
quite like that. My teeth were ready to rot at the amount of sugar
he'd ladled on. And no...

"Sin does not have a
girlfriend," I answered. "She was going to be a little late night
fun for one of your employees, and I felt I should intervene."

"That Jersey," he laughed,
hollowly. "Ever the joker."

He knew. I thought so.

"Yes," I said. "Hilarious."

"So, what does she know? Has she
seen you? Has she seen what you can do?" He licked his lips then, a
flick side to side. His eyes widened and the placid exterior became
a touch wilder.

What I can do? He was admitting
he knew?

"What I can do?" Play dumb, for
now. Change the subject from the sleeping Caroline.

"Come now, my boy. I think the
time for reticence is long past, don't you?"

Oh yes. Long gone. Hundreds of
videos past.

"So you know." Softly, softly,
catchy monkey. Or spider. Or snake.

"I assume," he said, lifting his
hand from the chair to smooth down a strand of hair that was
sticking up, "that you know I know. The fact that you are sitting
in that seat and have just been watching one of our therapy
sessions sort of indicates that."

Well, yes. I guessed it would. I
probably wouldn't have been playing Freecell. I nodded. I planned
(hey, me with a plan - who'd have thought it) to say as little as
possible and let him say as much as possible.

"That's better. There's no point
in hiding things is there?"

None at all. But did he just
know I knew, or was he aware that I
knew
. I had seen him
instruct me in the noble art of murdering a moggy. Whether I could
put that instruction into practice remained to be seen, but I could
bet we both had a few little secrets tucked away. Well, mine were
few and little, he still had one the size of his ego, and it was
represented by that one word on the screen. Not my name, but my
sister's.

JOY

I shook my head in agreement.
There was no point in hiding anything, but we both still would.
Dishing all the dirt would only serve to lay any advantage I had
slap bang in the hands of mine enemy. It wasn't definite that I
even had an advantage, but I certainly wasn't going to give it up
if one such existed.

Connors sighed and looked to the
floor. "I believe I may owe you an apology."

That surprised me. An apology
from him? Connors the Mighty? Did he even know what the word
signified? He could quite easily have believed he was offering me a
wedgie or dinner at the Savoy. Well, maybe not the latter - he'd
know what that was. He'd be well in with the Family of Funny
Handshakes and Rolled Up Trouser Legs. He'd know what fine wine,
fine food and fine women were, whatever the cost. And a wedgie
implied a sense of fun that was sadly not just lacking but faily
non-existent. Wow. He must actually know what 'sorry' meant! We
live and learn. Whether he was serious about it was still in doubt,
and I wasn't naive enough to give the benefit.

"Oh?" I prompted.

He looked back at me, then down
at the still sleeping Caroline. His hand was still next to her
head, and he lifted it to move some stray hair from her eyes. My
hands clenched tightly, as if I could punch him from where I sat.
He looked at me and the smile returned.

"You sure you don't like her in
that way?"

"No, doctor. I don't. I just
don't want you to hurt her."

He laughed out loud, his head
back and his perfect teeth on display. What was so funny?

"Hurt her? My dear Sin, how
could I hurt anyone? I only want to help people!"

The way he 'helped' Jeremy. The
way he was 'helping' me. He left his hand on her head, stroking her
hair the way he had the cat in the video.

"Sin," he continued, "I don't
know where you get this idea that I'm a bad man! I'm not evil. I'm
just here to help, that's all."

Of course. How could I doubt
him.

"The way you helped me?" I half
wanted to stay quiet and try to lead his conversation into the
realm of treatments and intentions and sisters, and half wanted to
yell and scream and tell him I wasn't his pet monkey, I wasn't his
lab rat, I wasn't his personal injection of Death. I walked the
fine line between, arms held out to balance me as I teetered and
tottered to and fro.

"Help you? Of course I helped
you! Sin, you have no idea. What have you seem, hmmm? What have you
watched on there. Surely you must know that I was trying to guide
you."

What I'd seen wasn't so much
guidance as taking me, blindfolded, by the hand and pushing me over
a cliff, watching me fall. Should I tell him? Admit I understood
how to use what I could do - even though I hadn't quite figured out
just how to apply that knowledge? Or not say a word. I hadn't seen
anything, Officer. It was like that when I arrived. The bloody
knife in my hand? It's a plant, and not the flowering type - more
the de-flowering. I would have liked to have been better at making
up my mind. Why couldn't it be like making a bed? Tidy the duvet,
fluff up the pillows, then slide in all cosy. My mind felt like a
bunch of children had used it as a trampoline.

Take a breath, make a choice.
Flip and catch.

"I saw," I said quietly staring
at his stroking hand, "you make me kill a cat."

He was about to say something
but my bluntness gave him pause. There was no point in hiding
anything, but he still expected it as part of the cat and mouse
merry-go-round. Well, stop the world, I wanted to get off.

"Yes," he admitted slowly. "I
did do that, didn't I?" He licked his lips, as if in preparation
for the coming meal. "What was the story I gave you? I can't
remember. There were so many I had to make up to get you do just
get into the spirit of the game. It really did grow tiresome, you
know."

Made up? Game? Rein it in...
Rein it in........

"It attacked a little girl.
That's what you told me. It'd tasted blood and wanted more."

"Oh, I know that feeling very
well, Sin. I can see the lure of vampirism, in fact. Power and lust
all on a sip of blood. It's addictive, even if only metaphorically.
Do you remember any of it?"

I shook my head.

"Nothing at all?"

Another shake.

"I'm impressed. My little
cocktail worked better than I expected. I thought it would mask
your memories to a certain extent, but I couldn't have hoped for a
full blanket. Granted," he said, softly as if talking to himself,
"your own mind would have helped with that, if the things I had you
do were that bad..." He paused and his eyes went wide, manic,
windows into his dark soul. "But you certainly seemed to enjoy it
at the time!"

Enjoy it? Yes indeed. A party
and a half of full dairy blood. From the video I'd seen, I'd been
badgered and goaded until I snapped. If that was enjoyment, make
mine a double. I didn't respond. How would you counter that? Whilst
watching myself on the screen, I could at least see why I gave in.
I could understand how his provocations had pushed me into killing
the cat and probably a great deal more. He'd lied, pure and simple.
Fabricated a story to get me to follow his bidding. From the sounds
of it, each of those video files told a similar tale, and it was
like a warped version of Jackanory. Instead of a well known face
telling a story, making up the voices for the characters, Connors
was inventing fairytales where I was the Big Bad Wolf and his
victims were the little piggies, wrapped in scarlet blankets made
from the cloak of Little Red Riding Hood. His victims, not
mine.

I stayed silent. I wasn't going
to rise to whatever he might tell me. I knew the situation. I'd
checked myself in to a hotel Hitchcock would have been proud of,
and the resident psycho in charge had discovered my little fibs
regarding my reasons for being there. He'd used that knowledge to
his advantage - and I still wasn't sure what advantage that was -
and people (and animals) had died. And he'd killed too. At least
mine wasn't in cold blood. Mine was just... there. I'd escaped, and
he'd come after me, not wanting to let his pet off the leash. I
knew, just as well as he. So I didn't say anything.

Dr. Connors watched me. I think
he tried to pretend he wasn't doing so - he was simply looking, but
I could feel him watching me. His eyes weren't just resting on my
face like tired feet would sit casually on a foot stool, they were
crawling over my features, trying to detect any fear or intention,
like ants over a donut, ready to rip it apart so they could take
the little pieces home to dine on. In another life or reality he
could have been my saviour. A parallel universe might exist where
the mighty psychiatrist was a paragon of perfection, the shining
example of his trade where he reached out to the crazies and with
one touch, healed their woes. On the other banana, he might be a
bastard in every dimension he deemed worthy of his presence.

"You're not going to come
quietly, are you Sin?"

So there we had it. A threat
thinly veiled as a threat. The leopard hadn't changed his spots,
he'd just cast off his fluffy woollen coat. Softly, softly, eaty
monkey. I tensed, expecting an attack of some sort. My spidey-sense
was asleep or non-existent, I wasn't sure which, so I had to keep
my guard up against low flying hypodermics.

Again, I kept my silence. Let
him think what he wanted. He was right, I wasn't going to go
quietly. I was going to take him with me and I assumed one of us
might possibly have been screaming.

He laughed. He seemed to be
enjoying this himself but I supposed he would be. He had me back.
He had me in his den and had nothing to worry about. So what if I'd
seen what he'd done. So what if I'd learned how to control the
devil inside. Did it matter that I could wipe him out without
moving or saying a word? Not to him. He was in control purely
because he was always in control. That was what and who he was. He
spoke and others listened. He walked and others followed. He said
and others did. His was the will and the way and he left everyone
else to be the straw and the hay, chopped down shoots worthy of
nothing more than being food, bedding and toilet facilities for
horses. He expected to play our little game and then lead me gently
by the throat back to my cell, with a shot or two of Risperdal and
coke to tease me into pacification. He was going to be
surprised.

"Come now, boy. We've been
friends for so long, gone through so much, and you can't even
engage in a simple slice of adult dialog? That's a little rude,
don't you think?"

"I'm not in a particularly
talkative mood, to be honest," I told him with a shrug.

"I can understand that. You'll
be tired. Why don't you go an have a lie down? Rest a bit and we
can chat more tomorrow?"

"I'd rather not," I said. "I
don't mean to offend you, but I'm not entirely sure you'd let me
wake up again."

Not a laugh, but at least a
smile. "Don't be silly, Sin. Of course I'd let you wake! You're far
too precious to me to harm you in any way."

I won't harm a hair on your
chinny-chin-chin, said the Big Bad Wolf.

"Precious?"

"Of course! Don't you know how
special you are? Haven't you seen what I've helped you to do? OK,
so I had to tell a few white lies to push you in the right
direction, but we... you... have achieved so much!"

"All you've had me do is kill
people." I'd seen one video, true, and it was a cat not a person,
but I couldn't believe it was an isolated incident nor that it was
restricted to the feline persuasion. He'd murdered my friend. He
knew about Jersey's late night habit