Sin (40 page)

He shook his head emphatically.
"You're so wrong, Sin. So wrong."

He was so sure of this, I almost
didn't believe what I'd seen, and what I felt I knew. But then he
continued.

"That's not ALL I've had you do!
Not by a long way."

My stomach lurched upwards and I
had to fight the urge to throw up. I felt like I had just been
about to step off a cliff and had been yanked back, although, in
effect, I'd been pulled off the cliff into the abyss below. For a
second I had almost believed him, fell for his winning smile and
subtle tones. Then he'd put the boot in with a big fist.

He must have seen my reaction,
thought he had me completely, as his eyes fill with a sparkle I'd
not seen before. I was the spider he was pulling the legs off.

"Come on, boy. You must remember
something. All the fun we've had! If it wasn't for you, this
hospital would have closed long ago and I'd most likely have been
struck off. Thanks to all your wonderful help, we've a roaring
trade in Lunacy, and I'm one of the most celebrated in my field!
You should be proud of yourself!"

My anger, and the beast that
shadowed it, circled about just beneath the surface of my control.
How dare he make me responsible for whatever macabre games he'd
played. I'd been his unwilling and unknowing minion, forced to do
whatever he wanted me to. I had nothing to be proud of. I hated
myself for what he'd made me do. Fortunately, I hated him more.

"I have nothing to be proud
of."

Connors moved forward to sit on
the arm of the chair he was leaning against. He didn't even look at
Caroline, but he reached down to pat her hand. It looked
absent-minded, an automatic, caring thing to do. I was sure that
wasn't the case. Nothing he did was automatic or absent-minded.

"Again, Sin, you're wrong. You
don't know what you've done, so how can you know it's something to
be ashamed of? You may well have healed a hundred sick or saved a
thousand. Don't put yourself down so much."

"Have I, then? Have I saved
anyone?"

"Well, you saved me."

Wow. Whoopee. Whoop-de-doop. Go
me. I could have punched him. Or worse. Or better, depending on
your point of view.

"You don't seem pleased." No,
really? "Well, I suppose that's to be expected. It'll be a surprise
for you, no doubt."

He was doing his
speaking-to-you-but-actually-to-himself thing again. Looking at me
but not seeing me. Talking through his thought processes as if
having a conversation with himself was preferable than one with me.
Which it probably was. When I talked to myself, answering those
voices in my head (the ones we all have, not the crazy ones - I
ignored them... mostly), I tended to waffle, my thoughts meandering
along like a stream of consciousness until they opened up into a
sea of contemplation where I'd either walk on water or drown, down
amongst the seaweed and the shipwrecks of my past ideas. Maybe
Connors' little chat with himself would follow a similar course and
he'd open up to me, telling me what the flip was really going
on.

In films, the bad guys (that's
him, not me, remember?) almost always told their victims the plan.
Just before the poor wretch (that's me, not him) was shot, pushed
off the roof or wrestled the knife out of the Big Bad Wolf's hand
and plunged it into his heart, all would be revealed. In reality, I
really didn't know if that kind of thing happened. I wouldn't,
myself, give the game away just in case that knife did get pulled
from my hand and thrust into me, only with my dying, gurgling
breath to see my cunning plan unravel. I, though, wasn't a
megalomaniac, or I didn't think I was. Thus, I didn't want to take
over the world and it was only by accident and incident that I
seemed to want to destroy it.

"To think," he continued,
seemingly oblivious, now, to my presence, "We almost had it all,
and then you had to go and spoil it. Things were going so well and
you had to run away like a frightened little boy."

The look he gave me was like
daggers slicked with snake venom, dipped in fire. He knew exactly
where I was and was talking directly to me. I needed to remember
who faced me. He wasn't me, nor was he anyone else. He didn't do
oblivious.

I pushed myself up straighter.
I'd slouched down, trying to appear indifferent, but I needed,
whether it was a good idea or not, to face him off. Not in the
Travolta/Cage way as I didn't want him peeling my face off - I
liked it just how it was (well, perhaps with a little more hair,
but that's it), but I had to show some backbone before he ripped it
out, skull-spine-'n'-all, like the predator he was.

"I didn't run away," I said, my
voice calm and level, at least in my head. "I left. And
we
didn't have it all, you did. You just used me to get what you
wanted, whatever that was."

Connors face cracked in a smile
the Joker would have been proud of and I, like the Batman, wanted
to wipe it clean off.

"Oh, Sin! My boy! You really
have no idea, do you? You're sitting there, in MY chair, no less,
and you just don't know. You've been through my files - private, I
might add, but I'll let that go. Didn't the computer tell you
anything?"

I shook my head. Let him think I
didn't know what was going on, which I didn't. Don't let him know
what I did find out, not until it was too late.

He laughed. I was glad he was
enjoying this. It was a real gigglefest. He shifted his position on
the arm of the chair, his hand leaving Caroline's. I kept my stare
on him, not giving away the fact that I was very aware of how
vulnerable my friend was next to him.

"Well, should I let you in on
the secret? Or should I keep it to myself and just take you back to
your cell, give you a few drugs and carry on regardless?"

I'd like to see him try that
one. But he was a man of many means, and I was sure he'd not be
sitting there without any way to follow through with his
threats.

"That's up to you, doctor. If
you want to tell me, you will, if you don't, then you won't. I'm
sure you already know which is which anyway."

"I didn't realise you were so
perceptive, my boy. Well, you're right. I do know, and I'm going to
give you a treat. I'll tell you."

I was shocked. He didn't have a
gun on me, nor a knife. I wasn't in chains with a laser slowly
burning a line up between my legs and nor was I submerged in a tank
with sharks circling ever closer. So this really did happen in
reality. Who'd have thought it. Not I, yer 'onour.

"Don't be surprised. I've told
you before. Granted then you were under my drug induced spell, but
I did spill those beans all over you. Why not? You weren't going
anywhere, and you still aren't. You're mine Sin. From the moment
you walked in here with that half-arsed story of paranoia, you were
mine."

He stood and started to pace in
front of the desk, his back to the chair Caroline was in. What was
it about people and pacing? Were you trying to catch up with your
thoughts? Chasing them in an endless circle until you finally had
them back in the grasp of your mind? He wasn't looking at me, or at
least his eyes went from me to the floor to the room about us, and
if I'd had a weapon I could fairly easily have used it. But I
didn't. Not a real one. Not one I could have taken in my hands and
smashed the back of his skull in with, accompanied by a satisfying
crunch. That sounded bloodthirsty, I know, but this man, even
though I didn't know the details, had to be stopped. is it bad to
kill a killer? What about those police marksmen who take one shot
to explode the back of the head of the man who's killed a school
full of pupils and holed himself up with the staff, murdering one
an hour until they're all gone and he blows his brains all over the
coffee maker and box of Fox's crinkle creams. Are they bad men? Are
they evil? Or are they heroes. Not that I counted myself a hero.
Not heroic. Vindicated, maybe.

One hand was in his pocket, the
other gestured as he spoke.

"I knew, you see," he said as he
walked. "You weren't paranoid. You didn't have the right level of
desperation to begin with. You were drawn, and you were tired, but
you weren't in despair. Apart from that, though, I knew who you
were. Your legend precedes you, as it were."

He saw the look in my eyes. he
knew me? But I was nobody. A nameless, faceless nonentity who just
happened to be able to do some not very nice things.

"Yes, Sin. I knew who you were.
I could have danced when you came into my office and asked for my
help. And the fun I had with you. Who knew one man could offer so
much?"

I went to speak, to ask how he
could possibly know me before we even met, but he raised a hand and
I automatically obeyed the signal. He still commanded that much
from me in that he was above me and I was to fawn at his feet. Or
at least that was the initial reaction, before I gave myself a
mental slap in the face for behaving in such a way. My pause was
long enough for him to continue, so I let him. I'd have to make
sure I had my chance to ask my own questions.

"It took time, you know. We
didn't get it figured out straight away. And there were a few
mistakes, especially when we moved to people. So much more
complicated."

He saw my frown and leant
forward on the desk, facing me directly.

"Don't worry," he said. "We were
careful. I pay certain members of my staff very well, and choose
them carefully for the way I can use them and for what I can use
against them." He pushed himself away and resumed his pacing. It
was almost hypnotic, back and forth in front of the desk. I was
becoming entranced, concentrating on his words. "You were my prize.
For all my years of hard work, battling with those who didn't
understand my techniques or agree with my views. I knew, one day,
I'd be able to prove them wrong. Of course," he said with a wink
that made me want to poke his open eye out, "they didn't know about
our little arrangement."

He began tapping the side of his
head as he walked, as if he were Morse coding the thoughts into his
head, or his finger was a woodpecker drilling down to all the gooey
stuff inside.

"Once you came to me, whether by
fate, coincidence or your sister..."

"My sister!?" I couldn't help
the exclamation. How did he know Joy? Why was her name on his
computer? Did he know where she was now?

He waved his hand to shush me.
"Yes, yes. Your sister. Don't get too excited. I don't think she
really brought you here. It was probably a coincidence, or some
form of divine intervention in repayment for my years of
dedication. God knows I deserve it. Either way, once I had you
here, you helped me with a few experiments to find out what we
could do with you, and then we were away! It was so simple in the
end. And apart from the two who discovered what we were doing, and
the one who was just because I felt like it, there were very few
deaths. Good job, really," he laughed. "It was getting hard to find
stray cats."

So. There had been more cats
that I'd killed for him. And people too, it seemed. Should I have
felt nauseous? Should I have wanted to vomit? Cry out? Perhaps. But
I didn't. I felt nothing but hate. My sense of shock and outrage
was fading rapidly. I was only angry now. I was only waiting. The
pouncee was becoming the pouncer. The kickee, the kicker.

He ranted on. He must have been
enjoying the sound of his own voice, a sound that was starting to
grate on me like fingernails on a blackboard or a knife across a
ceramic plate.

"It didn't take long for me to
figure out the right buttons to push to point you in the right
direction. You're a fast learner, boy. I don't know why you
couldn't work it out for yourself, but no matter. We did it
together, which was nice. A true bonding experience, don't you
think?"

No.

He stopped again and looked at
me, an eyebrow raised. "I suppose I'll have to spell it out for
you. You've done this so often, with such... finesse... I can't
believe you don't remember a thing. I ought to go into business
with my cocktail. I could imagine a big market out there for a drug
that left you suggestible but unaware."

Again, the pacing and the head
tapping.

"It started off, you know, with
a few patients who came in with fairly minor, treatable illnesses.
Some depression, a little paranoia - the real kind not your phony
version. If you messed up and they started bleeding from their nose
or dribbling out of their ears whilst staring at their groin, so
what? Obviously they were worse than they thought. If you cured
them, you could then
make
them dribble from their nose or
bleed from their ears, and we'd keep them here, with the money
rolling in, until they either died or were no longer needed. And,
as you no doubt
do
remember, Sin, not many leave."

He stopped his tapping and both
hands went into his pockets.

"Unfortunately, the intake was
too low. Not enough crazies in the world to keep us going. I wanted
to expand. I wanted to become a haven for those whom the world
called Lunatic. And if there were no lunatics, then I'd just make
them. Or rather, we would. You and me, Sin. What a team. We've
extended the Institute three times just since you've been here, you
know that? Three times. And the funding and sponsorship has gone
through the roof. Do you realise, I have so much money, I don't
know what to do with it? Do you realise, I'm practically a
celebrity? Even the Prime Minister has called me for advice. Me!
And it's all thanks to you. I actually thought that, if I were to
meet him, I could make him a patient too. Then we would be firmly
on the map. Forget the Priory and all those other clinics for the
fashionably addicted. We would be the place to be, and I would be
known all over the world." He pointed at me. "And you, my dear boy,
would be standing right behind me, unseen of course, helping make
it all happen."