Out of Reach Read online

  “Listen to me,” Schaefer heard himself saying. He finally managed to open his eyes, and was blinded by harsh light emitted by a single bulb. A few moments later and he was able to focus on the three suited policemen seated in the back of the van. Schaefer lay on the flatbed at their feet. His trousers were heavy and damp where he had soiled himself, and his eyes were wet with tears. Failure. “The man, the man in that room, he took my daughter. And another girl, too. Katie Blake. I didn’t do anything.”

  One of the men – Lucas – Schaefer remembered his name with a strange pride, leaned forward and said, “Save your breath, Schaefer.”

  “The Collective. They’re evil,” Schaefer countered rapidly. To some, his speech might have sounded like gabbling, but Schaefer knew it was a temporary side effect of the Taser. “They take children and twist them. Sacrifice them. Do evil with them. You have to believe me. They’ve done terrible things. Papa Boya. Astranger. Look them up.”

  Lucas rolled his eyes at his colleagues, “Looks like we were right.”

  “Right about what?” Schaefer asked. He tried to sit up, but his body wasn’t taking orders. “What were you right about?”

  Lucas leaned forward again, “Right to send you for psych evaluation. What you did to Noel marked you out as a nutter. The doctor’s waiting for you, Schaefer.”

  The words psych evaluation filled Schaefer with fear. These people thought he was insane. He wouldn’t be granted recourse to any traditional legal rights until a qualified psychiatrist said otherwise. That meant no lawyer, no fixed period of custody and, worst of all, no phone call. Schaefer railed against the prospect, “I’m not mad. I’m not. Forget about the Collective. And Papa Boya. They don’t exist. Take me to prison. Charge me. I did it. I did all the murders. Don’t send me for a psych test. Please don’t!”

  “Shut up!” Lucas commanded.

  Schaefer became aware that he was thrashing around the flatbed. His motors weren’t working properly and all his efforts to sit had translated into violent convulsions. Failure. He looked back at the accusations he’d made about the Collective and Papa Boya, and realised that these men had every right to think him insane. Schaefer pleaded, “Okay, okay, okay. Please, I see that I was wrong. I’m okay. Don’t take me to the doctor. Take me to prison. I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I need my fucking phone call. My wife and kid. Sarah and Oliver are in danger. I need to warn them. Please.”

  “I’m not listening to this all the way there,” Lucas said as he produced the Taser from his pocket.

  “Please don’t,” Schaefer said pathetically. “Please.”

  Another searing blast of pain and everything went dark.

  Failure.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  Schaefer opened his eyes. He was lying down. The ceiling wasn’t familiar, but when he turned his head, he recognised the painted door and flush wood-effect inlay around the small glass portal. Beyond it he could see the mesh reinforced windows on the other side of the corridor. Schaefer was in Milton House. He tried to stand, but was unable to do so. His arms and legs were tightly restrained. Schaefer knew the drill; they considered him a danger to himself and others – he would be restrained for the foreseeable future.

  Schaefer lay back. He had seen this play out dozens of times, and promised himself that he wouldn’t give in to the madness that his situation engendered. There were those who pleaded, begging for the opportunity to prove their sanity. Others ranted and raged against a system that was so myopic as to be blind to their perfect and unique clarity of vision. Some sobbed and wailed for release, while the remainder withdrew into their minds to keep company with whatever warped thoughts had led them here. Schaefer decided he would be rational and reasonable, and, at the first opportunity, he would ask Gilmore to intercede.

  Remember this.

  The words invaded his mind again. Uninvited and unwelcome. They were evidence of a mind not fully in control. A mind in control of itself would not have lost such vital information. It would have remembered. The words only served to torment Schaefer with the possibility of hope. With the prospect that he could still chart a course for bright and balmy waters. We are engineered to believe in hope, Schaefer thought. No matter how bleak our circumstances, we will always find hope. Schaefer had once heard the story of three sailors whose boat had been caught in an ocean storm. The vessel had capsized, but the three men had found an air pocket in one of the compartments in the upturned hull. As the waves buffeted the boat, water seeped in to the compartment, and it became clear that the men were going to drown. Two of the men accepted the inevitable and used a waterproof camera to record messages for their families. The third man refused to do so, and instead spent his final moments diving to other sections of the boat in a desperate effort to find another air pocket. When the boat was discovered many days later, the recalcitrant man was found near a hatch that had been marked and scored by his fingertips, which were worn to the bone.

  Schaefer was the recalcitrant man. What was it Leon Yates had said? The recurring man. He continued scrabbling in an ever decreasing pocket of air, drowning but refusing to acknowledge the fact. Clinging to hope, however vain, however false. Because it was preferable to the alternative, to the acceptance of defeat. To the acceptance of death. Failure. We all die, there is no avoiding that fact, but we can create the temporary illusion of permanence, of winning. The false edifice that tells the world we are a glorious success, that we are winners…

  “You’ll never beat me!” Schaefer heard himself shout. “I’m still here!”

  Given his circumstances, there was nothing abnormal about Schaefer shouting. Some might think that not shouting would be anomalous.

  “I’m gonna fucking kill you all!” Schaefer yelled at the world. Anger was a natural response to restraint. To imprisonment. “Let me out of here!”

  Remember this.

  “What do I want me to remember?” Schaefer pleaded. “I remember the feel of her soft hair against my skin. I remember her sweet little laugh and her warm, innocent eyes. I remember the way she ate her peas one at a time. I remember everything!”

  Schaefer’s words echoed around the tiny cell.

  “I remember nothing,” Schaefer conceded, his bluster and self-confidence ebbing away suddenly. “I don’t remember. I mean, I remember the peas, but I don’t remember how she held her fork. I remember her smile, but sometimes she has two teeth missing, and other times she is missing three. I don’t remember.” Schaefer was surprised to find himself sobbing.

  “No!” he yelled at himself. “Don’t do this!” He had resolved not to behave like all the others, but here he was yelling, crying and vacillating like a lunatic.

  Concentrate on the little things. The voice in his head was very clear, but Schaefer wasn’t sure if he should trust it. Time. How would he keep track of time passing? Days could come and go, but what about hours? Minutes would be virtually impossible. Unless he started counting. Seconds. But then how would he think? Lying there recording moments in an attempt to ensure he didn’t lose track of time seemed the sort of thing a mental incompetent would do. He didn’t need to monitor time. He wasn’t unwell.

  “You’re making a mistake!” Schaefer yelled at the world. “I shouldn’t be in here!”

  Stop it! Schaefer grew worried. He’d been worried about his mind going for some time. What if it had actually happened? What if he was no longer in control? Perhaps some random operator pulled the levers now. Schaefer started sobbing. He remembered the first weeks after Amber’s abduction when he and Sarah had moved from being victims to possible suspects in the eyes of the police. No signs of forced entry in the house, no strange fingerprints, no witnesses and neither parent stirred at the noise of any intruder. Schaefer had felt his mind start to slip when the police questions first turned hostile. This couldn’t be reality; it was too hideously surreal. Schaefer couldn’t keep track of how long he cried, but at some point he drifted off to sleep.

  *

  The light
from the portal in the door was different. Later in the day? Or a different day? Schaefer woke to find his eyes gritty and sore. He felt listless and weak. He couldn’t be sure, but Schaefer suspected his uniform had been changed. Why hadn’t he woken up? Sedation. If they were sedating him, he was in trouble. Tracking time, keeping control of his lucid moments, pleading for his release – all of these things would become virtually impossible. Schaefer felt rage build. All he had done was try to find his daughter. The injustice of his situation fuelled an inner fire. It was a great lie that was spun to the naïve and innocent; that the world was just, and that God, Yahweh or the Universe could be relied upon to make sure the righteous triumphed. The innocent mother gunned down by a child soldier. The young girl abducted and sold into sex slavery. The young boy stabbed in a takeaway for refusing to give up his place in the queue. Every single day the triumph of the unjust was proved with similar incidents so numerous as to be beyond counting. And yet we continue to believe in the lie, Schaefer thought. Perhaps because we all dream of a better world and because the fire of righteous indignation is so strong that it feels fundamental to the human spirit. Schaefer knew he couldn’t rely on the Universe for justice; he would have to fight for it.

  “Hey!” Schaefer yelled. “Let me out!”

  Schaefer waited for a moment.

  “Let me talk to Gilmore!” he shouted. “I’m a friend! There’s been a mistake. I shouldn’t be in here. Let me out. Let me talk to the doctor! You can’t keep me in here!”

  Schaefer’s anger grew with the truth of each word.

  “Let me out, you fucks!” he roared. “Let me out, or I’m gonna fucking…” Schaefer trailed off suddenly. Rage, threats, these were all things that we likely to keep him locked away.

  What if you did kill her? Schaefer was shocked by the question. He had driven it into the depths of his subconscious for so many years, but given his current predicament, it was only natural that he should question his own mind. What if you killed her and buried her in a shallow grave in the woods? Schaefer was terrified by the thought.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said to himself. “I would’ve remembered. I couldn’t hurt my girl. I couldn’t hurt her.”

  Who knows what you’re capable of? Asked the voice inside his head.

  *

  Schaefer came round. He couldn’t remember having fallen asleep. He felt terrible. His limbs ached and his head throbbed. But what gave it away was the smell of soap. He’d been washed, and he never woke. Or if he’d been awake, he’d been so out of it as to not remember what would have been an intimate physical experience. The fresh smell of soap confirmed Schaefer’s fear that he was being sedated. But, he wondered, how was he being sedated without physical contact? Why couldn’t he remember the entrance of a nurse wielding a syringe? Schaefer craned his head and tried to look around the cell. Beige painted walls, laminate floor and ceiling, and a single bunk complete with psychiatric restraints. There was no obvious delivery mechanism. And then Schaefer saw it; a small lip that ran around the room, about six inches below the ceiling. From his vantage point, when he studied the lip on the other side of the room, he could see the very beginnings of a narrow air vent concealed behind it. Schaefer was simultaneously relieved and disturbed by what he saw. Relieved because the vent suggested that he was not randomly popping in and out of consciousness. Disturbed because he had discovered Gilmore used a gas that could render a subject unconscious through prolonged direct physical contact. The kind of gas that might knock people out while a little girl was kidnapped.

  Schaefer lay silently as his mind raced. He thought back to his first contact with Gilmore when he rescued his sister. He thought of all the cases Gilmore had referred him over the years, pushing him deeper into this dark world. He suddenly recalled the instrumental role that Gilmore had played in virtually every decision that had brought him to this point. But Schaefer’s mind recoiled against the notion. Why would a respected psychiatrist engineer Amber’s abduction? There was no motive. And it was medieval to think that exposure to insanity had turned Gilmore insane. Knock out gas does not make Gilmore a suspect, Schaefer thought. But he would have to question Gilmore once he was released. Just to be sure.

  *

  Time passed. Schaefer’s lucid moments were less frequent and shorter. They were using a strong sedative and it was taking its toll on Schaefer’s mind and body. He lost any sense of time. Had he been in the cell for a week or a month? Had it been longer? He sobbed, shouted, threatened, coaxed, cajoled and pleaded. All the things he had promised not to. He had tried to escape, and had rubbed his wrists raw against their bonds. When he had come round, his wrists had been bandaged and the bonds tightened to reduce the amount of give. He sent his mind drifting through time, and tried to escape confinement spiritually, but every time he was bought crashing back by feelings of impotence, rage, hatred, self-loathing, pity, grief and bewilderment. At some point, and Schaefer had no idea when it was, he simply gave up. A listless Schaefer simply lay on his bunk and stared at the door. Whenever he woke up, if his head was turned the wrong way, he rolled it in the correct direction. That was the extent of his movement. He assumed they must have exercised him when he was out, because his body gave no sign of developing bedsores. Schaefer stopped crying, talking, or shouting. He just lay there and stared. Time passed.

  Remember this. Schaefer would hear the words from time to time, but even they no longer held any significance. Days came and went. Schaefer was lost.

  THIRTY EIGHT

  The noise was so unfamiliar that Schaefer didn’t realise what it was at first. It wasn’t until the door started to move that Schaefer realised it had been the sound of a lock. As the door swung open, Schaefer saw through the windows on the other side of the corridor that it was dark outside. Schaefer felt tears flowing as he saw a face he recognised. Gilmore entered, and Schaefer knew instantly from the expression on the old man’s face.

  “Tell me it wasn’t you,” Schaefer implored. His voice was weak and fractured.

  There was a hint of triumph in Gilmore’s voice as he replied, “The truth is always hidden in plain sight, Thomas.”

  That the river card. Show he face. Leon Yates’ words before he leaped to his death. The legacy of a dead man who had predicted the way in which Amber’s abductor would reveal himself. Tears rolled over the bridge of Schaefer’s face as he turned to look at the man who had so utterly betrayed him. There was no rage, no frustration, no fight left. Only a tiny, lingering sense of grief troubled the emptiness of Schaefer’s soul.

  “Why?” Schaefer asked through the tears.

  “You’ll see,” Gilmore said. “It’s almost time.”

  “Where is she?”

  Gilmore stood to one side and spoke to someone just outside the cell, “You can come in now.”

  Schaefer stared at the open doorway. It wasn’t possible. Ten years. Ten years of not knowing. Ten years of torment. Of suffering. Imagining the horrors inflicted upon her. A decade of pain. Schaefer’s mind struggled to cope with the immensity of the conflicting emotions, and tears streamed from his eyes. Charlie, the captivatingly beautiful nurse, stepped into the doorway and stood looking at him. Schaefer noticed her eyes, which had previously been brown. They were a bright blue, the same colour as his daughter’s. Contacts had hidden his daughter’s eyes from him, and now he saw their beautiful clarity for the first time in ten years.

  “He seems so sad,” she observed.

  “Amber?” Schaefer said.

  “Nobody’s called me that for a long time,” Amber said. She seemed uncomfortable at the mention of the name, and kept looking to Gilmore for reassurance.

  The sight of his beautiful daughter was almost too much for Schaefer to bear, but one thought cut through the swirling turmoil of emotions: she’s afraid of him.

  “Look at me, honey,” Schaefer sobbed. “Don’t look at him.”

  Amber looked down at the floor, her eyes heavy with sorrow. “So much has happened,” she said. “
So much has changed.”

  Amber turned and left the cell. As she walked down the corridor, Schaefer wept, “Amber. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

  Gilmore stepped through the doorway.

  “Why, Harry?” Schaefer asked him pathetically. “Why did you do this?”

  “I’ve already told you, Thomas,” Gilmore said coldly. “You’ll see.”

  Gilmore shut the cell door and locked it behind him. Schaefer lay in the darkness and sobbed unremittingly. He was incapable of rational thought. He was overwhelmed by a primitive sense of relief that his daughter was alive and by the incalculable evil of Gilmore’s betrayal. Schaefer tried to raise his hands to wipe away the tears, but his restraints meant he couldn’t even comfort himself. Losing all sense of time, Schaefer wailed and wept until his tears ran dry. When he could no longer cry, Schaefer lay on his bunk, his body shaking and shuddering as though wretchedness was trying to tear it apart. After what seemed like an eon of grief, the tasteless, odourless, colourless gas filled the cell and granted Schaefer the relief of oblivion.

  THIRTY NINE

  A sudden rush of feeling. Schaefer’s eyes snapped open and he focused on the figure before him. Amber. His daughter. This was a dream. A cruel trick. She held her finger to her lips and signalled Schaefer to be silent, before setting to work on his bonds. Once his arms and legs were free, Amber helped Schaefer sit up. He was stiff and weak and moved slowly.

  “Come on,” Amber said quietly. “We don’t have long.”

  Schaefer dropped to the cold floor. His knees buckled slightly, but Amber caught and steadied him.

  “Thanks,” Schaefer said, waking up to the possibility that this was not a dream.

  “Come on,” Amber said with a smile. She led Schaefer out of the cell, and they hurried along the corridor. It was late at night and the other cells were silent. Amber used her pass to get them through the security doors, and Schaefer, his mind growing alert with the prospect of freedom, kept his eyes open for any night staff. Amber took Schaefer through a part of the building he’d never seen, and led him to the staff entrance, which was located at the rear of Milton House. When they stepped outside, Schaefer inhaled cold, fresh air for the first time in ages. He was invigorated by every passing moment, and looked at Amber with a spreading smile.