Out of Reach Read online

  Naked, Schaefer stepped into the shower and tried to wash away the worst of his hangover. He dried himself and reached into the airing cupboard, which doubled as his meagre wardrobe, for a fresh set of clothes. He pulled on a pair of black jeans and a blue hooded top. After he had towel dried his hair, Schaefer took a final look in the mirror. A functioning member of society stared back at him, but both he and his reflection could see the true nature of the beast in their eyes. No amount of soap or costume changes could hide their seething fury. Satisfied that most people would not see beyond the illusion, Schaefer returned to the Great Room.

  As he entered, Schaefer picked up his phone and sent a text message; I need to see you. Schaefer put on his coat, left the pub, and headed south.

  *

  Noel met Schaefer outside Kennington station.

  “What do you want?” Noel asked abruptly.

  “No cup of tea?” Schaefer asked, nodding towards the entrance.

  “Very funny,” Noel replied looking around furtively. “Just being seen with you could get me walking a beat. You’re bad news. Let’s keep walking.”

  They started up Kennington Road, heading north. Noel edged in to give passage to a rat-faced man who was walking an enormous, brutish Rottweiler.

  “I could really use a favour,” Schaefer began.

  “You’re a motherfucker, you know that?” Noel interjected. “You’re in no position to be asking for favours.”

  “Still, I could really use one,” Schaefer continued. “Missing girl. Katie Blake. Ten years old. Police are on the case.”

  “Talk to the detective in charge,” Noel replied coldly.

  Schaefer stopped walking and pulled Noel to a halt with a gentle tug to his sleeve.

  “He isn’t my friend. I need information on any similar disappearances.”

  Noel shook his head, bemused by Schaefer’s lack of shame.

  “Anything else?” Noel asked sarcastically.

  “Actually there is. I need to know if this symbol has been found at any crime scenes,” Schaefer said as he handed Noel a photocopy of the mandala.

  “This is like the one at Yates’ house,” Noel observed.

  Schaefer nodded, slightly taken aback by Noel’s knowledge.

  “Don’t look so surprised. We are known for doing a proper job every now and again. I sent the photographer down to the scene when I got your message. Where did you get this one?”

  “It was in the missing girl’s bedroom.” Schaefer replied.

  “You think Yates was involved in child abduction?” Noel asked.

  “Doesn’t fit with what we know about him. There might be something bigger going on.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Schaefer replied honestly.

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with three paedophiles brought in last night? Someone roughed them up pretty badly,” Noel said as he fixed Schaefer with a penetrating stare.

  “Maybe the kids are fighting back,” Schaefer observed with a wry smile.

  “You’re dangerous,” Noel said as he folded the photocopy and put it in his jacket pocket.

  “The only way to stay afloat in the gutter is to kick harder than anyone else,” Schaefer said as he walked away from Noel. “Let me know if you find anything.”

  *

  Cults in Our Midst; Faith, Healing, and Coercion; Combating Cult Mind Control; Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church – the books that lined the shelves of Gilmore’s office ranged from the modern pseudo-scientific accounts to ancient leather-bound tomes – Of Devilish Incantations; Anima Comestores, Malum Intra Deos. In an effort to know his enemy, Schaefer had read them all. Few were familiar with Anima Comestores, which was over 600 years old and spoke of cults in terms witchcraft, torture and inquisition, but some of the more recent books on Gilmore’s shelves had been widely read. Try as they might to avoid talk of evil and magic, modern books on the topic found themselves the subject of intense criticism for speaking of malevolent intent and mind control, which even Schaefer recognised were simply substitutes for more ancient, base terminology. Some people refused to accept the existence of mind control, and the concept of true evil was too alien for many people to admit as a reality. Schaefer considered these people fortunate not to have experienced the world beyond the cosy realm of righteousness most of us are indoctrinated into as children. Schaefer knew that he could prove the existence of true evil with one or two accounts from his case history. The woman stripped of her skin for daring to object to her captors’ sexual proclivities. The two men forced into a test of strength and endurance by the leaders of their sect. Compelled to compete for survival in a pit, naked and weaponless, until only one of them emerged three weeks later, having survived on the flesh of his defeated adversary. Even armed with knowledge of such evil, Schaefer would be challenged to prove it. His recollection of events would be called into question. People would seek to explain the horrific acts as a consequence of childhood trauma, chemical imbalance, or genetic predisposition. Justifying, rationalising, interpreting. When in truth some things don’t deserve to be explained, they simply need to be punished.

  These same people who struggle with the existence of evil, recoil at the idea of mind control. Schaefer had seen mind control at work and knew that it was as real as evil. It made little sense to Schaefer that people who rejected the concept of mind control lived in a world where corporations spent billions on advertising, the most rudimentary form of mind control; messages designed to affect behaviour. The secret, which advertisers and cult leaders had uncovered, was to create desire. The stronger the desire, the stronger the dissatisfaction. The stronger the dissatisfaction, the stronger the control. The only difference between someone who wants an iPhone and someone who wants to be cured of cancer is the strength of their desires. The cancer sufferer’s desire is for life, and Schaefer knew there is no stronger motivator than pure survival. Once desire attacks, it forms a hole in a person’s psychological armour, which allows anyone to get their hooks into the soft, exposed flesh underneath on the pretext of satisfying that desire. Life, knowledge, power, happiness, success, Schaefer knew them to be the most dangerous and powerful of all desires. The moment a person set out in search of such things, they exposed themselves to every opportunist, charlatan, and fanatic. What price would any of us put on such priceless things? Schaefer often wondered what cost he would be prepared to bear to have happiness once again? Once the cult leader has established they can fulfil your desire, you go willingly into their arms. Schaefer knew most people understood mind control to be some form of mesmerising, hypnotic abduction of the self. In reality, it was the crushing of the self by desire, by the all-encompassing ambition to achieve that desire, until the self became a disquieted nagging voice that occasionally needed to be silenced either by one’s self, or in extreme instances by the cult leader or their acolytes.

  Life without desire. It was the only safe path. But it was one that was not open to Schaefer. His desire to find Amber was so strong that he woke up with its bitter taste in his mouth every single day. Occasionally Schaefer would find himself wondering whether the strength of his desire exposed him to the dangers of cultism, but he consoled himself with the thought that he was not an ignorant victim, and that he was armed with expertise in their corrupt tools and techniques. Schaefer told himself that there was a purity and altruism in his desire that protected him from any threat.

  Unlike his home, Gilmore’s office was bright and modern, in keeping with the rest of Milton House. Straight lines, and light wood – beech? – the design had more than a hint of Scandinavian influence, but Schaefer could tell that the furnishings had been nowhere near an Ikea store. Their solidity and the quality of the finish suggested a far more upscale and expensive origin. Gilmore’s floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the secure private garden where some of the less dangerous patients were permitted to spend their recreation time. Schaefer looked at them, men and women caught in a netherworld,
cast free of the anchored certainties of cultish belief, drifting towards the choppy waters of the real world with its unforgiving unfairness and uncertainty. Some shuffled around the garden slowly, alone or in pairs, and Schaefer took their movement as a positive sign, evidence of life, of forward momentum. Others sat alone on isolated benches that peppered the garden, all wearing the same traumatised expressions that Schaefer had seen on the faces of accident victims. The Traumas simply stared into space, completely bewildered at the change in their lives and their presence in a specialist mental institution. Schaefer knew that within a few months, Gilmore’s expertise would have the Traumas on their feet, moving slowly towards release from their misguided beliefs. Gilmore would soon have them shuffling slowly towards freedom.

  Gilmore entered. He was wearing a Prince of Wales check suit, brown brogues, and a warm smile. He crossed his office and clasped Schaefer’s hand.

  “Good to see you, Thomas. You’re well, I trust?” Gilmore asked.

  “Surviving,” Schaefer offered in reply.

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. What can I do for you?”

  “I need to speak to Derek Liddle,” Schaefer said.

  Gilmore was perturbed by the request. His smile fell and he took a half-step away from Schaefer.

  “May I ask why?”

  “That case you referred me. I found this in the girl’s bedroom.” Schaefer handed Gilmore a photocopy of the mandala. “Leon Yates’ house was covered in occult insignia. That symbol was on his back door.”

  “I see,” Gilmore said as he returned the photocopy to Schaefer. “Derek Liddle is a very troubled young man. I’m not sure how much use he’ll be to you.”

  “This symbol links the cases,” Schaefer indicated the mandala. “I’ve asked the police to cross-check records of other crime scenes, but it would be stupid of me not to talk to Liddle. He knows what went on in those flats, what Yates was up to. Let me talk to him.”

  Schaefer looked directly at Gilmore and did not let his stare waver. Gilmore looked away, and his genial smile returned.

  “Relax, Thomas. I’m not about to refuse you anything. You can talk to him. Just don’t expect too much.”

  *

  The secure wings of Milton House were designed to be light, airy and pleasant. Schaefer followed Gilmore through a set of reinforced Perspex doors, along a painted corridor. Metal mesh embedded in the thick glass windows threw a chequered shadow pattern on the light brown painted floor. The windows themselves were secured behind Perspex shielding. Every fitting in the wing was flush, covered and utterly safe. The doors to the cells were painted metal with a wood-effect inlay around a small reinforced glass portal. Schaefer looked into the cells as he passed. The first inmate, a dishevelled little man with long scraggly hair, sat on his moulded plastic bunk and stared at the wall opposite. The second inmate, an earnest woman who would not have looked out of place behind the cashiers’ counter of a local bank, paced up and down talking to herself. The third inmate, a distraught, highly strung fat man, pounded on the glass and pleaded with Schaefer to release him.

  “Mr Short is having trouble adjusting,” Gilmore observed, nodding to the agitated man on the other side of the door. Short screamed abuse at Gilmore, and spat against the glass. Gilmore remained serene and continued, “He only arrived yesterday.”

  Schaefer did not even see a momentary flash of reaction from Gilmore. The doctor was wholly unmoved by the vitriol hurled in his direction. A rock of tranquillity in an ocean of desperate insanity. Schaefer wondered whether the frothing, corrosive water would ever permeate and erode the rock. Was it the destiny of psychiatrists to inherit the ills of their patients? Or would Gilmore carry his serenity to the grave?

  Gareth, a short, surly orderly, opened another reinforced security door. Gilmore stopped and indicated that Schaefer should go through.

  “I’ll leave you with Gareth,” Gilmore said. “I’ve built up a level of trust with Derek and don’t want to it be damaged by him seeing us together. His feelings about his capture are still somewhat confused.”

  “You mean I’m the enemy?” Schaefer asked flatly.

  “The world is always so black and white with you, Thomas,” Gilmore responded with a smile.

  Schaefer shook his head.

  “It’s nothing but grey.”

  Schaefer stepped through the doorway. Gareth swung the door shut, and the trio of internal locks latched into place.

  “Follow me,” Gareth said, as he set off down the corridor.

  *

  The reinforced glass panel in the door to the interview room was much larger than those in the cell doors. It was a six-inch-wide, four-foot-long strip that ran from head height. Schaefer could see Derek Liddle inside. He was seated at a table with his back to the door, and was wearing Milton House’s dark blue uniform pyjamas, and soft fabric shoes. Gareth stabbed his stubby fingers at the adjacent keypad, and the door clicked open with a mechanical buzz. Gareth pulled it open and allowed Schaefer to pass.

  “I’ll be right outside,” Gareth said.

  Derek looked round as Schaefer entered and recognition flickered across his glassy, medicated eyes. A faint smile drifted across Derek’s face, as Schaefer came to a halt at his shoulder. Schaefer could feel Gareth’s eyes on his back. The orderly would be watching his every move, and Schaefer had no intention of making it easy for him to see what went on between him and Liddle.

  “Life no good, huh?” Derek slurred. “Time passin’, clock’s tickin’, we all runnin’, but stayin’ oh so still.”

  “You ever seen this?” Schaefer produced the photocopy of the mandala from his coat pocket and pushed it in front of Derek.

  “You driftin’, Mr,” Derek mumbled, his eyes glazed and focused dreamily into the middle distance.

  “What did you say?” Schaefer demanded.

  “Everythin’ known to us, friend,” Derek whispered through his stupor. His voice was vague and drifted away like the breeze on a hot summer’s day. Schaefer recognised the words from Doctor Alfred Stern’s diary.

  “What do you know about the Collective?” Schaefer pulled Derek’s collar, forcing the young man to look up at him. Gareth rewarded Schaefer with a stern rap on the door, and a clear signal that he should release the patient. Schaefer complied, but held Derek’s gaze.

  “What does this mean to you?” Schaefer pushed the image of the mandala into Derek’s face, and the stupefied man considered the simple design. Schaefer watched him carefully, but Derek offered no reaction, not even the slightest hint of recognition. Schaefer produced the photograph of Katie Blake and showed it to Derek.

  “What about her? You ever seen her?”

  Derek looked at the photograph with the same blank expression. Schaefer crouched so that the two men were level and drew close to Derek.

  “I know what they’ve got you on, so I know this junkie daze is an act. If you don’t start talking, I’ll have to be more direct with my questions.”

  Derek suddenly focused on Schaefer, his gaze withdrawing from the middle distance and focusing sharply on the eyes of the man opposite him.

  “Hurt me if you want,” Derek said, his voice clear and lucid. “I don’t know anythin’ ‘bout that girl. Or the sign. I tole you everthin’ Seigneur say.”

  “What about the Collective?”

  “What Collective?”

  “What you said about me drifting, that everything is known to you. It’s been said before,” Schaefer said.

  “Just words, man. Seigneur, he tell us they gonna open a person’s mind. Make ‘em do whatever we want.”

  “What else did Seigneur say?”

  “Look, man. I don’t know what you lookin’ for, but you ain’t gonna find it in here. Run on,” Derek replied with a smug smile.

  Schaefer studied the self-assured man for a moment, and then planted a punch in the centre of his face, knocking Derek off his chair. As Schaefer moved in and followed up with a series of rapid, sharp kicks to Derek’s abdo
men, he became aware of Gareth’s stubby fingers pulling at his shoulders. Schaefer rounded on the smaller man, and head butted him. Gareth fell back and Schaefer delivered a right cross that knocked the orderly senseless. Freed from further interference, Schaefer turned his attention to Derek Liddle, who lay whimpering on the floor. Schaefer knelt over him.

  “What else do you know?” Schaefer roared, giving vent to the burning fury that had eaten at him for ten long years.

  “Seigneur, he say,” Derek trailed off as he drifted towards unconsciousness. Schaefer slapped him hard.

  “What did he say?” Schaefer demanded, as Derek snapped back to life.

  “He say you talk to an old dragon,” Derek replied hesitantly. The words had a chilling effect on Schaefer, who backed away as though Liddle had struck a blow. “He say the dragon glisten in you tears as you cry about not being able to keep your women.”

  The words wounded Schaefer, and he recoiled from them.

  “How do you know that?” Schaefer yelled, his voice tinged with desperation. “Did she tell you? Did she?”

  Derek looked up at Schaefer, perplexed and afraid.

  “Who you talkin’ ‘bout?” Derek asked. “Seigneur. He tell me hisself.”

  Schaefer knew the man lying at his feet must be lying. Only two people knew about the dragon, and Schaefer had not told anyone. Untrammelled, his rage coursed through his entire being. It freed his mind, and opened his eyes to the truth, allowing him to see clearly for the first time. The man in front of him was lying and liars needed to be punished until they learned to tell the truth. With a tremendous sense of liberation, Schaefer allowed his rage to guide him and he set about Derek with fierce purpose.

  “Tell me how you know! Tell me! Tell me!” The words became a vicious mantra as Schaefer kicked Derek Liddle violently and recklessly.

  Derek lost consciousness after the second kick, but his life was saved by his captors. With his rage drowning out all else, Schaefer did not hear the sound of rushing footsteps, and barely felt the blow of the billy club as it bludgeoned his skull and brought oblivion.

  *